麹氏高昌國における王令とその傳達 : 下行文書「符」とその書式を中心として

Abstract

The Gaochang kingdom under the Qu dynasty (A.D. 501-640) was a small kingdom in Central Asia, influenced by Chinese culture. Within this kingdom, any order received from the king was made into a preliminary government document known as ling 令. These were rewritten as nuo 諾, "a word of sanction by the king" by high-officials in the menxia 門下 branch of the government structure. These officials would then send the nuo to the Relations department of the shangshu 尚書, which functioned as another branch of the government. That department issued a document naming the person in charge (called simazhuzhe 司馬主者 in Junxian 郡縣) who was responsible for carrying out the matter that had been ordered. This document was called a fu 符. A bureaucrat from this department signed this agreement, however, the column reserved for dating was at that time left blank. A copy of this document was made and it was then returned to the menxia branch. Upon receipt of the king's orders, the Relations department would draw up another document known as a fu, the purpose of which was to appoint an official to enforce the decree. An official of the menxia branch inspected this document, and after that entered a date. The shangshu branch then issued this document to the responsible official as a fu. This system of the communication of the orders of a king via a document known as a fu is described and analyzed in this paper.