著者

窪 徳忠

出版者

日本文化人類学会

雑誌

民族學研究 (ISSN:24240508)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.24, no.1-2, pp.412-437, 1960-03-25 (Released:2018-03-27)

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Since the Edo period there has been a prevailing opinion, that the origin of the Japanese Koshin Belief had been derived from Taoism in China, but in recent years Japanese folklorists, with Mr. Kunio YANAGITA as the leader, have come to assert that it was native to Japan. Up to now neither has yet claimed a definite conclusion on this question. The writer thinks that both hypotheses have weaknesses in their methodologies : the former referred only to the literature without reaching into the folk beliefs and customs of the Edo period ; the latter depends only on the results of field work with the presumed ignorance of historical documents. In addition, neither the former nor the latter compare Japanese Koshin Belief in detail with Taoism at all. The writer intends to synthesize the historical records from the Heian period, when Koshin Belief began to appear in Japan, to Meiji Era, with recent field work results, and to compare it with Chinese Taoism and the functions of the Chinese Koshin Belief. He assumed that this method would be the best to determine whether the Koshin Belief has its origin in Japan or not. As the result, Japanese Koshin Belief has come to be judged as the complex of Chinese Taoism, Buddhism including the esoteric form, Shintoism, Shugendo, magical medicine and various Japanese folk beliefs and customs. This study has been published by him under the title of Koshin Belief in Japan. His view-point has been furthermore substantiated by his field research throughout Japan excluding Hokkaido and by his bibliographic survey on this subject. The Japanese folklorist school still insists strongly on the Japanese origin. But he cannot rely on their methodology and is suspicious of how they deal with the data the amount of which in their possession seems not sufficient enough to be handled quantitatively, as well as qualitatively. He can hardly, at present, say whether it was native to Japan, and thinks that he does not need to correct his opinion which Mr. YANAGITA should take into account.