Ritsury Japan: The State as Liturgical Community

Author(s): Alan L. Miller

Reviewed work(s):
Source: History of Religions, Vol. 11, No. 1 (Aug., 1971), pp. 98-124
Published by: The University of Chicago Press
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Alan L. Miller RITSURYO JAPAN:
THE STATE AS
LITURGICAL
COMMUNITY
These are the months that I like best: the First
Month,
the
Third,
the
Fourth,
the
Fifth,
the
Seventh,
the
Eighth,
the
Ninth,
the
Eleventh,
and the Twelfth. In fact each month has its own
par-
ticular
charm,
and the entire
year
is a
delight.1
The
interplay
of man's
religious
sensibilities with his continu-
ously
renewed
experience
of the
profound rhythm
of his life
may
be observed in the most diverse cultures and
epochs
of which we
have
any knowledge.
Even
among
the
relatively simple,
non-
literate
peoples,
the
recognition
of the
importance
of these
rhythms
is discernable. Man's
biological
and social life from birth
to death is
strongly
felt as a
religiously significant rhythm;
the
cycle
of
nature,
so
important
to
agriculturalists
and hunters
alike,
has been celebrated in
religious
ritual from
primordial
times. This
religious experience
of the sacredness of
particular
times became
more articulate and flowered
prodigiously
in the ancient
high
cultures,
from the Aztec
empire
of Central
America,
to the ancient
Mediterranean
cultures,
to
Mesopotamia,
to Vedic
India,
to ancient
China. This is no less true of classical
Japan,
as the
opening
lines
of this
article,
written almost
1,000
years
ago,
testify.
In China as
elsewhere,
the full elaboration of the
experience
of
the sacredness of times was
only
made
possible by
the careful
1
The Pillow Book
of
Sei
Shonagon,
trans. Ivan Morris
(New
York: Columbia
University Press, 1967), p.
1.
98
History of Religions
observation of the heavens and the
development
of a
mathematics
capable
of
integrating
the information so
gained
into a
coherent
whole.
Thus,
astronomy
makes
possible
the
calendar,
and
the
calendar makes
possible
the
ordering
of human life in a new
way.
As with other discoveries-the
example
of the
discovery
of
agri-
culture comes
immediately
to mind-an
important reordering
of
human life often
brings
with it a
reordering
of
religion.
Put an-
other
way,
the basic
symbol
structure of a culture-and
thus,
in the realm of
religion,
the
hierophanies
which reveal these
sym-
bols-must reflect and be reflected
by
the culture itself. For
example,
the
plant cycle
as
symbolized
in the
potency
of the
seed cannot have become a
religious symbol
before the
discovery
of
agriculture; similarly,
the
religious importance
of the
rhythms
of human life cannot have achieved its full
expression
until the
development
of the calendar. So it was in
China,
the teacher of
Japan
in such matters.
Before I elaborate the
way
in which I believe the fundamental
religious experience
of the sacredness of
specific
times took
shape
in
Ritsuryo Japan,
a comment on method is in order. The sort of
question initially
asked has much to
say
in
determining method,
and method
goes
far in
determining
the nature of the answer
which results.
Clearly,
the
question
which I am
asking
of the data
of
Ritsuryo Japan requires
an
approach
of broad
scope
which will
give
one a
grasp
of the whole. This
quest requires
of the observer
a certain
distance,
just
as our distance from the stars of the
sky
allows us to discern
patterns there, constellations,
which a closer
vantage point
would not
permit:
individual stars are of little
importance
to the student of constellations. This
principle
of dis-
tance then allows the choice of a
particular way
of
analyzing
the
phenomenon
of
religion, namely,
to divide the
phenomenon
of the
whole from those
phenomena
which
only
come into clear focus
when the most
powerful
lens is
used;
that
is,
to
divide,
for the
purposes
of better
understanding,
the
religious
environment from
the individual
religious
life or lives.
Religion, according
to
Whitehead, is what one does with one's
solitude.
Diametrically opposed
to this view is the insistence of
Durkheim that
religion
is an
eminently
collective
thing. Surely
it
is not
necessary
for the historian of
religions
to choose between
these two extremes.
Instead,
he
may
find himself at one moment
asking questions
which are best
answered
by
one
method,
and at
another moment
turning
to the
other,
trusting
that when the
time comes
he,
or those who come
after,
will be able to
perform
99
Ritsuryo
Japan
the
necessary
task of
superimposition,
or
synthesis.
The
question
posed
here,
I
maintain,
can
only
be answered
by
an examination
of the collective
expression
of
religion;
the state as a
liturgical
community
in the
Ritsuryo
era can
only
be demonstrated
by
an
examination of the
pattern
of life at the
Japanese
court.
The
primary
sources for the collective
expression
of
religion
are,
of
course,
myth
and ritual. The historian of
religions
is well
acquainted
with the fact that in
many
societies there is a close
correlation between
myth
and ritual. What the
myth
describes,
the ritual acts out.
Optimally, by
means of the
ritual,
the wor-
shipper actually participates
in the
reality
of which the
myth
tells.
This has been shown to be true
especially
for the so-called
primitive
societies
throughout
the world and for the
emerging
civilizations
of the ancient Near East. The
emergence
of
writing
and
consequent
greater complexity
of some
cultures, however,
pose
a
problem
if
the
myth-ritual complex
is to be made into a
general theory
of the
structure of
religion.
Thus,
when Joachim Wach
formulated,
as a
first
step
toward a
taxonomy
of
religion,
his three forms taken
by
religion
as
(1)
theoretical
expression, (2) practical expression,
and
(3) sociological expression,2
he
sought
to include the
myth-ritual
correlation in a more
general description.
In Wach's
terms,
the
ritual is the
practical expression
of the
myth,
and,
conversely,
the
ritual is
given
theoretical formulation in the
myth.
As Wach's
formulation
indicates,
myth
is not a
general enough
term,
since
in both nonliterate and literate societies there have also arisen
theoretical formulations not
essentially mythical
but
philosophi-
cal or
theological
in nature. On the other
hand,
just
as
myths
sometimes are lost or modified while the ritual lives on in non-
literate
societies,
some
highly complex,
literate societies have not
developed
a
unified, coherent,
theoretical formulation of their
world-view or
ideology,
and it is left to the historian of
religions
to
draw out the
implications
of their
practical expression-especially
their rituals-for the
ideology
hidden there.
Just such a situation confronts us in the
Japan
of the
Ritsuryo
period.
We cannot here enter into a discussion of the nature of the
encounter between the native
Japanese
world view and that of
the
highly
systematized
Chinese
empire, except
to note that the
religioscientific complex
based on astral observations which had
reached a
highly perfected
state in ancient China was
appropriated
2
Joachim
Wach, Types of Religious Experience:
Christian and Non-Christian
(London: Routledge
&
Kegan Paul, 1951), p.
34.
100
History of Religions
in the form of the
Onmy6-do cosmology
as a framework for the
newly
emerged
Japanese
state. But the
Japanese
have seldom
done theoretical and
systematic philosophy,
and it comes as no
surprise
that,
at the
very
time that the
Japanese
nation was
rationalizing
its world
using
Chinese tools and
models,
it did not
create a Summa
theologica
or a De rerum natura.
Instead,
they
created structures,
forms which
they
set out to live within. Some
of these forms are embodied in the
legal
structure which set
up
the
Ritsury6
state.
However,
the
Ritsury6
state was much more than
merely
a
state in the usual sense of the word. It was
also,
indeed
primarily,
an ideal which at
any given
moment was
only partially
embodied
in the state as a
legal system.
This
Ritsuryo
ideal,
we
hope
to more
fully
delineate
through examining
the court rites and ceremonies
of the Heian
period.
Our
hypothesis
is that the
picture
which
emerges
is,
not so much the ancient
Japanese unity
of
government
and
religion conveyed by
the archaic word
matsurigoto,
but the
Chinese ideal of the state as a
liturgical community.
The
early
Heian
period
saw this ideal reach its
height
of
realization,
at least
formally,
in the elaboration of court ritual and ritualistic
living,
in
general, among
the elite classes. The Heian elite was
admirably
suited for this
development,
since it was affluent and
leisured,
giving
rise to
great sophistication
of
taste,
while at the same time
increasingly
without real
political power.
The Chinese tradition of the state as a
liturgical community
may
be traced far back in Chinese
history;
and one
may say
that
it is Chinese rather than
strictly
Confucian,
inasmuch as it
surely
antedates the time of Confucius himself and has survived even into
the modern world as a
part
of Chinese civilization. This ideal
achieved its classical formulation in the
writings
of
Tung Chung-
shu in the Han
period,
and
there,
as well as in the structure and
ceremonies of the
imperial government
itself,
it
gained
the form
which so influenced the
Japanese
in the
Ritsuryo
period.
The Chinese idea of
sovereignty
was
closely
bound
up
with
religion
in that the
sovereign
was seen as the
prime
mediator
between heaven and
earth,
between that
largely impersonal way
of
things (Tao)
and men. It was both a
religious duty
and a
prac-
tical
necessity
for men to conform to the will of
heaven,
to the
Tao as the
organizing principle
of the universe.3
Practically,
in an
3
Perhaps
the best introduction to this world view is found in Hellmut
Wilhelm,
Change: Eight
Lectures on the 1
Ching (New
York:
Harper
&
Row,
1960).
See also
101
Ritsuryo Japan
agricultural society
one had to know the
proper
time for
plowing
and
planting
and for the
harvest,
which made the
knowledge
of
the calendar of utmost
importance;
and
knowledge
of the calendar
and of the astronomical lore
upon
which it
depended
was from
early
on the
prerogative
of the
emperor.4
Moreover,
the
emperor
had to
participate ritually
in the cosmic
processes
so
important
to human
survival;
that
is,
he had not
only
to be the head of the
state or human
community
but also to act out this role so as to
ensure its continued
reality.
