During the reign of Emperor Wenzong of Tang, that is, during the late Tang Dynasty, Japan entered the heyday of learning Tang music. They not only studied Tang Le, but also comprehensively studied the cultural system of the Tang Dynasty, and even changed their costumes to Tang costumes.
——Ge Xiaoyin
As we all know, Tang poetry was the climax of Chinese poetry, and the music and dance of the Tang Dynasty were actually very prosperous, but there were no videos and audio recordings at that time, so it was impossible to pass them on. So we can only understand from some written records that we still have such beautiful music and dance. My major is actually the history of Literature in the Han, Wei, Six Dynasties, Sui and Tang Dynasties, so why should I care about the problem of music and dance? Mainly because some of the poems in this period of history, as well as The Tang and Song Dynasties, are related to music. Even some of our operas can be traced back to the great songs and dances of the Tang Dynasty. So if I want to study these literary forms, I have to understand the background of these music and dance.
Because I twice taught at the University of Tokyo in Japan in the 1990s, I had the opportunity to see a batch of materials about Japanese gagaku at the National Theater in Tokyo. I found that many of them were music and dances of our Tang Dynasty. At that time, there was a female professor at the University of Tokyo named Hidemi Tokura, and she happened to be very interested in this issue, so the two of us began to cooperate in the study of the relationship between Japanese gagaku and Sui and Tang music and dance in 1997, and now we have been doing it intermittently for 20 years, and we have also produced some results one after another. Research on this area is actually currently a hot spot in the world, there are probably two regions, one is an old professor in the United Kingdom in the last century, Mr. Picken, then he brought out a group of European and American graduate students, including some graduate students in Australia, and has now become an expert in the study of Japanese Gagaku. Another core area, of course, is Japan's own gagaku community. Their research is mainly based on the music and dance of the Sui and Tang dynasties. Scholars in Europe and the United States have published a set of books called "Music of the Court of the Tang Dynasty." Their research focused on music, translating ancient notation into staves, hoping to be played today. Because Professor Tokura and I both do research on ancient literature, the focus of our collaborative research is on the relationship between music and literature. But the research of European and American scholars has also given us a great inspiration.
Next, I would like to say what the study of Japanese gagaku has to do with Sui and Tang music and dance. We know that Japanese Gagaku is a miracle in the history of world culture. Why? Because it is a "fossil culture". Many of the songs left over from more than a thousand years ago are still being performed today, including more than 30 pieces and dances. Then these performances have basically not changed significantly since the Tang Dynasty came to Japan, and it is such a move that they have been handed down one by one and followed the rules, so they have become the so-called "fossil culture" of modern times.
How did sui and tang dynasty music and dance come to Japan? We know that Tang Le's biography mainly relies on Japanese envoys and international students. In Japanese history books and ancient music books, the record of how Tang music was transmitted to Japan is relatively brief, and only a few pieces of music can be examined in historical materials, including some legends of Japanese musicians. Then we put together various materials, and we can generally know that when Tang Le spread to Japan, there were the following times:
The first time was from the last year of Zhenguan in the Tang Taizong period to the second year of Chang'an in the Wu Zetian period, that is, the second half of the seventh century to the beginning of the eighth century. During this period, Japan probably sent three envoys to the Tang Dynasty, that is, from 702 AD, the Japanese court began to use Tang music, playing two kinds of music, one called Wuchang Music and the other called Taiping Music. There is a record of Taiping Music in Chinese Tang poems, but there is no record of Wu Chang Le. Judging from the lyrics of Wuchangle, it is obvious that it was also passed down from the Tang Dynasty. Because of this year, in the first year of Qingyun in Japan (that is, in 704 AD), Japan once again sent envoys to the Tang Dynasty, and the emissaries returned to China one after another in about 707. At that time, there were several very famous dances, such as "Emperor Breaking The Array", "Spring Warbler", "Tuan Chao" and other very famous music, which should have been transmitted to Japan as early as 704 AD. Among them, the two dances of "Emperor Breaking The Music" and "Spring Warbler" are still performed to this day.
