「前四史」夷狄列傳に見える四夷觀念の展開

Abstract

This paper focuses on the concept of the Four Barbarians 四夷 within the ideology that emphasized the Hua-Yi 華夷 distinction by comparing the Shiji, the Hanshu, the Sanguozhi, and the Houhanshu, which are collectively known as the “First Four Histories” 前四史, in order to demonstrate the interrelationship between the Hua-Yi distinction and history books from the Han Dynasty to the Six Dynasties. The Shiji reflected the situation of the Former Han Dynasty that confronted the Xiongnu, a newly prominent potential “enemy country” 敵國. Therefore, the treatise on the Xiongnu 匈奴列傳 was positioned within the framework of the war against the Xiongnu, and the Xiongnu were never placed in the same category as other barbarians. In addition, the treatise on the Dayuan 大宛列傳, which was traditionally regarded as one of the treatises on barbarians, must be regarded as a description of talent and deeds of figures related to the Dayuan based on its placement in the Shiji and the fact that it mainly describes the arrival of Zhang Qian 張騫 at the Daxia大夏. The Hanshu, which was compiled during the former half of the Later Han Dynasty when the Han had already won the war against the Xiongnu, organized treatises on barbarians under the Four Barbarians concept that understood barbarians unitarily, including the Xiongnu and the Western Region 西域 as the “Outsiders” beyond the Zhonghua中華. Behind the fact that the Sanguozhi had only treatises on the northern and the eastern barbarians was the tripartite division of China into the three kingdoms and the circumstances of the establishment of the Western Jin Dynasty. Given such a unique background, the Sanguozhi positioned the northern barbarians as a threat to China, while positioning the eastern barbarians as ones who understood “courtesy” 禮, which indicates a trend to make ideological discrimination among the Four Barbarians. Behind the compilation of the Houhanshu was a complex international situation involving confronting the invasion of the Five Barbarians 五胡, and it highlighted the two differing aspects of “violence” 暴 and “courtesy” among the Four Barbarians. It positioned the northern and the western barbarians as characterized by “violence” but positioned the eastern barbarians as knowing “courtesy, ” and further more showed the possibility of civilizing the southern barbarians. In addition, by placing Shendu 身毒, the birthplace of Buddhism, into the treatise on the Western Region, it included that area, which had maintained an independent order based on Buddhism, into the “outside area” 外區of the Four Barbarians that did not recognize the “courtesy” of China, and thereby developing multi-dimensional distinctions among the Four Barbarians. Thus “The First Four Histories, ” influenced by domestic and foreign affairs from the era of Emperor Wu of the Former Han Dynasty to the early stage of the Liu-Song Dynasty of the Six Dynasties, positioned multi-dimensional barbarians from the “outside” into the dynastic histories on the basis of the concept of the Four Barbarians.