Dao companion to Japanese Confucian philosophy 9789048129201, 9789048129218, 9048129206, 9048129214

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Dao Companions to Chinese Philosophy 5

Chun-chieh Huang John Allen Tucker Editors

Dao Companion to Japanese Confucian Philosophy

Dao Companion to Japanese Confucian Philosophy

Dao Companions to Chinese Philosophy Series Editor Yong HUANG Department of Philosophy The Chinese University of Hong Kong Shatin, New Territories, Hong Kong E-mail: [email protected]

While ‘‘philosophy’’ is a Western term, philosophy is not something exclusively Western. In this increasingly globalized world, the importance of non-Western philosophy is becoming more and more obvious. Among all the non-Western traditions, Chinese philosophy is certainly one of the richest. In a history of more than 2500 years, many extremely important classics, philosophers, and schools have emerged. As China is becoming an economic power today, it is only natural that more and more people are interested in learning about the cultural traditions, including the philosophical tradition, of China. The Dao Companions to Chinese Philosophy series aims to provide the most comprehensive and most up-to-date introduction to various aspects of Chinese philosophy as well as philosophical traditions heavily influenced by it. Each volume in this series focuses on an individual school, text, or person.

For further volumes: http://www.springer.com/series/8596

Chun-chieh Huang • John Allen Tucker Editors

Dao Companion to Japanese Confucian Philosophy

Editors Chun-chieh Huang National Taiwan University Taipei, Taiwan

John Allen Tucker East Carolina University Greenville, NC, USA

ISBN 978-90-481-2920-1 ISBN 978-90-481-2921-8 (eBook) DOI 10.1007/978-90-481-2921-8 Springer Dordrecht Heidelberg New York London Library of Congress Control Number: 2014948028 © Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2014 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are reserved by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. Exempted from this legal reservation are brief excerpts in connection with reviews or scholarly analysis or material supplied specifically for the purpose of being entered and executed on a computer system, for exclusive use by the purchaser of the work. Duplication of this publication or parts thereof is permitted only under the provisions of the Copyright Law of the Publisher’s location, in its current version, and permission for use must always be obtained from Springer. Permissions for use may be obtained through RightsLink at the Copyright Clearance Center. Violations are liable to prosecution under the respective Copyright Law. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. While the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication, neither the authors nor the editors nor the publisher can accept any legal responsibility for any errors or omissions that may be made. The publisher makes no warranty, express or implied, with respect to the material contained herein. Printed on acid-free paper Springer is part of Springer Science+Business Media (www.springer.com)

Contents

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Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . John A. Tucker and Chun-chieh Huang

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2 The Meanings of Words and Confucian Political Philosophy: A Study of MATSUNAGA Sekigo’s Ethics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . John A. Tucker

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Spirits, Gods, and Heaven in Confucian Thought . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . W.J. Boot

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Making Destiny in the Kingdom of Ryukyu . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109 Gregory Smits

5 The Somaticization of Learning in Edo Confucianism: The Rejection of Body-Mind Dualism in the Thought of KAIBARA Ekken . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141 TSUJIMOTO Masashi 辻本雅史 and Barry D. Steben, translator 6

OGYŪ Sorai: Confucian Conservative Reformer: From Journey to Kai to Discourse on Government . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165 Olof G. Lidin

7 The Philosophical Moment Between OGYŪ Sorai and KAIHO Seiryō: Indigenous Modernity in the Political Theories of Eighteenth-Century Japan? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 183 Olivier Ansart 8

Human Nature and the Way in the Philosophy of DAZAI Shundai . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 215 Peter Flueckiger

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Kokugaku Critiques of Confucianism and Chinese Culture . . . . . . . . 233 Peter Nosco

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Saints as Sinners: ANDŌ Shōeki’s Back-to-Nature Critiques of the Saints, Confucian and Otherwise. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 257 Jacques Joly

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Moral and Philosophical Idealism in Late-Edo Confucian Thought: ŌSHIO Chūsai and the Working Out of His “Great Aspiration” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 277 Barry D. Steben

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Divination and Meiji Politics: A Reading of TAKASHIMA Kaemon’s Judgments on the Book of Changes (Takashima Ekidan) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 315 Wai-Ming Ng

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“Orthodoxy” and “Legitimacy” in the YAMAZAKI Ansai School . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 331 MARUYAMA Masao 丸山真男 and Barry D. Steben, translator

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ZHU Xi and “ZHU Xi-ism”: Toward a Critical Perspective on the Ansai School . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 411 KOYASU Nobukuni 子安宣邦 and Barry D. Steben, translator

Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 423

Contributors

Olivier Ansart (Ph.D., Paris University) has been director of the French-Japanese House (Nichi-Futsu Kaikan) in Tokyo, professor in the Faculty of Law of Waseda University, and is presently chair of the Department of Japanese Studies at the University of Sydney. He is the author of L’empire du rite: la pensée politique d’OGYÛ Sorai (Geneva, Droz, 1998), La justification des théories politiques (Paris, L’Harmattan 2005), Une modernité indigène: ruptures et innovations dans les théories politiques du Japon du XIIIe siècle (Paris, Les Belles Lettres, forthcoming), and various articles in English, French or Japanese, mainly on political and social philosophy on eighteenth-century Japan. W.J. Boot studied Japanese, Korean, and East-Asian history at the universities of Leiden and Kyoto, and received his Ph.D. from the University of Leiden in January 1983. The title of his dissertation was The Adoption and Adaptation of NeoConfucianism in Japan: The Role of FUJIWARA Seika and HAYASHI Razan. Since then, he has been working on the intellectual history of early modern Japan and has published widely in this field. He was full professor of Japanese Language and Culture at the University of Leiden from March 1985 till December 2012, and also taught at the universities of Paris and Kyoto, and at Sophia University. Boot also edited a two-volume work, Critical Readings in the Intellectual History of EarlyModern Japan (Brill, 2012). Peter Flueckiger is associate professor of Japanese at Pomona College. He received his A.B. in economics from Harvard College and his M.A. and Ph.D. in East Asian languages and cultures from Columbia University. He has also been a research student at the University of Tokyo and a visiting researcher at International Christian University. His work focuses on the intersection of literary thought with political and ethical philosophy in eighteenth-century Japanese kokugaku (nativism) and Confucianism. He is the author of Imagining Harmony: Poetry, Empathy, and Community in Mid-Tokugawa Confucianism and Nativism (Stanford University Press, 2011), as well as a number of articles, book chapters, and translations.

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Chun-chieh Huang is National Chair Professor and dean of the Institute for Advanced Studies in Humanities and Social Sciences, and director of the Program of East Asian Confucianisms, National Taiwan University. He is also University Chair Professor at NTU and a research fellow at the Institute of Chinese Literature and Philosophy, Academia Sinica, in Taipei. Huang has authored three books in English, including Taiwan in Transformation: Retrospect and Prospect (Transaction Publishers, 2014, Revised and Enlarged edition), Mencian Hermeneutics: A History of Interpretations in China (Transaction Publishers, 2001), and Humanism in East Asian Confucian Contexts (Bielefeld: Transcript Verlag, 2010). His most recent works in Chinese include Confucian Classics and Their Ideas in the Cultural Interaction in East Asia (National Taiwan University Press, 2010), East Asian Confucianisms: Dialectics between the Classics and Interpretations (National Taiwan University Press, 2007, Japanese translation 2014), and A History of the Interpretations of the Analects in Tokugawa Japan (National Taiwan University Press, 2007). Huang has co-edited a number of volumes including, with John B. Henderson, Notions of Time in Chinese Historical Thinking (Chinese University Press, 2006); with Erik J. Zürcher, Time and Space in Chinese Culture (E. J. Brill, 1995); with Fredrick P. Brandauer, Imperial Rulership and Cultural Change in Traditional China (University of Washington Press, 1994); with Stevan Harrell, Cultural Change in Postwar Taiwan (Univ. Press of Maryland, 1993); and, with Erik J. Zürcher, Norms and the State in China (E. J. Brill, 1993). Jacques Joly completed his Ph.D. at the University of Paris in 1991. Before retirement, Joly taught at Notre Dame Women’s College, Kyoto, and at Eichi University, Amagasaki. A specialist in Tokugawa and Meiji Confucian thought, Joly is author of Le naturel selon ANDÔ Shôeki: un type de discours sur la nature et la spontanéité par un maître-confucéen de l’époque Tokugawa, ANDÔ Shôeki (1730–1762) (Maisonneuve et Larose, 1996) and translator of MARUYAMA Masao’s Nihon seiji shisōshi kenkyū under the title, Essais sur l’histoire de la pensée politique au Japon (Presses Universitaires de France, Paris, 1996). Joly has also published a number of scholarly articles on topics related to Japanese thought, with a focus on MARUYAMA Masao and the idea of nature in Europe and Japan. KOYASU Nobukuni 子安宣邦 is professor emeritus at Osaka University and a highly influential scholar of the history of Japanese thought, particularly Edo thought. Born in Kanagawa, he graduated from the Faculty of Letters at the University of Tokyo, after which he completed a Ph.D. in ethical thought at the same university. Topics critically dissected in Koyasu’s many publications include: the Nativist scholars MOTOORI Norinaga and HIRATA Atsutane, the “Ancient Learning” Confucian scholars ITŌ Jinsai and OGYŪ Sorai, the Confucian discourse regarding the spirits of the dead, the relationship between the state and sacrificial rituals to gods and ancestors, FUKUZAWA Yukichi, and Japanese nationalist and Orientalist thought. He was the first scholar to incisively apply the Foucautian concepts of “archeology” and “genealogy” to Japanese intellectual history, turning Edo scholarship from basically an attempt to find impulses toward “modernity” in Edo thought into a project of deconstructing modernity from the “outside-modernity” standpoint of Edo.

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Olof G. Lidin had his first university education at Uppsala University and Stockholm University completing a bachelor degree in law and another in Russian and French studies. He worked as a UN documentary officer at the United Nations Supervisory Commission in Korea after the war, between 1953 and 1955. He subsequently enrolled for graduate studies at the University of California, Berkeley, and ended a 10-year stay there with a Ph.D. and a position as an assistant professor at University of California, Davis. In 1968 he was called to University of Copenhagen where he was appointed as professor in 1972. He has later served as acting professor at Tübingen and Humboldt (Berlin) in Germany. He is now professor emeritus, living in Holte, Denmark. In addition to The Life of OGYU Sorai: A Tokugawa Confucian Philosopher, Lidin has translated Sorai’s Distinguishing the Way, Journey to Kai in 1706, and Discourse on Government. MARUYAMA Masao 丸山真男 was the most influential scholar of Japanese intellectual history and political thought in postwar Japan. He became famous as a selfprofessed modernist who reconstructed the history of Japanese political thought, originally centered on the imperial system, on the basis of Western philosophy and social science. In 1934 he entered the Faculty of Law at Tokyo Imperial University. Along the way, he published articles criticizing the psychological mechanisms of militarism and ultra-nationalism and emerged as a leader in the democratic thought movement. In 1950 he became a professor in the Tōdai Law Faculty. In the late 1960s he became a target of attack during the student protest movement as a symbol of the “deceptive nature” of postwar democracy. In 1971 he retired early for health reasons, but was appointed professor emeritus in 1974, and made a member of the Japan Academy in 1978. His Studies in the Intellectual History of Tokugawa Japan (Nihon seiji shisōshi kenkyū), written during the war, traced Japan’s movement toward modern thought through the ideas of ZHU Xi learning, OGYŪ Sorai, MOTOORI Norinaga, and others. Maruyama’s studies of FUKUZAWA Yukichi, whom he regarded as the quintessential representative of modern Japanese thought, are among his landmark contributions to the study of Japanese thought. Wai-Ming Ng is professor of Japanese studies at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, specializing in Tokugawa intellectual history, history of Japan-China cultural interaction and Japanese popular culture. He is the author of The I Ching in Tokugawa Thought and Culture (Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2000). His current research interests include Yijing studies in Meiji Japan, Chinese legends in Tokugawa Japan, Tokugawa interpretations of Confucian classics, Japanese communities in prewar Hong Kong, and the interaction between Hong Kong and Japan in popular culture. He is now preparing a book manuscript on the localization of Chinese culture in Tokugawa Japan. Peter Nosco is professor of Asian studies at the University of British Columbia. Trained at Columbia, Cambridge, and Tokyo Universities, he has worked on early modern Japanese literature (as the translator of IHARA Saikaku’s Saikaku oritome, or Some Final Words of Advice), Confucianism (as the editor of Confucianism and Tokugawa Culture), nativism or Kokugaku (as the author of Remembering Paradise:

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Nativism and Nostalgia in Eighteenth-Century), and underground Christians (with articles in Japanese Journal of Religious Studies). He has also published in recent years on Confucian perspectives on civil society, poverty and morality, as well as Buddhist perspectives on the globalization of ethics (in the Ethikon series). He is currently working on early modern Japanese values and evidence of individuality, and the continuity/discontinuity of these values and this individuality in the early Meiji. Gregory Smits received his Ph.D. in history from the University of Southern California in 1992. Thereafter he spent five years at Eastern Washington University, Cheney WA. Since 1997 he has been at Penn State University, University Park, PA, where he is an associate professor of history. His early research focused on early modern East Asian intellectual history. He has also done extensive research in the early modern history of the Ryukyu Kingdom. His recent work has been on the history of earthquakes in early modern and modern Japan, including the impact of earthquakes on social history and the history of science. Smits is the author of Visions of Ryukyu: Identity and Ideology in Early-Modern Thought and Politics (University of Hawai’i Press, 1999), and co-editor with Bettina Gramlich-Oka of Economic Thought in Early-Modern Japan (Brill, 2010). His most recent book is Seismic Japan: The Long History and Continuing Legacy of the Ansei Edo Earthquake (University of Hawai’i Press, 2014). Barry D. Steben is a Canadian who completed his undergraduate and graduate degrees in East Asian thought and languages at the University of Toronto. His doctoral research was done at the University of Tokyo under the supervision of MIZOGUCHI Yūzō (an influential scholar of late imperial Chinese Confucian thought), focusing on the WANG Yangming school of Confucianism in Japan and its relationship to samurai thought and Edo-period culture movements. His field of research is comparative Sino-Japanese Confucian thought, usually with the emphasis on Japan; he has also studied European intellectual history and the interaction of Western and Confucian thought in Japan and China in the nineteenth century. He has broad experience in translation from both Japanese and Chinese, including both modern and pre-modern texts. Steben has taught at the University of Western Ontario, the National University of Singapore, the Chinese University of Hong Kong, and Shanghai International Studies University. TSUJIMOTO Masashi 辻本雅史 is a scholar of Edo educational thought noted particularly for his penetrating studies of KAIBARA Ekken. He graduated in history from Kyoto University in 1973, and subsequently entered a Ph.D. program in the Educational Research Department at the same university. In 1990 he completed his Ph.D. at Osaka University. He was professor in the Faculty of Education at Kyoto University from 1995 through March 2012, after which he took up a teaching position at National Taiwan University. Since 1990 he has written and edited books on Japanese educational thought and the socio-cultural history of education, working to reconstruct the conventional image of the history of Japanese educational thought from a perspective that gives attention to the body as well as the mind.

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John A. Tucker completed his Ph.D. at Columbia University in 1990, with a specialization in Sino-Japanese Confucianism. Earlier, at the University of Hawaii, he studied East Asian philosophy and East Asian history. He has published articles in Philosophy East and West, the Journal of Chinese Philosophy, Asian Philosophy, the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, Chinese Culture, Sino-Japanese Studies, and Japan Studies Review. Tucker has published two books: ITŌ Jinsai’s Gomō jigi and the Philosophical Definition of Early-Modern Japan (Brill, 1998), and OGYŪ Sorai’s Philosophical Masterworks: The Bendō and Benmei (University of Hawai’i Press, 2006). He is also the editor of a four-volume anthology, Critical Readings in Japanese Confucianism (Brill, 2013). Tucker is a professor of history at East Carolina University in Greenville, North Carolina. Funding for his work on this project was provided by an East Carolina University Faculty Senate Research Grant and by a research grant from National Taiwan University’s Institute for Advanced Studies in Humanities and Social Sciences.

Chapter 1

Introduction John A. Tucker and Chun-chieh Huang

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About the Anthology

This volume, part of the Dao Companion to Chinese Philosophy Series edited by HUANG Yong 哳勇, seeks to advance the study of Japanese Confucian philosophy for English language readers. It also advances a tradition in scholarship traceable through at least three previous anthologies: (i) Japanese Thought in the Tokugawa Period 1600–1868: Methods and Metaphors, edited by Tetsuo Najita and Irwin Scheiner (Najita and Scheiner 1978), (ii) Principle and Practicality: Essays in Neo-Confucianism and Practical Learning, edited by Wm. Theodore de Bary and Irene Bloom (de Bary and Bloom 1979), and (iii) Confucianism and Tokugawa Culture, edited by Peter Nosco (Nosco 1984). These previous volumes are not exclusively devoted to Confucianism in Japan, although most of their essays deal largely with it in one way or another. The present work boasts essays that invariably focus on Japanese Confucianism, while including themes and topics related to Buddhism, Shintō, Nativism, and even ANDŌ Shōeki 安藤昌益 (1703–1762), one of the most vehement critics of Confucianism in all of East Asia. The earlier anthologies do not describe their contents as philosophy, nor do they necessarily pertain to philosophical thought in every case, but arguably each of them furthers our understandings of Japanese Confucianism and its relevance to philosophy where the latter is understood broadly as an ongoing search for critical insight and self-reflective knowledge, even

J.A. Tucker (*) Department of History, East Carolina University, A-317, Brewster Bldg., 27858-4353 Greenville, NC, USA e-mail: [email protected] C.C. Huang Institute for Advanced Studies in Humanities and Social Sciences, National Taiwan University, Roosevelt Rd. Sec. 4 1 106, Taipei, Taiwan e-mail: [email protected]; [email protected] C.C. Huang and J.A. Tucker (eds.), Dao Companion to Japanese Confucian Philosophy, Dao Companions to Chinese Philosophy 5, DOI 10.1007/978-90-481-2921-8_1, © Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2014

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wisdom (sophia), about the nature of the self, society, culture, the polity, spiritual matters, and the cosmos. Methodologically, the earlier anthologies are hybrids combining studies in intellectual history informed by Western theoretical literature along with other studies analyzing philosophically significant writings by Japanese Confucian scholars and their critics. The present volume is also eclectic in methodology. This anthology differs significantly, however, with an interpretive parameter set in Japanese Thought with its assertion, “… we should not seek pure philosophical statements, exemplifications of syllogistic reasoning, for this leads one to ask whether there was systematic philosophy in traditional Japan – let us say in the manner of Hume or Kant – a question destined to receive an uncomplicated negative answer” (Najita and Scheiner 1978: 5–6). Few today, other than Kantians, would suggest that philosophy need be “pure,” or necessarily systematic or syllogistic in reasoning, if in fact there need be a resort to reasoning at all. Ludwig Wittgenstein’s Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, one of the most important philosophical texts of the twentieth century, was neither consistently syllogistic nor systematic. Rather the Tractatus, not unlike the Analects of Confucius, includes a series of occasionally brilliant but often-random observations typically declared rather than argued logically. Thus its opening declarative, “The world is all that is the case,” is followed, on the final page, by a concluding confessional, “My propositions serve as elucidations in the following way: anyone who understands me eventually recognizes them as nonsensical, when he has used them – as steps – to climb up beyond them. (He must, so to speak, throw away the ladder after he has climbed up it). He must transcend these propositions, and then he will see the world aright.” (Wittgenstein 1961: 5, 89). Even with its declarative and self-deconstructive propositions, the Tractatus remains one of the great works of philosophy. Wittgenstein aside, or perhaps because of him, understandings of philosophy and philosophical discourse have gone beyond the Western-centered paradigm that once declared the world other than Europe and areas of European descent to be barren of philosophy. Increasingly students of philosophy are recognizing what Leibniz, Kant, and Hegel noted centuries ago – that philosophy is a far grander endeavor than Western philosophy and that one dimension of its grandeur is surely Confucianism (Hegel 1892: 120–121; Tu and Ikeda 2011: 55; Mungello 1977). Whether acknowledged minimally as a moral teaching rising to the threshold of ethics, or more fully as comprising metaphysical and ontological speculations, Confucianism rated as philosophy well before the present. However, for reasons to be discussed shortly, during the twentieth century a reaction set in against recognizing Confucianism, including Japanese Confucianism, as philosophy. In China, this became conspicuous in the early twentieth century with the May Fourth Movement; in Japan, it did not occur until the post-World War II period. Yet in the same postwar period, the notion that the world harbors more philosophical wisdom than just that of the West made a comeback, and ironically this was most true in Western thinking about Asian thought, now often considered as philosophical in nature. Since the early 1960s, the Department of Philosophy at the University of Hawai’i-Manoa has led this process of rethinking the provenance and scope of philosophy with scholarship published in

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UH journals such as Philosophy East and West and the Journal of Chinese Philosophy, academic gatherings such as the East–West Philosophers’ Conferences, plus numerous UH Press publications – monographs and translation-studies – exploring Asian and East Asian philosophical thinking. Among Western scholars, Wm. Theodore de Bary at Columbia University has made enormous contributions to the study of Confucianism generally and Japanese Confucianism in particular, as thought, as intellectual history, and in distinctly philosophical terms as well. Since its publication in 1979, Principle and Practicality, a massive volume co-edited by de Bary and Irene Bloom, has incomparably advanced erudite thinking about Japanese Confucianism and its multifaceted expressions of philosophically informed practicality. Essays in Confucianism and Tokugawa Culture edited by Columbiatrained Peter Nosco have expanded understandings of Japanese Confucianism in its ideological, historiographical, and ontological dimensions, as well as in relation to Shintō, Buddhism, and some nineteenth-century Meiji thought. Many other important scholars and their works contributing to the interpretive revolution in understanding philosophy as a global, and certainly Japanese Confucian, activity might be cited here as well. One is David A. Dilworth’s Philosophy in World Perspective: A Comparative Hermeneutic of the Major Theories published by Yale (Dilworth 1989). Another, Mary Evelyn Tucker’s The Philosophy of Qi: The Record of Great Doubts, a study of KAIBARA Ekken 貝原益軒 (1630–1714), published by Columbia University Press, reveals the growing interpretive shift specifically in relation to research on Japanese Confucianism (Tucker 2007). At the University of Chicago, Tetsuo Najita now, in Tokugawa Political Writings at least, refers to his subject as “OGYŪ Sorai’s political philosophy” (Najita 1998: xiv-xv), moving his hermeneutics into a philosophical dimension. Trained at the University of Hawai’i and Columbia, John A. Tucker, in translation-studies of the philosophical masterworks of ITō Jinsai 伊藤仁齋 (1627–1705) and OGYŪ Sorai 荻生徂徠 (1666–1728), published by E. J. Brill and the University of Hawai’i Press respectively, has made accessible two major Japanese Confucian texts revealing the extent to which, necessary or sufficient or not, Jinsai and Sorai were systematic and methodologically modern philosophers in their concern for language and meaning (Tucker 1998 , 2006). At National Taiwan University, Chun-chieh Huang, dean of the Institute for Advanced Studies in Humanities and Social Sciences has furthered the study of Confucianism as a multifaceted intellectual force in decidedly East Asian contexts, with Japanese developments, philosophical and intellectual, well represented. Within Japan, the University of Tokyo Center for Philosophy (UTCP), founded in 2002, includes researchers studying Japanese culture and intellectual history, as well as traditional East Asian thought, hopefully in an effort, as one of the Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology’s Centers of Excellence, to foster new understandings of Japanese Confucianism and its philosophical dimensions. Endorsing a broad and inclusive approach to its understanding of philosophy, UTCP similarly emphasizes the importance of understanding Japanese developments within an East Asian and ultimately global context, one aiming at providing for humanity a future conducive to “living together” (kyōsei 共生).

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Defining Philosophy and Understanding Tetsugaku

Before proceeding, a detailed exposition of what this volume understands by philosophy is in order. Needless to say, it does not subscribe to narrow conceptions that apply to nothing outside of the Western fold. Nor does it recognize philosophy as a discipline that was originally or inherently Western, yet into which non-Western writings are charitably included to build bridges and promote cultural understanding. With Confucianism, there is abundant and compelling evidence that the practice of discussing ethics, politics, the mind, epistemology, the cosmos, and spiritual topics in sustained, self-reflexive, critical dialogues with a conscientious concern for precision in meaning, conceptual use, and logical development occurred with Kongfuzi 孔夫子 (551–479 BCE) and Mengzi 孟子 (372–289 BCE), about the same time that it did in the West with Socrates (c. 469–399 BCE), Plato (424–348 BCE), and Aristotle (384–322 BCE). Presumably that was why Kant himself called Confucius “the Chinese Socrates” (Tu and Ikeda 2011: 55). The practice of philosophizing was not, then, something introduced to East Asia; it existed there early on, resulting in, after Catholic missionaries encountered East Asia, the invention, in the Western mind, of “Confucius,” “Mencius,” and “Confucianism.” That invention did not begin or even significantly alter the processes of philosophical development in East Asia; there, what Westerners began calling “Confucianism” in the West, had long existed, under various names but with a fairly clear and unified identity, as a multifaceted form of learning including discussions of and debates over a range of topics and themes. What this anthology understands by philosophy consists precisely in this sort of ongoing engagement in critical, self-reflective discussions of and speculative theorizing about ethics, epistemology, metaphysics, political theory, and spiritual problems, as well as aesthetics, cosmology, and ontology, with the goal being attainment of a more profound understanding of ourselves, others, the world, and the universe at large. Confucians in East Asia have been doing this for over two millennia, since the time of Confucius. When the Greco-Western term “philosophy” was introduced to East Asia, Japanese scholars led the way in translating it, first with various neologisms, virtually all of which were formed by combining ancient notions from the Confucian lexicon. The neologism that prevailed, advanced by NISHI Amane 西周 (1829–1897), was tetsugaku 哲學 (C: zhixue), a compound including the word gaku 學, meaning “study” and “learning,” with tetsu 哲, meaning “wise” (Piovesana 1963: 11–12; Takayanagi 2011: 81–84; Lam 2011: 72–73, also see Fujita 2009: 261–266). The first word, tetsu 哲, appears in the ancient Five Classics and later works of Confucianism literally dozens of times, invariably with the meaning of “wise” or “wisdom.” While the Five Classics were not exclusively Confucian, many scholars claimed that Confucius edited them, making the Five Classics, for those who accepted that perhaps questionable claim, profoundly if not exclusively Confucian. The second word in the neologism, gaku 學, was used in various discourses related to study and learning, but has ancient roots in Confucianism beginning with the opening passage of the Analects (C: Lunyu 論語 J: Rongo) where Confucius is

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recorded as asking, “Is it not a pleasure to study (C: xue 學 J: gaku) and in time learn?” Nowhere was the notion gaku more extolled and promoted than by ancient Confucians and their later followers and interpreters throughout East Asia. From the beginning, then, Confucian notions were intrinsically related to the modern Japanese translation for the Western term “philosophy.” It must be admitted, however, that Nishi made no overall attempt to interpret earlier Japanese Confucian thought as tetsugaku. If anything Nishi, like many Meiji intellectuals who stood in awe of Western intellectual developments, was somewhat contemptuous of ideas tracing to China and so differentiated Confucianism from tetsugaku. NAKAE Chōmin 中江兆民 (1847–1901), another Meiji intellectual of similar mind in regard to Western ideas as opposed to those of pre-Meiji Japan and East Asia, even declared, rather polemically, that, In Japan, there was never philosophy (Nihon ni tetsugaku naishi 日本に哲學ないし). While there were philologists such as MOTOORI [Norinaga] 本居宣長 (1730–1801) and [HIRATA] Atsutane 平田篤胤 (1776–1843) who dug up the graves of antiquity to study ancient texts, they did not provide clear answers about the meaning of life or the world around us. Followers of [ITō] Jinsai and [OGYŪ] Sorai offered new interpretations of Confucian texts, but they were nonetheless Confucian thinkers. Although some people among the Buddhist monks proposed some new ideas and created a new school, all of them remained confined to the realm of religion and so their work was not pure philosophy. Recently [there] appeared people like KATō [Hiroyuki] 加藤弘之 (1836–1916) and INOUE [Tetsujirō] 井上哲次郎 (1855–1944) who call themselves philosophers. And they are recognized as such. However they are just introducing in Japan theories from the West without taking time to digest them. That attitude is not worthy of philosophers. (Nakae 1983: 155; translation adapted from Dufourmont 2010: 72)

When Nakae wrote, China was moving toward a revolution that would bring the Qing 清 (1644–1911) dynasty down. Confucianism, the official curriculum for the civil service exam system since the Yuan dynasty 元 (1279–1368), appeared to many inside and outside of China as an old-fashioned if not obsolete and badly discredited teaching. KANG Youwei 康有為 (1858–1927), a late-Qing thinker, attempted to reinterpret Confucius as a revolutionary reformer whose ideas could help mediate the transformation of China into a modern nation, but his ideas did not find a significant following in either China, where they were included in his lectures from the mid-1880s, or in Japan, where his writings on Confucius were first published, during Kang’s exile from China, in the early 1900s. For an ascendant Meiji Japan increasingly ready, in some corners, to “quit Asia” (㝛亞) as its leading public intellectual, FUKUZAWA Yukichi 福澤諭吉 (1835–1901), advocated, it appeared senseless to equate a Western intellectual discipline, philosophy, a source of Western cultural pride and presumably strength, with a seemingly impotent way of thinking that originated in ancient China. Better to redefine Confucian terms quickly and abandon the rest rather than attempt to retain all and find them a hindrance to modernity. Confucianism did remain a part of Meiji intellectual culture, but neither Nishi nor Nakae, nor most late-Meiji intellectuals sought to elevate it as an authentic counterpart to Western philosophy. Apart from KANG Youwei, however, there was one very important exception: INOUE Tetsujirō 井上哲次郎 (1855–1944).

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INOUE Tetsujirō and the Study of Japanese Confucian Philosophy

Not long after NISHI Amane coined the term, tetsugaku, the first Japanese professor of philosophy at Tokyo Imperial University, INOUE Tetsujirō, defined for the discipline a distinctively Japanese dimension by authoring a monumental trilogy on the first schools of what he called “Japanese philosophy” (Nihon no tetsugaku 日本之哲 學). Admittedly, Inoue distinguished between “Western philosophy” (Seiyō tetsugaku 西洋哲學) and “Asian philosophy” (Tōyō tetsugaku 東洋哲學), situating Japanese philosophy in the latter division. The tripartite analyses evident in Inoue’s trilogy echoed Hegel, whom he had studied while in Germany in the mid-1880s as a graduate student, but they also reflected Inoue’s national pride over Meiji Japan’s modern development and its impressive victory over Qing China in the Sino-Japanese War (1894–1895). Each of the schools of Japanese philosophy that Inoue identified was Confucian. His trilogy, consisting of (i) The Philosophy of the Japanese School of ZHU Xi (Nihon Shushigakuha no tetsugaku 日本朱子學派之哲學) (Inoue 1905), (ii) The Philosophy of the Japanese School of WANG Yangming (Nihon Yōmeigakuha no tetsugaku 日本 陽明學派之哲學) (Inoue 1900), and (iii) The Philosophy of the Japanese School of Ancient Learning (Nihon kogakuha no tetsugaku 日本古學派之哲學) (Inoue 1902), defined the major schools, their philosophers, their key ideas, and selections from major texts, plus commentary and critical reflections. Significantly the overall “three school” architectonic of Inoue’s descriptions of Japanese Confucianism has informed virtually all discussions of the subject since. While extolling a foreign way of thinking, Confucianism, as the foundation of Japanese philosophy, Inoue saw, along distinctly nationalistic lines, the most creative and profound expression of Confucianism in the Japanese School of Ancient Learning (Nihon kogakuha 日本古學派), composed of three major figures, YAMAGA Sokō 山鹿素行 (1622–1685), ITō Jinsai 伊藤 仁齋 (1627–1705), and OGYū Sorai 荻生徂徠 (1666–1728). Ancient Learning stood as the new synthesis produced, as Hegelian dialectics would have it, by the opposition of the ZHU Xi School (thesis) and the WANG Yangming School (antithesis). In that Hegelian manner, Inoue saw something distinctively Japanese, “Ancient Learning,” drawing on, emerging from, and ultimately prevailing over its Chinese foundations, philosophically, much as Imperial Japan had prevailed over Qing China in warfare and modern development. However, once that inflated sense of national and philosophical grandeur came crashing down in 1945, Inoue’s name was quickly forgotten. The reasons for this Inoue amnesia are found in postwar loathing for what were soon recognized as Inoue’s highly nationalistic and propagandistic interpretations of Japanese Confucianism, advanced with hyperbole and distortion to serve the political interests of the imperial throne, promote ultra-nationalism, and affirm an aggressive militaristic ethos for the Japanese people under the guise of such quasi-philosophical notions as “imperialism” (teikoku shugi 帝国主義), “nationalism” (kokka shugi 國家主), and “the way of the warrior” (bushidō 武士道). Inoue’s mixture of Confucian philosophy

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and what would later be recognized as prewar and wartime ideologies was profoundly tragic. After his death in 1944 and the war in 1945, few mentioned Inoue, even fewer called Confucianism a philosophy, and those who did study philosophy saw it entirely in Western, and most typically German terms. Nevertheless if his nationalistic, imperialistic, and militaristic interpretations can be bracketed (and that is asking a great deal), it remains significant that it was Inoue who recognized in Japanese Confucianism the most compelling and systematic statements of what could be called Japanese philosophy. Inoue’s views of Confucianism as philosophy also contributed to the rise of Chinese philosophy and its recognition of Confucianism as an important branch of philosophical study. In Korea, much the same is true where Confucianism continues to be studied widely as a philosophical system. While the particulars of his interpretations were rarely endorsed outside Japan, and even rarely in Japan in the postwar period, Inoue’s overall thesis, that Confucianism was an expression of East Asian philosophy (Tōyō tetsugaku 東洋哲學), continues to reverberate widely. Still, few credit Inoue for pioneering this development, whether in Japan or not. In addition to his trilogy on the Japanese schools of Confucian philosophy, Inoue co-edited, with KANIE Yoshimaru 蟹江義丸 (1872–1904), a 10-volume series (with each including 500–600 pages), Japanese Writings on Ethics (Nihon rinri ihen 日本 倫理彙編). The volumes are thematically grounded according to the schools that Inoue identified in his trilogy. Major works by the Japanese WANG Yangming School are presented first, in volumes 1 through 3; School of Ancient Learning texts, in volumes 4 through 6; Japanese ZHU Xi School writings, volumes 7 and 8; Japanese Eclectic School writings are in volume 9; volume 10 includes texts by so-called independent thinkers (Inoue and Kanie 1901–1903). In addition to providing libraries and universities with nicely bound modern editions of works that otherwise remained in woodblock editions, the Nihon rinri ihen series went a long way toward defining (or inventing) the collection of basic texts comprising what Inoue and his followers referred to as Japan’s philosophical tradition. The gist of it, Inoue and Kanie could claim, was there for the reading, in over 5,000 pages of systematically grouped texts. The textual work evident in Nihon rinri ihen reverberates in postwar Confucian publications found in series such as the 50-volume Japanese Masterworks (Nihon no meicho 日本の名著), published by Chūō kōronsha (1969–1978), the 20-volume Japanese Thought series (Nihon no shisō 日本の思想), published by Chikuma shobō (1969–1972); and the 67 volume Grand Compilation of Japanese Thought (Nihon shisō taikei 日本思想大系), published by Iwanami shoten (1970–1982). In these postwar series, many of the same Confucian texts presented in Inoue’s and Kanie’s Nihon rinri ihen reappear time and again. Whatever else might be said about them, the works Inoue and Kanie highlighted constitute a considerable portion (excluding Buddhist and Shintō works) of the great works of Japan’s philosophical tradition. That Inoue had served Tokyo Imperial University as the first native Japanese to hold a chair in philosophy added considerably to the prestige and credibility of his interpretations. Inoue’s work can be viewed as an important academic dimension of

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ongoing Meiji 明治 (1868–1912) efforts to establish that Japan was a civilized nation of the first order, one comparable, in its substantial collection of philosophical literature, to the leading Western imperialist nations bearing down on East Asia. That Inoue found philosophy in Confucianism was not necessarily mistaken, regardless of his egregiously nationalistic interpretations. What is undeniable is that with Inoue’s writings, published early in the twentieth century, Japanese Confucian philosophy emerged as a modern field of study. The substance of the field had existed in East Asia since the time of Confucius, and in Japan at least since the rise of a succession of distinctively Japanese statements of Confucianism in the early seventeenth century. Significantly, when Chinese, Korean, and Vietnamese intellectuals considered the question, how to render the Western notion of philosophy into their vernaculars, they accepted the Japanese neologism tetsugaku 哲學, recognizing the appropriateness of the Meiji gloss as well as its unmistakable allusions to Confucian terms from the most ancient texts of the tradition, suggesting the antiquity of the speculative enterprise in East Asian learning (Kōsaka 2007: 12). Had Inoue and those who echoed his appraisals not been determined to make their philosophical studies of Confucianism serve the interests of the imperial state in pre-1945 Japan, the field of Japanese Confucian philosophy might be healthier today. Rather than elevate the Confucian tendency to stand with integrity and remonstrate against wrongheaded rule and misguided government policies, Inoue refashioned traditional Japanese Confucian ethics into a “national ethic” (kokumin dōtoku 國民道徳) consisting of filial piety and patriotism, self-denial and selfsacrifice, and service unto death for the cause of imperial glory. A prolific authoreditor, Inoue produced a succession of increasingly ideological, but nominally philosophical works such as his 1905 publication, compiled with ARIMA Sukemasa 有馬祐政 (1873–1931), The Bushidō Library (Bushidō sōsho 武士道叢書), in three volumes (Inoue and Arima 1905). In 1912, he published An Outline of National Morality (Kokumin dōtoku gairon 國民道徳概論), a text extolling the virtues of Japanese in relation to their imperial throne, military spirit, and the virtues of their national ethics (Inoue 1912). Anticipating the propaganda treatise, Fundamentals of Our National Essence (Kokutai no hongi 國體の本義) compiled by the Ministry of Education nearly a decade later, Inoue published his Our National Essence and National Morality (Waga kokutai to kokumin dōtoku 我が國體と國民道徳) in 1925 (Inoue 1925). During the same years that Kokutai no hongi was in circulation as a text for public school instruction, Inoue authored yet another work, The Essence of the Japanese Spirit (Nihon seishin no honshitsu 日本精神の本質), published in 1934 (Inoue 1934a). The same year, he returned to bushidō, publishing volume one of his compilation, The Collected Works of Bushidō (Bushidō shū 武士道集), the second volume of which he published in 1940 (Inoue 1940). Reportedly Inoue was working on the third and final volume when he passed away in 1944. In 1939, two years after Japan’s invasion of China, Inoue authored a work addressing Japan’s mission there entitled, East Asian Culture and the Future of China (Tōyō bunka to Shina no shōrai 東洋文化と支那の将来) (Inoue 1939). In 1941, Inoue coedited, with NAKAYAMA Kyūshirō 中山久四郎 (1874–1961), a work for the imperial military forces entitled, Fundamental Meanings of Battlefield

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Precepts (Senjin kun hongi 戦陣訓本義) (Inoue and Nakayama 1941). Following Japan’s successful initiation of a series of military initiatives in the Pacific, Inoue published another volume on bushidō, The Essence of Bushidō (Bushidō no honshitsu 武士道の本質) (Inoue 1942). As a scholar, Inoue had moved from defining Japanese philosophy in terms of Confucianism to defining a national ethic (kokumin dōtoku 國民道徳) with substantial portions coming from Confucianism, thus mixing ideas about thinkers earlier identified as philosophers with the creation of what later scholars would agree was little more than imperialistic and militaristic propaganda masked as an ethics for the nation. With this, however, Inoue had arguably poisoned the well of Japanese Confucian philosophy that his early work, even with its ardent nationalism, had done so much to provide. His death in 1944 shielded him from seeing the fate of his lifework, but surely he must have had some inkling how badly things would turn out. Following Japan’s defeat in World War II, the notion of Japanese Confucian philosophy was virtually discredited. Inoue’s voluminous writings were largely ignored no doubt because they consisted of so many tragically irresponsible interpretive fabrications (Nakamura 2007: 33–35). Philosophy as a discipline was redefined, away from Inoue’s understanding of Japanese Confucianism and toward another dimension of its expression by one of Inoue’s early students, Kyoto Imperial University professor of philosophy NISHIDA Kitarō 西田幾多郎 (1870–1945). Rather than emphasize the importance of tracing the beginnings of Japanese philosophy within Japanese intellectual history, Nishida drew creatively on notions from German, Japanese, and Zen Buddhist thought to formulate a new synthesis that was highly original and systematic. Although some of Nishida’s thinking has been interpreted as advancing pro-imperial ideologies (Heisig and Maraldo 1995), it never went to nearly the lengths that Inoue’s did and so has fared better in postwar Japan as the widely recognized beginning point of Japanese philosophy. Along the way, Inoue and his claims about Japanese Confucian philosophy have been all but omitted from contemporary Japanese discussions of the nature of Japanese philosophy and its history as an area of study within Japanese history. It should be added, however, that even Nishida had to affirm the philosophical world that Inoue fashioned. Consequently, he too recognized that Confucianism had been considered as philosophy, mentioning as much in his New Year’s address to the emperor in 1941 (Nishida 1950: 267–268; Cheung 2011: 58–59). That aspect of Nishida’s thought, surely deriving from Inoue, has been nearly forgotten as well, along with Inoue. The ethics, metaphysics, political thought, epistemological theories, and spiritual speculations of Japanese Confucianism continued to be studied in postwar Japan, but most Japanese scholars doing so have refrained from calling them “philosophy” and instead cast the subject matter of their research as “thought” (shisō 思想), “intellectual history” (shisōshi 思想史), or “ideology” (ideorogii イデオロギー), distancing their work nominally from the disciplinary area Inoue advanced. Yet arguably in these studies of thought and intellectual history, the substance of Japanese Confucian philosophy remains evident even though it is rarely spoken of as philosophy. Recent Western scholarship on Japanese philosophy generally and Japanese Confucian philosophy within it has contributed substantially to reviving the credibility of the

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study of Japanese Confucianism as philosophy. One work exemplifying this is the massive reader, Japanese Philosophy: A Sourcebook (Heisig et al. 2011). An earlier and briefer survey, Japanese Philosophy, also interprets Japanese Confucian thinking as philosophy (Blocker and Starling 2001). The diversity so characterizing the field of Confucian philosophy generally and Japanese Confucian philosophy in particular has prompted Chun-chieh Huang 哳俊傑 at National Taiwan University to suggest that far from a single intellectual force, Confucianism should be understood as a plurality of multifaceted teachings and so referred to as “Confucianisms” (Huang 2010). Readers of this volume will presumably come to appreciate Huang’s enlightened suggestion because if anything the studies presented here well illustrate the fact that there was never a single, monolithic Japanese expression of Confucianism, philosophical or otherwise. The Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology’s establishment of the University of Tokyo Center for Philosophy (UTCP) also offers great hope for the revival of studies of Japanese Confucianism as philosophy. UTCP understands philosophy in the widest possible sense, as including philosophical thought, intellectual history, cultural studies, religious studies, cultural studies, and reflections on science and technology, all as geared toward the fundamental idea of “living together” (kyōsei 共生). The essays in this volume similarly reflect a wide range of approaches to philosophical wisdom about Japanese Confucianism, including ones drawing on intellectual history, thought, and cultural studies. Hopefully they too will contribute to, through understanding, a better and more cooperative future for humanity.

1.4

Beginnings: Defining Terms and Defining Politics

Readers familiar with previous accounts of Japanese Confucianism – especially those following Inoue’s interpretations – might expect this volume to open with an essay on the Confucian thought of FUJIWARA Seika 藤原惺窩 (1561–1619) or HAYASHI Razan 林羅山 (1583–1657), two figures at the headwaters of early-modern developments in Confucian philosophizing in Japan. Previous studies in earlier anthologies and publications on Japanese Confucianism have by no means exhaustively explored every dimension of Seika and Razan, but those thinkers have received considerable attention (de Bary 1979: 127–188; Boot 1982; Ooms 1984: 27–61; Tucker 1992: 41–60; Paramore 2006: 185–206). This volume opens with a different approach to the study of the beginnings of early-modern Japanese Confucianism: an examination of the thought of MATSUNAGA Sekigo 松永尺五 (1592–1657) as developed in his Ethics (Irinshō 彙倫抄). Sekigo, a disciple of Seika and contemporary of Razan, articulated a system of Confucian philosophizing that can be described as distinctively Japanese insofar as it encompasses, through systematically syncretic interpretations, Shintō, Buddhist, and Daoist teachings into its accounts of Confucian philosophical terms. This kind of all-embracing philosophical statement, while not unheard of in medieval Japan, had earlier been more typically formulated by Zen

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monks giving the syncretic philosophy advanced a decidedly Buddhist core around which Confucian teachings were added. Sekigo’s text is at its core Confucian, but where possible incorporates examples from the life of the Buddha, Siddhartha Gautama (ca. 563–483 BCE), as well as Buddhist teachings in an effort to establish the pervasive validity of Confucian teachings. Along the way, Sekigo establishes a kind of philosophical united front, merging potentially opposing forces from East Asian religio-philosophical traditions to check the appeal of the dangerous foreign heterodoxy that Sekigo could not tolerate, Christianity. Writing in 1640, two years after the Christian-inspired Shimabara Uprising (Shimabara no ran 島原の乱) had been brutally quashed by Tokugawa forces, Sekigo authored the postscript to his Confucian syncretism, explaining it not as an abstract system having little relationship to realities of the day, but as a statement meant to instill in its readers ethical sensibilities that would render them immune to dangerous Christian teachings. In articulating his system by way of philosophical lexicography, or the semantic analysis of philosophical terms, Sekigo was equally engaging in an exploration of philosophical language and meaning of a kind that Confucius spoke of in the Analects as “the rectification of terms” (C: zhengming 正名 J: seimei). There Confucius explained the rectification of terms as a fundamentally necessary step toward achieving right political order in governing a realm. In this respect Sekigo’s philosophical system, developed by defining philosophical terms, represents one statement of Confucian political philosophy in early-modern Japan. As the first English language study of Sekigo’s Confucianism, the opening essay reveals a new dimension of Japanese Confucian philosophy in the early seventeenth century.

1.5

Discussions of the Spiritual

In the Analects, Confucius remarks that wisdom (C: zhi 知 J: chi) consists partly in “revering ghosts and spirits, but distancing oneself from them” (敬鬼神而遠之) (Analects 6/22). In another passage, Confucius is said to have “offered sacrifices to the spirits as if they were actually present” (祭神如神在) (Analects 3/12). When asked about the way of spirits, Confucius responded with a question, “Why need you be able to serve spirits when you have not been able to bring yourself to serve other people? (未能事人,焉能事鬼)” (Analects 11/12). In another passage Confucius is described as “not talking about … spiritual matters” (子不語 … 神) (Analects 7/21). One of the distinctive features of Neo-Confucianism, however, was that it devoted considerable energy to discussing spiritual matters. CHEN Beixi 陳北溪 (1159–1223), a late-Song follower of ZHU Xi’s 朱熹 (1130–1200) Neo-Confucian teachings, wrote more in his accounts of spiritual matters (C: guishen 鬼神 J: kishin), than he did on any other notion in his lexicography of Neo-Confucian philosophical concepts. Other major compilations of ZHU Xi’s philosophical discussions such as the Classified Conversations of Master Zhu (C: Zhuzi yulei 朱子語類 J: Shushi gorui) and the Grand Compendium of Neo-Confucian Notions (C: Xingli daquan 性 理大全 J: Seiri dazen) equally featured Zhu’s comments on spiritual topics. In part,

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Neo-Confucians felt compelled to address these as a way of responding to Buddhist claims about heavenly paradises, myriad realms of hell, ceaseless reincarnation, and other spiritual notions. Among early-modern Japanese Confucian scholars influenced by these texts as well as other standard works of Neo-Confucian literature such as ZHU Xi’s Commentaries on the Four Books (C: Sishu jizhu 四書集注 J: Shisho shitchū), discussions of ghosts and spirits proliferated. Perhaps more so than in China and Korea, Japanese Confucians felt it necessary to address these topics due to the continued vitality of Buddhism as well as the widespread nativist beliefs of Shintō regarding the nature of kami 神. The prevalence of such discussions has not been lost on Japanese scholars studying Japanese Confucianism. KOYASU Nobukuni’s 子安宣邦 On Spirits: The Discourse of Confucian Intellectuals (Kishinron: Juka chishikijin no disukūru 鬼神論: 儒家知識人のディスクール), plus ASANO Sanpei’s 浅野三平 modern edition and translation of ARAI Hakuseki’s 新 井白石 (1657–1725) and HIRATA Atsutane’s 平田篤胤 (1776–1843) essays on kishin, make evident the enduring importance of this topic to understandings of Japanese Confucian philosophizing (Koyasu 1992; Asano 2012). In his essay “Spirits, Gods, and Heaven in Confucian Thought,” W. J. Boot explores this discourse in considerable detail, showing that it was no random miscellany of writings lacking in theoretical cohesion and rigor. Instead Boot reveals the discourse as one far more unified in terminology and content than might have been imagined. In exploring this discourse, Boot examines the ideas of a wide variety of thinkers including HAYASHI Razan, MINAGAWA Kien 皆川淇園 (1734– 1807), OGYŪ Sorai, ARAI Hakuseki, and AIZAWA Seishisai 会沢正志斎 (1782–1863). In these thinkers Boot finds considerable shared ground such as the tendency to avoid appeal to what Westerners so like to conceive the spiritual in terms of, things immaterial and supernatural. Rather Confucian theology, as Boot refers to it (it could also be called philosophical theology), is largely at one in its agreement that kishin are not immaterial but instead are manifestations of material force (C: qi 氣 J: ki, translated elsewhere in this volume as “generative force”), and that they are not “supernatural” but rather firmly grounded in the natural world of human existence and daily activity. For those thinkers who did not, like Yamagata Bantō 山片蟠桃 (1748–1821), flatly deny their existence, Confucian theorists were in part motivated by their understanding that defining a spiritual theology was immediately relevant to the practice of ancestor worship, one of the forms of religiosity comprehended and acted upon on the grounds of a detailed philosophical analysis of what exactly the nature of family ghosts and spirits consisted in. Given the importance of having people focus on this form of religiosity rather than any number of other activities that might undermine the socio-political order, a philosophical anthropology of matters spiritual was imperative. Also important for many Confucians, especially those like Hakuseki, was the sectarian need to define well-thought out Confucian accounts of kishin so as to preempt Buddhist theories and practices regarding the spiritual. What is perhaps most valuable about Boot’s essay is that in exploring kishin, he offers simultaneously a study of Confucian thinking and thinkers throughout the Tokugawa period. One of the more interesting sections is Boot’s examination of Razan’s writings on kishin which pertain as much to Shintō deities as to

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Neo-Confucian metaphysical and ontological notions. While some students of Chinese philosophy might be tempted to view Japanese Confucian philosophy as little more than a recapitulation of Chinese positions (and this was a claim Inoue made about the Japanese ZHU Xi School), Razan’s analysis of the spiritual in terms of the self-division of Kuninotokotachi no mikoto 国常立尊, the first deity of the Chronicles of Japan (Nihon shoki 日本書記) shows that there is considerable innovation in Japanese philosophical attempts at coming to terms with the divine.

1.6

Exploring the Borders

Japanese Confucianism is often addressed in relation to thinkers who lived on Honshū, Shikoku, or Kyūshū, i.e., the major islands of the Japanese archipelago. There have been exceptions: Julia Ching called attention to the life and thought of ZHU Shunshui 朱舜水 (1600–1682), the Ming 明 loyalist who fled China following the Manchu conquest, ending up in Japan serving the Lord of Mito domain, TOKUGAWA Mitsukuni 徳川光圀 (1628–1700), as a Confucian scholar-advisor (Ching 1979: 189–229). ABE Yoshio 阿部吉雄 (1978) revealed the influence of Korean prisoners-of-war such as KANG Hang 姜沆 (1567–1618) on FUJIWARA Seika and others. Abe also called attention to the impact of Korean editions of Chinese texts such as the 1553 Jinju 晉州 edition of Beixi’s The Meanings of Human Nature and Principle (C: Xingli ziyi 性理字義 J: Seiri jigi) on Japanese Confucian writings. Abe further revealed the significant sway that Korean Neo-Confucian philosophers such as YI T’oegye 李退溪 (1501–1570) and alternatively, YI Yulgok 李栗谷 (1536–1584), had on YAMAZAKI Ansai 山崎闇斎 (1619–1682), his Kimon 崎門 school, and a number of other Tokugawa Confucians. Wm. Theodore de Bary and Irene Bloom have shown that appreciating the complexity, depth, and philosophically nuanced nature of Japanese Confucianism involves more than knowing the Analects and Mencius. The substantial Chinese literature of Song Confucian philosophy including the writings of ZHOU Dunyi 周敦頤 (1017–1073), ZHANG Zai 張載 (1020–1077), SHAO Yong 邵雍 (1011–1077), CHENG Hao 程顥 (1032–1085), CHENG Yi 程頤 (1033–1107), and ZHU Xi 朱熹 (1130–1200), plus important texts from Yuan thinkers such as XU Heng 許衡 (1209–1281), Ming Confucians LUO Qinshun 羅欽順 (1465–1547) and WANG Yangming 王陽明 (1472–1529), and Qing Confucians such as DAI Zhen 戴震 (1724–1777), cannot be dismissed as an irrelevant other if one hopes to achieve an authentic, well-informed understanding of Japanese Confucianism (de Bary and Bloom 1979; Bloom 1987). Gregory Smits’s study of SAI On’s 蔡 温 (1682–1761) Confucian thinking makes a pioneering contribution to understandings of Japanese Confucian philosophy by casting it in the light of an important Confucian philosopher-statesman from the islands of the Ryūkyū 琉球 kingdom, now modern Okinawa 沖縄. Building on his important monograph on Ryūkyū thought and politics (Smits 1999), Smits offers a portrait of SAI On as a pragmatic Confucian philosopher in action, one intent on useful reforms of the Ryūkyū kingdom that would help make it more materially

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prosperous and culturally enlightened. Of particular interest in Smits’s study is his focus on SAI On’s thinking on social engineering; his philosophically-informed understanding of destiny or fate 命, one emphasizing aggressive initiative and hard work, while leaving the fruits of one’s labor to heaven 天; and SAI On’s efforts to battle superstition and ignorance that led many in Ryūkyū to rely on shamans and divination as indicators for their lives. Smits’s work on the latter two dimensions of SAI On’s thought in many respects continues themes also explored in Boot’s examination of Japanese Confucian thought on kishin. In combatting those forces while seeking to encourage those in authority and in positions that would give them leverage in effecting positive change, SAI On served as a Confucian philosopher-official of the first order. With his work on SAI On, Smits contributes most significantly toward establishing a fuller and more accurate understanding of the very multifaceted nature of Japanese Confucianism during the early-modern period.

1.7

The Body

TSUJIMOTO Masashi’s 辻本雅史 study of KAIBARA Ekken’s 貝原益軒 (1630–1714) Confucian thought emphasizes a recent trend in philosophical studies of the body, especially within the context of Asian philosophy generally. An anthology edited by Thomas P. Kasulis, Roger T. Ames, and Wimal Dissanayake, Self as Body in Asian Theory and Practice, explained the centrality of the body in Indian, Chinese, and Japanese philosophical systems (Kasulis et al. 1993). Within the context of Japanese philosophy and cultural practice, Thomas Kasulis has pioneered discussions of the importance of the body in the thinking of a range of scholars and cultural practices, not just Confucian, making clear the pervasive importance of the body in daily life, dramatic performances, ceremonial events, Buddhist and Shintō thought, and even phone conversations. In many respects Kasulis’ discussions go a considerable way towards showing that the mind-body problem so familiar to students of Western philosophy is simply not recognized in Asian philosophical discussions even when those discussions address problems related to the mind and the body (Kasulis 1993: 229–320). In modern Japanese philosophy, Shigenori Nagatomi has explored the pioneering philosophies of the body by ICHIKAWA Hiroshi 市川浩 (1931-) and YUASA Yasuo 湯浅泰雄 (1925–2005) (Nagatomi 1993: 322–346). Beginning with Ichikawa’s The Body as Spiritual (Seishin to shite no shintai 精神としての身体, 1975) and Yuasa’s The Body: Toward an Eastern Mind-Body (Shintai: Tōyōteki shinshinron no kokoromi 身体: 東洋的身心論の試み, 1977), these two thinkers have published many studies examining the religious, philosophical, and cultural dimensions of the body, often drawing on the insights of Western philosophers such as Husserl, Marcel, Sartre, and Merleau-Ponty (Midgelow 2007: 180). Yet existing studies of Japanese philosophical understandings of the body have yet to focus specifically on the Confucian dimensions

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of the problem, highlighting the extent to which views of the self as the body and body as the self are grounded in Japanese Confucian philosophizing. TSUJIMOTO Masashi’s “Spiritualizing the Physical in Edo Period Confucianism: The Somatization of Learning in the Thought of KAIBARA Ekken” innovates by taking the body (shintai 身体) as the focus of its interpretations of Ekken’s thinking, especially as Ekken’s thought is developed in his Precepts for Children (Wazoku dōjikun 和俗童子訓) and his Precepts on Nourishing Life (Yōjōkun 養生訓), two works that reflect in many important respects conceptualizations of study, learning, and living prevalent during Ekken’s day. In his analyses of Ekken’s thought, Tsujimoto emphasizes how the ZHU Xi philosophical system that Ekken took as one of his starting points gave primacy, within its metaphysics, to principle (C: li 理 J: ri) over material force (C: qi 氣 J: ki), and to the “unmanifest” (C: wei fa 未發 J: mihatsu) over the “manifest (C: yifa 已發 J: ihatsu). Ekken’s approach, however, was to emphasize the material side of the metaphysical equation, noting how in learning to write characters, to read texts, and to master manners and etiquette, learning is of a physical sort, bringing into play at every turn the material force of the body. In Ekken’s view, according to Tsujimoto, the emphasis on the body and material force was informed by Ekken’s recognition that the human mind was a volatile and potentially precarious faculty, ever capable of changing erratically. The result, in Tsujimoto’s view, is that a rise in corporeality occurred in conjunction with the move by many Japanese philosophers such as Ekken away from ZHU Xi’s system of thought. Tsujimoto emphasizes that while this move is conspicuous in Ekken’s thinking, it is hardly unique to him. Similar body-centered philosophical positions are evident in the thought of NAKAE Tōju 中江藤樹 (1608–1648), YAMAZAKI Ansai 山崎闇斎 (1619–1682), and OGYŪ Sorai 荻生徂徠 (1666–1728). Tsujimoto adds to his findings on the body by noting that, especially in Ekken’s thought, the emphasis on the physical body as the self was something associated with children’s education where learning how to do something, often through guided development or training of physical habits, was more emphasized than discursive learning regarding why something is or should be done. In exploring the prominence of the physical, somatic nature of the self and learning in Ekken’s Confucian philosophy, Tsujimoto contributes significantly to understandings of the Confucian sources of modern and contemporary developments in Japanese discourse on the self.

1.8

OGYŪ Sorai

It would be virtually impossible for any volume on Japanese Confucian philosophy to overlook OGYū Sorai. Although by no means the most beloved or accessible of Japan’s Confucian thinkers, there can be little doubt about the erudition evident in Sorai’s philosophical writings and the extent to which he mastered much of the Confucian canon, in the Chinese original as well as its earlier Japanese expressions. Olof G. Lidin, the premier Western authority on Sorai’s life and thought, provides an interesting interpretive angle on Sorai’s overall philosophical perspective

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as evidenced in what appears to be Sorai’s first major text, Report of the Elegant Emissaries (Fūryūshishaki 風流使者記, ca. 1710) (Lidin 1983), a work commissioned by Sorai’s patron, YANAGISAWA Yoshiyasu 柳沢吉保 (1658–1714), chamberlain to the shogun Tsunayoshi 綱吉 (1646–1709), and in one of Sorai’s last works, Discourse on Government (Seidan 政談, 1728), a set of practical political proposals submitted at the request of then shogun Yoshimune 徳川吉宗 (1684– 1751). Although Lidin was one of the first Western postwar scholars to translate Sorai’s philosophical writings and the first and only Western scholar to author a biography of Sorai, one describing Sorai in its pioneering title as a “Confucian philosopher” (Lidin 1970, 1973), his purpose here is not to analyze Sorai’s philosophical writings philosophically, but rather to offer a philosophical characterization of Sorai’s first and last writings, the former a travelogue that Lidin was the first to translate into English (Lidin 1983) and the latter, a political text suggesting administrative reforms, which Lidin has also translated into English in its entirety for the first time (Lidin 1999 ). By no means a typical philosophical analysis, Lidin suggests that Sorai’s leitmotif in these very different works is his evident sense of “compassion” (C: ren 仁 J: jin) for humanity.

1.9

Whence Modernity?

Sorai is in part at the center of an essay by Olivier Ansart, author of L’empire du rite: La pensée politique d’OGYÛ Sorai (Ansart 1998). Ansart’s essay explores what he calls the “philosophical moment” between Sorai and KAIHō Seiryō 海保青陵 (1755–1817), one that brought to the fore assumptions necessary to justify basic structures of modern society, establishing that in the non-Western, non-modern context of Tokugawa Japan, a moment existed during which imaginative thinkers moved toward a modern standpoint. In making this case, Ansart marshals philosophical theory for the sake of an argument that is as proximate to intellectual history as philosophical analysis. But the division between the two, intellectual history and philosophical understanding, and certainly as it pertains to understandings of OGYŪ Sorai, has been all but irrevocably blurred in postwar Japan by the important studies of MARUYAMA Masao 丸山眞男 (1914–1996). Doing justice to the complexity of Maruyama’s analysis of Sorai’s thought requires going well beyond the limits of this introduction, but suffice it to say that Maruyama saw in Sorai, and especially Sorai’s emphasis on the ancient sage kings as creators of institutions, something he referred to as “the logic of invention,” a distinctively modern element in Sorai’s thought that heralded the beginnings of a modern political consciousness in Japan (Maruyama 1952). Maruyama’s discussions have fascinated students of Japanese thought, especially in the West, and most especially in the wake of Mikiso HANE’S translation of Maruyama’s work under the title, Studies in the Institutional History of Tokugawa Japan (Maruyama 1974). Many have contested Maruyama’s views, first published as journal articles in the mid-1940s, but not a few continue to hold that his writings remain the starting points for any future study of modern Japanese

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thinking. When one considers that Sorai’s ideas, like those of most Confucians, had been characterized in a major way by Tokyo Imperial University professor of philosophy INOUE Tetsujirō 井上哲次郎 (1855–1944) as expressions of “Japanese philosophy” (Nihon no tetsugaku 日本之哲学), there are good reasons for seeing Maruyama’s writings, and those who have since addressed them, either positively or negatively, as having a philosophical dimension. Ansart’s essay must be situated, then, as with so many contemporary studies of Japanese Confucian thinking, somewhere between intellectual history and philosophical history. Ansart does not agree with Maruyama’s characterization of modernity, but he does believe that Maruyama was onto something of considerable importance. Ansart sees the question of the locus of “modern political theory” as one that is alive and open, and suggests that the distinctive elements to look for are: a metaphysics disenchanted with appeals to nature and affirming instead a form of positivism; a theory of rational instrumentality in epistemology; the doctrine of freewill and personal responsibility in moral psychology; and an understanding of society as contractual in its relationships. In Sorai, Ansart sees the first element of modern political theory realized to a large degree in Sorai’s emphasis on the sage kings as creators/inventors who transform reality rather than claim that all is an expression of nature. However, Sorai’s move toward modern political theory stops there; the remaining three elements of modern political theory, in Ansart’s view, are developed in the thought of Seiryō. With copious citations and a masterful command of Seiryō’s works, Ansart presents a strong argument for the appearance of modern political theory in the philosophical transition from Sorai’s thought to Seiryō writings, a claim that will surely challenge all who might have imagined that the question was settled and the case closed.

1.10

The Nature

The importance of Sorai to Japanese Confucian philosophy is evident in the number of very significant thinkers that he either taught or influenced in one manner or another. Peter Flueckiger expands his expertise on Sorai (Flueckiger 2011) with a new study of DAZAI Shundai 太宰春台 (1680–1747) that effectively suggests this point via its examination of Shundai’s thought on the inborn nature (C: xing 性 J: sei), especially as Shundai’s thinking on that seminal Confucian topic was developed in relation to Sorai’s. One aspect of Flueckiger’s study is his argument that Shundai’s position on the nature is more pessimistic than Sorai’s in that Shundai considers the nature something that might have to be overcome with rigorous practice and effort in order to bring it into harmony with the Confucian Way, if that is possible at all. In part, Shundai’s somewhat pessimistic appraisal of the inborn nature is more so than Sorai’s because Shundai posits a state of nature far removed from Sorai’s vision of an originally cooperative and mutually supporting and sustaining society. Shundai instead sees the natural condition as one in which human beings may take human form, but have hearts and minds that are no different than those of the wildest

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of animals. As a result, the state of nature is one wherein the strong have their way with the weak, overwhelming them as they see fit for whatever reason, if any at all. But most importantly, Shundai follows the Tang Confucian scholar HAN Yu 韓愈 (768–824) in identifying different grades of nature in humanity, with the idea being that different people have different expressions of inborn nature so that rather than a unified and consistently “good” or “evil” nature, people have as many different types of nature as there are people. Simply put, contrary to Mencian and Xunzian efforts to characterize human nature in a priori terms, Shundai holds that inborn natures are simply not the same. Flueckiger also calls attention to how Shundai viewed coming into conformity with the Way as a process or external control of one’s behavior so that regardless of what is thought or felt, one actually does the right thing in action. Thus it is conceivable for a person to be doing the right thing, but thinking all the wrong thoughts in the process. For Shundai, such a situation is not necessarily a bad thing, and might well be an acceptable step along the way toward a fuller internalization, as opposed to mere external manifestation of, the Way. One of the most interesting portions of Flueckiger’s essay discusses the political thinking of Shundai and Sorai and how Shundai, unlike Sorai, allowed for borrowings from Daoist, Mohist, and Legalist thought. Indeed, in his A Record of Political Economy (Keizairoku 経済録) Shundai endorses as appropriate for a degenerate age such as his own a quasi-Daoistic approach to government with the ruler engaging in “non-action” (C: wuwei 無爲 J: mu’i). In this regard, Flueckiger suggests, Shundai formulates a more adaptable, even if not necessarily philosophically consistent, expression of Confucian thinking than had Sorai.

