著者

吉野 裕子

出版者

日本文化人類学会

雑誌

民族學研究 (ISSN:00215023)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.41, no.1, pp.30-56, 1976

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Ancient Chinese philosophy had considered Chaos (混沌) as the one and only primal absolute force. Out of this Chaos rose the clear and clean Yang (陽) atomosphere to become Heaven, while the dark and murky Yin (陰) atomosphere sank to become Land. Since Heaven and Land are the off-springs of the same maternal substance, it was thought that they should always mingle with each other. As knowledge of astrology deepened and expanded, the non-moving North Star was located and confirmed in the northern sky. This star was then considered as the center of the universe and sanctified as Tai-Yi (太一) . Tai-Yi evolved into one unity with Chaos and became the Supreme Ultimate(太極) . The Big Dipper (北斗) , because of its regular movement around the North Star, was thought of as either Tai-Yi's minister or his vehicle, while also being worshipped as the agricultural god. But couldn't there have been a much simpler reason giving rise to the worship of the Big Dipper ? What makes the Big Dipper so prominent in the night sky is its special spoon-shaped appearance. The Chinese worship and pay tribute to their ancesters. Their ritual is centered around food. It could be that their thought followed the pattern that if they offered food to the heavenly big spoon, the Big Dipper, it would reach the ancestral God of the universe. Incidentally, there is another big spoon besides the Big Dipper in the sky. It is the South Dipper (南斗) in Sagittarius. The ancient Chinese considered this star as the 'Mausoleum' enshrining the ancestral soul. As already expounded, Chinese philosophy has conceived the theory that the sky and the earth were of the same origin. Thus the celestial image was symbolically employed for the imperial court infrastructure. The emperor was considered to be the son of the heavenly king, and the central imperial courtyard was modeled after Tai-Yi's palace. It is said that the northern section of the palace of the Han dynasty was modeled after the Big Dipper, while the southern section, after the South Dipper. The writer assumes that the symbolic embodiment on the earth of these three heavenly bodies were accepted in Japan and its imitation completed in the era of Emperor Temmu (ruled : 672-686) . Through the spoon of the northern and sonthern dippers, offerings finally reach the ancestral god, the North Star. With the North Star forming the nucleus, the angle formed by the North and South Dippers is 67°. This infrastructure is reflected in the construction of the festival hall and the venue of Ohname-sai (大嘗祭-the festival honoring the ancestral soul during the imperial enthronement) of the Ise Shrine as clearly shown in Fig. I through Fig. 5. The Kammiso Festivals (神衣祭-the ritual in which wearing apparels are offered to the ancestral god) of the Ise Shrine are observed twice a year in spring and autumn, but it is full of mystery. The South Dipper is visible from May through October, and the festivals are held when the star becomes visible and when it disappears. The latter is the occasion of the Kammiso Festival. Offerings to the ancestral god are only possible when the big spoon appears. The confirmation of the big spoon is the ritual of the Kammiso Festival which is followed immediately by the Kan-name Festival (神嘗祭) , the food offering ritual to the ancestral god. The Ise Shrine enshrines the imperial ancestral god, Amaterasu (天照), the Goddess of the Sun. Chinese philosophy, hand in hand with astrology, highly esteems the Nohth Star, Tai-Yi (太一) as the fundamental factor of the universe. The incarnation of Amaterasu and Tai-Yi has explained in the writer's previous reportwhich stated in sum as the unification of the Sun and stars.