雲岡石窟音樂圖像中的「琴」初探

The musical iconography in the Yungang Grottoes is a key to understanding the Buddhist music of Northern Wei Dynasty (386-534). Although there have been some prior studies on the musical instruments of musical iconography in the Yungang Grottoes, whether the 'Qin' (a musical instrument that looks like a rectangular box) is 'Guqin' (a seven-stringed musical instrument), 'Guzheng' (a Chinese zither with 13 strings), 'Se' (a large zither-like plucked instrument with 25 or more strings) or 'Horizontal konghou' (an ancient plucked stringed instrument) is arguable.This paper focuses on discussing whether it is possible to proclaim the 'Qin' as a traditional Chinese musical instrument 'Guqin' both from a literature review and from investigating 'Qin' personally in the Yungan Grottoes. If it is the case, the musical instrument ”Qin” in the Yungang Grottoes can be added as a musical instrument of the Northern Wei period as a source of understanding Guqin's influence on Chinese educated people and culture. Also, it can provide solid evidence that it served as a Buddhist religious musical instrument at that time.