1.11

Doubters, Critics, and Common Ground

Studies of Confucian philosophy often explore debates among Confucian thinkers, but do not typically examine criticisms of Confucian philosophizing from outside the fold. But to overlook such critiques is to disregard a deeply rooted aspect of Confucian philosophical learning, one that links the Confucian approach to knowledge, reason, and thought to – if a return to the question of modernity is allowed – the Western philosopher with whom so much of the paradigm shift resulting in the rise modern philosophy is associated, René Descartes (1596–1650). In his Discourse on the Method (Discours de la méthode) and Principles of Philosophy (Principia philosophiae), Descartes sought both to combat skepticism and simultaneously define a methodology for arriving at certain knowledge. Ironically the method he proposed was systematic doubt: by embracing skepticism, so to speak, he sought a way of overcoming it. While reportedly engaged in doubt, Descartes realized that thought and therefore the thinker, exist, formulating this realization in his famous conclusion, “I think, therefore I am” (Je pense, donc je suis, or as cast in Latin, Cogito ergo sum). Certainty about existence then was a clear and distinct byproduct, in Descartes’ mind, arising from his confrontation with doubts about

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his own existence. Because of his well-recorded readiness to entertain doubt and then overcome it, Descartes – although he was hardly alone in this – has come to stand, even in revisionist studies, as the revolutionary early-modern thinker who articulated a dramatic break with ancient and medieval forms of inquiry (Cottingham 1993: 145–166; Rutherford 2006: 26–31). In twelfth century China, ZHU Xi, somewhat similarly, affirmed the value of doubt not for the sake of establishing his own existence so much as arriving at, as with Descartes later, certainty about knowledge and learning. Zhu recognized that students ought to doubt, question, and scrutinize everything they might deem dubious. Without entertaining doubt, Zhu reasoned, there is no progress in learning. With some doubts, students will make some progress. However Zhu emphasized that it is only when students dare to doubt things in a major way that they make major progress in learning (Li 1984: 4414). Daniel Gardner notes that ZHU Xi encouraged students to read and study books with an open mind and that “only a genuinely inquiring mind would have the tenacity to pursue the truth fully, casting aside all preconceived and misguided ideas in the process.” Gardner further suggests that Zhu wanted students “to learn to treat … received opinions critically.” Having observed how fallible the classics and their commentaries were, Zhu emphasized that students should never accept them without questions or critique (Gardner 1990: 45–47). Nor was ZHU Xi alone in this: his thoughts on doubt and learning expanded CHENG Yi’s often repeated maxim: “Students must first of all know how to doubt” (Er Cheng quanshū 二程全集 1979: 1143). According to Wm. Theodore de Bary, Zhu found this to be a “wonderful method” (de Bary 1983: 62). In his own teachings, Zhu developed CHENG Yi’s maxim at length. He explains, In reading books, if you have no doubts whatsoever, then you should be taught to entertain them. Conversely, if you harbor doubts about matters, you should try to resolve them completely. Only when students have reached this point will they have made progress. (Li 1984: 296)

ZHU Xi’s position was that if students were not skeptical about the material that they were studying, they should be. However, once skeptical, students must continue to deliberate and inquire until they have resolved all their doubts. Once they emerge from this dialectic of doubt and resolution, they begin to make progress in learning. Implied, however, is that without doubt, learning stagnates. If the goal is to advance toward wisdom, doubt is indispensable. In characterizing one of ZHU Xi’s NeoConfucian predecessors who earlier emphasized the importance of doubt, ZHANG Zai 張載 (1020–1077), Siu-chi HUANG adds that Zhang was a “methodological skeptic,” not unlike Descartes, who “would question the reliability of any proposition until it could be proven.” Huang further explains that Zhang “condemned conformity as the main obstacle to intellectual progress” and “emphasized independent thinking and a critical, reflective, and skeptical attitude as essential for philosophical inquiry” (Huang 1999: 66, 78). Early-modern Japanese Confucian philosophers well understood ZHU Xi’s thinking and that of Neo-Confucians generally regarding doubt. In the opening section of his brief primer, On the Three Virtues (Santokushō 三徳抄), HAYASHI

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Razan paraphrased ZHU Xi’s very remarks on the importance of doubt. Razan then explained his thinking about the role of doubt in learning by stating, If we have any uncertainties about external things, we should clarify them so that we understand them. Unless we aspire to learning, we will not have the strength [to question and doubt things] as we should. Even as we think about exhausting principles completely, that we have doubts is proof that we are making progress in learning (gi no aru wa gakumon no susumu shirushi nari 疑のあるは學問の進むしるし也). When doubts and misgivings are resolved, our minds naturally become clear and principles of the way are no longer obscured. If we do not resolve these doubts but instead allow them to remain, throughout our lives we will never be able to differentiate what is true from what is false. Leaving doubts unresolved is like putting a living creature in a bag, or shutting up an active animal in a sealed box. Things will not be able to flow freely from our minds [if we do not address our doubts]. (Razan 1975: 153)

Later KAIBARA Ekken authored one of the most systematic expressions of doubt ever directed at Neo-Confucian metaphysics, Record of Great Doubts (Taigiroku 大疑録). Interestingly enough, Ekken’s text paraphrased ZHU Xi’s thinking on the value of doubt as a sort of Neo-Confucian justification for doubting Neo-Confucianism. One of the legacies of Japanese Confucian philosophy was this acknowledgement of doubting and questioning received wisdom, even regarding its own teachings, as a means to certainty in knowledge. Much as Descartes’ method both captured and informed much of the inquisitive nature of his seventeenth century Europe, so did the Japanese Confucian advocacy of doubt, beginning with Razan and continuing through Ekken and beyond, encourage thinkers to reject blind acceptance of ideas and instead scrutinize them carefully. Peter Nosco’s study, “Kokugaku Critiques of Confucianism and Chinese Culture,” and Jacque Joly’s “Saints as Sinners: ANDō Shōeki’s Back-to-Nature Critiques of the Saints, Confucian and Otherwise,” are not presented by the authors as outgrowths of the Confucian call for doubt in learning, but are included in this volume as illustrations, arguably, of the consequences of this rather modern philosophical methodology advocated by Confucianism generally and Japanese Confucian philosophers such as Razan and Ekken in particular. Nosco’s essay acknowledges, for example, that the relationship between Kokugaku and Confucianism is often thought of in terms of critiques of the latter issuing from the former, with these critiques often expressing xenophobic attacks directed toward Chinese culture and Confucianism in particular. Kokugaku advocates of such criticisms included Keichū 契沖 (1640–1701), KADA no Azumamaro 荷田春満 (1669–1736), KAMO no Mabuchi 賀茂真淵 (1697–1769), MOTOORI Norinaga 本居宣長 (1730– 1801), and HIRATA Atsutane 平田篤胤 (1776–1843), just to mention some the major figures. Without denying the substantial dimensions of Kokugaku critiques of Confucianism, Nosco calls attention to the extent that nativist and Confucian goals were largely congruent resulting in the Kokugaku domestication of Confucian virtues such as filial piety, harmony, humaneness, and studiousness. Nosco does not elevate winners in these processes of critique and coming together, but does suggest that ultimately both intellectual forces, Confucianism and Kokugaku, emerged better due to the interaction. As evidence of this new relationship of convergence rather than criticism, Nosco cites the presence of the above-mentioned

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fundamental Confucian virtues in the Meiji emperor’s 1890 Imperial Rescript on Education wherein the imperial call was for practice of these virtues in service to the Japanese state. Another example cited is that of the late-Tokugawa Mito 水戸 text, AIZAWA Seishisai’s 会沢正志斎 (1762–1863) New Theses (Shinron 新論), which acknowledged a “congruence” (angō 暗合) of sorts between the Confucian Way and the ancient Japanese Way of heaven and earth, allowing for the merging of virtues such as filial piety and loyalty to one’s sovereign, in this case the Japanese emperor. Expanding on his book on Shōeki as well as his French translation of MARUYAMA Masao’s Nihon seiji shisōshi kenkyū 日本政治思想史研究 (Joly 1996a, b), Jacques Joly contributes an essay on ANDō Shōeki’s critique of Confucianism. Joly explores the still little-known world of Shōeki’s thought, suggesting that Shōeki was ultimately a conservative thinker who shared much with the Kokugaku critics of Confucian philosophy. Joly also interprets Shōeki’s criticisms of the “saints” (seijin 聖人) – often translated as “sages” – as not necessarily directed at Confucianism as such, but instead applying to a range of philosophical positions and perspectives. Joly even calls into question the extent to which “Confucianism” can be spoken of meaningfully, emphasizing that one of the Japanese terms so frequently translated as “Confucianism,” Jusho 儒書, actually refers to, in his view, the entire tradition of the Chinese Classics including their Japanese commentators. This would include virtually every philosophical text of any note, Daoism and Kokugaku included, but not those of Buddhism. While it might well be that Shōeki’s critical wrath was not exclusively devoted to Confucianism, it seems difficult to avoid the conclusion that it was largely directed at the writings and philosophical thought of scholars associated with what is commonly referred to by Westerners as Confucianism. It is perhaps true that Jusho has a wider meaning than many Westerners imagine, but MATSUNAGA Sekigo’s Irinshō opens with a reference to the “three major ways” (大道三つあり): one Confucian (Ju 儒), expressing “the way of Confucius” (Kōshi no michi 孔子の道); one Buddhist (Shaku 釋), conveying “the way of the Buddha” (Shaka no michi 釋迦の道); and one Daoist (Dō 道), explaining “the way of Laozi” (Rōshi no michi 老子の道). Conceivably, not every instance of Ju 儒 refers to Confucianism, but neither was the word necessarily misinterpreted by Westerners in reference to the teachings of Confucius. There are, it seems, good reasons for holding that Confucianism actually existed in something akin to the manner in which scholars of Japanese history have imagined that it existed. That aside, Joly’s paper does reveal one clear example of systematic doubt and harsh criticism as leveled at Japanese Confucianism in early-modern times. Quite usefully for those familiar with Daoism, Joly notes in some detail how Shōeki’s criticisms also echoed the kinds of attacks on ancient Confucianism found in the Daoist classic, the Zhuangzi 荘子, especially as formulated in chapters such as “Robber Zhi” (Dao zhi 盜跖) and “The Old Fisherman” (Yu fu 漁父). Highlighting this connection makes clear the extent to which Shōeki’s ideas were original or lacking, somewhat, in the same. Regardless of their origins, the critiques of Confucian philosophy, and most especially its Saints/ Sages, as offered by Shōeki are some of the most amusing and possibly insightful,

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at a certain level, ever formulated. The world of Japanese Confucianism remains a theoretically richer one for their existence.

1.12

WANG Yangming

Surveys of Japanese Confucianism dating back to INOUE Tetsujirō’s previously mentioned trilogy devoted to the three major schools of Japanese Confucian philosophy – the ZHU Xi, the WANG Yangming, and the Ancient Learning – have invariably devoted substantial coverage to figures from the WANG Yangming school of Confucian philosophy. Figures like NAKAE Tōju 中江藤樹 (1608–1648) and KUMAZAWA Banzan 熊沢蕃山 (1619–1691) appear prominently in de Bary and Bloom’s anthology, Principle and Practicality (Yamashita 1979: 307–336; McMullen 1979: 337–374); Banzan’s thought has also been the subject of two monographs (McMullen 1991, 1999). In this volume, the Japanese school of WANG Yangming is discussed in relation to one of its leading figures at the end of the earlymodern period, ŌSHIO Chūsai 大塩中斎 (1793–1837). Barry Steben’s essay offers a detailed philosophical-biographical study of this tragic scholar showing how Chūsai’s attempts to put the WANG Yangming principle of “the inseparability of knowledge and action” (C: zhixing heyi 知行合一 J: chikō gōitsu) into meaningful practice led him into a career as a police official, but then, ironically enough, ultimately toward a fateful end as the leader of a rebellion against the Osaka governing authorities. In particular, Steben explores the central principles of Chūsai’s teachings – that “the mind itself is principle” (C: xin ji li 心即理 J: shin soku ri) and that the body at death returns to the great vacuity (C: gui taixu 帰太虚 J: ki taikyo), the ultimate eternal source of all being – as an expression of an idealistic form of Japanese Confucianism. He also contextualizes this early-modern idealism within a contemporary framework by briefly examining the influence of Chūsai’s thought on the life and death of one of modern Japan’s great literary figures, MISHIMAYukio 三島由紀夫 (1925–1970).

1.13

Meiji Divination

Japanese Confucianism in the Meiji period has been one of the more neglected areas of research. INOUE Tetsujirō, who defined so many aspects of the study of Japanese Confucianism, whether as philosophy or thought, lived in the Meiji but looked back to and no further than the Tokugawa in identifying the thinkers dominating Japan’s own philosophical schools. Almost certainly, Inoue himself was one of the premier Confucians of the Meiji, Taishō, and early-Shōwa Japan, but perhaps enough has been said about Inoue for now. Studies of figures such as MOTOODA Eifu 元田永孚 (1818–1891), Confucian tutor to the Meiji emperor (Shively 1959: 302–333), and

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NISHIMURA Shigeki 西村茂樹 (1828–1902), one of the leading Confucian scholareducators of the Meiji period (Shively 1965: 193–241), have offered fascinating insights into the extent to which Confucian philosophy continued well into modern Japan even after the collapse of the old regime with which it had been so strongly associated historically. If anything, the continued vitality of Confucian philosophy during the Meiji even when faced with competition from every major philosophical system the West had to offer – including Utilitarianism and Hegelianism – points to the extent to which Japanese Confucianism was more than simply an ideological buttress for a supposedly feudalistic military regime. Building on his groundbreaking research on the importance of the Book of Changes in Tokugawa Confucianism (Ng 2000), Wai-ming NG presents a fascinating study of an important but relatively little known figure, TAKASHIMA Kaemon 高島嘉右衛門 (1832–1914) and his influential text, Takashima’s Judgments on the Yijing (Takashima Ekidan 高島易斷), an important work in Meiji Confucianism in regard to both philosophy and practice. Ng shows that a number of the most powerful leaders of the so-called enlightened Meiji government consulted Takashima, a semi-official diviner, frequently for divinations and judgments related to some of the most important decisions that they would make, including ones related to Meiji policies relevant to national education, the People’s Rights Movement (Jiyū minken undō 自由民権運動), military decisions pertaining to the Sino-Japanese War (1894–1895), policy toward Taiwan, and imperial military decisions related to the Russo-Japanese War (1904–1905). By bringing this aspect of Confucian theory and practice to light, Ng reveals how Meiji Japan emerged as an often-curious philosophical mixture of tradition and modernity.

1.14

MARUYAMA Masao on YAMAZAKI Ansai

MARUYAMA Masao’s “Orthodoxy and Legitimacy in the YAMAZAKI Ansai School” is a most valuable contribution, one that offers insights into Maruyama, one of the most important Japanese thinkers of the twentieth-century, and his understandings of the nature and legacy of Japanese Confucianism as expressed by the YAMAZAKI Ansai school of ZHU Xi philosophy. Maruyama was not, admittedly, a professor of philosophy and so his inclusion here might seem somewhat questionable. However he was a professor at Tokyo University, a status that gave his thinking clout, and most especially, a status that encourages his juxtaposition with Inoue, an earlier Tōdai don with whom he, Maruyama, had very fundamental disagreements regarding Confucianism. Maruyama’s studies of Japanese Confucianism, some of his earliest and final work, involved him in analyses of philosophical subject matter; although he typically described his studies as ones related to “thought,” “ideology,” or “intellectual history,” they always had a clear philosophical dimension. Thus in the opening paragraph of his Nihon seiji shisōshi kenkyū 日本政治思想史研究, translated by Mikiso HANE as Studies in the Intellectual History of Tokugawa Japan, Maruyama began his discussion of ZHU Xi’s thinking and Chinese culture by referring to

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Hegel’s characterizations of China and Confucianism (Maruyama 1952: 3–7, 1974: 3–6). Maruyama’s choice of Hegel as an interpreter of China and Confucianism was perhaps the worst possible that could have been made, but nevertheless it reflected his involvement in philosophical traditions and his rather naïve respect for Western philosophical interpretations of East Asia, regardless of how mistaken they were. Also, Maruyama often referred to ZHU Xi’s thought as philosophy (tetsugaku 哲学) in its Chinese context, even though he shifted the categorization to “ideology” or simply “thought” when speaking of it in relation to Japan. Characterized as an “intellectual historian” by Hane, Maruyama spoke of his own work, at least his first major study of Confucian thought, as shisōshi 思想史, a compound which could be translated either as “history of thought” or “intellectual history.” When later reflecting on errors, misinterpretations, and mischaracterizations in his Nihon seiji shisōshi kenkyū, Maruyama explained, however, that his overall intent in authoring the various studies constituting that text was to oppose the then dominant kokumin dōtoku 国民道徳, “national ethics,” thought formulated by men such as former Tokyo Imperial University professor of philosophy INOUE Tetsujirō. Although most intellectual historians today would call Inoue an ideologue or perhaps even a propagandist rather than a philosopher, during the first several decades of the twentieth century Inoue was among the most revered professors of philosophy in Japan, and certainly the first Japanese to hold a chair in philosophy at Tokyo University. While NISHIDA Kitarō 西田幾多郎 (1870–1945) has come to be recognized as modern Japan’s first philosopher, Inoue preceded him by decades and was far more prominent in public life than Nishida. Nishida’s elevation has occurred as memories of Inoue’s work are forgotten, often with contempt and dismay. If Inoue’s standing as a philosopher is taken seriously, then the fact that Maruyama’s first major studies on Confucianism were meant to oppose Inoue’s views, would give them a philosophical dimension by implication. If allowed an allegorical interpretation as a work opposing kokumin dōtoku rather than simply trying to formulate an objective intellectual history of political thought, Maruyama’s Nihon seiji shisōshi kenkyū can be read as extolling OGYŪ Sorai’s contributions to the achievement of modernity in political consciousness in part because it was Sorai who, among the Tokugawa Confucians, was so problematic for both Inoue and the Japanese imperial state. Maruyama noted in another essay addressing the fact that Sorai never received posthumous imperial rank as did so many Confucian scholars including YAMAGA Sokō 山鹿素行 (1622–1685), ITō Jinsai 伊藤仁斎 (1627–1705), YAMAZAKI Ansai 山崎闇斎 (1619–1682) and others. In part Maruyama explained Sorai’s exclusion from posthumous honors by noting that Sorai had referred to himself and his country disrespectfully, at least from the pro-imperialist’s perspective, in calling himself and the people of Japan “eastern barbarians” (Tō’i 東夷). This, plus his evident interest in things Chinese, including all aspects of the Chinese language, and his minimalist interest in things distinctively Japanese, made Sorai a sort of philosophical and cultural pariah in prewar Japan, one whose foreign interests and disuse for Imperial Japan would never be rewarded with posthumous rank or even much in the way of positive scholarly recognition (Maruyama 1979). Indeed, before 1945, there was precious little scholarship on

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Sorai, even as the academic fortunes of HAYASHI Razan, YAMAGA Sokō, ITō Jinsai, YAMAZAKI Ansai, and others soared by comparison. Maruyama’s praise for Sorai and his contributions to Japan’s political development distanced him, Maruyama, from ideological orthodoxy prevalent during the 1930s and early 1940s, influenced as it was by Inoue and others like him. Yet the Tokugawa Confucian about whom Maruyama said surprisingly little in Nihon seiji shisōshi kenkyū was none other than YAMAZAKI Ansai. In fact, Maruyama dispensed with Ansai in a mere three pages. Maruyama confesses in his essay on Ansai, published in the Nihon shisō taikei 日本思想大系 volume devoted to Ansai and the Ansai school, being hardly able to bring himself to look at much of the ideologically-laden literature which was so often associated with Ansai’s thought and that of his school (Maruyama 1980). In a subtle and yet penetrating way, one of the most interesting dimensions of Maruyama’s essay on Ansai and his school, translated here by Barry Steben, is the extent to which it can be interpreted, between the lines, as a commentary on why Japanese Confucianism did not continue to be viewed, as Inoue sought to establish, as philosophy in postwar Japan. In the essay, Maruyama repeatedly returns to the theme of the pre-1945 applications of Ansai’s philosophy and tendencies inherent within it as a teaching and in relations between Ansai’s followers. At the risk of vastly oversimplifying Maruyama’s essay, its suggests that many of the obsessively rigid, self-righteous, and Japan-centered themes so evident in Ansai as a teacher and in his students as disciples were ones that echoed in the pre-1945 intellectual dynamic of modern Japan. Here, Maruyama thus sees in the thinker who received ample posthumous imperial ranks tendencies that ultimately brought about imperial disaster for Japan.

1.15

Back to the Tokugawa

Responding to Maruyama’s essay and so revealing the dialectical vigor of Confucian philosophical thinking even in contemporary times, KOYASU Nobukuni’s 子安宣邦 “ZHU Xi and Zhuxi-ism: Toward a Critical Perspective on the Ansai School,” perhaps also brings readers full circle, back to the Tokugawa and a more traditional grounding in the study of Japanese Confucianism. Koyasu’s essay (Koyasu 2005), which originally appeared in his book, Edo as Method: Japanese Intellectual History and Critical Perspectives (Hōhō to shite no Edo: Nihon shisōshi to hihanteki shiza 方法 としての江戸: 日本思想史と批判的視座), responds critically to Maruyama by suggesting that in his efforts to reveal the foundations of Japan’s pre-1945 “national essence” (kokutai 國體) ideology, especially as evident in Ansai’s thought, Maruyama overlooked the emphases that Ansai and his school placed, following in part the views of ZHU Xi as well as the Korean ZHU Xi scholar, YI T’oegye 李退 溪 (1501–1570), on the practices of “faithful exposition” (sojutsu 祖述) and “personal realization” (tainin 体認) of Confucian teachings in a “self-authenticated” (shutaiteki 主体的), essentially inward manner. Koyasu emphasizes that much that Ansai taught was conveyed orally, in his lectures, as a means of instructing his

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disciples in ways of self-mastery through mastering their minds. Ansai’s ideas, Koyasu suggests, need to be understood on their own terms rather than in relation to what later became of them. In making this point, he also calls attention to other aspects of Maruyama’s interpretive schema that he finds of questionable appropriateness to Ansai if the latter is to be interpreted in light of his own time and circumstances. Koyasu’s critique of Maruyama reflects in part a living dimension of the philosophical tradition of Japanese Confucianism and the dialectic it has produced, even if one operative more in the history of ideas and among intellectual historians than in philosophical discussions of Japanese Confucians. While the tendency to interpret Tokugawa Confucianism as ideology shows few signs of diminishing, it seems internally at odds with itself unless those formulating such appraisals stand prepared, in a self-reflexive way, to see their perspectives in the same light, as themselves amounting to so many ideological statements reflecting their own involvement in power relations and a host of socio-political, colonial and postcolonial, modern and post-modern nuances that perhaps are in the end inescapable. Whatever interpretive register Japanese Confucianism might be viewed through – philosophical, ideological, intellectual historical, or otherwise – it has an enduring relevance to modern Japanese culture. The virtue of the philosophical lens, hopefully advanced somewhat in this volume, is that when brought to bear at its best as part of a search and passion for wisdom, it has tended to be consistently critical and self-critical but not condescending, in evaluating the integrity of ideas, past and present. As the field of Japanese studies moves further into the twenty-first century, it is imperative that those interpreting Japanese intellectual culture and its future prospects draw on every resource available, including the philosophical, for reexamining Japan’s past and living expressions – among them Confucianism – in the hope that they provide some insight, even wisdom, into how we can live together, as the UTCP puts it, and not simply side-by-side.

References Abe, Yoshio 阿部吉雄. 1978. The Japanese ZHU Xi School and Korea (Nihon Shushigaku to Chōsen 日本朱子学と朝鮮). Tokyo: Tokyo daigaku shuppankai. (Valuable study of Korean influences on Tokugawa Confucianism.) Ansart, Olivier. 1998. L’empire du rite: la pensée politique d’OGYÛ Sorai. Genève: Droz. (An important monograph offering an innovative interpretation of Sorai’s thought in terms of a pivotal notion within, rites.) Asano, Sanpei 浅野三平. 2012. A discussion of ghosts and spirits/A new discussion of ghosts and spirits (Kishinron・Kishinshinron 鬼神論・鬼神新論). Tokyo: Kasama shoin. (Valuable new editions of landmark early-modern Confucian discussions of spiritual topics.) Blocker, H. Gene, and Christopher L. Starling (eds.). 2001. Japanese philosophy. Albany: State University of New York Press. Bloom, Irene. 1987. Knowledge painfully acquired: The K’un-chih chi by LO Ch’in-shun. New York: Columbia University Press.

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Boot, Willem Jan. 1982. The adoption and adaptation of Neo-Confucianism in Japan: The role of FUJIWARA Seika and HAYASHI Razan. Leiden: Proefschrift. (The most important study of HAYASHI Razan’s ideas in any Western language.) Cheng, Yi 程頤 and Cheng Hao 程顥. 1979. Complete works of the Cheng brothers (Er Cheng quanshu 二程全集). Kyoto: Chūbun shuppan. Cheung, Ching-yuen 張政遠. 2011. Educating Rita: The case of Japanese philosophy. In Whither Japanese philosophy? III reflections through other eyes. Tokyo: University of Tokyo Center for Philosophy. UTCP Booklet 19. http://utcp.c.u-tokyo.ac.jp/publications/pdf/UTCPBooklet19_04_ Cheung.pdf. Ching, Julia. 1979. The practical learning of CHUN Shun-shui (1600–1682). In Principle and practicality: Essays in Neo-Confucianism and practical learning, ed. Wm. Theodore de Bary and Irene Bloom. New York: Columbia University Press. (An important study of the life and thought of the Ming refugee, CHUN Shun-shui, in early Tokugawa times.) Cottingham, John. 1993. A new start? Cartesian metaphysics and the emergence of modern philosophy. In The rise of modern philosophy: The tension between the new and traditional philosophies from Machiavelli to Leibniz, ed. Tom Sorell. Oxford: Clarendon. De Bary, Wm. Theodore. 1979. Sagehood as a secular and sacred ideal in Tokugawa NeoConfucianism. In Principle and practicality: Essays in Neo-Confucianism and practical learning, ed. Wm. Theodore de Bary and Irene Bloom. New York: Columbia University Press. (An erudite and elegant essay, tracing one of the seminal themes of Tokugawa Neo-Confucianism.) De Bary, Wm. Theodore. 1983. The liberal tradition in China. New York: Columbia University Press. De Bary, Wm. Theodore and Irene Bloom (eds.). 1979. Principle and practicality: Essays in NeoConfucianism and practical learning. New York: Columbia University Press. (A monumental contribution to the study of Japanese Confucianism.) Dilworth, David A. 1989. Philosophy in world perspective: A comparative hermeneutic of the major theories. New Haven: Yale University Press. Dufourmont, Eddy. 2010. Is Confucianism philosophy? The answers of INOUE Tetsujirō and NAKAE Chōmin. In Whither Japanese philosophy? II reflections through other eyes. UTCP Booklet 14. Tokyo: University of Tokyo Center for Philosophy. http://utcp.c.u-tokyo.ac.jp/publications/pdf/ UTCPBooklet14_04_Dufourmont.pdf. (A provocative essay discussing Confucianism as philosophy.) Flueckiger, Peter. 2011. Imagining harmony: Poetry, empathy, and community in mid-Tokugawa Confucianism and Nativism. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Fujita, Masakatsu 藤田正勝. 2009. The acceptance of philosophy in Japan (Nihon ni okeru tetsugaku no jūyō 日本における『哲学』の受容). In Iwanami kōza tetsugaku: tetsugakushi no tetsugaku 岩波講座 哲学哲, 14: 学史の哲学. Tokyo: Iwanami shoten. Gardner, Daniel K. 1990. Learning to be a Sage: Selections from the conversations of Master Chu, arranged topically. Berkeley: University of California Press. Hayashi, Razan. 1975. Writings on the three virtues (Santokushō 三徳抄). In FUJIWARA Seika/HAYASHI Razan 藤原惺窩 林羅山, ed. ISHIDA Ichirō 石田一良 and KANAYA Osamu 金谷治. Nihon shisō taikei 日本思想大系, 28. Tokyo: Iwanami shoten. Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich. 1892. Lectures on the history of philosophy. Trans. E.S. Haldane. New York: Humanities Press. (1963 reprint of the 1892 edition.) Heisig, W. James, and John C. Maraldo (eds.). 1995. Rude awakenings: Zen, the Kyoto School, and the question of nationalism. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press. Heisig, James W., Thomas P. Kasulis, and John C. Maraldo (eds.). 2011. Japanese philosophy: A sourcebook. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press. Huang, Siu-chi. 1999. Essentials of Neo-Confucianism: Eight major philosophers of the Song and Ming periods. Westport: Greenwood Press. Huang, Chun-chieh 哳俊傑. 2010. Humanism in East Asian Confucian contexts. New Brunswick: Transaction Publishers.

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Ichikawa, Hiroshi 市川浩. 1975. Seishin to shite no shintai 精神としての身体. Tokyo: Keisō shobō. Inoue, Tetsujirō 井上哲次郎. 1900. The philosophy of the Japanese School of WANG Yangming (Nihon Yōmeigakuha no tetsugaku 日本陽明學派之哲學). Tokyo: Fuzanbō. (Along with Inoue’s other two volumes in his trilogy, the beginning point for modern studies of Japanese Confucianism as philosophy.) Inoue, Tetsujirō 井上哲次郎. 1902. The philosophy of the Japanese School of ancient learning (Nihon kogakuha no tetsugaku 日本古學派之哲學). Tokyo: Fuzanbō. Inoue, Tetsujirō 井上哲次郎. 1905. The philosophy of the Japanese School of Master ZHU Xi (Nihon Shushigakuha no tetsugaku 日本朱子學派之哲學). Tokyo: Fuzanbō. Inoue, Tetsujirō 井上哲次郎. 1912. An outline of national morality (Kokumin dōtoku gairon 國民 道徳概論). Tokyo: Sanseidō. Inoue, Tetsujirō 井上哲次郎. 1925. Our national essence and national morality (Waga kokutai to kokumin dōtoku 我が国體と國民道徳). Tokyo: Kōbundō. Inoue, Tetsujirō 井上哲次郎. 1934a. The essence of the Japanese spirit (Nihon seishin no honshitsu 日本精神の本質). Tokyo: Ōkura kōbundō. Inoue, Tetsujirō 井上哲次郎, compiler. 1934b, 1940. The collected works of Bushidō (Bushidō shū 武士道集). Vol 1 published by Tokyo: Shun’yōdō. Vol 2, Tokyo: Dai Nihon bunko kankōkai. Inoue, Tetsujirō 井上哲次郎. 1939. East Asian culture and future of China (Tōyō bunka to Shina no shōrai 東洋文化と支那の将来). Tokyo: Risōsha shuppanbu. Inoue, Tetsujirō 井上哲次郎. 1942. The essence of Bushidō (Bushidō no honshitsu 武士道の本 質). Tokyo: Hakkōsha. Inoue, Tetsujirō 井上哲次郎 and ARIMA Sukemasa 有馬祐政 (eds.). 1905. The Bushidō library (Bushidō sōsho 武士道叢書), 3 vols. Tokyo: Hakubunkan. Inoue, Tetsujirō 井上哲次郎 and KANIE Yoshimaru 蟹江義丸 (eds.). 1901–1903. Compilation of Japanese works on ethics (Nihon rinri ihen 日本倫理彙編), 10 vols. Tokyo: Ikuseikai. Inoue, Tetsujirō 井上哲次郎 and NAKAYAMA Kyūshirō 中山久四郎 (eds.). 1941. Fundamental meanings of battlefield precepts (Senjinkun hongi 戦陣訓本義). Tokyo: Kōbundō shoten. Joly, Jacques. 1996a. Le naturel selon ANDō Shōeki: Un type de discours sur la nature et la spontanéité par un maître-confucéen de l’époque Tokugawa, ANDō Shōeki, 1703–1762. Paris: Maisonneuve & Larose. Joly, Jacques. 1996b. Essai sur l’histoire de la pensée politique au Japon. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France. (A French translation of MARUYAMA Masao’s classic study of earlymodern and modern Japanese political thought.) Kasulis, Thomas P. 1993. The body – Japanese style. In Self as body in Asian theory and practice, ed. Thomas P. Kasulis et al. Albany: State University of New York Press. Kasulis, Thomas P., Roger T. Ames, and Wimal Dissanayake (eds.). 1993. Self as body in Asian theory and practice. Albany: State University of New York Press. Kōsaka, Shirō 高坂史朗. 2007. Unifying east and west: The search for Meiji philosophers (Tōyō to Seiyō no tōgō—Meiji no tetsugakushatachi no motometa mono” 東洋と西洋の統合—明 治の哲学者たちの求めたもの). In Nihon no tetsugaku (daihachigo): Tokushū: Meiji no tetsugaku 日本の哲学 (第八号), 特集: 明治の哲学, ed. Nihon tetsugakushi fuōramu 日本哲 学史フォーラム (FUJITA Masakatsu 藤田正勝 et al.). Kyoto: Shōwadō. Koyasu, Nobukuni 子安宣邦. 1992. Kishinron: Juka chishikijin no disukūru 鬼神論: 儒家知識人 のディスクール. Tokyo: Fukutake shoten. Koyasu, Nobukuni 子安宣邦. 2005. Edo as method: Japanese intellectual history and critical perspectives (Hōhō to shite no Edo: Nihon shisōshi to hihanteki shiza 方法としての江戸: 日 本思想史と批判的視座). Tokyo: Perikansha. Lam, Wing-keung 林永強. 2011. The making of ‘Japanese Philosophy’: NISHI Amane, NAKAE Chōmin, and NISHIDA Kitarō. In Whither Japanese philosophy? III reflections through other eyes. Tokyo: University of Tokyo Center for Philosophy. UTCP Booklet 19. http://utcp.c.u-tokyo. ac.jp/publications/pdf/UTCPBooklet19_05_Lam.pdf. (An important study of the making of Japanese philosophy in Meiji and twentieth-century Japan.)

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Li, Jingde 黎靖德. 1984. Zhuzi yu lei 朱子語類. Kyoto: Chūbun shuppansha. Lidin, Olof G. 1970. Distinguishing the way. Tokyo: Sophia University. Lidin, Olof G. 1973. The life of OGYŪ Sorai: A Tokugawa Confucian philosopher. Lund: Studentlitteratur. (A valuable biography of OGYū Sorai.) Lidin, Olof G. 1983. OGYŪ Sorai’s journey to Kai in 1706. Scandinavian Institute of Asian studies monograph series, 48. London: Curzon Press. Lidin, Olof G. 1999. OGYŪ Sorai’s discourse on government (Seidan): An annotated translation. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag. (An important translation of Sorai’s last major work.) Maruyama, Masao 丸山真男. 1952. Nihon seiji shisōshi kenkyū 日本政治思想史研究. Tokyo: Tokyo daigaku shuppankai. (The Japanese edition of the Maruyama’s widely influential study of early-modern and modern Japanese thought, largely in relation to Confucian notions.) Maruyama, Masao 丸山真男. 1974. Studies in the Intellectual History of Tokugawa Japan. Trans. Mikiso Hane. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Maruyama, Masao 丸山真男. 1979. The problem of posthumous court rank for OGYū Sorai (OGYū Sorai no zōi mondai 荻生徂徠の贈位問題). In Kindai Nihon no kokka to shisō – IENAGA Saburō kyōju taikan kinen ronshū 近代日本の国家と思想—家長三郎教授退官記念論集. Tokyo: Mishōdō. (An important study of Sorai’s thought, with a focus on its “problematic” nature, at least for Sorai’s prospects of receiving posthumous imperial honors.) Maruyama, Masao 丸山真男. 1980. Ansai’s Confucian learning and the School of Ansai’s Confucian Learning (Ansai gaku to Ansai gakuha 闇斎学と闇斎学派). In The School of YAMAZAKI Ansai (YAMAZAKI Ansai gakuha 山崎闇斎学派), ed. NISHI Junzō 西 順蔵 et al. Nihon shisō taikei, 31. Tokyo: Iwanami shoten. McMullen, Ian James. 1979. Banzan and Jitsugaku: Toward pragmatic action. In Principle and practicality: Essays in Neo-Confucianism and practical learning, ed. Wm. Theodore de Bary and Irene Bloom. New York: Columbia University Press. McMullen, Ian James. 1991. Genji Gaiden: The origins of KUMAZAWA Banzan’s commentary on the Tale of Genji. Oxford Oriental Institute Monographs, 13. Ithaca Press for the Board of the Faculty of Oriental Studies, Oxford University. McMullen, Ian James. 1999. Idealism, protest, and the Tale of Genji: The Confucianism of KUMAZAWA Banzan (1619–91). New York: Oxford University Press. (An important study of Banzan’s Confucianism and the Tale of Genji.) Midgelow, Vida. 2007. Reworking the Ballet: Counter-narratives and alternative bodies. New York: Routledge. Mungello, David E. 1977. Leibniz and Confucianism: The search for accord. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press. Nagatomo, Shigenori. 1993. Two contemporary Japanese views of the body: ICHIKAWA Hiroshi and YUASA Yasuo. In Self as body in Asian theory and practice, ed. Thomas P. Kasulis et al. Albany: State University of New York Press. Najita, Tetsuo. 1998. Tokugawa political writings. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. (Partial translations of Sorai’s Bendō and Benmei.) Najita, Tetsuo and Irwin Scheiner (eds.). 1978. Japanese thought in the Tokugawa period, 1600–1868: Methods and metaphors. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. (An important collection of essays on Tokugawa thought, much of it Confucian.) Nakae, Chōmin 中江兆民. 1983. Complete works of NAKAE Chōmin (NAKAE Chōmin zenshū 中江 兆民全集), 10. Tokyo: Iwanami shoten. Nakamura, Shunsaku 中村春作. 2007. Philosophical history as modern ‘Knowledge’: The case of INOUE Tetsujirō (Kinsei no chi to shite no tetsugakushi INOUE Tetsujirō o chūshin ni 近代の知 としての哲学史井上哲次郎を中心に). In Nihon no tetsugaku (daihachigo): Tokushū: Meiji no tetsugaku日本の哲学 (第八号), 特集: 明治の哲学, ed. Nihon tetsugakushi fuōramu 日本 哲学史フォーラム (FUJITA Masakatsu 藤田正勝 et al.). Kyoto: Shōwadō.

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Ng, Wai-ming. 2000. The I Ching in Tokugawa thought and culture. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press. (A highly original study of the importance of the Book of Changes in Tokugawa intellectual history.) Nishida, Kitarō 西田幾多郎. 1950. Complete works of NISHIDA Kitarō (NISHIDA Kitarō zenshū 西田 幾多郎全集), 12. Tokyo: Iwanami shoten. Nosco, Peter (ed.). 1984. Confucianism and Tokugawa culture. Princeton: Princeton University Press. (An important collection of essays on Tokugawa Confucianism.) Ooms, Herman. 1984. Neo-Confucianism and the formation of early Tokugawa ideology: The contours of a problem. In Confucianism and Tokugawa culture, ed. Peter Nosco. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Paramore, Kiri. 2006. HAYASHI Razan’s redeployment of anti-Christian discourse: The fabrication of Haiyaso. Japan Forum 18(2): 185–206. Piovesana, Gino K. 1963. Recent Japanese philosophical thought. Tokyo: Enderle Bookstore. Rutherford, Donald. 2006. Innovation and orthodoxy in early-modern philosophy. In The Cambridge companion to early modern philosophy, ed. Donald Rutherford. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Shively, Donald H. 1959. MOTODA Eifu: Confucian lecturer to the Meiji emperor. In Confucianism in action, ed. David S. Nivison and Arthur F. Wright. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Shively, Donald H. 1965. NISHIMURA Shigeki: A Confucian view of modernization. In Changing Japanese attitudes towards modernization, ed. Marius B. Jansen. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Smits, Gregory. 1999. Visions of Ryukyu: Identity and ideology in early-modern thought and politics. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press. Takayanagi, Nobuo 高柳信夫. 2011. Japan’s ‘Isolated Father’ of philosophy: NISHI Amane 西周 and his ‘Tetsugaku 哲学.’ In Whither Japanese philosophy? III reflections through other eyes. Tokyo: University of Tokyo Center for Philosophy. UTCP Booklet 19. http://utcp.c.u-tokyo. ac.jp/publications/pdf/UTCPBooklet19_06_Takayanagi.pdf. Tu, Weiming, and Ikeda Daisaku. 2011. New horizons in eastern humanism: Buddhism, Confucianism, and the quest for global peace. New York: Palgrave Mcmillan. Tucker, John Allen. 1992. Reappraising Razan: The legacy of philosophical lexicography. Asian Philosophy 2(1): 41–60. Tucker, John Allen. 1998. ITO Jinsai’s Gomō jigi and the philosophical definition of early modern Japan. Leiden: E. J. Brill. (A complete translation of Jinsai’s philosophical masterwork.) Tucker, John Allen. 2006. OGYŪ Sorai’s philosophical masterworks: The Bendō and Benmei. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press. (Complete translations of two of Sorai’s most important philosophical works, the Bendō and Benmei.) Tucker, Mary Evelyn. 2007. The philosophy of Qi: The record of Great Doubts. New York: Columbia University Press. (A translation study of Ekken’s Taigiroku.) Wittgenstein, Ludwig. 1961. Tractatus logico-philosophicus. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul. Yamashita, Ryūji 山下龍二. 1979. NAKAE Tōju’s religious thought and its relation to Jitsugaku.” In Principle and practicality: Essays in Neo-Confucianism and practical learning, ed. Wm. Theodore de Bary and Irene Bloom. New York: Columbia University Press. Yuasa, Yasuo 湯浅泰. 1977. The body: Towards an East Asian discussion of the body and mind (Shintai: Tōyōteki shinshinron no kokoromi 身体: 東洋的身心論の試み). Tokyo: Sōbunsha.

Chapter 2

The Meanings of Words and Confucian Political Philosophy: A Study of MATSUNAGA Sekigo’s Ethics John A. Tucker

2.1

Introduction

In 1640, two years after Tokugawa forces defeated the Christian-inspired Shimabara Rebellion, the scholar-poet MATSUNAGA Sekigo published, in a woodblock edition, a text advancing a new statement of essentially Confucian teachings. Sekigo organized the text systematically with structured explanations of the meanings of approximately two-dozen notions integral to the philosophical vision advocated. Even as it displays dimensions of intellectual cosmopolitanism, Sekigo’s text, Ethics (Irinshō 彝倫抄), reveals the limits of tolerance set by a combination of pressing political concerns and well-ensconced spiritual forces allying against a common religio-philosophical threat. The opening lines of Sekigo’s work thus affirms the divinity of Japan as a first principle by declaring, “Japan is a divine realm, one governed in ancient times by Shintō” (Nihon wa shinkoku ni shite, mukashi wa Shintō nite osamu 日本は神國にして, 昔 は神道にておさむ) (Matsunaga 1640: 1b, 1975: 304). Sekigo’s Ethics also draws extensively from a late-Song 宋 (960–1279) work, CHEN Beixi’s 陳北溪 (1159–1223) The Meanings of Human Nature and Principle (Xingli ziyi 性理字義 Seiri jigi).1 The latter, an exceptionally influential Confucian text during the Tokugawa, first entered Japan in the 1590s in the form of copies of the 1553 Korean edition published in the castle town of Jinju 晉州.2 Along with Shintō and Song-Confucian notions, Sekigo 1

When two Romanizations are given, the Chinese is first and the Japanese, second. In the early 1590s, major battles were fought at Jinju Castle as part of TOYOTOMI Hideyoshi’s 豊臣 秀吉 (1536–98) drive to conquer Ming 明 dynasty China. In 1592, Japanese forces, led by HOSOKAWA Takaoki 細川忠興 (1563–1646), were defeated by a Korean army commanded by KIM Simin 金時敏 (1554–1592). The following year, massive Japanese forces seized the castle. Copies of the 1553 Korean edition of CHEN Beixi’s The Meanings of Terms apparently entered Japan in the wake of these battles. Korean military officers in Jinju had earlier sponsored the text’s publication. 2

J.A. Tucker (*) Department of History, East Carolina University, A-317, Brewster Bldg., 27858-4353 Greenville, NC, USA e-mail: [email protected] C.C. Huang and J.A. Tucker (eds.), Dao Companion to Japanese Confucian Philosophy, Dao Companions to Chinese Philosophy 5, DOI 10.1007/978-90-481-2921-8_2, © Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2014

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also accommodates Buddhism in defining a system of thought that is all the more universalistic for its philosophical syncretism. By philosophical syncretism, this paper refers to a readiness to affirm common theoretical ground where possible and interpret expressions from different philosophical perspectives as equivalent or mutually supporting. Thus along syncretic lines, Sekigo establishes the validity of a basic Confucian teaching – “the three bonds” (san gang 三綱 sankō) between (i) rulers and ministers (jun chen 君臣 kunshin), (ii) fathers and sons (fuzi 父子 fushi), and (iii) husbands and wives (fufu 夫婦 fūfu) – with examples drawn from the life of the Buddha. These examples prove, in Sekigo’s logic, that Buddhism occupied common semantic and ethical ground with Confucianism and even, in certain respects, corroborated Confucianism. Similarly Sekigo offers accounts of the “five constant virtues” (wu chang 五常 gojō) – (i) humaneness (ren 仁 jin), (ii) rightness (yi 義 gi), (iii) propriety (li 礼 rei), (iv) wisdom (zhi 智 chi), and (v) trustworthiness (xin 信 shin) − with explanations cast in Buddhist-Confucian terms. Sekigo’s merging of Confucian notions with aspects of Buddhism and Shintō is coupled, however, with poignant, pivotal statements denouncing Christianity as a dangerous heterodoxy. In fact, Sekigo explains that he published Ethics in order to advance Confucianism, and allied forms of ethical thought, and so check the spread of Christianity. The multifaceted contents of Sekigo’s Ethics reveal that the early-Tokugawa was hardly an age of philosophical sakoku, or closed-mindedness, but rather was one wherein versatile East Asian traditions served as sources for early-modern expressions of Japanese Confucianism. In relation to foreign teachings such as Christianity, Sekigo’s Ethics also reveals that philosophical sakoku was hardly an inconceivably distant development so much as perhaps a nascent process that would ultimately seal receptivity towards Western religio-philosophical culture and eventually challenge even East Asian systems such as Confucianism. While religio-philosophical traditions informing Sekigo’s syncretic Confucianism allowed for adaptations in different cultural times and spaces, Christianity was far less prepared to do so. In part as a result of its relative intolerance, the “heterodox teaching” (ikyō 異教), as Sekigo called it, appears in his Ethics as the prime religio-philosophical enemy, one to be guarded against if not purged entirely. The main concern of Sekigo’s Ethics is with establishing the right and true meanings of philosophical terms. However, his work is hardly a mere exercise in semantics and philology. Instead Sekigo’s Ethics exemplifies an early-modern form of Confucian political philosophizing, one increasingly apparent in Japan in the seventeenth- and early-eighteenth centuries. While the name, Irinshō, translates as Ethics, there is an explicit political end integral to the text. Methodologically Sekigo’s Ethics, like Beixi’s The Meanings of Human Nature and Principle, advances its nuanced system of thought via conceptual explication, much as would philosophical dictionaries authored by later Enlightenment philosophes. To appreciate the political significance of Sekigo’s Ethics, the longstanding Confucian concern for language and right meaning as a precondition for a just political order must be factored into one’s interpretive equation. When that is done, Sekigo, somewhat like Plato in The Republic, appears engaged in philosophical lexicography, attempting to define language in order to lay the foundations for a just and rightly ordered polity.

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ZHU Xi, Beixi, and Song Neo-Confucianism

First, a survey of the thinking of Beixi and his teacher, ZHU Xi 朱熹 (1130–1200) is in order. Zhu’s thought, often described as an expression of “Neo-Confucianism,” differed significantly from the ideas found in ancient Confucian writings such as the Analects (Lunyu 論語 Rongo) and Mencius (Mengzi 孟子 Mōshi). Theorizing metaphysically, ontologically, and ethically after centuries of Buddhist preeminence in China, Zhu addressed issues that Confucius 孔子 (551–479 BCE) refrained from discussing at any length. Buddhists insisted that everything was ultimately empty of self-being and amounted to little more than illusions entrapping the ignorant with phenomenal lures to continual rebirth in the world of samsara, or the mundane world of human passions and attachments. Buddhism offered as a solution to the problem of existence the hope of nirvana, or “putting out the flame” of reincarnation, an achievement tantamount to a blissful existential extinction. Consequently, the Buddhist view of neither the world of samsara nor that of nirvana was entirely positive. Considered from the perspective of their understanding of the highest level of truth, the self, the family, society, the polity, and indeed everything, including the Buddha, the noble Buddhist truths, and nirvana itself, is empty of self-substantial being. Against this, ZHU Xi and many Song Confucians sought to establish the ontological reality and meaningfulness of the world by formulating a metaphysics defined in terms of principle (li 理 ri) and generative force (qi 氣 ki), often rendered as material force. In their view, principle referred to the rational and ethical structure of all reality, while generative force designated the substantial, transformative stuff of experiential becoming. As in ancient Confucianism, heaven and earth were recognized as cosmic generative sources, but with Zhu’s Confucian thinking, heaven was also related to every aspect of reality, especially humanity, through the nature (xing 性 sei) that heaven specifically endows in everything. While ancient Confucians defined this nature variously, the standard Song account that Zhu and Beixi affirmed was that human nature, equated metaphysically with principle, is ethically good (shan 善 zen). Insofar as principle exists in all things, so are all things likewise both real and good. Rather than rejecting the world as so much suffering and illusion from which we should liberate ourselves existentially, Song Confucians affirmed the essential goodness of the self and the world, along with the metaphysical and ontological reality of the same. Where this goodness was obscured or compromised, the project was not to escape from it but rather to study the principles of reality so that original goodness might be clarified and restored. Enhancing Song Confucian claims about the reality of all things was the ontological notion of generative force, providing a crucial material dimension of self-substantial reality for the self, society, and the world. Study and learning, which ZHU Xi considered cardinal means of self-cultivation, require respect for language and right meaning. Without the crucial role of language, most especially the words of the sages, Confucius and Mencius, humanity would hardly be different from beasts. Words are not, as Buddhists often claim, nominal phenomena that are essentially empty of abiding meaning. Rather Song Confucians affirmed that words are real and substantial conveyors of purportedly true meaning.

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One aspect of their affirmation of the integrity of language and meaning was the Song view, drawing on ancient Confucianism, that words possessed epistemological power sufficient to influence and even transform reality in decisively cognitive, ethical, and political ways. For that reason, “rulers and princes” (junzi 君子 kunshi) well understood the importance of being cautious in their use of words. Confucius refrained from discussing the nature of ghosts and spirits (guishen 鬼神 kishin), emphasizing instead the importance of focusing on human behavior in this world. On the other hand, Mahayana Buddhists posited a succession of afterworlds wherein there was either suffering in a multi-tiered hell or the multifaceted bliss of a heavenly paradise. Song Confucians including ZHU Xi and Beixi felt compelled to respond to Buddhist claims and advance what they deemed true and credible analyses of human spirituality. They did this by suggesting that the spiritual reality of humanity could be understood in terms of a ghostly aspect (gui 鬼 ki), manifested by the generative forces of yin (in 陰), and a spiritual aspect (shen 神 shin), expressed via the generative forces of yang (yō 陽). Rather than positing another cosmic dimension wherein these forces existed, Song Confucians affirmed that ghosts and spirits are substantial, integral aspects of the here and now, in life essential to the person and in death a continuing presence in this world. The spiritual elements defining individuals in relation to the spiritual dimension at large are transmitted paternally, through procreation, making it imperative that reverence be directed towards one’s male ancestors. Such reverence helps to provide for their good graces without which ruin would ensue. Worship directed toward others or to foreign temples and icons was declared lewd and disastrously wrongheaded. ZHU Xi’s system of Song Confucianism was one of many East Asian expressions of what has been called Neo-Confucianism. Simply put, Neo-Confucianism was a post-Buddhist development of Confucian thinking that was “new” due to its concern with a range of topics, including principle and generative force, ghosts and spirits, and others, that earlier Confucians had not addressed at length. Also Neo-Confucians were not as focused on the study of the Five Classics (Wujing 五經 Gokyō) as with a new set of writings, the Four Books (Sishu 四書 Shisho), which they identified as the essential literature of their new learning. Zhu’s thought was an expression of Neo-Confucianism, but the latter should not be equated, plain and simple, with Zhu’s thinking because not all Neo-Confucians came to the same conclusions that Zhu did. Most interpreters of Neo-Confucianism would agree, however, that of the various Song and post-Song expressions of that new thinking in China and East Asia, Zhu’s system was philosophically one of the most compelling and systematic, and historically, the most significant. ZHU Xi’s ideas were set forth most definitively in his commentaries on the Four Books: the Great Learning (Daxue 大學 Daigaku), the Analects (Lunyu 論語 Rongo), the Mencius (Mengzi 孟子 Mōshi), and the Doctrine of the Mean (Zhongyong 中庸 Chūyō). As might be expected from a system emphasizing the substantial reality and semantic integrity of words, Zhu’s Song Confucianism spawned a prodigious literature, reiterating, expounding, and often questioning and debating his thought. Much of this literature involved systematic compilations by disciples, as with the text crucially important to this study, CHEN Beixi’s The Meanings of Human Nature and Principle.

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Sekigo’s Confucianism as Political Philosophy

In formulating his lexicography, Sekigo engaged in a methodology that Confucius called “the rectification of names” (zheng ming 正名 seimei). Meant to guard against the anarchic consequences of egregious misuse of language and power, this methodology first and foremost emphasized the importance of defining right meanings as the crucial semantic foundations for a just, humane, and well-ordered polity. In the Analects, Confucius explains this when asked by his disciple, Zilu 子路, what he would do first if given the task of governing (wei zheng 為政). Confucius’ response was that he would first make sure that “names” (ming 名 mei) were correct (zheng 正 sei) in meaning and practice. Confucius then explains, … if names are not correct, words and speech (yan 言 gon) will not correspond with things; if words do not correspond, then affairs (shi 事 ji) will not attain completion; if affairs do not attain completion, rites and music will not flourish; if rites and music do not flourish, then punishments will not be correct; if punishments are not correct, then people will not know how they are supposed to behave (Analects 1988: 25).

Confucius adds that rulers and princes (junzi 君子 kunshi) hold that names must be used correctly and that what is said must be practicable. The words of rulers and princes, he cautions, do not brook nonsense (Analects 1988: 25). The consequences of using language arbitrarily – social and political anarchy reflecting that of the ruler’s words – show that without a proper understanding of the meanings of words, good government cannot be achieved. In defining philosophical words, Beixi’s The Meanings of Human Nature and Principle (hereafter, The Meanings of Terms) and Sekigo’s Ethics are, in effect, defining the grounds for the possibility of good government. They are thus engaged in one form of Confucian political philosophy. Sekigo’s work is far more than a treatise on ethical principles: it is explaining what it deems to be the right philosophical foundations of a new political order for Tokugawa Japan. In its concluding sections, where Sekigo explains ghosts and spirits, his Ethics expounds a philosophy of religion effectively defining proper spirituality for the new age. In what follows, Sekigo’s agenda – political, ethical, and spiritual – is laid bare in no uncertain terms. Sekigo’s postscript, dated the ninth lunar month of 1640, explains why he authored his Ethics. Three years prior to the completion of Sekigo’s postscript, the Shimabara Rebellion, a Christian-inspired uprising, erupted on the island of Shimabara near Nagasaki. By the end of the following year, 1638, massive Tokugawa armies quashed the revolt with the rebel dead reportedly numbering over 30,000. In the fall of 1640, around the time Sekigo completed his postscript, some 60 Christians in Nagasaki were decapitated and their heads publicly displayed as a demonstration of the fate of those embracing the foreign religion. Along philosophical lines rather than military, Sekigo’s Ethics sought to preempt Christianity by defining broadminded ethical foundations for the new order, ones syncretic in their harmonization of Shintō and Buddhism within a Song Confucian framework. The limits of this philosophically cosmopolitan syncretism were those presented by Christianity itself, a heterodoxy that was, in Sekigo’s judgment, hazardously wrongheaded in its

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fundamental understanding of human nature, human relations, the family, the polity, and the world. Sekigo’s work is thus more than a simple hodge-podge dictionary of ethical notions authored for beginners: it advocates a succinct yet systematic statement of Confucian syncretism wherein a broadly corroborated philosophical platform serves the nascent polity with firm ethical foundations guarding against the foreign heterodoxy.

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MATSUNAGA Sekigo and the Historiography of Japanese Confucianism

Accounts of Japanese Confucianism typically begin with FUJIWARA Seika 藤原惺窩 1561–1619), followed by coverage of his purported successor, HAYASHI Razan 林 羅山 (1583–1657). In modern times, INOUE Tetsujirō (1855–1944), professor of philosophy at Tokyo Imperial University, endorsed this narrative in the final volume of his monumental trilogy on the major schools of Japanese philosophy (INOUE 1905: 11–349). Almost a century earlier, the basics of this narrative appeared in HARA Nensai’s 原念斎 (1774–1820) Accounts of Early Confucian Philosophers (Sentetsu sōdan 先哲叢談), which opens with a study of Seika, followed by one of Razan (Hara 1994: 19–40). Post-war scholarship, most of which has followed, to one degree or another, that of MARUYAMA Masao 丸山眞男 (1914–1996), has all but universally endorsed this genealogy tracing transmission of the Confucian way, beginning with Seika and then moving to Razan. Maruyama opposed Inoue’s nationalistic interpretations of Confucianism and his propagandistic “national morality of the Japanese people” (kokumin dōtoku 國民道徳), but Maruyama still followed, rather naively, the lineage Inoue earlier endorsed, beginning with Seika and then moving to Razan (Maruyama 1974: 12–40). Typically this genealogy relates how Seika left his life as a Buddhist to pursue more fully Confucian learning. Between 1597 and 1600, Seika studied with a Korean prisoner of war, KANG Hang 姜沆 (1567–1618), brought to Japan along with forces returning from TOYOTOMI Hideyoshi’s 豊臣秀吉 (1536–1598) invasions of the Korean peninsula. With Kang’s help, Seika emerged as one of the early Japanese masters of Song Confucian studies as developed outside Zen monasteries where they earlier thrived as part of a medieval syncretism emphasizing the primacy of Buddhism. Seika’s Confucianism was well-known to samurai leaders such as TOKUGAWA Ieyasu 徳川家康 (1543–1616). However, Ieyasu’s rise to power following his victory at Sekigahara in 1600 prompted his decree that AKAMATSU Hiromichi (1562–1600), Seika’s patron, commit seppuku for having opposed the Tokugawa. With Hiromichi’s death, Seika apparently could not bring himself to accept further overtures from Ieyasu who now, as shogun, sought a scholar-philosopher to assist in establishing his new regime (Abe 1965: 35–148; Bowring 2006: 437–457; Kim 1961: 83–103). Nevertheless Seika did suggest, in 1604, that one of his students, Razan, be considered. Razan accepted the position serving the Tokugawa shogunate, a position he retained until his passing in 1657 (Hori 1964). Razan’s work as

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a teacher, translator, and promoter of Confucianism contributed significantly to the gradual elevation of Song and post-Song Confucianism in Japan as a philosophical system, one that viewed the self, morality, the socio-political order, and the cosmos in far more metaphysically realistic terms than had characterized medieval times when Buddhist claims about omnipresent emptiness defined most worldviews. Despite Razan’s importance in the history of Japanese Confucianism, TAMAKAKE Hiroyuki 玉懸博之 suggests that MATSUNAGA Sekigo was the main successor to Seika’s philosophical learning (Tamakake 1975: 303). There can be little question that Sekigo, like Seika, agreed with many of ZHU Xi’s ideas, and some of the more intuitive notions of WANG Yangming 王陽明 (1472–1529) and LU Xiangshan 陸象 山 (1139–1192), even while sympathetically considering Buddhist ideas as well. Concurring somewhat with Tamakake, this study recognizes Sekigo as an important early-seventeenth-century philosopher-poet in the ancient imperial capital, Kyoto, one whose relationship to the samurai world was mediated by his stronger identification with the non-samurai social world of Kyoto, and incidentally, a quiet yet abiding loyalty to the Toyotomi. In this context it is noteworthy that Sekigo’s lifework as a Kyoto Confucian mirrored Seika’s, and foreshadowed that of a later Kyoto philosopher, ITō Jinsai 伊藤仁斎 (1627–1705). While Jinsai had no bonds to the Toyotomi, he remained a private teacher of Confucianism in Kyoto where he was born and raised rather than serve a samurai lord in the hinterlands as a domain scholar. Sekigo was born in the imperial capital, the son of MATSUNAGA Teitoku 松永貞徳 (1571–1653), a master poet and respected scholar. Having studied Japanese poetry (waka 和歌) under HOSOKAWA Yūsai 細川幽斎 (1534–1610) and “linked verse” (renga 連歌) under SATOMURA Jōha 里村紹巴 (1524–1602), Teitoku served TOYOTOMI Hideyoshi briefly as waka poet. Matsunaga family ties with the Toyotomi made it difficult for Sekigo to take up service to other samurai after the Tokugawa effectively supplanted the Toyotomi as military overlords following the Tokugawa victory at Sekigahara in 1600. Such service became even more difficult for Sekigo after the Tokugawa eliminated the Toyotomi with the siege of Osaka Castle in 1614–1615. Much as Seika could not bring himself to serve the man who had asked his patron to commit seppuku, so did Sekigo find himself with loyalties precluding service to a newly emerging samurai order built on the destruction of the Toyotomi. Instead, Sekigo remained in Kyoto as a private scholar finding some degree of success in teaching poetry composition and a syncretic form of Confucianism. The Matsunaga and Fujiwara were related, facilitating Sekigo’s studies with Seika from an early age. Given Sekigo’s background, reports of prodigious talent should not necessarily be considered suspect. Accounts relate that at 11, Sekigo composed poetry on a par with HAYASHI Razan and KAN Tokuan 菅得庵 (1581– 1622), both considerably older. By 13, Sekigo had studied ZHU Xi’s commentaries on the Four Books and Five Classics. The same year, 1604, he was introduced to TOYOTOMI Hideyori 豊臣秀頼 (1593–1615), Hideyoshi’s son, and reportedly delivered a lecture on the first of the Four Books, the Great Learning, impressing Hideyori. From that time until the destruction of the Toyotomi in 1615, Sekigo maintained ties with Hideyori (Hara 1994: 77–78; Tamakake 1975: 505).

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When Sekigo turned 30, Seika transmitted to him his esoteric teachings (okugi 奥義). These included Seika’s explanations of important passages from the Book of Changes (Yijing 易經 Ekikyō), Book of History (Shujing 書經 Shokyō); and the “secret message” of the Spring and Autumn Annals (Chunqiu 春秋 Shunjū). Stipends were offered and Sekigo visited several domains in the Kansai, but never obligated himself to extended service to a samurai liege. In his early 30s, Sekigo taught Confucianism at Buddhist quarters on Sanjō 三条, but due to the cramped conditions there later moved to another Buddhist facility located on Gojō 五条. At age 37, Sekigo moved into a private space, which he named “the Hall of Spring and Autumn” (Shunjūkan 春秋館), located just south of Nishi no tōin 西洞院 and Nijō 二条 in western Kyoto. When Sekigo turned 40, his father Teitoku asked that he pursue Buddhist studies at the Kenninji 建仁寺, one of Kyoto’s most renowned centers of Buddhist learning, but also known as a center of Confucian studies. Within a year, Sekigo had finished reading the Great Repository of Sacred Buddhist Texts (Daizōkyō 大蔵経). Not long after, he completed two works, Selections from the Buddhist Canon (Issaikyō bassui 一切経拔萃) and Drops in the Ocean of Buddhist Literature (Taikai itteki 大海一滴), which were presented to the retired emperor Go-Mizunoo 後水尾 (1596–1680). For these Sekigo reportedly earned considerable praise (Tamakake 1975: 506). When Sekigo was in his late forties, ITAKURA Shigemune 板倉重宗 (1587– 1656), shogunal deputy in Kyoto and an enthusiastic follower of Sekigo’s lectures, provided him with land south of Horikawa and Nijō, near Nijō Castle, the Tokugawa compound in the imperial capital. There, Sekigo established a new academy, the Kōshūdō 講習堂. Within a decade, the emperor Go-Kōmyō (1633–1654) granted Sekigo, then 57, a parcel near the imperial palace for his last academy, the “Sekigo Hall of Learning” (Sekigodō 尺五堂). Apparently a popular teacher, Sekigo is reported to have taught thousands of students, among them KINOSHITA Jun’an 木下順庵 (1621–1698), UTSUNOMIYA Ton’an 宇都宮遯菴 (1634–1709), ANDō Shō’an 安東省庵 (1622–1701), and KAIBARA Ekken 貝原益軒 (1630–1714) (Tamakake 1975: 506). Sekigo completed Ethics in 1640, when he was 49, during his years at his Kōshūdō. Given the anti-Christian theme in Ethics and the patronage Sekigo received from shogunal deputy Shigemune, Sekigo conceivably authored Ethics at Shigemune’s request. Shigemune had cause for sponsoring a treatise advocating Confucian syncretism and denouncing Christianity: the second shogun, Hidetada 秀忠 (1579–1632), had sent Shigemune to Kyoto as shogunal deputy to “banish the priests” (Paramore 2009: 54). But then again, Sekigo could have authored Ethics for his father, Teitoku, a long-standing opponent of Christianity who joined HAYASHI Razan and others in debates with Christian leaders in Kyoto from the early 1600s forward (Elison 1973: 149, 196, 431). Several early-Tokugawa philosophers on the rise including Razan, ISHIKAWA Jōzan 石川丈山 (1583–1672), and KUMAZAWA Banzan 熊沢蕃山 (1619–1691) made names for themselves as outspoken critics of the foreign religion, delivering attacks that would likely please the Tokugawa authorities. FUJIWARA Seika, however, was not known for such. And within the spectrum of philosophical writings delivering such attacks, Sekigo’s were relatively mild.

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Sekigo died in 1657, the same year as Razan. While both studied with Seika, they were different in most respects. Sekigo declined to serve samurai lords, while Razan was in his element as advisor to the first three Tokugawa shoguns. Razan enjoyed going on the attack, especially against religious targets such as Christianity and Buddhism. Sekigo more regretted the heterodoxy he was obliged to denounce. If comparisons are to be made, the most apt are those of Sekigo and Seika. Both advocated a Confucian syncretism, and both remained in Kyoto as scholar-teachers. With both, ties to the Toyotomi made it virtually impossible for them to betray lost patrons in order to serve those whose climb to power entailed their tragedies. Rather than follow suit with an opportunistic flip, Seika and Sekigo devoted their energies to philosophizing as independent scholars in the imperial center. Their major works remain modest yet impressive evidence of significant cultural interaction at the opening of the early modern period, much as their professional choices stand as important counterexamples to claims about the ideological subservience of Confucians to the new samurai order. Sekigo stands as a forerunner of the kind of Confucian teacher that ITō Jinsai exemplified in late-seventeenth century Kyoto. While most of Jinsai’s writings were critical of Buddhism, even Jinsai recognized common ground shared by Buddhism and Confucianism. This might have been based on his recognition of a universalistic dimension in both teachings, or equally in the inevitable need to contextualize a foreign teaching, Song Confucianism, within a philosophical register that would appeal to the theoretically sophisticated, largely Shintō and Buddhist-based intellectual worlds of early-modern Kyoto.

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Sekigo’s Ethics and Medieval Syncretism

Sekigo’s Ethics follows Seika’s overall approach to philosophizing in its readiness to unify the three teachings (sankyō icchi 三教一致) of Confucianism, Buddhism, and Daoism. Such an approach was equally characteristic of medieval Zen Buddhists who studied Confucianism, as well as one pioneered by Chinese thinkers such as LIN Zhao’en 林兆恩 (1517–1598) who saw in the three teachings an essential unity transcending differences (Berling 1980; Haeger 1972). This approach is very evident in Sekigo’s Ethics: its opening line states, “Between heaven and earth there are three great ways (daidō 大道): those of Confucianism 儒, Buddhism 釈, and Daoism 道” (Matsunaga 1640: 1a, 1975: 304). Of these, the main focus of Ethics is Confucianism and, where possible, the extent to which Buddhism sets forth essentially the same perspective. Sekigo recognizes Daoism, but says little about it. Shintō is undoubtedly a first principle, but does not factor regularly in the discussions. The core philosophy of Sekigo’s Ethics is ultimately that of Song Confucianism, as understood either on its own terms or in relation to Buddhist teachings. An underlying message throughout Ethics, however, is that Christian teachings are, in relation to Japanese culture, philosophical and otherwise, incongruous and dangerously incompatible heterodoxies. Sekigo does not always explain precisely why, perhaps because his reasons were many and not all of them the

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product of philosophical reasoning. That aside, by advancing a broadly corroborated and purportedly orthodox ethics, Sekigo apparently sought to preempt the social and political dangers he thought Christianity posed for the future of Japan. Religious and philosophical syncretism in Japan easily dated back to ancient and medieval times so that by Sekigo’s day it was a rather common-sense perspective. Sectarianism, or exclusive insistence on one teaching and opposition to others as mistaken, was not the norm. In ancient literature, syncretic accounts appeared in the Records of Ancient Events (Kojiki 古事記, 712) and Records of Japanese History (Nihon shoki 日本書紀, 720) where the origins of things are explained with notions drawn from Shintō, Daoism, and Confucianism. KITABATAKE Chikafusa’s 北畠親房 (1293–1354) Account of the Orthodox Line of Divine Emperors (Jinnō shōtōki 神皇正統記, ca. 1343), a medieval work, extols the imperial line by appeal to its superlative nature in all three registers. These texts, however, privileged Shintō as the core teaching, adding Buddhist and/or Confucian angles mostly to supplement it. Other syncretic works privileged Buddhism as their philosophical axis, claiming it as the “original substance” (honji 本地), while allowing for Shintō as a “trace manifestation” (suijaku 垂迹). Kūkai’s 空海 (774–835) Ten Stages of the Mind (Jūjū shinron 十住心論, 830) elevated Buddhism as the pinnacle of spiritual and philosophical truth, while seeing Confucianism as a lower development distinguishing humanity from the world of beastly desires, hell-bound passions, and hungry ghosts. Sekigo’s Ethics differs markedly from these expressions of syncretism by recognizing Confucianism as the core philosophical teaching, while allowing for Buddhism and Shintō as similar, essentially corroborative perspectives. Sekigo’s Confucian syncretism is remarkable considering that many influential Confucians were acerbic in criticizing Buddhists. For example, in discussing “Buddhism and Daoism,” Beixi’s The Meanings of Terms states, Buddhists see emptiness 空 (kong) as their main teaching.… Even among housewives and young women living in remote valleys deep in the mountains, Buddhism has so deluded them that their flesh sags and their bones are brittle and cannot be reinvigorated. The harm Buddhism causes has two sources: one involves claims about blessings and punishments linked to life and death, which deceive the ignorant. The other involves lofty words on human nature, fate, and morality that delude even scholars. The doctrine of blessings and punishments linked to life and death sway those who do not read books, are unclear about principles, and lack perceptive understanding. Buddhist discussions of human nature, fate, and morality are more bewitching. Even lofty minded enlightened scholars have been misled by them (Chen 1972: 46b–47a; Chan 1986: 168–169).