In some sense
then,
the
emperor
lived
the fundamental
concept
of
ying
wu
(corresponding
to
things)
for
all the
people.
As
long
as he
performed
the rites
properly,
the
Mandate of Heaven
(t'ien ming)
remained with him and the
empire
and the human
relationships
were harmonious.
Something
of the
spirit
of this orientation
may
be
caught
from the
following passage
from the Yueh
ling [Monthly ordinances]
section of the Li chi
(Book
of
rites)
for the
beginning
of autumn:
If the observances
proper
to
spring
were
used,
autumnal rains would
not
fall;
plants
and trees would blossom
untimely,
and in the states there
would be disturbances of the realm. If the summer ceremonials were ob-
served,
there would be
drought;
insects would not retire to their
burrows,
and the five
grains
would
begin
to
grow
again. If the winter ceremonies
were
observed,
unseasonable winds would cause
calamities,
thunder would
awaken from its
proper
rest,
and
vegetation
would
subsequently perish.5
The most
important
rites
generally
occurred at the first of each
lunar
month,
that
is,
at the time of the new
moon,
although
there
were
special
rites at the
beginning
of each of the four seasons.6 The
Wing-tsit
Chan,
A Source Book in Chinese
Philosophy (Princeton,
N.J.: Princeton
University Press, 1963), chaps.
11,
14.
4
The
history
of Chinese
astronomy
is one of the most
fascinating chapters
in
the annals of both science and
religion, although
we can but touch on it here. See
Leopold
de
Saussure,
Les
origines
de l'astronomie chinoise
(Paris:
Librairie orien-
tale et
americaine, n.d.),
and
Joseph
Needham,
Science and Civilization in China
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1956-).
5
Quoted
in William Edward
Soothill,
The Hall
of Light (London:
Lutterworth
Press, 1951), p.
28. The text is dated as
early
Han
dynasty.
6
It is a curious fact
that,
while a lunar calendar is
especially
unsuited to an
agricultural society,
it is this
very type
of
society
which so often
develops
such a
calendar. The lunar calendar is based
upon
the lunar month of
twenty-nine
and one
-
half
days;
thus a
year
of twelve lunar months results in a total of 354
days,
eleven
and one-fourth
short,
be it
noted,
of the true solar
year
of 3651
days.
The use of a
lunar calendar
by
an
agricultural society
certainly
indicates a situation in which
the
religious
awe connected with the heavenly
phenomena
centered on the moon
has
quite
taken
precedence
over the more
"practical" problems
of
determining
the
proper
time for
planting,
etc. For it is a
fact,
which the Chinese calendar has
always implicitly recognized,
that the moon has
nothing
whatever to do with the
seasons,
the
all-important problem
of the
agriculturalist.
In order to
keep
the
months from
continually falling
behind the seasons and therefore
rotating
around
the
year,
the Chinese
early adopted
a mixed solar-lunar calendar in which the
astral observations
provided
the overall framework while the lunar month was
102
History of Religions
new-moon rites lasted for three
days,
with all
things, including
diet, carefully regulated.
At the solstices and
equinoxes,
there
was
a
special
fast;
and at the new
year,
which was also the first
day
of
spring,
the
emperor
is said to have
gone personally
with various
officials to the sacred field in order to take
upon
himself the "first
risk of
disturbing
the
sleeping
soil with the
plough."7
The most
powerful symbol
of the role of the
emperor
as medi-
ator of the
correspondence
between heaven and earth
may
be
seen in the institution of the so-called
Ming T'ang (literally,
"Bright House"). Here,
Chinese ideas of
time,
sovereignty,
com-
munity, geography,
and
cosmology
were
synthesized
in ritual
activity. Theory
and
practice
are much intermixed in the accounts
of this institution which have come down to
us,8
but its
purpose
is clear. A
composite picture
shows the extreme
degree
to which
cosmic
symbolism
was carried. The roof of the
Ming T'ang
is
sup-
ported by twenty-eight
columns,
symbolizing
the
twenty-eight
preserved.
The oldest calendar known in
China,
the so-called Calendar of the Hsia
Dynasty, may
be as old as the second millennium before the Christian era and is of
this mixed
type.
Its first month
begins
with the second new moon after the winter
solstice,
or
roughly
between
January
15 and
February
15
by
the
Gregorian
calen-
(tar. In the form in which it has come down to
us,
it
appears
somewhat
irregular,
but the entries under ten of the twelve months tie them to astral
phenomena, as,
for
example,
the first month: "At dusk Orion culminates. The Bushel Handle
[Ursa Major] hangs
downward"
(quoted
in
Soothill, p. 238).
7
Soothill, p.
26.
8
For a valuable
attempt
to
separate
historical fact from
philosophical theory,
see Henri
Maspero,
'La
Ming-T'ang
et la crise
religieuse
chinoise avant les
Han,"
Melanges
chinois et
bouddhiques (Brussels, 1948-51),
9:1-71. For our
purposes,
however,
it is
theory
or
ideology
which is more
important,
since the
Japanese
accepted
the
Han-dynasty theory
from Chinese who were themselves
separated
by
long
centuries even from the Han
practices. Still,
following Maspero (pp. 3-10),
a cautious look at the more reliable historical accounts reveals the
following
chronology
of the actual existence of the
Ming T'ang
in the Han:
Reign
and Date Events
Wu:
140 B.c. Discussion at court of the
Ming T'ang.
Not built.
107 B.c. Construction of
Huang-ti Ming T'ang ("The Ming T'ang
of the
[legendary]
Yellow
Emperor")
ordered.
106 B.c. The
Huang-ti Ming T'ang completed.
Built at the foot of T'ai Shan
(far
to the east of the
capital
at
Ch'ang-an).
Ch'eng:
8 B.c. Ordered a
Ming T'ang
built in the southern
part
of the
capital
of
Ch'ang-an.
Not built.
Wang Mang:
4 A.D. Built a
Ming T'ang
in the southern
part
of
Ch'ang-an.
9 A.D.
Ming T'ang
rebuilt
(in order to
destroy
its association with the Han
dynasty
which
Wang Mang
had
usurped).
Kuang
Wu:
56 A.D. Built a
Ming T'ang
within the
palace
in the new
capital (of
the Later
Han
dynasty)
of
Lo-yang.
103
Ritsuryo Japan
mansions of the
moon;
its twelve rooms
symbolize
the twelve
months of the
year;
it is
square
below,
symbolizing
earth;
and
round
above,
symbolizing
heaven.
Further,
the numbers 9 and 6
recur
again
and
again
in the dimensions of the various
parts
of
the
structure,
because 9 was the
yang
number,
6 the
yin
number.
The
top
of the building was called the "Heaven
Communicating
Platform"
(t'ung-t'ien t'ai),
a
phrase descriptive
of its
function,
or
ling t'ai,9
a term indicative of the numinous character of
anything
associated with heaven.
Here,
it was
believed,
the crucial astro-
logical
observations were made which not
only provided
the neces-
sary
data for the
agricultural
and
liturgical
calendar but also
"read the heavens" for omens and
portents
of the
pleasure
or
displeasure
of the cosmos toward men. Here the status of the Man-
date of Heaven could be
read,
the
position
of the
many
star
divinities determined so that men could act
accordingly.
Indeed,
according
to one source attributed to the fifth
century
B.c. but
probably
not to be taken
seriously
as
history,
in ancient China
there were three
types
of these
observatories,
or t'ai: the
ling
t'ai
for
observing
celestial
signs,
the shih t'ai for
observing
the four
seasons,
and the
yu
t'ai for
observing
the activities of the various
animals.10
Everything
which lived and moved
(and
what did
not?) upon
the earth or in the
sky
was a
part
of the cosmic har-
mony
and,
as
such,
had to be taken into account in order that the
"correspondence
to
things"
could be
accomplished,
in order that
the cosmic order should be maintained.
We cannot dwell on the details of the classical Chinese cere-
monial
year,
even
though
it is a
great
treasure store for the his-
torian of
religions.
For our
purposes
here,
the
Ming T'ang
and the
ceremonies which took
place
within it can serve
only
to elucidate
the Chinese idea of ritual
kingship
with its
overridingly
celestial
9
This term
ling
occurs
frequently
in Taoist
writings
of all kinds and with
many
meanings,
all, however, carrying
the
strong
connotation of numinousness. For an
important study
of the word
ling
in the common
compound
word
ling-pao (pao
is
literally "jewel"
or
"treasure"),
see Max
Kaltenmark, "Ling-Pao:
Note sur un terme
du Taoisme
religieux," Melanges publis par L'institut de. hautes itudes chinoises
(Paris:
Presses universitaires de
France, 1960),
11:559-88. One
meaning
which he
elucidates is
especially appropriate
here: "Mais
comme,
d'autre
part, Ling
et Pao
sont
deux, representent
deux
p6les,
c6leste et
terrestre,
du
Sacre,
le titre en
ques-
tion doit s'entendre comme
designant 'Cinq
Talismans
qui
constituent un Pao
(terrestre)
en relation avec
(ou
bien r6vele
par)
un
Ling (celeste)';
et la
encore,
le
Ling-pao
se conforme au modele
du Ho-t'ou et du Lo-chou
qui
relevent l'un du
Ciel,
l'autre de la Terre"
(p. 588).
