The Formation of Religious Worship under the Ritsuryo System

Abstract

This article deals mainly with the latter half of the seventh century between the reigns of Tenmu 天武 and Jito 持統 in discussing the formation and character if religious worship in ancient Japan under the ritsuryo 律令 legal system.It is well known that the code of the gods (jingi-ryo神祇令) was the fundamental code which stipulated the ritsuryo religious worship system.The research to date has correctly identified the code of the gods during Tenmu's reign as the prototype from which the similar code of Jito's Asuka-Kiyomihara Ryo 飛鳥浄御原令 developed.However, further examination is necessary historical precedents about the main form of ritsuryo religious worship, the practice of distributing offerings(hampei班幣), and its formationa process on term of the problem surrounding offcials charged with religious duties.Here,the author questions the assumption that the practice of hampei was first implemented during worship, and proposes that the Tenmu and Jito reigns should be cocsidered as different stages.He concludes that "religious offcials"(神官)of the Tenmu court did not hold leading posts in ceremonies, and that religious worship were structured around the first fruits (Ainame festival 相嘗祭) and the rain rituals (Hirose-Tatsuta festival 広瀬・龍田祭) in Yamato area : those festivals had different structual style from that of hampei.Also, it was not until in the formation of the Kiyomihara Ryo Code during Jito's reign that a independent religious bureau was set up and the Hirose-Tatsuta festival developed into hampei practices, specifically the rain rites all over the country(Kinen festival祈念祭).While the provisions contained in the religious code jingi-ryo were concerned with similar ceremonies, their relative structures and characters were very unlike due to differences in time of their establishiment and the organization of the bureaucrats in charge of them.In addition, the actual offerings(heihaku 幣帛) involved in ritsuryo regulated worship were financed by taxes in kind(cho調) and provincial religious taxes (神税) stipulated by the codes.While ritsuryo-stipulated religious worship actually went hand in hand woth the implementation of cho under the Tenmu regime, 神税 was fiscally managed in earnest under the independently established established religious bureau of the Jito court.It is on the basis of these conclusions that the author sees the neccessity for considering the codification of religious worship in the ritsuryo system in term of stages.