Beixi’s criticisms reflect his dismay with the extent to which Buddhist claims profoundly misled people, both the educated and uneducated. Beixi found little room for syncretism, instead insisting that, Buddhists doctrines seem similar to our Confucian accounts but in reality differ profoundly. We Confucians distinguish individual principles from physical realities and their generative force. Principle is extremely subtle and utmost difficult to apprehend. Buddhists point to generative force and consider it as human nature. Thinking that what is readily seen is human nature, they have no special means of cultivating human nature (Chen 1972: 51a; Chan 1986: 173).

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Here Beixi broaches syncretism momentarily, noting similarities between Confucianism and Buddhism, but then quickly dismisses it as superficial, affirming instead profound differences. He then proceeds to launch a criticism of the Buddhist view of human nature that is simply unfair. After all, one could easily claim that Buddhists saw human nature as emptiness rather than as generative force. It is doubtful, however, that even an accurate account of Buddhism would have made Beixi more sympathetic. An adamant antipathy to any sort of Confucian-Buddhist reconciliation is one of the most conspicuous features of Beixi’s thought.

2.6

Sekigo’s Ethics and Beixi’s The Meanings of Terms

Beixi’s aversion to Buddhism notwithstanding, Sekigo’s Ethics was modeled after Beixi’s The Meanings of Terms. The edition of The Meanings of Terms that impacted Sekigo was the 1553 Korean edition, which entered Japan during Hideyoshi’s 秀吉 invasions of Korea in the 1590s (Abe 1965: 180). Thereafter Beixi’s text influenced Japanese interpretations of Confucianism – especially their genre and methodology – as few Chinese works would. The writings of FUJIWARA Seika, HAYASHI Razan, YAMAGA Sokō 山鹿素行 (1622–1685), ITō Jinsai, YAMAZAKI Ansai 山崎闇斎 (1618–1682), WAKABAYASHI Kyōsai 若林強斎 (1679–1723), OGYŪ Sorai 荻生徂徠 (1666–1728), ARAI Hakuseki 新井白石 (1657–1725), and many others were shaped by the methodology and content of Beixi’s work. Although their ideas often responded to problems that were historically and culturally Japanese, these scholars appropriated a genre that, in philosophical substance, form, and method, was deeply rooted in Chinese thinking, and yet transmitted to Japan by a unique Korean edition embodying it. In this regard Sekigo’s Ethics makes evident a distinctively East Asian dimension of Japanese Confucianism. Tamakake was apparently the first Japanese scholar to call attention to Sekigo’s borrowings from The Meanings of Terms. Of the 14 concepts explained in the first half of The Meanings of Terms, Sekigo included seven in his Irinshō, drawing much of his information from The Meanings of Terms. Of the seven notions in The Meanings of Terms that Sekigo followed, four – “The Decree” (ming 命 mei); “Human Nature” (xing 性 sei); “The Mind” (xin 心 shin); and “Human Feelings” (qing 情 jō) – were the first four that Beixi examined. Three others – “Intentions” (yi 志 kokorozashi); “Sincerity” (cheng 誠 makoto); and “Seriousness” (jing 敬 kei) – were closer to the end of the first chapter of The Meanings of Terms. Sekigo only drew one conceptual category closely from the second chapter of Beixi’s work, but that one was the lengthiest in the entire text, ghosts and spirits (guishen 鬼神 kishin). Other concepts in the second chapter, such as “the way” (dao 道 michi), “principle” (li 理 ri), “the great ultimate” (taiji 太極 taikyoku), “the august ultimate” (huangji 皇極 kōgyoku), and “the standard and the expedient” (jing quan 經權 keiken), are discussed, but not at great length in Sekigo’s Ethics (Tamakake 1975: 508–509).

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Tamakake’s identification of the deep philosophical source of Sekigo’s Ethics provides valuable insights about the origins of the text, its methodology, and genre. However the edition of Beixi’s text to which Tamakake compares Ethics was published later than the one Sekigo apparently followed. Beixi’s work went through numerous editions over the centuries, with significant shifts in arrangement, contents, and title. A full review of the variant editions is beyond the scope of this paper. Suffice it to say that Tamakake cites a reprint of the 1508 edition, which circulated under a somewhat different name, Teacher Beixi’s Lectures on the Meanings of Terms (Beixi xiansheng ziyi xiangjiang 北渓先生字義詳講 Hokkei sensei jigi shōkō) (Chan 1986: 242–243). The first Japanese version of the 1508 edition was published in 1668, well after Sekigo’s death. Unless Sekigo had access to a copy of the 1508 Chinese text, he would have certainly relied on the 1632 Japanese edition. Lacking evidence that Sekigo had access to the 1508 edition, it is virtually certain that he knew The Meanings of Terms through the 1632 edition, published just eight years before his Ethics was completed. The 1632 edition differs from the edition Tamakake cites in several ways. Most significantly for this study is that the 1632 edition did not include in its second half, Beixi’s critical discussions of “Buddhism and Daoism,” the source of the earlier quotes revealing Beixi’s antipathy toward Buddhism. Sekigo’s willingness to follow Beixi’s book as a model for his Ethics was possibly influenced by the absence of the critical section on Buddhism and Daoism. Since Sekigo’s inclinations were evidently toward acknowledging the binding threads within these teachings rather than to denigrating them, he would not likely have overlooked Beixi’s designated accounts of Buddhism and Daoism. Coming at the conclusion of the 1508 edition as if it were that edition’s final philosophical statement, “Buddhism and Daoism” might have offended Sekigo. It is true that even without the section on “Buddhism and Daoism,” the 1632 edition of Beixi’s text includes many critiques of Buddhism, here and there, throughout the work. But those swipes are diluted by being scattered, and so are less objectionable and easier to overlook. No doubt other factors entered the equation, but the contents of the 1553 Korean edition, published as the 1632 Japanese edition, meshed well with Sekigo’s broad thinking in ways that the later 1668 edition, the Japanese version of the 1508, would not have, even if by some chance it had been available to Sekigo. At first glance, Beixi’s text appears like little more than a primer meant for beginning students. Its presentation of Song Confucian philosophy via 25 crucial notions did facilitate quick knowledge of the system. However, as mentioned earlier, the contents and methodology of The Meanings of Terms have a more profound purpose: the right ordering of language as a means of ordering the polity, i.e., “the rectification of names” (zheng ming 正名 seimei), a project that was surely a concern of many Japanese Confucians as the realm began, in the opening decades of the 1600s, to emerge from over a century of chronic warfare. Without a doubt, Song philosophers such as ZHU Xi understood the importance of language and meaning to the political order. The whole of ZHU Xi’s work in authoring commentaries on the Four Books might be read as an effort to rightly define a philosophical order that would provide stable foundations for what remained of the Song dynasty. In his

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Dialogues on the Great Learning (Daxue huowen 大學或問), ZHU Xi made it clear that he knew the importance of right meanings to the political order. There he states, “… if the meaning of even one word is not clearly understood (一字之義有所不明), the misfortunes that follow will include evils such as people indulging in immorality and ministers betraying their rulers.” (ZHU Xi 1977: 30b). Zhu’s remark is quoted in the preface to the 1695 edition of Beixi’s text. There Zhu’s statement is followed by the observation, “From this we can see what a serious difference the meaning of a word can make and why those who are engaged in studying the classics and their commentaries should first of all devote themselves to the meanings of words” (Chan 1986: 227). More than as a simple primer for beginners, The Meanings of Terms sought to empower philosophically the Southern Song, a dynasty whose northern half was already dominated by the Jurchen. North of the Jurchen loomed a massive force, that of the Mongols, which would conquer the Jurchen and Southern Song in just over fifty years. Beixi’s philosophical lexicography responded to this horizon of uncertainty and possible doom with the Confucian confidence (naïve though it might have been) that a realm rightly defined in its philosophical foundations was one that could withstand military challenges meant to overrun it. Alternatively Ethics expressed Sekigo’s understanding of the right semantic foundations that would provide for proper order in the newly emerging polity that the Tokugawa shoguns were otherwise consolidating via military means. While not disposed to participate in any official capacity in the Tokugawa, Sekigo was prepared to define an idealistic and humanitarian ethical ordering of the realm issuing from the ancient imperial capital.

2.7

Sekigo’s Ethics on the Three Bonds and Five Constants

Sekigo might have borrowed methodologically from Beixi’s The Meanings of Terms, but there is no evidence of lifted material in the opening section of his Ethics. Rather Ethics first announces a syncretic stance by acknowledging that between heaven and earth there are three great ways (daidō 大道): those of Confucianism, Buddhism, and Daoism. Sekigo describes these simply enough, stating that Confucianism conveys “the way of Confucius” (Kōshi no michi 孔子の道); Buddhism, “the way of the Śākyamuni Buddha” (Shaka no michi 釈迦の道); and Daoism, “the way of Laozi” (Laozi no michi 老子の道). Had Beixi opened his work with a discussion of the three, he more likely would have declared that there was one great way in the world, and two regrettable sources of confusion and heterodoxy, Buddhism and Daoism. Sekigo’s syncretism, evident front the start, differs profoundly from Beixi’s more sectarian, often dogmatic outlook. Sekigo adds that despite the reality of the three ways, in “our dynastic land” (wagachō 我朝), Buddhism had prevailed, with everyone following it exclusively. As a result people imagined that Confucianism consisted simply of learning “words

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and phrases” (moji gonku 文字言句), reading books, and writing poetry. Sekigo regrets that appreciation of Confucianism’s more philosophical emphasis on the study of principle (lixue 理学 rigaku) had not spread sufficiently. He emphasizes that practicing the three bonds (san gang 三綱 sankō) – linking rulers and ministers, parents and children, and husbands and wives – and the five constants (wuchang 五常 gojō) – humaneness, rightness, propriety, wisdom, and trustworthiness – requires following Confucian paradigms (hō 法) for filial piety and brotherhood, loyalty and good faith, propriety and justice, concession and conscience. Sekigo adds that people cannot read the Four Books and Five Classics, where those paradigms are explained, unless they understand the words and language in which they are written. Comprehending the Confucian lexicon is even more difficult unless people follow the Chinese approach (Morokoshi no hō 大唐の法), beginning at age eight, with the Elementary Learning (Xiaoxue 小學 Shōgaku) (Matsunaga 1640: 1a, 1975: 304). Sekigo’s regrets over Confucianism’s lack of appeal are tied to recognition of the rigor required to master it. But he refrains from compromising the tradition, insisting instead that what Confucianism as discipline and practice demands is in-depth education culminating in advanced philosophical literacy and profound moral practice. Sekigo’s Ethics next discusses Shintō, a topic foreign to Beixi’s text. Sekigo declares, Japan is a divine realm (shinkoku 神國), one governed in ancient times by Shintō. Yet when Shintō waned, so did our laws and customs. Now day and night, samurai serve the realm (hōkō 奉公), from youth forward without rest. Peasants labor in the fields; artisans pursue their crafts; and merchants exhaust their minds over commerce, without time for scholarly learning. How could they know the Confucian way? How could they have heard of humaneness and rightness? How could they realize that sagely teachings exist? This is precisely why there have been no well-trained Confucian scholars in the land. Furthermore Christians (Kirishitan キリシタン) and such have recently spread confusion, with the lives lost numbering tens of thousands (sūman no hito no inochi o ushinaishi 數萬の人命を失いし). How regrettable! (Matsunaga 1640: 1b, 1975: 304).

Sekigo’s longing for the past, perhaps an imagined past, when the divine realm was ruled by Shintō is clear. Decline has left a country at labor, with no time for learning, no grasp of the Confucian way, and a profound dearth of good Confucian scholars. Compounding matters Christianity has confused people, resulting in “tens of thousands” of lives lost. Without blaming Christianity exclusively for the decline of Shintō and a well-governed realm, the foreign teaching is identified from the start in no uncertain terms, as an enemy to be overcome by affirmation of the right way consisting of Confucianism, primarily, along with Buddhism and Shintō. Thus does Sekigo lay bare the socio-political problematic of his Ethics in just a few sentences. Mozi 墨子 (470–391 BCE) is not typically quoted favorably by Confucians. Indeed, Mozi directed much of his philosophical wrath at early Confucianism, criticizing rites and music as wasteful and useless. From Mencius forward, Confucians criticized Mozi relentlessly as a prime example of heterodoxy. Nevertheless Sekigo recalls Mozi’s remark, “It is sad to see a thread that has been dyed.” Sekigo explains

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Mozi’s words by noting that when thread is white, any color might be added. Yet once dyed, there is no going back. Sekigo adopts Mozi’s idea, noting that if the way of the sages influences people from early on, heterodoxies (jahō 邪法) will not harm them. With characteristic generosity, Sekigo adds that Buddhism’s earlier flourish has made prospects for Confucian practice even better (Matsunaga 1640: 1b–2a, 1975: 304–305). Given Sekigo’s willingness to bring Buddhism into his philosophical mix, the heterodoxy that he fears might stain people irrevocably is surely Christianity. Sekigo more directly addresses ethics by explaining that the Confucian way sees the three bonds and the five constants as its essentials. The three bonds refer to understanding and practicing the ethical way informing right relations between rulers and ministers, fathers and sons, and husbands and wives. Sekigo illustrates the three bonds by citing Buddhist examples. Śākyamuni Buddha (563–483 BCE) was by birth the son of Śuddhodana, king of the Śākya tribe in India. When Śākyamuni was raised within his father’s royal palace, the way of the ruler and minister prevailed. When Śākyamuni fathered his son, Rāhula, the way of relations between father and son prevailed. When living with his wife, Yaśodharā, the way of relations between husband and wife prevailed (Matsunaga 1640: 2a, 1975: 305). Sekigo cites Śākyamuni Buddha, the historical Buddha, rather than Confucius or a Confucian paragon of virtue to establish that the way of the three bonds cannot be abandoned, not by anyone, anywhere. Even the historical Buddha exemplifies this core Confucian ethical claim. Defining the five constants one by one, Sekigo’s Ethics first explains that humaneness (ren 仁 jin) is “the virtue of the human mind” (xin zhi de 心之徳 shin no toku) and “the principle of love” (ai zhi li 愛之理 ai no ri) born within “the original mind” (ben xin 本心 honshin) of humanity and endowed in everyone. Manifested externally, humaneness is our sense of compassion and feeling for things we experience. Because everyone is born with this sense of compassion, people are, in essence, no different from the sages (Matsunaga 1640: 2a–b, 1975: 305). In offering these characterizations of humaneness, Ethics conveys the gist of Beixi’s accounts of the first of the five constants (Chen 1632: 23a–36b; Chan 1986: 69–85). Beixi in turn had distilled ZHU Xi’s remarks, recapitulating them in his lexicography of Confucian terms. Far more than any one borrowed remark, however, is the overall structural and methodological correspondence between Sekigo’s Ethics and Beixi’s The Meanings of Terms. It is this correspondence that signals equally the political project, rectifying terms, that both undertake. In addition to Confucian explanations of humaneness, Sekigo cites two Zen remarks that he deems relevant to the meaning of humaneness in relation to the original mind of humanity. The first, reportedly from the Blue Cliff Record (Hekiganroku 碧巌録), a kōan collection, states, “Every person is endowed with it (Buddha nature), and it is within everyone.” The second, from Discussing Enlightenment (Goseiron 悟性論), a work attributed to Bodhidharma 菩提達摩 (fifth century), the first patriarch of Zen, adds, “In pointing directly to the mind, we perceive our Buddha nature and attain Buddhahood” (Matsunaga 1640: 2b, 1975: 305). In Sekigo’s view, these Zen statements buttress Confucian thinking about the

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original mind of humaneness supposedly shared by all humanity, including the sages. Implied is that the original mind of humanity can be roughly equated with the Buddha nature that all people, according to Buddhists, are endowed with. Sekigo’s appeal to Buddhist teachings is unprecedented in Beixi’s sectarian accounts of Confucian terms and is instead a distinctive feature of this early Japanese expression of an eclectic statement of what is most basically Song Confucianism. Yet if everyone is endowed with the mind of humaneness, why is Confucian learning necessary? Sekigo gives three reasons. First, learning is necessary because people’s minds are easily diverted by selfish desires (yu xin 欲心 yokushin). Learning helps to check these. Second, our physical dispositions (qi zhi 氣質 kishitsu) can obscure our original minds. Learning helps to clarify our dispositions and reveal our original minds. Third, heterodox ideas (xie nian 邪念 ja’nen) and evil thoughts (e xin 惡心 akushin)̣allusions again to Christianitỵappear, distracting our original minds. When these three go unchecked, we lose our original minds and no longer feel compassion or sorrow. As a consequence, we come to despise our rulers and neglect our parents. However, Sekigo claims, Confucian teachings correct this. By presenting an ethical thought-experiment involving children playing near a well, the Mencius offers proof that we are endowed with a mind of humaneness. The Mencius notes that if suddenly a child were about to fall in a well, regardless of the circumstances, anyone who witnessed this would feel immediate concern for its safety and an urge to help. This reaction, Sekigo states, flows naturally and without calculation from the original mind of humanity. Even now, Sekigo asserts, the Mencius’ proof that everyone has the mind of humaneness remains valid (Matsunaga 1640: 3a, 1975: 305). Offering a proof drawn from aristocratic Kyoto, Sekigo notes that when people watch a Noh 能 play, they are moved to feel emotion and shed tears. They react this way because their minds harbor no self-centeredness. However, Sekigo regrets, selfish desires (e xin 欲心 yokushin) even among fathers, sons, and brothers prompt animosities and revenge. In Sekigo’s view, Confucian learning teaches us to slay these selfish desires and return to the original mind of humaneness that expresses the principles of heaven (tian li 天理 tenri). Buddhism likewise teaches that people should not kill anything, emphasizing instead manifestation of the minds of compassion and benefit (cibei liyi 慈悲利益 jihi riyaku). Sekigo thus concludes that the Buddhist precept against taking life (bu sha sheng jie 不殺生戒 fusesshō kai) is implicit in the way of humaneness (Matsunaga 1640: 3a–b, 1975: 305–306). Here again Sekigo’s distance from Beixi is considerable, as is his readiness to reconcile Confucianism and Buddhism rather than cast them as incommensurable. Most noteworthy is how Sekigo’s Ethics weaves Confucian classics such as the Mencius, Song Confucian accounts, along with Buddhist texts, and even allusions to the emotional power of Noh drama in communicating and contextualizing the importance of Confucian ethical learning for human morality. Turning to the second of the five constants, rightness (yi 義 gi), Sekigo defines the notion along Song Confucian lines, ones remotely deriving from ZHU Xi, yet apparently transmitted to Sekigo by way of Beixi’s The Meanings of Terms. Rightness, Sekigo explains, is “what regulates the mind” (xin zhi zhi 心之制 shin

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no sei) and makes things “correct” (yi 宜 gi). It is born from the original mind and enables people to make judgments about things. Manifested externally as we follow the appropriate way, it is apparent in everything. Here “appropriate” refers to understanding “principles of rightness” (yi li 義理 giri). When we do not understand these principles, according to Sekigo, we live like beasts (Matsunaga 1640: 3b, 1975: 306). Again Sekigo cites another thought experiment from the Mencius showing that people are endowed with “principles of rightness inherent in the original mind” (yi li ben xin 義理本心 giri honshin). Sekigo asks whether a person starving would accept food offered in an insulting manner. Sekigo responds that they would refuse due to their inborn sense of rightness. Yet if selfish desires factor in, Sekigo admits, people might forget the principles of rightness even while thinking that they are sacrificing their lives for them. Leaving off Song Confucian accounts, Sekigo adds that if a person well understands what is right, that person simultaneously observes the second Buddhist precept “forbidding theft” (bu tou dao jie 不‫ڧ‬盜戒 fuchūtō kai). Although the appeal here is rather weak since following rightness involves more than not stealing, Sekigo’s efforts in finding common ground between Confucianism and Buddhism advance his system one step further (Matsunaga 1640: 3b, 1975: 306). Structurally Sekigo’s account of propriety (li 礼 rei), the third constant is like the previous two. Following Beixi, he explains that propriety refers to the “regulated expression of the principles of heaven” (tian li zhi jie wen 天理之節文 tenri no setsumon) and “the rules of ritual behavior in human affairs” (ren shi zhi yi ze 人事之儀 則 jinji no gisoku). Just as the sun and moon, constellations in the heavens, and the seasons of spring, summer, fall, and winter alternate and illuminate one another within the way of heaven, so are there cycles in the way of humanity pertaining to our attire, our comportment, how we deal with things, and how we behave. Thus we must be considerate and deferential to others, careful in our actions and never prideful or arrogant in our thoughts. Pairing the third constant with Buddhism, Sekigo adds that in maintaining propriety, we abide by the third precept against “licentiousness and lewd misconduct” (bu xie yin jie 不邪淫戒 fuja’in kai) (Matsunaga 1640: 4a, 1975: 306–307). Confucian propriety is considerably broader than concerns over refraining from licentiousness. Nevertheless Sekigo’s complementary readings of the third constant and third precept reinforce his thoughts on ethics for seventeenth-century Japan, increasing along the way a sense that what is being advanced are the foundations of a relatively universalistic ethics rather than a code or creed with limited, provincial validity. Viewed within the context of Japanese culture, Sekigo’s efforts appear as an adaptive expression of Confucian universalism, linking Confucianism where possible with the rather universalistic aspects of Buddhism. Sekigo explains “wisdom” (zhi 智 chi) in terms of “the principles of knowledge and understanding” (zhi zhi li 智之理 chi no ri) and “the discriminative abilities of the mind” (xin zhi bie 心之別 shin no betsu). Wisdom also refers to understanding the difference between right and wrong, heterodoxy and orthodoxy (Matsunaga 1640: 4a, 1975: 306). If this account had been taken from ZHU Xi or Beixi,

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references to “heterodoxy” would be euphemisms for Buddhism and Daoism. With Sekigo that is not the case; what he means by heterodoxy is Christianity. While advancing a more universalistic ethics than was typical of most Japanese Confucian thinking, Sekigo’s syncretism had limits. Yet rather than harsh attacks, he alludes to teachings beyond the pale simply as heterodoxies and falsehoods, having made clear earlier the identity of the opposition. Sekigo’s remarks about wisdom are brief, but not insignificant. In defining wisdom by emphasizing the cognitive and discriminative powers of the human mind, he suggests that humanity has powerful means for dealing with the world. These would preclude condescending abuse in dealing with others, while encouraging trust founded on the ability to know. Sekigo even states that one thing essential to wisdom is the ability of understand “the right principles of the ten thousand things” (wan wu zhi yi li 萬物之義理 banbutsu no giri). Furthermore Sekigo asks how someone who understands the difference between right and wrong would not also understand what is most esteemed in the way of the sages? (Matsunaga 1640: 4a, 1975: 306–307). In effect Sekigo suggests that those fully realizing the fourth constant, wisdom, are capable of mastering the way of the sages. To attribute such epistemological strength to humanity at large suggests that in many respects government control only need be minimal. In this regard, Sekigo’s remarks on wisdom harbor potent political implications. It is surprising, however, that Sekigo refrains from matching his account of wisdom with the fourth Buddhist precept, which he saves for his exposition of trustworthiness. The fifth Buddhist precept, against drinking intoxicants, might have been likened to wisdom but not convincingly. Sekigo therefore skips this, moving on to the fifth constant, trustworthiness, instead. Again he first follows his Song source in explaining that trustworthiness (xin 信 shin) refers to there being no deception or deceit in one’s words or in one’s mind. Instead, there must be focused sincerity for one to embody this virtue. Trustworthiness, he adds, conveys the same as the fourth Buddhist precept against outlandish words (wang yu 妄語 mōgo), flattery (qi yu 綺 語 kigo), slander (e kou 悪口 akkō), and double-talk (liang she 両舌 ryōzetsu) (Matsunaga 1640: 4a–b, 1975: 307). Sekigo remains brief, much as ZHU Xi and Beixi were in discussing the last two constants, but still differs significantly from them. Contrasting Confucianism and Buddhism, for example, ZHU Xi remarked, Confucians nourish humaneness, righteousness, propriety, and wisdom. What the Buddhists nourish is merely the seeing, hearing, speech, and movement. … They only see something chaotic, without involving any specific principles or any specific distinctions between right and wrong. … Therefore they are muddle-headed and there is nothing right in them. They only recognize the human mind but never care about the mind of the dao. … With respect to the moral relationship between the ruler and minister, parent and child, elder and younger brother, husband and wife, their minds fail to pervade or penetrate into anything (Fu 1986: 388).

Charles FU suggests that Zhu’s knowledge of Chinese Buddhism was “quite poor.” Fu adds, “none of the Neo-Confucian thinkers had ever studied Buddhism as a whole” (Fu 1986: 389). Presumably Fu was referring to the Song Confucians.

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Clearly he was not considering Sekigo for in his Ethics, even in relying on ZHU Xi and Beixi in structure, method, and considerable content, recognition of common ground between Confucianism and Buddhism is acknowledged, laying foundations for a syncretism closer to the cultural sensibilities of his time and place than was much of the sectarian thinking of the later-seventeenth and early-eighteenth centuries produced by Japanese Confucians. Sekigo next admits that while the right principles of the five constants are explained in detail in the Four Books and Five Classics, it is difficult to exhaust them completely. Yet after embarking on the Confucian way, people naturally come to understand them. Sekigo tempers his optimism by recalling Confucius’ observation in the Analects (8/9), “People can be made to follow the way, but not all can be taught to understand it.” Sekigo admits that it would be difficult to teach the ten thousand people, one-by-one, “the profound moral principles of the way” (michi no fukaki dōri 道の深き道理). Another option would be to teach children to be filial to their parents, and ministers to be loyal to their rulers, and to use punishments (keibatsu 刑罰) if they are not. But Sekigo shuns that punitive approach, recalling that the way should be taught from above, with examples set for all. In the Analects (12/19), Confucius also observed, “The ruler’s virtue is like the wind, and the people’s is like the grass. When wind blows over the grass, it will surely bend.” Also, the Great Learning states, “Everyone from the son-of-heaven to the common people should consider self-cultivation as their foundation.” Sekigo notes that both remarks suggest that the ten thousand people can and should be taught all that is necessary for them to know. Admittedly there are many deep moral principles in the Confucian way, so many that writing them down with characters, or more simply, with kana script, will not make them easy to master. Yet Sekigo is certain that with instruction, even an illiterate person can be instructed in the Confucian way so that having heard the “names” (ming 名 mei), “the three bonds” and “the five constant virtues,” he will not violate the way of loyalty and filial piety. Thus by means of additional instruction in propriety and laws, the world will be naturally transformed (Matsunaga 1640: 4b–5b, 1975: 307). Without referring explicitly to the rectification names, Sekigo’s remark about the “names” of key Confucian ethical notions here so strongly alludes to the project of Confucian lexicography and its purported power to transform the social and political order that there can be little question about the political significance of his efforts to establish the right meanings of terms.

2.8

Human Nature, the Mind, and Feelings

Sekigo’s Ethics does not open with ontological theories or discussions of metaphysical concepts such as the great ultimate (taiji 太極 taikyoku) or principle. Instead it begins somewhat as The Meanings of Terms does, with an account of matters related to human nature (xing 性 sei), the emotions (qing情 jō), and the mind (xin 心 shin). These are, of course, key notions in any Confucian system and needed to be explained carefully. Sekigo understood well what was at stake, for example, in

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defining human nature. If he agreed with Xunzi 荀子 (ca. 312–230 BCE), for example, and argued that human nature was at birth evil (e 悪 aku), that could justify samurai rulers in the worst assumptions about those governed. Or affirming Mencius’ 孟子 (372–289 BCE) view that human nature is at birth good (shan 善 zen) could mean that rulers would assume the best about humanity. Other positions in-between would likely result in government more reflecting the worst assumptions rather than the better. Concurring with the Buddhist view that human nature is inherently empty might result in myriad indeterminate consequences. The Song Confucian position that ZHU Xi endorsed and Beixi reiterated, affirming that human nature is good and that this goodness is linked to the goodness of the world through the essential identity of human nature and metaphysical principle, provided for the most idealistic, if not utopian, vision of humanity and the world, one that would likely ensure the best assumptions on the part of rulers. Without guaranteeing any natural rights, the Song position on human nature could encourage expectations among the people not only in their relationships with the ruling samurai, but in their relations with one another and the world at large. By affirming the identity of human nature and principle, the metaphysical structures defining the self and everything in the world, as ethically good, the Song position that ZHU Xi advanced, Beixi reiterated, and Sekigo’s Ethics affirmed sanctioned the best assumptions regarding the self and the world, as well as their myriad interrelationships (Matsunaga 1640: 6a–6b, 1975: 308–309). Without appealing to a state of nature as was common in early-modern western accounts of political philosophy, Sekigo nevertheless advanced a philosophical vision of human nature, a sort of “state of human nature,” that served an analogous role in his inherently political lexicography of terms. Given the implicit political nuance that attached to every term he defined, Sekigo’s account of the mind was equally of consequence. If he agreed with the Daoist position that the mind should be fasted, that knowledge should be forgotten, and that some sort of return to an “uncarved block” mentality be cultivated, there would be no reason for rulers to promote education or to value learning. Rulers might find Laozi’s Daoist vision of a populace with empty minds and strong bodies, one incapable of critique but ready for labor, somewhat appealing, but it would hardly provide for the best interests of society. Alternatively, if Sekigo went no further than to concur with the Buddhist view that the mind of ordinary consciousness was an illusory faculty that perceived only empty phenomena that in turn generated misguided attachments and so forth, then samurai lords of the day could assume the most egregious in their relations with what they might consider as an essentially deluded population. Rather Sekigo endorses a view of the human mind as both real and substantial, the effective “master” (zhu 主 shu) of the body and so an ultimate and sovereign force if over nothing else, one’s self. Within the mind, human nature and human feelings are unified, and ideally coordinated so that the feelings are expressed as perfectly as possible, in accordance with the principles constituting the moral nature (Matsunaga 1640: 6b, 1975: 309). One of the most delicate terms for any Confucian philosopher to define was that of the human emotions (jō 情). Here again the social and political consequences of

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one’s accounts are such that caution was required. If the emotions were too readily affirmed, people might seek to indulge them with less care than good sense demands. Yet to deny the validity of the emotions as implied by Buddhist critiques of human craving and attachments was simply unrealistic. Doing so could justify rulers in callousness toward the sensibilities of humanity. Consequently Sekigo followed the Song Confucian position pioneered by ZHU Xi and endorsed by Beixi, recognizing the importance of human feelings and emotions for human life, but also admitting the need to express human feelings in ways regulated so that they would be consistent with the ethical principles of the morally good nature of humanity (Matsunaga 1640: 7a–7b, 1975: 309–310). Considered in this spectrum, Sekigo’s decision to endorse the Song Confucian view of human feelings, emotions, and passions as integral, ineradicable, and potentially moral components of human existence was both prudent and a fully humanitarian one. Yet there are significant nuances in Sekigo’s accounts of human nature, the mind, and the feelings that are well removed from any views endorsed by Beixi or ZHU Xi. Thus while Sekigo agrees with Beixi’s accounts of “human nature as principle” and “the mind as the unifier human nature and human feelings,” he adds, in discussing the causes of good fortune and bad in the world, some Buddhist observations about the mind. Sekigo thus explains that good fortune and bad are not sent down gratuitously by heaven (tian 天 ten), nor are they the product of “ghosts and spirits” (guishen 鬼神 kishin). Rather they flow from our having “unified our minds in accord with moral principles” (yi xin dao li 一心道理 isshin dōri) and practiced “the way of the five relationships and five constant virtues.” If we can do that, then good fortune will follow. If not, misfortune results. As proof, Sekigo cites an example from ancient Chinese mytho-history: although Shun 舜 was born into poor circumstances, because he practiced the moral way he came to be elevated as the successor to Yao 堯, the first sage emperor of Chinese antiquity. On the other hand, Yao’s own son was dissolute and so ended up being passed over, a shame that would accompany his name for ten thousand generations. This shows, according to Sekigo, that the human mind is all-important in relation to our existential circumstances. Sekigo emphasizes this in a Buddhist way by paraphrasing a teaching from the Heavenly Platform (Tendai 天台) School of Buddhism: “within the three worlds, there is only one mind. Outside of the mind, there is no other dharma.” Dharma is a Buddhist term typically referring to Buddhist teachings. Here Sekigo presumably meant the term to refer to teachings generally, including those syncretic ones embracing both Confucianism and Buddhism. His point is that the mind is allimportant in relation to the circumstances people encounter in life. Misfortune is not to be blamed on heaven or the spirits: it results from our not following the way with a mind unified in its focus on moral principles (Matsunaga 1640: 11a,1975: 312). Sekigo also praises the good fortune that comes from a unified mind with a saying from Pure Land (Jingtu 浄土 Jōdo) Buddhism: “the Amida of my mind is simply the Pure Land of my mind” (己心ノ弥陀、唯心ノ浄土). His point here is that if we wish to realize a heavenly existence of any kind, it is essential that our minds be unified in moral practice. Thus he continues with allusions to Pure Land teachings by noting that even though we might repeat the name of Amida Buddha (nembutsu

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念仏) one million times, if our minds are distorted it will amount to no more than the croaking of a frog. Sekigo adds that although Pure Land Buddhists do not fully understand that “heaven and hell are all in our minds” (jigoku tendō mina wagakokoro 地獄天道皆我心), we must cultivate our minds through reverent worship and devotion. Otherwise reciting Amida’s name will mean no more than a frogs’ croaking. Similarly we must first rectify our minds, serve our rulers with loyalty, our parents with filial behavior, and practice the way of humaneness, rightness, propriety, and wisdom, and then we will not need to be saved from this world or the next (Matsunaga 1640: 11b, 1975: 312–313). Confucians often criticized Buddhist understandings of the world as empty (kong 空 ku). Beixi was no exception on this count, noting that for Buddhists, “emptiness” was their basic doctrine. Thus according to Beixi, Buddhists, … regard their true self to be before the existence of heaven and earth, and consider heaven, earth, and the ten-thousand things as illusion (huan hua 幻化 genka). They want to eliminate all human affairs which they regard as unrefined traces (cu ji 粗迹 sojaku). Only when all is reduced to true emptiness can one realize the Buddhist way (Chen 1632: 9a–9b, Chan 1986: 106).

Sekigo does not follow Beixi on this count. He returns to his discussion of the importance of practicing the way in this world as the key to good living in the here and now. Yet in making these points, Sekigo as often as not returns to Buddhist texts, first of all the Lotus Sutra (Fahua jing 法華経 Hōkke kyō). From it he quotes not Confucius, but “the World-Honored One” (世尊), i.e., the Buddha, remarking, “Those who have peace in this world, will have a better lot in the next life.… Having observed the karmic consequences of this world, I know both past and future.” Sekigo interprets this as an affirmation of the Buddhist understanding of the essential importance of this world. Sekigo associates Buddhist denunciations of the world with the “Small Vehicle” (Xiao cheng 小乗 Shōjō), or Hinayana (Theravada) teachings rather than the “Big Vehicle,” or the more universalistic message of Mahayana Buddhism. He emphasizes that those who discard the way of the five relations and five constant virtues, and are neither loyal to their rulers nor filial to their parents, will gain from this world a life of suffering and have cultivated nothing more than the mentality of beasts. Sekigo cites several Buddhist texts establishing that despite their mention of other worlds, that the Buddhists do not see the world of nirvana as one apart from the world of samsara (suo po 娑婆 shaba), i.e., the world of present reality. He warns that those who imagine some world of the future apart from this one differ profoundly from the Buddhist teachings. Simply put, if we wish to do well in this world there is no alternative to making a stand on the way of the five relations and five constant virtues. He adds that we can declare “the world of samsara” to be “the world of nirvana” only when “the realms of the world below heaven are well governed (tenka kokka osamarite 天下国家治まりて),” with people loyal to their rulers, families filial to their parents, those above compassionate to those below, and those below respectful to those above. When such prevails, nirvana will spread throughout the realm below heaven to each individual self (Matsunaga 1640: 12a–b, 1975: 313).

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Sekigo’s readiness to interpret Confucian terms in relation to Tendai and Pure Land Buddhist notions suggests that his vision for the socio-political order was far more comprehensive, ecumenical, and universalistic than sectarian, parochial, and narrow-minded. Ironically enough, although Sekigo did not serve the Tokugawa regime, the religious and philosophical expression that the Tokugawa came to define itself in terms of, drawing on Tendai and Pure Land Buddhism, as well as Shintō and Confucianism, was more in line with Sekigo’s broad approach than that of many of the less expansive thinkers who did serve the Tokugawa. It might seem that Sekigo is ready to accommodate Buddhism on most any and all counts. However, in explaining human feelings (qing 情 jō), he returns to Beixi’s text for a convincing analysis, one that accurately conveys ZHU Xi’s thinking as well. Sekigo notes that the feelings are “what move human nature” (jō to te sei no ugoku tokoro 情とて性の動く所). Sekigo identifies the emotions as seven in number, and lists them as joy ( xi 喜 ureshiki ), anger ( nu 怒 okoru ), sorrow ( ai 哀 aware ), fear ( ju 懼 osoruru), love (ai 愛 ai), disgust (wu 惡 nikumu), and desire (yu 慾 yoku). When referred to as “seven,” Sekigo calls the emotions the “seven feelings of the mind” (nanatsu no kokoro 七つのこころ). When they arise and are “neither excessive or deficient” (ka fugyū naki 過不及なき), they can be called human feelings. However, expressions that are excessive or deficient should not be called human feelings. Rather, they are “selfish desires” (shiyoku 私欲). Sekigo adds, “Human feelings are originally good (honrai yoki mono 本来よきものなり)”. He emphasizes that it would not be right if people were born without the seven feelings. With that remark, Sekigo is poised to criticize the Buddhists who, he claims, seek to obliterate (horobosan 滅ぼさん) human feelings. Yet if the feelings were obliterated, Sekigo reasons, human nature would also be obliterated. Here Sekigo’s affirmation of the value of the emotions is both a general critique of the Buddhist position on human feelings and another instance of Ethics following The Meanings of Terms very closely because a similar critique of Buddhist thinking appears in Beixi’s discussion of human feelings as well (Matsunaga 1640: 7a–b, 1975: 309; Chen 1632: 18a–18b; Chan 1986: 63). Considered in this context, the limits of Sekigo’s willingness to accommodate are further clarified: the intrinsic emotional nature of humanity must be affirmed. Sekigo’s vision for the emerging socio-political order was humanistic and in accord with actual developments, whether sanctioned by the bakufu or not. Just as kabuki, for example, later crystallized as a popular way of dramatizing human emotions (despite bakufu attempts to control it), so was the emerging order one wherein affirmation of the emotions was deemed an increasingly basic component of philosophical good if not common sense. It would be farfetched to suggest that Sekigo’s advocacy was solely or even largely responsible for this, but his Ethics voiced a significant, contributing endorsement affirming the natural validity of the emotions.

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Sincerity and Seriousness

Sekigo next explores two concepts, sincerity (cheng 誠 makoto) and seriousness (jing 敬 kei), essential to Confucian learning (Judō no gaku nari 儒道の学). Before doing so, Sekigo claims that mastery of a series of Confucian texts – the Great Learning, the Doctrine of the Mean, the Six Classics, and the Great Compendium of Human Nature and Principle (Xingli daquan 性理大全 Seiri dazen) – enables students to comprehend the nature of their minds and realize enlightenment (gosatori 御さとり). Sekigo’s honorific reference to satori, a Zen word for enlightenment, reflects his continuing readiness to include Buddhism rather than reject it. The latter strategy was more typical in later Japanese Confucianism, with Buddhism being dismissed as a heterodoxy inappropriate to discussions of the Confucian way (Matsunaga 1640: 8a, 1975: 310). Echoing Beixi’s summary of ZHU Xi, Sekigo explains sincerity as “truth, without aberration” (真実不妄), adding that sincerity refers to what “proceeds forth from the natural principles of heaven and earth” (tenchi shizen no ri yori izuru 天地自然 の理より出る). He adds that the meaning of sincerity is often taught in terms of “loyalty” (chū 忠), as the latter exemplifies, for humanity, the practical significance of sincerity. References to “the sincerity of heaven and earth” (tenchi no makoto 天地の誠) indicate the natural order in which summers are warm and winters, cold, which in turn expresses the “sincerity of the way of heaven” (tendō no makoto 天道 の誠). Because of the sincerity of the four seasons, the ten thousand things are generated and disintegrated. Emphasizing the ultimate ontological importance of sincerity, Sekigo observes that if not for sincerity, the ten thousand things would neither generate nor disintegrate, and heaven and earth would be utterly obliterated (metsukyaku 滅却) (Matsunaga 1640: 8a–8b, 1975: 310). Insofar as sincerity refers to what proceeds from natural principles, Confucian teachings emphasize the interrelationships of all things in terms of these natural principles. In relation to heaven, principle is the decree (ming 命 mei); in relation to humanity, it is called human nature (xing 性 sei). Since heaven encompasses the forces of yin and yang, humanity includes men and women. Just as heaven incorporates the five processes (wu xing 五行 gogyō) of wood (mu 木 moku), fire (huo 火 ka), earth (tu 土 do), metal (jin 金 gon), and water (shui 水 sui), so is humanity interrelated with them as people are endowed with the virtues of humaneness, rightness, propriety, wisdom, and trustworthiness. The virtues of the cosmic forces of change, origination (yuan 元 gen), perseverance (heng 亨 kō), benefits (li 利 ri), and firmness (zhen 貞 tei) expressed through heaven are interrelated with the five constant virtues. The four seasons are also interrelated with the five constants: spring paired with humaneness, summer with rightness, autumn with propriety, winter with wisdom, and trustworthiness with the functioning of earth throughout the year. Because all of these express the workings of heaven and earth, heaven is humanity (literally, “we:” ten sunawachi ware 天即我), and we are heaven (ware sunawachi ten 我即天). For this reason, Sekigo explains, the study of sincerity, which

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encompasses all of these, is referred to as the learning of “the oneness of heaven and humanity” (tian ren he yi 天人合一 tenjin gōitsu) (Matsunaga 1640: 8b, 1975: 310). Similarly, just as an individual self has a mind and other people have minds, all of which seek to advance goodness and discourage evil, learning about sincerity is called the “learning of the oneness of the self and others” (jinki gōitsu no gaku 人己合一の学). From the son of heaven down to the ten thousand people, there are various levels of human interrelationships, ranging from familial to political, so that through the feelings of filial piety learned from one’s parents, people are able to serve their rulers loyally. Since there is a way of governing the world below heaven based on the way of governing a family, humanity can achieve peace and tranquility (annon taihei 安穏太平) in the social and political world. Insofar as moral principles involved have a unified foundation in sincerity, if we can govern our minds, moral principles can be expanded to provide fully for the governance of all below heaven and the realms within. Achieving this amounts to realizing the “whole substance and complete functioning of the way” (zentai taiyō no michi 全体大用の道). Sekigo thus emphasizes that since Confucian learning relates directly to governance, from that of the son of heaven in governing all-below-heaven to the various lords, to the grandees and high officials, and then to samurai and commoners, the ethical relations that Confucianism teaches should be studied everyday without exception (Matsunaga 1640: 8a–9a, 1975: 310–311). While the socio-political divisions Sekigo mentions have a basis in Chinese literature, his account of above and below, ranging from the emperor, to grandees, to high officials, and finally to samurai and commoners reflects none of the samurai conceits more characteristic of later Confucian writings from the Tokugawa period. In those, Confucianism was often presented as a philosophy specifically for the samurai as the effective governors of the land, sometimes without mention of the emperor at all. With his recitation of the more complete, emperor-topped socio-political hierarchy, Sekigo offers a Kyoto-based vision of the polity, one recognizing the emperor well above the samurai, and the samurai as being just a step above commoners. Sekigo next explains seriousness (jing 敬 kei) as what enlightens the minds of everyone, high and low. When quiet, the mind is peaceful but when active, as the mind encounters things, seriousness keeps it from going astray. In this context Sekigo cites ZHU Xi’s remark that seriousness means “staying unified in our focus, without wandering” (shuitsu muteki 主一無適). Seriousness is also defined as the master of the unified mind (isshin no shusai 一心の主宰) and the foundation of the ten thousand things (banbutsu no konpon 万物の根本). Seriousness equally refers to a way of cultivating (gong fu 工夫 kufū) the mind so that it is reverent and cautious about things; thus, even when holding an empty vessel, one grasps it carefully, as if full to the brim, or when entering an empty house, one proceeds as if someone were present. The reason for emphasizing seriousness as self-cultivation is that it helps humanity to preserve the original mind. Sekigo also compares seriousness to “a treasure in our storehouse” (wagakura ni aru zaihō 我倉にある財宝), comparable to the Lotus Sutra’s notion of a “superlative treasured pearl” (mujō hōju 無上 宝珠), not sought but naturally possessed (Matsunaga 1640: 9b–10a, 1975: 311).

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In discussing FUJIWARA Seika’s thoughts on Confucian self-cultivation, Wm. Theodore de Bary noticed a similar emphasis on abiding in reverence, (as kei 敬, translated here as seriousness, is sometimes rendered), over exhaustively exploring principle, which in turn is consonant with the thinking of the Korean Confucian,YI T’oegye 李退溪 (1501–1570), whose ideas impacted Seika’s (de Bary 1979: 131–133). De Bary does not discuss Seika’s influence on Sekigo, but it was surely significant. Accordingly one might link Sekigo’s relative emphasis on abiding in seriousness indirectly to T’oegye. Yet rather than characterize Sekigo as preferring one form of self-cultivation over the other, Sekigo’s focus on abiding in seriousness is perhaps best understood as reflecting his thinking that seriousness provides the grounds for the possibility of exhausting principle and that with sufficient attention to abiding in seriousness, exhausting principle would not need to be emphasized at length.

2.10

Marriage: The Roles of Men and Women

The importance of the family to Confucian thought and practice is well known. Often discussed in relation to filial piety, and then with the emphasis on the larger broadcast, in society and the polity, the family was also the focus in ritual classics such as the Book of Rites (Liji 礼記 Raiki), and in Song works such as ZHU Xi’s Family Rites (Jiali 家礼 Karei). The Song philosophical anthology that ZHU Xi and Lü Zuqian 呂祖謙 (1137–1181) edited, Reflections on Things at Hand (Jinsilu 近思 録 Kinshiroku), also includes a discussion of the family. Sekigo's discussion of the roles of husbands and wives, and men and women thus briefly addresses a wellestablished tradition of Confucian literature. It should be noted that there is little precedent for Sekigo’s remarks in Beixi’s The Meanings of Terms, making this section even more significant for appreciating Sekigo’s Ethics. Also noteworthy is that Sekigo focuses on issues related to women, albeit not in a modern way. Nevertheless, considered in this light, his Ethics foreshadows a well-known Confucian text from the mid-Tokugawa, the Greater Learning for Women (Onna daigaku 女大學), traditionally attributed to KAIBARA Ekken 貝原益軒 (1630–1714). Sekigo opens his remarks emphasizing the importance of revering “the way of husband and wife” (fūfu no michi 夫婦の道), noting that if regarded carelessly, everyone from the son-of-heaven above down to the ten thousand people below will suffer the consequences. According to Sekigo, it is the way of husband and wife that distinguishes humanity from beasts. Sekigo notes that many emperors (tenshi 天子) forfeited rule over all-below-heaven (tenka 天下) because they did not rightly practice the way of husband and wife. The last ruler of the Xia dynasty 夏 (ca. 2070–1600 BCE), Jie 桀 (1728–1625 BCE), turned into an abusive, immoral ruler due to his infatuation with his beautiful concubine, Moxi 妺喜. The last ruler of the Yin dynasty 殷 (1600–1046 BCE), Zhou 紂 (r. 1075–1046 BCE), fell into depravity due to his obsession with his concubine, Daji 妲己. The last ruler of the Western Zhou 周 (1045–256 BCE), King You 幽 (795–771 BCE), was bewitched by his concubine, Bao Si 褒姒. The Tang 唐 (618–907) emperor, Xuanzong 玄宗

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(712–756), let his empire fall because of infatuation with his concubine, YANG Guifei 楊貴妃 (719–756). Sekigo notes that in each case, rulers abandoned the way of husband and wife for sensual pleasures and hedonistic delights, becoming debauched and ultimately losing their lives and their realms. Sekigo adds that much the same has been true among the various lords, grandees, commoners, and the peasants where the way of husband and wife has been abandoned. Indeed, one of the reasons that Confucius edited the Five Classics, Sekigo explains, was to set forth the right way of relations between husbands and wives. Thus the Book of Poetry (Shijing 詩經 Shikyō) opens with the poem “Guan Ju” (關雎) about a virtuous young lady; the Book of History (Shujing 書經 Shokyō) discusses the marriage of the sage-emperor Shun 舜; the Book of Changes (Yijing 易經 Ekikyō) opens with accounts of the two trigrams, heaven (qian 乾 ken) and earth (kun 坤 kon); the Spring and Autumn Annals (Chunqiu 春秋 Shunjū) begins with an account of Duke Hui of Lu becoming a widower and then taking as his consort a young woman, Zhongzi 仲子 (Matsunaga 1640: 23a–23b, 1975: 322). These examples reflect Confucius’ concern with establishing right relations between men and women, husband and wife, as a means of preserving order in the family and the polity alike. Sekigo explains that the role of wives is to preside over domestic matters (onna wa uchi o osamuru yaku nari 女は内をおさむる役なり). Thus the Book of Rites refers to the four teachings for women relating to their virtues, their etiquette, their appearance, and their speech. Throughout their lives, women should follow the Ceremonial Rites (Yili 儀禮 Girai) teaching of the “three obediences” (三從の道) referring to a woman’s obedience to her father before she is married (未嫁從父), to her husband once married (既嫁從夫), and to her sons if she becomes a widow (夫死從子). Sekigo adds that a proper woman would not marry a second time (貞女不見兩夫), and insists that this applies to everyone, whether of high or low standing (貴も賎も皆同じことなり), again indicating a universalistic dimension to his lexicography. Sekigo emphasizes the importance of women practicing their way in no uncertain terms. He reasons that when the way of women (onna no michi 女の道) is followed rightly, relations between fathers and sons will be loving, and the family’s progeny might become “worthies” (kenjin 賢人) or “princes” (kunshi 君子). Finding grounds for syncretism, Sekigo adds that Buddhists recognize husbands and wives who follow their familial roles properly as “domestic bodhisattvas” (zaike no bosatsu 在家の菩薩) (Matsunaga 1640: 24b–25a, 1975: 323).

2.11

Metaphysics and Spirituality

More fully than does The Meanings of Terms, Sekigo’s Ethics follows the ideal Confucian curriculum for beginning students in philosophical learning. Beixi knew of this curriculum, but arguably fell short of it in many respects. The preface to the first edition of The Meanings of Terms, dated 1226, states, “the profundity of moral principles, human nature, the decree of heaven, the mysteries of yin and yang, and

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spiritual topics are not what beginning students should plunge into.” It adds that if students do not “first clearly understand terms and meanings,” they will “fail to know the source even in old age” (Chan 1986: 207). In effect, the preface suggests that learning should progress from the “lower level” of daily practicality to the “higher level” of more metaphysical studies. In the Analects (14/35), Confucius remarks that his studies remained at the low level, but his comprehension had reached to the higher, implying that one should focus on the primary before attempting to fathom the more abstract. Additionally implied is that by means of mastering the elementary, we attain a comprehension that facilitates grasping metaphysical dimensions of learning. Because Beixi’s work resembles a primer in its relative brevity, the suggestion has often been made that it was meant for beginning students. If so, then it would ideally start as Sekigo’s text did, with elementary accounts related to Confucian terms. Yet instead, The Meanings of Terms opens with a discussion of “The Decree of Heaven” (ming 命 mei), then proceeds to “Human Nature,” i.e., notions that the 1226 preface suggested were not best suited for beginners. Although not the most metaphysical topics, Beixi’s accounts of them are among the more metaphysically focused in his text. Despite the 1226 preface’s claim that the ideal curriculum, beginning with elementary matters and moving to more metaphysical ones, was followed, or should have been followed, The Meanings of Terms does not so well exemplify this strategy for teaching and learning. If Beixi’s work reflects the ideal curriculum, it does so by emphasizing the primary importance of understanding the meanings of words. Yet the hierarchy of concepts presented hardly progresses from the elementary to the more abstract. On the other hand, Sekigo’s Ethics opens with elementary concepts, the three bonds and five constant virtues. Still, matters related to the way of men and women, though often challenging, are not highly metaphysical. Oddly enough, for all the emphasis on understanding the importance of progressing from simple to complex in teachings, neither lexicon exemplifies this progression consistently. Most importantly and most tellingly, however, both do offer concluding discussions of metaphysics climaxing with lengthy examinations of the nature of ghosts and spirits. Sekigo first addresses the way (dao 道 dō/michi), a notion he refers to throughout his Ethics, but never explains as such, apparently assuming a working level of understanding regarding this very basic but also very metaphysical term. Emphasizing its unity, Sekigo states that the way is “fundamentally one,” despite pedagogical distinctions such as those between “the mind of the way” (dao xin 道 心 michi no kokoro) and “the mind of humanity” (ren xin 人心 hito no kokoro). Sekigo explains human failings, or the “excesses and insufficiencies” of humanity, as products of people’s physical dispositions (qi zhi 氣質 kishitsu) and associates them with the “mind of desires” (yu xin 欲心 yokushin) and the “mind of evil” (e xin 悪心 akushin), while the “the mean” (zhong yong 中庸 chūyō) informs the morally good mind (shan xin 善心 zenshin) with which we are born, and constitutes the fundamental source of our morally good mind. When people forget the latter, the resulting state is temporary, like clouds covering the moon, or dust on a mirror. Allowing obscurity to persist is at odds with the mind of heaven and earth,

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and will invite calamites (Matsunaga 1640: 10a–10b, 1975: 311–312). Sekigo’s analysis of the way in terms of the innate ethical mind of humanity might seem simplistic, but it is highly significant in further defining an ethical foundation for early-modern Japan, one distanced from the prohibited Christian doctrines. Furthermore Sekigo’s account of the way ensured that the nascent polity was provided an ethical statement emphasizing the original, innate, and essential goodness of humanity. Sekigo’s lexicon was thus surely useful to the emerging political order and protective of public interests. Song Confucianism is sometimes called “the school of principle” (li xue 理學 rigaku) due to its emphasis on the crucial role of principle in all things. Later Japanese Confucian philosophers such as ITō Jinsai 伊藤仁斎 (1627–1705) and KAIBARA Ekken 貝原益軒 (1630–1714), criticized the notion of principle, instead highlighting the other dimension of Song metaphysics, generative force (qi 氣 ki), as the real and dynamic transformative substance comprising all physical becoming. In fairness to ZHU Xi, it must be noted that his metaphysics nearly always emphasized that principle and generative force could never exist apart from one another and that the notions should not be distinguished or ranked in terms of relative ontological importance. Still the questions continued as to which was first, leading Zhu at times to privilege principle. Far from criticizing this approach, Sekigo’s Ethics, says little about generative force and rather repeatedly returns to the importance of principle in discussing ethics, metaphysics, epistemology, and spiritual philosophy. Sekigo emphasizes the omnipresence of principle within the courses of heaven and earth, the sun and moon, mountains, rivers, grasses, and trees, wind, rain, frost and dew, noting that “there is nothing that is without unitary principle.” In addition to criticisms of the alleged priority of principle, later Japanese Confucian philosophers were often skeptical of the Song notion of “the great ultimate” (taiji 太極 taikyoku), a metaphysical concept about which even ZHU Xi had reservations. The relatively elevated respect that the notion had derived from ZHOU Dunyi 周敦頤 (1017–1073), one of Zhu’s esteemed predecessors, who posited it along with “the ultimate of non-being” (wuji 無極 mukyoku), as a pair of primary ontological entities. The ultimate of non-being supposedly harbors limitless potential principles informing metaphysically continuous change in the world of becoming. The great ultimate is the totality of realized principles in the world, identical with their diversity and ultimate unity. Describing the great ultimate as the beginning and ultimate end of everything, Sekigo apparently harbored no reservations about that highly metaphysical notion. It must be admitted, however, that he does not broach, even once, the ultimate of non-being (Matsunaga 1640: 27b–28a, 1975: 325). In his silence, he shared common ground with many later Tokugawa Confucians who either passed over the concept similarly, or criticized it specifically as a heterodox concept derived from Daoist discourse. Sekigo claims that each of the ten thousand things of heaven and earth is generated by the unitary great ultimate (yi taiji 一太極 ichi taikyoku); that each is naturally endowed with the great ultimate as principle; and that each returns to the great ultimate. Viewed in another light, the great ultimate provides for the unitary ethical nature of all becoming insofar as its endowment in everything as principle

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establishes the grounds for the essential ethical oneness of all that exists. Capturing this unifying role, Sekigo affirms a venerable observation of Song-Confucian metaphysics, that “principle is unitary, although its manifestations are myriad” (Matsunaga 1640: 27b–28a, 1975: 325). Given the essential goodness of principle as our human nature, and the identity of the great ultimate with principle, the great ultimate is thus the center of the fundamental goodness of all things. By incorporating this concept within his syncretic metaphysics, Sekigo provides for a decidedly positive and ethically optimistic vision of the world and its ongoing generative becoming, one obviating the need for harsh laws regulating society, and one very much at odds with the much maligned “heterodoxy.” Describing the productive and reproductive capacity of the great ultimate more specifically, Sekigo explains that in the way of change (yi dao 易道 ekidō) the great ultimate generates yin and yang. In turn they generate the four “forms” (xiang 象 shō), which then generate the eight trigrams (gua 卦 ke). From the eight trigrams, the 64 hexagrams come forth. From the 64 hexagrams, the 384 “lines” (yao 爻 kō) are generated. None of this, Sekigo notes, is omitted from the numbers in the River Chart (Hetu 河圖 Kato) and Luo Inscription (Luoshu 洛書 Rakusho). Since the divisions in the well-field (jingtian 井田 seiden) system and methods for sending troops into battle are in accordance with the sages’ methods in the River Chart and the Luo Inscription, Sekigo concludes that between heaven and earth there is nothing other than numbers (sū 数) and principle (li 理 ri). We can fathom, Sekigo asserts, the nature of principle in all things by means of the epistemological methodology of “extending knowledge and investigating things” (gewu zhizhi 格物 致知 kakubutsu chichi), as explained in the Great Learning (Matsunaga 1640: 27b– 28b, 1975: 325). In summarizing Ethics and introducing the final topic, Sekigo adds that Confucians (Ruzhe 儒者 Jusha) must first understand principle in order to understand the large majority of words and phrases (wenzi yanju 文字言句 moji gonku). If they can achieve this understanding, then even if they have not read and learned everything in the Four Books and Five Classics, they can still penetrate the mindand-heart of the Confucian way (Judō no kokoro 儒道の心). Continuing that line, Sekigo adds that if a person can completely fathom principle, they will have no doubts regarding the way of ghosts and spirits and life and death (kishin shōshi no michi 鬼神生死の道) (Matsunaga 1640: 28b, 1975: 325). Sekigo’s explanations of ghosts and spirits (guishen 鬼神 kishin) comprise the final section of Ethics, just as Beixi’s accounts of the same topics concludes The Meanings of Terms (or at least the 1632 Japanese edition with which Sekigo was presumably familiar). Sekigo’s remarks on the topic are prolonged; Beixi’s comprise the lengthiest section of his text. In the Analects, Confucius refrained from discussing ghosts and spirits in detail. Song Confucians, however, went on at length about them. No doubt, the content and quantity of discussions that Sekigo devotes to ghosts and spirits have their counterpart in the copious verbiage Song Confucian discourse produced about the same. In both cases, the gist of the message is that ghosts and spirits are as real as the generative force (qi 氣 ki) that constitutes them, no more and no less. Ultimately, Sekigo and the Song Confucians concluded, ghosts

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and spirits were simply natural transformations of the very same forces, yin and yang, that inform all phenomena. Given the extensive, nightmarish carnage that occurred during the century before Sekigo’s birth, rampant fears about spirits and their retribution could have contributed to a profoundly haunted culture dominated by the lingering presence of the dead. The bloody siege of Osaka Castle in 1614–1615, compounded by the gruesome end of the Shimabara Rebellion only exacerbated matters. Ghost stories, ghostly dramatic productions in kabuki and Noh, and ghostly woodblock prints were not uncommon presences in early-modern Japanese culture. The ability of people to face these themes and find them fascinating, even entertaining, resulted from their having gained cognitive power over ghosts and spirits, a power provided by the naturalistic understanding of the spiritual nature of all things, including humanity, that Sekigo and other followers of ZHU Xi’s Song Confucian teachings set forth. By equipping early-modern Japanese with the epistemological lens of understanding, Sekigo empowered them to look ghosts and spirits squarely in the eye without fear. Sekigo first explains that understanding the way of life and death (生死の道), so that there is never any confusion about ghost and spirits, is something that most people do not achieve because they are confused about the nature of the way. For Confucians, Buddhists, Daoists, and even those who follow other ways (no doubt a reference to Christians), comprehending the way of life and death is nevertheless a matter of great importance. Sekigo admits that things that cannot be seen are difficult even for the wise to understand, and all the more so for the foolish. Having emphasized the difficulty of coming to know ghosts and spirits, Sekigo next quotes the naturalistic explanation of CHENG Yi 程頤 (1033–1107) that ghosts and spirits are simply “the traces of transformative creation” (zao hua zhi ji 造化之迹 zōka no ato), as well as that of ZHANG Hengqu 張横渠 (1020–1077), that ghosts and spirits should be understood as “the spontaneous activities of the two generative forces” (er qi zhi liang neng 二氣之良能 ni ki no ryōnō). Of the two generative forces, yin and yang, Sekigo notes that yang is associated with spirits (shen 神 shin) and yin is associated with ghosts (gui 鬼 ki), but both emerge from the unified generative force (yi qi 一氣 ikki) that is the dynamic and procreative material substance of all becoming (Matsunaga 1640: 28b–29a, 1975: 326). By capturing the reality of ghosts and spirits naturalistically in terms of “transformative creation” and “the two generative forces” of yin and yang, Sekigo’s Ethics neutralizes, to an extent, fears that tend to proliferate from relative ignorance about the spiritual dimension of things. The accounts of CHENG Yi and ZHANG Hengqu are classics statements of Song Confucianism on the topic, repeated in virtually every postSong discussion of the topic. They were hardly unique to Sekigo, but that he reiterated them brought his discussions into a common and perhaps enlightened discourse about the nature of the spiritual, one that tamed fears of the latter via a philosophical understanding of them. Ghosts and spirits, according to Sekigo, are replete in and interrelated with everything between heaven and earth. Even with wind and rain, what occurs first is spirit, and what concludes is ghost. In terms of the passage of one day, noon is spirit and evening is associated with ghosts. In terms of the human body, the head belongs

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to yang and is spirit, while the hands and feet belong to yin and are associated with ghosts. Within the ten thousand things that comprise all of heaven and earth, Sekigo declares that there is not a single thing that is not ghost and spirit (tenchi banbutsu ni watarite ichimotsu to shite kishin naki mono wa nashi 天地萬物にわたりて一 物として鬼神なきものはなし) (Matsunaga 1640: 28b–29a, 1975: 326). In situating ghosts and spirits within the natural order of yin and yang, Sekigo does not mean to explain the spiritual away or to deny that it exists. Rather he more profoundly spreads the reality of the spiritual into all things via association with generative force, and the modalities of yin and yang. The result is a position not unlike that of Shintō wherein kami 神 are held to exist in all things. By familiarizing the spiritual via the categories of Song Confucian metaphysics, Sekigo offers epistemological means of controlling through understanding if not dominating what was once a source of uncertainties and impotence bred from fear and misunderstanding. Sekigo’s Ethics next explains Zhu’s thoughts about life and death (sheng si 生死 seishi) by relating Zhu’s responses to a disciple’s questions about the same. Ethics states … in the ten-thousand things of heaven and earth, there is principle and generative force. Having received generative force, there is form (katachi 形). Within form, principle is the master (shu 主). The clearest generative force belongs to human beings. … Motion and activity are the work of yang, while calmness and quiet are yin. The ghostly soul (hun 魂 kon) is the heavenly spirit of yang (yang no tamashii 陽のたましい), while the gross corporeal soul (po 魄 haku) is the earthly spirit of yin (yin no tamashii 陰のたましい). When the generative force that encompasses these is exhausted, death occurs as ghostly soul (kon) returns to heaven and the corporeal soul (haku) returns to earth. Thus when a person is dying, as their temperature rises their heavenly spirit ascends, and as their body chills the earthly soul descends. Where there is a beginning to life, there is necessarily an end to life. Yet because principle presides over generative force (ri wa ki no ue ni areba 理は氣の上にあれば), it does not disintegrate (shusan nashi 聚散なし) (Matsunaga 1640: 29b, 1975: 326).

Sekigo adds that when worshiping ancestors (senzo o matsuru 先祖を祭る), the moral principles of responsiveness (kanō no dōri ari 感応の道理あり) come into operation because the principles of heaven and earth pervade everything. Here Sekigo affirms the Song Confucian view, endorsed by Beixi, that because of the interrelationships of abiding principle between those once related by physical ties, ancestral spirits will respond to reverence offered them by their progeny. For this reason, ancestral worship is rightly practiced as a means of maintaining one’s proper relationship with the principles of the world. Sekigo concludes his discussions of ghosts and spirits by stating that ZHU Xi’s accounts cover the major issues related to life and death. If students want more, they should approach such issues in reading the Four Books, the Five Classics, the Great Compendium of Human Nature and Principle (Xingli daquan 性理大全 1415), compiled by Hu Guang 胡廣, and other writings about the “study of principle” (lixue 理學 rigaku). Curiously enough, Sekigo never mentions CHEN Beixi nor the name of his text. Instead, in reference to the literature on human nature and principle, he mentions the generically similar but far grander and much later Ming dynasty compilation, the Xingli daquan. That aside, Sekigo states that by engaging in

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extensive study, those interested will come to understand more fully the principles affirmed by the Confucian way regarding life and death and so can avoid being misled by accounts offered by Christianity and other such heterodoxies (Kirishitan nado jahō キリシタンなど邪法). If people understand these principles, follow them in life and rest in them with death, then what will they have to regret? (Matsunaga 1640: 29b–30a, 1975: 326–327). Sekigo does not discuss Christian thinking about the spiritual realm in any detail. Rather he only mentions it as a heterodoxy to be avoided. Yet there can be little doubt that his positive exposition of Confucian thinking on spiritual matters was in part meant to oppose the spread of that heterodoxy. Emphasizing the importance of ritual behavior, Sekigo states that if people practice the Confucian rites of capping (guan 冠 kan), marriage (hun 婚 kon), burial (zang 葬 sō), and ancestor worship (zhai 祭 sai) as set forth in the Family Rituals of Master Zhu (Zhuzi jiali 朱子家禮 Shushi karei), their minds will come to embody the way. If people practice these according to the standards of the Confucian way, rather than as Buddhists have had them practiced, then a Confucian breeze (Jufu 儒風) will increasingly blow so that apart from the four estates of the realm – the samurai, farmers, artisans, and merchants (shi nō kō shō 士農工商) – others outside the four hereditary estates (shimin no soto 四民の外), including even homeless vagabonds (遊手浮浪), will find themselves naturally transformed as the whole country attains wealth, honor, peace and security (fuki anzen 富貴安全). The details of these four ceremonies, Sekigo relates, are in the Rites of the Zhou (Zhouli 周禮 Shurai), the Principles of the Rites (Yili 儀禮 Girai), the Record of the Rites (Liji 禮記 Raiki), the Family Rites of Master Zhu, and other texts (Matsunaga 1640: 29b–30b, 1975: 326–327). What is striking here is Sekigo’s departure from a readiness to accommodate Buddhism and instead his insistence on practice of the rites according to Confucian standards. And in advocating this, Sekigo addresses not just the four estates of the realm, but those other people, clearly at the very bottom of the social order, who had nothing. Often the target audience for conversion to Christianity, this group is one that Sekigo thinks can be transformed, along with everyone else, by the right Confucian practice of the rites. As a byproduct, the realm as a whole will attain wealth, honor, peace and security, an outcome that makes evident Sekigo’s ultimate concern not simply with explaining terms or articulating a philosophical system, but most importantly with establishing the proper conceptual and now ritual foundations for a rightly ordered socio-political realm.

