Shakuhachi:History And Development In The Sino-Japanese Context

Shakuhachi is the representative of Japanese national musical instrument, and the source comes from China. It is an important ancient instrument in China, and it got its name in the Tang Dynasty. The musical instrument was formed and widely used in the Han Dynasty, and died out at the end of the Ming Dynasty. But the development of Shakuhachi in Japan takes another road. The musical form and genre are diversified and have various schools. This dissertation takes the shakuhachi as its subject, puts it in the Sino-Japanese cultural context, and mainly uses historical research methods, combined with organology, iconography, archaeology and statistics. It is intended that this systematic analysis and research can explain the following three aspects.First is the historical source of ancient shakuhachi in China. Due to the lack of historical documents and their ambiguities, it is difficult to achieve a breakthrough progress in this problem. The study is based on plenty of historical documents and combines them with iconography to explore a new discussion. At the same time, this study does not agree with the view that the Japanese modern shakuhachi comes from the Song Dynasty. Based on the Japanese crucial historical materials, the dissertation puts forward its own independent views. In addition to the source of shakuhachi, this dissertation investigates its development, and clarifies its origin, usage, function, historical evolution and position in the instruments.