Kyushu University QR Young Scholar Workshop

“Crossing Borders: Memory and Material in the Trans-Asian Context”

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Event Overview

March 4th, 2021
10am - 12pm

Defining Refugees: Tatar Muslims in Prewar Japan

避難民の成り立ち―戦前日本におけるタタール系イスラーム教徒の受け入れについて

Dr. KANAHARA Noriko
Waseda University Global Japanese Studies SGU Junior Guest Researcher
Tohoku University Graduate School of Intercultural Studies Research Fellow

This presentation concerns the history of Islam in Japan, and particularly the question of how Tatar Muslims from Central Russia were received as refugees by the Japanese state in prewar Japan. For the Japanese state, I argue, it was ideology (shisō) that determined whether and how a given refugee group would be received in Japan. When Tatar Muslims fled to Japan from the former Russian Empire in the wake of Revolution, then, Japanese officials sought ways to use them on account of their commitment to the transnational religion of Islam and at the same time placed them under surveillance because of their potential affiliation with Soviet Communism. In this talk, I attempt to show an aspect of how in the 1920s and 1930s, how global movements of ideologies, religions, and refugees affected the way in which Japanese officials determined acceptable ways of being refugees in Japan.

March 19th, 2021
10am - 12pm

Revisiting Nara Period Techniques: Reproduction of the Eleven-Headed Kannon at Shōrin-ji Temple (in Japanese, with English interpretation)

よみがえる奈良の技ー聖林寺十一面観音の模刻研究 (英語逐次通訳付き)

朱 若麟 ZHU Ruolin
東京藝術大学文化財保存修復彫刻研究室博士課程

Zoom pre-registration link: https://tinyurl.com/2bq45ho7

奈良県聖林寺十一面観音立像は、日本で最初に国宝に指定された仏像の一つである。およそ1300年前天平時代に造られた。本像は木心乾漆造という木や漆などの植物系の材料を用いる技法で造られている。その技法は７-8世紀東亜で隆盛したが、現在日本にしか残ってない。本研究は最新の科学調査（3Ｄスキャンニング）により得られた情報に基づき、造像当初の構造技法と材料を用い模刻制作を行うことで、本像が造られた当時の姿勢改変などを解明した。

The Standing Statue of the Eleven Headed Kannon in Shorinji Temple in Nara Prefecture is one of the first Buddhist statues designated as a National Treasure in Japan. It was erected during the Tenpyo Era about 1,300 years ago. For this statue, plant materials such as trees and lacquer were used, with a mixture of lacquer and tree bark powder applied to the statue’s wooden core and the layer carved off the surface. This technique was both common and popular during the 7th and 8th centuries in East Asia, but exists today only in Japan. For this study, the statue was replicated using the techniques and materials of the time based on the original statue’s structural information obtained through the latest scientific research, namely 3D scanning, in an attempt to uncover the statue’s production techniques, such as posture adjustment, used in the ancient Tenpyo Era.

March 27th, 2021
5pm - 8pm

Zoom Pre-Registration Link: https://tinyurl.com/2smx7mdf
In English, with Japanese interpretation 日本語同時通訳

CHEN Liang (University of Vienna)

The Seven Sages of the Bamboo Grove: The Canonization of a Pictorial Theme in Brick Reliefs during the Southern Dynasties
[磚画竹林七賢の研究:南朝における絵的モチーフの「経典化」について]

Commentator: MIYAMOTO Kazuo

In 1960, archaeologists discovered the first piece of a set of brick reliefs in a tomb occupied by a diseased aristocrat of the Southern Dynasties in Gongshan near Nanjing, China. Across the walls, those reliefs compose an image known as the Seven Sages of the Bamboo Grove, seven famous literati active around the year 240 who often gathered to converse, drink wine and play music, and Rong Qiqi, the renowned hermit and philosopher of the Spring and Autumn period. Following that discovery, archaeologists also found seven examples under the same theme in tombs of the same period, including at Xiantangwan, Jinjiacun, Wujiacun, Shizigang, Tiexinqiao and Shizichong, in the regions of Nanjing and Danyang—two culture centers of the Southern Dynasties. All of them are sizable brick tombs built for royal figures. Not only are the subjects of these brick reliefs the same, but also they are designed and constructed in similar ways, which indicates that the same set of molds would have been used, transmitted, partly lost, and then mended and changed. This talk focuses on the transfer of the design across different media by addressing the following issues: 1) ways of production, i.e. how these brick reliefs were produced, numbered, and built; 2) dating and author, i.e. when the first brick relief of this subject was introduced into the tomb and who invented the original design; and 3) the canonization of the Seven Sages theme, i.e. why this pictorial motif was introduced into the tomb context.

