Du Jie rituals, which was conducted by Yao people in Langshan county, Hunan province, in November 2008, has been systematically analyzed. A great volume of ritual texts and manuscripts used therein have been typed out, corrected, interpreted and translated into modern Japanese. As co-relations between these texts and ritual performances become clear, Yao knowledge of religious rituals can be seen in depth. Search for comparative materials kept in foreign libraries as well as those in Japan has been continued, in which an international network of Yao specialists has well established. Part of the research results were published as “Bulletin of Institute for the Study of Iu Mien Culture” and posted to the Institute’s webpage

This research aims at taking after and developing the study we had had during the Japanese academic year of 2003-2004 under the name of The Study of Daoist and Shamanistic Ritual Documents Transmitted among the Practitioners of Ritual Operas in Southwest China.(Research No. 15520063 ; MORI,Yuria as the Director in Chief.)In the previous study, we, both Japanese and Chinese scholars listed as the member of this research group, recorded one-day ritual(chong nuo 衝儺)performed by the ritual masters in Hekou village, Daozhen prefecture, Guizhou, China, on digital video tapes while we had preliminary interviews with the masters, which successfully established good, reliable relationship between the scholars and the interviewees. In this new study, we focused our examination on the ritual performance we had filmed in Hekou village in the previous research, in regard to which we recurrently had a series of long interviews with the same group of the practitioners to transcribe the whole content of what they chanted and spoke in THAT particular program. In the academic year of 2005, we divided our group into two groups (A and B) to have interviews separately. There, the same ritual masters revived the same speeches and chanting they had performed in 2004 in front of us, who now transcribing the content of them word by word. While practitioners re-acted their performance, they saw the videos we filmed of their own performance in 2004, which proved to be an excellent method to facilitate the interactions between the interviewers and interviewees. However, the grope A did not make as good progress as the group B which mechanically transcribed the content of the performance without giving detailed(and sometimes bothering to the practitioners) questions relevant to the contents and structures of deep knowledge about the ritual during the interviews. After the academic year of 2006, both groups concentrated on the successful method having taken by group B in 2005. Consequently, we successfully finished making word-by-word transcription of the chanting and speech of the one-day ritual opera practiced on a day of 2004, which surpassed the all expectations in terms of quality and quantity we had made before starting our research. Especially, we felt our research attained high standard of reliability when we succeeded in involving every practitioner into checking the written record(that is, our transcription) by reciting them in group in December 2007. Thus, our records were all proofread by the ritual practitioners themselves

In this research, we noticed the importance of the feet that numerous ritual documents had been transmitted in the rural villages in Southwestern part of China. These documents reflected various situations where the wu jiao, or shamanism, closely related to other religious activities, namely "Qingwei Lineage," a bunch of tradition having developed among orthodox Daoist activities and shamanistic religions since post-Tang periods.On 19th and 20th in August 2004, we successfully carried out our research project with two groups of practitioners of Shamanistic rites at Daozhen prefecture. One is with master Zhang Fangyi and his disciples, who performed the Rite for the Earth Government, or Di fu dao cheng, at Meijiang village, Hekou county, Daozhen prefecture. The other is with master Yang Hai'an and his disciples performing Chong nuo Rite at Sanba village, Hekou county.In both researches, we recorded the process of all the component rites of the ritual with videos, while we took pictures of the documents used in the rites. We made a series of tables showing in the order of procedures of each rite the combinations of ritual performances, performers, tools (including musical instrument and other items needed for the ritual), documents, and the way the practitioners using the documents. The whole process of this research was recorded and described in our "Final Report." Through this research, we have learnt how to cooperate with local scholars in both recording the whole process of the ritual and in interviewing with local practitioners. In next occasion, we would like to follow the context of each component rite through interviews with the practitioners

