道教と日本の民間信仰

抄録

Some of the chief yearly events and rituals of the folk religion of the Japanese people seem to have originated in Taoism in China. I divide Taoism into positive Taoism which has an organization and folk Taoism which has no such organization. The former was not so influential, while the latter bore a close relation with the life of the people. Taoism which has been closely related with Japanese folk religion is mainly of the latter kind. We have a custom called "Koshin-machi" which is even now observed in Japanese villages. On the evening of "Koshin" Day villagers assemble to eat and pass time discussing or gossipping untill midnight. Forty or fifty years ago, however, they used to stay up all night. As I think this custom originated in the San-shin faith in China, I shall give a brief description of this faith. According to its beliefs, there are three worms in the human body which are called respectively "Shang-shih (Upper Shih)", "Chung-shih (Middle Shih", and "Hsia-shih (Lower Shih)". Those worms are always watching the person's misdeeds. They assend to heaven during the period of his deepest sleep on the night of "Koshin" Day, to tell the God of Heaven about his misdeeds. The God of Heaven shortens the life of that person according to the report received from the worms. The different parts of body accordingly suffer from sickness. The reason why the worms tell the God about the person's misdeeds is because they want him to die. Since the worms cannot assend to heaven but must die unless the person is asleep on that night ; then, in order to live a long life one should remain awake all night on that day. The above stated theory of San-shih is according to the beliefs of folk Taoism. Positive Taoism takes the position that San-shih should be eliminated in order that they will not be one of the obstacles in his becoming a hermit. The San-shih faith seems to have been established in the latter half of the 3rd century, to which various stories were later compounded. In addition, magic and medicine were invented to eliminate the San-shih. Mr. Kunio YANAGIDA is against the theory that the Japanese custom of "Koshin-machi" was introduced from China. But, from the acculturative point of view I think that "Koshin-machi" is the product of a combination of the San-shih faith which came from China with the indigenous Japanese religion and esoteric Buddhism.