It is also
interesting
to
note that the same character
(ling), pronounced ry6
in
Japanese,
functions often as an
adjective
with the mean-
ing
of
"strange," "mysterious," "uncanny"; e.g.,
this is the
ryo
or
goryo,
the
malevolent
spirits
of the dead which
plagued Japan
in the Heian
period.
Tamashii
(human spirit
or
soul)
is also often written with this character.
10
Kung-yang
Kao, quoted
in
Soothill, p.
112.
104
History of Religions
symbolism.
In
Japan,
the
origins
of celestial
symbolism
are con-
siderably
clouded
by
the fact that
Japanese
tradition
was,
by
the
time of the rise of the
imperial
clan,
a
composite
of
many
tradi-
tions.
Indeed,
it is assumed that a celestial orientation was central
to the Altaic tribe which last
conquered Japan
and founded the
Kofun
society.11
At
any
rate,
we do know that
by
the
reign
of the
Empress
Suiko
(592-628)
the
sovereign
of
Japan
was
referring
to
him or herself as the Son of Heaven in the Chinese
manner,12
although
the more usual
appelation
was
tenno,
literally, "Heavenly
Ruler." Yet the
way
in which Chinese forms were used in the
Japanese setting
is of more
importance
to us than the fact that
the forms were taken over from China. We have no record that
11
Some scholars believe that the distinction between
"heavenly
kami"
(ama-
tsu-kami)
and
"earthly
kami"
(kuni-tsu-kami)
is the result of Chinese influence.
J. H.
Kamstra,
e.g.,
in Encounter or
Syncretism (Leiden:
E. J.
Brill, 1967), pp.
432-35,
believes that the
plain
of
high
heaven
(takama
no
hara)
of
early mythology
originally
referred to a
pre-Amaterasu,
Altaic sun
god
himself;
it was
only
under
Chinese influence that takama no hara became a
place
and identified with heaven
rather than the sun itself.
Following
this line of
thought,
the
plain
of
high
heaven
then became
populated
with various
gods
of heaven
(ama-tsu-kami)
which
gave
rise then to the inhabitants of the
earth,
namely,
the
gods
of earth
(kuni-tsu-kami).
Kamstra
goes
so far as to call this "slavish
borrowing,"
inasmuch
as,
so he
says,
no
one was able to
say just
which kami
belonged
to which realm
(see
n. 5
above,
p.
434).
The Chinese
phrase
is either
shang
hsia shen ch'i
(literally,
"above and
below,
the
gods
[of
heaven]
and the
gods
[of
earth]")
or t'ien shen ti ch'i
(literally, "gods
of heaven and
gods
of
earth").
The latter
appears,
for
example,
in the famous
Nihongi pericope
which tells of the introduction of Buddhism to
Japan
in the
thirteenth
year
of the
reign
of Kimmei
(A.D. 552). Protesting
the
worship
of the
Buddha
image by
the rival
Soga
clan,
the Mononobe clan chief
says,
"Those who
have ruled the
Empire
in this our State have
always
made it their care to
worship
in
Spring, Summer,
Autumn and Winter the 180 Gods of Heaven and
Earth,
and
the Gods of the Land and of Grain"
(Aston translation,
2:
67).
This is a literal
translation of the Chinese
characters; however,
the Shinten edition has interlinear
kana which reads: ama-tsu-kami kuni-tsu-kami
momo-ya-so
gami,
or "the 180
kami,
the kami of heaven and the kami of earth." This is a
rendering
which does utter
violence to the
characters,
though
it
may
well better
represent
the
original
in-
tention
(see Shinten,
p. 569).
This Chinese
usage
is also reflected in the Shinsen
shojiroku (newly compiled
record of clans and
hereditary titles)
of
815,
which
classifies the
shimbetsu,
or
"heavenly group"
of
clans,
under three
headings: (1)
those descended from
"heavenly
kami"
(tenjin,
the
Sino-Japanese reading
of
ama-tsu-kami), (2)
those descended from the
"heavenly grandchild" (tenson,
that
is, Ninigi,
the
grandson
of
Amaterasu),
and
(3)
those descended from the
"earthly
kanli" (chigi,
a
Sino-Japanese reading
of
kuni-tsu-kami,
with a different character
for
kuni).
On the other
hand,
it can be
argued
that this
usage
finds a
precedent
in
the norito or Shinto ritual
prayers,
which are for the most
part very
ancient. For
example,
we read in the o-harae norito
given
in the
Engi-shiki (eighth maki)
that:
"When this ritual is
performed properly,
the
heavenly
kami
[anla-tsc-kaumi]
will
hear the words of
petition by opening up
the
heavenly
rock door and by
dividing
the
eight-fold clouds,
while at the same time the earthly kami
[kuni-ts?u-kami]
will
hear the words of
petition by climbing up
to the
peaks
of the
high
and low moun-
tains and
by
pushing
aside the mists of the
high
and low mountains"
(Shinten,
p. 1298).
12
The
T'ang
shu
[History
of the
T'ang Dynasty]
says that the
Japanese
em-
peror
in the
year
608 sent a letter to the Chinese
emlperor
which
began:
"The Son
of Heaven of the
place
where the sun comes forth addresses a letter to the Son of
Heaven of the
place
where the sun sets"
(after
Aston
trans., Nihongi, 2:139, n.).
105
Ritsuryo
Japan
anything
like the
Ming T'ang
was ever built
by
the
Japanese
emperors,13
nor was the
monthly
ritual ever
performed
which was
so
perfectly
attuned to the lunar and solar
phenomena.
On the
other
hand,
the
Japanese
court,
especially
in the Heian
period,
had an elaborate ceremonial
year
in addition to the ceremonial of
everyday
court activities.
Also,
probably
from the
reign
of
Suiko,
the Chinese calendar was in use
by
the
Japanese
court,
and
Japanese
astronomers
began making
their own observations and
calculations.14
Undoubtedly,
the
greatest
monument to the
Ritsuryo
ideal of
government
as ritual-as it was embodied in the court of the Heian
period-is
the
great Engi-shiki [Institutes
of the
Engi era],
which
was
completed
in 927 and
put
into effect in 967.15 The work was
ordered in
Engi
5
(A.D. 906) by
the minister of the
Left,
Fujiwara
Tokihira,
a noted
reformer,
in the conservative mold of the
period
in which the
Ritsuryo
ideal was
taking
on the aura of a sacred
past,
a
golden age.
The
preface
to the
Engi-shiki
lists a committee
of eleven names who were
delegated
to draw
up
the
laws,
although,
since these were
nearly
all
important
officials,
it is to be doubted
that
they actually
did the work for which
they
were
responsible.
The
possible exception
is the name Mune
Yoshitsunera,
called a
my6bo
hakase,
or Doctor of Laws. This title seems to be the
Engi-
era version of the earlier
ry6-shi,
or
jurist
of the Taiho
period.16
We know from the
Nihongi
that the
Empress
Suiko sent a
group
13
Note, however,
that under Chinese
religious
and esthetic influences the
palaces,
houses,
and
grounds
of the
emperor
and
aristocracy incorporated
considerable
cosmic and celestial
symbolism (see
Bernard
Frank,
"Kataimi et
katatagae,"
Tokyo
Maison
franco-japonaise, Bulletin, n.s.,
5-6
[1958-59]:1-246).
14
The first record in the
Nihongi
of an
eclipse
of the sun or moon occurs in her
reign.
An idea of the
increasing importance
of such celestial observations
may
be
seen from the fact that in all of the
Nihongi only
seven solar and two lunar
eclipses
are
recorded,
while in the Shoku
nihongi,
which covers the events of
only ninety-
four
years,
there are recorded
seventy-two
solar
eclipses,
no less than
forty
of which
could not even have been visible from the
Japanese
islands
(see
J. B.
Snellen,
trans. and
annotator,
"Shoku
Nihongi,
Chronicles of
Japan, Continued,
from
697-791
A.D.," Transactions
of
the Asiatic
Society of Japan,
2d ser. 11
[1934]:151-
239).
Snellen lists six calendars
officially adopted by
the
Japanese
court between
692 and
1684, namely,
in the
years 692, 697, 764, 858, 862,
and
1684,
(p. 159).
The
chronology
of the
Nihongi
itself is based on the Chinese
sixty-day
and
sixty-year
cyclical reckoning.
15
There is some
doubt, however,
whether these
regulations
were ever
actually
followed
precisely.
The confused
political
situation of the Heian
period
makes it
probable
that
many extralegal
offices and
procedures developed
wherever the
real
power
of the moment dictated.
Yet,
as an ideal statement of the nature of
government
and the
Ritsury6
world
view,
the
Engi-shiki
stands as an
exemplary
model
(for
the text of the
Engi-shiki,
see Kokushi
taikei,
new ed.
[Tokyo:
Yoshi-
gawa k6bunkan, 1955],
vols.
8-9).
An excellent
commentary
is
Miyagi Eisho,
Engi-shiki no-kenkyf,
2 vols.
(Tokyo:
Daishukan
Shoten,
1955 and
1957).
16
See Torao
Toshiya, Engishiki,
Nihon rekishi
sosho,
no. 8
(Tokyo: Yoshigawa
kobunkan, 1964), pp.
16-17.
106
History of Religions
of
Japanese
students to
T'ang
China in
608, and,
in the edict of
recall of these students issued in
622,
T'ang
is called "an admirable
country,
whose laws
(hoshiki)
are
complete
and fixed."17
Again,
in
681,
the tenth
year
of the
reign
of
Temmu,
an edict was issued
which said: "It is Our Desire now anew to enact
ritsuryo
and to
reform the
hoshiki."'l
The
Engi-shiki
itself has four main
pre-
decessors
upon
which it drew. These are the two Ritual Books
(Gishikicho) presented
to the
Jingi-kan by
the Ise shrine in 804.