2.12

Sekigo’s Postscript

Sekigo’s postscript, written in Sino-Japanese (kanbun 漢文), notes that just as swords are not given to children, so did Confucius say that “superior teachings cannot be explained to people whose talents are below average” (Analects: 6/21). With evident humility, Sekigo explains that he wrote Ethics in the easy colloquial to describe the great way of the three bonds and the five constant virtues for young

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students and merchants. Yet more poignantly and perhaps to the point, Sekigo adds that he also wrote Ethics out of concern for those who had fallen into heterodox teachings (yijiao 異教 ikyō) so that they could comprehend the rites that heaven conferred and “the teaching of names” (mingjiao 名教 meikyō) pertaining to human nature (xing 性 sei), destiny (ming 命 mei), the way (dao 道 michi), and virtue (de 徳 toku) (Matsunaga 1640: 31a, 1975: 330). While there is a simplicity to Sekigo’s Ethics suggesting that it might be a mere primer meant for a broadbased, beginning-level audience, the timing of its composition along with its concerns about people falling into heterodoxies point in another direction. Sekigo systematizes an exceptionally syncretic account of Confucianism drawing on Buddhism, Daoism, and Shintō, meaning that his understanding of heterodoxies hardly refers to the usual suspects, Buddhism and Daoism. Rather the prime impetus informing the composition of Ethics was apparently advocacy of a unified, universalistic yet locally nuanced teaching that would provide the foundations for a rightly ordered polity in the hopes that doing so would preempt the appeal of Christianity. The social and political dimensions of the text in turn reveal Sekigo’s Ethics as a work of political philosophy in the genre of Beixi’s The Meanings of Terms, one exemplifying Confucius’ understanding of the crucial political importance of rectifying terms. The concern with Christianity is even more evident as Sekigo laments that those deluded by foreign heterodoxies (yi jiao 異教 ikyō) are destroying the customs of their country (kokuzoku 国俗) by abandoning what is close in seeking the foreign and exotic, honoring false teachers (yanshi 贋師 ganshi) while despising their rulers and fathers, falling into bewitching techniques (yao shu 妖術 yōjutsu), and so injuring their bodies and destroying their lives in mindlessly submitting to the mysterious perversion (xiemei 邪魅 jami). Thus, Sekigo declares, as Japanese accept Christianity, human relations descend to the level of beasts and fowl. Sekigo recalls the Mencius’ observation that the difference between beasts and humanity is not great, and that while commoners (shumin 庶民 shomin) abandon it, rulers and princes (junzi 君子 kunshi) seek to preserve it (Mencius: 4B/19). Sekigo finds hope in the fact that now samurai gallop over the realm, merchants tend their businesses in city markets, and farmers and artisans labor in the fields and at their crafts. Sekigo sees further hope in the possibility that those with learning might be given charge of domains and families from which positions they might have everyone read the Four Books and Six Classics. Yet realistically he cautions against solutions that are too naïve and simplistic, acknowledging that not all who read books understand how to improve their circumstances, and that some pursue learning frivolously so that they can boast about their wisdom. Similarly he warns against mere memorization of texts and other forms of ineffective learning. Instead what is needed is learning that values the exhaustive investigation of principles and the rectification of the mind (kokoro o tadasu 心を正す). Sekigo agrees with Mencius that the purpose of learning is nothing other than that of recovering the lost mind (fangxin 放心 hōshin). He adds that the mind should be understood as the principles of heaven (kokoro wa tenri nari 心は天理なり), and that these principles of heaven should be understood as so integrally a part of the human mind (jinshin

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no koyū nari 人心の固有なり) that the way would never be sought outside of the daily practice of our ethical relations (nichiyō irin 日用彝倫). Sekigo states that it was for this purpose that he wrote his Ethics in the easy vernacular, addressing first and foremost the three bonds and five constant virtues. Most especially, his concern was to address young students so that they would know the way of rulers and ministers, fathers and sons, rather than be misled by heterodoxies (ikyō 異教) and fall into bewitching techniques (yōjutsu 妖術). Optimistically, Sekigo suggests that even if only a few out of ten million people are motivated to oppose foreign heterodoxies, reject bewitching techniques, revere the correct way (zheng dao 正道 seidō), and promote the gentle breeze of Confucian teachings (Jufū 儒風), then the luxuriant growth of the latter might overflow to various realms, successive generations, and myriad peoples (Matsunaga 1640: 31a, 1975: 330).

2.13

Concluding Remarks

Sekigo’s willingness to see truth in Confucianism, Buddhism, Shintō, Daoism, and even bits of it in Mozi’s thought distinguishes him from many if not most Confucians who, philosophizing in a post-Buddhist world, more often tended to define their systems in ways that cast Buddhism rather simplistically as a mistaken teaching that had to be avoided or abandoned rather than accepted and included along syncretic lines. Sekigo was by no means unique on this count, but surely his stand became something of a minority opinion during Japan’s early-modern and modern periods. While his teacher, FUJIWARA Seika, expressed similar views, most who followed Seika and Sekigo in the development of Confucian thinking during the Tokugawa were far more sectarian than syncretic in their attitude to Buddhism. One indication of the extent to which Sekigo’s philosophical open-mindedness toward the possibility of common, universalistic ground between Confucianism and Buddhism was exceptional takes the form of a later exchange between another Kyoto Confucian scholar, ITō Jinsai 伊藤仁斎 (1627–1705) and a representative of the most insistently orthodox school of ZHU Xi Confucianism in Japan, SATō Naokata 佐藤直方 (1650–1719). Although no friend of Buddhism in his philosophical masterwork, The Meanings of Terms in the Analects and Mencius (Gomō jigi 論 語古義), Jinsai did author a letter to a Buddhist monk, Dōkō 道香, stating that “from the perspective of humanity, there are certainly Confucians and Buddhists, but when we look at things from the perspective of heaven and earth, there is neither Confucianism nor Buddhism. How then can my way and your way possibly be divided in two?” In the same letter, Jinsai reportedly added that it was impossible for a Buddhist to separate himself from this world and its concerns. In Jinsai’s mind, this simply verified that the Confucian way, due to its very inescapability, was ultimately valid, while the Buddhist way was mistaken (Spae 1967: 234). Rather than appreciate Jinsai’s kind words for the Buddhist priest, Dōkō, and recognize that Jinsai had not conceded anything, Naokata seized on Jinsai’s gracious

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rhetorical question and proceeded to attack him for it. Naokata declared, “Confucians study the one way of heaven and earth. … But Buddhists oppose and harm it, like insurgents against their princes and fathers, and like insects and weeds in the five grains. From the perspective of heaven and earth … Buddhism is the empty name of a wicked thing. Obviously, people should abandon it. …” (Spae 1967: 244). Jinsai and Naokata clearly lived in an age in which Christian teachings had been eliminated or driven underground, affirmed in secret by members of a small group, mostly on Kyūshū, known as the kakure kirishitan, or “hidden Christians.” With that heterodoxy controlled – and keeping it controlled emerged as an abiding undercurrent of Japanese Confucianism in the Tokugawa and beyond – Confucian philosophers moved more towards ZHU Xi’s position, rejecting Buddhism as heterodoxy. Naokata’s harsh and intolerant attitude toward the possibility of any Confucian-Buddhism dialogue represented a decided move in that direction, one that was far less gracious than was Jinsai’s own, often pointed opposition to Buddhism. As this trend towards orthodoxy increased, so did the narrowness of Confucian philosophical outlooks. Ultimately, however, insistence on orthodoxy turned on Confucianism itself as nativist scholars, intent on affirming the exclusive integrity of Shintō and nativism began targeting Confucianism, Buddhism, and all forms of foreign learning as heterodoxies to be avoided if not done away with. While this trend might indicate the extent to which the Tokugawa intellectual world had moved decidedly away from Sekigo’s syncretism, there can be little doubt that Confucian philosophizing survived and even thrived in the centuries that followed Sekigo’s work. And at least one important parallel to Sekigo in the late-Tokugawa period appears in the rural-based syncretism of NINOMIYA Sontoku 二宮尊徳 (1787–1856), an agrarian reformer from northeastern Japan whose philosophical ideas merged Song Confucianism, Buddhism, Daoism, and Shintō into a unique system of thought emphasizing the importance of practical engagement with the world through work, and an awareness of the extent to which humanity should gratefully repay the bounty that the natural world provides for everyone. Sontoku’s ideas were indeed popular in his day, and throughout the nineteenth century, indicating that while Confucian syncretism of the sort that Sekigo pioneered and Sontoku furthered might not have been the mainstream of early-modern Japanese philosophizing, it was the expression of a version of Confucianism well-understood and practiced by aristocrats and commoners as they achieved a level of comprehension of philosophical thought. Sekigo’s continuing opposition to Christianity throughout his Ethics coupled with his expressed concern for good government of the realm, something more than the galloping of samurai, indicates the extent to which his work was more than an academic exercise in explaining philosophical terms. Needless to say he was indeed doing that, but he appears to have been ever mindful of the significance that Confucius had earlier assigned to rectifying language: without it, a realm cannot be governed well. Considered in that respect, Sekigo’s Ethics is far more a work of political philosophy, in the genre of texts rectifying terms, than a study of semantics and philology. Much the same applies to other, later Tokugawa texts written in the same genre, including YAMAGA Sokō’s 山鹿素行 Essentials of the Sagely Confucian Teachings (Seikyō yōroku 聖教要録), ITŌ Jinsai’s The Meanings of Terms in the

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Analects and Mencius, and OGYŪ Sorai’s 荻生徂徠 Distinguishing the Meanings of Names (Benmei 辨名). To interpret them as anything other than works of Confucian political philosophy is to miss the profoundly significant nuance that Confucius assigned to the study of language and meaning, one that recognizes the fundamental importance of the meanings of words in relation to Confucian philosophical thinking about governing. And while those later Confucian lexicons did not so overtly declare their opposition to the foreign heterodoxy targeted in Sekigo’s Ethics, they along with the many other expressions of philosophical thought produced so profusely in the Tokugawa emerged as urgent affirmations of some form of traditional thought, perhaps created, in opposition to the subdued but still feared foreign teachings and their claims about a divine creator.

References Abe, Yoshio 阿部吉雄. 1965. Seika·Razan and Korean Confucianism 惺窩·羅山と朝鮮儒学 (Seika·Razan to Chōsen Jugaku). The Japanese School of ZHU Xi and Korean 日本朱子学と朝鮮 (Nihon Shushigaku to Chōsen). Tokyo: Tokyo daigaku shuppansha. (In the first chapter of this classic study, Abe discusses KANG Hang’s impact on Seika at length.) Analects. 1988. Concordance to the Analects and Mencius (Lunyu Mengzi yinde 論語引得・孟 子引得), ed. HONG Ye 洪業 et al. Shanghai: Shanghai guji chubanshe. (A useful, fairly available concordance to the Analects and the Mencius.) Berling, Judith A. 1980. The Syncretic religion of LIN Chao-en. New York: Columbia University Press. (Berling defines syncretism as “the borrowing, affirmation, or integration of concepts, symbols, or practices of one religious tradition into another by a process of selection and reconciliation.”) Bowring, Richard. 2006. FUJIWARA Seika and the Great Learning. Monumenta Nipponica 61: 437– 457. (An impressive recent study of FUJIWARA Seika’s philosophical writings on the Great Learning.) Chan, Wing-tsit. 1986. Neo-Confucian terms explained. New York: Columbia University Press. (Chan’s translation of Beixi’s text was an indispensable resource for this study, despite the fact that the 1632 Japanese edition differs significantly from it.) Chen, Beixi 陳北溪. 1632. The meanings of human nature and principle (Xingli ziyi 性理字義 Seiri jigi). Kyoto: Nakano Shichieimon. (This woodblock edition, widely available in major library collections in Japan, must be referred to in studies of Beixi’s impact on Tokugawa thinkers, since it was the edition of the text that Japanese Confucian philosophers had at their disposal.) Chen, Beixi. 1972. Teacher Beixi’s lectures on the meanings of terms (Beixi xiansheng ziyi xiangjiang 性理字義 Hokkei sensei jigi shōkō). In Kinsei kanseki sōkan 近世漢籍叢刊, Shisōhen 思想編, vol. 21, ed. OKADA Takehiko 岡田武彦. Kyoto: Chūbun shuppansha. (This volume includes a useful reprint of the 1668 Japanese edition of Beixi’s The Meanings of Terms). (This modern reprint of the 1668 edition appeared in Japan only after Sekigo’s passing, making it less relevant to his work.) De Bary, Wm. Theodore. 1979. Sagehood as a secular and spiritual ideal in Tokugawa Neo- Confucianism. In Principle and practicality: Essays in Neo-Confucianism and practical learning, ed. W.T. de Bary and Irene Bloom. New York: Columbia University Press. (De Bary’s essay remains a classic of insightful scholarship of a largely philosophical sort.)

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Elison, George. 1973. Deus destroyed: The image of Christianity in early modern Japan. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. (A useful work for understanding the relations between Confucian scholars, the Tokugawa authorities, and Christians in early-modern Japan.) Fu, Charles Wei-hsun. 1986. CHU Hsi on Buddhism. In CHU Hsi and Neo-Confucianism, ed. Wingtsit Chan. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press. (A useful study of Zhu’s understanding of and thoughts on Buddhism.) Haeger, John Winthrop. 1972. The intellectual context of Neo-Confucian syncretism. Journal of Asian Studies 31.3: 499–513. (Haeger relates syncretism most directly to Chinese Neo-Confucianism.) Hara, Nensai 原念斎. 1994. Accounts of early Confucian philosophers (先哲叢談 Sentetsu sōdan), ed. MINAMOTO Ryōen 源了円 and MAEDA Tsutomu 前田勉. Tokyo: Heibonsha. (This modern edition includes notes and explanations of the work as a whole.) Hori, Isao 堀勇雄. 1964. HAYASHI Razan. Tokyo: Yoshikawa kōbunkan. (Hori’s biography of Razan remains one of the key modern sources for understanding this important early-Tokugawa Confucian scholar.) Inoue, Tetsujirō 井上哲次郎. 1905. The philosophy of the Japanese School of ZHU Xi 日本朱子學 派之哲學. Tokyo: Fuzanbō. (Inoue’s work only mentions Sekigo in passing, but it is the modern starting point for the systematic study of Japanese Confucian philosophy.) Kim, H. 1961. The Transmission of Neo-Confucianism to Japan by KANG Hang, A Prisoner of War. Transactions of the Korea Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society 37: 83–103. (An important study of Seika’s philosophical relationship with a Korean prisoner-of-war.) Maruyama, Masao 丸山真男. 1974. Studies in the Intellectual History of Tokugawa Japan. Trans. HANE Mikiso. Princeton: Princeton University Press. (Maruyama does not mention Sekigo, but his book remains one of the most important postwar studies of Confucian thinking in Japanese history.) Matsunaga, Sekigo 松永尺五. 1640. Ethics 彝倫抄 (Irinshō). Woodblock edition housed in the Bungaku Etsuranshitsu, Kyoto University. (This woodblock edition, although not widely available outside of Japan, provides an excellent means of accessing the Irinshō.) Matsunaga, Sekigo. 1975. Ethics 彝倫抄 (Irinshō). TAMAKAKE Hiroyuki 玉懸博之, compiler. In FUJIWARA Seika 藤原惺窩/HAYASHI Razan 林羅山. Nihon shisō taikei 日本思想大系, vol. 28, ed. ISHIDA Ichirō 石田 一郎 and KANAYA Osamu 金谷治, 303–330. Tokyo: Iwanami shoten. (The modern edition of the Irinshō is readily accessible, and provides helpful notes and commentary for the text.) Paramore, Kiri. 2009. Ideology and Christianity in Japan. New York: Routledge. (A useful work in understanding the history of Christianity in Japan.) Spae, Joseph John. 1967. ITŌ Jinsai: A philosopher, educator and sinologist of the Tokugawa period. New York: Paragon Reprint. (This reprint of the Monumenta Serica, no. 12, Peking: Catholic University of Peking, 1948 edition remains a valuable source for the study of Jinsai’s thought.) Tamakake, Hiroyuki 玉懸博之. 1975. The thought of MATSUNAGA Sekigo and OSE Hoan 藤原惺窩 の思想と小瀬甫庵の思想. In FUJIWARA Seika 藤原惺窩/HAYASHI Razan 林羅山. Nihon shisō taikei 日本思想大系, vol. 28, ed. ISHIDA Ichirō 石田 一郎 and KANAYA Osamu 金谷治. Tokyo: Iwanami shoten. (Tamakake’s study of Sekigo and his annotated edition of the Irinshō, are valuable sources for studies of Sekigo’s Confucianism.) Zhu, Xi 朱熹. 1977. Dialogues on the Great Learning (Daxue huowen 大學或問). In Mōshi wakumon/Daigaku wakumon/Chūyō wakumon 孟子或問・大學或問・中庸或問, vol. 5, ed. OKADA Takehiko 岡田武彦 and ARAKI Kengō 荒木見悟. Kinsei kanseki sōkan 近世漢籍叢刊, shisōhen 思想, part 3. Kyoto: Chūbun shuppansha. (The volume includes a valuable reprint of ca. 1675 Japanese edition of ZHU Xi’s Daxue huowen, with kanbun punctuation by YAMAZAKI Ansai.)

Chapter 3

Spirits, Gods, and Heaven in Confucian Thought W.J. Boot

3.1

Introduction

When towards the end of the seventeenth century Confucian thought became known in Europe, radical philosophers were most intrigued by two aspects. One was the fact that the world had not been created by an external agent, but was eternal and self-propelling. The other was Confucianism’s successful implementation of a secular system of ethics that worked without divine sanctions. These two aspects, they thought, did away effectively with the necessity of the existence of a deity. Some even concluded that the Chinese were atheists (Israel 2001: 544–545, 588–589; Israel 2006: 645–646). Little did Europe’s radical philosophers know – and little would they have cared, had they known – that there existed what could be called a Confucian theology that went by the Chinese name of guishenlun 鬼神論. Guishenlun denotes the systematic reflection on the nature and powers of gods, ghosts, and spirits, which is the closest translation one can give of the binome guishen 鬼神 (J: kijin, also kishin). Guishen is a very broad category. In the classical Chinese corpus, the most basic distinction in the various uses of the term seems to be that between guishen as that part of the human person that survives after death, and as superior beings whose powers and knowledge surpass those of humans, and whom humans, therefore, have to fear and propitiate. It would seem logical that the second meaning is original. Since, however, the term guishen is used in reference to both groups in the same body of texts, which date back to the pre-dynastic period, there is little point in belabouring a difference that was not made by the Chinese authors themselves. Deities, spirits, ghosts, and deceased ancestors were one in that they belonged to the category of beings who could dispense good and evil fortune,

W.J. Boot (*) Department of Japanese and Korean Studies, Leiden University, Tokyo, Japan e-mail: [email protected] C.C. Huang and J.A. Tucker (eds.), Dao Companion to Japanese Confucian Philosophy, Dao Companions to Chinese Philosophy 5, DOI 10.1007/978-90-481-2921-8_3, © Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2014

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who were to be worshipped, whose intentions could be divined, and who, one assumed in one’s more optimistic moments, would cow when confronted with the forceful actions of a resolute man (Sima 1982: 2549). Moreover, the term guishen was also used as a synonym of the two human souls, the “spirit soul” (hun 魂 J: kon) and “corporeal soul” (bo 魄 J: haku), and later, in Neo-Confucian philosophy, the spirits became the creative principle of heaven and earth. The standard Neo-Confucian definition is found in ZHU Xi’s 朱熹 (1130–1200) commentary on the first pericope of the Doctrine of the Mean (C: Zhongyong 中庸 J: Chūyō), section 16, where ZHU Xi quotes several earlier commentaries: Master Cheng 程子 said that the spirits 鬼神 are the effective operations of heaven and earth, and the traces of the creative transformations. Master Zhang 張子 says, that the spirits are the innate capacities of the two qi (気 J: ki). Personally, I would say that if you speak of them in terms of the two qi, then ghosts 鬼 are the spirituality (C: ling 靈 J: rei) of yin, and the divine shen is the spirituality of yang. If you speak of them in terms of one single qi, then the reaching and stretching is the divine, and the contracting and returning, ghosts. In substance they are one single thing (C: wu 物 J: butsu).

Monograph-length studies of Confucian theology are few. The various writing of J. J. M. de Groot cannot be overlooked, but he certainly made no attempt to isolate Confucianism from the whole of Chinese religion. Invaluable is Micheal Puett's To Become a God, both for his own findings and insights and for his critical discussion of previous literature. Puett, too, does not restrict himself to Confucianism, but the debate in the pre-dynastic period about humans and the spirits that he analyzes was basic to all later philosophical discussion. If we turn to Japan, recent scholarship on the Confucian debate about the spirits comes down to two books: Klaus Kracht’s Orthodox Neo-Confucian Discourse about the Spirits (Chu-Hsi-konfuzianische Geist-Diskurse, 1986) and KOYASU Nobukuni’s 子安宣邦 On Spirits (Kishin ron 鬼神論, 2002). Kracht’s study is thorough and comprehensive, including the Chinese antecedents and the important stages of the developments in the Edo Period, as well as a great number of translations. Under the heading of “Die kanonischen Geist-Diskurse,” he lists and discusses all the loci in the Confucian canonical corpus in which the words gui and/or shen appear (Kracht 1986: 45–83). This is important, for these texts provided the basic vocabulary for all later Confucian debates about gods, ghosts, demons, and spirits. Moving to Japan, he analyzes the relation between Confucianism and Shintō, mainly on the basis of Transmission of Shintō (Shintō denju 神道傳授) by HAYASHI Razan 林羅山 (1583–1657), and discusses On Spirits (Kishin ron) by ARAI Hakuseki 新井白石 (1657–1725) and Instead of Dreams (Yume no shiro 夢ノ代) by YAMAGATA Bantō 山 片蟠桃 (1748–1821). Koyasu’s On Spirits is a collection of short essays that appeared between 1984 and 1992, and then were published together in 1992. A new edition, with a second preface, appeared in 2002. Koyasu covers both Japanese and Chinese developments, and has interesting ideas, but as such words as disukuuru (“discourse”) and arukeorojii (“archaeology”) in title and chapter headings exemplify, the shades of Foucault are deep. As far as comprehensiveness and thoroughness are concerned, the book is hardly in the same league as Kracht’s Geist-Diskurse.

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Why were the spirits an important topic? One reason was that in Chinese and Japanese societies religion was a fact of life that Confucian scholars could not ignore. They had to say something about it. The second reason is the existence of numerous references to spirits in the Confucian canon. These could not be ignored, either, and had to be explained one way or other. The third reason was the ancestral spirits. They were inextricably mixed up with the other ghosts and deities, and ancestor worship was any Confucian’s most important duty. Two words that must be banished from one’s vocabulary when considering Confucian theology are “supernatural” and “immaterial.” In the traditional Confucian, Chinese worldview, there are not two separate realms of the natural and the supernatural. Everything either exists or does not exist. If it exists, it consists of qi, and is part of this ever moving, ever revolving continuum. There are no gods who are outside this continuum; our gods, ghosts, and spirits are all part of it. It is often said that they have no shape, and cannot be seen or heard, but that only means that their qi is more subtle and more spiritual than the qi from which, e.g., man is, partly, made. They are the essence of things – not a tree, but the essence of tree that has accumulated more and more purely, as refined qi, in the course of many years. Their subtlety gives them great freedom of movement and penetration, and great powers to inflict harm. The fact that they are qi means, however, that they are not eternal; they come into being, they change, and eventually they will wane and their qi will disperse. As the standard translation “material force” indicates, qi is both material and immaterial; it is the stuff things are made of, but also the vital force that empowers the things and drives the endless process of creation. Personally, I conceptualize qi as a continuum of gaseous matter, infinitely divisible, that is coterminous with the cosmos. Through processes known as “changes” (C: bian 變 J: hen) and “mutations” (C: hua 化 J: ka), the qi locally thickens (coagulates, coalesces) and forms entities, some of which are visible, and some of which have some form of intelligence (C: zhi 知 J: chi); for this intelligence you need the quality of qi that is known as “spiritual.” Man is visible, but more intelligent than all other visible entities, so he is called “the most spiritual of the ten thousand things” (C: wan wu zhi ling zhang 万物之靈長 J: banbutsu no rei chō). Spirits are invisible and intelligent. As a rule, qi tends to coalesce into known shapes that man can recognize as, e.g., a tree or a horse. In order to explain this tendency of qi, terms such as “shape” (C: xing 形 J: kei) or “principle” (C: li 理 J: ri) are employed. “Shape” is used both in the sense of the mould that shapes qi, and of the resulting individual shapes. “Principle” (C: li 理 J: ri) is a “pattern” that makes qi assume a certain form, working from the inside and the outside (for “it is one, but divided into all things”). ZHU Xi, who was the most important Neo-Confucian philosopher of the Song dynasty, employed a double definition of li by defining it as “the reason why things are as they are” (suo yi ran zhi gu 所以然之故), and “the model of how a thing ought to be” (suo dang ran zhi ze 所当然之則). As a philosophical system the above leaves too many questions unanswered for it to be wholly acceptable. The three or four different accounts of qi that were developed in China are mutually conflicting, so the whole concept was not carefully thought out, and the same might be said of “shape” (xing) and “principle” (li). In practice,

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one or another account was applied pragmatically, as the case required. This worked well enough. One was able to explain individual differences (“due to qi”) and universal patterns (“due to li ”), and the overall view of the cosmos, as one continuum of continuously evolving matter and energy that throws up and resorbs again everything we know, ourselves included, was of considerable grandeur and sophistication. When exactly Chinese religious practices and concomitant philosophical ideologies began to influence Japan is unclear, but by the seventh century such influence was indubitably present. The Yamato court made use of them to strengthen its charisma and to harness native religious beliefs to its Sinifying policies. Before long, however, Buddhism became the major force in the religious and intellectual field. For many centuries, Daoist and Confucian ideas were only of minor importance. This changed with the beginning of the Edo Period (1600–1868). With the coming of the peace a group of self-conscious, assertive Confucian scholars (Jusha 儒者), whose outlook was secular, civil, overtly anti-Buddhist, and less overtly anti-military, came into being. One of the items on their agenda was Buddhism and, if nothing else, their anti-Buddhist polemics forced them to discuss matters philosophical and theological. In the early Edo Period, the discussion was complicated by the attempt of a number of Confucian scholars to establish a privileged connection with the native gods and spirits, which resulted in, on the whole, unsuccessful attempts to fuse Shintō and Confucianism. The reason why scholars like HAYASHI Razan or YAMAZAKI Ansai 山崎闇齋 (1618–1682) took a positive interest in the native religion may have been that they thought they could use its charisma and turn it into an asset of their own, as yet fledgling Confucian movement. An encyclopaedic account of the ideas of Confucian scholars of the Edo Period about the spirits is beyond the scope of this study. Rather, it will treat in depth a few texts by known or anonymous authors, to give an impression of the range of variety that existed in this period. The study will begin with an analysis of the section about the divine in Names and Categories (Meichū 名疇) by MINAGAWA Kien 皆川淇園 (1734–1807) and Distinguishing Names (Benmei 辯 名) by OGYŪ Sorai 荻生徂徠 (1666–1728), because Kien and Sorai were farthest removed from Japanese popular religious practice. Next, the study will treat ARAI Hakuseki’s Kishin-ron and Razan’s fusion of Shintō and Confucianism. Finally, it will take up what is known in Japan as tentō shisō 天道思想, the ideology of the heavenly Way, interpreted here as an attempt to formulate a moral Weltanschauung on a non-denominational religious basis. The key terms in the discussion are few, but they had different meanings and nuances in their original context in the Chinese Classics, and assumed many more in the course of 1,500 years of interpretation. As a result, the vocabulary lacks the rigour one would like to have in a philosophical debate. In this situation, one can do either of two things. Follow the text, and choose English words that best fit the meaning and nuance intended in the given context, or stick to one English word as a translation of the Chinese term, however strange the result might look sometimes. In this essay, I have decided to follow the second option. Shen 神 I translate as “divine” (divinity, deity); miao 妙, as “subtle” (subtlety); ling 靈 as “spiritual”

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(spirituality); jing 精 as “essence” (essential); gui as “ghost”; guishen as “spirits”; jisi 祭祀 as sacrifice (worship); and tian 天 as “heaven.” The Japanese word kami 神 I have translated as “god” as long as the reference is to recognizable members of the Shintō pantheon. They had their own myths and rituals that did not always square with Chinese ritual prescriptions, and some distinction must be made.

3.2

Kien and Sorai: Lexical Works

Names and Categories (Meichū 名疇) is MINAGAWA Kien’s magnum opus. He wrote it in the early 1780s and published it in 1784. It was reprinted in 1788 (Tenmei 8). It is a work in the lexical format, and counts 58 lemmas, divided over six fascicles. One of these lemmas is shen. As with all lemmas in Names and Categories, the lemma shen consists of a main text and a number of discussions (Minagawa 1788: 4: 30a–31b; 4: 31b–38b). After the first two, as usually, incomprehensible sentences, which I shall not even try to translate,1 the main text continues with a mixture of quotations from the Classics, most of which are well-known in this context, and Kien’s own interpretations and ideas. The main text can be divided into four paragraphs. The first paragraph begins with a quotation from the Book of Changes (C: Yijing 易経 J: Ekikyō) which states, “The sages established their teaching through the divine way.”2 Then follow a few lines of commentary by Kien, and the paragraph ends with a quote from the Doctrine of the Mean, chapter 24, which reads, “The really sincere [man] is like divine.” In his commentary, Kien gives various approximate definitions of shen, but, interestingly, the key elements of these definitions do not follow from the quotes. The first key element is the notion subtle “stirrings” (C: ji 機 J: ki). “Shen,” Kien says, “is that in which the subtle stirrings (ji) of the Way manifest themselves” (Meichū 1788: 4:30a–30b) Usually, ji denotes mechanical contraptions such as a loom, and mechanical movement (“bounce, impetus, momentum”). Because it is here preceded by the adjective “subtle” (C: miao 妙 J: myō), a small movement must be intended, so I translate (miao) ji as “(subtle) stirrings.” In view of the meaning which he assigns to the character ji 機, one cannot but wonder why Kien did not select the word ji 幾 instead. In the Book of Changes, which was after all his major source of inspiration, ji 機 occurs in only one pericope, in the combination shuji (樞機 J: shuki), meaning “the most important, the essential 1

Each lemma in Meichū begins with two introductory sentences that follow the pattern of “X is the name of …; its category-image belongs to the cluster of …” (某者・・・之名也、其疇象為・・・ 之類也). It is a description of the character in the context of Kien’s “Nine Categories” 九疇, which is a recondite, and separate subject. I will not follow it up, here. 2 Kien says that this quotation is from Xici zhuan, but actually it is from the tuan of the 20th hexagram, guan 観. The immediate context is: “Looking at the divine way of heaven and [seeing] that the four seasons never changed, the Holy Ones, internalizing this way [of heaven], established their teaching, and therefore [the people of] realm subjected themselves to them.” (Ekikyō 1: 442–444).

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thing” (Ekikyō 1987–2008: 3.1448–1451) while ji 幾 occurs a number of times in the sense of “the hidden springs [of action]” (Ekikyō 1987–2008: 3.1501–1504; 1620–1626). ZHU Xi also uses it in his commentary on a passage in the Doctrine of the Mean 1.3, which states, “Although the traces have not yet formed, the stirrings are already moving.” In one passage, a clear definition is given: “Ji denotes the minute [beginning] of motion, [the moment] when good luck first shows itself” (Ekikyō 1987–2008: 3.1620–1626). This must be the sense in which Kien is uses the word ji 機. The second key term Kien introduces is “thing” (C: wu 物 J: butsu). “If a man is utterly sincere,” he says, “the Way creates (becomes) a ‘thing’ inside him, and the subtlety with which this ‘thing’ contains the stirrings inside itself has an effect as if the divine of heaven and earth dwells within it” (Meichū 1788: 4:30a–30b). “Things” (wu) is a technical term. Evidently, in the present context “material object” will not do as a translation, but the use of wu implies a thing of substance, that “is what it is,” not an “affair” (C: shi 事 J: ji), which is more abstract and elusive: an action, a relation, or a quality. “Things” (wu) is used in order to emphasize the importance of something immaterial. When Kien explains the key-term of his philosophical system, “the opening of things” (C: kai wu 開物 J: kaibutsu), he defines “things” (wu) as the meaning of a word. In order to emphasize its importance, says Kien, the sages applied the term “things” (wu). In this, he follows ZHU Xi whose commentary on the eight steps of the Great Learning (C: Daxue 大学 J: Daigaku) declares that the “things” that are the object of the “investigation of things” include “affairs.”3 As “thing of substance” would be too ponderous, my preferred translation is “entity.” The scheme Kien presents here is a simple one of macro- and microcosm: the first minute overtures of motion of the Way of heaven are also present in man, on the condition that he is “utterly sincere.” The medium is the divine of the Way of heaven, in which the stirrings manifest themselves, and which are also present inside man. The second paragraph begins with a brief introductory sentence by Kien (“As regards the divine in its capacity as a ‘thing,’ …”) that makes clear that the paragraph as a whole is intended to clarify the relation between the divine and the entity that the Way of heaven creates within a sincere person and that contains the “stirrings.” The introductory sentence is followed by five quotations, the first two of which are from the Yijing: “[The feature of] yin and yang that one cannot predict [their movement and quiescence] is called divine.” (Ekikyō 1987–2008: 3.1427–1430), and “the divine has no [fixed] direction, and the changes have no [substantial] body” (Ekikyō 1987–2008: 3.1420–1422; Meichū 1788: 4:30b–31a). 3

Several centuries later, HAYASHI Razan explains this as follows: “‘Things’ are ‘affairs’: heaven and earth are things and their operation is an affair; sun and moon are things and their brilliance is an affair; water and fire are things and their blazing and being wet are affairs. Talking about men, [one can say that] lord and servant or father and son are things and that loyalty and filial piety are affairs. Affairs have no form. Things do have a form. Out of fear that [the people] would lapse into ‘emptiness and inactivity’ because affairs have no form, [the Daxue] through the use of the character wu (‘things’) made [the concept] real, and made [the people in this way] realize the principle (li).” (Daigaku genkai 2, ad gewu). Razan holds no brief for Kien, of course, but they were both knowledgeable Sinologists and will have understood wu in the same way.

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The first quotation is an acknowledged conundrum. Legge translates it as “[t]hat which is unfathomable in [the movement of] the inactive and active operations is [the presence of a] spiritual [power]” (Legge 1963: 357), and Puett, as “[w]hat yin and yang cannot measure is called shen” (Puett 2002: 191). Puett’s translation is the most straightforward rendition of the original Chinese, but it has its problems: yin and yang are neither measuring agencies nor units of measurement, and the definition would seem to imply that the divine is outside of yin and yang, which is unacceptable. Fortunately, Kien himself comments on the meaning of “unfathomable” and “no direction” in the discussions appended to this section. Here he defines “unfathomable” as “not being able to gauge their coming and going,” and “no direction” as “not knowing where they are.” He emphasizes that we do have a general knowledge of what the entities are in themselves; what is lacking is the knowledge of precise locations (Meichū 1788: 4:33b–34). Kien’s third quotation is from ZHU Xi’s commentary on the Doctrine of the Mean. In the original context, it should be interpreted as a description of the spirits gathering at the sacrificial ceremony. The Master said, ‘How thriving is the virtue of the spirits. You look and cannot see them; you listen and cannot hear them. They are the body of all things, and none can do without them. They make [us,] the people of the realm, purify ourselves and wear our festive robes in order to continue [the tradition of] the sacrificial rites. It is as if, overwhelmingly, they are above us, as if they are at our left and right. The ode says, “The deities arrive! You cannot calculate [their arrival]! How could you [do something that] disgusts them!”’ (Zhongyong ch.16).4

Kien sums up the gist of these quotations in the sentence, “All these quotations speak [of the divine] in a way as if there is an entity and it has no direction” (Meichū 1788: 4:33b–34). So, the divine is an entity that contains the subtle stirrings of movement and that, like its origin, the divine, has no fixed direction, i.e., its movements cannot be predicted. The entity is formed inside a sincere man, who has opened himself to the Way. The final two quotations of this paragraph are less frequently encountered. One is again taken from the Book of Changes and says: “[The sages] profitably used [divination] and applied it in all situations. They made its use available to all the people, [and the people] called [the use of divination] divine” (Ekikyō 1987–2008: 3.1517–1520). The other is from Mencius, who quotes Confucius as saying, “‘If you hold on to it, it will remain; if you let go of it, it will disappear. It goes in and out without direction.’ These words will refer to the heart?”5 The purport of the first quote is to link the words “divine” and “use” 用, which is important for Kien’s final conclusions. The second quotation again links shen with the heart; in Kien’s words, “it states straightforwardly that the functioning of the human heart is divine” (Meichū 1788: 4:33b–34). As it is often said that the movements of the heart

4

Zhongyong 16; reference to Shijing, Daya 256, 7. Cf. Plaks 2003: 33, and Karlgren 1950: 218. Quotation from Mengzi 6A.8. Kien’s quote is botched towards the end; the final phrases should read 出入無時、莫知其郷、惟心之謂與　instead of 出入旡方、其心之謂與. I have translated according to Kien’s text. 5

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cannot be predicted, and that it flies off into all directions at the slightest stimulus, this will be what Kien here means by “divine.” Kien contextualizes the preceding quotations by explaining that “between heaven and earth everything is completely filled with the two qi of yin and yang. When a shape (C: xing 形 J: kei) affects them, [qi] coagulates; when [qi] coagulates, without fail an entity appears, and within [that entity] a heart (C: xin 心 J: shin, or “feelings”) is born.” The entity (“thing”) that appears, and inside which a “heart” arises, is again defined as the “stirrings.” This time the word is qualified not with “subtle,” but with “divine.” This entity and the qi of heaven and earth interpenetrate and communicate with each other, and a creative process begins that continues until “the number of the shape (C: xing shu 形數 J: kei su) is exhausted; then the heart will be extinguished and the entity will disperse.” This shows, Kien concludes, that the divine stirrings of the human heart appear as a result of the coagulation of qi. In the third paragraph, Kien discusses individuality, which he sees as problematic, and argues that individual men merge in the broader category of the divine. The heart, he states, more or less automatically differentiates between self and others. Each human being has its own fixed shape, and what the heart sees inside this shape it regards as the “self,” and what it sees outside, as the “other.” This differentiation between self and other is a construct (C: ying 営 J: itonami) of the qi of the heart. This was problematic because these individualised entities often lose sight of the fact that they are all connected by (in, through) the divine and partake in that continuum. This is due to the fact that, in Kien’s words, “none of them is aware how their ‘things-stirrings’ come into existence and perish.” All these individualised entities are, however, surrounded by (“completely wrapped up in” (C: zhoubao 周包 J: shūhō), as Kien has it) by other entities (Meichū 1788: 4:31a–31b). It will be clear by now that Kien readily confuses the categories of material force, the divine, things, and stirrings. He may have felt that the fact that they are all metonymically related, gave him licence to do so, but it also helped him to get the message across that they are all parts and aspects of the whole. This “whole” surpasses ordinary human understanding (C: changzhi 常知 J: jōchi). Our understanding eventually reaches its limits, but “the subtlety of ‘things’ is so great that they have no final limit.” The fact that it has no final limits implies, so Kien seems to say, that there exists some sort of a “regulator” (C: zhuzai 主宰 J: shusai) who regulates the qi of the heart. Literally, Kien states that “the place where there is no final limit is the place where this regulator dwells” The regulator comes in two sizes, great and small. It is both “the divine of heaven and earth, correct and straight,” and “the essential and clear [qi] of the heart.” The regulator remains the same, however (“as a thing they are one”); great and small only refers to its transformations. All “things” that exist inside and outside of the human heart completely depend on the existence of this regulator. In other words, the understanding, the intellectual capacity of the human heart is not adequate to understand the “things” fully, and the “subtlety of things” is controlled by the regulator (Meichū 1788: 4:31a–31b). “This, “Kien concludes in the final paragraph (Meichū 1788: 4:31b),” is where the word ‘divine’ originates,” but the word “divine” is also applied to “the subtle functioning of the two qi,” to “the spirituality of mountains and rivers, and of

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the ancestors,” and to “the subtle stirrings of [a person’s] nature and passions.” He ends the section on “the divine” with a quote from QU Yuan 屈原 (ca. 340 – 278 BCE) which reads, “The single qi is extremely divine! It exists in [the quiet of] the night” (Chuci 1970: 357, 359). “I think he means to say,” writes Kien, “that the divine exists independently of a person’s thoughts and considerations. This, too, is an apt description of shen” (Meichū 1788: 4:31a–31b). This is one Neo-Confucian perspective on the concept “divine” (shen 神). Kien’s overarching argument is that the divine is present on the inside and the outside of man, connecting the two and acting on both levels as the prime moving agency; that it is, as such, an aspect of material force; and that it is larger than humanity, regulates humanity, but can only be partly comprehended by the human intelligence. Kien does not have recourse to the standard Neo-Confucian formulae of “traces of the creative power of heaven and earth,” or “the innate capacity of the two qi.” The level of individualisation is extremely low. Throughout this lemma, “the divine” is an adequate translation of shen; there is no need to consider shen as “deities.” In one of the appended discussions, Kien explains how it is possible that the divine “does not hurry, but is fast; does not go, but arrives.” The reason is that “the divine, i.e., the subtle, spiritual qi, is present everywhere between heaven and earth; when it is affected by something to which it can react, it coalesces and becomes a thing.” As an example, Kien takes the presence of the ancestral spirits at the sacrifice. Their presence is the result of such a reaction, which is triggered by a causal relation that causes the divine to coalesce on the spot. Under the influence of this stimulus, the qi turns into the entity that it was before, i.e., the ancestors, who in this sense can be said to have arrived” (Meichū 1788: 4:36b–37a). An entirely different, but equally Neo-Confucian perspective had been given some six decades earlier by OGYŪ Sorai 荻生徂徠 (1666–1728) in his Distinguishing Names (Benmei 辯 名). If we compare him with Kien, the first thing that strikes us about Sorai is his completely different style. Where Kien is bland and positive, Sorai is argumentative and critical. Kien weaves his own tale, judiciously inserting the quotations tradition required, and ignoring whatever he disagrees with. Kien probably shared Sorai’s opinion (section 9) that “to turn the spirits of the Book of Changes into the ‘spirituality of yin and yang’ and into the ‘traces of creative transformations,’ and to exclude the ghosts of men from the discussion,” was an incorrect interpretation of the Classics, but he does not add the exclamation, “That is a terrible mistake!” (Ogyū 1973: 128, 237). Kien does not mention it at all, leaving it to his readers to figure out why the Master might have decided to ignore these most common of Neo-Confucian definitions.6 In section 10, Sorai clarifies a few other things through criticizing ITō Jinsai 伊藤仁斎 (1627–1705). According to Sorai, all deities worshipped in the rituals of state that are specified in the Record of Rites (C: Liji 礼記 J: Raiki), and also all those entities that possess divine spirituality and can cause good and bad fortune, belong to the class of spirits. Sorai also asserts that wind, rain, frost, day, and night are not themselves spirits, but are the work of the deities (Ogyū 1973: 128, 237; 6

On the attitude of Kien versus Sorai, and on his way of arguing, see Boot 2006.

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Tucker 1996, 2006: 271–272; Kracht 1986: 308–309). In section 11, Sorai addresses the question whether the spirits exist. He introduces it in his usual pugnacious way, noting that “the reason why theories about the spirits are confused and never end is that some argue that they do exist, and some argue that they do not.” He settles the matter by an appeal to authority, stating that the spirits were established by the sages; consequently, anyone disbelieving their existence is guilty of disbelieving the sages, and will be capable of anything (Ogyū 1973: 128–129, 238; Tucker 1996, 2006: 272; Kracht 1986: 309). The following section is a long exegesis of a famous passage in the Book of Changes. Again the conclusion is that other scholars, including Jinsai, did not know what they were talking about, and that the Neo-Confucians were crypto-Buddhists. As the passage is “the best there is,” according to Sorai, I will quote it in full, as Sorai read it, and give the gist of Sorai’s comments. The passage reads, Looking up [FU Xi 伏羲] studied the signs of heaven, and looking down, he inspected the pattern of the earth. Because of this, he knew the precedents of light and dark. He investigated the beginning and went back to the end. Therefore he knew the explanation of death and life. The essence and the qi [together] become a thing; the roaming souls occasion transformations. That is why he knew the situation of the spirits (Ekikyō 1987–2008: 3.1415–1418).

Sorai’s fundamental criticism is that no one has realized that this passage was intended to praise the Book of Changes, and was not meant as a statement about the spirits. “The precedents of light and dark” actually were rites regulating the relations between humanity and the spirits, or rather, because the rites had not yet been invented (that would be the work of Yao and Shun), FU Xi invented the precedents7 of the rites that we need, as human beings, in order to deal with the dark realm of the spirits. “Investigating the beginning and going back to the end” refers to changes, which are a continuous cycle, without beginning or end. Its sequel also contains a reference to ritual, Sorai claims, for the word “explanation” (C: shuo 説 J: setsu) occurs in rituals as a technical term meaning the explanation of a rite. The rites to which the passage is referring are the rites of “life and death,” i.e., of “bright and dark,” i.e., the rites man employs to serve the ghosts, i.e., his deceased ancestors. The third pericope of the passage is again a reference to the same rituals because, according to Sorai, the “situation of the spirits” refers to what is asserted in the statement, “when they are worshipped, they gather together, and when they gather, they become visible.” On the other hand, when the spirits are not worshipped, they disappear. The phrase “the essence and the qi [together] become a thing”8 suggests that when these come together, it is as if there is something substantial. The phrase “the roaming souls occasion transformations” means that the qi of a roaming soul may become an evil spirit 厲, but if you build an altar for it, or a temple, it will be dignified and “act as if it is there.” So, sacrifice to them and they will “become a thing” (Ogyū 1973: 237–238; Tucker 1996, 2006: 272–275; Kracht 1986: 309–313). The word used is ko 故, and Sorai glosses it as kojitsu 故実, which means precedent for ceremonial behaviour. 8 “Essence and qi” 精氣 stand in for yin and yang respectively. 7

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Then Sorai asks himself, whether we have to assume that these spirits really are present at the sacrifice? In view of the preceding argument, this seems a strange question for Sorai to ask. After all, the claim that the spirits had substance, or became a thing when you sacrificed to them, was made by the sages. They made this claim in connection with the spirits, but they also made a similar claim in regard to the hexagrams, for the Book of Changes’ “Great Appendix” states, “the hexagram qian 乾 is the yang-thing, and the hexagram kun 坤 is the yin-thing” (Ekikyō 1987– 2008: 3.1632–1638). “All hexagrams,” Sorai continues, “are yin and yang, but the sages especially selected qian and kun to establish them as “things.” Like qian and kun, the spirits, too, were established by the sages “to be a rule for the black-haired people” (Raiki 1971–1979: 2.712–713), i.e., as a technique for teaching them. Because the spirits were “made” by the sages, it is in the Classics that you have to look for the meaning of the term. The fatal mistake the Neo-Confucian scholars made was “to look for spirits among the spirits,” instead of trying to get to know them from the Book of Changes and the Record of Rites. In doing so, Sorai concludes, they greatly overreached themselves (Ogyū 1973: 237–238; Tucker 1996, 2006: 272–275; Kracht 1986: 309–313). The following two sections (13–14) are much shorter. They are also the only two sections that are not critical in their approach. In the first one, Sorai explains the conundrum left over from the preceding section: how can it be that the spirits exist, but are still in some sense created by the sages? The reason is that the spirits, just like heaven and earth, do not have thoughts or the ambitions of their own. They are passive, so it fell on the sages to establish rites for them and a hierarchical order with them at the apex. The next section, too, tells about the relation of the sages to the spirits; this time, they seem to have used the spirits as a kind of stalking horse. “Surely,” Sorai says, “the sages must have had felicitous plans and stratagems [of their own], … but when they in fact implemented them, they said that these were the commands of the spirits.” Sorai himself does not seem to have thought of this arrangement as a ruse; he describes it as the laudable intention of the sages “to share the suffering of the people through good and bad,” and as “the extreme of humaneness (C: ren 仁 J: jin).” He also innocuously remarks that “If the spirits would be involved in their plans, [the result would be] good fortune, advantageous to all.” Sorai characterizes this as “the height of wisdom” (Ogyū 1973: 238–239; Tucker 1996, 2006: 275–276; Kracht 1986: 313–314). One may have one’s doubts regarding these characterizations, but what clearly emerges from these three sections (12–14) is that between the spirits and humanity stand the sages. Sorai seems to be equivocating at this point, but on the whole, it seems evident that he acknowledges the actual existence of the spirits, but denies that it is possible to know them directly. They are collectively, so to say, a Ding an sich that we can know only through the apparatus created by the sages, i.e., the Classics and ritual. The final two sections (15–16) are again constructed around debunking Jinsai. The issue is, whether the sages were completely cynical in their manipulation of the spirits (15) and of divination (16). Sorai claims that Jinsai said they were, and is incensed. Sorai thus asserts that “the spirits have been set up by the early kings.

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… Jinsai’s view seems to be that the holy kings of the three dynasties in their hearts did not revere the spirits, but because the people were keen on them, followed [the people] for the time being.” He qualifies this attitude as “the words of someone who does not know the Way,” and exclaims that “if it really were as he said, the holy kings would not have had any hold at all on the people. How could the Way of the sages be as feeble as this?” (Ogyū 1973: 132–133, 239; Tucker 1996, 2006: 277; Kracht 1986: 314–315). According to Sorai, Jinsai’s criticism of divination was that one should act according to duty and righteousness, and not from considerations of advantage or disadvantage. Sorai objects by explaining how Jinsai forgets that divination is a means to transmit the words (sic) of the spirits. No spirits, no divination. Jinsai is only talking about himself, and about what he should do. He is like all these later Confucians, who forget that the Way of the former kings and of Confucius was intended to give peace to the people, and instead look [for the Way] inside themselves. The sages were interested primarily in practising the Way and in bestowing it on the people. One thing we know about the people is that their self-confidence will wilt when confronted with a heaven that is inscrutable and beyond understanding. This cannot be helped; it is human sentiment. This, however, is precisely the reason why divination and prayer have always existed. The sages fully knew human nature and used this knowledge to lead the people. “What they set up was meant to be the Way [for the people]. How could they have set it up merely for themselves?” (Ogyū 1973: 239–240; Tucker 1996, 2006: 278–279; Kracht 1986: 316–317). When we compare Kien and Sorai, it is evident that they are miles apart, and yet alike in that neither agreed with orthodox Neo-Confucianism. Sorai goes out of his way to explain why ZHU Xi and other orthodox thinkers were wrong, and Kien passes them by in complete silence, but that is a matter of style. Kien disliked controversy. It is also evident that Kien went farthest along the path of denying religion and spirits. After he is done with it, shen (he never uses the word gui, and it only occurs in one of the quotations) has become one of the “concrete, substantive aspects of the Way;” it is “the functioning of the Way,” as righteousness is its division, goodness, its body, and sincerity, its perfection (Meichū 1788: 4:38b). He evinces not the slightest interest in rites of sacrifice in this context. Sorai does not go that far. His main concern is to foreground the sages. Their activities occupy centre stage, and what we know about the spirits we know through the sages. He does not, however, reduce them to something as purely conceptual as a “function.” The spirits exist objectively, as the object of divination and the rites.

3.3

ARAI Hakuseki’s “On Spirits” (Kishin ron)

ARAI Hakuseki’s (1657–1725) Kishin ron is worthy of close analysis because Hakuseki was an intelligent, mainstream, but independently minded Confucian thinker. As his writings “On spirits” (Kishin ron) and “Reflections on Sacrifices” (Saishi kō 祭祀考) show, he also took a positive interest in theological matters.

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It should be mentioned at this point that the ascription of these two texts to Hakuseki is based on tradition only. Neither text is dated, and no autographs are extant. Kishin ron was printed in 1800 (Kansei 12), long after its author’s death. The editor of this printed edition complains in his preface that he did not have an autograph or an authorized copy and therefore had to put his text together on the basis of flawed manuscripts.9 Saishi kō was copied in the 1820s or 1830s from a clean copy in the private possession of a bakufu vassal (Arai 1907b: 488); no extant manuscripts are listed. Internal evidence, i.e., the reference to the second failure of the main line of the Tokugawa to deliver an heir, indicates that it was composed after the accession of Yoshimune (1716) (Arai 1907b: 487b). On the other hand, with not evidence pointing to any other author, there is little point in going against tradition and ascribing to texts to “person(s) unknown.” I will, therefore, continue to treat the texts as written by Hakuseki.10 In order to understand the structure, Hakuseki’s “On Spirits” should be divided into a preface and four parts.11 The preface combines two, strictly speaking incompatible thoughts (Arai 1975a, b: 146–147). It begins with a statement to the effect that it is difficult to talk about the spirits, to inquire about the spirits, to believe in the spirits, and to know about the spirits. It would have been a short essay, this way, had not Hakuseki taken heart from the few positive pronouncements regarding the spirits that the Classics contain, and from ZHU Xi, who said: “The matters of the spirits are explained by the sages and worthies and are extremely clear. Take the ritual handbooks, read them carefully, and you will see” (Arai 1975a, b: 147).12 The combined message is that the venture will be “not impossible, but very, very difficult.” In the first part of the text, Hakuseki discusses official religion: observances, rituals, beliefs, and deities for which the state should assume responsibility. He also introduces standard Neo-Confucian theology as formulated in ZHU Xi’s commentary of the Zhongyong section 16, i.e., the twofold division, in which spirits (C: shen 神 J: shin) and ghosts (C: gui 鬼 J: ki) are described in terms of contracting and expanding qi 氣. Shen refers to the innate capacity (C: liang neng 良能 J: ryōnō) of yang to expand subtly (C: miao 妙 J: myō), and gui, to the innate capacity of yin to contract subtly, or, alternatively, “gui is the spirituality (C: ling 霊 J: rei) of yin, and shen is the spirituality of yang” (Arai 1975a, b: 147). Parallel to this twofold division, Hakuseki also introduces a threefold division, based on a passage in the Rites of the Zhou (C: Zhou li 周禮 J: Shu rei) that says “in heaven, one calls them shen, on earth, qi 祇, and in people, gui” (Zhou li 1976: 9

In view of the lack of references to Christianity, Tomoeda, always assuming that the text was by Hakuseki, puts the terminus ante quem before 1709, which is the year in which Hakuseki had his interviews with Sidotti (NST 35: 584). Cf. Kracht 1986: 155–156. 10 An earlier analysis of the text, which in many respects parallels mine, is Nakai (1965), recently republished. 11 ARAI Hakuseki zenshū traditionally divides the text into four “collections” 集, which are labelled 元亨利貞. This division does not coincide with the division that TOMOEDA Ryūtarō proposes in his kaidai (NST 35: 583) and which I follow here. 12 See Zhuzi yulei 3 or Xingli daquan 28.

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1). Hakuseki defines shen as the pure and bright (C: qingming 清明 J: seimei) part of the material force of heaven, which forever expands; instances are the sun, the moon, and the stars. Qi means “to show, to be visible,” and the presence of the qi is shown in the sweep of the mountains, the flow of the rivers, and the growth of the grasses and trees. Gui means “to return” (C: gui 歸 J: ki); what returns, are the two souls of man, the spiritual (hun 魂 J: kon) and the corporeal (bo 魄 J: haku), the first of which returns to heaven, and the second, to earth (Arai 1975a, b: 147–148). When we combine the twofold and the threefold division, we get a categorization of processes that can be observed in the phenomena of nature. They are divided into the two modes of contraction and expansion, and are distributed over three distinct realms. In the realm of heaven, only the mode of expansion is represented; in the other two realms, both modes are represented. At this point in the argument, it looks as if Hakuseki has effectively rid himself of his subject, for the word “god” now denotes aspects of processes, and no gods are left who have any existence or substance or individuality of their own. I think that this conclusion is mistaken, for it overlooks the quite obvious fact that in the Chinese view everything is a temporary congeries of qi. With his definitions, which Hakuseki espoused, ZHU Xi did not aim to define the spirits out off existence, but to assign them their own niche within the cosmos. The spirits exist, but in final analysis all those luminous deities and dreaded ghosts are qi – part of the same, forever revolving, changing, and self-transforming qi continuum of which humanity, too, is a part. One reason why Hakuseki could not deny the existence of the spirits was the evidence in front of his eyes – evidence that he introduces at length later on in his essay. Another reason was, in an argument similar to Sorai’s, that the ancient kings had prescribed rites of worship for “the shen of heaven, the qi of earth, and the gui of men,” and they would not have done that if the spirits had not existed. This declaration of faith is followed by a detailed description of the rites and institutions of the sages. It is the classic Chinese scheme, taken from the Record of the Rites (C: Liji 礼記 J: Raiki), that Hakuseki apparently regarded as paradigmatic, and as applicable in Japan, too (Arai 1975a, b: 148–149). Hakuseki’s next question concerns how we humans fit into the scheme. His answer is based on two scriptural passages well-known in this connection. One is a dialogue of Confucius with his disciple ZAI Wo 宰我, recorded in the chapter, “The Meaning of the Sacrifices” (C: Jiyi 祭義 J: Saigi), of the Record of the Rites, and the other consists of the words of Zichan 子⭒ as recorded in the Spring and Autumn Annals (C: Chunqiu 春秋 J: Shunjū) (Arai 1975a, b: 149). The Chunqiu passage reads, “When a human being comes into existence, the first transformation is called bo 魄 (J: haku); after the bo has come into existence, the yang [-element that goes into the making of a human being] is called hun 魂 (J: kon)” (Shunjū Saden 1971– 1981: 3.1324–1326). Hakuseki explains this so-called “creation through transformation” (C: hua sheng 化生 J: kasei) by relating that “the beginning of [the process of] birth is that a little bit of the qi of the father and mother is obtained, fecundates, and forms a foetus. That means that the bo-soul has been formed. … When the corporeal soul (bo 魄 J: haku) has reached a certain mass, it sometimes moves. Movement is yang. This is called the spiritual soul (hun 魂 J: kon).” Next, Hakuseki

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quotes ZHOU Dunyi 周敦頤 (1017–1073) who remarked that “when a shape is born, the divine manifests intelligence (C: fa zhi 發知 J: chi o hassu).” “Consciousness” (C: zhi jue 知覺 J: chikaku), Hakuseki concludes, “therefore belongs to the spiritual soul (hun 魂 J: kon), and the bodily form (C: xingti 形體 J: keitai) belongs to the corporeal soul (bo 魄 J: haku)” (Arai 1975a, b: 149–151). The dialogue with Zai Wo begins with a question of the latter: “I have heard the terms gui and shen, but I do not know to what they refer.” Hakuseki quotes, paraphrases, and explains the answer, in which Confucius combines qi with the divine and the essential, and the corporeal soul with ghosts, opposes the two (as yang against yin, spiritual soul against corporeal soul), and explains that after death the first will rise up, and the second will return to the earth, while the flesh and bones will disintegrate. Hakuseki then ends on the same triumphant note as the Record of Rites. “Here the ancient sages systematized the terms and clearly named ghost and divine” (Raiki 1971–1979: 2.712–713; Arai 1975a, b: 151). The next problem is the ontological status of the two souls, and the implications of this for veneration of the ancestors. The souls consist of qi, and all qi will eventually disperse. So, how long after death do the souls survive as “contactable” entities? And how is it possible that we can communicate with our ancestors? In the first instance, Hakuseki merely says that, “when their descendants sacrifice to them, [the spirits] come and receive [the sacrifices] in some way (ika ni shite wa).” He is confident of this because otherwise the ancient kings would not have instituted these rites (Arai 1975a, b: 149). The second time that this problem comes up for discussion, Hakuseki resorts to the theory that descendants have the same qi as their ancestors; hence, they must influence each other. This solution is fraught with problems, however, for identity of qi is contrary to the overall theory, and it is difficult to imagine how it can be maintained over time.13 Regarding the survival of the souls, Hakuseki explains that there are differences in degree. The more powerful or the richer one has been, the stronger one’s spiritual soul or, respectively, one’s corporeal soul will be. The operative principle is, in the words of Zichan, “the amount of the essence 精 of things one has consumed.” Noble persons have a strong spiritual soul due to their drive and vigour, while the strong corporeal soul that rich people have is due to their better nourishment (Arai 1975a, b: 153). The son of heaven is the most powerful person, so he consumes the largest quantity of “essence.” His divine spirituality (shinrei 神霊) will, therefore, go to heaven and sit next to Shangdi 上帝 for seven generations of his descendants. Feudal lords consume less “essence,” so they need fewer than seven ancestral temples. Once an ancestor’s spirit has been exhausted, it will be removed from the temple (Arai 1975a, b: 153–154). Hakuseki’s explanation of the mechanism that makes it possible to contact one’s own, and no one else’s ancestral spirits is, that their qi bears some sort of an imprint that relates to the qi of the descendants. This link exists even after the souls have completely disintegrated and returned to the general qi. Hakuseki uses a medical 13 The same point is raised in Nakai 1965: 15 (2012: Vol. 4, 1656): “He cannot, however, do so without contradicting his definition of the nature of ki.”

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metaphor to explain this. He notes that all medicines have different properties so that when you drink a mixture of several different medicines, each will fulfil its proper function: “What should go to the heart, goes to the heart. What should go to the liver, goes to the liver,” etc. Medicine and organ react to each other kind by kind, unfailingly, and it is the same with the qi of ancestors and their descendants (Arai 1975a, b: 152–153). With this “logic of imprinted qi,” i.e., qi that retains a configuration that derives from the shape it once was, Hakuseki solves two traditional cases. The first one is the scriptural dictum “that the spirits do not accept sacrifices from those who belong to a different family, and that one does not sacrifice to gods who are not of one’s own lineage” (Shunjū Saden 1971–1981: 1.302–303). Hakuseki’s solution is that “the veins through which their qi communicates (C: qimai 氣脈 J: kimyaku) are different so that it is illogical that they should react to, and influence each other.” The other dictum Hakuseki tackles states that “there is no greater lack of filiality than to die without an heir.” The reason is, of course, that someone from a different family cannot establish a rapport with the ancestral spirits of the family into which he has been adopted, and so cannot carry out the ancestral sacrifices (Arai 1975a, b: 157). This brings Hakuseki to the category of vengeful ghosts (C: li 厲 J: rei). These he defines as the ghosts of people who have died violent deaths and are filled with resentment. Their qi does not disperse, and their souls become spectres, vengeful spirits, or pestilent demons. The reason why their resentment endures is that they have no descendants who sacrifice to them. The ancient kings instituted rituals to deal with them, the aim of which was to give these spirits “a place to return to.” Hakuseki discusses the archetypical case of the vengeful ghost of Boyou 伯有. In order to lay it to rest, Zichan had Boyou’s son appointed a “grandee” (C: dafu 大夫 J: taifu). As a taifu, he was entitled to an ancestral temple to which his father’s spirit could return (Shunjū Saden 1971–1981: 3.1324–1326; Arai 1975a, b: 158–159). On this note, Hakuseki ends the “official” part of the book, i.e., the part of religion for the execution of which the state should assume responsibility. In the remainder of “On Spirits,” Hakuseki discusses three related subjects: demons and possession, licentious shrines, and Buddhism. He begins his demonology with a dictum of TAN Qiao,14 a Daoist alchemist of the Southern Tang. The dictum states, “One is not spiritual when awake, but one is, in one’s dreams. Those who are alive are not spiritual, but those who have died, are.” This proposition allows Hakuseki to bring together under the same heading the vengeful spirits he has already discussed and the projections and cases of possession he is about to discuss. Just as the spirits of dead people can become vengeful spirits (rei o nasu), the spirit of living people can leave their form and become spectres (yō 妖 o nasu). The similarity lies in the fact that in both cases the spirits have detached themselves from their forms, in the first case permanently, in the second, temporarily. Evidently, it is possible for spirits to leave the body and return to it; the body is like a house (Arai 1975a, b: 159). 14 Biography in Xu xian zhuan 續仙傳. Tan’s writings are collected in Hua shu 化書 (6 fascicles). Hakuseki’s quotation is from the first fascicle of that work.

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In “On Spirits” Hakuseki accepts that spectres exist. His theory is that they are caused by foolish men and women who, out of love or jealousy, pray to the gods and Buddha’s, utter curses, and so appear to the objects of their love or hatred. Such spectres can be explained as the result of the coagulation of essence under the pressure of deep emotions, which is then projected outside. Hakuseki distinguishes these cases of projection from cases of possession, i.e., cases of living people being possessed by spirits. In the latter case, the fault lies with the affected themselves. “If they had not had a flaw in their heart, the possession would never have occurred” (Shunjū Saden 1971–1981: 1.193–195; Arai 1975a, b: 160). As Hakuseki explains, through praying, cursing, or magical rites, or just through their own fear, passion, or grief they have made themselves liable to detection by the freely floating spirits (Arai 1975a, b: 160–161). Because the spirits need a human flaw to manifest themselves, possession predominantly occurs with the ill or elderly, whose qi has weakened. They possess people whose corporeal souls and spiritual souls are feeble, such as servants, young children, or those who are ill and about to die. Straight, healthy persons have nothing to fear (Arai 1975a, b: 161–162). Taking possession of a human being allows the ghost to be effective (“spiritual”), even in broad daylight, for of themselves, ghosts “are spiritual only in the dark, not in the light”. Once they have taken over someone’s body, they not only can speak, but also compose poetry, write, and whatever else (Arai 1975a, b: 161). Stories Hakuseki tells show, however, that the living, too, can take possession of a living being, and that roaming spiritual souls (C: bo 魄 J: haku) do not necessarily need to take possession of a living body in order to make themselves heard (Arai 1975a, b: 162–163). On one point Hakuseki is adamant: it is impossible for a spirit of a dead man to take possession of another man or animal and be reborn as himself. This was what the Buddhists claimed, with their dogma of metempsychosis, but it went against the Confucian dogma that each individual is a fresh congeries of the qi of heaven and earth, which a person receives through his parents. When someone dies, he becomes a spirit (gui), but this spirit cannot become a person again; that would be the same individual perpetuating himself (Arai 1975a, b: 163). Tales of reincarnation (Hakuseki quotes a few from the histories) should not be believed. They are hagiographic, and if they really occurred, they must be instances of possession, not of reincarnation (Arai 1975a, b: 164–165). Next to possession you have imprinting, or beings assuming the shape of other beings. Hakuseki acknowledges the phenomenon, and explains that it happens with beings whose nature is spiritual and who are, therefore, easily influenced by things they come into contact with. As humans are the most spiritual of all beings, they are all the more susceptible to such imprinting. This is why the sages instituted special rules for pregnant women. In order not to expose the foetus to lewd influences, they should not look at lewd colours, nor listen to lewd music. Neither should they eat hare or ginger, for ginger would give the child too many fingers, and eating hare would cause it to be born without lips. Who would want their children’s qi to be imprinted in such ways (Arai 1975a, b: 165–166)?

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These cases of imprinting should be distinguished from the type of transformations that were technically known as “strange happenings” (C: guai 怪 J: kai). These refer to stories of women turning into men, of men giving birth, or of men changing into tigers, wolves, turtles, or snakes. Hakuseki does not doubt they occurred. He explains them as the result of clashes between yin and yang, says they often presaged the ruin of a state, and cites a number of examples (Arai 1975a, b: 166–167). As Hakuseki explains it, the rationale of these strange happenings is that people turn into what their heart has already become. Licentious men turn into women, violent men turn into tigers and wolves, etc. When the heart has changed, it changes the qi, and the qi changes the form. Proof that one’s heart or feelings can influence one’s qi is, for instance, the fact that your turn hot when you are angry, and cold when you are afraid, without fire or ice being present. It happens, as Mencius said, because you focus your mind (Arai 1975a, b: 167–168). In practice, the main problem is determining the appropriate criterion by which you decide whether something is a “strange happening” or an ordinary transformation, for everyone can see that things continually change into something else, e.g., cicadas into dung beetles and larvae into mosquitoes. Actually, that seems to be the criterion. People believe what they see with their own eyes, and the difference between ordinary transformations and “strange happenings” thus becomes a matter of frequency of occurrence, not one of the normal versus the anomalous or miraculous (Kracht 1986: 184). In other words, Hakuseki reduces the anomalies to things that are rare, but inherently possible. The next chapter, according to Tomoeda’s division of the text, treats the shrines where all these ghosts, demons, and sinister gods are worshipped. Often the gods worshipped in these shrines take the form of animals – vixen (komi), or giant snakes (orochi 大蛇). Hakuseki has little patience with this. Deities who appear as animals should be treated as animals. The worship of fox spirits and poisonous snakes is licentious worship (C: yinsi 淫祀 J: inshi), and forbidden by the state. A second category of licentious worship is sacrifice to deities to whom you are not entitled to make a sacrifice, either because such worship is above your station or because you have no personal relation with the deity (Arai 1975a, b: 173–174). The problem is that such illicit sacrifice and prayer demonstrably work. How is that to be explained? In Hakuseki’s understanding, this is the effect of the concentrated essence and spirituality (C: jingling 精霊 J: seirei) of the worshippers (Arai 1975a, b: 174–175). This means that if you want to destroy these licentious shrines, you first have to convince the people that they are really of no use. Otherwise, because they derive their potency from the belief of the faithful, people will continue to pray there with every flood, drought, or pestilence, just like before. The one who made this observation was no less an authority than ZHU Xi, who relates the following anecdote. In a certain village people had made a huge Buddha statue of earth. Someone lopped off the head. The whole population gathered around and cried, and suddenly relics (C: shali 砂利 J: jari) started popping out of the neck of the statue. Earth could not have brought forth these things, ZHU Xi said. It was the hearts (C: xin 心 J: shin) of the people that made this happen (Arai 1975a, b: 175–176).

