古代日本の神仏信仰

要旨

The beginnings of Shinto shrines in ancient Japan have been found in many areas of the Japanese archipelago dating from around the late Kofun period. Religious relics directly connected to later shrines were found at remote locations on the fringe of the world, at high elevations or great depths, such as subterranean locations, deep in the mountains or far out to sea. Rituals performed at water sources that watered farmland later became local tutelaries or ubusuna shrines. It may be said that the universalization of ritual artifacts that appeared in these rituals from the latter half of the 5th century to the beginning of the 6th century reflects the establishment of some kind of institution within the Yamato court related to the worship of kami. Viewed in terms of the history of documents, this constitutes the formation of official regulations in the Kinmei era, but whether or not it signified the establishment of an “official system,” we can be certain that religious clans such as the Nakatomi and Inbe were formed and that integrated rituals linking the political center with the regions and a mythological view of the world were envisioned. At this time, religious concepts from China and Korea, augurs and ritual methods were brought into Japan, and it is worth noting that these had a huge impact on the establishment of Shinto beliefs in the Japanese archipelago. In the Tenmu and Jito eras, the period when the ritsuryo state was formed, ritsuryo rituals, typified by offerings and prayers for a bountiful harvest and the Jingikan (Ministry of Shinto), which administered such rituals, were established accompanying the compilation of the “Asuka Kiyomihararyo.” At this time, “shrines” were selected mainly from those at sites of rituals in each region that had close ties with imperial authority and as spaces that had been solemnized in order to receive official offerings (heihaku) were built as official state shrines. Accordingly, shrines necessarily came to possess a dual structure of rituals that were associated with imperial power and their locality. The “Taiho Jingiryo” (regulations concerning kami in the Taiho Code), which served as the blueprint for the former, established rituals that were distinct from the “Ciling” of Tang China and official rituals of Silla, and this“ purified ideology” was at the very least far removed from the latter. Changes to ritsuryo rituals in the Heian period, the decline of some official state shrines and the growth of a variety of religious sites that are believed to have existed prior to the ritsuryo system, in large part originated from the dilemma presented by this dual structure. Although it had been hoped that the granting of ranks to kami and the granting of myojin taisha status or other status to shrines, which became widespread in the middle of the Nara period, would resolve the contradictions on both sides, these measures proved insufficient to fill this gulf. As a result of the propagation of state-sanctioned Buddhism in the Shomu era, Buddhism emerged as a new method of worship and gave rise to the first period of the syncretization of Shinto and Buddhism in which the power of Buddha revitalized Shinto kami. Although according to the “Honji-suigaku” theory of Shinto-Buddhist syncretism this became even stronger, we cannot ignore that this correlativity with Buddhism as seen in the adoption of shaden (shrine halls) and images and statues of kami brought about a clarification of Shinto beliefs. By the Heian period, offerings and prayers for a bountiful harvest, which illustrate the essence of ritsuryo rituals, disappeared and the control of worship at each shrine had been transferred from state officials to provincial officials. This practice which brought about the start of provincial offerings, gained pace as the authority of provincial officials burgeoned accompanying the formation of the imperial state, and eventually led to the establishment of soja and ichinomiya shrines. Meanwhile,

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