These were
approved by
the
Jingi-kan
and
form,
with
slight
variations,
the sections on these ritual matters in the
Engi-shiki.
The other
two,
Konin-shiki and
Jogan-shiki,
formed the bulk of
the
Engi-shiki
material.19
In the introduction to the
Engi-shiki,
it states that the two
earlier
compilations
of
shiki,
however
excellent,
were not sufficient
to deal with the bad times and that a
thorough study
of these
laws was
needed,
not to contradict
them,
but to
go beyond
them.
This "fall of the time" is
put squarely
into the
yin-yang
context
by
the first words of this introduction: "When one reflects care-
fully,
one sees that Heaven
overspreads
Earth. After this
example
the sacred
emperor
instructs the
people.
In the
yin
there is
pain,
in the
yang
alleviation. The wise kings
patterned
themselves after
this and so
guided
customs."
However,
we are
told,
there is de-
generation,
and "ancient times and the
present
are not the same."
The
Emperor Saga
is then cast in the role of a
preserver
of the
virtue of the ancient Chinese
kings (for
it was he who
promulgated
the
Konin-shiki).
The
Jogan
era is noted as another
period
in
which an
attempt
was made to
regenerate
the human order. This
new
shiki, then,
is seen as within this tradition of the wise Chinese
sage kings
whose
"way
of resourcefulness" is once
again
imitated.
17
See Aston
trans., Nihongi,
2:150.
18
Nihongi,
29:31
(Cf.
Aston
trans., Nihongi, 2:349-50).
It should be noted that
there
were,
after the Chinese
practice,
four basic kinds of laws:
(1) ritsu,
which
concentrated on the
penal code;
(2) ryo,
which dealt with administrative
matters;
and
(3) kyaku
and
(4) shiki, which,
while the
qualitative
difference between them
was never
very
clear in
Japan,
were based on the first two but
supplied
the neces-
sary
detail for the
implementation
of the other laws. Unlike in
China, however,
in
Japan
all four
types
were never
compiled
at one time. The seventh and
eighth
centuries saw the
development
of ritsu and
ryo,
while it was only in the ninth and
tenth centuries that
kyaku and shiki were
compiled.
Before the
compilationi
of
these
latter,
so-called minute
regulations
for various officials
(sho-shi-shiki)
were
used as well as rei
(precedents) compiled,
based
upon specific regulations promul-
gated
to suit
specific
needs.
Again,
the
Ryo-no-shutge (a commentary
on the Jro6-
ryo)
mentions so-called bekki
(separate notes),
which must be forerunners of true
shiki. The
Taiho-ryo
was
supplemented
in 719
by
the
Hachijfichi-rei [Eighty-one
cases].
19
For a discussion of the Konin-shiki and
Jogan-shiki,
see
Torao, pp.
34-52.
107
Ritsuryo
Japan
The
Engi
era is to be another of the
bright spots,
of the
regenera-
tive
periods
in the
never-ending cycle
of decline and renewal
which is based on the ebb and flow of the
yin
and the
yang.
The
Engi-shiki
is
composed
of some
fifty
maki,
or
fascicles, and,
of
these,
fascicles 1-10 deal with the
jingi-kan,
or
Department
of
Shinto
Affairs,
while fascicles 11-40 deal with the
dajo-kan,
or
Department
of Administration. The remainder are concerned with
other sections of the
government.
The
jingi-kan
section contains
minute details of the various festivals of
official,
or court
spon-
sored,
Shinto: such matters as the kind and amount of
offerings
to be
made,
the
way
of
calculating
the date for the
festival,
the
ritual words
(norito)
to be
spoken
at a number of these ceremonies
(matsuri).
Nor were the officials of the
jingi-kan
the
only
ones to
be busied with such
activities,
for the
Engi-shiki
is full
throughout
of directions
governing
the
many
matsuri,
banquets,
feasts,
ob-
servances,
and entertainments which the court held in the course
of a
year.
The
following
is a
necessarily
somewhat
impressionistic glance
at the court ceremonial
year:20
First Month
FIRST DAY:
Prayers
to the Four Directions
(shihohai)
Before dawn the
emperor
went to the
garden
of the residential
palace
and
prayed
to the four
directions,
to
heaven, earth,
and the
imperial
mausolea for the
well-being
of the nation in the
coming year.
FIRST DAY: Lesser Obeisance
(kochohai)
The
emperor
and
many
attendants
gathered
in the Eastern Garden to
congratulate
the
sovereign
on the
beginning
of the new
year.
FIRST TO THIRD DAYS: Medicinal
Offerings
and Tooth
Hardening
(o-kusuri
and
hagatame)
Special
foods were served to the
emperor
to
promote
health and
pros-
perity.
FIFTH DAY: Bestowal of Ranks
(joi)
FIRST DAY OF THE HARE: Presentation of Hare-wands
(uzu-e)
Five-foot-long
sticks decorated with five-colored tassels were
presented
to the
emperor by Shingon
and Tendai
(Buddhist) priests
and also
by
officers of the
imperial guards
in order to ward off evil influences.
SEVENTH DAY:
Ceremony
of Green Horses
(aouma
no
sechi-e)
"Green"
(really
blue
grey)
horses were
paraded
to herald the
coming
20
These materials are drawn from
Engi-shiki 1-3,
8
(sections dealing
with the
Shinto
affairs),
16
(Yin-Yang Bureau),
and 21
(Bureau
of Buddhism and
Aliens).
I am
especially
indebted to Ivan Morris for his
splendid
notes and tables in The
World
of
the
Shining
Prince
(London:
Oxford
University Press, 1964)
and The
Pillow Book
(see
n. 1
above).
Also consulted were: Mochizuki
Shink6, Bukky6
daijiten [Dictionary
of
Buddhism] (Tokyo:
Sekaishoten kano
ky6kai, 1955-63);
Nishitsunoi
Ma.sayoshi, Nenjqgyoji jiten [Dictionary
of annual
events] (Tokyo:
Ohashi, 1958);
Robert K.
Reischauer, Early Japanese History (Princeton,
N.J.:
Princeton
University Press, 1937);
Marinus W. de
Visser,
Ancient Buddhism in
Japan (Paris:
P.
Geuthner, 1928, 1935).
108
History of Religions
of
spring.
In ancient
China,
the horse was a
yang animal,
and
green
was the color of
spring.
SEVENTH DAY: Festival of the
Young
Herbs
(wakana
no
sekku)
A
gruel
made of "the seven herbs" was served to the
emperor.
EIGHTH TO FOURTEENTH DAYS: Buddhist
Assembly
of Purification
(gosai-e)
The sutra of victorious
kings (8aish6-6-ky6,
or
Konkomy6-saish-o6-kyo;
(Sanskrit, Suvarnaprabhdsa-sutra)
was read in the
imperial palace
for
seven
days
in order to assure the
safety
of the
country during
the
coming year.
FIRST DAY OF THE RAT: Feast
Day
of the Rat
(nenohi
no
en)
Still observed in modem China in the nineteenth
century.
NINTH TO ELEVENTH DAYS: Period of Provincial
Appointments (jimoku)
FIFTEENTH
DAY: Full Moon Gruel
(mochigayu)
A
special
time for
women,
with much
fertility symbolism.
A wooden
stick was used to stir the
gruel,
and it was
thought
that if a woman
were struck with such a stick she would
give
birth to a male child.
SIXTEENTH DAY:
Ceremony
of the
Poetry
Dances
(t6ka
no
sechi-e)
EIGHTEENTH DAY:
Archery
Contests
(noriumi)
The final event of the New-Year celebrations. The
contest,
performed
in the
presence
of the
emperor,
was followed
by
a
great banquet.
In
China,
this was the
day
of the Star Festival.
Second Month
FOURTH DAY: Festival of the
Spring Prayer (kinensai)
FIRST DAY OF YOUNGER BROTHER OF FIRE: Confucian
Anniversary
Service
(sekiten)
Given in the Bureau of
Education,
it commemorated Confucius and
the Ten
Sages,
whose
portraits
were
hung
on the walls for the occasion.
An address was read
by
the rector of the
university
in honor of Con-
fucius,
a formal discussion of Confucian texts
held,
and Chinese
poems
were
composed.
The
following
day
the
emperor
was
presented
with
Confucian
offerings.
FIRST DAY OF THE MONKEY: Festival at the
Kasuga
Shrine in Nara
(kasuga
no
matsuri)
Offerings
sent to the shrine
by
an
imperial messenger.
ELEVENTH DAY: Examination and Promotion of Court Officials
(rekken)
Third Month
THIRD DAY: Peach Festival
(jomi
or momo no
sekku)
Winding
water
banquets held,
dolls
displayed.
In China this was the
birthday
of Hsi
Wang
Mu
(the
Western
Queen
Mother),
in whose
gardens grew
the
peaches
of
immortality
and where dwelt the immor-
tals
(hsien).
THIRD DAY: Festival in Honor of the North Star
(goto)
SEVENTH TO THIRTEENTH DAYS: Victorious
King Ceremony (saisho-e)
This Buddhist
ceremony
was similar to the
gosai-e
of the first month
which was held in the
palace.
This
one, however,
took
place
in the
Yakushi-ji,
a
temple
of the Hosso school in Nara. The same "Lecture
Master"
(koshi) presided
at
both,
and the same sutra was read at both.
