Abstract
A close reading of the cosmogony found in the preface to Ō no Yasumaro 太安萬侶’s Kojiki 古事記 (Record of Ancient Matters, 712 CE) reveals the ways in which Japan’s early Nara period elites appropriated aspects of China’s Daoist traditions for their own literary, mythological, and political purposes. This debt to Daoism on the part of the oldest Shintō 神道 scripture, in turn, reveals the extent to which Daoist traditions were eclectically mined for content that early Japanese elites found useful, rather than transmitted as intact lineages. This also raises questions about whether and how “Daoism” has functioned as a systematic body of doctrines and practices, whether in China or overseas. The essay argues that Ō no Yasumaro’s appropriation of the Daoist cosmogonic repertoire is consistent with Daoist traditions as they developed during China’s Six Dynasties and Tang periods—that is, with Daoism as it existed contemporaneously with the early Nara period, when the Kojiki was compiled.
Highlights
Taking the “broad” view, one may assert that nearly any idea, image, institution, or practice found in both Daoist traditions and Japanese culture is evidence of Daoism in Japan
This essay began with several questions—whether and how the Chinese tradition of Daoism influenced Japanese culture, whether the “Daoisant” emulation and appropriation of Daoist ideas, images, institutions, and practices amounted to “influence” by Daoism, and with what criteria one might identify aspects of culture as
The clear modeling of the cosmogonic passage found in the Kojiki preface on multiple elements of Daoist traditions should put to rest the first question of whether and how the Chinese tradition of Daoism influenced Japanese culture
Summary
Taking the “broad” view, one may assert that nearly any idea, image, institution, or practice found in both Daoist traditions ( those are defined) and Japanese culture is evidence of Daoism in Japan. As Shintō traditions later emulated, one should not regard elements of Japanese religious culture that appear to be “Daoist” as Daoist per se, but instead see them as—at the very most—“a ‘Daoist residue’ present throughout the cultural history of Japan”, as Richard Bowring puts it (Review of Bowring 2016) It is Daoism’s lack of “social being” (to use Strickmann’s phrase) in Japan that is the obstacle to seeing.
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