The second time is relatively large, in the twenty-third year of the new century during the Reign of Emperor Ming of Tang, that is, in 735 AD, which is the seventh year of Tianping in Japan. This year, there was a major event in the history of Japanese music, when there was a student in Japan who entered the Tang Dynasty called Yoshibei Makoto. After he returned to Japan, he dedicated the Vinaya, Fang Xiang, and the Twelve Articles of the Vinaya and the Records of the Book of Music. However, the "Essential Records of the Book of Music" is now scattered in China, and only a part of it has been preserved, but japan has always preserved the original book. These things that Yoshibi Makoto brought back to Japan are of great significance to the formation of Japanese musical rhythms and musical concepts. The following year, another important event was that a monk from the Southern Tianzhu Kingdom (now India) named Bodhi Xianna and another monk named Buddha Zhe Lin Yi (in present-day Vietnam) went to Japan to teach music and dance. Because this story has a strong legendary color, Japanese scholars are skeptical about it, and the controversy is relatively large. Then we have also done a little research, that is, there are indeed untrustworthy elements in the legend, but one of the points is noteworthy, that is, these two monks came to China before they went to Japan to spread music and dance. They have been to Yangzhou and have been to Mount Wutai. Some of the music and dance they spread to Japan were Tang Dynasty Hu music (music from the Western Regions), so although the two of them came from India and Vietnam, in fact, the music and dance they transmitted to Japan were tang Dynasty music.
The third time was relatively large, during the Middle Tang Dynasty, between about 782 and 805 AD, during which a group of Tang martial monks were sent to the Tang Dynasty to learn dance. Several dances passed back by these people, such as "Liu Hua Yuan", "Spring Garden", "Su Hexiang", etc., are not recorded in our music books. Around 813 AD, when the Japanese court held an internal banquet, it began to use Liangzhou music. We know that there are many Tang poems in which Chinese poets use "Liangzhou Qu" as the title of their poems. Liangzhou Music was originally popular in the Tang Dynasty from the end of the New Year to the early years of Tianbao during the Tang Ming Emperor's reign, and should have spread to Japan during the period before Tang Ming Emperor and Tang Dezong. In addition, monks who studied in the Tang Dynasty at the same time received the "Diagram of the Palace of the Vinaya", twelve pieces of the Law, and one of which was dedicated to the Emperor. The above content shows that in addition to the people who studied music at that time, there were also some monks who played a very important role in the process of introducing Tang music.
The fourth period of large-scale introduction of Tang Music was during the reign of Emperor Wenzong of Tang, that is, in the late Tang Dynasty. During this period, Japan entered the heyday of learning Tang music. They not only studied Tang le, but also comprehensively studied the cultural system of the Tang Dynasty, and even all their costumes were changed to Tang costumes. During the reign of Emperor Akihito of Japan, probably from 834 to 849 AD, Tang music was very popular, and many famous dancers appeared in the Japanese court, who were not only good at Tang Dynasty music and dance, but also made a lot of tang imitation music and dance. There were also many people who were proficient in music among the ministers of the Ministry of State, and one of them was named Fujiwara Sadatoshi, who contributed greatly. In the fifth year of Emperor Akihito's reign, in 838 AD, this man came to the Tang Dynasty as a quasi-judge of the Tang Dynasty, and this time he was accompanied by a famous monk, Master Yuanren. Master Yuanren wrote a book called "Entering the Tang Dynasty and Seeking the Law", which is a very famous book. After Fujiwara Sadatoshi arrived in the Tang Dynasty, he learned from a musician who was good at playing the pipa. So what's the name of this musician? Sometimes it is called Lian Chengwu, sometimes it is called Liu Erlang, and what it is called is still uncertain. So the musician gave Fujiwara Sadatoshi dozens of pipa scores and married his daughter to him. After Fujiwara Sadatoshi returned to Japan, he established the four tones of the pipa, which had a great influence on Japanese music.
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Professor Emeritus of Boya, Peking University, Doctoral Supervisor of Guoxue College. He was a professor at the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences at the Graduate School of the University of Tokyo and a chair professor at the Department of Chinese at Hong Kong Baptist University. He has long been engaged in the study of the literature of the Six Dynasties of Han, Wei, Sui and Tang Dynasties. His major works include "History of Poetry of the Eight Dynasties", "The Unauthorized Change of Han and Tang Literature", "Research on the Pastoral Poetry School of Landscape and Water", "Tang and Song Prose", "Chinese Scenic Spots and History and Culture", "Exploration of Ancient Poetry Art", "Study of Poetic Asanas of the Six Dynasties of the Pre-Qin, Han, and Wei Dynasties".
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