宋代の村社と社神

Abstract

The Worshipping groups in rural communities and their objects of worship took a variety of form in the Sung. The most fundamental of them was the ts'un-she 村社 whose basic unit was the natural village ts'un 村(or li 里). This was more than a mere gathering of some interested people. Every villager, regardless of wealth, was required to join, except in some cases the extreme poor. The Sung ts'un-she retained strong influence of the past. Its main object of worship was, continuing on the tradition since the Han 漢 and T'ang 唐, the field deity 田神, and even certain remnants of the ancient tree worship was seen. The character of the deity, however, showed not insignificant change. He no longer controlled just the crop, but every aspect pertaining to the village life. Even so, on matters meaning most to the peasants e.g., prevention of drought and flood control, the situation was more like that various deities competed for their influence. The ts'un-shes of the Ming 明 were placed under the state sacrifices to the she 社 and chi 稷 deities administered by prefectures 府州 and counties 縣. The Sung government too seemed to have similar policy designs, but its efforts were largely unsuccessful. One of the reasons was that the power of the she chiover such vital matters as drought and flood was very much doubted by the peasants. The Sung ts'un-she, consequently, could retain the independant character, which was expressed in a variety of way its worship took. Since the sacrifices to the she and chi constituted an important state function, there must have been great encouragement for them on the prefectural and county level. For minor officials, however, what meant more was the traditional belief with the base in localities. Whereas the state sacrifices were often in name only, the local belief, grown out of the need in everyday life, enjoyed genuine support. This point becomes even clearer when considering alongside the existence of the she-ch'uang 社倉 granary throughout the Sung.