中国古代の「日書」とその本質 : 「日書」と商業の関係解明をめざして

This study examines the historical character of the daybook manuscript (rishu) from the Warring states period to the Han period. The essence of rishu lies in the mixture of several divination methods and terms, as no single one of them can capture such concept. The Qin and Han people first use the rishu to divine their fortune, and to obtain details, visits a fortune-teller’s house in the marketplace. The rishu contained several methods of divination with different principles, and the user can choose the one that is most convenient. The rishu system contains redundancies, and this is where the author sees its essence as a divination book. The rishu contains divination declarations related to money and commerce, for which there is little hostility. However, such divination words have a small proportion, and thus the rishu cannot be said to be favorable to commerce. For example, if a commercial business trip is scheduled on a bad day, the business trip has to be moved back or forth, which can have a disincentive to economic activity. However, the present study finds that merchants can change or ignore the divination in the rishu as they saw fit, and in other words, they consider the rishu to be relatively convenient.