冥界の道敎的神格 : 「急急如律令」をめぐって

Abstract

The excavation from ancient sites of wooden tablets on which spells 呪言 have been written, particularly those including the phrase "promptly in conformity with the statutes and ordinances" 急急如律令 have garnered the attention of scholars of ancient Japan. This spell, which originated in China, came to Japan in early times. The first to take note of the spell was Li Kuangyi 李匡乂 of the Tang. He understood it to mean "to be as fast as the thunderbolt demon, " but Cheng Dachang 程大昌 in the Southern Song argued instead that it meant "to act in accordance with the statues and ordinance laid down by the state." The two theories have been maintained to the present. As it has been legal historians in Japan who have taken note of this spell, they have solely problematized the legalistic phrases "in accordance with the statues and ordinances" 如律令 or "in accordance with edicts" 如詔書, and have not given sufficient consideration of its significance as a spell. The phrases "envoy of the Celestial Thearch" 天帝使者 and "[promptly] in accordance with the statues and ordinances" that recount aspects of the afterlife are found on bills for land contracts 買地券 and tickets from tombs 鎭墓券 of the Later-Han. The envoy of the Celestial Thearch 天帝 was an attendant of the highest-ranking deity of the afterlife, a celestial emperor. The relatives of the deceased would seek to have the envoy of the Celestial Thearch drive off the demon who was responsible for epidemics and who clung to the deceased and also to implore it not to attack the living. In such cases the phrase "the living and the dead shall each travel a different road" was emphasized. However, considering the reality of widespread epidemics 注病 of the Jian-an era of the Later-Han, the fear of epidemics was surely extreme, and the phrasing "jiezhu" 解注 was often employed, indicating that people sought thereby to drive off the epidemics. Nevertheless, when it comes to the tickets from tombs and bills of property sales of the Liu-Song and Southern Qi from around the fifth century, in place of the Celestial Thearch of the Later Han, there is found the deification of Taishang Laojun 太上老君, written together with the Wujidadao deity 無極大道 (神), which was elevated to the same level of divinity and which played the same role as Taishang Laojun. Furthermore, in place of the envoy of the Celestial Thearch, the divinity call Nuqing 女青 also appeared. In addition, among these excavated materials there is also found the phrase "statutes of the mystical capital" 玄都律文. These findings will surely be a great assistance in interpreting the contents and the period of creation of Daoist texts such as the Scripture of the Inner Explanations of the Three Heavens 三天内解, the Demon Statues of the Nyqing 女青鬼律, and the Text of the Mystical Capital 玄都律文.