On the route described in Marwazi's Taba'i' al-hayawan (The Natural Properties of Animals) from the Karahan Dynasty's capital of Kashgar to the Qidan Dynasty's capital via Hetian 和田 and Shazhou 沙州 (i.e., Dunghuang) there lay the town of Khatun-san located a two-months journey from Shazhou, which corresponds to Zhenzhou Keduncheng 鎮州可敦城, the fortress within the territory of the Toquz (or Nine) Tatars of the central Mongolian Plateau. Another point on the route, Utkin, located a one-month's journey from Khatun-san is also mentioned in 10th century Uighur documents as Otukan, which corresponds to the Hanggai Mountains of present day Mongolia. Judging from this route between Qidan and Shazhou and the era of envoys exchanged between the Qidan Dynasty and the Tang Dynasty's Guiyi 帰義 Army, which governed Dunhuang between 848 and 1039, the Tatars who are recorded in the Dunhuang document collection in various conditions of war and peace with the Guiyi military regime can be identified as the same Toquz Tartars of the Mongolian Plateau. The documents indicate that during the 10th century, the Toquz Tatars formed an independent political entity and documents preserved on the reverse side of Sogd language items P.28 and P.3134 inform us that these nine tribes were engaged in the Silk Road trade during the 10th century through Uighur merchants of the Nestorian Christian faith. The author of this article concludes that the Toquz Tatars must have enjoyed close relations with the Western Uighur Kingdom, the homeland of these merchants, and that the conversion of the central Toquz tribe, the Kereit, to Nestorianism was no doubt due in large part to their contact with the Uighur Silk Road merchants.

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When taking up the question of the essential character of Japanese Buddhism during the Muromachi Period, it is necessary to investigate its influence on the era's cultural phenomena. For example, in the recent research dealing with Muromachi culture, focus has been placed on the period's Oei 応永 Era (1394-1428), which amends conventional Kitayama vs. Higashiyama view of the period's cultural history; however, when turning to the subject of the cultural influence of Zen Buddhism, the discussion has not developed beyond the classic study by Tamamura Takeji, which concentrates on the unique character of Shogun Ashikaga Yoshimochi. The cause of the problems that have now arisen is that the research taking up 1) obscure source materials related to the Gozan 五山 Zen temples and 2) the social aspects of Zen Buddism has not yet dealt with the Oei Era. This situation is mainly the responsibility of the historical research done on Buddhism in general and Zen in particular that ignores the aspect of culture. The present article discusses the Tale of Totou Tenjin 渡唐天神, a Buddhist story about Sugawara-no-Michizane (later diefied as Tenjin, the patron of scholarship and the literary arts) appearing in a dream of a Zen monk who advises him to journey to Tang China to learn the art of Zen meditation from his master Fojian 仏鑑, in relation to poetic picture scrolls and the renga 連歌 genre of Japanese poetry. It was during the Oei Era that such aspects of the tale appearing in the latter half of the 14th century as the dream about Michizane and Tenjin folk beliefs, as well as the activities of Zen monks studying abroad in China writing poetry about such subjects as the literati of Jiangnan (Jiangnan renwen 江南文人) and the legend of Tobiume 飛梅, a legendary plum tree planted by Michizane at the Dazaifu Tenjin shrine (Kyushu), all began to be edited as illustrated versions. The author argues that despite the vast research literature dealing with the Tale of Totou Tenjin, no definitive work has yet to appear on the meaning of and historical background to its popularity during the Oei Era. Next, the author takes up records of Ouchi Morimi, the governor of Suo and Nagato Province (Yamaguchi) and home of the Matsuzaki Tenjin shrine, presenting a pictorial image of Totou Tenjin to Shogun Yoshimochi while residing in Kyoto and excerpts from literary works on the subject of the image, in order to show Morimi's conversion to Tenjin beliefs while in Kyushu and the process by which Morimi traveled to Kyoto after Yoshimochi the suceeded to the head of the House of Ashikaga and received the Shogun's favor. From that time on, what led to the further development of the Tale were 1) Yoshimochi and Morimi's adoration of Tenjin and the participation of the shogun and Gozan Zen monks in Tenjin-related Buddhist ceremonies sponsored by Morimi, which would end with renga poetry writing and 2) Koun Myogi, aristocrat, Zen monk and literatus serving the shogun, who was also deeply interested in the Tale of Totou Tenjin, instructing Gozan Zen monks in the literary arts. The world of the Gozan temples and provincial governors participating in the promotion of the literary arts and the appreciation of the fine arts was formed under the auspices of cooperative personal relationships developed between the capital and the provinces during the Oei Era; and it was this world in which the Tale of Totou Tenjin became the main theme in a wide range of artwork. The image of Totou Tenjin is characterized not only by elements limited exclusively to the events and social structure specific to the Oei Era, but also by more fluid elements easily articulated with themes unrelated to Zen Buddhism. This dual character enabled the Tale to develop while gradually drifting away from its original Zen context, and it could not have continued on past the Muromachi cultural scence into the late premodern period merely on

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In 1658 Pope Alexander VII appointed four French priests to the position of Vicar Apostolic and sent them to the Canadian and the Asian missions. This was because the Roman Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith (hereafter, RCPF) intended to take back the initiative in the world Catholic missionary effort from Spain and Portugal, in order to create a new strategy. On the other hand, the Paris Foreign Missions Society (hereafter, PFMS), which was to realize this new strategy, was organized during the early 1660's by these four Vicars Apostolic, the missionaries who accompanied them and fellow clergies to share their experiences in training. This article analyzes the relationship between the PFMS and William Lesley, a priest and refugee from Scotland residing in Rome, and in particular, considers social and confessinal trends within Europe in the hope that this perspective will help us to understand how the PFMS played a leading role in the new strategy of the RCPF. The article begins with an analysis of the characteristic features of the new strategy and an attempt to clarify the background against which personal ties and ideology were shared between French devotees (Devots) and the RCPF. Secondly, the author sheds light on the cooperation that existed between the PFMS and Lesley, by examining the latter's career and the content of his correspondence with the executives of the PFMS. The article ends with an attempt to observe the reorganization of the new strategy on a European dimension by means of tracing Lesley's vision about missionary organizations. While Lesley made an effort to intermediate between the RCPF and the RFMS, as the author's analysis suggests, he tried to remove the Patronage (Padroado) system practiced by the Spanish and Portuguese in addition to certain aspects of monastic societies closely related to that system. On the other hand, Lesley's status as a Scottish refugee gave his missionary vision a pan European character, and he played a crucial role in the RFMS as an informed outsider. Consequently, there were three factors interacting here: the confessional solidarity of French devotees, the RCPF and the Scottish diaspora. For this reason, the RFMS, while based in France, was able to promote its own activities by means of mobilizing a basically confessional network beyond the particular interests of both states and religious organizations.

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