Sokendai Review of Cultural and Social Studies

ENGLISH SUMMARY

Some Problems On the Character of the Lunyu Yishu
Quoted in the Ryō no Shūge:
―The Section on the Five Constant Virtues (wuchang)―

TAKADA ,Sōhei

(The Graduate University for Advanced Studies, School of Cultural and Social Studies,
Department of Japanese History)

Key words;

Ryō no shūge, Tanaka manuscript, Lunyu yishu, old copies, Tang copy, Dunhuang manuscript of Lunyu shu, main text

This article examines the character of the Lunyu yishu quoted in the Ryō no shūge with a view to elucidating the character of the Lunyu yishu during the Nara and Heian periods, and it represents an interdisciplinary study combining Japanese historiography and Sinology.

Past research on Chinese works quoted in the Ryō no shūge has used the text of the Ryō no shūge included in the Kokushi taikei series, deemed to be the best printed edition, but there have been two problems with this approach. One is that research has been pursued without any adequate elucidation of the character of its base text, a manuscript formerly in the possession of Tanaka Noritada (hereafter: Tanaka manuscript), and the other is that when investigating Chinese works quoted in the Ryō no shūge use has been made of texts that had not reached Japan or texts that are inappropriate in view of the date of composition of the Ryō no shūge. These textual problems relating to the choice of the text of the Ryō no shūge can also be pointed out in foregoing studies of the Lunyu yishu quoted in the Ryō no shūge by Takahashi Hitoshi and Yamaguchi Yōji.

First, I undertake a careful survey of the various texts of the Ryō no shūge and, by comparing the Lunyu yishu quoted in these texts with the Lunyu yishu quoted in other early and medieval Japanese works, old copies of the Lunyu yishu, and the Dunhuang manuscript of the Lunyu shu, I investigate the textual affiliations of the Lunyu yishu that was circulating during the Nara and Heian periods, thereby contributing to research on the history of scholarship. I accordingly collated the various texts of the Ryō no shūge with a focus on the section on the five constant virtues (wuchang) in the Lunyu yishu as quoted in the Ryō no shūge and then compared this with the Lunyu yishu quoted in other early and medieval Japanese works. As a result, it was found that, when compared with other texts, the Tanaka manuscript has many presumably scribal errors and can hardly be described as a reliable text, and therefore great care would seem to be needed when using the Kokushi taikei edition based on the Tanaka manuscript.

Further, it is to be surmised that the Lunyu yishu quoted in the Ryō no shūge preserves the original form of the main text of the Lunyu yishu at the time when it was brought to Japan and of the text deriving from the Tang copy of the Lunyu yishu. But at the same time it also represents a secondary form quoted in the Ryō no shūge, and one needs to bear in mind the possibility that it may have been modified by the Japanese who quoted it.

Next, since the Lunyu yishu quoted in the Ryō no shūge and the Dunhuang manuscript of the Lunyu shu may be assumed to belong to different manuscript families, it is to be surmised that during the Tang there existed at least a text close to the Lunyu yishu quoted in the Ryō no shūge and a text deriving from the Dunhuang manuscript of the Lunyu shu.

On the basis of the above, one aspect of the character of the Lunyu yishu quoted in the Ryō no shūge has become clear, and this in turn is an indication of the character of the Lunyu yishu during the Nara and Heian periods. Further investigations are necessary in order to determine the manner in which the text of the Lunyu yishu quoted in the Ryō no shūge has modified the text deriving from the Tang copy of the Lunyu yishu, and this will be a task for the future. The elucidation of this will no doubt raise further questions relating to the reconstruction of the original form of the copy of the Lunyu yishu that was circulating in the Nara and Heian periods and the logic followed by legal scholars when quoting from Chinese works in the Ryō no shūge.