University of Alberta The Aesthetics of the Three Obediences: Murasaki Shikibu and Asian Women’s Responses to the Code of Feminine Conduct by Kazuko Masumitsu A thesis submitted to the Faculty of Graduate Studies and Research in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Comparative Literature © Kazuko Masumitsu Fall 2012 Edmonton, Alberta Permission is hereby granted to the University of Alberta Libraries to reproduce single copies of this thesis and to lend or sell such copies for private, scholarly or scientific research purposes only. Where the thesis is converted to, or otherwise made available in digital form, the University of Alberta will advise potential users of the thesis of these terms. The author reserves all other publication and other rights in association with the copyright in the thesis and, except as herein before provided, neither the thesis nor any substantial portion thereof may be printed or otherwise reproduced in any material form whatsoever without the author's prior written permission. Thank you Jan Streader, a connoisseur and lover of Japanese culture, for your feedback of the Tale of Genji: Genji is drop-dead gorgeous. Every woman falls for him. He is like a walking art fact we all want to have. But when he says, “If they were not fundamentally evil, they would not have been born as women at all” it jumped into my eyes. (qtd. from Arthur Waley’s translation of The Tale of Genji 666). Your finding of this passage confirms the implicit message of the author Murasaki Shikibu that such a nobleman as Genji in her contemporary society believed in his prerogative to assess women’s nature. This thesis is dedicated to Jan and other women and men who are not listed by name here. Abstract All the three ancient sacred scriptures of Hinduism, Buddhism and Confucianism, the Laws of Manu, the Lotus Sutra and the Book of Rites, demonstrate that the three obediences were once the prescribed code of woman’s conduct for South and East Asian women, as follows: Her father protects (her) in childhood, her husband protects (her) in youth, and her sons protect (her) in old age; a woman is never fit for independence. (The Laws of Manu Ch. IX. 3) 1 A woman obeys her parents in childhood, her husband in marriage and her son in widowhood, and she remains chaste. (listed in Buddhist sutras including Lotus Sutra, qtd. in Mochizuki Buddhist Great Dictionary 望月仏教大辞典 1542-1543) The wife should follow and obey her husband. The woman obeys her father in childhood, her husband in marriage and her son in old age.2 (The Book of Rites 礼記) The woman is bound by the three obediences.3 (Ch. “Blue Trousers 藤袴.” The Genji Vol. 3. 328) These ancient Chinese and Indian manuscripts indicate that their women were expected to observe the three obediences. The three obediences, written in Chinese as 三従 and pronounced as sanjyū in Japanese and sankon in Chinese, 1 In the English translation of the Laws of Manu by George Bühler. All the additional phrases in parentheses are listed. 2 My translation. 3 My translation. were once a familiar phrase in East Asia, including Korea and Vietnam. The presence of the same code of women’s conduct in the Tale of Genji also implies that the author, Murasaki Shikibu, wrote her work during the period when Japanese noblewomen were equally bound by that code. This recognition is the major inspiration for the first exploratory study of Pan-Asian womanhood under the three obediences within the field of comparative literature. This dissertation will trace back the development, evolution and effect of the three obediences on womanhood in India, China and Japan; then, it will re-read the Tale of Genji in the frame of the three obediences. Contents Introduction 1 Chapter 1: The Past of the Three Obediences in India and China 61 インドと中国における三従の歴史 Chapter 2: The Legacy of the Sun Goddess 175 天照大御神の残したもの Chapter 3: Contesting Polygyny: The Imperial Consort Rōkujo 262 一夫多妻制に反抗する六条御息所 Chapter 4: The Pathos of the Ideal Feminine: Lady Murasaki 338 男性の理想の女性の悲しみと紫の上 Conclusion 403 Works Cited and Works Consulted 410 Masumitsu_1 Introduction Women Inside and Outside the Tale of Genji Genji 源氏 is astonished and embarrassed by the report of his son Yūgiri 夕霧 of what their noble society, including the father of Tamakazura 玉鬘, suspects: Genji is seducing her, his beautiful adopted daughter. Genji senses that Yūgiri has not only informed his father of the gossip but also implicitly expressed his own suspicion. Yūgiri has already seen him fondling Tamakazura in the guise of paternal affection but has remained quiet. Desperate to play a moralist father, Genji at first appeals to his Confucian-trained son by quoting the familiar phrase,the three obediences: The woman is bound by the three obediences. 女は三に従ふものにこそあなれ (Ch. “Blue Trousers 藤袴.” The Genji Vol. 4. 