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The question Hakuseki addresses in the final chapter of “On Spirits” is whether Buddhism should be regarded as correct or as licentious worship. Though Hakuseki does not mention it specifically, the reason for posing the question is obvious. In Edo Japan, Buddhism was for practical purposes the state religion, sponsored lavishly by the military establishment and the imperial court. Could this situation be condoned? As a Confucian, Hakuseki thought Buddhism should be abolished, but a frontal assault was inadvisable. In this part of “On Spirits,” he experiments with a number of indirect strategies to undermine Buddhism. To begin with, Hakuseki insists that the Buddha was an incarnation (C: huaren 化人 J: kenin) who came from the West, and that the religion he founded was fundamentally different from Shintō. Shintō was autochthonous. Ever since Amaterasu’s descendants first ruled Japan, there had been lists of recognized Shintō shrines (shiten 祀典), but not so for Buddhist temples. This would seem to imply that deities of other countries should not be worshipped, and it justified, e.g., the existing prohibition of monks and nuns from entering the Ise Shrine. There was a snag, however. Hakuseki wanted foreigners like Confucius and the other sages and worthies to be worshipped in Japan, so the mere fact that Buddhism was foreign was an insufficient ground to forbid monks and nuns to serve the Buddha. Hakuseki therefore tested a second argument, which is that the real problem is that laymen (yo no tsune no hito) serve the Buddha, and these laymen seem mostly interested in performing rites of prayer in order to obtain specific benefits (Arai 1975a, b: 176). To solve these problems Hakuseki appeals to two scriptural pronouncements from the Analects. The first (2/24) states that “to worship a ghost who is not your own, is flattery. One who sees his duty but does not perform it, has no courage.” The other (6/22) states, “perform your duty towards the people; revere the spirits and stay aloof of them.” These two, in combination, should put an end to “this superstition” (madoi), as he calls it, of Buddhism. Hakuseki use these quotes to clinch the following deductive arguments: (1) Why does someone follow the Buddha? Because he knows that his behaviour is bad and he wants to avoid punishment. “Bad behaviour” means that he does not fulfil his duty in the service of the people as he should. If he knows that he is behaving badly and does not rectify his behaviour, he is lacking in courage. (2) When he serves the Buddha, rather than the spirits of his own ancestors, because he wants to avoid rebirth and enjoy the pleasures of paradise, then he is unfilial towards his parents and resembles the person who tries to establish his house by flattering the powerful. However, no lord will trust an unfilial son and, if the Buddha’s divinity has any spirituality at all, flattering him should get you nowhere (Arai 1975a, b: 176–177). Ergo, the worship of the Buddha involves you in contradictions, and serves no purpose. The argument is directed at the samurai, who are only one part of the lay population (yo no tsune no hito), but in their case, the argument is pertinent. It is not conclusive, for in order to agree with Hakuseki, one would have to accept that “bad behaviour” is the same as “not fulfilling one’s duty towards the people,” and that flattering the powerful is incompatible with worshipping one’s ancestors. Neither is necessarily true, though persuasive in a samurai context. The immediate appeal of such propositions

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as “you know your duty, so do it; otherwise you will be a coward,” or “no lord will trust an unfilial vassal,” must have been considerable. The next question Hakuseki addresses is “if it is not the Buddha who assures our happiness, what agency, then, determines our fortune?” The question is of importance in the context of “On Spirits,” because it was commonly assumed that the main occupation of the spirits is to dispense good and bad fortune. Hakuseki, however, ignores the spirits. To the Buddhist notion of karma, i.e., that your fortune is the result of your own behaviour during previous lives, he opposes the ancient Chinese idea that your personal fortune is determined by the good or bad behaviour of your ancestors. The scriptural source on which he bases his argument is the Book of Changes, which states, “A house where goodness has accumulated has an excess of joy, and a house where evil has accumulated has an excess of disasters” (Ekikyō 1987–2008: 1.175–179). There is an area of overlap between this Confucian belief and the notion of karma, for Confucians and Buddhists agree that good and bad fortune are bestowed automatically, without any conscious intervention by anything or anybody, on the good and the licentious respectively. It is “a spontaneous principle of heaven” (ten no onozukara naru kotowari), as Hakuseki phrases it. The difference lies in the place where the good and the bad fortune are bestowed. In the Confucian case, it is the extended family in its consecutive generations, and in the case of the Buddhists, in a single person in his successive incarnations (Arai 1975a, b: 177–178). In connection with the Confucian theory Hakuseki asks himself the questions, why the changes in a family’s fortune are so incremental, and how it happens that “small men” sometimes prosper. In this context, he utters two remarkable propositions. The first one is that “those who from ancient times have raised their house and raised the state have had many loyal, reliable persons among their ancestors. I have not yet heard that the descendants of [such] fine people degenerated.” The second one is its pendant. “In which reign did it happen that the descendants of those inferior people continue to flourish?” (Arai 1975a, b: 178–179). Both propositions are statements of faith – of Hakuseki’s faith in the theory. Their intrinsic appeal to a Japanese readership must have been great, but even Hakuseki’s readers should have been able to think of quite a number of exceptions, and to spot the danger in the claim that the longevity of a family would vouch for its moral fibre, i.e., that one would be arguing back from the observable effect to a possible cause. Hakuseki also explains why the Buddha had to devise his theory of karma. This was because of the nature of the Indians. They were a cruel race, completely egoistical, and did not know love between parents and children. They did believe in ghosts, however, and were afraid of things they could not see and hear. In other words, the Buddha was following the Indians’ own customs in order to lead them. Although his theories were mistaken, his intentions were benevolent (Arai 1975a, b: 179). Does this make his theories acceptable? No. Hakuseki makes short shift with the notion of “expedient means” (upaya, J: hōben 方便). Intentions may be good, but it is a barbarian doctrine. The theory ignores human relations. To try to do good from egoistical emotions will only result in unending evils. Then follows the peroration: Buddhists are like people who, instead of eating sparingly and keeping regular

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hours, as the sages prescribed, only take medicines and poison themselves. They do this because they cannot stand an ordinary life. The sages taught us to follow an ordinary diet, to wear ordinary clothes, to restrict ourselves to the ordinary virtues of filial and brotherly piety, loyalty, and trust. The sage Confucius always spoke of the Odes, the Documents, and the importance of practising the rites, but he never talked about strange happenings, feats of strength disorder, and the divine (Arai 1975a, b: 179–181). This is a worthy conclusion, though at odds with most of the preceding text. This is symptomatic of “On Spirits” as a whole. It has a loose, essay-like structure; there are links as Hakuseki passes from one theme to the other, but overall consistency is lacking. Hakuseki’s attitude is typical of the early-modern intellectual. He gets his facts from books, preferably Chinese books, which are all authoritative to a greater or lesser degree. There is only one instance of him reporting what he has heard – from an unidentified acquaintance (Arai 1975a, b: 155–156). He is critical, for instance when he refuses to accept “strange happenings” as miracles. He does not accept the possible occurrence of exceptions to the laws of nature, or as he would phrase it, the “innate logic of things” (C: daoli 道理 J: dōri), which is close to common sense. The problem is that he invents his laws of nature as he goes along, and as the case requires. The text is fairly comprehensive. It treats both the official and the unofficial religion, i.e., religious observances for the maintenance of which the state is responsible and the “licentious” practices that the state should keep an eye on, and squash if necessary. The first part, though encyclopaedic in tone, holds up classic Chinese ritual as paradigmatic, and is exhortatory in this way. In the second part, the author does not deny the reality of the phenomena he describes, but he slyly undermines it by playing down their importance, for instance, where he explains the efficacy of certain licentious shrines as the result of mass psychology, or reduces Buddhism to the dogma of karma. Throughout, he dampens religious enthusiasm and plugs Confucian ideas where he can. The bias of the book is anti-Buddhist. The last chapter alone is sufficient to show that. Its message is that Buddhism is not a religion fit to be sponsored by the state. It is foreign; it gives the wrong signals to its adherents; it undermines family values, and is inherently barbarian. The fact that, in the earlier chapters, whenever Buddhist monks are mentioned, they appear as thaumaturgs, does not contribute, either, towards raising this religion in the estimation of the reader. “On Spirits” could most suitably be read as an anti-Buddhist tract, but modern Japanese scholarship is of another opinion. In two recent articles,15 “On Spirits” is read through the prism of Hakuseki’s other writing on the spirits, “Reflections on Sacrifices” (Saishi kō 祭祀考). “Reflections on Sacrifices” begins with a description of the official religion on the basis of the Records of the Rites (C: Liji 礼記 J: Raiki), and is in this respect comparable to the first chapter of “On Spirits” (Arai 1907b: 482a–483a). Quickly, however, Hakuseki’s attention turns to the vengeful

15

Kanno 2003; Ōkawa 2004.

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ghosts, defined as ancestral spirits to whom no sacrifice is offered. Hakuseki cites again the example of Boyou of Zheng and his posthumous reign of terror (see above), and then continues: Even humble men and women who have died a violent death and are not properly cared for, can turn into vengeful spirits. The Chinese government has taken its responsibility, as the recent example of the Ming shows, and erected altars (C: litan 厲壇 J: reidan) throughout the country to sacrifice to the uncared-for ghosts, even of the humblest people. Korea followed the Ming’s example (Arai 1907b: 483a–484b; cf. Walraven 1993). The vengeful ghosts are responsible for fires and epidemic diseases. What gives the vengeful ghosts a chance to work their havoc is lack of harmony in the qi of heaven and earth, which in turn is caused by the lack of harmony in the qi of the people. The way to make the qi of the people harmonious is, as the chapter, “Records of Music” (Yueji 樂記) of the Record of the Rites preaches, through rites and music, and sacrifices. In this world, with rites and music, you transform the people, and in the nether world, with sacrifices, you obtain the cooperation of the spirits (Arai 1907b: 484b–485a). The Japanese ritual system as instituted and controlled by the imperial court was in principle sufficient to handle these needs, but all in all Hakuseki sees too little evidence of an effort made by the government to placate the vengeful ghosts, especially under the Kamakura and Muromachi shogunates. When something was done about them, it was done through Buddhist rites, but Buddhist rites are insufficient, Hakuseki concludes from the historical record (Arai 1907b: 485b–486b). Hakuseki then moves to the invasion of Kai by ODA Nobunaga. He points out that at that occasion Nobunaga murdered all members of the house of Takeda, the former daimyō of Kai, and even destroyed their graves. As a result, Nobunaga was killed himself, not 100 days later. Hakuseki contrasts this with the behaviour of the founder of the present regime, TOKUGAWA Ieyasu. When Ieyasu received the province, he built a temple to placate the lost spirits (C: wang gui 亡鬼 J: bōki) of the Takeda. The same he did for the people killed after the siege of Gifu. Perhaps he did this more often, but even on the basis of these two recorded instances, Ieyasu is far superior to Nobunaga (Arai 1907b: 486b–487a). In view of his record, Hakuseki supposes that Ieyasu had planned to introduce Chinese rites to placate the vengeful ghosts after he had unified the empire, but died too early to do so. Actually, his untimely death may have been due to the accumulated resentment of the vengeful ghosts (Arai 1907b: 487a). They were numerous, for the ghosts of the Christian martyrs added their weight to the ghosts of the Sengoku Period. The problem was not just the number of the executed Christians, which Hakuseki puts at 200,000, but the fact that complete families were exterminated, leaving no one to care for the dead. Moreover, the Christians were stubborn, and completely convinced of their own beliefs. Already at the time, knowledgeable persons, e.g., the GUDō Tōshoku 愚堂東寔 (1577–1661) of the Myōshinji, pointed out that such ghosts would not dissolve, but would surely cause disasters – fires, for instance. Hakuseki connects this prediction with the fires that had become frequent in Edo ever since the disastrous fire of Meireki 3 (1657), when over 100,000 people were killed. Another anomaly that might be explained by these vengeful spirits is the lack of heirs in the main line of the Tokugawa family. In view of Ieyasu’s merits, which are not less than those

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of the Chinese kings Tang and Wu, one would have expected the main line to continue for 100 generations, but it has already failed twice (Arai 1907b: 487). For Hakuseki, it is evident that yin and yang, heaven and earth are disharmonious. The way to solve this is rites and music, which were instituted by the former kings not just to teach and transform the people, but also to put heaven and earth in their correct positions and harmonize the qi of yin and yang. Hakuseki therefore strongly advises the authorities to institute proper rites and music in this world, and to institute sacrifices for the spirits in the nether world. Then the House Tokugawa might be blessed with many children (Arai 1907b: 487b). “Reflections on Sacrifices” is a straightforward argument for the institution of Chinese rites in order to do something about two concrete problems: the fires in Edo, and the lack of heirs in the Tokugawa family. The rest is background information: What are vengeful ghosts? What can one do about them? What has been Japan’s track record to date? Such a structure is completely lacking in “On Spirits.” Neither does that text contain any references to the persecution of Christianity or to the dynastic problems of the Tokugawa. I therefore cannot agree with the suggestion of Kanno and Ōkawa, that Hakuseki’s incentive for writing “On Spirits” and “Reflections on Sacrifices” was identical, and that the first should be read through the prism of the second (Kanno 2003: 20–25; Ōkawa 2004: 43–45).

3.4

Confrontation with Shintō: HAYASHI Razan

The moment one tries to discuss Japanese Shintō deities in terms of Neo-Confucian dogmatics, problems arise. On the one hand, there are such obvious controversial issues as “foreign” versus “indigenous,” and the relative priority of the two. On the other hand, Japanese deities were somewhat “ordinary” gods, each with his of her own myths, shrines, shrine legends, duties and areas of competence, and rites of worship. They had an individuality and identity of their own. Many had human descendants, but they were not deified humans. They presided over, but were not identified with, forces of nature. In other words, there is a large gap between the Shintō gods and the Chinese spirits as presented in Neo-Confucian discourse. Moreover, Shintō had experienced its own theological development since the seventh century, both under the influence of Buddhism and of Daoist and Confucian lore, giving rise to “Dual Shintō” (Ryōbu Shintō 両部神道), Watarai Shintō 渡会神 道, and Yoshida Shintō 吉田神道. The whole had reached a considerable level of sophistication. Anyone who would attempt to integrate Confucianism and Shintō would have a lot of rethinking and reinterpreting to do. The first such scholar was HAYASHI Razan, one of whose abiding interests was Shintō. He even developed his own brand of Shintō, called “Principle Present in the Heart Shintō” (Ritō shinchi Shintō 理當心地神道), though it seems to have been a paper exercise that was never upgraded into ritual practice. His representative writings in the field of Shintō are “Investigation of the Shrines of Our Country” (Honchō jinja

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kō 本朝神社考), a voluminous work that appeared in print early,16 and “Transmission of Shintō” (Shintō denju 神道傳授), which Razan composed at the request of SAKAI Tadakatsu 酒井忠勝 (1587–1662), daimyō of Obama 小浜 and one of the most important politicians within the bakufu, having been “Elder” (rōjū 老中) from 1624 to 1638 and “Great Elder” (tairō 大老) from 1638 till 1656. According to the colophon, Razan wrote the text during the Shōhō Era (1644–1648), while Tadakatsu was still very much in power. It was never printed in the course of the Edo Period.17 In the very first line of “Transmission of Shintō,” Razan defines the divine as the spirituality of heaven and earth, and in the third, he says, “All things that have a form will eventually perish. The divine (‘gods’) does not have a form. It is always there, everywhere between heaven and earth, filling [the world] where our eyes cannot see it” (Hayashi 1972: 12; Kracht 1986: 275). In the same first section, Razan also gives a definition of the divine on the microcosmic level: The heart is like the dwelling of the divine luminosity 神明. “Dwelling” means house. Our body is like a house; our heart is like the master of the house; and the divine is like the soul (tamashii) of the master. … When we do good, we follow the divine of our heart, and therefore are in accord with the Way of heaven. When we do evil, we rebel against the divine of our heart, and therefore commit a sin. This is because the gods and the divine of our heart originally are one and the same principle. The purity of the heart is the reason why the divine dwells there; you may compare it to the purity and brightness of a mirror. Because you [polish it and] make it purer all the time, you remove [as it were] the [voiced and therefore] impure [syllable] ga [from the word kagami]; [the result] we call kami (Hayashi 1972: 12; Kracht 1986: 275).

Part of this is recognizable as Chinese lore, but most of it would in China be put down as gibberish. The most egregious bit of nonsense is the etymology of kami, which could not possibly be repeated in Chinese. The idea that we have a divinity in our heart, and that this divinity is as a soul, and keeps track of our moral behaviour, and is in communication with other deities or with the Way of heaven, does not sit well either. The corporeal and spiritual souls known to Confucian scholars certainly did not do such things.18 Neither were they located in the heart. In the heart, NeoConfucian scholars would locate human nature (C: xing 性 J: sei), i.e., the heavenly endowed principles that make men human, i.e., the five constant virtues (C: wu chang 五常 J: gojō). To the extent that Razan is identifying human nature with the divine, as he is doing here, he is out of line. It is also strange that he says that the divine in the heart has the same principle as the deities in general. Of course, principle is defined as “the reason why things are what they are,” so there must be a principle that makes deities deities, but it is a 16

The text is in Kanbun. It has survived in a few manuscripts and a prodigious number of printed copies. The printed books have no colophon, and the preface is not dated. In the absence of any evidence to the contrary, my guess would be that the book was produced sometime after Razan’s death, in the course of the Kanbun Era (1661–1672). 17 This text survives in some 15 manuscripts, the oldest of which is dated 1664 (Kanbun 4). A modern edition is available in NST 39: 12–57. 18 In Shintō denju 9 Razan explains about the bo- and hun-souls in Confucianism, and relates them to Shintō lore (NST 39: 15; cf. Kracht 1986: 279). See also Kracht 1986: 134.

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thought that one does not encounter in the Chinese corpus. The strangest notion from a Chinese perspective is, however, that the deities are eternal, and that they are eternal because they have no form. Even though they are not visible to the eye, still deities, too, are a congeries of qi, and therefore will eventually disperse. In sections 2 and 3, Razan elaborates on the topos that the divine is one and many at the same time. He declares that Kuninotokotachi no mikoto 国常立尊, the first god according to the Chronicles of Japan (Nihon shoki 日本書記), “divides himself and becomes the body of all the deities,” like the moon that is reflected in all the waters, or like the “original heart” (C: benxin 本心 J: honshin) of human beings, that is one but interpenetrates and communicates with everything. In connection with the custom to invite a deity to come and dwell elsewhere, in other shrines than its original shrine (C: quan qing 勧請 J: kanjō), he explains this capability of the divine to appear at the place to which it has been invited with help of another simile: Wherever you dig into the earth, water wells up. In the same way, when your heart is sincere, the divine will “transform and manifest itself,” and take it as its dwelling (Hayashi 1972: 13; Kracht 1986: 276). As these two sections prove, Razan is turning his deities into the equivalent of Neo-Confucian notion of principle (C: li 理 J: ri). The moon reflecting itself in the many waters is a standard metaphor of li, and the “original heart” is coterminous with the li as they are present inside the human heart. The simile of the same water that wells up wherever you dig is probably of Razan’s own devising, but the idea it illustrates is the Neo-Confucian formula for such cases: “Principle is one, but divided into many separate [instances]” (C: li yi fenshu 理一分殊 J: ri ichi bun shu). The tendency to identify the deities with principle is remarkable, for Razan did know that in ordinary Neo-Confucian dogmatics the divine and the spirits were functions of qi, and definitely not of principle. Evidently, the point is important for him, for in a later section he remarks the following: The divine is the root of heaven and earth, and the substance 體 of the ten thousand things. If there were no divine, heaven and earth would perish, and the ten thousand things would not be born. … [The divine] seems to be empty, but it is not empty. It is empty and spiritual.19 This is called the divine without colour and without shape, and is also called the principle without beginning or end. Beginning and end exist, and there is the divine of the eternal way, [unaltered] now or formerly; therefore, it is able to cause the beginning and to cause the end of the ten thousand things. This is the ultimate truth of Shintō. The Way of the gods is principle. The ten thousand things do not exist outside principle. Principle is what is inherently true (shizen no shinjitsu). … How could the changes between the present and former times, or the advent of the seasons be outside the permanent principle? To know this principle we regard as Shintō (Hayashi 1972: 44–45; Kracht 1986: 296–297).

In order to eradicate any last thoughts of individualised, punishing deities, Razan finishes with the words: “Punishment and advantage always arise anew. The deities do not give happiness; when men do good, advantage will arise of itself. Deities do Razan uses two different words, 空 and 虗, that I have both translated as “empty.” Kracht (GeistDiskurse, p. 296) translates the first as “[Himmels]raum” and the second, as “die Leere.” I think it is better to treat the words as synonyms. “Empty, spiritual, and unobscured” 虗靈不昧 is the way in which ZHU Xi describes the original heart as men have received it from heaven (commentary on Daxue 1.1). 19

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not impose punishment; when men do evil, automatically there will be punishment” (Hayashi 1972: 45; Kracht 1986: 297). It is not difficult to find passages in “Transmission of Shintō” that conflict with the identification of the Japanese deities with principle. One example is the section in which Razan tries to impose the “Diagram of the Supreme Ultimate” (C: Taiji tushuo 太極図説 J: Taikyoku zusetsu) of ZHOU Dunyi 周敦頤 (1017–1073) on the theogony of the Chronicles of Japan. The first god according to Chronicles was Kuninotokotachi no mikoto; he was followed by two single male gods, and by four pairs of male and female gods, the last of which was Izanagi 伊邪那岐 and Izanami 伊邪那美, who created the Japanese islands. Collectively, they are known as the “seven generations of gods.” Razan argues that the five generations between Kuninotokotachi and Izanagi/Izanami should be distributed over the five elements, in the order wood, fire, water, metal, and earth, and continues, Kuninotokotachi is the god of the original qi (J: genki 元気) and includes yin and yang. Izanagi and Izanami are the beginning of the separation of yin and yang. Therefore, because it is logical that the five elements were spontaneously present in the original qi, and that they plainly existed also before yin and yang were separated, I have mentioned these five generations of gods. I call them the gods of the original qi and the five elements, because the five elements that are in heaven [are also] the five elements [that] emerge from the single original qi (Hayashi 1972: 33; Kracht 1986: 285–286).

Razan knew, of course, that this order conflicted with ZHOU Dunyi’s diagram20; hence the rhetorical emphasis on the primordial presence of the five elements in the original qi. The important point for our discussion is, however, that Razan here identifies Kuninotokotachi with the original qi. Another inconsistency is Razan’s explanation of the original chaos (konton 混沌), in which he uses the strange collocation “the divine, spiritual principle” (shinrei no ri 神霊の理): [The situation in which] ‘the single [undivided] qi is round[ed like a ball] is called chaos.’ When heaven and earth have not opened and yin and yang have not yet divided, [the cosmos] is like an egg – [everything] chao[tically mixed together] and completely round. Within it divine, spiritual principle is spontaneously present and has not yet manifested itself.21 … The divine is at hand before things divide, and manifests itself after they have divided; therefore it has no beginning and no end. The same principle applies to the human heart. When it is quiescent and empty, it is even nowadays [in a state of] chaos and undividedness (Hayashi 1972: 25–26).

Another interesting example is Razan’s discussion of the activities of Izanagi and Izanami in the light of Daoist, Buddhist, and Confucian tenets: The Chronicles of Japan says that the yang god and the yin god married by bringing into contact the font 元 of his masculinity with the font of her femininity, and thus brought forth

20

Taijitu has the five elements appear only after yin and yang have manifested themselves. See also Kracht’s comments, Kracht (1986: 131). 21 I have translated according to the furigana. The characters 未不現 would have to be read imada arawarezaru nashi, meaning “everything has already appeared,” which would be illogical.

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the ten thousand things. ‘Sexual intercourse’ means ‘to become man and wife.’22 The ‘font of masculinity’ is the origin of yang, and the ‘font of femininity’ is the origin of yin; they correspond to what the Book of Changes has called the fonts of [the trigrams] heaven (C: qian 乾 J: ken) and earth (C: kun 坤 J: kon). [Likewise,] in Daoism they say that yang is the father of yin, and yin is the mother of yang, and in Buddhism, that heaven and earth have the same root, and the ten thousand things are one body. In Confucianism, heaven and earth are called the father and mother of the ten thousand things. They also consider the [trigram] heaven (qian) as the father, and the [trigram] earth (kun) as the mother, and say that ‘the way of heaven constitutes the male, and the way of earth constitutes the female.’23 [The trigrams] qian and kun are the nature of heaven and earth; heaven and earth are the shape of qian and kun. Yin and yang are the qi of heaven and earth. The divine is the operation (un’yō 運用) of heaven and earth. The reason why their great roots 大本 are called the font of masculinity and the font of femininity is that they brought forth the things through the transformations of yin and yang, and the expanding and retracting of the spirits. This means that Shintō is contained within Confucianism (Hayashi 1972: 41–42; Kracht 1986: 292–293).

How should the italicized sentences in this quotation, which suddenly confront us with correct Neo-Confucian definitions, be interpreted? How should the shinrei no ri in the previous quotation – the “principle” that is qualified with two adjectives that belong to qi be interpreted? Perhaps as Klaus Kracht proposes, “the ‘spirit’ is for [Razan] a comprehensive phenomenon that cannot be circumscribed by conceptual definitions because by its nature it knows no boundaries. The ‘spirit’ can only be described in its aspects, or named as a whole” (Kracht 1986: 129). This would imply, however, that Razan had consciously or unconsciously given up the ambition to define the divine. I would say that would be out of character. Razan did not give up easily, and if he did not know, he said he did not know. If we want to solve the problem, we have to take into account the nature of Razan’s Shintō thought, and the character of “Transmission of Shintō” as a text. First, the text: as I argued elsewhere, “Transmission of Shintō” is presumably a partial recension of a collection of notes called Shintō denju shō (Boot 1983: 281–282). Razan compiled “Transmission of Shintō” at the request of a powerful patron, without any intent of publishing it. As the colophon clearly states, it was a “for your eyes only” document. It is true that in the colophon Razan also presents the volume as the ultimate truth about Shintō, and that throughout the text we find sections in which Razan uses the words “secret” or “ultimate truths.” Nevertheless, Razan did not turn “Transmission of Shintō” into a single-minded propaganda effort for his own brand of Shintō. “Transmission of Shintō” was intended foremost to give his patron an impression of the field. Thus, Razan thoroughly addressed the important Shintō issue of

The furigana in the NST ed. is mistaken. The character 夫 is glossed as sore, but to make any sense, the combination 夫フ should be interpreted as fūfu 夫婦. I have translated accordingly. 23 Yijing, Xici-zhuang, shang 1.2 (Eki-kyō Vol. 3, pp. 1387–1391). The same phrases also occur in Taijitu diagram. 22

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impurity and defilement,24 and he discussed Japanese poetry,25 various types of Shintō,26 and popular gods and important shrines.27 Sometimes Razan also explained things with reference to Buddhism,28 with which Tadakatsu was more familiar, and sometimes he proffers a bizarre theory, e.g., that the 10 months of pregnancy and birth re-enact the ten generations of the gods from Kuninotokotachi to Ninigi no mikoto’s descent on earth.29 In short, the text contains a lot of sundry learning. How much consistency can be expected of it? As regards the content of Razan’s thought, Kracht supposes that Razan “as an adept of Yoshida Shintō, had little choice but to put the gods above matter” (Kracht 1986: 148), but this is not a persuasive argument. Razan was not carrying the torch for the Yoshida. He viewed the Yoshida School (Yuiitsu sōgen 唯一宗源, as he calls it) as the best of the three Shintō schools that he examined because it was originally Japanese and derived, through the Urabe and the Nakatomi, from Koyane no mikoto, the god of the Kasuga shrine (Hayashi 1972: 18). On the other hand, Razan was sufficiently independent and critical of the Yoshida, as sections of “Transmission of Shintō” show.30 In his philosophical ideas, Razan was an orthodox Neo-Confucian. He knew that Neo-Confucianism itself was ambiguous on the point of the primacy of li and qi. As YASUDA Jirō argues, ZHU Xi had good reason not to opt for the primacy of either, but to stick to his view that, as both had come into existence at the same time, and as the one never appeared without the other, both were equally important (Yasuda 1976: 8–16). The only concession Zhu made was to agree that logically the priority lay with li, because principle shaped matter. When we assume that Razan was well aware of Neo-Confucian metaphysics, his identification of the gods with principle and with the original qi should not be regarded as mistakes, but as the result of an attempt to explain Shintō in a vocabulary that was not adapted to it. He must have had important reasons for making the attempt. An indication of these reasons appears in section 2. There, Razan identifies the “three regalia” (mirror, sword, and jewel) with the three virtues of wisdom, courage, and humaneness, 24

See Kracht (1986: 137). Kracht refers to Shintō denju sections 13, 14, 15, 56, 64, 65, 70. Razan consistently differentiates between inner and outer defilement, e.g. in section 70: “There is the defilement of the body and the defilement of the heart. The gods hate both, but they particularly detest the defilement of the heart. When evil thoughts arise, we speak of defilement of the heart.” (NST 39: 45; cf. Kracht 1986: 297). 25 See section 31 (analysis of Susanoo’s poem), 36 (analysis of the words of Izanagi and Izanami as they walked around the pillar of heaven). 26 E.g. section 17 (three Shintō schools), 50, 53 (Shintō canon). 27 E.g. the sections 34 (Hie-jinja), 39 (the 72 gods), 40 (gods involved in daijōsai), 46 (the 12 divine generals), 72 (war gods), 77 (names of the 30 protective gods), 78 (Iwashimizu and types of gods), 79 (Ise), 80 (Kasuga), 81 (Miwa), 82 (Kumano gongen), and 86 (daijōsai). 28 A glaring example is section 54 (NST 39: 39–30), where Razan relates five Shintō gods to the five Buddhist elements, the five kinds of Buddhist wisdom, and five Buddha’s. Other sections that contain references to, or comparisons with Buddhism are sections 5, 35, 46, 48, 49, 50, 51, 54, 88. 29 Shintō denju 30 (NST 39: 24–25). Kracht 1986: 141, only comments on the first part of this section, in which Razan similarly describes the imperial enthronement ceremony as a re-enactment of Ninigi’s descent. 30 See, e.g., sections 37 and 53. His denial of the importance of “blood lines” (kechimyaku 血脈) in Shintō also shows his independence.

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and declares, “With these one must rule the state.” He ends this section with the words, “The kingly Way and the Way of the gods have the same principle.” The kingly Way and the three virtues are Confucian concepts. In other words, Razan is claiming that the original ethos of the Japanese state is identical with Confucianism; that Confucianism was not an interloper, as Buddhism was, but was rooted in Japanese soil.31 In the section, “The ultimate truth of Shintō,” Razan stresses the political ramifications of his doctrine, and sharply distinguishes his own brand of Shintō from that of the ritual specialists: The ‘Shintō [that holds] that principle is present in the heart’ is identical with the kingly Way. Outside the heart no separate deities exist, and no separate principles. When your heart is pure and bright, that is the lustre of the divine. When your conduct is correct, that is the outward appearance of the divine. The execution of government is the virtue of the divine. When the state is well ordered, that is the strength of the divine. These [rules] were imparted by the great goddess Amaterasu. Only the emperors knew them, generation after generation, ever since Jinmu. In their youth, they received instruction in them from the Ministers of the Left and Right, or from the imperial regents. It is not certain whether in recent times there are still men around who know them. The Shintō of diviners, of assistant priests and of other subaltern shrine attendants does not qualify. The [higher priests] are officials who clean the inside of the shrine at the time of sacrifices and other ceremonies, or who read the purification formulas, prayers, and imperial proclamations. It is, therefore, not at all easy for them to get an inkling of the Shintō that only emperors know. Know, therefore, that, apart from ‘Principle Present in the Heart Shintō’ (Ritō shinchi Shintō), all [Shintō merely] concerns [worship of] the gods, and is a matter of officials (Hayashi 1972: 18–19; Kracht 1986: 280).

For Razan, the deity who pronounced the unchanging rules of conduct embodied normative principle. It followed, therefore, that the divine had to be prior to everything that was created by the intercourse between yin and yang and was subject to this principle. Razan had no use for deities who, as functions of yin and yang, were in charge of change. It was, moreover, essential for Razan that this normative principle, which ruled the cosmos, was equally present in the human heart, for this presence ensured the unity of macro- and microcosm and made personal cultivation a sensible strategy for the individual. The name alone that he chose for his Shintō – “principle is present in the heart” – shows this. Razan’s first candidate for selfcultivation evidently was the ruler. In conclusion, Razan’s overall argument is that the gods of the Shintō scheme should be identified with principle in the Confucian scheme (Boot 1983: 126–138). The context was the shingaku 心學 as it existed in the first half of the seventeenth century, i.e., Confucianism presented as a teaching of individual self-cultivation, whose political effects would be expressed through the medium of individuals who had succeeded in cultivating themselves. A second objective of Razan was to show, in his confrontation with Buddhism, that Confucianism was original to Japan, and not an import religion. The rationale of Razan’s writings about Shintō was to make

Another way to argue the same point would be the “Taihaku-setsu” 太伯説, i.e., the theory that the Japanese imperial house descended from a scion of the House of Zhou. Razan knew this theory, and toyed with it in his essay Jinmu-tennō ron, but he never acknowledged it in his historical or Shintō writings. 31

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Shintō subservient to Confucianism, and to turn it into an ally of his as yet fledgling Confucian movement in its struggle against Buddhism.

3.5

Confrontation with Shintō: AIZAWA Seishisai

Razan was not the only Confucian scholar who tried to adapt Shintō to what was essentially a Confucian programme; others did the same. An interesting case is the ideologue of the Later Mito School, AIZAWA Seishisai (1782–1863). He was also thinking about possible uses of Shintō; he, too, thought about this in a political context. The result of his excogitations on the subject we find in his “New Theses” (Shinron 新論). “New Theses” is a lengthy essay Seishisai wrote in 1825. As Seishisai describes it, it was a secret discussion piece that was intended for his lord, the daimyō of Mito, but its scope far exceeded Seishisai’s or indeed his lord’s competence. In the Bakumatsu period, the book became extremely popular. It was printed first in moveable wooden type, as a pirated edition, and later as a woodblock print, with Seishisai’s authorization (Aizawa 1973: 159). Seishisai felt that Japan was threatened by the European nations, especially Russia and England. In his essay he analyzes the international situation and the nature of the threat, and recommends measures that should be taken to forestall the occupation of Japan. An important part of the threat was Christianity. Christianity was used by the European powers to conquer the hearts and minds of the “foolish people,” and thus to undermine the legitimacy of the government. The government, therefore, had to find a way to counter this ideo-religious threat. Seishisai recommended for the purpose a judicious blend of Shintō and Confucianism, and his programme turned around ritual, Amaterasu, and the emperor. In its conception, it was very much influenced by OGYŪ Sorai 荻生徂徠 (1666–1728). Like Sorai, Seishisai held that it was the responsibility of the government to make the people do certain things; it is of no use to explain things to the people, for they will be too busy or too ignorant to understand; do not aim at moral improvement, but at behavioural change. Seishisai clearly had different uses for Shintō in mind than Razan. The counter-ideology that he formulated deserves a closer look because it implies a radical transformation of all religious practices, customs, and arrangements in Japan. Moreover it is fully as drastic as anything ever proposed by Chinese Confucians. Not only unruly sects, infamous practices, and licentious behaviour32 should be done away with, but Buddhism itself, which in practice was the organisation through which the Edo bakufu exerted its ideological and social control of the people, could be abolished. What remained was Shintō, but Seishisai’s Shintō reduced itself to Chauvinistic rhetoric,33 reverence for the ancestors, and service to the nation, summed up in the two Confucian virtues of filial piety 孝 and loyalty 忠. 32 Seishisai mentions, e.g., the Fujufuze-ha 不受不施派, the Fujikō 富士講, and the practice of Renge ōjō 蓮華往生. See NST 53: 105; Wakabayashi 1991: 212. 33 Chauvinism is a theme we find already in the preface; see NST 53: 50; Wakabayashi 1991: 149.

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This, he claimed, was the religion that had been instituted by Amaterasu (Aizawa 1973: 53; Wakabayashi 1991: 153). If practised correctly, it would give emotional stability to the people, inuring them to the sirens’ song of Christianity. Ieyasu, too, had used this ideology to found the bakufu. Thus Seishisai stated, “Ieyasu founded his rule on loyalty and filial piety, because these are the moral precepts that Amaterasu handed down” (Aizawa 1973: 64; Wakabayashi 1991: 164). Over time this tradition of Amaterasu had been impaired by such religions as Buddhism, whose common characteristic is that their followers “worship in illicit shrines and know how to pray for happiness and ask for good fortune, but do not know how to fulfil their duty of serving heaven and praying to their ancestors” (Aizawa 1973: 65; Wakabayashi 1991: 166). This made Japan vulnerable to the western barbarians. The best way to counter this threat is for the authorities to institute a Confucian programme of ceremonies, ritual, and transformation through education.34 Seishisai says so in so many words at the end of his lengthy discussion of the “Great Thanksgiving Festival” (Daijōsai 大嘗祭). He defines this ritual as the high point in the emperor’s show of gratitude to his origin and of reverence to his ancestors (Aizawa 1973: 53; Wakabayashi 1991: 154), and describes how the court officials in attendance see a vision “as if overwhelmingly they (i.e. the spirits of the ancestors. WJB) are present to the left and right of the heavenly ancestor” (Aizawa 1973: 383b, 55; cf. Wakabayashi 1991: 157). “In this way,” Seishisai concludes, [the rite] teaches and corrects the customs; without speaking it transforms [the people]. Sacrifice is used to govern, and government is used as a means to teach. Teaching and government have always been one. Therefore the people just know [they should] revere the heavenly ancestor [Amaterasu] and serve the heavenly seed [the emperor]. [Everyone] is turned in the same direction, and [no one] pays heed to abnormalities. In this way the people are united in their purpose, and heaven and man are in accord (Aizawa 1973: 383b, 56; Wakabayashi 1991: 157; Hoshiyama 1996: 108–109).

Another ritual to which Seishisai attached great importance because it would “unite the will of the people,” was the sacrifice to the ancestors. Because of its beneficial effects, Seishisai argued that it was the duty of the government to see to it that this sacrifice was duly held, and to instruct the people how to hold it. Seishisai also gives his reasons, and his argument is not devoid of sophistication and psychological insight. The argument begins with the proposition that “amongst things none has more authority than heaven.” That he describes heaven as a material thing (C: wu 物 J: butsu), means that the identification of “heaven” with Amaterasu has disappeared into the background. Seishisai is now speaking in a purely Confucian context. This becomes clear immediately, for Seishisai continues with “therefore the sages strictly respected it and humbly served it.” The effect was that “they did not let heaven turn into a dead thing, and they gave the people something to fear and to subject itself to” (Aizawa 1973: 416a, 143; Wakabayashi 1991: 258). Having established heaven as the supreme deity, Seishisai next establishes that man has a soul that survives after death. For “soul” he uses the Chinese notions of a corporeal and a spiritual soul. Seishisai states: “Amongst things none is more spiritual 34

NST 53: 139; Wakabayashi 1991: 252.

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than man,” and therefore “his corporeal and spiritual souls are essential and strong; they are incapable of dissolving in the same way as plants and trees, birds and animals. When [a man] is on the threshold between life and death, he is incapable of growing dim and having no thought.” If a man is anguished when he is on the brink of death, this is hard on the person himself, but it also undermines the confidence of his dear ones who are watching him. “Therefore the sages clarified the rites of sacrifice, to bring order to life and death. They saw to it that the dying had something to rely on in order to comfort their spirits, and by making the living know that the dead had something to rely on, they caused [the living] to have no conflicting aspirations” (Aizawa 1973: 416, 143–144; Wakabayashi 1991: 258–259). Through this ritual the people will become impervious to Christianity or any other licentious religion. When the people revere and fear heaven’s authority and subject themselves to it, then they will not be deceived by heretical doctrines that lie about heaven, and when they have no dissatisfaction about life and death (l. “the dark and the bright side”), then they will not be beguiled by [stories of] hell and paradise (l. “good and bad fortune”) after death. The state is responsible for sacrifice and prayer, and the people [only need to] listen to their rulers; then they will revere their lord as if they served heaven. … Below, the hearts of the people will be pure, and no wild and irrational doctrines will be able to enter through this into them (Aizawa 1973: 416, 144; Wakabayashi 1991: 259).35

The competitors Seishisai wanted to defeat were Buddhism and Christianity. The link between the two was that both had competent answers to the existential fear of death. As long as the people had not internalized the Confucian account of the relation between the living and the dead through the sacrificial rites of ancestor worship, they would be an easy prey of the rival accounts of posthumous punishment and reward (inka meifuku 陰禍冥福) (Aizawa 1973: 416–417, 144–145; Wakabayashi 1991: 259–260) in one or other of the paradises and hells the major world religions had to offer. Both Buddhism and Christianity thrived thanks to the people’s preoccupation with death; Seishisai needed something such as his amalgam of Confucianism and Shintō that could compete on this point.36 Responsible for the execution of Seishisai’s program are the rulers, i.e., the bakufu and the daimyō. They should take the initiative and make the people execute the rites in order to internalize the message. In Seishisai’s words: If we want to execute [these plans] now, then we must make the people act according to them, but we cannot make it understand. If the question is how we can make the people act according [to our plans], then my answer is “the Rites,” and nothing else. There are five kinds of Rites, but if you want to teach the people to be respectful, the rites of sacrifice are the best. … In sacrificial rites you have numbers and you have Duty; if you want to put on view the [correct] number, then you will first have to clarify [what your] Duty [requires of you in this case] (Aizawa 1973: 417b, 147; Wakabayashi 1991: 264).37 35

For those who had not gotten the message, Seishisai repeats the argument in a gloss of the next paragraph; see NST 53: 416–417, 144–145; Wakabayashi 1991: 259–260. 36 On the same topic, see Kate Wildman Nakai 2002: 284–291. 37 “Numbers” refers to the number of participants, of things one sacrifices, of times that actions are repeated, etc. These depend on the objective social position of the celebrant and of the object of the

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This bias against explaining things is a typical result of Sorai’s teachings, as is the idea that “rites teach louder than words.” As was the case with Razan, Seishisai’s frame of reference is Confucian, his conception of religion is instrumental, and his aims are political. On the other hand, Seishisai does not evince any encyclopaedic interest in Shintō as Razan does, and shows little interest in any deity apart from Amaterasu. Razan mentions Amaterasu several times, but he never goes out of his way to emphasize her importance as the ancestress of the imperial house. When he mentions the ancestral temples of the imperial clan, the mentions two: Ise 伊勢 and Iwashimizu Hachimangū 石清水八 幡宮 (Hayashi 1972: 50–51). Razan seems to regard Shintō – a purified Shintō, that is – as a useful ally against Buddhism. Seishisai’s rarefied Shintō is a means to make the people rally behind the state in the coming struggle with the European powers. Both, however, use the vocabulary and the concepts of Neo-Confucian theology.

3.6

Popular Reflections: The Heavenly Way

Belief in heaven was the answer to a need for a non-denominational, rational deity – not personalised like the ordinary gods and Buddha’s, nor as ethereal as the “functioning of the Way.” In Japan the philosophy associated with this belief is known as Tentō shisō 天道思想, which could be translated as “the ideology of (the Way of) heaven.” The belief in heaven can best be interpreted as part of a philosophical and religious movement that spread through the whole of East Asia (Boot 2002). “The Way of Heaven” (C: Tiandao 天道 J. Tentō or Tendō) and its cognates “Heaven” (C: Tian 天 J: Ten) and “Heaven’s principles” (C: Tianli 天理 J: Tenri) were known in China, Korea, and Japan, and in the last two countries they also emerged as the names of popular religious movements (Ch’ŏndogyo 天道教 in Korea, Tenrikyō 天 理教 in Japan). Other expressions of the same belief are the “ledgers of virtue” (C: shanshu 善書 J: zensho), i.e., the account books some people kept of their daily good and bad deeds, which allowed them to keep track of their expectations of reward (Brokaw 1991), and to such texts as Dijilu 迪吉録, Taishang ganying pian 太上感應篇, or in Japan, NAKAE Tōju’s 中江藤樹 (1608–1648) Kagamigusa 鑑草, which contain any number of anecdotes illustrating heavenly rewards and punishments. The greatest attraction of Heaven may have been, that it did not belong to any of the three teachings and was very poorly provided for, iconographically speaking. As the highest deity in the official Chinese pantheon, Tian could only be worshipped by the emperor himself. There existed the Chinese imperial ritual for sacrifices to Heaven (De Groot 1918: 141–186), but no individual would think of duplicating that; it would have been completely out of bounds.

rite, but also on “Duty” 義, i.e., on the personal relation of the celebrant to the object of the rite. The natural impulse would be to make the rites as imposing as possible, but in order to get the numbers right, you first have to clarify your social position. For background, see Lunyu 3.1.

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The word Tentō had been in use in Japan ever since the seventh or eighth century (the oldest locus is in the preface of the first poem of Kaifūsō), but something like a coherent system of thought only arose in the seventeenth century. The context in which the belief emerged most clearly was a number of correlated texts entitled Shingaku gorinsho 心学五倫書 and Honsa-roku 本佐録, though both appeared under various other titles, too. These texts share the same programme: they define Heaven, prove the correctness of their teaching by reference to historical examples taken from Chinese and Japanese history, distinguish it from the closest competitors Confucianism and Buddhism, and spell out a number of implications and applications. Both also try to cover up the weakest spot in this body of lore: the counter-examples of the thriving villain and of the honest man who is ill and poor. In Tentō shisō, the sins of the fathers are mobilized to explain these blemishes on divine justice out of the way. In this ideology, the following traits are predicated of Heaven: everything is within Heaven and Heaven is within everything, as a fish is in the water and has water inside itself; Heaven watches the deeds of every man, judges his actions, and meets out rewards or punishment; sometimes the merits of his ancestors save someone from being punished for his crimes, or, conversely, a good person is punished for the misdeeds of his ancestors; rewards and punishments are meted out in this life, and take the form of wealth, health, a long life, and many children, and for the rulers, of long reigns and long-lived dynasties, or their opposites. In the eyes of Heaven, virtues are simplicity, sincerity, honesty, and frugality; crimes are ostentation, abuse of power, duplicity, and egoism. It is no use to pray or sacrifice to Heaven, for Heaven cannot be bribed. As the poem says: “If only the heart/is in accord with/the Way of Sincerity/the gods will protect you/even if you do not pray to them” (Kokoro dani/makoto no michi ni/kanainaba/inorazu totemo/kami wa maboran) (Shingaku gorin sho 1975: 259b; Honsa roku 1975: 294). It must have been precisely the sparseness that attracted followers – the leanness of a religion reduced to deed followed by judgment followed by reward or punishment, without the complications of ritual, prayer, clergy, and voluntary monetary contributions. The virtues and vices are homely and simple. One can almost hypothesize a rising urban middle class to whose needs these beliefs responded, were it not that the texts in which the teachings are explained explicitly address themselves to rulers. The Way of Heaven ideology was strongly influenced by Confucianism, and one would expect Confucian scholars to approve of the system. With the exception of Heaven, all gods were effectively done away with, and Heaven itself, though it retained a few anthropopathic character traits and is sometimes described as actively watching and punishing, was completely predictable and just, so it did not differ materially from the automatic process by which the Confucians set such great store. Yet all major Confucian scholars of the Edo Period studiously ignored it. Shingaku gorin sho was variously, and under various titles, attributed to FUJIWARA Seika 藤原惺窩 (1561–1619) and to KUMAZAWA Banzan 熊沢蕃山 (1619–1691), and Honsa-roku was attributed to HONDA Sado-no-kami Masanobu 本多佐渡守正信 (1538–1616) (hence the title, Hon Sa roku), but all of these attributions are false. The texts are anonymous. Moreover, though later on they became illustrated books for children, initially they were regarded as dangerous. In the seventeenth century, a journeyman of letters, TAKIKAWA

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Josui 瀧川如水 (fl. 1651–1682), could still score by writing a violent criticism of Shingaku gorin sho that it even made it into print (Takigawa shingaku ron, 1667) (Yamamoto 1985). An example of how first-rate intellectuals obliquely criticized belief in the ideology of the Way of Heaven is OGYŪ Sorai’s essay, “On Giving Happiness to the Good, and Visiting the Licentious with Disasters.” In order to interpret it correctly, it is important to remember that “bestowing good and bad fortune” was the most common description of the activities of the spirits,38 so when Sorai begins his essay with the words “The Way of Heaven bestows happiness on the good, and visits the licentious with calamities,” he has already made two important statements: (1) it is the Way of Heaven, not the spirits, that bestows happiness and misfortune; (2) there is a rule to it, saying that the good are rewarded, and the evil, punished. This is, of course, the nucleus of the problem. Sorai tries to square theory with practice through the concepts of “allotment” (C: fen 分 J: bun) and “time” (“opportunity”) (C: shi 時 J: ji): The saying, ‘The Way of Heaven bestows happiness on the good, and visits the licentious with disasters,’ conveys the words of a sage.39 [Hence] it is true, and there is no uncertainty about it. Over [a period of] ten thousand generations, without erring, [the reaction of the Way of Heaven] has fitted [the deed] as surely as the two halves of a tally. Yet, many of the people of the world doubt this and do not believe it; this is because they do not know [the importance of] allotment and time. Allotment springs from the mandate (C: ming 命 J: mei), and the mandate is determined when life begins. … for the Son of Heaven to become a feudal lord would be a misfortune, while for a feudal lord’s vassals to become a feudal lord would be good luck. [From these examples] we know that the words good and bad fortune have different meanings, depending on one’s allotment. And yet, in their delusion, the people of the world regard richness like YI Dun 猗頓,40 social eminence like the Xu 許 and the Shi 史, 41 or a long life like Keng from Peng 彭鏗42 as happiness, while they regard it as misfortune to be so poor as to have to eat from a woven bamboo bowl and to drink from a gourd,43 … Should one be in doubt as to who is fortunate, and who is unfortunate? In the times of Jie 桀 and Zhou 紂44 murder and killing were rife, but [GUAN] Longfeng 關龍逢 and Bigan 比干45 [gained] a good reputation [from being killed] that will never end. How could this not be good fortune? Someone who regards being killed as a disaster ignores [the possibility] that his allotment [may] not include life. 38

See, as one example, the beginning of another essay by Sorai, where he writes: “Of all those who have spoken about the spirits, … everybody says something else, but in the broad outlines is does not exceed good and bad fortune, calamities and blessings.” (Shigi sakumon kijin ichidō 私擬策問 鬼神一道, Sorai-shū 17:2b; Shūsei Vol. 3: 173). 39 Shujing 4.3: Tang gao. The speaker is King Tang, and he is talking about King Jie, whom he has just deposed and killed. 40 YI Dun was a proverbially rich man of the Chunqiu Period. 41 The Xu and Shi were two noble families of the Western Han Dynasty. 42 Keng was a proverbially old man, who supposedly lived from the time of Yao till the end of the Yin Dynasty. 43 Reference to Lunyu 6.11, where it is said, that YAN Hui did not mind doing this. 44 The notorious last kings of respectively the Xia and the Yin Dynasties. They were ousted by King Tang and King Wu. 45 Guan Longfeng remonstrated with King Jie, and Bigan, with King Zhou. Both were killed.

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‘Opportunity’ is made by Heaven. ‘Heaven’ is the name [you give to] what is above you. That is why a son regards his father as Heaven; a wife regards her husband as Heaven; a minister regards his lord as Heaven; a lord regards High Heaven as Heaven. Heaven, however, cannot be different [from what it is]. That is why an ugly woman, even if she is wise, will not be wed by a husband who loves beauty, and why an old minister, even if he is wise, will not be employed by a lord who likes young boys. [In these cases] temporal circumstances form an obstruction. [Things] stop at an obstruction, and move on when there is an opening. That is why a gentleman will not try to find happiness that disagrees with the times; … That is why YI [Yin] and [the Duke of] Zhou46 obtained [official] positions, and why Confucius and YAN [Hui] gained a reputation. Who regards loosing his position as a misfortune, does not know that [this position] is something that the times do not have [on offer]. Therefore, he who does not know this allotment does not know himself, and he who does not know the times, clings to his ego. Both clinging and not knowing [mean that] you are ignorant of the heavenly mandate. How would [such a person] not be deluded, [when] he claims that the words of the Holy One are not borne out? Therefore, a gentleman does not seek happiness outside his mandate and allotment (Ogyū 1985: 3.115).

The quotation clearly shows how much “Way of Heaven” philosophizing a first-rate Confucian scholar was willing to countenance. What irked Sorai most was the promiscuous access to Heaven; a hierarchical approach was more to his liking. This was a common thought, voiced also by other scholars.47 What he did not like, either, was the obsession with worldly blessings. It is clear that Sorai, although does not deny the proposition that Heaven blesses and punishes, weakens that way of thinking by problematizing the common conception of “blessings,” and by insisting that some things are just impossible. The limiting factor is not the inherited sins of the ancestors, but temporal circumstances and “the mandate” or “fate” as determined at birth. Sorai does not give a precise list of do’s and don’t’s. In this respect, he is not different from ARAI Hakuseki, who makes no effort, either, to describe in detail what is good and bad behaviour. Did he think that everyone knew how Heaven wanted man to behave, or did deontology not interest him? Which of the two may be the case, this is another obvious difference of Sorai’s thought with Shingaku gorin sho and Honsa-roku.

3.7

Conclusions

Although I have taken my examples from a number of disparate sources, I hope to have shown that there is a great measure of unity in the Confucian discourse about the spirits. This unity is provided, first, by the Classics and, second, by ancestor worship. The Classics gave scriptural authority to the idea that the spirits existed and had to be worshipped, and the rituals described in the Record of Rites circumscribed the “official” religion. Everything else was, by exclusion, defined as “licentious” worship. Characteristic of the official religion were the hierarchic structure of 46 YI Yin was a minister of the founder of the Yin Dynasty, King Tang, while the Duke of Zhou was the younger brother of King Wu, and the guardian of Wu’s son and successor. 47 See, e.g., Kiyomizu monogatari: 189, and Seiyō kibun (NST 35: 66).

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worship (only the emperor sacrificed to Heaven, only the local lord to local nature deities, etc.), and the idea that only like could sacrifice to like, with “like” being defined by family of regional ties. This ties in directly with ancestor worship, which is the central preoccupation of Confucian theology. Hakuseki falls back on it to solve the problems created by vengeful ghosts, who would be placated when their descendants sacrificed to them. His attempt to explain how ancestor worship was possible at all led him to espouse existing theories about more or less fortified corporeal (bo) and spiritual (hun) souls, imprinted qi, and qi veins, which went again the master theory of qi. Kien’s solution, that the souls of the ancestors were, so to say, conjured up by their descendants at the moment of the sacrifice, and had no objective existence in between, is much more elegant, and much more in keeping with the master theory. All scholars, however, were loath to do away with ancestor worship, and this assured that the various ad hoc theories continued to be accepted. Of the authors I treated, Hakuseki goes farthest in acknowledging the existence of spirits. The ancestral spirits exist and must be sacrificed to, and the vengeful ghosts have to be dealt with. He accepts the reality of spectres, ghosts, and the manifestations of licentious religions, but he slyly undermines their miraculous character by showing that they can be explained, and are part of the way things are. Though atheism occurs, as with YAMAGATA Bantō 山片蟠桃 (1748–1821) (Kracht 1986: 200–251, 359–385), theism is the rule. Nevertheless, the Way of Heaven belief system was an uneasy alliance between Confucian philosophy and religion. All Confucians were reluctant to ascribe individuality and discretionary powers to the deities. Of the scholars treated in this essay, MINAGAWA Kien went furthest along that road. To him, shen was a medium or a function, not an entity in its own right. Sorai saw the powers of the deities as defined by the rituals and divinatory practices instituted by the sages, and did not speak of the deities as such. He trusted “Heaven” to be just and impartial, but as the will of Heaven coincided with whatever happens, the confidence he could inspire was limited. In the first respect, Sorai agrees with popular feeling as expressed in the belief in the Way of Heaven, but his second message was unpalatable. Through the auxiliary construction of accumulated sins or good deeds of the ancestors, the Way of Heaven, but also Hakuseki, made sure that everyone got his just deserts. The scholars did not like it, either, that the spirits were so hard to grasp. Defined as the “unfathomable” aspect of yin and yang, they were suspect for that very reason. The Book of Changes was employed to plot their moves, and ritual was used to constrain them, but to many they remained a source of unease. What was most commonly expected of the spirits – the distribution of good and bad luck, or of blessings and punishments – could just as well be handled through one or other hypostatized automatic process. Sometimes, one even gets the impression that our scholars found the preoccupation with reward and punishment demeaning. It is striking that neither Hakuseki nor Sorai took the trouble to list what is good or bad behaviour. This may be due to the ancient adage that “punishment does not extend to the officers,” but on the other hand, as intelligent men, they knew that it all depends.

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The attitude of our scholars towards religion is pragmatic and instrumental. Confucians just do not seem to have a capacity for religious awe, ecstasy, or devotion. Fondly imagining the presence of ancestral spirits at the sacrifice is as far as they go. Apart from that, religion is for them a useful, even necessary means to keep the masses in line. Sorai and Seishisai exemplify this aspect best. The vocabulary of the Classics remained throughout the basic vocabulary. From beginning to end, phenomena are discussed in terms of shen, gui, miao, ling, jing, yao, and guai. There are only two Japanese additions to the terminology, tamashii and kami. Though written with the same characters, they differ from the Chinese ling and shen, and not only because they cannot be used as adjectives (Koyasu 2002: 70–71). The Japanese terms did not upset Confucian discourse, however; they mainly complicated life for those Confucian scholars who wanted to combine Confucianism with Shintō, or who tried to explain Confucian ideas in vernacular texts. Razan is a good example. He wrote in the vernacular, discussed Shintō, for which he saw uses as an aid to the learning of the heart (shingaku 心学), and tried to find a formula that would express the basic compatibility of Confucianism and Shintō. Hakuseki struggled with the same problem, but on the whole opted for the introduction of Chinese rites and institutions, which were to supersede those Japanese rites and institutions that were dysfunctional. This allowed him to stick to the Chinese vocabulary. The scholars had a number of strategies for dealing with the spirits and their myths and legends. One was: historicizing. “All that ever existed, now and formerly, are humans,” says YAMAGATA Bantō in the section of In Place of Dreams (Yume no shiro 夢の代) in which he compares Japanese myths with ancient Chinese history (Yamagata 1973: 273a). Hakuseki said much the same in An Interpretation of Ancient History (Koshitsū 古史通): “The gods are humans” (kami to wa hito nari) (Arai 1907a: 3.219b). The second strategy was making them predictable through the use of the Book of Changes, to foretell their moves, and of ritual, to control them. The third strategy was setting up rules for them to follow, as in the ideology of the Way of Heaven, thus reducing the spirits to autonomous processes. The fourth strategy was giving an ontological foundation to this reduction of the spirits to rule-lead processes. This involved redefining the traditional vocabulary of spirits, ghosts, essences, spiritualities, etc. as (words describing) different aspects of the single substance of which everything exists, qi. These strategies did not follow each other in any chronological order, nor can they simply be divided over persons or schools. In one way or other, all of it was present from the late Zhou period (1046–256 BCE) onward in China, and in principle, from the beginning of the seventh century in Japan.

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Legge, James (ed.). 1963. The I Ching, The sacred books of the East, vol. 16. New York: Dover Publications. Minagawa, Kien 皆川淇園. 1788. Meichū 名疇. Kyoto. Nakai, Kate Wildman. 1965. Hakuseki on spirits: An analysis of ARAI Hakuseki’s essay ‘Kishinron’, Papers on Japan, vol. 3, 1–51. Cambridge, MA: East Asia Research Center, Harvard University. Republished in Critical Readings on Japanese Confucianism, vol. 4, 1645–1684, ed. John A. Tucker. Leiden/Boston: Brill, 2012. Nakai, Kate Wildman. 2002. Chinese ritual and native identity in Tokugawa Japan. In Rethinking Confucianism: Past and present in China, Japan, Korea, and Vietnam, UCLA Asian Pacific monograph series, ed. Benjamin A. Elman, John B. Duncan, and Herman Ooms. Los Angeles: University of California Press. Ogyū, Sorai 荻生徂徠. 1973. Benmei 辨名, ed. NISHIDA Taichirō. In OGYŪ Sorai, Nihon shisō taikei, vol. 36, ed. YOSHIKAWA Kōjirō et al. Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten. Ogyū, Sorai 荻生徂徠. 1985. Sorai-shū 徂徠集, Kinsei Juka Bunshū Shūsei, vol. 3, ed. HIRAISHI Naoaki. Tokyo: Perikansha. Ōkawa, Makoto. 2004. ARAI Hakuseki no kishinron saikō. Nihon Rekishi 674: 36–51. Plaks, Andrew. 2003. Ta Hsüeh and Chung Yung (The highest order of cultivation and on the practice of the mean). London: Penguin. Puett, Micheal J. 2002. To become a god: Cosmology, sacrifice, and self-divinization in early China. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Raiki 禮記. 1971–1979. Shinshaku kanbun taikei, 3 vols, ed. TAKEUCHI Teruo, 27–29. Tokyo: Meiji shoin. Shingaku gorin sho 心學五倫書. 1975. ISHIGE Tadashi, ed. In FUJIWARA Seika/HAYASHI Razan. Nihon shisō taikei, vol. 28, ed. ISHIDA Ichirō and KANAYA Osamu. Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten. Shunjū Sa-den 春秋左傳. 1971–1981. Shinshaku kanbun taikei, ed. KAMATA Tadashi, 30–33. Tokyo: Meiji Shoin. Sima, Qian 司馬遷. 1982. Shiji 史記, 10 vols. Beijing: Zhonghua shuju. Tucker, John A. 1996. Ghosts and spirits in Tokugawa Japan: The Confucian view of ITō Jinsai. Japanese Religions 21: 229–251. Tucker, John A. (ed.). 2006. OGYŪ Sorai’s philosophical masterworks: The Bendō and Benmei. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press. Wakabayashi, Bob Tadashi. 1991. Anti-foreignism and western learning in early-modern Japan. The New Theses of 1825. Harvard East Asian monographs, vol. 126. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Walraven, B.C.A. 1993. Confucians and restless spirits. In Conflict and accommodation in early modern East-Asia, ed. Leonard Blussé and Harriet Zurndorfer. Leiden: E.J. Brill. Yamagata, Bantō 山片蟠桃. 1973. Yume no shiro 夢ノ代, ARISAKA Takamichi, ed. In YAMAGATA Bantō, Nihon shisō taikei, vol. 43, ed. MIZUTA Norihisa and ARISAKA Takamichi. Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten. Yamamoto, Shinkō 山本眞功. 1985. Shingaku Gorin Sho no kisoteki kenkyū, Gakushūin daigaku kenkyū sōsho, vol. 12. Tokyo: Gakushūin daigaku. Yasuda, Jirō 安田二郎. 1948. Chūgoku kinsei shisō kenkyū. Tokyo: Kōbundō. (References are to the reprint, Tokyo: Chikuma shobō, 1976.) Zhou li 周禮. 1976. In Shisanjing guzhu 十三經古注. Taibei: Xinwenfeng chuban.

Chapter 4

Making Destiny in the Kingdom of Ryukyu Gregory Smits

4.1

Introduction

In 1762 a Ryukyuan vessel bound for Satsuma encountered a severe storm that battered the ship and blew it to the Island of Kashiwa 柏島 in the domain of Tosa 土佐. While the ship underwent repairs, domain Confucian scholar TOBE Yoshihiro 戸部良煕 interviewed the 52 people on board and produced a valuable account of Ryukyuan society and culture, Ōshima hikki 大島筆記. Tobe’s account mentions a board game (sugoroku 双六), often simply a sheet of paper, called “Ascent to Sagehood” (seijin agari 聖人上り). It resembled Qing era and late Tokugawa period “government officials” board games, and one square of the game mentioned the name of an office that had existed since 1728. Therefore, the game was created between 1728 and 1762. Players advanced tokens along 64 squares (8 rows × 8 columns) based on the roll of a die. The six faces of the die were “loyalty” (chū 忠), “filial piety” (kō 孝), “virtue” (toku 徳), “benevolence” (jin 仁), “evil” (aku 悪), and “theft” (tō 盗). The starting square was “birth,” and one advanced from there to the lower offices of Ryukyuan officialdom. Rolling one of the two bad faces of the die incurred a penalty of taking the tonsure and entering a temple. The two highest offices were Council of Three (Sanshikan 三司官) followed by Prime Minster (Sessei 摂政), a post always held by a royal relative. Once a player attained the level of Council of Three, a lack of virtue was no longer conceivable, and so a roll of “evil” or “theft” would simply not count. There was no square for becoming the king, but after Prime Minister one advanced to “worthy” (kenjin 賢人), “lesser sage” (aseijin 亜聖人), and finally “sage” (seijin 聖人). The king undoubtedly fit onto one of these final

G. Smits (*) Penn State University, University Park, PA, USA e-mail: [email protected] C.C. Huang and J.A. Tucker (eds.), Dao Companion to Japanese Confucian Philosophy, Dao Companions to Chinese Philosophy 5, DOI 10.1007/978-90-481-2921-8_4, © Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2014

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three categories, and the game optimistically invited players to ascend to the highest possible level of virtue.1 This game nicely reflects a major transformation that took place in Ryukyu starting in the last decades of the seventeenth century, namely, that the government and elites of this small kingdom became increasingly Confucian in philosophical outlook and ideology. Former honorific terms for the king that had suggested links with the power of the sun-as-deity or with the solar Buddha (Mahavairocana; Dainichi 大日) of Shingon had given way to terminology portraying him as a Confucian sage.2 Advancement through the bureaucracy, although in fact largely a function of birth status and administrative politics, became in theory a function of philosophical learning and moral attainment. Although these changes made little or no difference in the outlook of the majority of the inhabitants of the Ryukyu Islands, the education and lifestyles of most elite Ryukyuans had come to reflect dominance of Confucianism by the 1730s or 1740s. Ryukyu was an island kingdom, dispersed geographically across a wide expanse of ocean. During the eighteenth century, its total productivity was approximately 120,000 koku, roughly on a par with a medium-sized daimyo domain in Japan. As we will see, poverty or the threat of poverty was perhaps the greatest influence on Confucian thought in the kingdom. There are three characteristics of Ryukyuan Confucianism that I should stress at the outset. First, “Confucianism” was a subset of “Chinese studies,” not a separate, distinct entity in which individual scholars specialized. Only one prominent Ryukyuan, SAI On 蔡温 (1682–1761), seems consciously to have identified himself first and foremost as a Confucian. Many other Ryukyuan elites were well versed in Confucian writings, but they focused their intellectual attention on subjects of immediate practical use to their careers such as Chinese poetry, geomancy, or the calendar. The second characteristic follows from this first point: Ryukyuan intellectuals were unconcerned with “schools” of Confucian thought or other classifications that have been popular among modern scholars.3 The third characteristic is that owing to its poverty, Ryukyu did not possess sufficient resources to permit a flourishing of philosophical culture for its own sake, without clear connections to the needs of society and the state. Even the writings of SAI On, the only Ryukyuan who would reasonably qualify as a Confucian philosopher, all served to advance his political agenda. The strong emphasis on Chinese poetry composition, for example, was not a reflection of wealthy lifestyles devoted to the pursuit of aesthetic pastimes. Instead, poetry composition was the baseline skill for diplomacy with China and Japan. Ryukyu’s most prominent intellectuals were all diplomats who traveled abroad repeatedly.

1

For a brief description of this game see Maeda 1972: 134–135; For a more detailed description see Higashion’na 1970: 549–551. 2 For a detailed study of this process, see Smits 2000. 3 In the context of eighteenth century Japan, see Beerens 2006 for an innovative study that casts strong doubt on the relevance of modern categories of intellectual classification for Japanese intellectuals.

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Owing to Ryukyu’s circumstances this essay will necessarily contain significant discussion of social conditions. Because there was little room for philosophical activity detached from social conditions, it is reasonable to regard the political, economic, and diplomatic milieus as “texts” to which Ryukyuan intellectuals responded. Although on the one hand Ryukyu’s lack of resources was a limiting factor in philosophical production, on the other hand the close connection between academics and social conditions makes Ryukyu an especially interesting case for the study of Confucianism in settings outside of China. Moreover, Ryukyu’s close ties with both China and Japan permitted the kingdom’s elites to keep abreast of intellectual developments in both places. This article examines the main features of SAI On’s Confucian philosophy. The study begins with a background section that provides a brief history of the Ryukyu Kingdom to the eighteenth century, a short description of Ryukyuan society, and a condensed history of Chinese studies in the kingdom. Following this background information, the study turns to an analysis of SAI On. The main argument is that SAI On’s interpretation of ming 命 (Jp. mei, “destiny”) was the linchpin of a social engineering agenda whose ultimate goal was to put Ryukyu on a moral par with its larger neighbors. In light of this argument, I focus here on three areas of SAI On’s philosophical thought: (1) his understanding of destiny, (2) his attempts to refute what he regarded as baseless superstitions; and (3) his theory of governing, particularly with respect to economic matters.

