唐代傳奇「枕中記」の“夢”と“異界”を巡る物語認識の變容 --『太平廣記』の分類を手がかりに--

Abstract

Zhen zhong ji 枕中記 (Record of the World Inside a Pillow) is the famous story in the Tang dynasty, the summary of which is as follows: A young man Lu Sheng 盧生 spent his another life in a pillow given by a Daoist monk Lü Weng 呂翁 in an inn of Handan 邯鄲, but after Lu Sheng woke up to find that the long time he spent in the pillow was only fraction of time. “Zhen zhong ji” is nowadays known as the dream story, which “Lu Sheng dreamed his another life in his sleep”, and is generally interpreted as the fable influenced by the Daoist or Buddhist idea like that “Life is but an empty dream”. In other words the world inside the pillow where Lu Sheng spent his another life is considered as “his fragile dream”. In contrast with such today's view of this story, Tai ping guang ji 太平廣記 compiled in the Northern Song 北宋 dynasty categorized “Zhen zhong ji” not into the Meng-bu 夢部 (the section of dreams) but into Yiren-bu 異人部 (the section of extraordinary person). The dreams depicted in “the Meng-bu” of Tai ping guang ji work as the medium which brings men into contact with the dead or the gods, and sometimes leads them to the after-life or the past era through sleep, therefore the dreams of this section is anything but mere “an illusion”. Although depicted the element of sleep or dream, “Zhen zhong ji” was not categorized into “Meng-bu” of Tai ping guang ji. It means that the editors of Tai ping guang ji did not consider it as a story in which Lu Sheng went to the world inside the pillow mediated by “the dream”. On the other hand, “Yiren-bu” consists essentially of the stories of an extraordinary person on the street. In other words the editors of Tai ping guang ji regarded “Zhen zhong ji” as a story of the extraordinary person Lü Weng who educates an ordinary person. When one see this story in terms of Lü Weng as the protagonist of the story such as Tai ping guang ji, one can interpret that his pillow is not so much a mere tool for sleep but a magical divice which include another world inside it, because Lü Weng can be an extraordinary person by reason that he has a magical pillow and invites Lu Sheng to the world inside his pillow for educating him. Most readers in after ages, however, regarded an ordinary person Lu Sheng as the protagonist of “Zhen zhong ji”. Nowadays they draw little attention to specialty of the extraordinary person Lü Weng's pillow, and turned out to view another world inside his pillow as the empty illusion Lu Sheng dreamed. It means that people's view of “Zhen zhong ji” has changed between the Northern Song when Tai ping guang ji was compiled and the present day.