Dr. CHOI Sun-ah (Myongji University)

Avalokiteśvara Statues at Sennyuji and Bogwangsa: Visual Evidence of the Mt. Putuo Cult in Kamakura Japan and Goryeo Korea
[泉涌寺と普光寺の観音菩薩像 – 鎌倉および高麗における普陀山信仰の証拠]

Commentator: IDE Seinosuke

This presentation examines the legend of so-called “Bukenqu Guanyin”(不肯去觀音, Guanyin who does not want to leave) at Mount Putuo(普陀山) in China and the transmission and assimilation of the icon in Kamakura Japan and Goryeo Korea. A miraculous statue which was allegedly expressed its will to stay at Mount Putuo, Bukenqu Guanyin has been related to a Japanese Buddhist monk Egaku(慧顎), who is described in a series of literary sources written after the 13th century, such as Baoqing Siming zhi (寶慶四明志, 1227) and Putuo luojia shanzhuan (普陀洛伽山傳, 1361), as the person who founded Mount Putuo as the sacred place of the bodhisattva Avalokiteśvara. In addition, a wooden statue now enshrined at Sennyuji 泉涌寺 in Kyoto (made in Southern Song China and brought to Kamakura Japan in ca. 1230) has been regarded as the oldest extant example which was made after the Bukenqu Guanyin. This presentation, however, attempts to illuminate the role of Silla and Goryeo in establishing the cult of Bukenqu Guanyin at Mount Putuo, based on 12th-century records, such as Xuanhe fengshi Gaoli tujing (宣和奉使高麗圖經, 1124) and Mozhuang manlu (墨莊漫錄, first-half of the 12th century). The literary sources inform us that the Bukenqui Guanyin served as the focus of prayer to the Northern Song envoys and Goryeo merchants who traveled between China and the Korean peninsula via sea. Based on the evidence, I argue that the Bukenqu Guanyin was already known in Goryeo as late as the 12th century and that the statues at Bogwangsa (普光寺), which is recently revealed to be made no later than the late 12th century through the examination of its inner recess is likely to have been made based on the knowledge as well as the cult of the Bukenqu Guanyin at Mount Putuo.

この研究は、中国普陀山に留まって、「国外へ渡ることを拒んだ」と言われる不肯去観音の伝説と、同観音像の鎌倉および高麗への伝播、在地化を検証しようとするものである。普陀山に留まるという意志を自ら示したと伝えられる奇跡の不肯去観音像は、1227年に記された『寶慶四明志』、1361年の『普陀洛迦山傳』などの文献によれば、普陀山を観音菩薩の聖地としたと記述される日本僧、慧萼と関連がある。さらに、南宋で製作された後、1230年の鎌倉時代に日本に持ち込まれ、現在は京都の泉涌寺に祀られている木像は、不肯去観音を模して作られた最古の例と考えられている。
この説に対して、本研究では、1124年に成立した『宣和奉使高麗図経』や12世紀前半の『墨荘漫錄』など12世紀の記録をもとに、新たに普陀山不肯去観音信仰の確立における新羅および高麗の役割を明らかにする。文献によると、不肯去観音信仰は中国と朝鮮半島を船で行き来した南宋の使者と高麗の商人たちの祈りの対象となっていた。これらの史実を考慮すると、不肯去観音のことは、遅くとも12世紀には高麗で知られるようになっていたと言える。また、像内部の調査により、普光寺像は、12世紀の終わりまでには製作されていたことが最近になって判明している。このことは、普光寺像が、泉涌寺像に先立つ時期に、普陀山の不肯去観音に関する知識と信仰を背景として製作されたとものとみてよいだろう。