日本神話に現れた「死」と「再生」 ー神話解釈史の視点からー

Abstract

Japanese mythology has been interpreted for a long time. It first began with the “Nihongikō” in the Heian period, followed by the interpretation by Shinto and Buddhist intellectuals in the Medieval period, continued in the Early Modern period by the hand of Kokugaku thinkers, and moved on to Modern period interpretations by historians, mythology scholars, Japanese literature academics and so on. “Death” and “Rebirth” in the “Kojiki” and “Nihonshoki” have been subjects of discussion in all those periods. Modern researchers reference to this day the Early Modern Kokugaku scholar Motoori Norinaga’s approach found in the “Kojikiden” as “demonstrative”. On the other hand, the approach by its disciple Hirata Atsutane in the “Tama no Mihashira”, especially with regards to Ohokuninushi, the deity worshipped at Izumo Shrine, being “Kakuri no Ōkami”, the god that rules over the souls of the dead after life, has been rejected as no more that a “theological” idea unique to Atsutane. Critics argue that this idea “twists” the original sources of the “Kojiki” and “Nihonshoki”. Critiques towards Atsutane’s “theological” approach are based on the modern academic standpoint, which also argues that the annotations on the “Nihonshoki” created by intellectuals, monks and priests of the Medieval period, are “far‐fetched” and “impractical”. As a matter of fact, Atsutane based his approach,that led to the “Kakuri no Ōkami” theory, on the Buddhist interpretation that sees “Yomotsu Kuni” as “Hell” and Susanowo as “Enma Ō” and its original deity “Jizō”, found in Ichijō Kanera’s “Nihonshoki Sanso”, Jihen’s “Kujihongi Genki”, Shunyu’s “Nihonshoki Shikenmon” and so on. This world of interpretation of the “Nihonshoki” in the Medieval period has been labeled as a forced Buddhist perspective on Classical mythology and as a two‐dimensional ideology. However, research developed in agreement with the “Postmodern” ideological movement post‐80’s, re‐evaluated this world as “mythology” that reflects the viewpoint on life and death unique to the Medieval period, and described it as “Medieval Nihongi” and “Medieval mythology” recreated by Buddhist knowledge. Moreover, the practice of creating new mythological texts based on annotations also applies to Early Modern Motoori Norinaga and Hirata Atsutane. Modelled on the Medieval mythology naming, their practice can be called “Early Modern mythology”. This new approach makes it possible to understand the meaning of the unique “mythology” that searched for the “destination of the soul after death” for the people that lived during the 18th‐19th centuries. Mythology narrates and gives meaning to the origin of reality of each period, it overcomes that “reality” and introduces “knowledge” that continues to change. This way, I have made clear in this paper that the new path for the research on mythology in the 21st century lies in the methodological stance provided by the “history of the interpretation of mythology”.