著者

MARRA Claudia

出版者

長崎外国語大学

雑誌

長崎外大論叢 = The Journal of Nagasaki University of Foreign Studies (ISSN:13464981)

巻号頁・発行日

no.20, pp.47-55, 2016-12-30

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AbstractEven considering Japan’s high literacy rates during the early modern period, it is rather unlikely, that the majority of the Japanese population would have been able to read and understand an important Buddhist text like the Heart Sutra, 般若心経. This naturally posed a problem for the monastic schools, who competed with the rather easy to practice Pure Land and Amida schools, and needed to become more accessible to their lay-supporters. An answer to this problem presented itself in the form of Hanjimono (判じ物), rebus-like allusions, using pictures to represent words or parts of words. Usually used for playfull riddles, artists would also use Hanjimono to represent their names and sometimes even short subversive slogans. It were monks from the Tohoku area who adopted Hanjimono to represent the Heart Sutra and thus helped to make it accessible to the illiterate lay people. The considerations behind that practice are topic of this paper.概要江戸時代に日本の高い識字率にもかかわらず、一般の日本人は般若心経の様な代表的な仏教の経文を読める事が不可能であっただろう。この問題を解決するために普段言葉遊びに使われた判じ物が利用される事になった。東北の寺で制作が始まった判じ物の絵般若心経は全国に広まった。この絵般若心経の意図するところを明らかにするのが、本論文のテーマである。