4.2

Background: The Ryukyu Kingdom

During the fourteenth century, three principalities emerged on the Island of Okinawa, and early in the fifteenth century SHō Hashi 尚巴志 (r. 1422–1439) unified all of Okinawa under his rule. For the next century and a half, the Chūzan 中山 kingdom of Okinawa fought a series of wars, gradually expanding to become a small-scale empire consisting of most of the Ryukyu Islands.4 The economic basis of this expansion was far-reaching maritime trade. Ryukyuan traders dealt with parts of South and Southeast Asia, China, Korea, and Japan. Under pressure from European traders from the middle of the sixteenth century, the kingdom entered a period of economic and military decline. The low point occurred early in the seventeenth century, during several decades immediately following Ryukyu’s military defeat in 1609 by an invading army from Satsuma. Owing to its modern and contemporary significance for national identity, the status of Ryukyu after 1609 has long been a contentious issue in both academic and popular circles. The big question, of course, is the extent to which Ryukyu was or was not part of Japan, a question made all the more difficult because of the ambiguous status of “Japan” prior to the Meiji Restoration. It is common for advocates of different positions to force modern categories onto the seventeenth or eighteenth 4

For details on Ryukyuan military affairs during this time, see Smits 2010.

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century instead of attempting to explain Ryukyu’s historical status via concepts relevant to that time. An explanation of the political status of early-modern Ryukyu is beyond the scope of this paper, but there are some points we should bear in mind. First, after 1609 Satsuma ostensibly controlled Ryukyu’s foreign relations. For Satsuma to be effective, however, Ryukyuan cooperation was essential owing to the need for Ryukyu to appear to be a fully independent kingdom in Chinese eyes. The number of Japanese residents in Ryukyu sharply decreased after 1609, and many forms of Chinese culture flourished from the middle of the seventeenth century onward. Satsuma encouraged this general Sinification of Ryukyuan culture to facilitate diplomacy and trade between the kingdom and China. It was within this larger context that Confucianism became a significant force in early-modern Ryukyu.5 In the long run, Satsuma derived modest economic benefit from the RyukyuChina trade. Until the eighteenth century, however, complications often prevented Satsuma from realizing significant profits. These complications included pirate attacks, policy changes in China, Ryukyuan passive resistance, and bakufu decrees aimed at limiting competition from Satsuma products in Japanese markets. Ryukyu’s royal government constantly “borrowed” silver from Satsuma for use in trade and diplomacy in China, and it rarely paid all of the silver back. Information from China was perhaps as valuable as material products. Satsuma was able to serve as a broker of valuable, first-hand information about conditions in China because Ryukyu maintained regular diplomatic relations with the Qing court, and Ryukyuan envoys periodically traveled to Beijing.6 Socially, there were two broad, legally-defined divisions in eighteenth-century Ryukyu: aristocrats, known by such terms as yukatchu 良人, keimochi 係持, or samurei 士, and commoners, typically known as hyakushō 百姓 in official documents. Because of the prevalence of Japanese-derived terms in documents and the superficial resemblance to the legally-defined samurai versus commoner distinction in Japan, it is easy to overlook significant differences. Ryukyuan aristocrats defined themselves by possession of kafu 家譜, household records indicating ancestors who had served as government officials. Throughout the seventeenth century, the government at Shuri gradually certified what it regarded as legitimate kafu and established an office specifically to maintain records of aristocratic households. Aristocratic status in Ryukyu was theoretically linked with government service, but by the eighteenth century this connection had become problematic because government jobs were insufficient to employ all the aristocrats. Moreover, wealthy commoners began purchasing aristocratic status from a cash-starved government, thereby creating a group known as shinzanshi 新参士 or kōisamurei 買い士. After 1609, aristocratic status and residence in urban areas gradually became linked. In other words, local government officials in the countryside became “commoners.” To 5

Regarding the political status of Ryukyu, see Smits 1999: 15–49. For a thorough study of this issue, see Tomiyama 2004. 6 For details on Ryukyu-Satsuma trade with China, see Uehara 1981 and 1989. Regarding Ryukyu and Satsuma as information brokers, see Maehira 1990, 1997, and Toby 1991, esp. pp. 143–144, 147–150.

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make matters even more complex, as a result of one of SAI On’s policies, destitute aristocrats began establishing their own agricultural villages, known as yaadui 宿取. Aristocratic status in Ryukyu was subject to many gradations all the way up to the king, who was not part of a separate nobility like the Japanese emperor. During the eighteenth century, many Ryukyuan elites began to see themselves in the manner of Chinese scholar-officials. Turning to the economy, eighteenth-century Ryukyu was primarily an agricultural society. In addition to food grains and sweet potatoes, Ryukyu’s agricultural sector included forestry, sugar and salt production, and animal husbandry. The kingdom’s tribute trade with China, although essential for political reasons, was a net loss for the royal government. Partially offsetting these loses was the government’s sugar monopoly, a major source of state revenue (Smits 1999: 34–35; Sakihara 1975; Araki 1980: 121–129; Tasato 1987: 13–14; Kamiya 1990: 24). Wide-ranging trade had once been the kingdom’s main source of wealth, but from the end of the sixteenth century onward, circumstances forced Ryukyu to rely mainly on its own resources. Ryukyuan officials were slow to acknowledge the implications of this new reality. Other than the sugar monopoly, there were no major attempts to reform agriculture during the seventeenth century. As will be seen, a high priority for SAI On was improving the material basis of society because he regarded economic security as a prerequisite for more advanced social and moral development. Improving the material basis of society meant, among other things, improving agriculture. SAI On was especially interested in forestry, in part because cultivating forests required a long-term vision and systematic program. After a detailed study of Ryukyu’s dwindling forests that required him to reside in mountainous areas for months at a time, SAI On created and implemented an elaborate system for managing Ryukyu’s forest resources. One reason SAI On placed such importance on forestry was that he regarded wood, literally, as the material foundation of Ryukyu as a state. Similarly, SAI On undertook a massive survey of all of the kingdom’s productive land as a prerequisite for managing it more efficiently.7 SAI On’s Confucian thought was inextricably linked with his long and generally successful career in the highest levels of government. He was a rare example of a Confucian scholar who actually exercised great political power over a long period of time. Even during the fourteenth century, when the island of Okinawa was home to three principalities, each of these small states established formal tribute relations with Ming China and conducted trade within that framework. King Satto 察度 of Chūzan received the calendar from the Ming emperor in 1372, and in 1383 the kings of Chūzan and Sannan 山南 received silver and gold seals, followed in 1385 by the king of Hokuzan 北山. From this point onward, all three kings of Okinawa had received investiture from the Chinese court and were participating in its tribute system.8 Chinese, typically from Fujian, residing in and around the port of Naha, were instrumental in conducting the tribute trade. Indeed, there is strong circumstantial 7 For a detailed explanation of SAI On’s theory of the Ryukyuan state and his implementation of the Genbun Survey, see Smits 1999: 80–86, 103–112. 8 For details on early Okinawan relations with the Ming court, see Tomiyama 2004: 23–34.

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evidence that resident Chinese in the fourteenth century headed their own quasiindependent office (Ōsōfu 王相府) for handling the tribute trade with Ming China. Although this office was located in Chūzan, it also handled tribute missions and trade for the rival principalities of Hokuzan and Sannan (Maeda 1972: 64–67.) From then until just prior to formal annexation by Japan in 1879, the Chūzan kingdom of Okinawa maintained formal relations with China, albeit with a brief hiatus following the Satsuma invasion of 1609 and the Ming-Qing transition in the seventeenth century. Ryukyu sent regular tribute missions to China, sent students to study in China privately or at the National Academy 國子監 in the capital, and received investiture envoys from China to confer ritual imperial sanction new kings. Buddhism also began to enter the Ryukyu Islands at about this time, to some extent from China but mainly from Japan. Similar to the case of Japan during the Nara and Heian periods, the apparently awesome power of Buddhism, combined with its adaptability to local circumstances, greatly appealed to Ryukyuan kings. During the fifteenth through at least the middle of the seventeenth century, Buddhism in the form of Rinzai Zen and Shingon dominated the world view of Ryukyuan elites and Buddhist temples dominated the landscape of urban areas in Okinawa. Of course, Buddhist priests were often familiar with the basic books of Confucianism and with reading classical Chinese. In an indirect manner, therefore, Buddhism helped lay the foundation for a surge in the prestige of Chinese studies starting in the late seventeenth century. The oldest extant stone monument in Ryukyu was created in 1427, and it is also the oldest extant Ryukyuan document in classical Chinese. The likely author is Kaiki 懐機, the king’s chief minister and a Daoist practitioner of Chinese ancestry whose apparent main duty was to ensure royal longevity. Known as the Monument to the Garden that Benefits the Country (Ankoku zanju kaboku no kihi 安國山樹華 木之記碑), the text praises SHō Hashi as a paragon of loyalty, humility, and love for the common people as well as Kaiki’s influence with supernatural forces. The monument text explains that the king sent Kaiki to China to investigate beneficial plants and that Kaiki returned to Ryukyu and constructed a garden at Mt. Ankoku near the royal palace. To the north of the mountain, he dug out an area to create Ryūtan Pond 龍潭池, and to the south he constructed a pavilion for royal officials to visit while taking a break from their duties. The text also likens the ever-increasing vitality of the garden to the vitality of the kingdom (Okinawa kenritsu hakubutsukan 1993: 16, 82; Maeda 1972: 45). From this monument and other sources we know that early in the kingdom’s history popular Daoism and perhaps some rudimentary knowledge of geomancy 風水 were present in the capital area from the beginning of the fifteenth century if not earlier. The Chinese who came to Okinawa in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries were mainly seafaring merchants. Although they resided in various places at different times, a community of Chinese immigrants to Ryukyu developed in Kumemura 久米村, near the port of Naha. In the local language Kumemura was called Kuninda, and in documents it often appears as Tōei 唐営, literally something like “Chinese businesses.” The traditional date for the founding of Kumemura is 1392, although the early details are sketchy. By the second half of the fifteenth century, Kumemura

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had become the locus of Ryukyuan trade and diplomacy with China. Its fortune declined sharply in the years just before and after Satsuma’s invasion. Owing to the political importance of Ryukyu’s ties with China after 1609, the royal government put considerable resources into reviving Kumemura as a center for diplomacy and Chinese studies. The golden age of Kumemura extended from the late seventeenth century to the late eighteenth century. During this time, Kumemura residents played a disproportionate role in both politics and scholarship. In some sense, they were too successful. By the late eighteenth century, the entire Ryukyuan elite had become so well grounded in Confucian learning that Kumemura lost its monopoly on Chinese studies and the management of diplomacy.9 Beginning in the seventeenth century, the male residents of Kumemura enjoyed guaranteed stipends starting at ten years of age and increasing with formal rank and status. The lowest official post in the Kumemura hierarchy was “interpreter” (tsūji 通事). Those holding this rank performed a variety of low-level diplomatic functions and typically studied in China. The loftiest rank was murasaki kintaifu 紫金大夫, indicating a high level of diplomatic service and academic attainment. During the seventeenth century, financial and other incentives induced some of the best minds within the Ryukyuan elite to settle in Kumemura and take “Chinese” names. Although SAI On was born in Kumemura, both of his parents had moved there from Shuri, the royal capital. Danger offset the privileged status of Kumemura residents. Most traveled to China repeatedly for study or official business, and many died in this process owing to shipwreck, pirates, or disease. Although SAI On stands out as the most prominent Confucian scholar in Ryukyu, several other Ryukyuans excelled in various realms of Chinese studies or Chinesederived knowledge. For example, Sō Eki 曽益 (1645–1702) was a renowned poet, whose work was known in China. While in Fujian in 1688, Sō and several other Ryukyauns contributed funds so that GI Shitetsu 魏士哲 (1653–1738) could study a surgical procedure to repair a harelip with the physician HUANG Huiyou 黄会友. Returning to Ryukyu, Gi successfully operated on Crown Prince SHō Eki 尚益 (Uezato 1993: 184). The poems of TEI Junsoku 程順則 (1663–1734) were known in China, and he also wrote a book on maritime navigation, Navigation Guide (Shinan kōgi 指南広義), for use by Ryukyuan pilots sailing between Naha and Fujian. Agriculturalist GIMA Shinjō 儀間真常 (1557–1644) and pragmatic diplomat SAI Kokki 蔡国器 (1632–1702) are also excellent examples of Ryukyuans whose accomplishments were grounded in knowledge they acquired in China. While in China these Ryukyuans all served to varying degrees as diplomats, for whom mastery of Chinese verse was a basic professional skill. That they also contributed to fields such as surgery, agriculture, and navigation was typical of the academic environment in Ryukyu with its emphasis on “real world” practical applications. SAI On took this link between study in or about China and pragmatic knowledge a step further. He was a visionary who saw in Confucian philosophy a viable blueprint for re-engineering Ryukyuan society. SAI On was an expert on forestry and 9

For a comprehensive history of Kumemura and its most prominent residents see Ikemia et al. 1993.

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several other technical subjects, but he also possessed, and attempted to implement, a much broader vision than any of his Kumemura contemporaries or predecessors.

4.3

SAI On’s Vision, Part 1: Confucian Social Engineering

SAI On was the first Ryukyuan to write an autobiography. As has been shown in detail elsewhere, his autobiography was a work of didactic rhetoric in which SAI On used an idealized version of his life to impart lessons to current and subsequent generations of Ryukyuan elites (Smits 2006). Focusing only on the issue of SAI On’s advocacy of Confucian learning as a blueprint for transforming society, let us consider his alleged encounter with a mysterious recluse in China, an episode that figures more prominently than any other in the autobiography. The basic facts of this encounter cannot be verified, and it has been argued that most likely it is a fictional account. For reasons to be explained later, the suspicion is that the recluse may be a personification of SAI On’s textual encounter with the late Ming scholar-official LÜ Kun 呂坤 (1536–1618), a widely-read advocate of pragmatic statecraft and native of Hunan Province. As the story goes, in 1709 during his first trip to China at age 28, SAI On began visiting the Lingyun 凌雲 Temple in Fujian and befriended the head priest. One day this priest mentioned to SAI On that a man from “Huguang” 湖広, a term indicating Hubei and Hunan provinces, was visiting the temple and could be found in its library. During their first encounter, the visitor asked SAI On some simple questions about Ryukyu and gave no indication of any special qualities. SAI On’s inclination was to avoid wasting any more time talking with the recluse, but the head priest persuaded SAI On to come back the next day. During the next visit, the recluse asked SAI On about whether his kingdom valued the Confucian classics, and SAI On explained that he was well versed in the classics as were most of his colleagues. Unimpressed, SAI On nevertheless agreed to return the next day in deference to the head priest’s insistence. During that visit, the man asked SAI On to compose a poem about the scenery surrounding the temple. SAI On dashed off a poem, which the visitor praised lavishly, reading it several times aloud before hanging it on the wall. SAI On surely knew that his poem was no great work of art, and he concluded that the visitor “must not be very good at composition” (Sakihama 1984: 106). The same cycle ensued: SAI On sought to avoid further contact with the man, but the head priest eventually persuaded SAI On to return for one last visit. The first three encounters were apparently part of a setup calculated to magnify the psychological impact of the fourth visit. The man who had appeared so easily amused by SAI On’s poem the day before turned on him and accused him of having wasted his life and of having learned nothing of value during his 28 years. The recluse characterized SAI On as possessing only the superficial, outward forms of learning, “the dregs of words” (moji no kasu 文字之糟粕). The recluse acknowledged SAI On’s accomplishments, but described them as the work of an artisan or

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craftsman (saiku 細工), beautiful and detailed, perhaps, but serving no purpose other than aesthetic pleasure. He accused SAI On of indulging in the dregs of words merely for his personal amusement, saying that because he lacked knowledge of true learning, SAI On was of no use to himself or his country. SAI On protested that the recluse’s accusation was unreasonable, pointing out he had “read through” all of the classics and even composed an impromptu poem the day before. To prove his point, the recluse opened a copy of the Analects, which the autobiography points out served as an elementary reading text for young students at the temple. He pointed to the term jingshi 敬事, which has little self-evident meaning and might be translated out of context as “respectful service.” A conversation ensued in which SAI On repeatedly glossed the term with vague expressions such as “loving people” and “carrying out the correct path” (Sakihama 1984: 107). In response to each gloss the recluse asked SAI On what specific steps a ruler or government official might take to put that nice-sounding sentiment into practice? Unable to answer any of these queries, SAI On, by his own account, awakened to the truth of the recluse’s accusation that his learning to date was of no real use. In the course of his critique, the recluse referred to the steps of the Greater Learning: The Four Books and the Six Classics as well as other wise writings are all tools for [what the Greater Learning calls] making the will sincere (sei’i, 誠意) and governing the realm (chikoku, 治国). But you have forgotten the great utility (taiyō, 大用) of making the will sincere and governing the realm. You ‘work’ at things like reading and composition simply for amusement. In the end, you have forgotten yourself and your country (Sakihama 1984: 107).

In his other works, SAI On frequently made the point that academic learning has no legitimate function other than aiding government. Certainly learning should also develop one’s character, but such personal development is only a foundation for social engagement. As the Greater Learning points out, making one’s will sincere (chengi 誠意) serves as the basis for governing one’s household and then governing the state, with peace throughout the realm as the final product. What set SAI On apart from a diplomat like TEI Junsoku was that SAI On took seriously the goal governing the state as a culmination of self-cultivation. The corpus of SAI On’s written work and the “text” of his policy agenda and activities in government all fit his interpretation of the Greater Learning as authorizing concrete, actionable knowledge as the true goal of learning. Even when SAI On emphasized personal cultivation, as in this passage from Essentials of Popular Customs (Suxi yaolun 俗習要論), its ultimate form of expression was usefulness to society: Regarding academic endeavors, such training must start with the two characters ‘making the will sincere.’ If such efforts come to fruition, then rightness and principles will be clarified, and one will be on a par with those who are of great use to society. Why do vulgar scholars endeavor pointlessly to read books and write compositions? Even if one makes a name for himself in the literary arts, if he covets profit, loves fame, and so forth, then he is no different than a common person. Could this be what it means to cultivate learning? (Sakihama 1984: 155–156.)

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In the following passage in the same essay, SAI On adds governing the state to the picture: In reading the writings of the sages and worthies, it is necessary only to study the way of making the will sincere and governing the state…. In considering how to rectify popular customs, one must first learn to make the will sincere. With his mind thus rectified, he next studies how to govern the state…. Such cultivation should be the main work of aristocratic households (Sakihama 1984: 156).

Returning to the account in the autobiography, the unnamed recluse with whom SAI On claimed he studied for 5 months functioned, for all intents and purposes, as his alter ego. For a Confucian scholar to say that learning should be put into practice through governing may seem utterly conventional. It is worth bearing in mind, however, that in SAI On’s Ryukyu, Chinese studies served diplomacy (emphasis on aesthetic pursuits) and technical knowledge (sugar making, medicine, the calendar, geomancy, etc.). To insist that Confucian learning should function as the basis of the state and ultimately of society as a whole was a novel idea. Moreover, throughout East Asia, despite the emphasis on governing in Confucian rhetoric, it was rare for Confucianinspired politicians to occupy top government posts and pursue activist reform agendas for sustained periods of time. Although SAI On argued skillfully, his talk of a Confucian society went beyond rhetoric. He was in a position to realize that ideal, and he made great progress in some areas. Soon after returning from China, SAI On became tutor to Crown Prince SHō Kei 尚敬 (r. 1713–1751), who became king shortly thereafter. The king provided the political authority SAI On needed to pursue his agenda. Generally, SAI On’s attempts to improve Ryukyu’s material conditions were successful on balance, whereas his attempts to improve social customs and attitudes had little or no effect beyond elite circles.

4.4

SAI On’s Vision, Part 2: Making Destiny

In characterizing his encounter with the recluse and in characterizing the distinction between verbal dregs versus true learning that it engendered, SAI On said that “it was like waking from a dream.” This expression comprises part of the title of one of his philosophical essays, Essential Views Upon Awakening 醒夢要傳 (Xingmeng yaolun). The essay is mainly a quasi-scientific debunking of what SAI On regarded as popular superstitions, but it also features a discussion of the workings of fate and destiny, a major topic in Confucian philosophy. Here and in other essays, SAI On generally sought to explain destiny (ming) in a way that encouraged personal effort and discouraged complacency. For SAI On, the realm that humans could control in whole or in substantial part was large, and the realm beyond any possibility of human control was small. There were only two rhetorical contexts in which SAI On spoke of ming as unchangeable destiny. One context was countering Buddhist claims of trans-generational karmic retribution and the other was arguing against

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shortcuts or an easy path in the process of self cultivation.10 The following passage from Essential Views Upon Awakening is a good example of the latter context: The presence or absence of good or bad fortune, wealth, or poverty is ming. Regardless of high or low status in this world, there is but one thing to do: vigorously conquer generative force, control the mind, struggle and fight to eliminate any trace of selfish thoughts, eliminate disharmony, and entrust heaven (tian 天) with matters of good fortune or bad, wealth or poverty, and calmly await death. How is it that common people under the deception of generative force seek madly after good fortune and wealth and seek desperately to escape poor fortune and poverty? They make countless plans and secret contrivances, trying to change what they cannot. This is not one’s proper ming (Sakihama 1984: 101).

Here SAI On refers to Mencius’ notion of “proper ming” (zhengming 正命), whereby a person does his or her best in exerting moral effort and then can die content, regardless of that person’s social circumstances. If we compare the above passage with other statements SAI On made regarding destiny, it might seem as if he advocated precisely the opposite position. In his essays on household management, for example, SAI On argued repeatedly that through intelligent planning and hard work even the poorest households could raise their material standard of living (Sakihama 1984: 191–193). Moreover, at the level of the state, SAI On was adamant that people control their own destiny. In re-writing of one of the kingdom’s official histories, for example, SAI On described the corruption of Chūzan’s King Bunei 武寧 (r. 1396–1405) and then said: Although it could be said that Bunei’s demise was something heaven tian carried out, in fact it was his own doing. Jie and Zhou, evil and oppressive, perished though they were descendants of sagely kings. The founders of the Han and Tang dynasties rose despite being of commoner origin. It all depends on one’s self. How could such a thing be called the inevitability of heaven (Iha et al. 1988, vol. 4: 27)?

Similarly, in discussing the abdication of King Gihon 義本 (1249–1259), something the original historian regarded as virtuous, SAI On’s view was the precise opposite: Gihon relinquished the great enterprise [of rulership] to a stranger because of famine and plague. How weak and lacking was his constitution in the extreme! Yao had his floods; Tang had his drought, which were both disasters. Not even a sage can escape such disasters, much less anyone else. At such times if a ruler makes every effort to cultivate moral authority and to work at governing according to correct principles, the disaster can be overcome and the people’s minds can be galvanized. Why on earth did a morning’s grief cause him to give up the great enterprise of a hundred generations (Iha et al. 1988, vol. 4: 26)?

Notice that even the passage from Essential Views Upon Awakening urges people to avoid fatalism and exert their fullest effort, despite the existence of circumstances beyond individual control. Whatever one’s circumstance, improvement was always possible through moral effort. Taken as a whole, SAI On’s message was loud and consistent: Ryukyuans can and must take responsibility for their own destiny. As he portrayed it, the encounter with the recluse in China awakened SAI On to the possibility of altering Ryukyu’s destiny, and the path to doing so consisted of 10

For a detailed, comparative discussion of SAI On’s view of destiny, see Smits 1999: 86–99.

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pragmatic knowledge that would increase the wealth and stability of society. Aesthetic pursuits were at best a distraction and at worse a positive hindrance to that goal.11 It was once common among historians of Okinawa to speculate about the identity of the recluse, apparently assuming that the incident SAI On described actually happened. My guess is that the recluse may in part have been a metaphor for SAI On’s textual encounter with the writings of the late Ming scholar-official LÜ Kun, whose works were widely available during the eighteenth century. Some scholars of Ryukyu have been struck by the close resemblance between SAI On’s Essentials of Governance and Lü’s Groaning Words 呻吟語 (Maeda 1972: 152, 197). I will discuss similarities between Lü and SAI On in greater detail below, but here I will examine their views regarding the distinction between ming and bao 報 (Jp. hō, mukui), which we might translate as “retribution” in a negative context or “rewards” in the case of worthy behavior. According to SAI On in Essential Views Upon Awakening: Ming and bao are completely different. It is a great error for ordinary people to point to destiny (ming) but understand it as retribution or reward (bao). Those who do good are revered in people’s hearts, while those who do evil are reviled. Being revered or being reviled follow someone around like a shadow, and are called bao. Destiny is a function of the creative process of nature, and even a sage cannot escape it. Yao produced an incompetent son and the [evil] Blind Man produced [the sage] Shun. King Wen suffered [imprisonment] at Jiangli, and Bandit Ji enjoyed himself at Shengya. If such things are not the particular destiny of individuals, what is? If such things could be called bao, what crimes did Yao and King Wen commit, and what virtue did the Blind Man and Bandit Ji possess (Sakihama 1984: 96)?12

In short, the beneficial social capital people accrue from good deeds and the resentment they engender for bad deeds has no connection with ming. To think otherwise would lead to absurd conclusions such as Yao or King Wen having been morally deficient. Similarly, Lü understood ming as something “fundamentally inherent in heaven tian” but also as something that inheres in each of us. A superior person takes charge of his destiny by means of moral virtue, making the situation better, whereas an inferior person does so by means of improper desires, making the situation worse. The superior person is content, knowing he has done his best with what heaven has allotted him (Hikita 1977: 49–51). Also similar to SAI On, Lü discussed the mechanism of short-term socially-based retribution and reward. As Joanna F. Handlin explains: Lü warned that obtaining wealth unfairly ‘will incur the wrath of the multitude … [and] will be punished by officials;’ and he reminded his audience that “the advantages gained by

11 SAI On’s austere, utilitarian outlook, and the agenda he pursued, generated significant opposition among Ryukyuan elites. For example, he opposed the recreational use (as opposed to the ritual use) of liquor in every essay he wrote, in direct opposition to prevailing aristocratic culture. Whether it be poetry, drunken parties, or sexual dalliance, SAI On looked askance at the pursuit of pleasure. For him, such things diverted energy and resources from the urgent tasks at hand. One manifestation of elite discontent with SAI On was the Heshikia-Tomoyose Incident of 1734. See Smits 1999: 125–132. 12 See also Sakihama 1984: 45–46 for the same explanation in the form of a fictional dialogue.

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harming others are [as uncertain as] a lamplight in the wind … and [as short-lived as] ice and fire (Handlin 1983: 131).

Like Lü, SAI On interpreted social forces and heavenly forces in a way that stressed the power of intelligent moral action to improve one’s situation no matter how disadvantaged the starting point. SAI On frequently described Ryukyu as a poor country, barely able to sustain itself. This situation was in part a function of Ryukyu’s allotted situation, but substantial improvement was possible. Ryukyu lacked metal, for example, something no amount of human effort could change. SAI On argued, however, that by carefully cultivating the kingdom’s forest resources, Ryukyu could sell lumber to obtain metal from Satsuma.13 Perhaps SAI On’s strongest argument for the possibility of improvement despite adversity was his autobiography. The entire work consists mainly of examples of overcoming adversity. As a lazy, self-indulgent youth, SAI On claimed that public embarrassment at the hands of a peer caused him to devote all of his efforts to study. later in life, the encounter with the recluse supposedly prompted SAI On to channel his efforts away from aesthetic pursuits and toward social transformation. Toward the end of the autobiography, SAI On describes defusing a potentially disastrous diplomatic crisis involving Chinese investiture envoys by bold, courageous action on his part.14 Whether at the personal level or at the level of society, “destiny” for SAI On was open-ended in terms of possibilities. The cosmic forces determined some basic parameters, but for the most part, Ryukyu’s destiny was for Ryukyuans to create.

4.5

SAI On’s Vision, Part 3: Size Does Not Matter

In One Man’s Views 獨物語 (Hitori monogatari), an essay written in Japanese for a wide intended audience of Ryukyuan elites, SAI On explains the condition of Ryukyu and the concrete steps he advocated for improving that condition. Among other things, the essay is an encapsulation of his ideal vision for Ryukyu. The opening sections stress Ryukyu’s deficiencies. The kingdom is small and saddled with obligations to both Japan and China that it can barely meet. Not only is Ryukyu materially impoverished, but until recently it has been ignorant of “the fundamental principles of the way of Government.” In a nine-tier classification of countries based on their resources and expenditures, SAI On implied that Ryukyu was in the bottom tier. Indeed, Ryukyu’s severe deficiencies begged the question of how the kingdom could have survived for several centuries? SAI On’s answer was that the kingdom was located under a particularly auspicious set of stars and that Okinawa’s mountain ranges formed a serpentine pattern resembling the appearance of a dragon. Geography, he claimed, had saved Ryukyu from disintegration thus far, but there 13 14

For more details see Smits 1999: 80–86, 103–112. For a thorough discussion see Smits 2006.

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was no guarantee that such protection would be sufficient in the future (Sakihama 1984: 76–78; Smits 1999: 80–84). The solution, as we have seen, was for Ryukyuans to take charge of their own destiny. Referring to the nine-tier classification, “even countries ranked low-inferior, if they adhere to the fundamental principles of the way of Government, can achieve peace and stability relative to that country’s resource level” (Sakihama 1984: 78). The purpose of One Man’s Views is to explain precisely how Ryukyuans, especially government officials, should go about this process of creating peace and stability through enlightened government. After advocating a variety of specific policies the essay returns to general concepts in its concluding sections. The interesting point for our purposes is that SAI On conceived of a material foundation such that a viable country must possess each of the five elements of water, wood, fire, metal, and earth. Because Satsuma provided metal in return for Ryukyu’s wood, Satsuma played an essential role in constituting Ryukyu. However, in discussing the higher level tasks of building an ideal Confucian society on this material infrastructure, SAI On never mentions Satsuma. Engineering a better society was the sole responsibility of Ryukyuans. In essence, SAI On argued that despite its small size and lack of resources, when measured in terms of the universal standard of Confucian morality, Ryukyu could come to be on a par with China or Japan. A good example is the concluding sentences in Essential Views Upon Awakening, which states the case from the standpoint of individuals: If one rouses his will and develops his strength, endeavoring to conquer generative force (qi), clarify rightness, and eliminate both varieties of deception, whether of high or low status, his virtuous nature will become manifest and his true ability will come to the fore. He will surely leave a respectable reputation for posterity. Why need we worry that people of today are inferior to those of ancient times (Sakihama 1984: 102)?

To create such a destiny for Ryukyu required attention to two broad, interconnected areas: improving the material basis of society and rectifying customs, behavior, and attitudes. To delve more deeply into SAI On’s Confucian thought, I examine two areas of great interest to him: popular superstitions, and governing. In the former case, SAI On was ineffective at bringing about the kind of reform he desired beyond elite circles. In the realm of government and economic reform, SAI On was relatively successful. Both realms reveal much about the character of SAI On’s Confucian thought.

4.6

Battling the Demon of the Mind

In 1728, the year SAI On joined the Council of Three, the following entry appeared in the Kyūyō 球陽, a constantly-updated official history: It has been common practice in our country to trust in the techniques of shamans (yuta 巫女), which has given rise to evil delusion. Moreover, this vulgar practice has been deeply rooted and

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has caused a great expenditure of wealth. Therefore, the king instructed the Prime Minister and Council of Three to make laws prohibiting and eliminating the practice of shamanism, thereby returning society to the Correct Way (Kyūyō kenkyūkai 1974: entry no. 815).

In practice, of course, eliminating or even reducing deeply-entrenched cultural practices could not be done simply by passing new laws. I have discussed the political dimensions of the prohibition on shamanism in details elsewhere (Smits 1999: 113–117). Here I focus on its intellectual substance. Just as the ban on shamanism took place in a larger political context of broad social reform, SAI On’s critique of shamanism was part of a wider campaign to change people’s ways of thinking by providing a rational explanation for what might appear to be mysterious or supernatural phenomena. In so doing, SAI On deployed explanations that in today’s terms might fall into the realms of psychology and natural science. In the realm of psychology, SAI On wrote of a “demon of the mind” 心魔, a colorful way of characterizing the capacity of benighted people to delude themselves. Our fears and anxieties, for example, energize this demon: The common people who value shamanic religious practices all suffer from a “demon” in their minds. This demon does not come from the outside. Instead, people do not realize that what they have done is to create their own demon of bewilderment in their breasts owing to deep fears and anxieties. Everything they do brings them into contact with this demon of bewilderment, which applies to everyone the world over who recklessly engages in baseless practices. That people could have such deeply-ingrained vulgar emotions that are so difficult to overcome! Is it not beyond imagination? Is it not beyond comprehension? (Sakihama 1984: 98)

The idea that delusion of our minds creates problems and causes irrational behavior, of course, was not exclusively Confucian and is an example of a general convergence of Neo-Confucian and Buddhist conceptions of the mind. Despite this convergence, the basis of SAI On’s understanding of human psychology was a simplified notion of ZHU Xi’s theory of the mind. Although not mentioned specifically in the passage above, SAI On consistently identified the agent of delusion as generative force (qi 氣), or more specifically keqi 客氣, a term that suggests the impingement of generative force on the mind. In SAI On’s usage, keqi is always a disruptive force that causes confusion and prevents the true sagely nature that is the birthright of humans from becoming manifest. In many contexts “rash emotions” is a reasonable translation of SAI On’s keqi. “The fundamental message of the many sagely writings,” he argued, “is surely nothing other than the necessity to eliminate rash emotions” (Sakihama 1984: 114). In the essay Conversations with an Old Man (Suoweng pianyan 箕翁片言), SAI On, speaking through his alter ego, a rustic old man, explained the demon of the mind in the context of answering a question about whether casting spells is possible: In coming into contact with things and dealing with events, generative force often leads ordinary people astray. Otherwise healthy people create their own sicknesses. Or, when not beset by actual calamities such people create their own. I call it ‘the demon of the mind.’ In former times, a Buddhist priest crushed an eggplant while walking at night. He thought it was a toad and that he had destroyed its life. His mind’s agony was deep. While sleeping,

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he suddenly dreamed that a toad was knocking on the gate begging for its life. The priest promised to make amends the next day, but with the light of day he saw that it was merely an eggplant he had crushed. This tale is an example of generative force bewildering someone, causing him to create his own calamity (Sakihama 1984: 46–47).

This tale is a modified paraphrase of a passage in Beixi’s Accounts of the Meanings of Terms (Beixi ziyi 北溪字義), a well-known philosophical lexicon from the thirteenth century. In this work, the concluding sentence regarding the priest reads: “The matter was simply that the priest himself had the suspicion, and his suspicion influenced and invited a wandering soul to close in and come to him” (Chan 1986: 165). By contrast, SAI On left out any reference to a wandering soul or other external agent, placing the cause of the delusion entirely in the priest’s mind. In the realm of law and politics, SAI On sought to use the power of the state to prohibit the activities of shamans, diviners, and other purveyors of supernatural solutions for life’s problems. In his view, such people wasted economic resources, reinforced false notions about the workings of the world, challenged the state’s prerogative in ideological matters, and contributed to personal delusion that held back progress toward the goal of creating an ideal Confucian society. To complement such efforts, SAI On explained how it was possible that shamans and diviners held such strong sway over much of society. The explanations were not aimed at ordinary people, but at elite Ryukyuans who read classical Chinese. Almost certainly SAI On’s hope was that by convincing these elites that certain popular practices had no genuine basis, they would be inspired to carry forward SAI On’s social engineering agenda. One approach, as we have seen above, was to explain the psychological process whereby even sophisticated people like Buddhist priests are able to delude themselves. The second approach was to explain the workings of the natural world and specifically to refute claims of the supernatural in such terms. The bulk of Essential Views Upon Awakening is devoted to refuting supernatural beliefs. The first six sections set the stage by discussing metaphysics, sometimes refuting certain Buddhist ideas in the process. Topics include the Great Ultimate (taiji 太極), generative force, human nature, the human mind and different personalities, the perfection of humans vis-a-vis other animals, the wondrous functioning of the creative process, the cosmic pattern (li 理) and specific principles within it (ze 則), heavenly-endowed social rules, delusion by generative force as the reason people often fail to follow those rules, the importance of conquering delusional generative force if the country is to be governed, and empty theories versus substantive principles (Sakihama 1984: 90–93.). In general, SAI On’s understanding of these ideas corresponds with the Cheng-Zhu line of NeoConfucianism, although SAI On’s explanations are usually relatively simple and neither here nor anywhere else did he ever express an awareness of different “schools” or factions of Confucian thought. In the next part of Essential Views Upon Awakening, SAI On deploys elements of these metaphysical points to address specific topics. He declares that spirits have no shape or substance and that certain strange phenomena are temporary remnants of glitches in the process of creation. Such abnormalities are extremely rare, and because they lack substance they should be of no concern to people. Indeed,

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excessive concern with passing anomalies can become an “ax that destroys the country.” He denies the possibility of an afterlife and acknowledges the possibility that a person might experience strange visions or perform odd feats while in the grip of illness. But SAI On dismisses such abnormalities as ephemeral phenomena of no real importance. A section discussing “popular theories” explains that those who died in battle or bearing grudges cannot become vengeful spirits and that illness accounts for instances of supposed spiritual possession, which is impossible in the usual sense of the term. What actually happens is that we create our own apparitions when our warped imaginations run wild. Moreover, rebirth on earth after death is impossible. A few sections later SAI On acknowledges that techniques for casting spells do exist, but he dismisses them as hardly worthy of discussion. If such techniques really could be put into practice, why would we need armed forces and suffer the pains of dying in battle when casting spells would be sufficient military defense? Once again, it is the demon in our minds that makes ordinary people fear the possibility of sorcery, “creating illness where there was none and creating calamities where none existed.” Other topics taken up and refuted include the idea that lightning strikes evil people as divine retribution, the idea that dust storms are some kind of animated spirit, fear of foxes, ghosts, monsters, spirits of rivers, mountains, etc., and the magic techniques of mountain hermits (Sakihama 1984: 93–100). SAI On reinforced these points in other essays. For example, in Conversations with an Old Man, SAI On took up the same question about lightning made in Essential Views Upon Awakening, but instead of analyzing the matter, he took a different rhetorical approach: The old man and a priest were passing through a mountainous area together. The sky suddenly erupted in clouds and shook with the sound of thunder. The priest said ‘One who has committed a serious sin will be struck by lightning, so truly we should be fearful of thunder.’ Before he could finish what he was saying, lightning from a great thunderclap struck a pine tree on a boulder. The old man laughed and said, ‘Of what sin is that boulder guilty? Of what sin is that pine tree guilty?’ (Sakihama 1984: 44)

Here, a typical scene from ordinary experience serves to cast doubt on the notion of lightning as an agent of cosmic moral retribution. Similarly, SAI On casts doubt in the idea of propitiating starving ghosts by pointing out the obvious: the food and drink left out for them never gets consumed. Other topics include casting spells, the possibility of people becoming ghosts, and belief in the undersea Dragon Palace 龍宮. SAI On’s explanation that strange feats performed while in the grip of illness does not indicate possession by a ghost is especially interesting: At birth people receive balanced proportions of the subtle generative forces, yin, yang, and the five elements, which endow the human mind with subtlety and spiritual clarity. Fundamentally humans are greatly different from birds and beats. Among humans, therefore, the full range of attitudes and abilities inheres in the mind, enabling people to respond to any situation. Ordinarily this [potential for response and adaptation] remains shut up and does not become manifest. If one has any contact at all with illness, however, some of these possibilities become manifest for all to see. A person may become adept in music, become able to read, become knowledgeable of future events, or converse with past generations. When the illness is cured, these abilities return to their closed, non-manifest state, as was the case before the illness. Such things are the workings of the subtle spiritual clarity of the

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human mind. How could they possibly be the workings of a ghost? The unenlightened masses, ignorant of these principles, foolishly believe ideas about ghosts attaching themselves to someone’s body. Such notions derive from the confusion caused by the demon of the mind, and such erroneous ideas afflict nearly all of the common people. It is something that I deeply lament (Sakihama 1984: 48–49).15

Here SAI On is surely relying on the idea that all humans possess the cosmic pattern (ri) in microcosm within their inherent natures (C: benran zhi xing; 本然之性 J: honzen no sei). Certain illnesses, he argues, bring to the fore hitherto unrealized potential talents, knowledge, or abilities. Unlike the discussion of lightning previously quoted, SAI On’s nuanced explanation of strange feats seems less likely to have been persuasive to any but highly educated Ryukyuans. Indeed, there is little indication that the benighted common people, whose over-active imaginations SAI On so much lamented, ever changed their ways of thinking during his lifetime or during the remainder of the kingdom’s existence. What did change, especially after 1728, was the formal position of the government based on the pronouncements of its leading officials. For example, a post1728 letter from a central government official to a local official describing the detrimental effects of shamanism and divination by toki 時 (male diviners who selected lucky days) reads: Because the cosmic pattern of the heavenly Way promotes good and dispels evil, when one encounters hard times, he should first engage in self-reflection and establish his determination to do away with evil and strive for what is good. If such an attitude is lacking, one will perversely think that [the difficulties stem from] some insufficiency regarding the deities and engage in toki divination (Takara 1990: 249–250).16

Such language would not have made sense during most of the seventeenth century, and indeed, many Ryukyuan elites at that time would not have agreed that shamanism and toki divination were baseless practices. Prime Minister SHŌ Shōken 向象賢 (1617–1675), for example, stated in his directives that although he wanted to limit the influence of shamans and diviners, he was unable to do so because no other officials would support the measure (Okinawa kenritsu toshokan shiryō henshūshitsu 1981: 55). Although we do not have a precise record of SAI On’s reading, from the works he cites it is clear that he was exposed to a wide range of Chinese literature. For example, in 1735, he published a lengthy compilation of classified quotations from classical Chinese sources, Compilation of Essential Excerpts (Yaowu huibian 要務彙編), for the king’s education. The excerpts are categorized by general topic and represent a broad range or writings and time periods, including the pronouncements of emperors as well as scholars. Chinese investiture envoy LI Dingyuan 李鼎元, who arrived in Ryukyu in 1800, read SAI On’s poems and several essays. Part of his assessment was that SAI On excelled in his knowledge of classical literature (Harada 1985: 230–231). It is quite likely, therefore, that SAI On was familiar with the work of the

15 16

For the full range of topics see Sakihama 1984: 44–51. See Takara 1990: 250–252 for additional examples.

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Han-dynasty eclectic scholar WANG Chong 王充 (27–100?). Wing-tsit Chan’s analysis of Wang was that, In clear, critical, and strong terms, he declared that heaven takes no action, that natural events, including prodigies, occur spontaneously, that there is no such thing as teleology, that fortune and misfortune come by chance, and that man does not become a ghost at death (Chan 1963: 293).

We have seen that SAI On’s views of these matters were identical or similar. There are many possible points of comparison between the two men, and here I will discuss only one typical example: the notion that a person could become a ghost, a spirit, or in some other way be reborn after death. According to Wang: When a man dies the five organs rot and decay. As they rot and decay, the Five Constant Virtues have nothing to attach to. What embodies wisdom will be destroyed, and what exercises wisdom will be gone. The body needs the vital forces to be complete, and the vital forces need the body to have consciousness. There is in the world no fire burning from itself. How can there be a spirit in the world that has consciousness from itself but is without a body (Chan 1963: 301)?

SAI On’s explanation is nearly the same, but with an emphasis on the role of the mind. Here is a good example of his views on this matter from Record of Additional Thoughts (Pianyan xulu 片言續録): The various types of bodies—from humans to birds, beasts, insects, fish, and the like—all undergo birth and death, growth and decay. This process is the inherent logic of heaven. The mind is the one organ among the five in which the spiritual light of mysterious substance resides. When the place in which this substance resides has been destroyed, how can this spiritual light be retained (Itokazu 1987: 106)?

In a continuation of his argument, SAI On wrote: If after the mind and body have died they could be reborn onto this earth, then from ancient times to the present, of all the people in the world, why has not a single one ever told of the circumstances of a previous worldly existence? Why has not a single sage or worthy in China, the Buddha in India, or any of their followers ever reappeared in this world (Itokazu 1987: 106)?

In Essential View Upon Awakening, SAI On wrote: According to another popular theory, a person who dies can be reborn. If indeed a dead person is reborn and returns to the world of the living, then starting with the sages and the Buddha, the number of people in the world would be so numerous as to be uncountable (Sakihama 1984: 95–96).

Similarly, Wang argued that: Since the beginning of the universe and rulers of high antiquity, people who died according to their allotted time or died at middle age or prematurely have numbered in the hundreds of millions. The number of men living today is not as great as that of the dead. If everyone who died becomes an earthly spirit, there should be an earthly spirit at every pace on the road (Chan 1963: 301).

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On the particular question of the dead becoming spirits, and on a wide variety of other issues, SAI On’s views and his manner of arguing them closely resembled those of WANG Chong.

4.7

The Delicate Balancing Act of Governing

If Ryukyu was to become the ideal society SAI On envisioned, government would have to lead the way. Not surprisingly, therefore, SAI On had much to say about governing. In One Man’s Views he advocated specific policies and programs. In Essentials of Governance (Tuzhi yaoquan 圖治要傳), SAI On discussed the theory of governing, with an emphasis on economic matters. Interestingly, although he advocated state activism and intervention at least in theory, SAI On was aware that in practice genuinely effective state intervention was no easy or obvious matter. Government officials must possess an almost sagely quality of insight and lack of bias for such intervention to work well. Moreover, subtle policies were often better than blunt prohibitions. Indeed, so difficult was the task of guiding society and so numerous were the possibilities for missteps than in both One Man’s Views and Essentials of Governance SAI On used the metaphor of guiding a horse by means of rotten reins. Similarly, SAI On was aware that governing sometimes required walking a fine line between potentially contradictory paths, To give an impetus to the production of grain, the sale of rice liquor (shōchū 焼酎) is allowed, but we have the duty to see that the custom of drunkenness will not arise. This is why even the ancient sages characterized the way of government, which day and night we strive to carry out, as like guiding a horse using a rotten rope (Sakihama 1984: 80).17

Undoubtedly SAI On’s awareness of the subtleties of governing was a result of his being the most powerful (though not all-powerful) politician in the kingdom during most of his long life. He was a rare example of a Confucian scholar-philosopher who also wielded great political power. At first glance, SAI On’s caution regarding heavy-handed government may strike modern readers as some kind of proto-libertarianism. For example, SAI On generally opposed taxes on businesses, prohibitions that limited the scope of business activities, and state policies that might interfere with the workings of the market. His preferred mode of state action was almost Daoistic in that government should identify long-term trends and nudge society accordingly in desirable directions—as in the horse metaphor. The main reason for this outlook was pragmatic, however, not ideological. SAI On was not opposed in principle to strong government action, nor did he regard the open market as deserving of privileged moral status. SAI On’s caution came from experiencing well-intentioned but short-sighted government intervention that went awry. He knew from experience that pulling too hard on the rotten reins caused them to break. 17

See also Sakihama 1984: 150.

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Another characteristic of SAI On’s theory of governing is his frank acknowledgment that most people are motivated by short-term interest and the desire for profit. Although he did not celebrate this point, SAI On sought to create systems that would direct individual pursuit of gain toward the common good. The key to carrying out such a difficult maneuver was the presence of top government officials who were free from personal bias. Such officials would be able to look objectively at situations and create policies to maximize the benefit for society as a whole. SAI On was not so naïve as to think that such officials were common in his own time, but he seemed confident that the transformative power of education could create a selfless, unbiased officialdom in the near future. On this point SAI On may indeed seem naïve in hindsight. Considering the substantial degree of “Confucianization” of Ryukyu’s officialdom that SAI On witnessed during his own lifetime, however, such rosy near-future prospects might have seemed within the pale of reality from his perspective. Many passages in Essentials of Governance suggest a stereotypical Confucian outlook. For example, SAI On likened society to the human body and stressed the importance of good circulation and the interconnected functioning of its parts. Similarly he espoused a traditional division of labor, Those above should labor with their minds, while those below should labor with their physical strength. This is the natural principle of heaven…. The enlightened ruler’s government can be viewed like the human body. The ruler is like the head, the officials are like the arms, and the common people are like the legs. Looking merely at the body’s individual parts—the head, arms, and legs—they are not the same in terms of exalted or base functions. But good government consists in putting the parts together and viewing the body as a whole, looking at it objectively and loving all of it equally, and putting humane government into practice widely. This is the blessing of lasting good government (Sakihama 1984: 115, 116).

Although, for the most part, these passages are standard expressions Confucianism, the latter one makes the additional point that good government depends on a certain humane and humanistic kind of political vision. This vision consists of the objective clarity that comes from a lack of bias—the penetrating, integrative vision of a sage. It can occur only in those who have transcended desires associated with their social niche and who strive for the good of society as a whole. Therefore the monarch, especially, should be on guard against material desires, because indulging those desires could easily lead to an unbalanced allocation of resources to the detriment of society. Similarly, leading government officials must eliminate any thought of private gain if they are to possess the required sage-like capacity to grasp current trends, anticipate problems before they become manifest, react calmly to unexpected developments, and create and implement long-term plans. In light of their ideal function as sagacious, objective managers of society, government officials, like the monarch, must cultivate themselves in a way that banishes any thought of personal profit. In some contexts SAI On discussed such thoughts using the “private” (si 私) versus “public” (gong 公) dichotomy. More commonly, he relied on the previously-discussed term keqi. SAI On was well aware that simply by virtue of being in high office government officials were not

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necessarily virtuous themselves. Indeed “Numerous are ministers who pursue only their personal contrivances (wei qi shen zhi ying 唯其身之営), giving no thought to prosperity and decline or the safety and danger of the country” (Sakihama 1984: 113). Depending on the context, SAI On used terms such as “profit” (li 利) or “contriving” (ying 営) in both a positive and negative sense. At the level of individuals, especially social elites, possessing these qualities leads to corruption, confusion, and malfeasance. At the level of the entire society, however, it is possible for wise officials to create systems that accommodate and rely on the motivations of ordinary people and direct such energies to a beneficial outcome. One good example of such a system, which I have discussed at length elsewhere, was SAI On’s program of forest management. It included sufficient incentives for peasants to profit personally so that they would take an active role in policing forests near their villages. For example, there was a 300 kanmon 貫文 fine for any unauthorized cutting of certain particularly valuable trees. When violators were apprehended, half of the amount of the fine went to the person reporting the offense, and the other half went into the coffers of a reforestation program (Smits 1999: 105). SAI On acknowledged that most people would act in ways that benefited the broader society only if they could see profit for themselves in such actions. In a different context, SAI On advocated a project that began with state-sponsored development of infrastructure. The first step was construction of small harbors around Okinawa to facilitate the movement of both ships and smaller boats. If the harbors were in place, people with small boats could get into the business of transporting goods such as firewood, rice, and sugar. Moreover “It is natural to expect that the boat owners would charge fares and all the occupations involved would prosper” (Sakihama 1984: 85). The harbor system and small boats would also make it profitable for local peasants to cultivate certain types of trees in untaxed lands that had hitherto been going to waste. In short, although SAI On seems to have held out hope that government officials could be motivated by loftier sentiments than personal profit, he was well aware that most ordinary people would act only to the extent that they profited from doing so. In contrast to his campaign against shamanism and superstition, SAI On did not seek to change fundamental attitudes about personal profit. Instead he accepted them and devised ways in which profit-seeking energies could be channeled to productive ends. Again his horse metaphor comes to mind. Scholar-officials in China during the first half of the eighteenth century often debated economic policies with close attention to social conditions and market forces. In 1728, for example, Hunan governor WANG Guodong 王國棟 proposed renovating and flooding a former river course to create a mooring place for commercial boats. After pointing out that this area would be a perfect, safe mooring place for many types of boats he said, Moreover merchant ships would gather from the four directions. If one attracts the hundred crafts, finance will be sufficient; if one causes the hundred wares to circulate, livings will be abundant. As for the people who live by their strength, carrying burdens upon their shoulderpoles, once there is merchandise to come and go and be lifted up and down, even these will gain the opportunity to take load after load, which means that the waterside will also be a hunting-ground for food and clothing for the poor (Dunstan 1996: 309).

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Although the geographical details are different, of course, this proposal is otherwise nearly identical in conception and tone to the system of harbors SAI On proposed in One Man’s Views. Indeed, it is quite possible that SAI On got the idea from Chinese sources, and the following paragraphs describe another other example of him taking up an issue that had been recently debated in China. Supply and demand were of great interest to SAI On: “If money is plentiful and goods are few, the price will necessarily rise. If goods are many and money is scarce, the price will necessarily fall. This is the constant truth of mercantile activity” (Sakihama 1984: 141). Such a statement may seem remarkable in light of stereotypical views of Confucians being unconcerned with money or business activity, but the basic idea of supply and demand had become part of East Asian discourse on government and the economy by SAI On’s time. Leading into an argument with a statement like SAI On’s, for example, had become a common rhetorical procedure in Chinese debates about economic policy.18 More interesting than a statement of the basic principle of supply and demand was SAI On’s emphasis on the power of demand to increase supply. He opposed government regulations that reduced the demand for important items because their supply would thereby decrease. In the case of grain, for example, he explained in Essentials of Governance that, If the general public competes to make use of the various grains, the peasants will reap a profit (li 利), and their productive power will be stimulated. If the public does not make use of the various grains, the peasants will tire of their labor and disregard their duty. This principle applies to all agricultural products, which is the reason liquor, noodles, and so forth should not be prohibited (Sakihama 1984: 139).

Well-intentioned prohibitions might backfire when simplistic attempts to change behavior through ill-considered state interventions cause negative consequences that reverberate through a complex society. In One Man’s Views, SAI On explained the same principle—that demand must not be artificially restrained because doing so reduces supply—in nuanced detail. He began the argument by pointing out that drunkenness was a great harm to society. Prohibiting the manufacture of liquor, however, would be the wrong move on the part of the state because it inhibited the production of grain by suppressing demand. Similarly, the prohibition of luxury food items would be a counterproductive move even though frugality is a desirable social virtue, Prior to twenty years ago, even in times of famine, the manufacture of rice liquor (shōchū), noodles, and tofu was constantly prohibited, and more than 50,000 koku of rice, barley, wheat, and beans that could have been produced remained, in effect, buried within the earth. Nobody realized the harm such a move caused throughout the country…. the farmers produce very little grain except for the amount needed to pay their taxes. Throughout the country they have come to rely on sweet potatoes for their own consumption. Therefore, when a typhoon arose twenty years ago and destroyed the sweet potato crop, a great famine For example, Hanlin academician HUI Shiqui ᚥ士奇 (1671–1741) began his ca. 1738 essay criticizing price ceilings with “Whenever things are plentiful, their value will be low; whenever they are scarce, their value will be high.” He then went on to argue that this basic law cannot be overridden by government fiat. Quoted in Dunstan 2006: 107.

18

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swept through society. Needless to say the treasury was extremely hard pressed, and although people starved to death there was nothing that could be done to save them…. Because since that time the free production and sale of shōchū, noodles, and tofu have been permitted, that potential 50,000 koku is now in fact produced. Even though the sweet potato crop was damaged by a recent typhoon, there was surplus grain. Although the treasury did have to distribute most of its famine relief rice, no major problem occurred. Yet at the present time I am very concerned about the possibility of future prohibitions on shōchū, noodles, and tofu (Sakihama 1984: 80–81).

“Twenty years ago,” here is almost certainly a reference to 1728. That year SAI On became a member of the Council of Three and was thus formally in a position forcefully to promote his views. The figure of 50,000 koku (1 koku is roughly 180 L) seems high by almost any measure, considering that the total productivity of Ryukyu at the time was roughly 120,000 koku. It is probably best to read “50,000” here as “a very large quantity.” Following the passage quoted above, SAI On continues the anti-prohibitionist argument at length, countering a variety of possible reasons prohibition advocates might offer. The efficacy of banning rice liquor (shōchū) as a famine relief measure was also a key issue in China during SAI On’s day. Because regular Ryukyuan embassies to Beijing kept diplomatic officials informed of major developments in Chinese politics, it is hard to imagine that SAI On and other Ryukyuans from Kumemura would not have been exposed to the major arguments in this debate. During the 1730s and 1740s officials argued about the effects of the production and consumption of rice liquor on grain supplies in times of famine, particularly in the northern provinces. The range of views was wide, and the social context was more complex than was the case in Ryukyu. Moreover, prohibitionists carried the day in China, although SAI On too, claimed that he was once pressured against his will into enacting a ban on rice liquor, noodles and tofu that was ineffective (Sakihama 1984: 81–82). In the Chinese cases, opponents of a ban on rice liquor advanced arguments similar to what SAI On put forth 10 or 15 years later. These arguments included the impossibility of thwarting the profit motive by law, the impossibility of controlling prices by fiat, and specific conditions in peasant households. Chinese writers also discussed rice liquor as an impetus for demand, although not to the extent of SAI On’s argument that shōchū actually brings forth grain hitherto “shut up” within the earth.19 More broadly, during the 1720s–1740s in China we find fairly widespread acceptance among scholar-officials of the profit motive as an inevitable fact of life and something that could potentially be managed to produce socially desirable results. There was also a general trend in the direction of less state intervention and greater reliance on market forces. Blunt state intervention often came under criticism for being counterproductive, although no major Chinese officials argued for no government intervention at all in economic matters. The relative anti-interventionists often argued for subtle, low-key guidance. For example, in discussing the views of Celeng, a Manchu governor-general of Guangdong and Guanxi, Helen Dunstan points out 19

For the details of these debates in China, see Dunstan 1996: 203–245.

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that “Celeng did not think that local officials should do nothing when grain prices rose…. What they should do was make some unobtrusive “adjustments” while they calmed the populace” (Dunstan 2006: 96–97). In short, we find indications of SAI On’s overall approach to economic matters, and even some of his specific policy arguments, in the memos and memorials of Qing officials at precisely the time that SAI On was coming into prominence in Ryukyu. SAI On’s Confucian-inspired economic thought was not unique, even if the details of its implementation were specific to Ryukyuan circumstances. SAI On generally opposed any action with the effect of suppressing economic activity. For example, he eliminated a government-imposed limit on the number of pig farmers, and he repealed taxes on urban merchants, In the past, four or five kanme (1 kanme = 3.75 kilograms) of silver was collected as a tax on merchants, but the merchants were not able to do business freely and they gradually declined. Twenty years ago, the tax was removed, and merchants were told to work as they wanted. This move encouraged commerce and the number of people engaged in trades increased and expanded. Indeed, along with skilled crafts, various products are made and sold, and this flourishing of trades is good, needless to say, and a treasure for society (Sakihama 1984: 80).20

Agriculture was the largest sector of Ryukyu’s economy, and SAI On devoted the majority of his attention to agricultural matters, broadly defined. But he also understood that a flourishing commercial sector was essential for everyone’s prosperity. As the previous excerpt suggests, SAI On did not regard commercial activity as lowly or less noble than other occupations.21 He repeatedly made the point that all occupations are essential for society. For example, Peasants’ work is to put their full effort into agriculture, which is the basis of the country’s material wealth. The work of craftsmen is to produce well-built items, which provides the country with useful objects. The work of merchants is to open shops and sail the seas, which circulates the material goods of a country (Sakihama 1984: 133).

Although he expressed no animosity toward commerce, SAI On did not regard merchants as a potential resource in either formulating or executing economic policy. The main reason was that he regarded nearly all commoners as biased and shortsighted. This is not to say that government officials could not learn from commoners. SAI On himself spent months in rugged mountain villages consulting with local 20

See Sakihama 1984: 82 for SAI On’s opposition to restrictions on the number of pig farmers. The notion that Confucian scholars tended to oppose commerce is often mentioned in writings on China and Japan, but at least during the early-modern period such a view would have been rare among anyone with substantial administrative or policy responsibilities. In discussing the 1728 proposal for infrastructure improvement by WANG Guodong, Helen Dunstan points out that his words “seem imbued with an appreciation for commerce and material prosperity themselves. How far Wang is from the old-fashioned image of the Confucian scholar-official, with his eyes closed to the world of profit!” Dunstan 1996, p. 295. SAI On’s statement that a “flourishing of trades is good, needless to say, and a treasure for society” is of a similar tone, and this pro-commerce tone is easy to find in the writings of Confucians in both China and Japan. Other examples include DAZAI Shundai, NAKAI Chikuzan and other Kaitokudō scholars, and KAIHO Seiryō, several of whom I mention later in this paper. 21

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residents about agricultural matters. But the main difference was the scope of one’s vision. A villager in Kunigami might have expert knowledge of tree diseases, but he would have lacked the breadth of vision needed to create a forest management system throughout the country. Although SAI On saw all the commoner occupations as equally important, government administration was potentially nobler than the work of commoners because, ideally, government officials would be free from bias and would have submerged their private interests in favor of public welfare. In One Man’s Views, SAI On called this ideal, sagacious vision on the part of government officials “the greater substance and the greater function” (daitai-taiyō 大體大用). For him, the most important function of higher government officials was to use their special, unbiased insight into the whole of society to identify impending problems before these problems actually become manifest and to chart a long-term course for the country by careful planning. Here is a short explanation, Those who govern a country well must anticipate and distinguish downward or upward tendencies before they make themselves manifest. They must anticipate stability and danger before it arrives. Doing so is known as long-term planning or planning before a problem forms (Sakihama 1984: 127).

Also connected with this process of planning was a concern with proper timing and establishing priorities: “Amidst the myriad affairs in society, one must select and deal only with those whose timing is right … and officials must consider the proper priority and order” (Sakihama 1984: 126). Most basically, those who govern should have a sage-like capacity to respond perfectly to change. To have such a capacity is to be capable of situational weighing (quan 權, sometimes better translated as “expedient course of action”), Those who govern a country must understand the standard (jing 經) and situational weighing. That which is conducted in response to established patterns is the standard, and that which is interacted in response to changing conditions is called situational weighing (Sakihama 1984: 126–127).

I have discussed SAI On’s uses of situational weighing at length elsewhere (Smits 1996), and perhaps the best example was his enactment of the yaadui system.22 The very definition of a aristocrat was an urban dweller employed as a government official or functionary. Maintaining even the appearance of this definition had become so difficult, however, that SAI On created incentives for unemployed aristocrats to work as farmers—nearly opposite their official social niche. The yaadui system was ostensibly a temporary measure, but it lasted until the end of the kingdom and even, unofficially, into the twentieth century.23 22

For a detailed discussion of the yaadui system see Tasato 1980. The yaadui system was a bold measure, but it was not unique. Satsuma was home to rural samurai (gōshi 䜧士), and the domain of Yonezawa began encouraging impoverished samurai households to take up cloth weaving starting in the late seventeenth century. Soon after the creation of the Ryukyuan yaadui system the Hirosaki domain in northern Honshu resettled impoverished samurai, putting them to work in agricultural land reclamation. Regarding Yonezawa and Hirosaki, see Ravina 1999, esp. pp. 104–107, 136–141. 23

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A prominent feature of SAI On’s approach to governing and economic matters was the close link between morality and material prosperity. Bringing about the latter required close attention to laws, regulations, taxation, infrastructure projects, bureaucracies, efficient methods of farming, and the other details of government administration. In describing the career of the LÜ Kun, Joanna Handlin points out a tension between “the very preoccupation with rules and regulations that characterizes statecraft” and “the official’s self-image as a moral leader” (Handlin 1983: 105). We have seen that SAI On was keenly aware of the contradictory forces at work in the practice of government administration, but there is no indication in his writings of any tension between moral leadership and the particulars of governing. After all, for SAI On it was the duty of morally superior people to concern themselves precisely with such details. I have mentioned previously that it is likely that SAI On was familiar with Lü’s writings, and it is even possible that Lü was the inspiration for the anonymous recluse in SAI On’s autobiography. A systematic comparison of the two men is beyond the scope of this study, but I will mention a few examples. In Ordinary Household Management (Heiji kanai monogatari 平時家内物語), a morality and lifestyle guide that SAI On wrote for the residents of Gushichan District 具志頭間切 in 1731, we find the following passage, Regarding the extensive use of fertilizer on areas of poor soil, there are specific agricultural guidelines. Fertilizer is particularly effective when mixed with urine, but in this place, though several varieties of fertilizer are used, urine is not collected in very high quantities. It is for this reason that the use of fertilizer is often ill-informed and ineffective. Fertilizer should be prepared with much effort and thought because if only the fertilizer is well prepared, one can expect a bountiful harvest with relatively little labor (Sakihama 1984: 13).

Similarly, though in greater detail, Lü provided specific instructions to farmers on how to use urine and excrement in fertilizing their fields (Lü 1971: 152–178). In this matter and many others, both Lü and SAI On wrote detailed explanations of how to attend to the mundane work of daily life effectively and efficiently. SAI On also resembled Lü in emphasizing the functional importance of all members of society and thus putting less emphasis on differences in status. “There are no high and humble duties” wrote Lü in this connection (Handlin 1983: 128). Lü and SAI On were also alike regarding the use of situational weighing (quan) in unusual circumstances. As Handlin points out, “Lü condoned those who bent rules of conduct to cope with emergencies.” Like SAI On, Lü opposed taxation of market goods, officially fixed prices, and other policies that interfered with economic activity and the free exchange of goods (Handlin 1983: 136). Moreover, Lü “tried to accommodate rather than conquer or escape man’s greed” (Handlin 1983: 134). As we have seen, although SAI On demanded moral excellence in officials, he acknowledged the need to accommodate the self-interested motivation of ordinary people. Finally, like SAI On, Lü appreciated the complexity of society and thus the difficulty of regulating it. Even well-crafted laws, for example, produced undesirable side effects, It is indeed the case that when a law is established something harmful is born. But it is not correct to say that because something harmful is born no laws should be established. The

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attempt to create laws without harmful side effects is like trying to control water with a levy…. (Hikita 1977: 234–235).

Although it is likely Lü’s writings influenced SAI On, my broader point here is that SAI On’s ideas were not radically new. Even if the precise lines of influence are unclear, SAI On certainly drew on Chinese predecessors for ideas. Moreover, he was probably aware of major Japanese intellectual trends and of recent debates over economic policy in China.24 The economic thought of SAI On’s Japanese contemporary DAZAI Shundai 太 宰春台 (1680–1747) shared some similarities (and some differences) with both Lü and SAI On. Although not a merchant himself, Shundai discussed trade in great detail and advocated it as a way to increase society’s wealth. Shundai’s basic formula for wealth enhancement was for local areas to produce what most suited their resources and environment and then, because all items had cash value in the marketplace, to sell these locally-produced items for things that were lacking.25 SAI On’s view of Ryukyu’s forestry resources was precisely the same, and both men regarded vigorous commercial activity as a boon for the economy.

4.8

Conclusions

Even though the eighteenth century was a relatively prosperous time for Ryukyu, financial problems dogged the government, and many peasants barely made a living. By the standards of neighboring countries the kingdom was not wealthy. One result was that artistic and academic activities usually served concrete social or political ends. For example, the elite Kumemura community produced much Chinese poetry, some of which circulated in China.26 Although poetry composition might well have been enjoyable for some, it served the serious purpose of facilitating trade and diplomacy with China. Nearly all male residents of Kumemura resided in China for formal study, if not in Beijing then in Fujian. For them, mastery of poetry—and the language skills that accompanied such mastery—was an essential basic skill. Beyond that, Ryukyuan students tended to focus their attention on technical subjects such as sugar manufacture, medicine, geomancy, or the calendar. Residents of Kumemura, and by the nineteenth century nearly all elite

24

For a discussion of SAI On’s intellectual environment and influences see Smits 1999: 76, 79–80. For DAZAI Shundai’s views see Najita 1972, especially p. 834. A generation later, KAIHO Seiryō 海保青䲥 (1755–1817) developed the views of Shundai, arguing that everything in society was a commodity with exchange value. Seiryō’s basic insight, however, was not really new. The Chinese scholar LI Zhi 李䌴 (1527–1602) insisted that “all personal relations resembled market relations” and even the relations between Confucius and his students fit this model. “Only Confucius had what the students wanted” argued Li, See Handlin 1983: 129, 131. 26 For example, a 1707 compilation of poetry from China and 14 other countries, the Imperial Qing Poetry Anthology 皇清詩䚨 included approximately 70 poems by 25 Ryukyuans. See Ikemiya 1993: 194. 25

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Ryukyuans, would have been familiar with the basics of Confucian thought, although there was little inducement for active philosophical debate within Ryukyuan academic circles. SAI On’s wide-ranging writings were somewhat of an exception, but they too served concrete political ends. SAI On’s vision for Ryukyu was bold: extensive reform such that the kingdom would prosper materially as a basis for creating a Confucian society that in moral terms was on a par with its larger neighbors. SAI On sought to shape Ryukyu’s destiny, and he exhorted others to follow his lead. His basic intellectual framework was Confucian, but he also utilized Buddhist, Daoist, or simply pragmatic ideas when doing so served his needs. SAI On distinguished between Confucianism, Daoism, and Buddhism, but he did not distinguish between different varieties of Confucianism.27 Although not formally a “school” of Confucianism, SAI On’s views and actions closely resembled those of pragmatic Confucians such as LÜ Kun who sought solutions actual social and economic problems. SAI On was a pragmatic Confucian philosopher, not an ideologue, and he was hardly unique in his time. He was part of what appears to have been a broad trend in early-modern East Asian Confucian circles to rethink older philosophical ideas and ground them in the realities of the marketplace and the complexities of government administration.28 SAI On’s position as the most powerful politician of his time for roughly four decades makes his Confucian thought and practice particularly interesting. On the one hand he was a bold idealist who sought to re-make his society in ways that no predecessor had tried. On the other hand he was a pragmatist, grounded in the specific details of such matters as forest cultivation, farming, and hydraulic engineering. SAI On may have been overly ambitions in his attempt to battle superstitions, but his economic thought, and the politics that derived from it, benefited from a realistic acceptance of the profit motive. In SAI On, and in the Ryukyuan context, we see some of the possibilities and limitations of Confucianism.

