著者

鄧 麗霞

出版者

国文学研究資料館

雑誌

国際日本文学研究集会会議録 = PROCEEDINGS OF INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON JAPANESE LITERATURE (ISSN:03877280)

巻号頁・発行日

no.38, pp.77-92, 2015-03-31

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The Jikkinshō (Stories Selected to Illustrate the Ten Maxims), a collection of parables from the mid-Kamakura period, is a Confucian enlightenment text that presents ten virtues with instructional parables under each virtue, written in both Japanese and Chinese. Within these are eleven parables that concern works written by or vignettes about Confucius, the founder of Chinese Confucianism. The introduction to the Jikkinshō states that the text was compiled in order to show young men the life paths of the wise and foolish, the good and evil. To use the twentyninth story in the sixth chapter, which collects stories about Chinese wise men, as an example (wherein Confucius’s refusal to drink stolen spring water is praised), the Confucius portrayed in the Jikkinshō is a model figure, representative of wisdom and goodness. However, in the Konjaku Monogatari( Tales of Now and Then) and Uji Shūi Monogatari( Tales from Uji), which precede the Jikkinshō, parables about Confucius are all tales about his failures or comical episodes, focusing on a disgraced Confucius figure.Why did the editors of the Jikkinshō construct a Confucius image with a different character than that of the Confucius tales in the Konjaku and Uji Shūi collections? How were Confucius’s speeches or thought received in medieval Japanese literary works, and what role did they play? In order to answer these questions, it is necessary to perform an in-depth analysis on each parable that concerns Confucius in the Jikkinshō.Until now, there has been little research on Confucius-related tales in the Jikkinshō, and in particular, there has been almost no research that examines the content of the stories in a concrete way, or tries to comprehensively understand the Confucius figure depicted in these tales. This presentation will consider the formative background of the Jikkinshō while examining each story that concerns Confucius by relating it to its source. The presenter will then discuss how Confucius’s discourse and episodes about his life were received within the Jikkinshō, how they were indigenized, and what sort of lessons the editors of the Jikkinshō wanted to present through parables related to Confucius. In addition, the paper will elucidate the characteristics of the Confucius image in the Jikkinshō and consider why it was necessary for the Jikkinshō to select the discourses it did, as well as examine the actual circumstances surrounding the reception of Confucius in medieval Japanese literature.