<Articles>The Ceremony of Appointment at the Imperial Palace (dairi ninkangi 内裏人官儀) and the List of Appointees (kaninjinrekimei 可任人歴名) in Eighth and Ninth century Japan

NISHIMOTO Masahiro

doi:10.14989/shirin_78_249

The ceremony through which higher bureaucrats of the ancient court were appointed to office is called the ceremony of appointment, ninkangi 任官儀. With the aim of reconstructing the eighth-century version of this ceremony, Shohachi Hayakawa has done extensive work on the relevant texts, and has proved that many parts of the documents concerning the ceremony in the Heian era existed already in the Nara era. But there is no clear evidence. that the jimoku kikigaki 除目聞書 of which Haya- kawa took notice goes back before the tenth century. There is also some question as to the validity of his hypothesis that the two kanjin rekimei 官人歴名 of the eighth century in the Shosoin treasure storehouse 正倉院宝庫 can be seen as precedents for the jimoku kikigaki. As the original orina ninkan monjo 下名任官文書 used in the ceremony is thought to have listed all names of appointees except the sangi 参議, the two kanjin rekimei in the Shosoin should correspond to this orina. Almost all the former research has overlooked, however, the face that the Dairi Shiki 内裏式 and Gishiki 儀式 prescribed the extremely ancient dairi ninkangi 内裏任官儀 such as the shokei no gi 唱計の儀 and the shomei no gi 唱名の儀. During the former ritual, apointees gathering outside the South Gate of the dairi 内裏 were checked by kaninjinrekimei 可任人歴名 (a list of appointees)--afterward called orina. In the later ritual, the jimoku of Imperial prices and those of the retainers were read aloud separately. These rituals should prove valuable to any effort to reconstruct the ninkangi of the eighth century. Reexamination of those documents from the eighth century makes two facts clear : 1) the way in which appointees were announced by reading the jimoku in a loud voice in front of them (in the presence of the Emperor) goes back to the beginning of the eighth century, right after the enforcement of Taihoryo大宝令 ; 2) the ceremony of ninkangi in the court and shokei no gi in connection with it goes back to at least as early as the middle of the eighth century." According to the accepted theory, most of the court ceremonies had moved their ceremonial places from Chodoin 朝堂院 to the dairi in the early Heian era, and affairs of the state and ceremonies in the eighth century had kept strong traces of traditional oral communication. This paper, by contrast, focuses on the reading of texts aloud rather than on oral traditions. Through the examination of ninkangi, the author shows that dairigi 内裏儀 traditions are older than the traditions contained in the chodogi 朝堂儀.

<Articles>The Ceremony of Appointment at the Imperial Palace (dairi ninkangi 内裏人官儀) and the List of Appointees (kaninjinrekimei 可任人歴名) in Eighth and Ninth century Japan

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