<論説>清代後期における重慶府巴県の寺廟と地方社会 : 『巴県档案』寺廟関係档案の基礎的考察 (特集 : 祈り)

Abstract

中国近世の「祈り」の空間は、都市や農村の社会構造と関連してさまざまに論じられてきた。ただ民衆レベルの信仰は史料が絶対的に乏しいうえ、知識人の批判的な視点に基づく内容で、実態を知ることが困難である。本稿では民衆レベルの声を拾い上げられる貴重な「生」の史料として档案史料の可能性を探ってみたい。今回利用する『巴県档案』は清代後期の重慶府巴県の行政公文書であり、そのなかに多くの寺廟関係の史料がある。ここから、日常において地方官がどのような態度で寺廟に臨んでいたか、あるいは民衆がどのように寺廟に関係していたのか、社会的空間としての寺廟の実態を明らかにしうる。また『巴県档案』は一八世紀以降、二〇世紀まで連綿と残されていることから近世・近代の過渡期を映し出す史料という位置づけもでき、一九世紀半ば以降に顕著となる新しい宗教運動についても『巴県档案』は豊富な史料を残している。これらの史料の考察を通じて、日常的な「祈り」の空間を解明する基礎を構築したいと考える。

There have been a variety of studies related to urban and rural social structures on the spatial aspect of "prayer" in early-modern China. However, given the paucity of source materials on worship on the popular level and the critical view of intellectuals, it is difficult to know the reality of the situation. This article collects the voices from the popular level and attempts to explore the possibility of using these valuable "live" sources, which have not been subjected to the filtering of intellectuals, as archival data. In this endeavor, I have employed the Ba County Archives 巴県档案 that contains government documents of Ba county in Chongqing prefecture from the late Qing period and which contains many historical records of temples in the area that have not been previously employed. The content of the Ba County Archives can be divided into orders from government agencies regarding temples and source documents for legal suits, and from these sources the following can be learned regarding the temples: first what was the ordinary attitude of local officials towards the temples or how local people were related to the temples, in other words, the function of the temple as social space; and second, the actual conditions of the temples in two different societies, urban and rural. In this article, I attempt an analysis of the sites of conflict over the economic rights of temples in a stratified society by focusing concretely on the function of central temples such as those of the City God and Eastern Peak in an urban setting and cases in a specific region that is a rural setting. In addition to these source materials, I focus in particular on the example of the existence of morality books (善書 shanshu) preserved in the public documents within the Ba County Archives and conduct a basic study of them. Given the fact that the Ba County Archives was preserved continuously from the 18th century to the 20th, its significance is situated in being a historical source that reflects the period of transition from the early modern to the modern age. Moreover, the Ba County Archives retains a wealth of historical sources on new religious movements that became prominent after the latter half of the 19th century. In addition to learning of the actual state of spirit writing (扶鸞 fuluan) that became popular in Sichuan in the late 19th century, we can grasp changes such as the striking decline of the authority of the temple of the City God that had been central to the order of popular worship in the early modern period. I hope to build a foundation by which to clarify the spatial character of ordinary prayer from archival sources and through a consideration of the above circumstances.