328).4 It is Genji’s insinuation that this code of woman’s conduct forces Tamakazura to obey her biological father, but he has no power over her as her mere guardian. Here the author Murasaki Shikibu 紫式部 presents the exact phrase, “the three obediences,” only once through her hero’s speech. In the Tale of Genji 源氏物語, Shikibu sarcastically suggests the noblemen’s mutual tolerance of their fellow men’s moral transgression and protection of their dignity. 4 All the Genji passages in this thesis are cited from the most popular version of the reconstructed texts compiled by the three Genji doyens, Abe Akio, Akiyama Ken, and Imai Gen’e. The detail of the text is listed in the works cited under the name of the main editor, Abe Akio. All the English translations of these passages are mine. Masumitsu_2 The Genji is a product of the Japanese imperial culture that thrived between 794 and 1185, the era known as the Heian period. Although Heian imperial culture has been regarded as the first authentic product of the nation, it was also a product of hybridity and homogeneity: Chinese (the lingua franca of East Asia), Confucianism and Buddhism were imported from Japan’s culturally advanced and politically powerful neighbor, China, and integrated into the indigenous noble society.5 If Genji and Yūgiri are regular Heian noblemen, they must have learned the three obediences from the Confucian work, the Book of Rites 礼記6. The Buddhist version is also indirectly present in the Genji when the heroine Murasaki’s grand-uncle, a Buddhist priest, presumably quotes from the most popular Buddhist scripture among Heian nobility, the Lotus Sutra 法華経7: The woman can be treated as an adult when she is supported and protected by men. 5 The Japanese scholar of Chinese Studies, Kaji Nobuyuki 加地伸行, argues in his Silent Religion: Confucianism 沈黙の宗教―儒教 that Confucianism has been grafted into Japanese Buddhism. For example, Japanese families have an altar for their deceased members and ancestors, whereas in India, the deceased are burned and their ashes would be thrown into the Ganges River. Filial piety has been a supreme teaching of Confucianism, which East Asian Buddhists have taken for granted. As Kaji says, Confucianism did not develop a communal institution but quietly and deeply seeped into the Japanese psyche. Particularly, since Buddhism and Confucianism almost simultaneously came from China to the early Japan, both became perhaps more inseparable there than in China. 6 The Book of Rites was one of the Confucian texts 四書五経 widely read among Heian noblemen. In the Genji, his father sends Yūgiri to the university to study Confucianism, the standard scholarship of the day. 7 In his Genji Gaiden 源氏外伝, Kumazawa Banzan 熊沢蕃山 (1619-1691) identifies this implicit reference to the Buddhist three obediences (143). Imai also lists Shikibu’s reading of Buddhist sutras, including the Lotus Sutra, which are used in the Genji. The text documents Heian nobility’s familiarity with the Lotus Sutra (see page 50). Masumitsu_3 そもそも女は、人にもてなされて大人になりたまふものなれ ば8 (Ch. “Young Murasaki 若紫.” The Genji Vol. 1. 288) Another man’s implicit reference to the three obediences is present in the abdicated Emperor Suzaku’s concern about his immature daughter, the Third Princess’ future: How sad and exacerbating a woman is fated to be criticized as thoughtless against her will. 女は心よりほかに、あはあはしく、人におとしめらるる宿世 あるむ、いとちおしく悲しき。 （Ch. “Young Herb 若菜” I. The Genji Vol. 5. 13） Both Murasaki’s grand-uncle and Suzaku seem to represent the conventional view of a woman in Shikibu’s society. The Lotus Sutra also enumerates “the woman’s five obstacles 女人五障: doubtfulness, lethargy, hatred, envy (or jealousy) and perpetual grudge 欺怠目真 恨怨.” According to the traditional Buddhist doctrine, these five obstacles hinder women to become the five highest male figures: the greatest Brahmin (Indian priest), the king, the ancient Indian deities such as Indra, Mara, and Buddha. In the Genji, as noted by Saigō Nobutuna 西郷信綱, the five obstacles are also present. Kaoru, the illegitimate son of Genji’s youngest wife the Third Princess and Kashiwagi, senses the secret of his birth and ponders over his mother’s salvation after death (152): 8This passage is listed in Saigō Nobutuna’s discussion of “The Woman’s Unhappiness” in Nih onbungaku no hōhō (147). Masumitsu_4 Mother prays to Buddha every morning morning and evening, but as a woman, she does not seem to have a serious understanding of spirituality. Her salvation might be difficult.9 A woman has the five obstacles, too. She worries me. I should help her spiritual work so that she will be saved. 明け暮れ勤めたまふやうなめれど、はかもとなくおほどきた まへる女の御悟りのほどに、蓮の露も明らかに、玉と磨きた まはむこともを難し、五つのながしも、なほうしろめたきを、 われ、この御道をたすけて、同じうは後の世をだにと思ふ。 (Ch. “Prince Nioi 匂兵部卿.” The Genji Vol. 5. 18) Kaoru’s anxiety about his mother’s salvation is sincere; particularly, her past and his birth are proof of her sin as a woman in the Buddhist terms.