Paper short abstract:

This paper discusses the diffusion of Gagaku throughout Japan in the Edo period for religious and ceremonial purposes, including discourses on the metaphysics of this music. It presents complex transformations between religious ritual, cultural heritage, philosophy, and politics behind Gagaku.

Paper long abstract:

Recent scholarship in Japan has uncovered a number of sources that present a stunning image of Gagaku (the traditional music and dance of the imperial court and the main temples and shrines) in the Edo period. It emerges that during that time Gagaku saw a remarkable renaissance. The three main orchestras (sanpō gakuso) at the imperial court in Kyoto, at Shitennōji in Osaka, and Kasuga-Kōfukuji in Nara were reorganized and their prerogatives defined. The imperial court promoted the revival of long-lost pieces. The Tokugawa Bakufu created two new orchestras, one at the Edo Palace and the other at Nikkō Tōshōgū, in order to carry out ceremonies for the Shogunal court. As a consequence, Gagaku began to be performed at most feudal domains. Finally, and importantly, hundreds of temples and shrines all over the country sent personnel to the main Gagaku orchestras to learn music and dance and invited visiting musicians for workshops.

The revival of Gagaku also affected intellectual history. Leading intellectuals (Ogyū Sorai, Kumazawa Banzan, Arai Hakuseki, Tominaga Nakamoto, and Matsudaira Sadanobu, among others) played Gagaku instruments and wrote about the metaphysics of music as related to their visions of Neo-Confucian governmentality, at times in discussion with Nativist scholars.

This paper presents the main aspects of these early modern developments. In particular, it will discuss the proliferation of rituals and ceremonies involving Gagaku and Bugaku at the imperial court, the Bakufu, samurai castles, and temples and shrines. At the same time, the cultural heritage of Gagaku being revived became cultural capital, which in turn acquired political valency. Commoners studying and playing Gagaku in the early nineteenth century were deeply steeped in court culture, something that supported the subsequent Meiji Restauration.

In this way, this paper will show how the originally religious and ritual value of Gagaku music was transformed into cultural heritage on the one hand and political capital on the other, in a process that still continues until today.