薫衣香と東アジア香薬交易

Abstract

The fragrance that appears in The Tale of Genji originally came from the continent in the Nara period along with Buddhism and medicine. Accordingly, most of the perfumes used as ingredients for the fragrance are from outside the country. In the Heian period, only a limited number of dynastic families and aristocrats of the highest rank knew how to do it, and each family handed it down as a secret story. In this study, the substance of “Kunjuruisho” was first revealed through “Kunjuruisho” a traditional book on the blending method of Kaoru in the Heian period. Furthermore, it was confirmed that the incense was brought from Silla at that time through “買新羅物解” a record of trade related to actual spices. In other words, Kaoru-ko is imported from overseas and was not created in Japan. There are two possibilities based on records such as “買新羅物解”. First of all, did Silla export Kaoru, a secondary processed product that created new value by adding incense manufacturing technology to imported incense materials, or did it export Kaoru, which was imported from China and the West, to Japan again through intermediary trade? Either way, it is certain that Japan was introduced to various incense materials and incense through Silla at that time.