Fourth Mlonth
FIRST DAY:
Change
of Dress to Summer Garments
(koromoga-e)
EIGHTH DAY:
Ceremony
of
Washing
the Buddha Statue
(kambutsu-e)
On
this,
the
birthday
of
Shakyamuni,
scented water or sweet tea was
109
Ritsuryo
Japan
poured
over a
standing
statue of Shaka while
prayers
were offered in
his name.
SECOND DAY OF THE BIRD: Festival of the Kamo Shrine
(kamo
no
matsuri)
A
special
celebration to honor the Shinto kami who were the
tutelary
deities of the
Kyoto (the capital city) region.
Fifth
Month
FIFTH DAY: Iris Festival
(ayame
no
sekku)
As this was an
inauspicious day,
the irises
hung
about the
palace
and
the houses and
persons
of the aristocrats had as their
object
to ward off
evil
spirits.
The festival was ended
by
the
imperial guards twanging
their
bowstrings
in a traditional
ceremony
to scare
away spirits.
TENTH TO THIRTEENTH DAYS: Distribution of
Imperial
Alms
(shink6)
Sixth Month
LAST DAY: The Shinto Purification
Ceremony (6-harae)
This was the most
important ceremony
of Shinto
practice.
Some form
of it is
very ancient,
and it was used as a
preface
to
many
festivals.
This one was institutionalized
by
the court as one of the
regular
func-
tions of the ceremonial
year.
The norito or ritual
prayer
for this
ceremony
is
given
in
Engi-shiki,
fascicle 8.
Seventh Month
SEVENTH DAY: Festival of the Weaver Star
(tanabata
no
matsuri)
Altars with
offerings
and incense were set
up
outside on this
night,
and women
prayed
to the weaver
(chih-nu)
of Chinese
legend
to
give
them skill in
weaving
and other household arts. Poems were
composed
during
the festival.
THIRTEENTH TO SIXTEENTH DAYS: The Buddhist Festival of the Dead
(urabon-e)
A Buddhist
service,
thoroughly
mixed with native Chinese and
Japan-
ese elements
primarily
for the
purpose
of
saving "hungry ghosts,"
but
also,
on the individual
family
level,
to
provide
for one's ancestors and
even the
living spirits
of one's relatives. On the
thirteenth,
"welcome
fires"
(mukae-bi)
were
lighted
to
guide
the
spirits
from the land of the
dead to the houses and altars of the
relatives,
while
"sending-off
fires"
(okuri-bi)
were
lighted
on the
night
of the sixteenth. The Buddhist
service
proper,
as ordered in the
Urabon-kyo,
was held on the fifteenth.
TWENTY-EIGHTH DAY:
Wrestling
Contests
(sumo)
Eighth
Month
FOURTH DAY: Placation of the
Angry Spirit
of
Sugawara
Michizane
(kitano
no
matsuri)
This was the
greatest
of the
gory6-e,
or festivals for the
pacification
of
malevolent
spirits
of the
dead,
and was
typical
in that it combined
Shinto, Buddhist,
and
Onmy6-d6
elements in an
attempt
to atone for
the
wrongs
done
by
the court to Michizane while he lived. These
gory6-e
were a
uniquely Japanese creation,
and their eclectic contents
well illustrate the
spirit
of the times.
FIRST DAY OF THE YOUNGER BROTHER OF FIRE: Sekiten
repeated
FIFTEENTH DAY: Festival at the Iwashimizu Shrine of
Freeing
Animals
(iwashimizu h6oj-e)
This
essentially
Buddhist
ceremony
was
performed
at one of the famous
Hachiman shrines
supported by
the court.
110
History of Religions
FIFTEENTH DAY: Great
Moon-viewing
Festival
(chfushi kangetsu)
This was the moon's
birthday
in China. The festival and outdoor ban-
quets honoring
the harvest moon were introduced
by
the Chinese
emperor
Wu Ti in the second
century
B.C.
Ninth Month
SEVENTH DAY: Submission of
Reports
on Unfit Land
(fukandenden
no
s8)
NINTH DAY:
Chrysanthemum
Festival
(ch6oy
no
en)
Silk covers were
put
over the flowers on the eve of the festival. These
scent-impregnated
covers were
thought
to
protect
one from old
age
if
one rubbed the
body
with them. Nine is an
auspicious
number asso-
ciated with the
yang principle;
hence the literal
rendering
of the name
of the festival:
"heaped up yang."
Tenth Month
FIRST DAY OF THE BOAR:
Banquet
in Honor of the Boar
(gencho)
TENTH TO SIXTEENTH DAYS: Memorial Service for
Fujiwara Kamatari,
founder of the
Fujiwara
clan
(yuima-e)
The
Yuima-kyo,
or
Vimalakirti-nirdesa,
was read in order to cure
Kamatari's
illness; then,
after his death in the seventh
century,
it
became the text for his memorial service. The rite was
performed
at
the famous
K6fuku-ji
in
Nara,
a
temple
of the Hoss6 school and the
clan
temple
of the
Fujiwara,
in which
capacity
it was also the Shinto
ancestral shrine
(uji-dera)
of that clan.
Eleventh Month
FIRST DAY OF THE MONKEY:
Kasuga
no matsuri
repeated
SECOND DAY OF THE HARE: Festival of the First
Tasting
of the New Rice
(niiname
no
matsuri)
An
important
Shinto rite in which the
emperor
himself is the
primary
figure.
SECOND DAY OF THE DRAGON: Gosechi Dances
(gosechi
no
mai)
Dances
performed
as an
accompaniment
to the niiname.
Twuelfth
Month
NINETEENTH TO TWENTY-FIRST DAYS: Buddhist General Confession
(butsumyo-e)
The
ceremony
consisted
primarily
in the recitation of the names of the
3,000 (or 30,000) Buddhas, Bodhisattvas,
and
Pratyekabuddhas
listed
in the
Butsumy6-kyo. By
this
means,
according
to the
sutra,
the sins
of the
past year might
be
expunged.
The recitation took
place
in the
imperial palace,
and,
during
the three
days
of the
service,
painted
screens were set
up
there
depicting
the horrors of hell.
LAST DAY: Shinto Purification
Ceremony (o-harae)
The same rite as
performed
on the last
day
of the sixth month.
LAST DAY:
Yin-yang Ceremony
of Exorcism
(tsuina
no
matsuri)
This
purification ceremony
took
place
at the outer
gate
to the
palace
and was conducted
by
the Bureau of Yin and
Yang (onnmy-ry6).
LAST DAY: Buddhist Festival of
Spirits
(tama
no
matsuri)
This
service,
also called
sh6ry6-sai, was little different in intent from
the urabon-e of the seventh
month,
with which it
eventually
seems to
have
merged. However,
according
to
Bukkyo daijiten (vol. 4),
the
ceremony
of the twelfth month was directed to the
pacification
and
salvation of the
spirits
of the
living.
111
Ritsuryo
Japan
Although admittedly impressionistic,
it is
hoped
that the
pre-
ceding
chart is
sufficiently representative
to
yield
reliable data
on the
way
in which the
Japanese
court of the Heian
period
functioned as a
liturgical
unit. We have
already
seen how the
Chinese
ideology
of the ebb and flow of the
yin
and
yang,
of the
orderly progression
of the seasons and the celestial-human har-
mony
established
by
the activities of the
emperor, gave
the
Chinese
year
its
meaning.
I submit that it was
just
such an
ideology
which formed the basis of the
Ritsuryo
ideal in classical
Japan;
that what
gave
this
Japanese
ideal its framework was
what came to be known as
Onmy6do (the Way
of
yin
and
yang);
that the above chart shows this framework in the number and
nature of the
Onmy6-do
rituals which it contains. Note
especially
in this connection the
shihohai,
mochigayu, noriyumi
in the first
month,
the
jomi
and momo no sekku in the
third,
the
ayame
no
sekku in the
fifth,
the tanabata no matsuri in the
seventh,
the
chushu
kangetsu
in the
eighth,
the
chdyo
no en in the
ninth,
and the
tsuina no matsuri in the twelfth. These are all
Onmyo-d6
ceremonies
and are
spread
throughout the
year.
Their
meaning
is the har-
mony
and wholeness of the
universe,
of the various realms which
make it
up, including
those
appropriate
to
astrography, geo-
graphy, anthropography, chronography.
These ceremonies cele-
brate this
harmony
and,
along
the
way,
insure its continuance.
The chart also shows
that,
while indeed "each month has its
own
particular
charm,"
the twelfth and first months were more
important
than the rest. In the twelfth
month,
one
puts
off the
burden of the
past year;
one
expunges
one's sins in the Buddhist
ceremony, purifies
one's defilements in the Shinto
ceremony,
and
exorcizes the evil
powers
which have
gotten
so
strong
over the
course of the
past year
in the
OnmyS-d6 ceremony.
All these
attempted
to
destroy
the
past
and to
prepare
for the renewal of
the
very
fabric of existence itself. The events of the first
month,
then,
finished this movement of
regeneration by reestablishing
the
relationships
which had been
necessarily destroyed
before. One
greeted
the new
year by bowing
to the four
directions,
by
an-
nouncing
one's
presence
to all the various
powers
of the universe.
To be
sure,
the
cycle goes
on,
the
year progresses
and with it come
the various rites addressed to the
powers
which are dominant at
that time. But still the
energy generated
in the first month is
gradually dissipated,
and the time of renewal
inevitably
comes
again.
But
Onmyo-do
had a
special
role to
play
in the ritual
year
of
112
History of Religions
classical
Japan. Beyond providing
the framework for the
year
in
the ritual
sense,
the Bureau of Yin and
Yang (onmyo-ryo)
of the
central
government
also
provided
astronomers and calendar
masters who
provided
the
emperor
with the
necessary
skills
to
support
the entire
system.
