Cyclic Disaster : How Did People Understand and React to Disaster in Ancient Japan?

This paper examines how two modes of understanding Heaven (Tian 天) coexisted in ancient Japan. The notion of Tian was formed in ancient China, therefore the latter part of this paper refers to Chinese thought. People in ancient China elaborated the theory of Tian at least in two ways. Confucianists of the Han dynasty conceptualized it as the agency imposing moral behaviours on people and giving rewards or punishments according to the virtue of governors. In the context of astrology and divination (shushu 術数), Tian is a kind of natural law which can be observed in everything in the world. It is not the question of ethics nor art of government, but rather the mathematical discourse. Yin-yang and Wu-Xing 陰陽五行 is the part of expressions of its working and circulation. This type of Tian brings about natural and social phenomena in the framework of yin-yang circulation, i.e. independently of people’s behaviors. At first sight, these two modes of understanding Tian seem totally different, but they were inseparable in ancient China. Also in ancient Japan, which accepted the notion of Tian together with Chinese calendar, one still finds this complexity. Facing a natural disaster, such as an earthquake, people in ancient Japan often explained its occurrence by natural laws independently of their behaviours. At the same time, however, they believed that their own actions must observe the rule of Tian in order to bring the terrible events to an end. Later, the belief that people are to act upon the natural law of Tian declined; some phenomena were, however, still regarded as cyclic events. People gave up to control these events by themselves and came to pray to divine spirits like kami and buddhas.論文/Article