著者

武藤 美枝子

出版者

法政大学大学院 国際日本学インスティテュート専攻委員会

雑誌

国際日本学論叢 = 国際日本学論叢 (ISSN:13491954)

巻号頁・発行日

no.15, pp.122-102, 2018-04-17

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In November every year, a ritual was held in the imperial court to offer the newly harvested rice to deities. On the last day of the ritual event, a banquet was given by the emperor for courtiers. The highlight of the banquet (Toyoakari-no-sechi-e) was Gosechi-no-mai, which was danced by four (or five) gorgeously dressed young ladies. Courtiers, men and women, all looked forward to this feast. To provide a dancer, however, was a highly costly operation, and therefore, not many aristocrats were willing to undertake the task, thus, royal ladies, too, were sometimes asked to provide a dancer. In the second year of Eien, (or yr. 988), Kotaigo provided a dancer. The word Kotaigo could mean the wife of the former emperor or the empress mother. In the previous papers by three researchers, this Kotaigo was assumed as Junshi, who was the wife of the former emperor En-yu. This paper clarifies that the Kotaigo in 988 cannot be Junshi, but must be Senshi, the Empress Mother. The confusion presumably came from Eiga Monogatari or A Tale of Flowering Fortunes — Annals of Japanese Aristocratic Life in the Heian Period, which reads that Junshi provided a dancer in the year when the 60th birthday of Fujiwara-no-Kaneie was celebrated, i.e, in 988. The descriptions of Junshi providing a dancer in the Tale, however, were too concrete and detailed to be a mere fabrication. Following the descriptions of the Tale, this paper concludes that Junshi did provide a dancer, but it was not in 988 but in 987.