In a
way
similar to that which
was
associated with the
Ming T'ang
in
China,
the
emperor
of
Japan
in
the
Ritsuryo period
also
promulgated
an official
calendar, which,
significantly,
was
prepared by
the officials of the
onmyo-ry6
of the
central
government.
This calendar was
clearly
a
symbol
of the
authority
of the
sovereign
over his
subjects,
and at the same time
an indication that the
sovereign
himself derived his
authority
from his celestial
associations,
associations which in
Japan
were
already present
in the native tradition of the divine solar
ancestry
of the
imperial
house. The calendar which was
prepared by
the
onmyo-ryo, however,
was not
merely
the means of
reckoning
dates
in the realm based on Chinese astronomical calculations and the
sixty-element cycle.
It was
this,
of
course, but,
much
more,
it was
what was called an "annotated calendar"
(guchu-reki),
what we
should
perhaps
call an almanac.21
The calendar and the astronomical calculations
upon
which it
was based were not
merely
used for
agricultural purposes
or for
the care of individuals'
personal
lives. The ideal of
government
as
ritual also
put
the calendar to work in the
way
in which the
gates
of the
imperial palace
were
opened
and
closed,
morning
and
night.
The
Engi-shiki gives
elaborate details as to how
many
drum beats
should
accompany
this
operation, according
to the time and
season,
21
In the first
year
of the Konin era
(A.D. 810),
the Nihon
koki,
the official his-
tory
of
Japan
for this
period,
has seen fit to
preserve
the
following impassioned
plea
for
just
such an almanac after
irregular practices
on the
part
of folk astrolo-
gers
had caused them to be
proscribed:
"Since the almanacs have made their
appearance they
have been used in the cause of successive
generations.
The
harmony
of men and women on
days
of celebration is more
important
than human
laws. The
planting
and
harvesting
which make
up agriculture
constitute the foun-
dation of the nation.
Prostrate,
we
request
that,
in
conformity
with the nature
of
things, you begin again,
as in ancient
times,
to
provide
for the
people
the
indications"
(or annotations, guchu) (quoted
in Frank [see n. 13
above], p.
36).
It should be noted at this
point
that the
proscription
of the almanacs is one
of the first mentions of the
unofficial,
folk use of
Onmyo
astrology
in
Japan.
These
unorthodox
onmyo-ji (yin-yang masters)
were not officials of the
onmyo-ryo
but
ministered to the
people
as
they
saw fit. In the
year 807,
emperor Heijo
had issued
the
following
edict: "The
astrologers [nissha, literally, "sun-people"]
teach
things
without foundation. Thousands of
impediments
arise. The diviners
predict
in an
extravagant way.
A
myriad
interdictions
grow
and circumscribe us.... All this
has issued from the
writings
of
geomancy [kan-yo; Chinese,
k'an
yii; literally,
"covering
and
support,"
and thus used for
geomancy
which dealt with heaven
and
earth].
It is not of those works which are
precise
in
things.
It is therefore
necessary,
in
conformity
with the maxims of the ancient
sages,
to
radically pro-
scribe the almanacs"
(quoted
in Frank
[n.
13
above], p. 35).
113
Ritsuryo Japan
and fixes the exact hour and
minute,
according
to the time at
which the sun rises and sets in different seasons.22 This was another
job
for the
onmyo-ryo.
But the
onmyo-ryo
is itself
represented
in the
Engi-shiki
as one
of the bureaus which merited an entire fascicle all its own. The
sixteenth fascicle of the
Engi-shiki gives
the
composition
and
duties of this bureau. Also noted are a number of ceremonies in
which the
onmyo-ryo
took
part.
Of
these,
the most elaborate
by
far was the na no
matsuri,
or tsuina no
matsuri,
the demon-
expulsion ceremony
which took
place
on the
night
of the last
day
of the
year.
The bureau is first admonished to be careful to note
the
day
and to
notify
the
Ministry
of Central Affairs
(naka-
tsukasa-sho),
under which the
onmyo-ryo
was,
of the date and the
materials needed for the
ceremony,
such notification to be made
on the fifth
day
of the twelfth month.
Then,
the
following
list of
materials for the festival is
given:
Thin silk of the five
colors,
each
1.2
feet;
cooked
grain,
2
to;
sake,
1
to;
dried
meat,
bonito
fish,
abalone,
dried
fish, each,
1
kin;
seaweed,
5
kin; salt,
5
sho;
oak
branches,
20
bundles;
food
mats, 5;
gourds,
2;
earthen
jar,
1;
porcelain
bowls, 6;
pine
torches,
5
bundles;
appropriate
ceremonial
vestments,
1
set;
hakama
(skirt),
1.
(The
to is
equal
to 4.8
gallons;
the sho is one-tenth of a to. The kin is 1.32
pounds.)
These items
are
unexceptional
when
compared
to the materials for the fes-
tivals listed under the
jingi-kan
section of the
Engi-shiki.
The na no matsuri is
exceptional
in that the
counterpart
to the
Shinto norito is
given
for
it,
namely,
the words to be
spoken by
the
official celebrant of the
onmyo-ryo
while he is
making
the
offerings
and
pronouncing
the words of exorcism.
These,
along
with the
appropriate
directions,
go
as follows:
First, beforehand,
one
speaks
to the
ministry
and receives the above
items. Just at dusk of the
designated day
of the twelfth
month,
the
officials,
with various stewards
[sair6] leading,
watch and wait outside the shomei-
mon
[main
southern
gate
of the inner
palace];
that
is,
depending
on the
time, they
enter
together
with the
imperial
household. The stewards
bring
the food
mats,
and set them
up
in the
courtyard
and
arrange
the ceremonial
materials.
Finally
the
onmyo-ji
advance and read the ceremonial words.
They speak
in these words:
This
year,
this
month,
this
day,
this
hour,
as I am
speaking
with the
right
sign [chokufu],
as I am
speaking
with the
right things,
the
twenty-four
rulers
[or lords, kimi]
of the mountains and
rivers,
the
deep valleys,
the
1,200 ministries,
the
9,000
myriads
of
soldiers,
let them hear me.
(Let
the
above be read
aloud.)
According
to rank
put [the
assembled
officials]
before and
after,
left and
22
See
Engi-shiki,
fasc. 16:
"Onmy6-ry6."
114
History of Religions
right
of the
many, according
to the manner
proper
to
each,
and
determin-
ing accurately
their rank. Within the
great
palace
the ritualists
[miyaji]
of
the
jingi-kan reverently
offer iwai
[congratulations]
to the various deities
of heaven and
earth, and,
in order to
pacify
them,
they speak
these words
of obstruction:
It is
especially, imperially
decreed that the unclean oni are to cease
and
disappear
from the various
villages
here and there and that the
dwelling
places
of the various oni be set in far
places,
more than
1,000
ri from
the
boundaries of the four
directions,
in the east from
Michi-no-ku,
in the west
from
Ochika,
in the south from
Tosa,
in the north from
Sado;
and
accept
the various food
gifts [tame-tsu-mono]
of the sea and mountains and the
five-colored
jewels,
and
immediately
let them
depart
and be chased
away
from here and
there,
from the various
directions,
so it is
commanded,
inter-
posing
and
holding
back the evil
intent,
the dancers
[kakuraba?],
the
Lord
of the Great Exorcism
[daidakc],
the Lord of the Small Exorcism
[shodako],
carrying
the
gohei [Shinto liturgical wand],
command that the
things
which
suppress
and
punish,
run and drive
away,
should be heard.
Now,
as for the reed arrows and the bow of
peach-wood
which are materi-
als for the Exorcism
[tsuina],
obtain and
prepare
them as
"dragon-defenders"
[shushincho].
These arrow materials of reeds and
bullrushes,
2 ka of
each,
are
to be sent from the
province
of Settsu within the first ten
days
of the twelfth
month each
year.23
It is
interesting
to note that there
appears
to have been a kind
of division of labor in this
ceremony
in that the
oni,
or disease
demons,
were the
peculiar province
of the
onmyo-ji along
with the
lords of the mountains and
rivers,
the
deep valleys,
the "minis-
tries,"
and the
"soldiers,"
if their Chinese
lineage
is to be trusted.
On the other
hand,
the officials of the
jingi-kan
are called in to deal
with the "various deities
(kami)
of heaven and earth" who also
need to be
pacified
in this
ceremony.
This is all the more curious in
that at almost the same time on the same
day
the Shinto oharae
(Great Purification) ceremony
was held.
According
to fascicle 1
of the
Engi-shiki,
the oharae was held on the last
day
of the sixth
and twelfth months at the suzaku-mon on or before the hour of
the
monkey.
This means that while the na no matsuri was
being
performed
at the main southern
gate
to the inner
palace
at
dusk,
on the same
day
the Shinto oharae no matsuri was
being
held at the
main southern
gate
to the outer
palace
and
commencing
sometime
between 3:00 P.M. and 5:00 P.M. From
this,
it would seem
likely
that the na no matsuri followed
directly upon
the conclusion of-
or even somewhat
overlapped-the
Shinto oharae.
23
Text on
pp.
1537-38 of Shinten. The oni who are the demons to be exorcised
in this matsuri
are,
literally,
"disease
demons,"
that
is,
those who cause diseases.
The
"dragon-defender"
bow and arrows were used to
frighten
off the demons.
According
to Morris
(see
n. 20
above) (p. 165),
a Devil Chaser
(hososhi)
was selected
and
put
into
costume,
and with
twenty
assistants
passed throughout
the
palace
buildings
and
courtyards, twanging
the
bowstring
and
shooting
arrows into the
air.
