唐代皇帝祭祀の親祭と有司攝事

Abstract

In the imperial sacrifices of the Tang, it was the rule that the important state sacrifices (jiaoji 郊祀) and the ancestral sacrifices (zongmiao 宗廟) were performed by the emperor in person. However, there was also a system whereby these were performed on his behalf by a "representative authority" (yousi sheshi 有司攝事). There is a wealth of reference in the sources to the emperor performing the sacrifices in person, but there is little about the "representative authority." Without a clear understanding of the relationship between the two, it is impossible to make proper use of existing references to the imperial sacrifices. This essay presents several conclusions. First, following the clue that the ceremony to congratulate the emperor (chaojia 朝賀) on the day of the winter solstice was cancelled when the emperor performed the state sacrifices in person on that day, we can conclude that there must have been an extremely high incidence of the representative authority performing the sacrifices instead. Second, there were differences in the scale, expense and participants depending on whether the sacrifices were performed by the emperor or by the representative. Moreover, in the case of the emperor, an edict announcing the event had to be issued about two months in advance. Finally, the paper details the ranks of the officials who, as representative authorities, performed the periodic ancestral sacrifices (zhengji 正祭). Within this group, the position of the Three Dukes (sangong 三公), except for imperial male relatives, was limited to high officials of the Department of State affairs (Shangshusheng 尚書省) or the East Palace Bureau (donggongfu 東宮府). Furthermore, the paper describes the tendency for the representative authorities to be poorly regarded. The above points illustrate that there was a big difference between the emperor performing the sacrifices in person and the representative authority doing the job. Therefore, all the more, there was great concern over the emperor performing the sacrifices in person. Accordingly, it is confirmed that there is little need to worry about the significance of imperial sacrifices that are not documented in remaining sources, and it is possible to make full use of existing materials on the imperial sacrifices to reflect the actual situation in the Tang dynasty.