著者

丸橋 充拓

出版者

東洋史研究会

雑誌

東洋史研究 (ISSN:03869059)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.72, no.3, pp.398-424, 2013-12

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The Da Tang Kai-yuan Li 大唐開元禮, compiled in the eighth century in China, is a corpus of ancient rituals of state, into which military rituals were incorporated. We can divide the military rituals into two categories. One type is composed of rituals performed in wartime, and the other is training rituals conducted in peacetime. I would like to focus on the former in this paper. The Kai-yuan Li prescribed that at the beginning and the end of warfare, a series of ceremonials were to be carried out at the Ancestral Temple 太廟 and the Altar of Earth 太社, where the commander would announce his departure and return to the spirits of the previous rulers and the gods of localities. In addition, when the emperor was personally leading troops in battle, he would offer the sacrifice to Heaven at the Round Altar 圜丘 in the suburban area of the capital. It had been common practice to carry out the ceremonials at the Ancestral Temple and the Altar of Earth from prior to the Han period. In contrast, it was during the latter half of the Former-Han period that the sacrifice to the Heaven was united with these two ceremonials by Confucian scholars, who had just assumed power and established their ritualism. We can see the extent of their theoretical achievements in the Li ji. However, officials and scholars often disputed how to put the theory into practice and organize the rites of state. The main issue was whether the sacrifice to Heaven should be carried out after victorious troops returned to the capital. According to the pertinent passage of the Li ji, Confucian Ritualism prescribed that the sacrifice be held only on the occasion of marching off to war. But the sacrifice after warfare was, in fact, frequently performed in the Han, Wei, Jin, and the Southern Dynasties. On the other hand, it was in the Northern Dynasties that the ritual theory, which did not refer to the postwar sacrifice, was faithfully observed. The afore-mentioned Tang ritual followed the tradition of those of the Northern Dynasties, especially that of the Bei-Qi. In addition to the above considerations, I analyzed the reason why war would be started and ended through ritual procedures rather than those of law, even though the warfare was closely related to legitimate violence. The right of command in the battlefield was not vested in the ruler himself. Military force was to be authorized by the spirits of the previous rulers, the gods of the localities, and Heaven. Therefore, the reigning ruler needed to perform the rituals in order to confirm and emphasize his direct ties with those supernatural forces.