115
Ritsuryo Japan
We note also from fascicle 16 of the
Engi-shiki
that there were a
number of other matsuri at which the
onmyo-ji played
a
leading
role,
and
offering
materials are listed for
them,
although
no
directions as to
personnel
or words
spoken
are
given.24
It was also
true that in certain Shinto festivals the
onmyo-ji played
a minor
role. For
example,
the
onmyo-ryo
was
charged
with
determining
the most
auspicious day
for the
purification
of the
virgin priestess
at
Ise,
and the
onmyo-ji together
with various other officials
determined the exact
spot
on the river where this was done.25
One
important
text from the
Engi-shiki
shows a
major
incursion
of
Onmyo-do
into the so-called
"pure"
Shinto realm in the eleventh
Shinto norito
(ritual words)
of fascicle 8. This text follows the
norito for the
o-harae,
or Great
Purification,
and is said to have been
used in the Heian
period
as a
preface
to that
ceremony.26
That
it is
clearly
a
purification
formula cannot be doubted from internal
evidence
alone,
although
there are also other indicators of its
function.27 The text is entitled "The incantation
spoken by
the
Kawachi Scholar's Be when the Yamato Scholar's and Abstainer's
Be
presents
the ritual sword." The text is as follows:
I
reverently pray:
The
Supreme Emperor
of Heaven. The Great Lords
of the Three Extremities. The
Sun, Moon, Stars,
and Celestial
Dragon.
The
various deities of the
Eight
Directions. The Director of Human
Destiny.
On
24
Among
these are the niwabi matsuri and the matsuri of the hearth kami
(kamado
no
Kami)
of Hirano. Niwabi matsuri is a Shinto festival for
lighting
the
"courtyard
fire"
(niwabi)
before the celebration of the niiname
(first rice-tasting)
festival. The directions for those festivals read:
"First,
on the tenth
day
of each
month,
choose a
lucky day
and celebrate the festival
(if
it turns out to be
taboo,
avoid
it)" (see Shinten, p. 1539).
Also mentioned are the
gohonmyo
no matsuri and
the
sangen
no matsuri. The former
was,
on the Chinese
sixty-day cycle,
celebrated
six or seven times a
year,
that
is, every
time a certain
sign
in the
cycle
occurred.
25
See
Engi-shiki,
fasc. 5
(Shinten, p. 1161).
26
See
Takigawa Masajiro, "Yasojima-matsuri
to
onmyo-do," Kokugakuin
zasshi
68,
no. 1
(1966):78-93; ibid.,
no.
2,
pp.
60-79; ibid.,
no.
3,
pp.
60-71.
27
Note, especially,
the use of the "silver man" and the
"golden
sword." Wre
know that the harae
(Shinto purification rite)
was used as a
preface
to
many
rituals
in the Heian
period.
The
Engi-shiki (fasc. 1)
lists for materials to be used in the
o-harae two kokane tsukuri no ta
chi,
"gold-arrayed
swords,"
and two each of
kane
shirogane
nuri no
jinzo, "gold
and silver
painted
human statues."
Further,
in fasc.
5,
it
gives
as materials for the
purification
service connected with the
enthronement of the
saigii (Shinto
abstinence
princess) kurogane
no
jinzo,
"iron
human statues."
Some,
at
least,
of these are
specifically
to be used as
agamono,
or
propitiatory offerings (W.
G.
Aston,
Shinto
[London, 1905], p.
305,
has "ransom-
object").
It is
interesting
that
Takigawa,
in
"Yasojima-matsuri" (n. 26,
pt.
1,
pp. 87-88),
stresses these
figures
as indicative of
Onmyo-do presence
itself: "As
for the shiki of
purification by
means of the
gold
man and silver
man,
it was an
important
custom characteristic of the Chinese of the
Taifang
district
[of
Central
Korea]
who were the
original
ancestors of the Yamato and Kawachi scholar's
Be,
and therefore I think it
possible
to conclude that this was an
Onmyb-do practice."
In
any case, probably
the human
figures
were
disposed
of in ritual fashion either
as
gifts
to the deities or as the
repositories
of the
impurities
themselves after these
defilements had been transferred to them.
116
History of Religions
the left the Eastern
King
Father. On the
right
the WVestern
Queen Mother.
The Five
Emperors
of the Five Directions. The Four Breaths of the
Four
Seasons.
By
means of the Silver
Man,
we
pray
that
you
remove
calamity.
By
means of the Golden
Sword,
we
pray
that
you
make smooth the
imperial
reign.
I
speak
the ritual incantation to
Japan
in the
east,
to the
fearful
abyss
in the
west,
to the
place
of
fiery shining
in the
south,
to the
weak
water in the north.
May
the
1,000
castles of the 100 countries be
ruled
excellently
for
10,000 years
and for
10,000
years
of
10,000 years.
Perhaps
the most
impressive
of the ritual activities of the
Heian
court is one little noted in discussions of
Japanese
ritual,
apparently
because of its
very
ordinariness. We refer to the
way
in which
the
most
ordinary, everyday
activities of the court were
ritualized,
sometimes to
extraordinary
levels. One
example
of this is to be
found in the
Engi-shiki,
fascicle
12,
entitled
Kemmotsu-shiki,
or
"Regulations Regarding Inspectors."
These
inspectors
had various
duties in the Heian
government,
but for our
purposes
we will con-
centrate on article
7,
section 1 of the
Kemmotsu-shiki,
which
describes the duties of the
inspectors (kemmotsu)
of the office of
inspection
in
charge
of
receipts
and disbursements of
government
property.
It was
government policy
that the
key
to the
govern-
ment storehouse was
kept
inside the main
palace,
which meant
that the
conducting
of
ordinary
business
required
that this
key
be
fetched from the
palace
to the storehouse itself. The
Engi-shiki
gives
the formal
procedures
which were to be followed in order to
obtain the
key
in the
morning
and to return it each
evening.
Each
morning
the kemmotsu
together
with the
Keeper
of the
Keys
(tenyaku)
and seven
imperial
attendants
(6toneri)
would wait out-
side the
ensei-mon, one of the
gates
on the east of the inner wall of
the
imperial palace.
At this
gate,
a
guard
of the inner
palace
would
appear
from within and meet them. Still outside the
gate,
one of
the attendants would kneel down on the
ground
and,
facing
the
guard,
would call out: "Officer of the
emperor,
officer of the
emperor!"
The "officer" was one of twelve such
ishi,
or
kagi
no
tsukasa,
who
were
"key
officers" from the office of the same name
headquar-
tered within the inner
palace
and
having charge
of all traffic
through
the
palace gates.
This officer on
guard
at the
gate, waiting
upon
the seat which had been
provided especially
for this
purpose,
then asks: "Who is it?" The
attendant,
still
kneeling, gives
his
name and
replies:
"The kemmotsu X and the
tenyaku
Y
respectfully
request
the
emperor
if he would
deign
to bestow
upon
them the
key."
Then the
guard,
still
keeping
the attendant
waiting
where
he
is,
proceeds within,
and in the
prescribed
manner
reports,
117
Ritsuryo Japan
ostensibly
to the
emperor:
"The kemmotsu X and the
tenyaku
Y
have
respectfully
made
special request
in this
way
of the
emperor
if he would
deign
to bestow
upon
them the
key."
From within
comes the
imperial
decree: "The
request
is
granted."
This in
reality
is the voice of a
palace
attendant whose
duty
it is.
The
guard
then answers this inner attendant with:
"Very good,
thank
you,"
and,
facing
about in the direction of the
still-kneeling
attendant
without,
says
to him: "The
request
of X and Y is
granted."
At this
point,
the seven
waiting
attendants in unison
reply: "Very good,
thank
you."
Then,
the
kemmotsu,
keeping
the
seven attendants
waiting
at the left side of the
gate,
enters in
leading
the
tenyaku,
and in the
prescribed
manner
requests:
"The
officers
request
the favor that the
key
be
given up
to them." With
that,
the voice of the inner
attendant,
now without the inter-
mediary
of the
gate guard, says:
"Take it." The
imperial permission
is at last
given.
Then the kemmotsu and the
tenyaku
in unison
respectfully reply:
"Very good,
thank
you,"
and withdraw outside the
gate.
At this
time the
tenyaku accompanied by
the attendants who have been
waiting
outside
go
out to the
place
of the
key
chest and take out
the
key.
The
pure formality
of all this is revealed
unmistakably
when we
note that the
key-chest,
wherein lies the
key
to the
government
storehouse,
is itself
kept
locked,
and with no other than a
key
which is all the time
kept
in the
custody
of the
very tenyaku
who
has
humbly gone through
this
ceremony
at the
gate
of the
imperial
palace!
The
key
that is removed from the
key
chest is then
passed
from the
tenyaku
to the seven attendants and
again
from the at-
tendants to the
kemmotsu,
who then
puts
it to the use for which it
was
ultimately
intended. In the
evening,
this ritual is
repeated,
only,
of
course,
with the
appropriate
alterations
necessary
to
reverse the
process.
This elaborate ritual from the
Engi-shiki
shows both the
depth
to which the idea of the state as
liturgical community
had
gone,
and the extent to which the
Engi-shiki
was the
documentary
em-
bodiment of this ideal. This
"Key Ceremony,"
as one
might
call
it,
adds the final
figure
to our chart of Heian
liturgical
life. Here one
can see
liturgy
raised to its
highest expression:
it seems to stand
by
itself,
with none of the usual
"props"
such as the
religious
element
usually thought
to be essential. How is one to understand
this ritual? Does it not
perhaps provide
the
"key"
to the under-
standing
of the entire Heian elite
religiosity?
