Ritsury Japan: The State as Liturgical CommunityAuthor(s): Alan L. MillerReviewed work(s):Source: History of Religions, Vol. 11, No. 1 (Aug., 1971), pp. 98-124Published by: The University of Chicago PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1061785 .Accessed: 16/06/2012 10:25

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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.

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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

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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.

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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

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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

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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.

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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.).

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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.

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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.

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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).

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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

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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.

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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

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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).

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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.

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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.

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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,

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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?

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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

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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

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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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Article Contentsp. 98p. 99p. 100p. 101p. 102p. 103p. 104p. 105p. 106p. 107p. 108p. 109p. 110p. 111p. 112p. 113p. 114p. 115p. 116p. 117p. 118p. 119p. 120p. 121p. 122p. 123p. 124

Issue Table of ContentsHistory of Religions, Vol. 11, No. 1 (Aug., 1971), pp. 1-160Front MatterSpirit, Light, and Seed [pp. 1-30]"Verstehen" and "Erlsung": Some Remarks on Joachim Wach's Work [pp. 31-53]Perspectives for a Study of Afro-American Religion in the United States [pp. 54-66]Adde Parvum Parvo Magnus Acervus Erit [pp. 67-90]The Poverty of Functionalism [pp. 91-97]Ritsury Japan: The State as Liturgical Community [pp. 98-124]Notes on a Neopagan Religious Group in America [pp. 125-139]Book ReviewsReview: The Prehistory of Indian Religion [pp. 140-146]Review: Anthropological Psychoanalysis of Religion [pp. 147-156]Review: A Buddho-Taoist Sect in Modern China [pp. 157-160]

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