伎樂源流考

Abstract

Gigaku is the oldest known form of drama in Japan. Though we are unusually fortunate in possessing the masks and other articles used in this drama form, we have little more than a general idea of its contents. There are various theories tracing its origin to Greece, Southeast Asia, Tibet and China respectively, though all are conjectural. Although the faces of the masks do not resemble Mongoloid peoples, in view of the trading conditions which prevailed at the time of the appearance of gigaku in Japan, we must assume that the majority of the masks and other objects were imported from China. This is no doubt the reason that the Japanese called the drama kure-no-utamai or the "Music of Wu" 吳樂' Wu being a region on the coast of central China. One important piece of evidence which supports the theory of the Chinese origin of gigaku, hitherto overlooked by scholars, is the Shang-yün-yüeh 上雲樂 of the Liang 粱 poet Chou She 周捨 included in the Yüeh-fu shih-chi 樂府詩集. There seems to be no doubt that the lao-hu 老胡 or "old barbarian" and the men-t'u 門徒 or "follower", who are so fond of drinking, correspond to the suikoô 醉胡王 or "drunken barbarian prince" and suikojū 醉胡從 or "drunken barbarian attendant" of the gigaku play Suiko. Chinese scholars of the history of drama have in recent times begun to utilize the evidence of Japanese bugaku masks in the study of the drama of the T'ang period, but they have not yet made similar use of the gigaku masks in their researches on Six Dynasties drama.