118
History of Religions
We moderns
pride
ourselves on
many things, among
them
being
the
hard-fought
distinction between the
religious
and the
secular.
But this distinction is a
dangerous
one if it is
applied
to times
and
places
not our
own;
if it is
impressed upon
the Heian
period
in
Japan,
for
example,
as this
Key Ceremony
shows,
it can
only
result
in the view that such a
ceremony-obviously completely
secular
in
nature-is
merely silly.
In
fact,
nothing
is clearer than that
the
authors of the
Engi-shiki
and the Heian
aristocracy
in
general
took
it
quite seriously
indeed.
They,
I
believe,
were not
silly.
But
they
were different from us.
Anthony
F. C. Wallace has said that "in
human rituals the content of the
[stereotyped]
communication is
twofold:
first,
it is a statement of an
intention;
and
second,
it is
a statement of the nature of the world in which the intention is to
be realized."28 This definition well states
my
own
view,
as I
hope
this
paper
has shown thus far. But what is the "intention" of the
Key Ceremony? Surely
it is not
simply
to obtain the
key
to the
government
warehouse. I believe that the intention
expressed
in
this
ritual,
as in Heian ritual taken as a
whole,
is to ritualize life
itself,
to leave
nothing
out of the celebration of the sacredness of
the nature of
things,
and therefore of the
things
themselves.
I
maintain, then,
that the
way
in which Chinese and native
Japanese
elements were combined in the life of the
Japanese
court
in the Heian
period gives
the
shape
of the
predominant
elite
religion
of the times. These elements were
many:
the native tradition of
divine,
solar
ancestry
of the
emperor
was
powerfully
combined
with the celestial orientation of the Chinese
Onmyo-do
ideology,
with the result that the
emperor
is the central
figure
in
many
rituals;
Shinto celebrations
centering
around
agriculture
and the
sacredness of
specific places
and ancestral
figures
are taken into
this
complex
as an added dimension of the sacred
world;
the
many
worlds and
beings
of Buddhism are added and find their
place
in
the ceremonial
year.
This
year,
at first
glance
a mere
hodgepodge
of elements and traditions from
every
conceivable
source,
becomes
a
coherent,
if eclectic whole
only
when ritual itself is seen as all
important. Therefore,
it seems to me that in the
pomp
and cere-
mony
of the rich court life of Heian
Japan
a new
religious pheno-
menon
emerges, namely,
ritual as
soteriological
in and of itself.
Just as the state becomes a ritual
community,
ritual became sal-
vation-not a means to
salvation,
but the salvation itself. Nor did
the Buddhism followed
by
the court offer much
challenge
to this
28
"Rituals: Sacred and
Profane,"
Zygon 1,
no. 1
(March
1966):
65.
119
Ritsuryo Japan
elite
religion-indeed,
it was swallowed
up
as well. The
court
liturgy
and the rituals of Buddhism reinforced each other in
spite
of historical Buddhist
terminology
to the
contrary.
Even
though
the Buddhist
language
of the
day
makes
frequent
reference to the
other world and to another dimension of
life,
the court Buddhism
was de facto self-contained: it
only pretended
to be
something
else;
its values were bound to the here and now
just
as were its
liturgies
and its magic.
The result was what Western scholars have become accustomed
to call the "rule of taste" in the life of the Heian
aristocracy.
But
I maintain that this "rule of
taste,"
this
aestheticism,
is to be
understood as a
symptom
of a
deeper
cause, namely,
the
centrality
of ritual.
Taste,
of
course,
was one's
highest goal
in ritual life: the
measure of one's worth was
given by
one's
position
in the ritual
hierarchy
and the
perfection
to which one's ritual
performance
might
attain.
But this
bright
world also had its
cloudy
moments. The dissi-
dence was voiced
only weakly
in the form of
sighs
and
complaints
of acute ennui on the
part
of a number of court ladies who
began
to write diaries
(nikki)
and fictional tales
(monogatari).
The mono-
tony
of continuous ritual enabled these ladies to see the hollowness
of this ritual as an end in itself.
Perhaps
the most famous of these
mild
cynics
was
Lady
Sei
Shonagon,
whose Makura no soshi
(Pillow Book)
is a collection of observations and
personal
reactions
to the
ordinary
events of her life. Yet even Sei
Sh6nagon
is
caught
in the web of this
life, for,
however
sharp
the barbs of her
cynicism,
however
profound
her dissatisfaction with the world as she saw
it,
she had no solution to
offer,
for it was the
only
world she saw as a
real
possibility.
In her
very
sighs,
she
employs
the rules of taste
which circumscribed her life. For
example,
she
regards
the
shugenja (shugendo practitioner,
or
yamabushi)
as "far worse" than
regular priests
because
they
are more ascetic:
they give up
women
and eat
only vegetarian
food.29 On the one
hand,
she
laughs
at
people
who
carry
such "vain
things"
as medicine stones
(kusudama,
used as
charms)
and uzuchi
(pine
sticks used to drive
away
evil
spirits),30
while on the other hand she
says
as a matter of
course,
"Upon sneezing,
one recites a chant."31
Again,
she finds a
hijiri (a
type
of
holy man) standing
at the roadside
merely
an
object
of
29
Sei
Sh6nagon,
Makura no
soshi, chap.
5
(text
in Nihon koten zensho
[Tokyo:
Tanaka
judai-ro, 1962], p. 77).
30
Ibid., chap. 23, p.
99.
31
Ibid.,
chap. 26, p.
105.
120
History of Religions
curiosity
who "said various comical
things,"
and whose manner
of behavior-the
way
he
kept "groping
with his hands for the
beads he carried and
glancing
about here and there"-she con-
sidered ludicrous. On that
occasion,
she did not bother to listen to
the Buddhist sermon at the
temple
which she was
visiting
on
pilgrimage
since her "ears were not accustomed to such
things
as
they
were not table talk."32
But an
implied
criticism of this
society
came from another
quarter, primarily
from outside the elite level. This was the criti-
cism and
challenge
of a
growing, powerful
folk
religion
which
combined an
indigenized
form of Buddhism with folk Shinto and
Onmyo-do
folk forms. This folk
religion
flowered in the Heian
period
and tended to
expand
its influence both
upward
to the elite level
and downward to the mass
religious
level. It became
especially
strong
in the latter half of the Heian
period
amid the
breakup
of
the old
Ritsuryo
ideal and the rise of a new elite in the warrior
class.
32
Ibid., chap. 31, p.
109. There was also some criticism of this
way
of life from
the moralistic Confucian
perspective.
The most
important example
of this is the
Iken
fuji
[Statement of
opinion]
of
Miyoshi Kiyotsura,
written in 914. This
Confucian scholar and
important
official
deplores
the
decay
of
morality
at the
elite level and the economic decline due to the chaos of
public
finances,
both of
which he blames on Buddhism. Amid the
growing poverty
of the nation as a
whole,
the elite seek more and more luxuries: "Each
day brought
a
change
in
costume,
each month a
change
in fashion. Bedrooms and
nightdresses
were more
beautiful,
banquets
and
dancing
more
frequent
than ever before. In this
way
half
the entire revenue was
expended" (quoted
in
George Sansom,
A
History of
Japan
to 1334
[Stanford, Calif., 1958], p. 147).
121
APPENDIX
LIST OF CHINESE AND JAPANESE WORDS
?t
~~f~
s6
jo,
iv-
Lt)1
fT
El
4?x Bf1~#a~~q
Ritsuryo
Onmy6-d6
Tao
t'ai
ling
t'ai
shih t'ai
ling, ry6
t'ien tzu
Ming T'ang
ying
wu
tenn6
Engi-shiki
My6b6
Htakase
ry6-shi
h6shiki
Gishikich6
Jingi-kan
K6nin-shiki
J6gan-shiki
yin-yang
daj6-kan
norito
matsuri
shih6hai
koch6hai
uzu-e
aouma no sechi-e
wakana no sekku
gosai-e
Konk6my6-saish6-6-ky6
nenohi no en
mochigayu
122
toka-no sechi-e
noriumi
kinensai
sekiten
kasuga no matsuri
momo
no sekku
hsien
got6
saishi6-e
kambutsu-e
kamo no
matsuri
ayame no sekku
6-harae
tanabata no matsuri
urabon-e
sumo
kitano no
matsuri
gory6-e
iwashimuzu
h6j6-e
fukandenden
ch6y6 no en
yuima-e
nilname no matsuri
gosechi no mai
butsumy6-e
tsuina no matsuri
onmy6-ry6
tama no matsuri
shory6-sai
naka-tsukasa-shi6
onmyo-ji
kimi
miyaji
iwai
oni
daidak6
sh6dak6
gohei
'IT a ti
;-
A- 7K$
A7 ~~~
sgOr It
4*
f o
f~
rg ~
4-I
5,
rr
123
kami
kemmotsu
tenyaku
otoneri
ishi
nikki
monogatari
Makura no s6shi
shugenja
shugend6
yamabushi
hijiri
Ry6iki
ama-tsu-kami, tenjin
kuni-tsu-kami,
chigi
shang
hsia shen ch'i
t'ien shen ti ch'i
Shinsen
sh6jiroku
shimbetsu
kyaku
shiki
nissha
kan-yo
niwabi-matsuri
kokane tsukuri no ta chi
kane
shirogane
nuri no
jinzo
kurogane
no
jinzo
agamono
EDITOR'S NOTE.-The above Chinese and
Japanese
characters were written
by
Mr. Eiki Hoshino.
124
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4,$t
i't^
-ikfft{#
ft
Qf $t
3^?
i^
(<
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x^5P r2f
g^t, xe^
xi:^^0
1
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