金國の祭天儀禮 --拜天と郊祀をめぐって--

Abstract

The Jin dynasty founded by the Jurchens, who gained the ascendancy in Northeast Asia in the first half of the twelfth century, overthrew both the Khitans and the Northern Song and held hegemony over Eastern Eurasia. This article examines the ritual system of the Jin dynasty in order to consider the characteristics of the dynasty and the transformation of its system of rule. In doing so, I focus in particular on rituals of sacrifice to Heaven. In the Jin dynasty there were two kinds of rituals of sacrifice to Heaven. The first was the Jurchens' traditional ritual for worshipping Heaven, which has points in common with the shamanistic rituals of sacrifice to Heaven performed by the hunter nomads of Central Eurasia. This ritual had been performed before the founding of the Jin dynasty. Initially it was performed on the fifth day of the fifth month and later came to be performed three times annually. Each time it was invariably accompanied by willow-shooting and polo, and it was strongly imbued with the character of a festival of horse-riding hunters. The ritual for worshipping Heaven was performed not only under the auspices of the emperor in the capital but also by officials and soldiers in the provinces. The willow-shooting and polo were also watched by the general populace, and it was a festival enjoyed jointly by officials and commoners. As a result, willow-shooting and polo took root in society in North China, where they remained popular until the sixteenth century during the Ming period. The second kind of ritual of sacrifice to Heaven was the suburban sacrifice, which was a Confucian-style ritual of sacrifice to Heaven that had been performed by Chinese dynasties since the Han period. Although the Jin government began introducing the institutions of Chinese dynasties in earnest from the time of Xizong 熙宗 and Hailingwang 海陵王 while also developing its own system of rule, the suburban sacrifice was not yet being performed. It was first performed in 1171 during the reign of Shizong 世宗. The direct reason for its delayed adoption was that Hailingwang had been loath to worship ancestral gods together with Heaven, but in my view a more fundamental reason was the existence of the Jurchens' ritual for worshipping Heaven. The rulers of the state of Jin considered the object of worship in both their ritual for worshipping Heaven and the suburban sacrifice to be one and the same spirit of Heaven, and for them the ritual for worshipping Heaven would have sufficed as a festival dedicated to Heaven. A factor behind the fact that Shizong nonetheless performed the suburban sacrifice was that ever since his accession to the throne, the Jin dynasty had faced a crisis that threatened its very survival because of its war with the Southern Song and a revolt among the Khitans. After having overcome this crisis, Shizong built a circular mounded altar on the southern outskirts of the Zhongdu capital, and he himself performed the suburban sacrifice to demonstrate that, having defeated the Khitans and the Northern Song, the Jin dynasty had gained legitimacy throughout the realm. The suburban sacrifice performed on this occasion was a faithful replication of that of a Chinese dynasty (the Northern Song). However, because of financial difficulties and other factors, the suburban sacrifice presided over by the emperor himself was in the end performed only three times during the Jin period. One is compelled to conclude that the acceptance of a Confucian-style ritual of sacrifice to Heaven during the Jin dynasty was quite limited. In short, from the founding of the Jin dynasty until its fall the Jurchens' ritual for worshipping Heaven consistently remained the most important ritual of sacrifice to Heaven.