Performative Loci of the Imperial Edicts in Nara Japan, 749-70

要旨

The purpose of this paper is to examine the performative loci of the imperial edicts during the reign of the "Last Empress," Koken-Shotoku (r. 749-70)--their historical setting, geographical locale, and sometimes even the audiences for these royal pronouncements. This is the era in which fully half of the senmyo were recorded in Shoku Nihongi, and during which the production of the edicts inscribed in Chinese were also at their peak. The court annals of this period depict the reign of a powerful woman in a tumultuous epoch, as the Last Empress staved off challenges to her power from her royal cousins, and, in the famous denouement of her reign,ns of attempted to hand the throne to a Buddhist priest, not of imperial lineage, who may or may not have been her lover.

主題