This article takes up details about how subjects were supposed to express sorrow for their deceased sovereigns in the articles on mourning (Buki-jo 服紀条) contained in the Taiho 大宝 Ritsuryo 律令 Code on funerals and burial of the dead as adopted from Chinese rituals and legal codes of the Tang Dynasty. The author examines customs regarding mourning in 8th and 9th century Japan, which originated from China, especially those regarding mourners themselves, in order to further clarify the process by which the Ritsuryo state adopted its system of ritual and decorum and the formation of its monarchical system of rule. To begin with, the Tang Dynasty precedents specify two separate groups of mourners : bureaucrats who must mourn the deceased emperor as his "imperial subjects" (chen 臣) and commoners who are obliged to mourn for only three days. This distinction originated from the ancient classical ritual institutions that traditionally discriminated between literati and the common people; then during the Tang Period, the adherence to divisions among mourners staunchly argued by Chang Gun 常袞 and Cui Youfu 崔祐甫 were attempts to strongly impress upon people the importance of those divisions and demand strict conformance to them. In Japan, on the other hand, at the time that Chinese mourning customs were introduced (between the deaths of Empress Jito 持統 [AD 702] and Emperor Monmu 文武 [707]), commoners (hyakusei 百姓), who had no tradition of participating in the funeral rites of their paramount chieftains, were not abruptly enlisted as were their counterparts in China, while the bureaucracy acted as the sole mourners at first. It was only at the time of the death of Empress Genmei 元明 (721) that commoners were first perceived as mourners, then when Empress Gensho 元正 (748) died, their actual participation was enlisted in the midst of growing concerns about the importance of kingship. Then, with the expressed aim of inculcating imperial rule as transcending and overriding local society, status divisions were not established between bureaucrats and commoner mourners. And so, during the 9th century, which was characterized by the break up of traditional local society and the expansion of provincial-level administration, from the time of the death of Emperor Kanmu 桓武 (806), or maybe Emperor Jun'na 淳和 (840), tumulus construction was abandoned in favor of shallow graves, and commoners were exempted from mourning as part of the government's appeasement effort aiming at strengthening monarchical rule. The author concludes that the adoption of Chinese ideas by the Japanese state during the 8th and 9th centuries can be interpreted as stemming from clear decisions about domestic affairs and carefully planned measures to deal with the situation.
抄録全体を表示