Head Investigator Kobayashi Masayoshi completed an article entitled "The Influence of the Jinlu zhaifa on the Formation and Development of Daoist Sculpture, With an Emphasis on the Daoist Cliff Sculptures of Mianyang, Anyue, and Dazu in Sichuan Province," based on the results of a research trip to examine the Daoist cliff sculptures of these three counties conducted in March 2004. The contents of this article were further supplemented by a second research trip to examine the Daoist cliff sculptures of Tanshenyan at Niujiaozhai in Renshou County, Sichuan Province in December 2004.In addition, Kobayashi has completed an article entitled "The Original Form of the Daoist Zhai Ritual : The Establishment and Structure of the Zhijiao zhaifa."During this year, the final year of the research period, the investigators have completed the following articles :Mori Yuria, "Notes Concerning the Relationship of the Quanzhen Movement to the Rituals of the Way of the Celestial Masters During the Qing Dynasty."Azuma Juji, "Concerning the Jingling Palace During the Song Dynasty : Intersections Between Daoist and Confucian Offering Rituals."Nikaido Yoshihiro, "Concerning the Yuanshuai Deities in the Fahai yizhu : The Daoist Jiao Ritual, Popular Belief, and the Yuanshuai."_. "2003 Report on the Temples of Xiamen and Quanzhou."Oka Sumiaki, "The Changes in the Ordination of the Boddhisattva Precepts and the Eight Precepts."Yoshimura Makoto, "The Precepts of Bodhisattva in the Dharmasene's Translation of Bodhisattvabhumi"_. "Report on a Research Trip to Examine the Buddhist and Daoist Sculptures of Sichuan Province."In addition, a list of Daoist and Buddhist texts entered into a digital database at this time has been included in the "Report on Research Results.

The interdisciplinary researcher in and outside the country gathered to carry out the research which solves the dynamism of a "circulation form", such as generation, spread, changes, and exchange in Chinese popular culture of Imperial era and modern times from various mutual relation, such as literature, entertainments, art, folk religion, and a language.
Popular printed matter treated by this research is the new research fields in which the arrangement method itself crossed the domain of the conventional bibliography. And the Furyo collection in Waseda Univ. which are the comparatively big collection are the typical popular printed matter for considering this field. We discussed about Furyo collection over two weeks with the overseas research assignment Prof.Lin, Huang (head of the Fudan university linguistic research institute, Shanghai) and Prof.B.Riftin (top researcher of World Literary Research Institute Science Academy, Russia). And popular printed matter were photoed and digitized on the microfilm to make the base perused and studied easily.
This report reports the arranging method of Chinese popular culture printed matter by the digitization in this time. Moreover, The Research institute of Chinese Old Book Culture was founded by Waseda University, and established the base to exhibit the result of this research at any time was made.

We carried out the pre-subject "The Masque of the Southwest China, Research of Basis Culture" paying attention to their appearance, when the <masque> remained in whole China considered generation, development, change, and the special feature of the "basis culture" not only in the history of the Chinese theater but the whole Chinese culuture.
This research is based on the result of a pre-subject, and the archaeological viewpoint which considers the remains excavated from the ruins of every place over China is also called with the cooperation of the China archaeology community. Opinion exchange was performed during the research with several researchers in archaeology. And Inahata summarized the discovered view on the work "Symphony music of God and a Man : The World of a Chinese Mask" in the 2003 fiscal year. Thus, the necessity of positioning the representation of not only the role in the ceremony courtesy entertainments of a <masque> but the <mask> itself into the China culture and world culture came out. And it is possible.
The researched points and the investigation about a religious function person which were conducted during the period are summarized in this booklet. In addition to Qianbei area in Guizhou, at the International Nuoxi Society held in Dejiang, Guizhou in 2003, the courtesy of a Qiandongbei area Dejiang and Tongren town was also able to be visited. So many ceremony courtesy remain from Qianbei area to Qiandongbei area. Speaking of Tongren of Qiandongbei area, it is close to the <Chu> cultural sphere in Hunan. I want to open the investigation ground further and to also investigate the representation of a <mask> from now on.