RT Article
T1 From Deer Bones to Turtle Shells: The State Ritualization of Pyro-Plastromancy during the Nara-Heian Transition
JF Japanese journal of religious studies
VO 42
IS 2
SP 339
OP 380
A1 Kory, Stephan N.
LA English
YR 2015
UL https://ixtheo.de/Record/1698494610
AB This article reviews received and recovered evidence of divination with bone and fire in early Japan to identify and investigate a shift from deer scapulae to turtle shells that took place during the Nara-Heian transition, particularly within the state cult. It questions why this shift occurred and analyzes a detailed explanation of it found in a purportedly early Heian treatise on the divinatory cracking of turtle plastrons known as the Shinsen kisoki (Newly compiled record of turtle omens). The Shinsen kisoki claims to have been authored by a group of men descended from a common genealogical line of ancestral kami associated with divination. It not only reveals much about why members of a handful of related clans would have promoted a change from scapulimancy to plastromancy at this point in history, but also much about how the state ritualization of the latter affected, and was affected by, other changes in state and local religion and politics during the late Nara and early Heian periods.
K1 Clans
K1 Diviners
K1 Divinity
K1 Family names
K1 Heian period
K1 Omens
K1 Religious rituals
K1 Religious Studies
K1 Shintoism