고토바인(後鳥羽院) 원령(怨靈)의 제상(諸相) = Aspects of the ghost of Gotoba-In

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

The purpose of this paper is to examine how the ghost of Gotoba-In(1180-1239), an ex-emperor in mediaeval Japan, was dealt with by people, after overviewing famous ghosts in the period and introducing what he achieved over his life. We explore official records, historical documents and literatures. There should be negative view, from the scientific point of view, about the existence of the ghost. However, when the dead are recognized through the historical viewpoints, the ghost can emerge as the reality in people’s mind. In this sense, the ghost who appears in an era should necessarily emerge against the social and ideological backgrounds of the time. This paper tries to consider a dimension of the medieval society in Japan through the ghost of Gotoba-In. In the ancient period Prince Sawara was deprived of the status of crown prince, regarded opposing against his elder brother, emperor Kanmu. Sawara, who tried to justify himself in vain before his death, is a typical archetype of the ghost of this kind. Many natural disasters were attributed to his ghost afterwards, and the palace tried to recover his honors, building his shrine. In the medieval age, Sutoku-In contended to gain political powers against his younger brother and was defeated, then sent to the province and died dreaming to back to the capital. It can be thought that he had been fully entitled to be the ghost. However, the historical understanding, in which his disturbances transferred the aristocratic society to the age of samurai, was brewed although the understanding was beyond the historical reality. As a result, it can be said that his ghost established seven hundred years while the samurai ruled. Gotoba-In, the case study of this paper, tried to recover the rule of the emperor from the samurai governments, but was defeated. His ghost feared people more appallingly than that of Sutoku-In. However, his hatred was to emerge in a strange situation. The emperorship was succeeded to one of his offspring when his ghostwas expected to emerge. His disturbance resulted in fortifying the rule of samurai, but his ghost could not influence on the society at the same time. This paper will consider the reason in the context of the (social and cultural) currents of the medieval age.