| Budget Amount *help |
¥3,300,000 (Direct Cost: ¥3,300,000)
Fiscal Year 2006: ¥500,000 (Direct Cost: ¥500,000)
Fiscal Year 2005: ¥700,000 (Direct Cost: ¥700,000)
Fiscal Year 2004: ¥700,000 (Direct Cost: ¥700,000)
Fiscal Year 2003: ¥1,400,000 (Direct Cost: ¥1,400,000)
|
|---|
| Research Abstract |
1.We compiled a database on letters of the Heian period (794-1185). The data were categorized into three groups the information included in the extant writings from the period the information not included in the remaining works; and the information on the cultural objects exchanged with other countries. We collected various styles of letters (messages from emperors, commands from ex-emperors, orders from crown princesses, various decrees, mandates from regents and chancellors, other public instructions, opinion papers, letters, private messages, requests, invitations and so on) and drew up a chart describing each writing's name, the dates on the Japanese calendar and the dominical year, senders' messages, respectful subscripts, superscriptions, addresses, additional terms for the addressees, the opening lines, the ending phrases, the sources, the possessors and the explanatory notes. The period described in the writings is from the fifth year of Konin (814) to the second year of Genrya
… More
ku (1185).
2.The writing styles were introduced from China to ancient Japan just like other styles of documentation. This study explored the letters seen in Shosoin literature, strips of wood on which official messages were written, and Man'yoshu (Collection of Ten Thousand Leaves) from the seventh to the eighth century, and pointed out that in our country the style of letters was initially used on public occasions of the Imperial Court, and not for private purposes.
3.This paper examined the characteristics of ancient Japanese society by comparing the rules of its letters with the Chinese models of Tang dynasty. In China, the styles of retainers' letters to emperors, those ' subjects' statements and their opinion papers were specified in the instruction manual and procedures for submitting subjects' letters to the emperors were prescribed in the special law of the dynasty. Our country followed the pattern of the Chinese guide and adopted the procedures for sending the subjects' letters to emperors, but the country did not employ the system for retainers and individuals submitting their letters to the emperors in regard to successors' accession to the throne. This stemmed from the differences in the relationships between emperors and their retainers in China and the relationships between the Japanese emperors, tenno, and their retainers.
4.In describing the establishment of the style of documented instructions in the middle of the Heian era, this study illustrated the issue with some examples of emperors' messages. The paper conducted a comprehensive analysis of the messages of kurodo, courtiers holding the fifth rank in the Emperor's Chamber, written in the diaries of Heian aristocrats and the emperors' messages as public documents. As a result, this thesis pointed out that the style of those emperors' messages was established during the reign of the Emperor Goichijo and that against this background there occurred the major political change of communicating emperors' commands through the channels of the fifth-ranking courtiers amidst the situation where the Grand Council of State and the kurodo section took charge of implementing various imperial formalities. Less
|
