<論説>古代中国の墓と霊魂のまつり --前漢時代における墓と廟の変革-- (特集 : まつり)

Abstract

中国では戦国後期から漢代にかけて、陵墓制度に大きな変化が生じ、陵園内外に寝や廟などの建築が造営されるようになった。秦始皇帝陵では墳丘の北西に陵寝建築を置き、前漢皇帝陵ではそれを踏襲しながら墳丘の東南に陵廟を設置した。その陵廟の構造は、長安南郊の明堂や王莽九廟の構造と近似し、明堂と宗廟の構造を同じものとする漢代の学者たちの解釈をもとに設計されたと推定される。漢代における陵廟の出現は、墓に死者の霊魂がとどまるという観念にもとづくもので、それにともなって墓の内部にも霊魂の居処となる神坐が設置された。その初期の事例が前二世紀の馬王堆漢墓と満城漢墓である。それらの神坐は、宗廟での祖先祭祀にならい、西側に帷帳・席・几などを東面して設置し、その前に食膳具などをならべたものであった。そして、本来は目に見えることのない死者自身があたかもそこにいるかのようにして、霊魂のまつりがおこなわれたのである。

According to the traditional Chinese view of the soul (霊魂), a living person is composed of two elements, the spirit (魂) and the body (魄), and it was believed that a person died when the two were separated. Custom deemed it proper to bury the body after death in a tomb (墓) and to worship the separated soul in a mausoleum shrine (廟). According to the Confucian view, a funeral ceremony in which the body is buried was an inauspicious rite, while a ritual worshiping the soul was an auspicious one, and a clear distinction should be made between the two. However, this was only the Confucians ideal of correct ritual protocol, and since ancient times, rituals for the souls of the dead were often performed in front of tombs and inside tomb chambers. I wish to note in particular that the ceremonies performed inside the tombs, which have been reconstructed from archaeological studies, are very similar to descriptions in classical texts of how rites for ancestral spirits were worshipped in ancestral shrines (宗廟). Based on this understanding, this paper aims to elucidate the relationship between ancient Chinese tombs and rituals in ancestral shrines by comparing the results of archaeological excavations with descriptions in classical texts. First, I organized the contents of the rituals described in the Yili (Book of Rites) and examined the relationship between mourning and funeral ceremonies (喪葬儀礼) and ancestral shrine rituals (宗廟祭祀) in ancient China, as well as the space in which they were performed. The Yili summarizes the procedures for ceremonies such as weddings and funerals performed by the ancient aristocracy, and describes in detail the behavior, clothing, and arrangement of offerings of the people participating in the ceremonies. According to these accounts, in the last stage of the mourning and funeral rites, the body of the deceased was buried in the grave and then the soul that had been brought back from the grave was comforted in a ritual known as the yu 虞 through which mourning gradually becomes lighter, and the inauspicious ritual was transformed into an auspicious one. In addition, by focusing on the ceremonial place, I confirmed that the seating for both the yu ritual and the ancestral spirit rites were placed in the southwest corner of the room facing eastward, and that this was the place where the spirits of the dead or of persons dressed as the dead were worshipped. Next, I examined the structural characteristics of the archaeologically excavated ancestral shrines and revealed that their structure and layout changed greatly during the Western Han Dynasty. I then concluded that these changes in ancestral shrines reflected changes in mourning and funeral rites and views of the soul in the same era. From the late Warring States period to the Han Dynasty, there was a major change in the tomb (陵墓) system, and ritual structures began to be built inside and outside the mausoleum's precincts (陵園). In the Mausoleum of Qin Shi Huang, a ritual building was placed near a mound in the northwest to serve as a living space for his soul, and the mausolea of the emperors of the Western Han dynasty followed this pattern, but the shrines for rites for their souls were set up in the southeast of the mound. The structure of the mausolea are similar to those of the Mingtang and Wang Mang Nine Temples 王莽 九廟 in the southern suburbs of Chang'an. They are similar in that they were decorated with tiles with the four directional gods. This structure is very different from the temples of the pre-Qin period, and it is presumed that that design was based on the views of Han Dynasty scholars who interpreted the Mingtang as the temple of the Son of Heaven. The reason that a mausoleum was set up next to the tomb during the Western Han Dynasty was because it was thought that the soul of the deceased would continue to live in the tomb, and in addition, a spirit seat (神坐) was set up inside the tomb to serve as a place for the soul. The earliest examples are found in the Mawangdui tombs 馬王堆漢墓 and the Mancheng tombs 満城漢墓 from the 2nd century BC. The spirit seats installed inside these tombs were set up on the west side facing eastward, and the food utensils were placed in front of it, following the ancestral rituals at ancestral shrine. Then, as if the dead themselves who would have been invisible, were there in attendance, rituals were performed for the souls of the dead.