Les funérailles des souverains japonais

Emperor Hirohito of the Shōwa era died on January 7, 1989. The state funeral took place on February 24, the forty-ninth day after death, as it is prescribed by Buddhist funeral ritual. However, the religious last rites are performed according to strangely archaic Shinto -traditions that were "revived", i.e. fabricated, in the Meiji period. There was no hope that the Palace administration would permit a close observation and study of the obsequies performed for Emperor Shōwa. Our understanding of whatever will transpire can be considerably enhanced by the following study: François Macé, the foremost specialist on the subject (and author of La mort et les funérailles dans le Japon ancien, Publications orientalistes de France, Paris, 1986; reviewed in this issue, cf. below, p. .239) examines the historical background and the modern significance of the curious mixture of rites that were observed for the preceding Emperors Meiji and Taishō. The modern aspects of the Meiji funeral, such as the funeral train and the gun salute, appear secondary next to the apparently very ancient features : nightly torch procession, chariot drawn by oxen, provisional interment of one month, funerary mound, suicide of a loyal subject, change of era name and burial instead of the Buddhist cremation which had been the rule in Japan since the eighth century. The Meiji funeral is a perfect illustration of the Meiji restauration, which combined an accelerated modernisation with a "restauration" of a mythical imperial rule of pre- Buddhist antiquity which was, in fact, a cover for a complete break with tradition in the name of an older fictitious past. The archaic rituals of the Meiji and Taishō funerals derived from hazy traditions dead since the early eighth century and reconstituted in order to give Japan proper state funerals which are an entirely modern concept. Macé also gives an overview of what little can still be glimpsed of archaic mogari funeral rites, describes the transition to Buddhist cremation in the seventh century and the gradual return, under Shinto influence, to imperial inhumation in the late Edo period. In the rites adopted for the funeral of Shōwa, the emperor who met General Mac Arthur and renounced his divinity, we were presented with the image present-day Japan wants to project of itself as well as what understanding it has of its past

Ancient history · Archaeology · Art · Buddhism · Chariot · Emperor · Meiji period · Meiji Restoration · Procession · History · Japanese History and Culture