References Primary Sources Chan, Wing-tsit (trans.). 1986. Neo-Confucian terms explained: The Pei-hsi tzu-i by Ch’en Ch’un, 1159–1223. New York: Columbia University Press. (A valuable translation of a text that was highly influential throughout East Asia.)

27 For detailed analysis of SAI On’s Confucian thought and its relationship with Buddhism, see Smits 1997a, b. 28 In Japan, the scholars of the Kaitokudō merchant academy constitute another example of such trends. See Najita 1987. My only complaint about this otherwise fine study is that Najita repeatedly claims that “Neo-Confucian thought” assigned merchants a lowly status without providing any evidence.

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Harada, Nobuo 原田兎雄 (trans.). 1985. Records of Envoys to Ryukyu 使琉球記. Gensōsha. (Modern Japanese translation of investiture envoy LI Dingyan’s account of his mission to Ryukyu ca. 1800.) Hikita, Keiyū 疋田啓祐 (trans. ed.). 1977. Groaning words (Shingingo 呻吟語). Meitoku shuppansha. Itokazu, Kaneharu 糸数金治. 1987. Supplementary material for SAI On’s writings (SAI On chosakura hoi 蔡温著作等補遺). In Shiryō henshūshitsu kiyō 史料編集室紀要, no 12: 6–114. Okinawa kenritsu toshokan. (Valuable notes and writings by SAI On not included in his collected works.) Kyūyō kenkyūkai (eds.). 1974. Kyūyō, 2 vols. Kadokawa shoten. (The standard edition of this important source.) Lau, D.C. (trans.) 1970. Mencius. New York: Penguin Books. (A well-known translation.) Lü, Kun 呂坤. 1971. Lü’s records of practical governing 呂公實政䤴. Taibei: Wenshizhe chubanshe. (Reproduction of the text without annotation.) Okinawa kenritsu toshokan shiryō henshūshitsu 沖縄県図書館史料編集室 (comps.). 1981. Okinawa-ken shiryō (zenkindai 1): Shuri ōfu shioki 沖縄県史料 (前近代1): 首里王府の仕置. Naha: Okinawa-ken kyōiku iinkai. (Contains Haneji Shioki 羽地仕置, a record of the directives of Prime Minister SHŌ Shōken and his stated reasons for those directives.) Sai, On (ed.) 1719. Compilation of essential excerpts 要務彙編. Unpaginated manuscript from the National Diet Library, Tokyo. (This item was discovered after 1984 and is thus not included Sakihama’s volume above.) Sakihama, Shūmei 崎濱秀明 (ed.). 1984. Collected works of SAI On (SAI On zenshū 蔡温全集). Tokyo: Honpō shoseki 本邦書籍. (Incomplete both in coverage and annotation, and contains some errors, but still the best single volume of SAI On’s writings.)

Secondary Sources Araki, Moriaki 安良城盛昭. 1980. New arguments in Ryukyuan history (Shin Ryūkyū shiron 新・ 琉球史論). Naha: Okinawa taimususha. (A thought-provoking revisionist account of Okinawan history.) Beerens, Anna. 2006. Friends, acquaintances, pupils and patrons—Japanese intellectual life in the late eighteenth century: A prosopographical approach. Leiden: Leiden University Press. (A truly innovative study of Japanese intellectual history that casts doubt on the relevance of modern categories of classification.) Chan, Wing-tsit (trans.). 1963. A source book in Chinese philosophy. Princeton: Princeton University Press. (A widely-used anthology of translations by a major interpreter of Chinese philosophy.) Dunstan, Helen. 1996. Conflicting counsels to confuse the age: A documentary study of political economy in Qing China, 1644–1840. Ann Arbor: Center for Chinese Studies, The University of Michigan. (English translations of the memorials and memos of Qing scholar-officials representing a wide range of views.) Dunstan, Helen. 2006. State or merchant? Political economy and political process in 1740s China. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center. (A thorough study of eighteenth century politics focusing on grain.) Handlin, Joanna. 1983. Action in late Ming thought: The reorientation of LÜ Kun and other scholar-officials. Berkeley: University of California Press. (An important study of LÜ Kun and other late-Ming scholar officials that calls into question some traditional assumptions about Confucian scholars.) Higashion’na, Kanjun 東恩納寛惇. 1970. Record of planting sticks (Shokujōroku 植杖録). In Higashion’na Kanjun zenshū 東恩納寛惇全集, vol. 5, ed. Ryūkyū shinpōsha 琉球新報社 (1978). Dai’ichi shobō. (A series of short essays on Ryukyuan history by a pioneering historian.)

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Ikemiya, Masaharu 池宮正治. 1993. TEI Junsoku: Putting Confucian scholarship into practice (TEI Junsoku: Jugaku no jissensha 程順則: 儒学の実践者). In Kumemura: Rekishi to jinbutsu 久米 村歴史と人物, ed. IKEMIYA Masaharu, KOWATARI Kiyotaka 小渡清孝, and DANA Masayuki 田名真之. Naha: Hirugisha. Ikemiya, Masaharu 池宮正治, KOWATARI Kiyotaka 小渡清孝, and DANA Masayuki 田名真之 (eds.). 1993. Kumemura: Rekishi to jinbutsu 久米村歴史と人物. Naha: Hirugisha. (The best single-volume study of Kumemura to date.) Kamiya, Nobuyuki 紙屋敦之. 1990. Embassies to Edo (Edo nobori 江戸上り). In Shin Ryūkyūshi, kinsei hen, vol. 2. Naha: Ryūkyū shinpōsha. (A classic study of early modern Ryukyuan diplomacy with Japan.) Maeda, Giken 真栄田義見. 1972. Okinawa, yogawari no shisō: hito to gakumon no keifu 沖縄・ 世代わりの思想:人と学問の系譜. Naha: Dai’ichi kyōiku tosho. (The analysis is often weak and even contradictory, but this volume is valuable for its sheer quantity of information on Ryukyuan intellectual history.) Maehira, Fusaaki 真栄平房昭. 1990. The position of Ryukyu and information from abroad in early-modern Japan (Kinsei Nihon ni okeru kaigai jōhō to Ryūkyū no ichi” 近世日本におけ る海外情報と琉球の位置). Shisō 思想 796 (October): 67–89. (A seminal article on an important topic.) Maehira, Fusaaki 真栄平房昭. 1997. Ryukyuan information from abroad and East Asia: An examination of conditions in nineteenth century China” (Ryūkyū no kaigai jōhō to higashi Ajia 琉球 の海外情報と東アジア: 一九世紀の中国情勢をめぐって). In Kinsei Nihon no kaigai jōhō 近世日本の海外情報, ed. IWASHITA Tetsunori 岩下哲典 and MAEHIRA Fusaaki. Iwata shoin. (Detailed studies of the flow of information throughout East Asia via Ryukyu.) Najita, Tetsuo. 1972. Political Economism in the thought of DAZAI Shundai (1680–1747). Journal of Asian Studies 31: 821–849. (A pioneering study in English.) Najita, Tetsuo. 1978. Method and analysis in the conceptual portrayal of Tokugawa intellectual history. In Japanese thought in the Tokugawa period, 1600–1868: Methods and metaphors, ed. Tetsuo Najita and Irwin Scheiner, 3–38. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. (An early essay on theoretical matters.) Najita, Tetsuo. 1987. Visions of virtue in Tokugawa Japan: The Kaitokudō Merchant Academy of Osaka. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. (A valuable study of merchant philosophers of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.) Ravina, Mark. 1999. Land and lordship in early modern Japan. Stanford: Stanford University Press. (A major contribution to our understanding of domain-level governance.) Sakihara, Mitsugu 崎原貢. 1975. China trade silver and trade between Satsuma, Ryukyu, and China (Totōgin to Satsu-Ryū-Chū bōeki” 渡唐銀と薩・琉・中貿易). In Nihon rekishi 日本 歴史 323 (April). (A seminal article making use of the text Gozaisei 御財政.) Smits, Gregory. 1996. The intersection of politics and thought in Ryukyuan Confucianism: SAI On’s uses of Quan. Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 56.2(December): 443–477. (A close examination of the most distinctive feature of SAI On’s Confucian thought.) Smits, Gregory. 1997a. SAI On’s intellectual lineage and thought from the standpoint of his writing on Buddhism and Sakyamuni (SAI On no gakutō to shisō: toku ni bukkyō/shaka ron o chūshin to shite” 蔡温の学統と思想―特に仏教・釈迦論を中心として). Okinawa bunka kenkyū, 23(March): 1–38. (A close examination of the intellectual influences reflected in SAI On’s writings.) Smits, Gregory. 1997b. Unspeakable things: Ryukyuan Confucian SAI On’s ambivalent critique of language and Buddhism. Japanese Journal of Religious Studies 24.1-2 (Spring): 163–178. (Examines Buddhist influences on SAI On and his attempts to critique Buddhism.) Smits, Gregory. 1999. Visions of Ryukyu: Identity and ideology in early-modern thought and politics. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press. (The major English-language study of earlymodern Ryukyuan history.) Smits, Gregory. 2000. Ambiguous boundaries: Redefining royal authority in the Kingdom of Ryukyu. Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 60.1(June): 89–123. (Examines changes in the basis of royal authority from the king as son-of-the-sun to the king as a Confucian sage.)

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Smits, Gregory. 2006. Autobiography as didactic rhetoric: SAI On’s Jijoden. Early Modern Japan: An Interdisciplinary Journal 14: 40–50. (A comparative analysis of SAI On’s autobiography.) Smits, Gregory. 2010. Romanticizing the Ryukyuan past: The myth of Ryukyuan Pacifism. Kokusai Okinawa kenkyū 国際沖縄研究/International Journal of Okinawan Studies 1 (March, 2010): 51–68. (A survey of Ryukyuan military activities and structure combined with an historical account of the tendency actively to “forget” this aspect of Ryukyu’s past.) Takara, Kurayoshi 高良倉吉. 1990. Ryūkyū ōkoku no kadai 琉球王国の課題. Naha: Hirugisha. (A thought-provoking collection of essays on Ryukyuan history.) Tasato, Osamu 田里. 1987. Images of industry (Sangyō no imeeji). In Kinsei shomondai shiriizu 5, kinsei no sangyō, kinsei sangyōshi no mondaiten, ed. Urasoe kyōuikuiinkai, 5–20. Urasoe: Urasoe kyōikuiinkai. (A survey of certain aspects of economic production during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.) Tasato, Yūtetsu 田里友哲. 1980. Research on newly-created agricultural villages (Okinawa ni okeru kaitaku no shūraku no kenkyū 沖縄における開拓集落の研究). Comprising the whole of Hōbungaku kiyo 法文学紀要, shigaku/chirigaku hen 23 (March). (The most comprehensive study of the yaadui system.) Toby, Ronald. 1991. State and diplomacy in early modern Japan: Asia in the development of the Tokugawa Bakufu. Stanford: Stanford University Press. (A pioneering study of Japanese foreign relations during the Tokugawa period.) Tomiyama, Kazuyuki 富見山和行. 2004. Ryūkyū ōkoku no gaikō to ōken 琉球王国の外交と王 権. Kadokawa kōbunkan. (A tour de force of original analysis and a nearly complete inclusion of Japanese-language works on Ryukyuan history during the twentieth century.) Uezato, Ken’ichi 上里賢一. 1993. SŌ Eki: Chūgoku nimo shirareta kanshijin 曽益:中国にも知ら れた漢詩人 (SŌ Eki: A poet known even in China). In Kumemura: Rekishi to jinbutsu 久米村 歴史と人物, ed. IKEMIYA Masaharu, KOWATARI Kiyotaka 小渡清孝, and DANA Masayuki 田名 真之, 184–185. Naha: Hirugisha. (A basic biography of Sō Eki.)

Chapter 5

The Somaticization of Learning in Edo Confucianism: The Rejection of Body-Mind Dualism in the Thought of KAIBARA Ekken TSUJIMOTO Masashi 辻本雅史 and Barry D. Steben, translator

5.1

Introduction

The age in which KAIBARA Ekken 貝原益軒 (or Ekiken, 1630–1714) lived, which included the flowering of popular culture during the Genroku period (1688–1704), was one in which interest in new forms of learning was spreading more widely in society. Even people who were not Confucian scholars became concerned with Confucian learning, and the desire to pursue learning in one way or another came to exist broadly in Edo society. In cognizance of this new social demand, in 1710 (Hōei 7), at the age of 81, Ekken authored and published a Confucian textbook written in Japanese, Precepts for Children’s Education in Japan (Wazoku Dōjikun 和俗童子訓). The wa character in the title referred to Japan, in contrast to China, seen as the “land of high culture,” while the second character, zoku, referred to ordinary people as opposed to intellectuals. Thus Precepts for Children’s Education in Japan was a handbook written for commoners who did not have the ability to read texts in Sino-Japanese (kanbun), including both

The Japanese original of the present study was published in Edo no shisō (Edo thought), No. 6 (Perikansha, 1997) under the title “Kyōiku shisutemu no naka no shintai—KAIBARA Ekiken ni okeru gakushū—(The body in the system of education: Learning in KAIBARA Ekken).” It was republished in TSUJIMOTO Masashi, Shisō to kyōiku no media-shi—Kinsei Nihon no chi no dentatsu— (The history of the media of thought and education: The transmission of knowledge in early modern Japan), Perikansha, 2011. M. TSUJIMOTO 辻本雅史 (*) Professor Emeritus, University of Kyoto, Kyoto, Japan Department of Japanese Language and Literature, National Taiwan University, Taiwan e-mail: [email protected] B.D. Steben, translator Graduate Institute of Interpretation and Translation, Shanghai International Studies University, Shanghai, China e-mail: [email protected] C.C. Huang and J.A. Tucker (eds.), Dao Companion to Japanese Confucian Philosophy, Dao Companions to Chinese Philosophy 5, DOI 10.1007/978-90-481-2921-8_5, © Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2014

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adults engaged in the education of children and children who wished to study on their own. During the early modern period, the work was published in at least three editions. In the preface, written in kanbun, Ekken observes: In later times the way of educating children among the populace has not been correct. What children see, hear, and pick up in their everyday life consists entirely of things that tend to smother their inborn capacity for virtue and sow disregard for proper manners and etiquette. Accordingly, without regard to my own unworthiness for the task, I based myself on the true intent of the wise men of ancient times in instructing their students, yet wrote in the ordinary script of our land. My desire is to provide children in remote villages who have no teacher and no formal schooling with something that they can read, recite and ponder over.

However, it is not necessary to regard the course of study and education laid out in Precepts for Children’s Education in Japan as something formulated by Ekken himself. It is more reasonable to view it as explaining the process of study and learning that was generally in practice at the time. By publishing this book, Ekken was opening up to a wide public a course of learning and study that had hitherto been limited to a narrow world of intellectuals. He also used the practices of Confucian learning as a platform to articulate clearly the various problems concerning children’s education that many people of the time were only vaguely aware of. This is likely the reason why the book drew support from so many quarters. If the argument of the previous paragraph is valid, it should be possible through Precepts for Children’s Education in Japan to see into the process of study and education that was practiced in the early modern period, as well as the ideas or educational philosophy that lay behind that process. The present essay is an attempt to look into the way the physical body (shintai 身体) was incorporated into the process of study and education propagated by Ekken and identify what special quality connected with the body characterized the sort of “knowledge” that was expected to be acquired through this mode of study. If we accept the premise that Ekken’s Confucian textbook speaks for one of the early-modern Japanese perspectives on education, the present study can be expected to contribute to the broader inquiry regarding the problem of the body (shintai no mondai 身体の問題) in the system of learning practiced in Edo-period Japan.

5.1.1

The Ki Theory of Mind and Body

5.1.1.1

The Pre-manifest Emphasis of ZHU Xi Learning—From the Mind to the Body

Needless to say, since ZHU Xi learning was based on a dualism of principle (C: li 理 J: ri) and material force1 (C: qi 氣 J: ki), it incorporated a theory of qi/ki in its very foundations. According to this ki cosmology, ki fills the universe, and it is always in 1

Translator’s note: “Material force” is by far the most common translation of qi/ki as a cosmological principle, and “vital force” is also common for the less cosmological senses of the word. The latter is particularly appropriate when, as in the Mencius, it refers to the qi/ki (breath, prāṇa, energy)

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movement. Ki has been explained as the “substratum of matter” which causes energy to be contained within matter (Yamada 1978), or as “a living force that pervades the natural world” (Yuasa 1991: 36). The universe itself was seen as this “sea of ki,” this “ocean of life,” all phenomena in the natural world being brought about by the movement of the ki that fills the universe. The birth and extinction of all things, of all living organisms, are the result of the coagulating and dispersing movements of ki. Therefore, all organisms are aggregates of ki, and because they are connected to and united with that sea of ki through activities like breathing and taking in nourishment, they are able to live and remain alive. Human beings are, of course, no exception. What composes the body is also nothing other than ki. Yet ki not only composes the body: the human mind (literally “heart”) is also explained as a function of ki. ZHU Xi said that “The mind is a refined and clear form of qi” (Zhuzi yulei 朱子語類 5: 20), and Ekken said the same thing when he wrote that, “When human beings are born, they are born endowed with the excellent ki (shūki 秀氣) of heaven and earth. The mind is also a quintessential form of this ki, and it is the master of the body. Therefore, it is originally bright and intelligent in its own right and all heavenly principles are present completely within it” (Kaibara 1989: 21: 50). Human beings are born endowed with a superior ki of heaven and earth, and for that reason the human mind (compared to other living things) is said to possess a particularly marvelous mode of operation (see ZHU Xi’s Commentary on the Great Learning 大學章句). The fact that the ki of which human beings are formed is of a “refined” and “excellent” nature guarantees the richness of the human heart-and-mind. This theory of ki was the traditional way of thinking in China, and as such it was not something specific to the ZHU Xi school. As long as one relies in this way on the traditional Chinese theory of ki, the body and the mind are both explained as the operation of material force. To that extent, one can say that the mind as well was understood as based on a certain kind of material principle. For instance, the following quotation suggests that there was an important material dimension within ZHU Xi’s conception of the mind. All animals possess a heart (xin 心), and the inside of that heart is necessarily empty. It is like the hearts of the chickens and pigs that we consume for food, the hollowness of which we can see if we cut them open. The heart of human beings is the same. It is only that these hollow places contain a large number of principles, encompassing all of heaven and earth and all of time within them. If one extends this outward, there is nothing within heaven-andearth that does not depend on it. Is this not the reason why the human mind is so wonderful? The principles present within the human heart are called the nature. The nature is like the ground-field of the mind. That which fills the hollowness is all nothing but principle. The heart is the lodge of the spiritual brightness [of consciousness] and the master of the whole body. The nature consists of the many principles obtained from heaven and complete within the heart. The place from which all knowledge and thought issue is the feelings. Thus it is said that “the heart unites the nature and the feelings.” (Zhuzi yulei: 98; see Miura 1976: 325 and http://gj.zdic.net/archive.php?aid-11541.html)

within the human psycho-physical system. In the cosmological sense, “generative force” has also been suggested in certain contexts. In the context of the argument of the present essay, “material force” is an extremely apt translation.

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This is a philosophical discourse that begins from the dinner table. As we can easily see for ourselves during our meals, he observes, the heart organs of chickens and pigs are empty or hollow inside. It is the same in the case of human beings: the mind is within the hollow heart organ, and all the principles of heaven and earth are included within it. The mind or heart is spoken of in intimate connection with a concrete bodily image. In this sense, it is clear that the ki-based theory of mind and body does not oppose the mind and body in a dualistic way, but grasps them as a continuity. That which makes the body and mind mutually continuous is material force. In this way, ZHU Xi learning was established with the traditional theory of material force as a presupposition, and to that extent it carries the qi/ki theory of mind and body in its very foundations. However, the real core of ZHU Xi learning resides in the grand theory of principle built on top of that foundation. The theory of material force was spoken of with the aid of corporeal images. Material force belonged to what the “Great Treatise” (Xici 繫辭) commentary of the Book of Changes calls the world “under form,” i.e., the phenomenal realm. For instance the daoyin 導引 system of physical exercises of ancient Daoism (related to today’s qigong 氣功) was concerned with the physical body and its energy channels, as is the system of Chinese medicine. ZHU Xi learning, however, introduced the “above-form” (metaphysical) concept of principle as the foundation of the existing things that become manifest through material force. That is to say, it postulated principle as the original and fundamental value of all things. As we shall see below, this results in a marked leaning toward the mind in ZHU Xi learning’s theory of body and mind, with a resulting diminution of the role of the corporeal nature. The quotation given above from the Classified Conversations of Master Zhu (Zhuzi yulei), 98, mentions the heart-mind, principle, the nature, and the feelings. The principles present in the heart-mind are called the “nature,” and it is the nature that is the basis or “ground” of the mind. The heart is the site where a marvelous and luminous intelligence is lodged (C. shenming zhi she 神明之舍 J. shinmei no sha), and it is master over the whole body. In the “nature” the principles received from heaven are completely present, and when the nature manifests as sagacity or thought it is called the “feelings” (qing 情).2 Thus, in a dictum that originated with ZHANG Zai 張載, it is posited that “the heart-mind is that which unites the nature and the feelings” (see Miura 1976: 326). 2

Translator’s note: From the identification of qing with sagacity and thought it is apparent that the word “feelings,” based on the clear distinction in Western thought between rational thought and emotions, between mind and heart, is not a totally appropriate translation. But the only other alternatives are “sentiment,” “affections,” and “emotions” which seem to share the same problem. Qing is simply the manifest aspect of the heart-mind that arises in reaction to external things. The Classic of Ritual (Liji 禮記) gives a classic definition: “What does qing refer to? Joy, anger, sadness, fear, love, hatred, and desire.” However, Xunzi’s statement that “Qing means the manifest qualities (zhi 䍘) of the nature” is obviously more closely related to ZHU Xi’s usage. Qing is a complicated word with as many as twenty distinct meanings, one of which is a person’s innate (heaven-endowed) nature. As we have seen, in ZHU Xi learning the two are fundamentally different.

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Here, the relationship among the “mind,” the “nature,” and the “feelings” is explained. Within this threefold relationship, it is easy to understand the definition of the “nature” as the unmanifest (C: weifa 未發 J: mihatsu) mind, and of the “feelings” as the manifest (C: yifa 已發 J: ihatsu) mind. That is to say, the “nature” is that condition of the mind at the stage before thoughts and feelings begin to arise. Because this is the stage before the mind has any intention to do something, there is no trace of “selfish desire” present. Accordingly, since in the “nature” there is no bias or partiality, the mind being “centered,” the mind is in the state of “principle” (goodness) itself. Thus the thesis that “the nature is principle” is established.3 However, when the mind manifests as “feelings,” selfish desire interferes because of the “clouding” of the physical nature (C: qizhi 氣質 J: kishitsu). That is, because material force becomes involved, the condition of mind as goodness is lost. Accordingly, ZHU Xi learning emphasizes the importance of carrying out cultivation of the mind not so much in the “already manifest” condition of mind, but in the “not-yet-manifest” condition. This form of cultivation was called “preserving and nourishing” (C: cunyang 存養 J: son’yō), i.e., “preserving the mind and nourishing the nature,” and the principal method of such cultivation was the practice of “reverent seriousness” (C: jing 敬 J: kei). Thus the practice of ZHU Xi learning was anchored in the “not-yet-manifest” mind, aiming at the pure state of the mind before anything arises as an object of awareness. This was a problem not on the level of material force, but of principle. Here one can find almost no room for the factor (keiki 契機) of the body to become involved. Even the core methodology of reverent seriousness (holding to seriousness) is conceived of in respect to a superior condition of mind where the mind has been made intensely alert and aware as consciousness, as seen in the descriptions of the practice that ZHU Xi quotes in Queries on the Great Learning (Daxue huowen 大學或問): “holding to one thing and not moving away” (CHENG Yichuan’s 程伊川 phrase) or “the method of being constantly alert and clear minded” (XIE Shangcai’s 謝上蔡 phrase). The concrete image of “reverent seriousness” is the figure of a person sitting quietly and single-mindedly focusing his thoughts deeply within. In this sense ZHU Xi learning was a mode of learning that put primary emphasis on a high level of cerebral activity of the mind, rather than an activity of the body. Therefore the body must be stilled before this cerebral activity can be initiated. Of course in addition to the method of reverent seriousness, ZHU Xi learning also employed the method known as “the investigation of things and the plumbing of principle,” which meant “extending knowledge” through a process of investigating the principles of things and affairs one at a time. This method aimed finally at a penetrating satori-like insight into the interconnectedness of things (huoran guantong 豁然貫通, from Commentary on the Great Learning, chapter 5), i.e., into heavenly principle—the reasons by which things are what they are. However, it appears that what ZHU Xi really had in mind when he spoke of investigating things and plumbing principle was the work of fathoming the principles of human society 3 The foregoing explanation is based on the statements by ZHU Xi in his commentary on the Mean and in Zhuzi yulei 62, statements in which he is explaining the Mean’s dictum that, “When [feelings of] joy, anger, sadness and happiness have not yet arisen, this is called ‘centrality’.”

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one by one through reading the classics and histories. As a method that solely relied on reading books, it was a method of intellectual inquiry that relied on a “disembodied” mind honed into a lucid condition of consciousness. This method as well, based on a very finely tuned mode of awareness, must be said to have been lacking in any significant somatic element. In either case, the methodological discourse of ZHU Xi learning formed a structure that was always drawn back to principle as the original state of the mind. This was because ZHU Xi learning found the most fundamental value in a metaphysical (formless, colorless, and odorless) principle that had no corporeal or material nature. It was a philosophy in which the problem of the mind was always spoken of by returning to the context of the abstract idea of principle. This means that learning was understood in terms of a high-level mental activity relying on a “disembodied” mind geared to a language-based mode of awareness.4 It was a highly intellectual mode of learning based on reading and reflection carried out in the study in an atmosphere dominated by books. One must say that in this type of activity the role of the body was extremely rarefied. Since the body is under the lordship of the mind (Zhuzi yulei: 98), the body depends upon the cultivation of the mind. In this sense the method of ZHU Xi learning was a movement from the mind toward the body. ZHU Xi learning was formed as the mode of learning of the literati or scholargentry class of China (Shimada 1967). The scholar-gentry class belonged to families who were large regional landowners, and in the Southern Song period, when the empire was facing a national crisis, they constituted an elite social stratum that, it was hoped, would take over control of government as central government officials. The Cheng-Zhu school is understood as the mode of learning for the training of this class, particularly for the relatively small portion of the class that was to take on this great political responsibility. Involvement in this sort of high-level political world was far from being an extension of ordinary daily life with its constant repetition of bodily actions. In other words, it was an intellectual occupation in a dimension far removed from corporeal activities. ZHU Xi learning truly possessed the characteristics of a mode of learning appropriate to an intellectual, book-reading class of people.

5.1.1.2

KAIBARA Ekken’s Mind-Body Theory—From the Body to the Mind

Taking the ontological theory of material force as its premise, the dualistic ri-ki theory of the Cheng-Zhu school in reality constructed its mode of learning on the basis of the concept of principle as the fundamental substance. Accordingly, the character of the 4

Translator’s note: The word that I have translated twice as “disembodied” means literally “transformed into consciousness,” referring to lucid intellectual awareness or the state of alert awareness to be achieved through reverent seriousness. “Disembodied” seems to capture most of the meaning and is the only way to express it in adjectival form. The following quotation from Francis Bacon (describing two complementary types of intellects) gives a good description of the kind of intellectual mind that Tsujimoto is referring to here: “The steady and acute mind can fix its contemplations and dwell and fasten on the subtlest distinctions: the lofty and discursive mind recognises and puts together the finest and most general resemblances” (Novum Organum, Aphorism LV).

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school is expressed well in its common epithets “the study of principle” (C. lixue 理學 J. rigaku) and “the study of the nature and principle” (C. xinglixue 性理學 J. seirigaku). In contrast, KAIBARA Ekken was unable to believe in the idea of principle as the fundamental reality. In his view, “The way refers to the unending flow of yin and yang, signifying the pure and genuine nature of that flow and its inherent order. This is the original condition of yin and yang, and it never falls into disorder or chaos. As for principle, since it is the principle of material force, one cannot separate principle and material force into two different things” (Kaibara 1970: A: 16). Principle is not, as it was for ZHU Xi, a fundamental metaphysical substance belonging to a different dimension than material force, but nothing other than the orderliness within the movements of material force as yin and yang. In a word, this is Ekken’s theory of the relationship between principle and material force, his theory of the unity of ri and ki. What really exists as substantial reality is only material force, and principle means nothing more than the orderliness and regularity of this world composed of ki. As a natural outcome of denying the sub-stratum nature (hontaisei 本体性) of principle, Ekken does not recognize a dualistic conflict in human life between what is “originally so” and the physical nature. “In the human being, there are no two natures. The original condition of the physical nature is only the nature of heavenand-earth. The original meaning of ‘the nature’ is the physical nature” (Kaibara 1973: 1: 21). It is easy to see why this led to a rejection of ZHU Xi learning’s method of mental cultivation centered on the “not-yet-manifest” nature. “Now when the human mind has not yet manifested, there are as yet no forms of good and evil, and there is no place where one can begin to make effort. Only after intentions have arisen do good and evil exist” (Kaibara 1989, p. 92). That is, at the stage where the mind has not yet manifested, even ghosts and gods cannot be aware of anything, so there is no way to distinguish between good and evil, unwholesome and wholesome. “When the ancients talked of preserving and nourishing the mind, it was usually in the place where the mind is moving, and when they taught people, it was always on the basis of factual reality” (ibid., p. 89). Thus it is apparent Ekken was teaching a method of “preserving and nourishing” the mind in immediate contact with concrete factual reality and totally based on the “already manifest” state of mind (on Ekken’s theory of ri and ki, see also Tsujimoto 1995). Ekken’s concept of the unity of ri and ki and his emphasis on the already-manifest strengthens the factor (keiki) of the body over the mind in his mind-body theory. If the focus of ZHU Xi learning on the “not-yet-manifest” meant a movement from the mind toward the body (“the mind is the lord of the whole body”), then in contrast Ekken’s focus on the “already-manifest” moves from the body to the cultivation of the mind. On the popular level, Ekken is most famous as the author of the eight fascicles of the Precepts on Nourishing Life (Yōjōkun 養生訓). Since this was a book of guidance regarding how to stay healthy and live long, its core theme, needless to say, was the condition of the body. The text states, The human body has the vital force (ki) as the origin of its life (sei 生) and the lord of its vitality (mei 命). Therefore, those who are skillful at cultivating life always cherish their original vital force (genki 元氣) and do not let it decrease. In stillness one preserves the original vital force, and in movement one circulates it. Unless both preservation and circulation are present, it is difficult to cultivate the vital force. (Kaibara 1961: 2: 56)

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Although the human body receives the original vital force from heaven and earth, if it is not nourished by food and drink, the original ki will go hungry and it will be difficult to sustain life. The original vital force is the root of human life. Food and drink are the nourishment of human life. (Kaibara 1961: 3: 64)

As seen in these passages, “cultivating life” is discussed in terms of how one can preserve, circulate and nourish the original ki out of which one’s body is constituted and not let it decrease or leak away. This is not something that requires some special sort of behavior. What he discusses concretely and in detail is only the condition of one’s daily life with its constant repetition of the nourishing activities of breathing, eating and drinking, with attention also to matters like the five senses, sexual desire, excretion, and bathing. In other words, the longevity techniques taught in Precepts on Nourishing Life can be seen to unfold as a kind of “bodily technique” to be applied in one’s daily life. And it seems that that is truly the way the book has been read for a long time. However, the meaning of Precepts on Nourishing Life does not stop with the problem of the body. The technique of nourishing life requires that one first cultivate the ki of the mind (kokoro 心). Make your mind harmonious, make your vital force calm and peaceful, restrain anger and desire, minimize your worries and thoughts, do not allow your mind to be distressed nor allow your vital force to be injured—this is the royal road to nourishing the ki of the mind. (Kaibara 1961: 1: 28) If one does not keep to the method of the mind (C: xinfa 心法 J: shinpō) one will not be able to carry out the techniques for the nourishing of life. Thus the work (C: gongfu 工夫 J: kufū) of cultivating the mind and cultivating the body is not two—it is a single technique. (Kaibara 1961: 2: 61)

Thus nourishing life is not only a bodily, but also a mental practice. The body was thought of as composed of ki, and the mind as based on the operation of ki. To the extent that both the mind and the body are based on the principles of ki, one must say that the nourishing of life and the nourishing of the mind are not different things. When the mind is in a subtle, unmanifest state and no form-traces have yet appeared, it is very difficult to get a grasp on it. After it has manifested as feelings there are perceptible traces and good and evil appear. It is at this point that one should grasp the mind and work on preserving it. Feelings arise from the vital force. Therefore the way to make the mind correct is to nourish the vital force. One who nourishes the vital force seeks constantly to remain peaceful whether in action or stillness, speaking or silence, interacting with people or taking care of affairs…. Now the mind is indeed the lord of the whole body, and the vital force only carries out the tasks [appointed]. Therefore the seven emotions, as well as thinking, seeing and hearing, and speaking and acting are all carried out by the vital force, so that one must not fail to use moderation and restraint in nourishing it. If one does violence to the vital force, then one will have lost that way. Accordingly, one should always be mild, courteous, harmonious and peaceful in one’s daily life in order to nourish one’s vital force. This is also the basis of nourishing the mind. That is why nourishing the mind and nourishing the vital force are not two things. (Kaibara 1973: 1: 3)

As this passage states, since emotions arise on the basis of the vital force, through assuring that the condition of our feelings (the seven emotions plus thought) and the acts (waza) of our body (seeing and hearing, words and actions) in daily life are peaceful we nourish the ki, and by that we also nourish the mind. If we look at it in

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this way Precepts on Nourishing Life, which teaches the technique of nourishing life, was also a book about cultivating the mind (see Tsujimoto 1992). Ekken says that the daily technique of regulating the body is at the same time “the technique of the mind.” Here, in contrast to ZHU Xi learning’s focus on the not-yet-manifest, we can clearly see a directionality moving from the body to the mind.

5.1.2

The Body in the System of Learning

5.1.2.1

Imitation and Habit-Formation—Education “in Advance”

One of the key words that Ekken repeats frequently in Precepts for Children’s Education in Japan is education “in advance” or “beforehand” (yo 豫, 預). This education “in advance” has been compared to the early education theory of John Locke (Miyake 1890) and seen as having similarities with modern educational thought (e.g., Rousseau) in recognizing the uniqueness of children as compared to adults (Ishikawa 1961, 1968). But I wonder if it is really appropriate to evaluate Ekken’s “in advance” education from the point of view of this sort of “modern educational thought.” To quote Ekken, To do something “in advance” means to do it beforehand. It means to teach a child early before the child has gone in the direction of evil. If you don’t teach them early, then if you try to teach them after they’ve become habituated to evil ways, they will not move toward the good. Even if they are admonished, it will be difficult for them to end their evil ways. The wise of ancient times began educating their children from as early as the time they were able to eat solid food and were beginning to be able to talk. (Kaibara 1961: 1: 207)

Here “in advance” refers, in a word, to a theory of early education that advocates beginning a child’s education at the stage where the child has been weaned, is able to eat solid food, and has just begun to speak.5 Ekken’s direct classical source for the word “yo 豫” is a line in the “Record of Education” (Xueji 學記) chapter of the Book of Rites 禮記, that states, “The rules aimed at in the Great College were the prevention of evil before [yo] it was manifested; the timeliness of instruction just when it was required; the suitability of the lessons in adaptation to circumstances; and the good influence of example to parties observing one another” (Legge 1967: Vol. II, 16: 86, Xueji 8).6 In terms of the meaning in which he uses the word, however, as Ekken himself states, his usage is also based on passages like the following: “When a person gets trained at a young age, it becomes like second 5

Translator’s note: In a personal communication about this passage, Tsujimoto noted that in the Edo period children were weaned very late (which has implications for Japanese social psychology), and also that this passage is just emphasizing that education began at a very early age, not necessarily implying that weaning and the beginning of speech occur around the same time. 6 Translator’s note: A more literal translation of the part where the word yo appears is, “In the [teaching] method of the Great College, prohibiting [undesirable actions] before they had occurred was called ‘in advance’.” Legge’s text is also available with the original text on the Chinese Text Project web site (see http://ctext.org/liji/xue-ji).

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nature; what has become a habit appears totally natural” (Kongzi jiayu 孔子家語); “By nature people are close to one another, but by habituation they become far apart” (Analects 17: 2); or again, “The goodness of the heir to the throne lies in his being instructed early and in the selection of his attendants” (BAN Gu 班固, Hanshu 漢書, Biography of JIA Yi 賈誼傳, passage 28). Children, when they are not yet ten years old, should be taught and admonished as early as possible. Even if they are born with a bad nature, if they are properly taught and habituated, they can certainly become good. No matter how good a person is by nature, if treated badly, they will become bad without fail. If a young person becomes bad, it is because no proper way has been used in teaching him. Corrupting a person’s habits is like a rider teaching bad habits to his horse. No matter how obstinate a horse is in the beginning, if a skillful rider trains it, it will become a good horse. Or to take another example, in raising a fledgling oriole, if from the first time it cries you place another oriole that can sing well by its side and let the fledgling oriole get used to hearing it, the fledgling oriole will invariably learn to sing well and will not lose this ability later on. This is because right from the beginning it got accustomed to hearing a good song. (Kaibara 1961: 2: 238)

It is said that people are good or evil not because they are born good or evil, but because of the way they are taught after they are born. Thus “Whether a child is clever or unworthy in most cases is the work of the parents” (Kaibara 1961: 236). Here, Ekken is emphasizing the magnitude of the parents’ responsibility in raising their children, and he appears as well to be suggesting the great possibilities of education. That is the way this passage has hitherto been understood. However, this is to see only one side of the picture. If a person from a very young age, when they are totally unable to distinguish between good and bad, gets accustomed to certain behavior through repetition, then this is what enters their minds first, and it will have already become their nature, their inner master. Later on, even after they have become able to distinguish between good and bad, it will be very difficult for them to change. Thus from the time they are very young they should be put in the proximity of good people and taught the way of living a good life. Mozi’s grief when he saw the pure white strands of silk getting dyed was very apprpriate. (Kaibara 1961: 1: 206)7

That is to say, the mind of the young child is at the beginning not colored by anything—whether good or bad. It is like a piece of white paper. However, “Young children have no wisdom, and their thinking and their words and all their myriad modes of behavior are picked up from seeing and hearing those who care for them when they are small, from imitation” (ibid. 211). That is to say, the mind of the child learns by imitating what the child sees and hears in the behavior of the people in his or her immediate environment, and what is seen and heard becomes the “master” of the child’s mind. Once the child is stained by bad habits and these habits have become the master of the child’s mind, then no matter how he or she is taught it will be difficult for them to shift toward the good. Here, the powerlessness of education

In the Thousand Character Classic (Qianziwen 千字文), there is a story called Mo bei si ran 墨悲絲染 (Mozi grieves for the dyed silk). What Mozi noticed was that once the young silk threads were dyed, they permanently took on the color of the dye and could never regain their original pristine whiteness. 7

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is recognized. That is why Ekken emphasizes so strongly the importance of education “in advance,” before the child has become stained with evil. Here, what Ekken considers the decisive factor in the formation of character in early childhood is the “power of imitation,” through which the child comes to resemble what is imitated through the repetition of what is seen and heard by the eyes and ears. What is imitated early on becomes “habit” (the “master of the mind”), and becomes imprinted in the mind as a kind of “dyeing” of the mind. What Ekken is advocating can be clearly seen from his example of the fledgling oriole that will learn to sing like the other oriole by its side. Confucius said, “what is learned at an early age is like inborn nature, and habits formed are like what is natural.” Moreover, what a person has learned and become habituated to over a long time, whether it be good or bad, becomes like something he or she is able to do naturally without any deliberate effort. Good and bad both arise from the way one habitually conducts oneself more than they arise from the inborn nature. (Kaibara 1961: 2: 73)8

What a person has become accustomed to over a long time can be performed well “naturally” without effort as if it were inborn nature. Clearly, Ekken believed that unconscious imitation and habit-formation through repetition were the most important factors in the formation of character. The imitation and habit-formation spoken of here consists of a process of somatically imitating by repetition the models of behavior one finds in one’s environment. Moreover, it is not a matter of compulsion from the outside, but a behavior process relying on the child’s own five senses in “learning from what one sees and what one hears.” Through this process it is understood that the child will achieve a state of “naturally becoming good” that does not rely primarily on conscious effort. In the sense that the practice is not brought to the level of conscious awareness in the mind, the knowledge that is learned can be said to be somatically-obtained knowledge, a kind of “bodily knowing.” What the “in advance” theory of education was concerned with, then, was the “attainment through personal experience” (taitoku 体得) of a knowledge of a different sort than knowledge brought into consciousness in language. So what was it that Ekken would teach “in advance,” and in what way? He explained, In raising children, one should only use the “correct norms and principles” mode of teaching. One should not shower them with indulgent love. The “correct norms and principles” mode of teaching means to admonish the child about what is wrong in his behavior on the basis of the correct principles of right behavior (giri 義理). (Kaibara 1961: 1: 211)

Or, “Young children should be taught and admonished early, from before the age of ten (ibid.). In these and similar passages, Ekken constantly talks of teaching children as “admonishing.” That is, for him “teaching” means “admonishing bad behavior.” 8

Translator’s note: The statement attributed to Confucius is found in the Family Sayings of Confucius 孔子家語 (Kongzi jiayu), Qishier dizi jie 七十二弟子解: 40, and in the History of the [Former] Han Dynasty (漢書 Hanshu), Biography of JIA Yi: 26, where it is also attributed to Confucius.

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In point of fact, under the entry for “teaching” in the etymological dictionary that he compiled, Japanese Explanation of Terms (Nihon shakumyō 日本釋名 2: 42), he writes, “Teaching is to restrain, to hold in check. It is to restrain the bad in a person and make the person aware of what is good.” This is not a matter of positively “inculcating” children with some sort of teaching. It was a method wherein, when the imitation-based activities the children are engaged in by their own power come into conflict with a certain behavioral norm (giri), the children are reproached and strictly admonished. On the children’s side, through this criticism they are led to become aware of the norms of correct behavior in an experiential and corporeal way close to what is called “education through non-teaching” or the “the mode of education through seeping in” (Azuma 1994). Here there is no orderly arrangement or outline of the curriculum that should be taught. As a method aimed at the acquisition of “somatic knowledge,” there is only the process by which the children come to know through personal experience. And the teachers (or in the case of young children, the parents and nursemaids) appear before the eyes of the learner as good models, as the embodiment of the norms that are to be internalized.

5.1.2.2

The Role of the Body in Learning to Write

Ekken begins the fourth fascicle of Precepts for Children’s Education in Japan with a description of “the method of learning to write” (Tenarai hō 手習法) in the following words: “The people of ancient times referred to calligraphy as ‘mind drawing’ (shinkaku 心画). Mind drawing means a picture that depicts externally something that is in the mind. Thus the perverseness or correctness of the writing expresses the perverseness or correctness of the mind. Because one can see the inside of the mind in the person’s brush marks, one should be careful to write correctly” (Kaibara 1961: 4: 254). The characters that are written out are a picture of the mind of the one who is doing the writing, and from them one can see the correct or perverse condition of the mind. However, when we get to the part on the concrete method of learning to write, the reverse side of this “mental nature” of writing appears, where the technique described unfolds thoroughly on the bodily level. For instance, Ekken explains, “In practicing writing characters, hold the ink stick high, grind it while holding it very properly in an upright position, and do not tilt the end of the ink stick that you grind on the ink stone. Do not let your hands get dirty. One should hold the brush high using the double hook, and write the characters very properly while keeping the brush upright. ‘Double hook’ means the way you hold the brush….” (Kaibara 1961: 4: 257). In the way the ink is ground, the way the brush is held (with the double hook or the single hook; holding with the fingers empty, round, upright and firm) and so on there are all sorts of bodily matters that require close attention which he goes on to itemize in detail for several pages (Kaibara 1961: 4: 257–260). That is to say, practicing calligraphy is described as a “bodily technique.” Further, in practicing writing, the importance of the selection of the model (tehon 手本) is especially emphasized. “Whether one is learning formal or cursive script,

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one should first select the model and correctly determine the script style.” This is because, if “you copy a bad brush-method and a bad style, once you have picked up bad habits you will never be able to correct them for life. Later, even if you study good calligraphy, you will not be able to change” (Kaibara 1961: 4: 254). The model must be imitated and mastered by the learner through practice. Here it is clear that the study of writing and calligraphy is described using the same principles as in “inadvance” education. What is even more worthy of note is that the calligraphic skill acquired somatically is considered even to determine the condition of the mind. In other words, it was thought that the “mental nature” of hand-written characters that Ekken mentions first before anything else could be acquired through a bodily technique that had to be correct in every detail. Clearly, the directionality from body to mind that we observed earlier is also evident here. And we should add that the mental nature that Ekken mentions is not just an empty or abstract mental nature, but something with a firm foundation in the bodily reality of material force.

5.1.2.3

The Body in Learning through “Plain Reading”

When one is going to read a book, one must first wash one’s hands, assume a reverent attitude of heart and mind, straighten up one’s countenance, wipe the dust from one’s study desk, place the book properly on the desk, and read with one’s legs in a kneeling position. When one is reciting the text for one’s teacher, one should not place it on top of a high desk. One should place it on a copybook, or on a document case or low desk and read it. One should never put it on a seat that people walk on…. (Kaibara 1961: 3: 244)

This is a passage from near the beginning of Ekken’s essay, “How to Read a Book” (Dokushohō 讀書法). Here the practice of reading goes beyond the literal meaning of “reading a book,” but is described in terms of a ritual order including things like washing the hands, establishing a reverent attitude of mind, and correcting the expression on one’s face. Reading was indeed regarded as a mode of behavior that needs to be performed with full attention to one’s appearance and demeanor and with the body in a certain proper form (katachi). Here, “reading” (dokusho) is clearly not the same thing as what we call reading in the contemporary world. What Ekken had in mind centered on the tradition of learning that began with the “plain reading” (sodoku 素読) of the classics. In his words, sodoku meant “reading books, the method of learning. When a person is young and has a strong memory, they should constantly read the Four Books and Five Classics, repeating over and over until the texts can be recited by memory” (Kaibara 1961: 3: 250). This meant reading the texts out loud and committing them completely to memory, and it was considered particularly important to this at an early age when a person’s memory is strong. At this stage, the understanding of the meaning of the text was not considered necessary, which is why it was called “plain reading.” It was a process of concentrating purely on reciting the text accurately, so again it was a somatic mode of learning, rooted in other parts of the physiology than the cerebral cortex. As the method for sodoku, Ekken proposes a continuing

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program of reciting 100 characters 100 times every day, “reading them into the sky, writing them into the sky.”9 If one were to continue at that pace, he says, one would be able to finish memorizing the Four Books (a total of 52,800 characters) in a year and a half (Kaibara 1961: 3: 250–251). The Confucian classics contain the “teachings of the sages,” the “principles of heaven, earth and man,” and “the norms for the masses of the people” (Kaibara 1961: 3: 244). For that reason, if one recites the Four Books from memory, “by their power one will master the principles of morality (giri),” will be able to read other books easily, and, moreover, will acquire the ability to write one’s own compositions (Kaibara 1961: 3: 250). Nor were the texts to be memorized to be limited to the Four Books and the Five Classics. They also included writings by great Chinese masters of prose: for instance, “One should further select in accord with one’s personal preferences thirty kanbun writings by writers such as HAN Yu, LIU Zongyuan, OU Yangxiu, SU Dongpo, and ZENG Fan,10 writing the texts out from memory so that one will not forget them.” The memorization of these works was mainly for the purpose of being able to write well in kanbun. At any rate, in Ekken’s opinion, and that of his contemporaries, “If one does not learn them by memory, it is of no use” (Kaibara 1961: 3: 246). In reading books, one should not be in a rush and should not read quickly. One should read at an unhurried pace so that each character and phrase is clear and distinct. One should not read even one character incorrectly. One’s mind must be on the text, one’s eyes must be on the text, and one’s mouth must be on the text…. If one simply keeps the mind from wandering and recites the text many times, one will naturally remember it and will not forget it for a long time. (Kaibara 1961: 3: 245)

The memorization of the texts was accomplished by looking at the characters of the text with a concentrated mind and reciting the text aloud again and again. This repetitive practice that mobilizes the body through the mind, eyes, and mouth is sodoku. Ekken advocated the “hundred times method.” This kind of 9

Translator’s note: The classical native Japanese word for “to recite from memory” consists of a stem of two syllables, sora, plus two elements used to form verbs out of nouns (n plus zuru or jiru). The two syllables sora by themselves happen to mean “sky,” a native Japanese noun. When the verb soranzuru/soranjiru is written with a Chinese character, however, the character for “to memorize” is used for the stem, not the character for “sky.” Yet since the literal meaning of the word means to recite a text without looking at the text, and since the phrase quoted here from Ekken uses not the classical verb soranzuru, but two noun + particle + verb compounds (sora ni yomu and sora ni kaku) that can be taken to mean literally “read into the sky, write into the sky” (though without the kanji for “sky”), it seems reasonable to infer that the sora in the verb for “to recite from memory” was derived from the word for “sky.” Of course Ekken’s term still really means “recite from memory,” but he may be trying deliberately to avoid using a classical literary word because of the nature of his intended audience. “To recite into the sky” immediately conveys the intended meaning to a child. 10 Translator’s note: Here Ekken has listed five of the famous “eight great writers of the Tang and Song” dynasties traditionally studied by students in China as models for writing. Here, Ekken (and Tsujimoto) uses kanbun not in the sense of writing in classical Chinese done in Japan, but in the sense of classical Chinese itself, showing that there was not necessarily a clear line between the two.

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repetitive “reading into the sky, writing into the sky” can be said to be a process of completely internalizing the text, of, so to speak, “somaticizing” the text. Once the text has been fully mastered through reciting, one becomes able to readily mobilize and apply the somaticized text immediately in situations requiring the interpretation of moral principles (giri) and the writing of compositions. This was the meaning of Ekken’s statement that “if one does not learn them by memory, it is of no use.” At the same time, Ekken repeatedly emphasizes the importance in learning of “getting for oneself” (jitoku 自得). He says, for instance, “In learning it is getting for oneself that is to be valued. Jitoku means to think carefully about what one is learning and grasp its principles in one’s mind and heart so that one is able to make it one’s own” (Kaibara 1938: 1: 57). He also describes the realm of jitoku as follows: What a beginner knows and what is written down as the common learning of the world goes no further than the skin. What the person of true learning (kunshi 君子) knows has penetrated from the skin into the flesh, from the flesh into to the bones, and from the bones into the marrow. I do not know how many levels there are that separate these two types of knowing…. If a person studies but is unable to make it their own then this is only the rote learning of the mouth and ears, the learning of the commentators and mindless memorizers. (Kaibara 1973: 4: 83)

The realm of “making it one’s own” is described using the image of penetrating deeper and deeper into the body from the skin to the flesh, from the flesh to the bones, from the bones to the marrow.11 This is not a mode of understanding that can be expressed clearly in words. Here, an understanding merely on the level of words is rejected as a superficial “learning of the mouth and ears” that goes no deeper than the skin. Ekken writes, “What is ‘making it one’s own’? It is to master it naturally. The basis of making it one’s own lies in not rushing the labor of learning, not trying to jump over the various levels, but reaching a deep level of attainment by applying oneself to the task over a long period of time so that one achieves mastery in a natural way” (Kaibara 1973: 1: 8). This jitoku manner of internalizing and personally grasping what one learns over time, as we see in the images used to describe it, can certainly be called a somatic way of understanding. In that case, this would mean that through the further deepening of learning and the accumulation of practice and experience, the texts that were “somaticized” during the early stage of sodoku learning—the recitation of the texts from memory— are brought to life for the learner with a new sense of reality. The meaning of the texts comes to be grasped through a kind of direct feeling, and further becomes concretized and experienced in the context of the person’s entire way of living as a subject constantly required to make moral decisions.

11

The conception of penetrating from the skin to the flesh to the bones to the marrow appears in the biography of Bodhidharma found in the Song dynasty Zen classic The Transmission of the Lamp (Jingde chuandeng lu 景德傳燈錄), fascicle 3.

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5.1.3

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Ritual and Etiquette—The Regularization of the Body

There is a work of Ekken’s called A Mnemonic Guide to the Three Types of Ritual (Sanrei kuketsu 三禮口訣), published in 1699 (Genroku 12). This consisted of three parts: Shorei kuketsu 書禮口訣, a detailed explanation of the rituals to be used in writing and practicing calligraphy in daily life; Shokurei kuketsu 食禮口訣, an explanation of the etiquette required in all sorts of situations of eating and drinking; and Charei kuketsu 茶禮口訣, an explanation of the rituals and etiquette of drinking tea. The first, A Mnemonic Guide to Calligraphy Rituals, contains of a total of 319 articles, beginning with a chapter on how to write and reply to letters, followed by three fascicles in twelve sections dealing with the various formalities that should be observed in writing characters. For instance, in the section on “refilling the brush with ink” (sumizuki), we read, “If one is writing vertically, one should refill the brush a little bit above the middle of the second line. The next time should be a little below the middle of the third line. After that, one should refill alternately in the same way. In writing things like the name of a person of rank, one should refill the brush at the beginning of the sentence. This means that at all times the higher place should not be written with a dry brush. One does not refill the brush at the head of a line….” (Shorei kuketsu: 281). A Mnemonic Guide to the Etiquette of Eating contains 66 articles. For example, “First raise the rice bowl in your left hand and take up the chopsticks again in the proper order. After eating a mouthful or two of rice, place the chopsticks down, take up the soup bowl in your left hand, and eat the solid ingredients of the soup. Then again eat some rice and sip the soup, eating the solid ingredients. (Some say that one should perform each of the above steps three times). Then one should eat the main dish. If there are two main dishes, one should begin with the one on the left. If the condiments are on the left ….” (Shokurei kōketsu: 306). As we can see, every formality one can think of that should be observed by the body, from the raising and lowering of the chopsticks to the order of every movement and action, is stipulated in detail. To Ekken, these books were, as their names stated, books of propriety (rei 禮, 礼). For him “propriety” meant the etiquette governing the bodily movements and conduct of daily life, rather than the “royal rites,” referring to the rituals and institutions of government, or the “family rituals,” typified by the ceremonies of coming of age, marriage, burial and ancestral sacrifices (kankonsōsai 冠婚喪祭). (The royal rites were exclusively the concern of government leaders, whereas the family rituals in Japan were handled by Buddhist priests, so the Confucian family rituals of China did not apply). Ekken explains that “ ‘Propriety’ refers to the constancy of heaven and earth, the rules of conduct for mankind. That is, it refers to the manners and etiquette (sahō 作法) that people should follow” (Kaibara 1961: 1: 217). Elsewhere he writes, “The acts (waza) of the human body are many, but if one speaks of them in essence, they do not go beyond the realms of words and actions…. If one divides up words and actions, then the acts of human beings fall into four categories: seeing, hearing, speaking, and acting. In all four of these types of acts, there are stipulated

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models that one should follow. These are what are called propriety” (Kaibara 1938: 146). “In interacting with people, one should always follow the correct manners and etiquette (reigi 禮儀). The beginning of manners and etiquette is first to give proper attention to the dignity of one’s bearing (igi 威儀). Dignity of bearing refers to the form and deportment of one’s body. It means wearing proper clothing and porting a proper countenance, being strict about one’s appearance (katachi 形), and following the proper order in one’s words…. One’s speech and one’s personal appearance are the externally visible tally of one’s inner heart. From listening to a person’s words and observing his physical bearing, it is easy to know the goodness or badness of his inner heart” (Kaibara 1938: 184). In a word, the “propriety” that Ekken speaks of in these passages can be explained as the stipulated and ordered forms that the body should assume in all the various situations that arise in interpersonal relations. In the actions that people perform with their own bodies, the “acts of the human person” that fall into the categories of “seeing, hearing, speaking, and acting,” there are prescribed norms that function like a carpenter’s square (Kaibara 1938: 146). This, in Ekken’s view, is what is meant by “propriety.” Through following these rituals, people must place their “bodily comportment” and their “speech and countenance” under the rule of established norms. Here, the body must be restrained by preordained rules that extend to all of the minute actions of daily life. Manners and etiquette were seen as the very foundation of being human, the essential guidelines for correct behavior in everyday life. What makes a person truly human is manners and etiquette (reigi). If a person has no manners and etiquette, then how can one distinguish them from an animal? This is how important manners and etiquette are. Accordingly every person, from the rank beginner to the master of virtue, must take the rules of manners and etiquette as their standard and not depart from them for a moment.” (Kaibara 1973: 1: 4)

Here also we can easily perceive the “from the body to the mind” methodological principle of Ekken’s mind-body theory. In ZHU Xi learning, where ritual propriety is defined as “the regulating patterns (C. jiewen 節文 J. setsubun) of heavenly principle and the formal models (C. yize 儀則 J. gisoku) for human affairs” (Lunyu jizhu 論語集注: 1, Commentary on Analects 1: 12), ritual propriety was also seen as anchored in the concept of principle. Since in ZHU Xi learning “heavenly principles” are originally internally present in human beings, ritual propriety as well was assumed in principle to be a system of internally rooted norms. In contrast, Ekken had rejected the idea of principle as the root and origin of all things, so propriety clearly consisted no longer of principles internal to human beings, but of external norms. Accordingly, although ritual propriety was still “the constancy of heaven and earth,” man was seen as a being who “serves heaven and earth” and exists in reliance on heaven and earth (see Tsujimoto 1995). The externalization of the normative nature of ritual propriety was clearly a necessary consequence of Ekken’s understanding of principle. For Ekken, the totality of a person’s everyday corporeal actions should be encompassed within the system of what he called “ritual propriety.” Accordingly,

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if the system of “ritual propriety” consists of external norms, then people must study that system. “From the time of childhood one should teach a person to follow the rules of Japanese manners, including how to comport oneself in everyday social situations (tachiifurumai), the etiquette required in eating and in drinking sake or tea, and the rituals of worship and paying respect” (Kaibara 1961: 1: 217). Elsewhere in the same work he writes, “(From the age of seven) one should gradually teach the rules of good manners (reihō 禮法)…. (From the age of eight) one should teach the appropriate etiquette (reigi) and admonish unmannerly behavior. From this time on one should have the child learn the etiquette of how to comport oneself in everyday social situations, of how to serve and retreat when appearing in front of an elder, of how to speak to an elder or guest, of how to answer when asked a question, of how to lay out eating utensils for an elder and remove them later, of how to lay out sake cups and serve the sake and the side dishes, and also the etiquette of offering tea” (Kaibara 1961: 3: 240). Such is the extent to which all the little daily actions of living in Japanese society were to be taught and gradually mastered from a young age in the circumstances of everyday practice through the process of bodily repetition. This sort of bodily training was already assumed within the “in advance” education that Ekken so insisted upon. One cannot help noticing that this is virtually the same as what is known as shitsuke 躾 (good upbringing)12 in contemporary Japanese society.

5.1.4

The Surfacing of Physicality in Ekken’s Thought

Up to this point we have seen that Ekken’s mind-body theory gave priority to the bodily element, that the directionality of this theory was a movement from body to mind, that this directionality was parallel to the role of manners and etiquette in Ekken’s theory of learning, and that this whole system contrasted sharply with the “from mind to body” direction of ZHU Xi learning. So what is the significance of the fact that Ekken put primary emphasis on the body rather than the mind? Theoretically speaking, as we have seen repeatedly, the surfacing of corporeality in Ekken’s thought was a natural working out of his rejection of the ontologically primary nature of “principle” in ZHU Xi learning. To state this in terms of the theory of the mind-body relationship, it was a problem connected to the fact that Ekken did not recognize the autonomy of the mind and denied the authority of the mind. This is the key point to which we should direct our attention.

12

Translator’s note: It is interesting that the native Japanese word shitsuke, meaning “good upbringing,” “home discipline” and “training in manners” is written with one of the very few “Chinese characters” (kanji) completely invented in Japan. The character is formed by placing the character for “beautiful” to the right of the character for “body” or “person,” where the character on the right (written second) carries an obviously causative connotation. Shitsuke can even refer by extension to manners and etiquette themselves. It is clear that Japanese society, in which inculcation in social ritual has traditionally been the essence of education, impelled the creation of this kanji.

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In statements such as the following, Ekken emphasized the instability of the human mind and the precariousness of the mind’s capacity of judgment. “The human mind changes easily with time. Other people’s minds, as well as my own mind, are not something that can be relied upon” (Kaibara 1938: 126). Accordingly, “My mind certainly cannot be the standard for judging principles (dōri 道理)” (Kaibara 1938: 187). This emphasis was part and parcel of his view of man as a humble being who is only capable of existing by virtue of being born through the “grace (on 恩) of heaven and earth” as a being that relies on and serves heaven and earth.13 Ekken’s rejection of the originatory nature of principle was accompanied by this sort of recognition of the imperfection of the mind. Clearly, it was just this sort of lack of confidence in the autonomy of the human mind that caused the factor (keiki) of the body to rise to prominence. Precisely because of its tenet that heavenly principle was inherent to the mind, ZHU Xi learning was capable of wagering all of the possibilities of the self on a probing into the correct condition of “the not-yet-manifest mind.” If one loses this premise, however, then the locus of the possibilities that one should entrust oneself to becomes this concrete physical body. Rather than the condition of the mind, with its precarious nature, it is the condition of the body, as the subject of one’s actions, that becomes the reliable gripping point for the acting out of goodness. In other words, the method of study that one should adopt did not consist in running one’s circuits through the unreliable mind, but in a system of education that directly and totally mobilized the body. Obviously, Ekken recognized that it is precisely the process by which the self of the young child is continually molded through imitation and habit-formation that is the archetype of this system of education and study. This process does not operate through the medium of the conscious mind. Therefore, it is not something that is mediated by language. It is not a method of “indoctrination” or “instillation” through words, but a study method of gradual “seeping in” that relies on the learner’s own bodily activities.

5.2

A Summing Up: The Body and the Disintegration of ZHU Xi Learning

In conclusion, let us confirm the following matters that have been brought to our attention through the foregoing investigation: 1. In terms of intellectual history, one sees the rise to prominence of corporeality within the process of the disintegration of ZHU Xi learning. In ZHU Xi learning, based on the belief in the originatory nature of principle, it was the mind that was the object upon which one wagered the project of learning. Ekken, however, by denying the metaphysical nature of principle, was not able to accept locating 13

Regarding the fact that this lack of confidence in the mind was the obverse side of his idea of “serving heaven and earth,” see Tsujimoto 1995.

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“the original nature” of man within the mind, and for that reason, in Ekken’s view, the mind became something unworthy of trust. This loss of confidence in the mind resulted in the surfacing of corporeality within Ekken’s thought. If that is the case, then one can say that this inclination toward corporeality was a phenomenon within Edo intellectual history that appeared within the process of the disintegration of ZHU Xi learning. Thus the disintegration of ZHU Xi learning’s “discourse of the mind,” which was constantly drawn back to the abstract realm of principle, gave rise to a new “discourse of the body.” 2. If one looks at this in terms of social history, it is clear that it was connected to the spread of learning within society. ZHU Xi learning, with its focus on the notyet-manifest mind, aimed at a privileged mode of knowledge based on a highly polished and clarified condition of mind. In contrast, Ekken’s Confucianism, accepting only the mind as already manifest, was directed from start to finish to the everyday life of ordinary people. Ekken directed his concern toward the “facts” that one can experience concretely in one’s awareness. He devoted himself to a mode of popular-enlightenment learning aimed at responding to the demand for learning among the general populace. Therefore, this had the character of a pragmatic and practice-oriented knowledge gained within the context of daily life. Ordinary daily life has nothing to do with a highly abstract mode of knowledge. Daily life is a concrete repetition of practice day after day, so habitual activities that are carried out through the body are an indispensible element. Here it is precisely the process of body-based imitation and habit-formation that constitutes learning. In this sense one can say that the spread of learning in society necessarily has to be accompanied by a greater emphasis on corporality. 3. This emphasis on corporeality in learning was likely connected with the emergence of children’s education as a center of attention. As we have seen, Ekken believed that the most fundamental factor in character formation is not inculcation by means of language, but repetition of perceptual experience within the child’s own living environment. This means nothing other than paying attention to the process of corporeal activity that we call imitation and habit-formation. The fact that children’s learning came to be the focus of attention can be said to be internally connected to this problem of the body. As scholars have previously pointed out, as one would expect, the content of Precepts for Children’s Education in Japan was based to a certain extent on the Book of Rites and on ZHU Xi’s Elementary Learning. Of course there is no need to deny that fact, but I believe it is more important to ask from the perspective of both intellectual history and the history of education the meaning of the fact that Ekken’s book made children’s learning the focus of attention. 4. The principle of body-centered study seen in the present study was not something unique to Ekken. For instance, the principle inherent in the method of learning in the Sorai school (the method of studying the ancient meanings of words as well as the emphasis on mastering “concrete things” and “ritual propriety” through repetition by the “mind, will, and body”) is almost the same as that of Ekken’s methodological principle. OGYŪ Sorai’s rejection of the discourse of the mind and his emphasis on the indeterminacy of linguistic expressions also

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shares a common basis with Ekken.14 However, Sorai did not make childhood learning a focus of concern. If we see the emergence of corporeality as connected to a distrust of the mind (the rejection of the “discourse of the mind”), then the methodological principle of this sort of learning has a certain genealogy that can be traced back within Edo intellectual history. In this connection it would be necessary to look at the learning of YAMAGA Sokō 山鹿素行 (1622–1985), the “ritual propriety” philosophy of DAZAI Shundai 太宰春台 (1680–1747), as well as other influential Edo Confucianists. Regarding the question of corporeality in the learning of NAKAE Tōju (1608–1648) and YAMAZAKI Ansai (1619–1982), KOYASU Nobukuni’s studies are very much of interest. Koyasu has made clear that Tōju’s reception of the Classic of Filial Piety was accomplished not on “the level of intellectual knowledge,” but on a kind of religious “mind-body practice level,” and that his teachings “were accompanied by corporeal representations (hyōshō 表象) (Koyasu 1995). In regard to Ansai, Koyasu has pointed out that the narrative (katari) of his unique style of hortatory lectures (kōshaku) constituted a distinctive kind of language that impelled direct “personal realization” (tainin 体認) of Confucian truth through the use a graphic sort of “bodily-feeling” descriptive words (Koyasu 1994). In both cases the body was problematized in a different phase (isō 位相) than with Ekken and Sorai. Just how these multiple modes of introducing corporality into Confucian teaching crossed paths and what sorts of significance they had remain matters very much in need of clarification. Research in Edo intellectual history has hitherto directed its primary concern to tracing, so to speak, the whereabouts of the mind. Yet the problem of the mind, as we have seen in the present chapter, cannot but be related to the problem of the body. The fact that interest has inclined toward the mind while disregarding the body is an expression of the fact that early modern intellectual history has been captured within the framework of modern theories or concepts of the mind-body relationship. This is because the modern period has regarded the mind as the essence of man. Therefore the matter of human corporeality has been kept in the dark and not made into a topic of investigation. This problem is at bottom related to the fact that modern education and study has leaned toward verbalized knowledge and the mind while giving scant attention to students’ corporeal nature. The body that has been problematized within the modern education system is either the “natural” realm as the object of natural science (including hygiene) or the physical body that should be exercised and trained through physical education. In both cases it is the body grasped as something clearly separated from the mind-as-subject. To consider the relationship of mind and body in the early modern period, especially within the system of education and learning, is nothing less than an attempt to recover the problem of the body that the modern educational system has hidden from view as a topic and a problem in the realm of education. The work to effect this recovery has finally gotten underway, but is still in its beginning stages. 14 Regarding the topic of habit-forming and the body in Sorai learning, see Kojima 1984 and 1994, as well as Tsujimoto 1990, chapter 1, Section 3.

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References Azuma, Hiroshi 東洋. 1994. The home-discipline and education of the Japanese 日本人のしつけ と教育 (Nihonjin no shitsuke to kyōiku). Tokyo: Tokyō Daigaku Shuppankai. Ban, Gu 班固 et al. Hanshu 漢書 (History of the Former Han Dynasty, completed 111 C.E.), Biography of JIA Yi 賈誼傳 (Biographies, chapter 18). See: http://ctext.org/han-shu/ jia-yi-zhuan. Family Sayings of Confucius 孔子家語 (Kongzi jiayu), Qishier dizi jie 七十二弟子解: 40. See http://ctext.org/kongzi-jiayu/qi-shi-er-di-zi-jie. Ishikawa, Ken 石川謙. 1961. Precepts for nourishing life/Precepts for children’s education in Japan 養生訓・和俗童子訓 (Yōjōkun/Wazoku dōjikun). Iwanami Bunko Kaisetsu. Ishikawa, Matsutarō 石川松太郎. 1968. World Education Classics: KAIBARA Ekken/ MURO Kyūsō 世界教育宝典:貝原益軒・室鳩巣 (Sekai kyōiku hōten, KAIBARA Ekken/MURO Kyūsō), Commentary 解説 (Kaisetsu). Tamagawa Daigaku Shuppanbu. Kaibara, Ekken 貝原益軒. 1699 (Genroku 12). A Mnemonic Guide to the three types of ritual 三禮口訣 (Sanrei kuketsu). Kyoto: Ryūshiken. Kaibara, Ekken 貝原益軒. 1938. Popular precepts for Japan 大和俗訓 (Yamato zokkun). ISHIKAWA Ken 石川謙, compiler. Iwanami Shoten. Kaibara, Ekken 貝原益軒. 1961. Precepts for nourishing life/Precepts for children’s education in Japan 養生訓・和俗童子訓 (Yōjōkun/Wazoku dōjikun). ISHIKAWA Ken 石川謙, compiler. Iwanami Shoten. Kaibara, Ekken 貝原益軒. 1970. Record of great doubts 大疑録 (Taigiroku). In KAIBARA Ekken/MURO Kyūsō 貝原益軒・室鳩巣. Nihon shisō taikei, 34, ed. ARAKI Kengo 荒木見悟 and INOUE Tadashi 井上忠. Iwanami Shoten. Kaibara, Ekken 貝原益軒. 1973. Record of careful thought 慎思録 (Shinshiroku). In Nihon shakumyō 日本釋名, ed. Ekiken kai 益軒会. Kokusho Kankōkai. Kaibara, Ekken 貝原益軒. 1989. Daigaku setsu 大学説. In A collection of materials on KAIBARA Ekken, vol. 1 貝原益軒資料集, 上 (KAIBARA Ekken shiryōshū, jō), ed. INOUE Tadashi 井上忠. Tokyo: Perikansha. Kojima, Yasunori 小島康敬. 1984. “The ‘Learning’ of OGYŪ Sorai—The understanding of the body and the problems of imitation, Habit-formation and thought 荻生徂徠の「学」— 身体の 了解と模倣・習熟・思慮の問題をめぐって. In Risō 理想 619. Kojima, Yasunori 小島康敬. 1994. Sorai learning and Anti-Sorai, Enlarged edition 徂徠学と反徂 徠・増補版 (Soraigaku to han-Sorai, Zōho ban). Tokyo: Perikansha. Koyasu, Nobukuni 子安宣邦. 1994. The language of ‘Reverent Seriousness’ and the ‘Method of the Mind’ in the YAMAZAKI Ansai School 山崎闇斎学派の「敬説」と「心法」の言語. In Shisō 842. Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten. Koyasu, Nobukuni 子安宣邦. 1995. NAKAE Tōju: Between the teaching of ‘Filial Piety’ and the Biographies of Filial Sons 中江藤樹:「孝」の教説と『孝子伝』 の間. In Shisō 856. Iwanami Shoten. Legge, James. 1967. Li Chi: Book of rites. New York: University Books. Miura, Kunio 三浦國男. 1976. Chinese civilization selection 中国文明選, vol. 3, Master Zhu Collection 朱子集 (Shushi shū). Tokyo: Asahi Shimbunsha. Miyake, Yonekichi 三宅米吉. 1890. Ekken’s method of education 益軒ノ教育法 (Ekken no kyōikuhō). Tokyo: Kinkōdō Shoseki. Shimada, Kenji 島田虔次. 1967. ZHU Xi learning and WANG Yangming learning 朱子学と陽明学 (Shushigaku to Yōmeigaku). Tokyo: Iwanami Shinsho. Tsujimoto, Masashi 辻本雅史. 1990. Studies in the history of early modern educational thought 近世教育思想史の研究 (Kinsei kyōiku shisōshi no kenkyū). Kyoto: Shibunkaku Shuppan. Tsujimoto, Masashi 辻本雅史. 1992. The philosophy of ki in the early modern period, Memorandum—Centering on KAIBARA Ekken 近世における「気」の思想史・覚書—貝原 益軒を中心に― (Kinsei ni okeru ‘ki’ no shisōshi, oboegaki—KAIBARA Ekken o chūshin ni). In Asking the meaning of Early Modern Japan 近代日本の意味を問う (Kinsei Nihon no imi o tou), ed. MIZOBE Hideaki 溝部英章 et al. Tokyo: Mokutakusha.

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Tsujimoto, Masashi 辻本雅史. 1995. The establishment of ‘Academics’—Ekken’s theory of morality and theory of learning「学術」の成立―益軒の道徳論と学問論― (‘Gakujutsu’ no seiritsu—Ekken no dōtokuron to gakumonron). In KAIBARA Ekken—The civilization study of the harmonic music of heaven and earth 貝原益軒—天地和楽の文明学, ed. YOKOYAMA Toshio 横山俊夫. Tokyo: Heibonsha. Yamada, Keiji 山田慶児. 1978. Master Zhu’s study of nature 朱子の自然学 (Shushi no shizengaku). Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten. Yuasa, Yasuo 湯浅泰雄. 1991. What is ki? 気とは何か (Ki to wa nani ka). Tokyo: Nihon Hōsō Kyōkai. (The philosopher Yuasa is well known for his mind-body theory focusing on the body, and he has published three books in English from SUNY Press.) Zhu, Xi 朱熹. Classified Conversations of Master Zhu 朱子語類. Zhu, Xi 朱熹. Commentary on the Doctrine of the Mean 中庸章句. Zhu, Xi 朱熹. Commentary on the Great Learning 大學章句. Zhu, Xi 朱熹. Queries on the Great Learning 大学或問. (The above four works are among the most important sources for ZHU Xi’s philosophy, and the first is a huge collection filling many volumes.)

Chapter 6

OGYŪ Sorai: Confucian Conservative Reformer: From Journey to Kai to Discourse on Government Olof G. Lidin

6.1

Introduction

The Genroku 元禄 era (1688–1704) around 1700 is one of the amazing periods in Japanese cultural history. In any field, there were explosive activities and colorful names. This is evident in literature, in poetry, fiction, drama, Buddhism and Shinto, and of course in Confucianism, the main intellectual discourse of the era. Among the names in the Confucian area, one of the most noteworthy is OGYŪ Sorai 荻生徂 徠 (1666–1728), an independent-minded scholar of politics and government who based his ideas concerning reform on a call for a return to the fundamentals of the Chinese Classics. Sorai was born in Edo 江戸 and lived most of his life there. The only parenthesis was the stay during his young years in Kazusa 上総, today’s Chiba 千葉, during his father’s banishment there (1679–1690). When the family returned to Edo, he established himself as a Confucian scholar in the Zōjōji 増上寺 area of Edo (today’s Shiba 芝), from where he was invited to serve one of the shogun’s favorites, YANAGISAWA Yoshiyasu 柳沢吉保 (1658–1714), as a Confucian scholar in 1696. From that day he was an established Confucian scholar, and this life he continued when he left the Yanagisawa house and set up his Ken’en 蘐園 School in the Kayabachō 茅場町 district of Edo in 1709 (Lidin 1973: 1–82; Yoshikawa 1983: 77–259). He can be counted among the numerous scholars who took up Chinese studies as a profession during the Tokugawa 徳川 (1600–1868) era. Sorai was not as narrow-minded as most Confucian scholars. His interests spanned all of Chinese culture, from area to area, but in the very center was Confucian thought. He can rightly be labeled a Confucian philosopher – and one of the more colorful and stimulating among the many in mid-Tokugawa times.

O.G. Lidin (*) Professor Emeritus, University of Copenhagen, Denmark e-mail: [email protected] C.C. Huang and J.A. Tucker (eds.), Dao Companion to Japanese Confucian Philosophy, Dao Companions to Chinese Philosophy 5, DOI 10.1007/978-90-481-2921-8_6, © Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2014

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Confucian studies were also at the center of Sorai’s life during his youth. His father, Hōan 方菴 (d. 1706), a doctor in service to the shogun, probably molded him and sent him to the Hayashi 林 school for Chinese studies at an early age. Then followed the thirteen years of rustic life in Kazusa where he continued his studies of the Confucian classics by himself or was instructed by local priests and some local Confucian scholar. He mentions two works, A Colloquial Explanation of the Great Learning (Daigaku genkai 大學諺解) possibly by HAYASHI Razan 林羅山 (1583– 1657), and commentaries on the Chinese classics, written by UTSUNOMIYA Ton’an 宇 都宮遯庵 (1634–1710). In all probability he read more, whatever came within reach. It can be imagined that Sorai from the beginning saw the Confucian truth in the philosophical ideas of ZHU Xi 朱熹 (1130–1200) and Neo-Confucian enlightened thinking. It can be imagined, further, that the special conditions and circumstances during the banishment years added layers to both the thinking and personality that made him differ from his fellow Confucian scholars in Edo. Regarding his years in Kazusa, Sorai later wrote in a letter to his disciple OKAI Chūseki 岡井仲錫 (d. 1765), that he had lived “in a province where no lords lived, where peasants, wood-cutters, herdsmen and fishermen constituted the people. By nature, I like to read books; however, books were not to be had.” (Iwahashi 1934: 109; Lidin 1973: 31). Whatever the influences on Sorai’s formative years, they led him to acquire the Confucian learning that established him as a credible scholar upon return to Edo in 1690. It can be imagined that the Kazusa studies were continued during his six years living near the Zōjōji. We know little or nothing about this period of his life. One thing is sure however. Somehow he came to be known for his studies and his learning came to the ears of the shogun, Tsunayoshi 綱吉, the fifth Tokugawa shogun (r. 1689–1709). Sorai was invited to be among the 13 Confucian scholars serving YANAGISAWA Yoshiyasu, a chamberlain (sobayōnin 側用人) to the shogun and in certain respects the shogun’s alter ego. The abbot of Zōjōji had apparently mentioned Sorai to the shogun. Thirteen years (1696–1709) followed during which time Sorai, as a Confucian scholar in the service of Yoshiyasu, was often close to the shogun and the halls of Tokugawa power. It is apparent that Sorai made an impression on both YANGISAWA Yoshiyasu and the shogun soon after his arrival in the service (Lidin 1983: 19–21). Sorai’s “Family Annals” (Shinruigaku yuishogaki 親類書由緒書), reports that a month after Sorai arrived in service to Yoshiyasu, he was present at one of the shogun’s lectures during which he exchanged views with HAYASHI Hōkō 林鳳岡 (1645–1732), head (daigaku no kami 大學頭) of the Yushima Confucian Academy (Yushima Seidō 湯島聖堂). As a reward for his remarks, Sorai received a present from the shogun (Lidin 1973: 173–180). He was afterwards invited three times a month to the castle, alternately to YANAGISAWA Yoshiyasu’s mansion, to the shogunal lectures. Occasionally he gave his own lectures on specific Confucian subjects. That Sorai was already advanced in his Chinese studies is clear from the subjects he lectured on, including the Book of Changes (Yijing 易經 Ekikyō) and Book of History (Shujing 書經 Shokyō). What made Sorai special, however, was the knowledge he had gained in Kazusa. In effect, he came to filter the Confucian truth through his own personal experience. Thus he relates in his letter to OKAI Kenshū that his learning was “more often than not superior” to that of the city samurai scholars. And he stresses that “the blessings

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I received while in Kazusa are greater than those I received during the time I was in the good favor of a daimyō house.” This is the first evidence we have of his distinguishing himself from his Confucian colleagues in the Yanagisawa house. His experiences during the decade in the countryside affected his outlook on both life and the Confucian truth. After that decade, he seemed to have difficulty getting along with the scholars among the city samurai. In his Discourse on Government (Seidan 政談), written during Sorai’s final years, he remembers one occasion from his time in service to YANAGISAWA Yoshiyasu. This event is of so much interest to this discussion that it is quoted in full: When the late Shogun Tsunayoshi was ruling, there was a farmer in the Kawagoe 川越 estate which belonged to Mino no kami 美濃守 (YANAGISAWA Yoshiyasu). Reduced to poverty, without rice field or house, he had no means to support himself and his wife. Some four or five days after he had divorced his wife, he shaved his head, took the name Dōnyu 道入and became a vagrant, accompanied only by his mother. However, at Kumagai or Kōnosu his mother became ill. He abandoned her at the roadside asleep and proceeded to Edo. His mother was questioned and then sent back to Kawagoe. This led to Dōnyu being accused of abandoning his mother (oyasute 親棄). Mino no kami asked the scholars in his house what was the punishment in such a case. He ordered them to look into earlier precedents and to report to him. At that time I was new in the service of Mino no kami. All the Confucian scholars reached the following conclusion: ‘There is no punishment 形 for the abandonment of a parent in the Ming code (Min ritsu 明律) or in ancient and modern works. The act must be considered that of a hinin 非人 outcast. He had taken his mother with him until she had become ill and then they parted. Therefore it is impossible to call it a case of oyasute. He had four or five days earlier divorced his wife and even though he was reduced to beggary, he took his wife with him. For a hinin that was laudable conduct. If while living with one’s wife one abandons one’s parent, that is called oyasute. However, since there was no intent in this case of abandoning his mother, it is impossible to call it oyasute. This was the unanimous view of the Confucian scholars [myself included], but Mino no kami did not agree. He felt that the abandonment of a parent under any circumstances was not to be countenanced [and that punishment had to be meted out]. He therefore said that he would consult the shogun and ask for his opinion. Thus the matter reached the ears of the shogun. At this time the shogun was a follower of the ZHU Xi philosophy (Shushigaku o goshingyō nite 朱子學を御信仰にて) and in accordance with its rationalistic approach to things (rigaku no suji nite 理學の筋にて) he was entirely absorbed in the examination of man’s heart and mind (kokoro 心). Mino no kami, on the other hand, was a follower of Zen Buddhism and did not ordinarily believe in the reasoning of the Confucian scholars. At the time I made the following statement: ‘Under famine conditions, any number of such incidents would occur in other domains too. Abandoning one’s parent is a serious matter and should not take place. If this case were judged accordingly, whatever the punishment meted out, it would set a precedent for other domains. In my view, it is primarily the fault of the daikan 代官 and the district bugyō 奉行, but also of the house elders (karō 家老). Further, people higher up are also responsible. [In comparison,] Dōnyu’s share of the blame is quite small.’ Mino no kami heard this from the lowermost seat in the hall, and for the first time he agreed with what was said. He sent Dōnyu back to his village, granting him a one-man ration (ichinin buchi 一人扶持 so that he should be able to take care of his mother. It was from this matter on that the lord began to treat me kindly, saying that I could be put to good use (yō ni tatsubeki mono to te 用に立つべき者とて). I was quite young when I left Edo and lived for thirteen years in the countryside in Kazusa province, where I encountered hardships of many kinds. As a rustic person (inakamono nite 田舎者にて), blunt in speech (bukotsu naru yue 無忽なる故), I could tell my lord things to his face that others dared not mention.

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When after thirteen years I returned to Edo (gojōka 御城下), I noticed how much the old habits (fū 風) had changed. I began to study the reason for these changes in the records and to some small extent came to understand the gist of things (mono no kokoro 物の心). I think that if I had lived in Edo all along, I would not have paid any attention to these gradual changes, but would have cheerfully accepted them without paying much attention. Hence I think that it is unavoidable [but understandable] that high officials with hereditary stipends who have lived all the time in Edo pay no attention at all to things and drift along with the changing habits, having no ideas of their own and so are unable to express themselves about anything. (Lidin 1999: 114–116)

This story that Sorai related at about 60 years of age regarding an event that took place 30 years earlier shows the social compassion that he had felt when living close to “peasants, wood-cutters, herdsmen and fishermen” in Kazusa. He had not forgotten what he had experienced during the harsh years of banishment. Because of this experience he also felt different from his colleagues in the Yanagisawa house. As his remarked, he was a “rustic,” “blunt in speech,” and unafraid to express things that the normal house scholar would hesitate to express. The same directness and forwardness was, on the other hand, appreciated by the lord who noted that he could “be of good use.”

6.2

Report of the Elegant Emissaries

That Sorai could be of “good use” was proven when YANAGISAWA Yoshiyasu sent Sorai on an important mission to Kai Province (Kai no kuni 甲斐国). Sorai was to investigate the roots of the Yanagisawa family and report on his findings. The report under the title Report of the Elegant Emissaries (Fūryūshishaki 風流使者記) was also soon submitted, embellished with 300 Chinese poems by Sorai and his travel companion, TANAKA Shōgo 田中省吾. It was a substantial work in 21 chapters, dated 1706. It was revised and shortened under the title of Report of Travel to Kai (Kyōchūkikō 峽中紀行), around 1710 (Kawamura 1972; Lidin 1983: 73–111).1 Sorai’s Report of the Elegant Emissaries was probably the first work that he wrote. Taken together, his Report of the Elegant Emissaries and Report of Travel to Kai reveal Sorai’s rich personality, more open and better presented than in any other of his works. It is therefore a fine source when attempting to discern Sorai as a real person and not just as a philosopher. The 30-year young Sorai was not the somber man that we are apt to think of when reading his later works. He was full of life, impetuous, happy and humorous, always ready to banter TANAKA Shōgo who apparently was fond of showing off his stern, vigorous samurai personality. Sorai depicts himself as weak and infirm in comparison. First of all, however, Sorai wishes to show himself off as a literary man. His pride is his knowledge of Chinese and in that he feels superior to TANAKA Shōgo, whose 1

The Kyōchūkikō (1706) is found in Soraishū, vol. 15. Lidin’s translation explains, in notes to the text, how the Füryūshishaki differs from the Kyōchūkikō. The 300 Chinese poems are not included in the latter work. Lidin’s “Introduction” (1983: 3–70) situates the work in its historical setting.

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Chinese poetry he corrects again and again. Sorai’s interest in history is also apparent and genuine. He had been sent to delve into the Yanagisawa and Takeda 武田 past in Kai and he does this thoroughly. He goes farther and visits every temple and shrine, looks into old documents, measures bridges, and writes down old anecdotes and episodes. He insists on being carried up Mount Tenmoku 天目山 to the site of the memorial shrine commemorating the place where TAKEDA Katsuyori 武田勝頼 and his remaining followers committed collective suicide in 1582. The view of Mount Fuji makes him lyrical and this is expressed in his text and poems (Lidin 1983: 73–85). In both the Report of the Elegant Emissaries and Report of Travel to Kai, Sorai refers to his years in Kazusa as ones that shaped him for the rest of his life (Lidin 1983: 107–108). On this count, nothing has been changed or omitted from the first to the second version. It is expressed as clearly in 1706 and 1710 as it was later in life. Encountering rustic vistas outside Edo, Sorai is reminded of those years in Kazusa, and he feels aloof from Shōgo, who perhaps has had no such social experience. For this reason in spite of his weak health and lazy nature, he is also better at mountain climbing than Shōgo, who is more equipped physically and known for his skills in the military arts. The Kazusa experience represented an early dimension in Sorai’s life, and there was a dialectic – perhaps a tension – between this period of poverty and the life of relative affluence that he had attained in daimyō service. Compared with the formalized reality that hedged his life in the Yanagisawa mansion, the Kazusa years emerged in his memories as a romantic past when life had been simple and easy. This mental dichotomy, with its advantages and disadvantages, comes alive when he describes in the Report of Travel to Kai how beautiful he finds the country after having lived as in a cage for 10 years. He feels happy outside the cage – then he looks up and there still – alas! is the Yanagisawa banner blazing above his head. Nota bene, this was added in 1710, when he no longer lived in the mansion and saw things in hindsight; it does not necessarily represent the whole situation in 1706. Now he enjoys seeing the country again, and this might have been the reason for the happiness he evinces during the whole trip. On the first day while crossing Tama River 玉川, Sorai and Shōgo meet households that earn their living by raising cormorants. Since Sorai has never seen cormorant fishing, he disembarks at once and watches it for a long while. The cormorants swallow the fish and then throw them up. Do they not use their mouths as their buttocks? Yet, they are able to feed men with their leftovers. Is not then man inferior to them? For when the cormorants feed man with their leftovers does man obtain his food! Between those who feed and those who are fed there is thus practically no distance. Difficult in the extreme is indeed man’s sustaining himself! (Lidin 1983: 75) Unconsciously dejected, Sorai leaves the place. On the way down from Mount Tenmoku, Sorai and Shōgo come to a village where the peasants are drying acorns on bamboo screens. When Sorai asks why, he is told that the kernels are boiled and used as food. Full of pity for the poor people he asks for a few kernels and puts them in his sleeve. Sorai thus evinces social compassion that is both genuine and touching. He notes with an inquisitive mind the misery of the common people

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scraping together a poor living and compares it with the elegant life of the samurai of the Yanagisawa household, probably recalling simultaneously his own decade in Kazusa. By the end of the same passage Sorai describes how, after having lived among cowherds and peasants, “a great favor reached him like a torrent of rain from above,” when he was invited to enter the service of the Yanagisawa house. He is not living in luxury, but with a stipend that amounts to 600–700 koku of rice (which is an exaggeration) he does not need to feel the pangs of poverty (Lidin 1983: 107–108). It should be noticed that there is no sign of unhappiness here, only of gratitude and satisfaction. The reason for the sudden description is that the acorns are lost by the time that they reach Saruhashi 猿橋. When Shōgo, scoffing, asks him what he intends to use them for, Sorai begins by telling the story of his life in banishment in Kazusa and ends by saying that he has been in a stupor and forgotten his former life by living the good life of affluence. Witnessing that the poor villagers on Mount Tenmoku eat the same food as monkeys, however, he had suddenly recalled he once lived a similar lowly life, close to famine and hunger. Then it struck him that he was not the only one, but that all people in Edo live this kind of illusory and unreal life. He therefore asks for some acorns to show the “dandy boys” (ganko no ko 紈袴之子) of his school what life is really like among the people of the countryside. He wishes to open the their eyes by showing them the acorns (Lidin 1983: 108).2 Whether Shōgo scoffs at it or not, Sorai expresses here a deep insight into human nature. The usual thing is, in fact, that one forgets one’s earlier tribulations when one comes higher up in society. Those are rare who, like Sorai, look back and realize that they have forgotten their former selves. Usually this understanding comes after a person’s downfall, after his degradation. In Sorai’s case, however, the realization that he has forgotten what he once was like comes in his “exalted” position, just seeing again the situation in the countryside. And it dawns on him how narrow the gap is between man and animal, between affluence and starvation. Up on Mount Tenmoku he notices how man and monkey eat the same acorns; earlier by the Tama River, Sorai observed how man and cormorant share the same fish. He sadly realizes the plight of humanity, the narrow margins of life, and feels how the city dweller is only superficially removed from poverty. He wishes, therefore, to open the eyes of the ‘dandy’ boys showing them a few of those acorns. The question is whether Sorai uses the term “dandy boys,” half jocularly, half pejoratively, to indicate the upper-class origin of his students. At times Sorai seems indeed “modern,” as though living in the present age! It is easy to conclude that it might also have been the Kazusa experience that made Sorai show commiseration towards his followers and common people during the tour. If the travelogues are correct, he is more compassionate and sensitive to people’s needs than Shōgo who at times seems inconsiderate and stern. Both at Gakiganodo 餓鬼ケ嗌 and on Mount Tenmoku Sorai in the end heeds the protests of the local people and does not force his demands. At Gakiganodo he gives up 2

Only in the Fūryūshishaki, kan 20.

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his intended march to the fortress because the villagers complain of tiredness, concluding that it is fate that prevents him from reaching the final goal of his journey (Lidin 1983: 90–92 ). On Mount Tenmoku, again, he complies with the reluctant abbot and does not insist on investigating the “immortals’” (sennin 仙人) secrets of the mountain, understanding that it might interfere with the harvest work of the village people (Lidin 1983: 105–106). He concludes, in the Report of the Elegant Emissaries, that it is only because of his compassionate heart that he misses his chances. He also shows his servants kindness. Just outside Edo on the first day he lets them break the stiff formation they have kept through Edo and allows them to walk freely both before and after him and Shōgo in their kago palanquins. When, on the way back from the west at Nirasaki 韮崎, they complain that they are exhausted and wish to stop there for the night, he rents horses for them all so that they can ride the remainder of the way back to Kōfu 甲府 (Lidin 1983: 158). Likewise, at Kōgakuji 向嶽寺, he arranges rain clothes and horses for the tired and wet servants and lets them ride ahead to Katsunuma 勝沼 (Lidin 1983: 170–171). It should be remembered here that compassion (ren 仁 jin) is the first virtue propagated in all Chinese philosophy. In that context, Sorai was thus in tune with what he had learned and professed. He seems, however, to have learned the lesson better than his companion. Again and again he records social matters with an inquisitive mind. He notes with pleasure that Kōfu is a well-ordered and rich city where products abound, and he pities the poor people who toil in the rural districts. There is no social program presented, but the reader can feel that Sorai is concerned and wishes for good government. It should not go unnoticed that Sorai at times shows a scholarly pride and samurai snobbery. Already at Fuchū 府中 on the first day of their travel he and Shōgo feel a dislike for the childish prattle of people, whose language apparently does not live up to Edo standards. This happens a number of times and it is of interest that it finds expression only in the Report of the Elegant Emissaries (Lidin 1983: 130). Such outbursts did perhaps not fit in with the new kobunji 古文辞 style, which by itself with its literary refinement constituted snobbery. Knowing the rough and mountainous Tenmoku area one must also conclude that it was samurai snobbery when he had the servants carry him and Shōgo up the steep path to the temple.

6.3

Discourse on Government

In old age, about 40 years afterwards, OGYŪ Sorai wrote his magnum opus, Discourse on Government (Seidan 政談). It was written in utmost secrecy. The nature of the work made it controversial. It concerned nothing less than high policy of the state. Sorai considered that such matters must be kept from the people; the work should only be for the eyes of the shogun and perhaps his most trusted advisors. Reforms, in Sorai’s view, should come like a thief during the night and not be known beforehand. Otherwise, they would lose their efficacy. There might have been another reason. These were dangerous autocratic times when the wrong statement could bring forth swift punishment. Sorai must have had

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in mind his father who perhaps for the flimsiest of reasons had been banished from Edo to Kazusa for over a decade. Sorai never mentioned the reason for the banishment, but it was certainly of a lesser magnitude than any statement in his Discourse on Government. After all, the latter is critical of the socio-economic situation in Japan in paragraph after paragraph – throughout four volumes. Sorai perhaps did not care about himself – he was an old man, feeling that his days were numbered. But he possibly had his students in mind and therefore ended the treatise by clearly stating that he had not allowed any of them to take his narration by dictation. And he ends the four volumes by saying: “I have written the work myself, using my own old eyes and my humble brush. After eminent persons [the shogun?] have deigned to peruse it, it should preferably be committed to the flames” (Lidin 1999: 325). He actually kept the project so secret that the work was not known until the Hōreki 宝暦 (1751–1763) period. Discourse on Government is not mentioned in the catalogues covering Sorai’s works compiled after his death by his students HATTORI Nankaku 服部南郭 (1683–1759) and USAMI Shinsui 宇佐美灊水 (1710–1776) in 1753. The first hand-written copy is from 1759; it is now housed at the National Archives 国立公文書館, in the Naikaku bunko 内閣文庫, in Tokyo. The first printed edition appeared a century later in 1859. Today, however, Sorai’s Discourse on Government is included in every important series dealing with Japanese economic and political history. There are several modern editions that are edited by leading scholars such as TSUJI Tatsuya 辻達也 (Tsuji 1973: 259–445). Discourse on Government is a monumental treatise in the “socio-economic studies” (keizaigaku 経済學) genre focused on social, economic, and political issues. It may at times seem long and rambling but careful reading reveals a continuous thread: from beginning to end, it makes a plea for a Japan of law and order. The term keizai had a wider range of meaning than the modern term keizai which is limited to economics. Sorai’s Discourse on Government was not the first in this genre, nor was it the last. It is, however, not only the epitome of Sorai’s literary work but also an extensive description of Kyōhō 享保 times (1716–1735), as seen by perhaps the most literate person of the era. It offers a frank appraisal of the situation of the Tokugawa state that has gone from bad to worse since the optimistic Genroku 元禄 era around 1700. Sorai finds the present situation rotten and appalling; Discourse on Government is, from beginning to end, a plea to the shogun and his government to do something before it was too late. To make it easily accessible and legible for the reader, Sorai wrote the work in katakana and kanji (kanamajiribun 仮名交じり文), and with a simple repetitive style that even politicians could read and understand. Discourse on Government is also easier to read than many a modern treatise written by learned professors. For these reasons it also became rather long. The four volumes cover some 185 pages in the Nihon shisō taikei 日本思想大系 edition published by Iwanami shoten (Tsuji 1973: 259–446). By comparison, his earlier work, Plan for an Age of Great Peace (Taiheisaku 太平策), presents the same message in about 25 pages (Maruyama 1973a: 447–486). While there is some ambiguity regarding which work was produced first, here it is assumed that Plan for an Age of Great Peace was written prior to the Discourse on Government (Maruyama 1973b: 787–829).

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The disposition of Discourse on Government is also pedagogically simple. The treatise starts from a single basic theme, that of seido 制度, or the social, economic, and political “system” integral to society and government. The term seido is found at the beginning of the first volume and it continues as the leitmotif to the very end of volume four. According to Sorai, the Tokugawa political seido was insufficient, wrong, or non-existent. Sorai’s earlier work, Plan for an Age of Great Peace, can be described as a summary of the same subject. Already in the prologue – in the very first sentence – Sorai explains: “Generally, ruling a country is like dividing a go-board into squares. When the go-board has not been divided into squares, one cannot play go, no matter how skillful one is” (Lidin 1999: 71). Using the metaphor of the go-board Sorai imagines a seido that divides the realm of Tokugawa Japan into well-defined squares, socially and politically. The first volume thereupon catalogues disorders resulting from an insufficient seido, providing at the same time the basis on which the following three volumes are built. Sorai’s goal was to construct a new feudal Japan with new and correct institutions. However, before the institutions could be set up, a basic reorganization had to take place. At the center of this reorganization was the placing of the population in their proper and hereditary places. The first volume may be regarded as the setting of the stage, or, to use Sorai’s own simile, as the drawing of the squares on the go-board. “Afterwards, one can play the game as one wishes.” In the 11 chapters of the first volume, the situation in Edo and Japan is analyzed and he finds it disturbing. Sorai begins the first chapter: “At the present time burglars break into houses everywhere; they murder and steal, they set houses on fire; in the middle of the night in deserted places, they lie in wait to rob people” (Lidin 1999: 71). In the second and third chapters, Sorai turns his attention to the population in Edo and in Tokugawa society generally. All people should be registered in koseki 戸 籍, or “census registers” and belong to a family and “attached to a place” (dochaku 土着) from generation to generation. No exception was to be made for the samurai houses (buke 武家) or Buddhist priests. Everyone should be under strict control and no one should be allowed to move about freely as in his time. Consequently, in chapter four Sorai outlines restrictions on travel, and in chapter five how census registers are to be perfected, how the population is to be counted, and how the population is to be shifted from unsuitable to suitable places. In Sorai’s view, Edo’s population should be decreased through this process. In chapter six, Sorai turns again to travel and its regulation. In chapter seven he deals with the rōnin, priests and monks. He discusses the temples and their lands. In chapter eight he turns to a difficult subject – the various groups of outcasts, which included the eta 穢多 (outcastes), beggars, courtesans, actors and others. It was Sorai’s optimistic view that they all would have their proper places under the new seido. In chapter nine, Sorai addresses the heart of the matter – the samurai (buke 武家) class. He deplores the changing customs and emasculation of the buke warriors in the cities. He continues this theme in chapter ten where he envisages the whole buke class removed from Edo to an environment of invigorating simplicity in the countryside. The system of alternate service in Edo (sankin kōtai 参勤交代) would be reduced to a minimum, even if not totally eliminated. In chapter eleven, Sorai

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touches maritime issues in only six lines, admitting that he is not well acquainted with these matters. However, he acknowledges that since Japan is a country surrounded by the sea, the seido of the country must also encompass maritime matters (Lidin 1999: 134).

6.4

Impoverishment

Sorai begins the second volume with a philosophical preamble declaring that impoverishment (konkyū 困窮) is the root of all social evil. All disorder comes from it. Prosperity makes a state live long, while impoverishment spells its downfall. In China and Japan, past and present, impoverishment signals that a dynasty has come to its end. The ruler should rule in a way so that impoverishment takes a long time to come and that the length of the reign reaches the 500 years which, according to Sorai, was the hallmark of the early dynasties in China. The ruler should make his country prosperous and see to it that, as GUAN Zhong 管仲 said, “clothing and food are sufficient” and, as Confucius said, “that people are first enriched and then instructed” (Lidin 1999: 135). The reason for impoverishment is that something goes wrong in the eternal system as established by the sages in early China. The way to govern the realm was set up by these sages and transmitted by Confucius. Sorai finds the ideal system at the beginning of history in China and concludes that the Tokugawa shogunate deviated seriously from this model. He knew the reason. Military (buke) rule as presided over by the Tokugawa shoguns had been established by the “illiterate” TOYOTOMI Hideyoshi 豊臣秀吉 (1537–1598). The sagacious and “literate” first shogun of the Tokugawa line, Ieyasu 家康 (1543–1616), had not had time after the siege of Osaka Castle in 1615, to do anything about it (Lidin 1999: 139). Volume two of Discourse on Government offers a panorama of the impoverishment in post-Genroku times. In Sorai’s view, things are going from bad to worse. He is then, first of all, referring to the ruling samurai class. The reforms that he envisages are always primarily focused on his own class. If the situation is alleviated for those above, the situation will automatically be better for the Tokugawa vassals (hatamoto 旗本), the samurai generally and for the population at large. He takes an interest even in beggars and outcasts, and it is clear that his seido aims at the country and the people as a whole. It is still his own class, the constellation of military from the shogun to the lowest samurai, who come first and constitute the ruling class. Sorai was well-versed in both the Chinese and Japanese traditions. His conclusion was that all disorder originated in impoverishment. When seido were beneficial, impoverishment did not appear for a long time in early China. For this reason each of the three dynasties lasted for five centuries. In later ages, both in China and Japan, institutions had not been equally beneficial and therefore the dynasties and ages had not lasted as long. For example, the Tang 唐 dynasty had lasted for three centuries, and the Heian 平安 period in Japanese history, which copied the Tang, had also lasted for about three centuries. In both cases, the period of rule had been much reduced because the rulers were uneducated and did not follow the sagacious

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rule of the early kings (sennō 先王). Sorai saw the handwriting on the wall. If nothing was done, the days of the Tokugawa rule were numbered (Lidin 1999: 136–138). Sorai stressed that the way to rule was no miraculous art. It merely consists of the institutions (seido) that the sages (seijin 聖人) had provided. In the sages’ way (seijin no michi 聖人の道), there were some great principles. The first among them was that all people should be ‘attached to the soil’ (dochaku 土着). When the samurai class was “living as in an inn” (ryoshuku no kyōkai 旅宿の協会), it was against these great principles. In the good government of the sages the difference between living attached to the soil and not living attached to the soil equaled the difference between heaven and earth, cloud and clay (tenchi-undei 天地雲泥). As Sorai says sadly, “there is now not one member of the samurai (buke) class who does not “live as in an inn.” All people should be attached to a location and not be allowed to float about. Travel should be reduced and controlled. Affidavits and passes should be needed even for travel from block to bloc within Edo (Lidin 1999: 136–139). Sorai next addresses the establishment of rites and law as regards all social life. When there was no seido regarding clothes, housing, food and utensils, there was no way to suppress luxury, and the impoverishment of both high and low was the result. As for clothes, Sorai presented an example. He explains: During the reign of the fifth shogun, TOKUGAWA Tsunayoshi 徳川綱吉 (1646–1709), even a person like me was ordered to attend the shogun’s lecture on the Book of Changes (Yijing 易經). I ascended in proper attire to the castle. When I sat in my row at the shogun’s lecture, I looked around attentively on all sides and found that not only the ‘elders’ (go-rōjū 御老 中), but also the ‘young elders’ (wakatoshiyori 若年寄), the daimyō 大名, and go-hatamoto (御旗本), whether of rank or without rank, did not at all differ from myself and the rest of us. Seeing such untoward appearance, I was stunned and shed tears. (Lidin 1999: 149)

This was in the upper world. We can imagine that Sorai was generally close to shedding tears when he witnessed the social leveling that he describes in the Seidan. He states, Today we have a world where high and low alike must have the [same] … garments as well as a multitude of other things. In today’s world new customs grow up naturally; people see and imitate them and soon they have become habits and proper etiquette. … Everything in our world is developing in the same vein … since in truth there is no true seido. (Lidin 1999: 149)

Sorai used harsh words in his criticism of the sad conditions in the country but his loyalty to the existing order and government was never brought into question. The Tokugawa family and the shoguns were for him the true rulers of the land; he never questioned their right to rule. The imperial house was accepted as such, but Sorai wanted it to be clearly separated from the Tokugawa shogunate (Lidin 1999: 194). This he expressed in the third volume of his Discourse on Government. Sorai knew where the de facto power was located and he was its humble servant. The Discourse on Government was meant to support Tokugawa rule. By pointing out what was wrong with it, in the light of the ancient sages, and making proposals for reform, also in the light of the ancient sages, he wished to strengthen Tokugawa rule in order that it would last for the sagely span of five centuries. Elsewhere, Sorai declared that human nature could not be changed. It was a constant that could be nurtured only. The same concerned human culture. It was a constant bequeathed by the ancient

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sages and, as such, sacrosanct. It could also be nurtured only but not changed. Sorai would have rejected the evolutionary social and moral notions of today’s western intellectuals. In his time the Neo-Confucian philosophically minded intelligentsia, in their own fashion, also believed in men’s changeability. Sorai nursed a double loyalty. He was loyal to the Tokugawa house, but he was above all loyal to the ancient sages (seijin 聖人) of Chinese history who had established institutions valid for all ages and all lands. Theirs was not the way (dao 道 michi) of the Daoists, nor the way of the Buddhists. It was a Confucian-Legalist way, consisting of the political, economic and social institutions that the sages established for the rule in early China. Their insistence, in Sorai’s mind, was on what was “beneficial” for the people and avoided “impoverishment.” The way of the sages was, in Sorai’s view, a social way for the good of the people, and the criterion for what was good was whether the institutions were beneficial and did not lead to impoverishment. Goodness and beneficence were the hallmarks of this way and impoverishment the yardstick of whether the institutions were in accordance with the way. The Tokugawa government had acted against the way when it forced the whole samurai class, and together with them, artisans and merchants, to assemble and live in “castle cities” (jōkamachi 城下町), first of all in the ‘Edo [castle city]’ (Gojōkamachi 御城下町). By the time Discourse on Government was written, it had become the natural way of life for millions of people. This kind of lifestyle Sorai calls ‘living as in an inn’ (ryoshuku no kyōkai 旅宿の協会), a term that appears to be his own since it is not found in other works. There was not one member of the samurai class in his time who was not “living as in an inn.” They only rarely visited their domains and regarded rural areas with fear and suspicion. They were, in fact, forbidden to go more than five ri into the countryside (Lidin 1999: 125–140). Sorai thought first and foremost of his own class, the buke or samurai, the backbone of Tokugawa power. Something was wrong when those who were supposed to be on top of the social ladder were sinking into poverty while the merchants who were at the bottom of the social ladder were rising economically and socially. The buke had become, in fact, impoverished by the Kyōhō 享保 (1716–1736) period and Sorai blamed their “living as in an inn” for this impoverishment. He saw with horror how the merchants enjoyed what should not belong to them. Something was wrong when the social elite became impoverished while the lowermost class became affluent. It disturbed him that society had been leveled so that “people did not know who was above and who was below,” shedding tears when witnessing what the world had come to: “It has become the world where both high and low do as they please!” (Lidin 1999: 149). The proper seido had to set clear distinctions between high and low. The superior articles that are few in number should be for the upper elite who are few in number, and the inferior articles that are plentiful should be for those below who are many in number. The new seido must make it clear who was “silk” and who was “hemp,” and who belonged among the “silk” and who belonged among the “hemp.” When such a seido was enforced, people would be aware of rank and status and “would naturally not enjoy luxury beyond their social rank, nor incur undue expenses.” Now even base people imitated upper people with impunity, if they just had the money, while, on the other hand, people of high rank were humiliated and treated with contempt when they did not have money (Lidin 1999: 148–149).

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The money economy ruled Edo. Life had become austere for the samurai class who had to live ‘as in an inn’ and be dependent on rice allowances, while it had become a free and easy life for the merchants and townspeople who did not live “as in an inn.” Sorai singled out the shimōtaya 仕舞タ屋 entrepreneurs who dealt with real estate as an extreme example among the townspeople. “They were wealthy and in possession of the royal pleasures!” In the following chapters of the second volume, Sorai describes the economic situation of the samurai class, beginning with the shogunal economy. State finances had gone from bad to worse since the Genroku period “in conjunction with the drift of habits (fūzoku 風俗) of the world.” An economic crisis was imminent when eighth shogun, TOKUGAWA Yoshimune 徳川吉宗 (1684–1751), took over in 1716 (Sansom 1963: 154–172; Lidin 1999: 152–154). In Sorai’s view, it was imperative that the shogunal purchases come to an end. It was ludicrous that the shogun who ruled the land should use money to buy what he needed. It was in accordance with the “nature of reason” (dōri no tōzen 道理の 当然) that the feudal lords presented tribute of what was produced in their provinces. It was the duty of the daimyō, the present feudal lords, to live up to this custom. Thus Sorai asked: “why is this not being done?” Sorai lamented that a market economy had developed and that people considered all things to be private possessions. Rice, for example, had become just another commodity that was bought and sold with money. Profit and gain decided prices. Sumptuary laws were only stopgap and ineffective measures in a world where money ruled and even the shogun had to purchase goods and deal with money. The daimyō were impoverished because they had to “spend every second year in Edo.” Sorai observed that during the Kyōhō 享 保 (1716–1736) period, “most daimyo have to practice economy and therefore are often unable to pay the rice stipends to their home retainers.” The impoverishment of the daimyō was also due to the fact that they had to live up to a style that was proper to their station. As the daimyō rivaled each other, their habits (fūzoku 風俗) had turned into extravagance and “their hands were laden with stones.” Not least of all, the daimyō women had become extravagant. One reason for this was that it had become fashionable among the daimyō to marry women from the Kyoto court nobility. In Sorai’s view, the daimyō should return to the simplicity of provincial life, use things from their domains, and put an end to buying commodities with money. The retinues included in their sankin-kōtai processions should be reduced. Alas, “if a seido is not forthcoming from the shogun setting the right standards, it will not be possible to break the new habits which people have developed rivaling and outdoing each other!” (Lidin 1999: 154–163). In chapter six of the second volume of Discourse on Government, Sorai turns to the hatamoto 旗本 class and their impoverishment. They should be placed on their estates (chigyōsho 知行書) and thus relieved of their poverty. They must make their estates prosper and care for their peasants. Sorai had no high opinion of the peasants. They were improvident and stupid and needed people over them to instruct them. Sorai also noted three other causes for the current impoverishment: (1) rising prices of all commodities, i.e., inflation; (2) sparseness of money; and, (3) stoppage of credit. In chapter four of the second volume, Sorai mentions that prices have doubled twenty times over a period of 50–60 years. He was about 60 when he

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wrote Discourse on Government so he had experienced this inflation. Over this period the amount of gold currency in circulation had decreased by half since the days of Genroku currency (genkin) and Hōei 宝永 (1704–1711) period currency (kenkin 乾金), and silver currency had decreased by one third since the time of the Hōei period yotsuhō silver. It was the duty of the authorities to restore value of the money and to examine ways to reduce prices (Lidin 1999: 163–169). Housing prices were an example of the current inflation. Sorai’s grandfather, OGYŪ Genpo 荻生玄甫, had bought a piece of land in Edo for 50 ryō. This was in the 1620s. When it was sold in Sorai’s father’s time, it went for 2,000 ryō, 40 times as much (Lidin 1999: 166). With this example Sorai presented the rise in prices in his time – reminiscent of modern inflation. To alleviate inflation, Sorai suggested that money be issued on a large scale. Unnecessary Buddha images and bells in the temples should be melted down and made into coins. To aid the world in such a manner “would also be consonant with the boundless compassion of the Buddha.” Sorai understood that when there is no seido to make clear distinctions between high and low, anyone could buy any item. Everyone could have the same clothes, food and housing as a daimyō – as long as they had the money. It was natural, then, that commodities became expensive. Now, alas, Sorai observed, “these customs have spread to the country and even the beggars (kojiki 乞食) do not differ from common people” (Lidin 1999: 166–176). Merchants were always the winners. They controlled the prices and were prosperous. They possessed the merchant’s art that was beyond the comprehension of the shogun and his officials. Therefore, it could not be expected that the prices would come down no matter how many sumptuary laws were issued by the shogunate. The “root” problem was that the samurai class (buke 武家) was not “attached to the soil” (dochaku 土着). It they were, then they, the samurai, could decide the prices as they wished. In Sorai’s view, a seido regarding clothes, housing, furnishing, retinue, and so forth had to be established in order to make both high and low observe economy and not indulge in luxury. Already the first shogun, TOKUGAWA Ieyasu 徳川家康 (1543–1616), had advocated “limits and boundaries” for everything to counteract the “human sentiment” (ninjō no tsune 人情之常) of loving elegance. If these and other reforms were carried out, the price of rice could be high and the townspeople would be obliged to eat course grain. A distinction between the ruler and the ruled would emerge automatically. Merchants would be put in their place. The basis of good government, in Sorai’s view, consisted of arranging matters for the benefit of the samurai (buke) and the peasants. If the merchants, as a result, would go bankrupt, “so much for the better” (Lidin 1999: 177–185).

6.5

Ranks and Titles

In the third volume of the Seidan, Sorai addresses ranks and titles and discusses at length how officials should be selected. He found too much connection with the imperial house. The shogun should be made more independent of the emperor.

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The kuge and the buke should be separated (Lidin 1999: 194, 200) (Lidin 1999: 194, 200). The former kunkai military ranking system should be revived to give the shogun a free hand in promoting and demoting officials. The frozen hereditary principle as regards most posts should be loosened and qualified people from all ranks (of buke class) should be given positions. A large number of offices could be established in order to give lower buke an opportunity to serve. His proposals went unheeded and the situation remained unchanged. In Sorai’s view, the administration of the shogunate both in Edo and in the provinces should have been tightened up. Sorai admonished that all officials should learn to behave properly in speech and appearance, act with propriety and be in close touch with the people they administer. They should “love what people love and hate what people hate and be the father and mother of the people” (Lidin 1999: 211). Talented people had to be selected. The primary work of the high officials should be to seek out able men for the posts. In chapter twelve of the third volume, Sorai related the philosophy upon which this thinking in the Seidan was based. There was the “the truth of heaven and earth” (tenchi no dōri 天地の道理), synonymous with “the truth of nature” (shizen no dōri 自然の道理) (218–227). They emanated from a belief in an external truth, a cosmic truth and the lasting principle of the natural order. This was in line with classical Chinese philosophy. They represented mysterious, otherworldly truth as applicable in Japan as it was in China. In the third volume of Discourse on Government, Sorai writes: It is the principle of the way of heaven and earth that old things gradually decay and new things are born. Everything between heaven and earth is subject to this and no matter how much one may wish to preserve what is old, it is not within our power to do so. Wood rots and disappears. The five cereals vary in yield from year to year, people grow old and die, and younger people take their places. Further the truth of heaven and earth (tenchi no dōri) says that what is below gradually rises and becomes what is above, and when it has reached its zenith, it falls gradually into decay and is in turn replaced from below. This the eternal principle (ri no tsune 理の常) with which the way of changes (eki no dōri 易の道理) accords. (Lidin 1999: 219)

Sorai needed this otherworldly basis for his message to be convincing. He recognized the same eternal circulation in the world of humanity as in nature. In his Plan for an Age of Great Peace (Taiheisaku), Sorai calls it the “the cycle of heaven’s will” (ten’un no junkan 天運の循環). There was movement and rotation with regard to all things just as the seasons circulate during the year: What had reached its utmost would descend, decay and be replaced. This principle he traced to the Book of Changes (Yijing 易經) and he found it universally and eternally valid (Lidin 1999: 219). He could as well have mentioned the Daodejing, the first work of Daoism, which expresses the same principle. According to Sorai, rotation was therefore the normality of things (Lidin 1999: 219) and in this sense the Tokugawa situation was not normal. The hereditary principle of the Tokugawa rule went against the way of the sages when it posited that family lines should live on eternally. The circulation was hindered and stopped. The natural flow of talent would not take place and men of ability would not appear. The nontalented would remain and no talented people would be allowed in. Social mobility

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would not take place and an ossified society, frozen in hereditary family lineages, would remain from generation to generation. This meant not only that the way of heaven did not work but also that the days of the Tokugawa rule were counted and its end was near (Lidin 1999: 220–227). Social mobility was an evil in the eyes of the shogunate. Sorai was not far from supporting this view when he proposed static living in one place from generation and generation for peasants and common people. Yet as Sorai also puts it: When those below who have ability are advanced, the will of those above is diffused throughout those below like the descending spirit of heaven. … When this is the case the upper and lower classes are undivided and united in a way similar to the harmonious combination of heaven and earth. This results in the enjoyment of good government and in a universal increase in wealth similar to the natural growth that takes place in spring and summer. (Lidin 1999: 221)

To the “way of changes” (eki no dōri 易の道理), Sorai added the “hardship principle” (nangi-konkyū 難儀困窮). Sorai relates that in the Mencius it is said that when heaven intends to confer high office on a man, it first makes him undergo all kinds of hardships (Lidin 1999: 222, 228). History proves Mencius and Sorai right. East and West shows that it is, more often than not, men from the lower order who, after much hardship, have performed well in politics, literature and otherwise. On this principle Japan thrives today. To this, Sorai added the “rewards and punishments” principle (shōbatsu 賞罰), one of Legalist origin in Chinese thought. In Sorai’s prospective seido, this principle would also be important (Lidin 1999: 218–227). According to Sorai, the shogun should encourage learning. Moreover, learning should be the touchstone for government positions and advancement (Lidin 1999: 201). Without official examinations as in China, it was the duty of the shogun and high officials to go headhunting and “raise up worthy and talented men.” In the thirteenth chapter of the third volume, Sorai deals with this topic in some detail explaining that in this manner the government could be staffed with talented people from all ranks. The occupational status of those from the lower orders could be changed temporarily. Thus worthy men serving as officials could receive supplemental stipends (tashidaka 足高) during their years of service and even receive kunkai 勲階 ranks, but that would not affect their ultimate family ranking. Upon ending their service, they would just return to their family status and rank which, in fact, they had never left. In his Discourse on Government, Sorai uses the term “supplementary stipend” (o-tashimai) for the additional stipend during the period of service, but in his Family Annals (Shinruigaki-yuishogaki), he refers to “supplementary rice” (tashidaka 足高) (Lidin 1999: 270).3 This proposal was actually implemented in 1723 (Kasaya 1993: 112–124).4 This was as far as Sorai would allow social

3 Sorai was Acquainted with Ming law and practice which said that officials must retain their original registered family status. 4 Sorai mentions in his Shinruigaki-yuishogaki that he submitted a proposal on the establishment of tashidaka supplementary stipend. He states proudly that it had its start when he undertook this assignment. The entry in the chronicle is not dated but the proposal must have been written in the

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mobility – nota bene, only temporarily. This upward mobility into officialdom would be possible by using the old military ranks, the kunkai. Sorai ends the third volume of Discourse on Government with a discussion of military (bu 武) and civil (bun 文) duties. Samurai (buke) should acquire skill in one of them and become either a civil official (bunkan 文官) or a military official (bukan 武官) (Lidin 1999: 213–249). Volume four offers, finally, a long panorama of areas in need of reform. In the 55 mostly short chapters of this volume, Sorai offers numerous proposals for a regulatory seido that would bring law and order to the country – too many to be listed here. They were both conservative in nature and within the Confucian spectrum of thought. For all of them it may be said that Sorai wished for a better Tokugawa polity in which clear laws and regulations would give all people abundance and prosperity, living in their definite squares on the goboard.5 Sorai repeated that in the end, the “living as in an inn” of the samurai (buke) must come to an end and that a seido must be set up. All people should be settled in their specific places and clear distinction be made between the peasants and townspeople on the one hand and the samurai (buke) on the other. All other matters would follow suit as a matter of course. As a result, Sorai related, “both high and low will become rich and affluent, and our age will be long and lasting; this is what I wish for.” Sorai ended the long work by stating that he had not allowed his students to take down the narration by dictation. Instead, he emphasized, “I have written it myself, using my old eyes and my humble brush. After eminent people [the shogun?] have deigned to peruse it, it should preferably be committed to the flames” (Lidin 1999: 251–325).

6.6

Conclusion

From his first work Report of the Elegant Emissaries (Fūryūshishaki) to his last work Discourse on Government (Seidan), compassion is Sorai’s leitmotif. Again and again he shows the compassion that Confucius preaches. In his Report of the Elegant Emissaries, this is evident on the personal level; in the Discourse on Government, on the social and national level. In the Report of the Elegant Emissaries, compassion is evident when he allows his followers to walk freely before or after the palanquins as soon as they have left Edo and it shows when he asks for horses for them to ride back to Kōfu. And he evinces similar compassion when witnessing the cormorant fishing on Tama River and collecting acorns on Tenmoku Mountain. It is the same personal compassion that shows in the oyasute occurrence related in his Discourse on Government. In the latter work it is otherwise social compassion early 1720s, before the tashidaka reform mentioned by Kasaya was introduced in 1723. Lidin 1973: 63–64, 178; Kasaya 1993: 112–124: Iwahashi 1934: 134. 5 The reader may benefit from comparing with McEwan 1962: 10–14 and Sansom 1963: 163–172. McEwan mentions Hsün Tzu’s 荀子 influence on Sorai’s thought and adds correctly that Hsün Tzu is not mentioned in the Seidan. Also see Imanaka 1966.

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that shows in chapter after chapter. It is a conservative program but this conservatism aims at a better Japan for everyone. It may immediately be considered both compassionate and progressive. It is a social program that wishes for an improved seido with hard and fast rules and a better life for both low and high – but, of course, for his samurai (buke) class first. The objective was for “both high and low to become rich and affluent.” It was the compassion that Confucius preached! The program had its basis in a belief in heaven and earth, seen in the light of a cosmic dao and the ancient way of the sages. A true seido should mirror the sacred way of the sages. This philosophy is manifest throughout the entire Discourse on Government. The dao spells rotation of things, so also in the world of man. As there are seasons in the natural world there must be social mobility in the world of man. Circulation and rotation is the normality and the Tokugawa regime has sinned against this truth when it established a static and frozen society and put a stop to social mobility. The Tokugawa state was thus not in tune with the truth of heaven and earth (tenchi no dōri 天地の道理) and the way of the sages (seijin no michi 聖 人の道). It had deviated from the eternal truth and disaster could be expected! The drift in customs and habits was not for the better. Sorai’s Discourse on Government was therefore a clamor for reform and a blueprint of what was needed for Tokugawa to be set on the right road to the sagely ideal of a long rule of five centuries.

References Imanaka, Kanshi 今中寛司. 1966. Fundamental studies of Sorai’s learning (Soraigaku no kisoteki kenkyū 徂徠学の基礎的研究). Tokyo: Yoshikawa kōbunkan. Iwahashi, Junsei 岩橋遵成. 1934. A study of OGYŪ Sorai (Sorai kenkyū 徂徠研究). Tokyo: Seki shoin. Kasaya, Kazuhiko 笠谷和比古. 1993. Samurai thought (Samurai no shisō 士の思想). Tokyo: Nihon keizai shinbunsha. Kawamura, Yoshimasa 河村義昌. 1972. Journey to Kai (Kyōchūkikō/Fūryūshishaki 峡中紀行/風 流使者記). Tokyo: Yūzankaku. Lidin, Olof G. 1973. The life of OGYŪ Sorai: A Tokugawa Confucian philosopher, Scandinavian Institute of Asian Studies. Monograph series, no 19. Lund: Studentlitt. Lidin, Olof G. 1983. OGYŪ Sorai’s journey to Kai in 1706, with a translation of the Kyōchū kikō, Scandinavian Institute of Asian Studies. Monograph series, no 48. London: Curzon Press. Lidin, Olof G. 1999. OGYŪ Sorai’s discourse on government (Seidan), an annotated translation. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag. Maruyama, Masao 丸山真男. 1973a. Plan for an age of great peace (Taiheisaku 太平策). In OGYŪ Sorai 荻生徂徠. Nihon shisō taikei vol. 36, ed. YOSHIKAWA Kōjirō 吉川幸次郎 et al. Tokyo: Iwanami shoten. Maruyama, Masao 丸山真男. 1973b. A study of the Taiheisaku (Taiheisaku kō 太平策考). In OGYŪ Sorai 荻生徂徠. Nihon shisō taikei vol. 36, ed. YOSHIKAWA Kōjirō 吉川幸次郎 et al. Tokyo: Iwanami shoten. McEwan, J.R. 1962. The political writings of OGYŪ Sorai. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Sansom, George B. 1963. A history of Japan 1615–1867. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Tsuji, Tatsuya 辻達也. 1973. Discourse on government (Seidan 政談). In OGYŪ Sorai. Nihon shisō taikei vol. 36, ed. YOSHIKAWA Kōjirō 吉川幸次郎 et al. Tokyo: Iwanami shoten. Yoshikawa, Kōjirō 吉川幸次郎. 1983. Jinsai, Sorai, Norinaga, Three classical philologists of Mid-Tokugawa Japan. Tokyo: Tōhō Gakkai.

Chapter 7

The Philosophical Moment Between OGYŪ Sorai and KAIHO Seiryō: Indigenous Modernity in the Political Theories of Eighteenth-Century Japan? Olivier Ansart

7.1

Introduction

This essay explores a philosophical moment, one involving the genealogy of some philosophical theories that developed between OGYŪ Sorai 荻生徂徠 (1666–1727) and KAIHO Seiryō 海保青陵 (1755–1817). These theories are: (1) a disenchanted metaphysics, (2) a theory of instrumental reason, (3) a moral psychology centered on the concept of individual responsibility, and (4) a general view of society as a sum of contractual relationships. The metaphysics will be analyzed in the writings of both Sorai and Seiryō; the remaining three are characteristic of Seiryō’s thought only. The essay will suggest that the inflexion that Seiryō gave to the metaphysics he inherited from Sorai allowed him to embark on the exploration of various philosophical theories not found in Sorai’s works. Philosophical dimensions of epistemology, moral psychology, and the social theory that are explored, in a straightforward manner, in Seiryō’s works were closed in Sorai’s thinking by his own deep-seated conservatism and epistemological pessimism. While these theories were proposed by two self-styled Confucian scholars (jusha) who argued with the vocabulary inherited from the Confucian classics, they obviously went in very novel directions. This essay examines these theories because they constitute the bedrock, or the basic assumptions, on which modern political theories can be built. Since this is obviously a controversial assertion, the first section of this essay will be devoted to an explanation of the notion of “modern political theories,” something often neglected or examined feebly in previous attempts to elucidate the modern dimension of the worldviews proposed by some Tokugawa period thinkers.

O. Ansart (*) Department of Japanese Studies, University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW 2006, Australia e-mail: [email protected] C.C. Huang and J.A. Tucker (eds.), Dao Companion to Japanese Confucian Philosophy, Dao Companions to Chinese Philosophy 5, DOI 10.1007/978-90-481-2921-8_7, © Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2014

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The Notion of Modern Political Theories

The question of the putative modernity of Confucian thinking can be approached from many angles. Indeed, earlier works in the fields of Chinese and Japanese studies offer contrasting examples. In Chinese studies, many works, most notably from William Theodore de Bary, have typically sought to demonstrate the compatibility of Confucian teachings with modern and more particularly liberal thought (de Bary 1991, 1998; de Bary and Tu 1998). Such an approach assumes that there exists some specific message or spirit of “Confucianism.” This essay remains agnostic in regard to this issue. Instead, the essay suggests that the Confucian classics provided Japanese thinkers with a vocabulary that some choose to interpret, use, and manipulate in surprising directions. In that respect, the essay concurs with many previous discussions in the field of Japanese intellectual history. There, interpretations have been dominated by MARUYAMA Masao’s post-war attempts to show that, against an alleged Confucian “orthodoxy,” some eighteenth-century Japanese thinkers developed new, provocative, and somewhat modern political theories. Maruyama’s thesis, however, has been the target of much criticism. This essay seeks to show, by addressing and correcting problems that certainly weakened Maruyama’s thesis, that Maruyama did grasp something very important. Thus, although it is not the main objective of the essay, a sort of revisionist exercise will be evident. Whatever its form, an inquiry into the modernity of political and philosophical thinking in Tokugawa Japan is bound to meet with a few objections. Some will argue that such inquiries have already been done. Others will argue that such an inquiry is tainted with the dreaded wisdom of hindsight. Such objections, this essay contends, are misguided. Past debates are not closed – for they have not yet yielded any strong conclusions. But the question needs to be approached with somewhat different terms and parameters of inquiry. I want to show here, through more rigorous definitions and with analyses hopefully free of hindsight, why and to what extent there was a distinctive modern dimension in the political theories proposed by some Confucian scholars of the period. The topic, after all, is more significant than ever, today. If indeed there was, before sustained contact with Western political philosophy, an indigenous modern dimension in certain political theories of eighteenth-century Japan, the often-derided claims of modern political theories to a measure of trans-cultural validity could find some needed support. This essay will approach this topic by asking three questions – what, how, and why? The main part of the essay will be devoted to the “what” question: What did some authors say that could be construed as expressing a moment in a genealogy amounting to a shift of paradigm toward modern political theories? The final section of the essay will be occupied by the other two questions: Why were these authors prompted to express new concepts, and how were they able to express them using the available vocabularies? First, however, the essay needs to explain and justify the concept of “modern political theories” that has led to the selection of the theories that will be examined. This has not been done in a very systematic and thorough way in previous

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scholarship. There, criteria such as a sense of history (the awareness that ways of thinking as well as patterns of action change with times), a radical separation of politics from morality, “rationalism,” “nationalism,” the separation of social and political norms from any natural grounding, or the opposition of the public and the private domains, etc., have been treated rather conveniently as self-obvious symptoms of modernity (Maruyama 1952: 1–363; Yasumaru 1963; Bitō 1982; Minamoto 1984), or of “modern spirit” (kindai seishin 近代精神), or of “modern consciousness” (kindai ishiki 近代意識) (Maruyama 1941/1996: 3–127). Because the task here is to trace, without being misled by superficial, coincidental resemblances, one genealogy of modern political theories, this essay sees the need for a more systematic approach, one focused on the foundations and the process of articulation of modern political theories. In trying to make explicit what we should understand by “modern political theories,” it must be born in mind that political theories are normative theories concerned primarily with the justification of a certain desirable type of society, especially in relation to what John Rawls called the “basic structure,” or the political arrangements that make it what it is (Rawls 1993). Accordingly, “modern political theories” are theories which try to justify modern societies and their basic structure. Approaching these “modern political theories” through the concepts of “modern societies” and of their justification presents two advantages. The first is that the concept of “modern societies,” grounded in concrete phenomena, offers a relatively solid reference. “Modern societies,” according to a wellestablished paradigm of social ideal types (that is, ones never encountered in a pure state), are those forms of human organizations in which relationships outside the private realm are essentially governed by contractual arrangements. Individuals and groups negotiate with each other for the goods, positions, or privileges that they claim. Social order itself is largely a function of the outcome of negotiations held in different “markets” (for jobs, position, goods, relations, etc.), of what may be called in the broadest sense “the economy” of the distribution of goods in society. This form of organization is opposed to “traditional communities” where relationships and exchanges are typically governed by pre-determined sets of traditions, where individuals are glued to these structuring habits which discriminately assign goods, positions, and identities, and where, consequently, this economy is a function of a social order.1 1

The opposition dates back to the founding fathers of sociology who posited this basic dichotomy between two forms of human arrangements: for Tönnies, Gemeinshaft and Gesellshaft; for Weber traditional and rational authority, for Durkheim mechanic and organic solidarity, for others primary and secondary group, etc. Louis Dumont more recently inherited this tradition when he declared that there have only been to this day two kinds of human societies, holistic or individualistic (Dumont 1986: 25). (Interestingly Dumont adds that it is also, and maybe more profoundly, at the levels of their self representations that individualistic societies differ from the others.) Whatever squabbles and quarrels one may have with these simplified dichotomies (see Mary Douglas 1978: 161), they seem, as ideal types, useful models to understand basic social dynamics, and are indeed used casually in today sociological literature: see also Anthony Giddens affirming that “the question of modernity … has reappeared as a fundamental sociological problem at the turn of the

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A second advantage of approaching “modern political theories” through the concepts of “modern societies” and of their justification is that we may leave aside for the moment two notions that are often considered the defining characteristics of modern political theories (although variously interpreted): the notions of the basic equality and liberty of individuals (Dworkin 1977: 179–183; 1986: 296–301; Nagel 1979: 111; Kymlicka 1990: 10). We are examining a process of formation, and we do not expect to find full-blown forms of modernity. Further, once we look at ways of explaining and justifying modern societies, these notions of equality and liberty become simply part of what has to be explained and justified. After all, intrinsically, there is nothing self-obvious about them: it is only after a long and arduous process that they came to be seen as such.2 Rather than looking at conclusions, we should endeavour to grasp the fundamental or background assumptions that can make the basic structure of modern societies and their ideals acceptable, intelligible, and even logically compelling.3 These are the assumptions upon which any serious justification of modern societies, their basic structures, and their proclaimed ideals, must rest. They are certainly no more provable than any ideal, but coming from different though interdependent philosophical subfields, they form a very strong, very coherent system of mutually supportive elements. What are they? They are: in metaphysics and meta-ethics, the break with nature – positivism; in epistemology, the advocacy of rational instrumentality; in moral psychology, the doctrine of free will and personal responsibility; in social philosophy, the notion of contract. Why this is so can be succinctly explained. In their metaphysics and meta-ethics, modern political theories typically operate on the basis of assumptions regarding the “break with nature.” In other words, they stop searching for the foundations of laws, of moral norms, or of the ends of humans in the natural or super natural worlds. They see these laws, values, or ends as purely human creations: this is their “positivist” turn. Such a break is what allows them to explain, in most economic fashion – that is, avoiding hypotheses that are too heavy, ad hoc, implausible, or undermined by scientific observation, and so would not survive Occam’s razor – the characteristic fluidity of relations and enterprises in modern societies, the constant creation and recreation of norms and laws, and the bewildering variety of aims or ends that drive behaviour. twenty first century.… Modern institutions differ from all preceding forms of social order” (Giddens 1991: 1). 2 I also avoid, by starting with the concept of modern societies, the dead end that is the now fashionable concept of multiple modernities. Undoubtedly inspired by the best intentions of political correctness, the idea that there are different – say, Japanese, African, Indian, etc. – modernities can hardly avoid the question: if modernity can exist in different versions – a very trivial truth – what makes these versions similarly modern? The answer can only be that those models all share certain basic resemblances in their social organization. Political theories try to justify those basic commonalities; that they exist among a variety of customs, ways of thinking and traditions is another question. 3 At another, yet anterior, level, equally important to make structures and arrangements acceptable or compelling, of course, are social conditions: these belong to the sociology of knowledge which shall briefly be mentioned when the essay treats the “why” question.

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In their epistemology or theory of knowledge, the break with nature finds an echo as well as an inspiration in the conception of “instrumental rationality” which focuses only on means, and has given up the questioning of specific ends. In their implicit moral psychology, the break with nature and instrumental rationality have an ally in the conception of persons as “agents” animated by free will, individual desires, and self interest, choosing their ends and responsible for their actions. Lastly, agency, the break with nature, and instrumental rationality together support in social philosophy the conception of the social relationships as based on “contract,” on agreement between (what ultimately will appear as free and equal) persons. Modern political theories, in their various shapes and guises in the old, the new, and the colonized, or nearly colonized worlds, have largely shared these basic assumptions, for they were the assumptions most able to provide a sound justification for the basic structure of modern societies. Of course – and a serious examination of the issues is beyond the scope of this essay – it is not difficult to find in the modern world, theories distrustful of modern societies and longing for the old communities. But this is not surprising, and not detrimental to my argument, because modern societies, as ideal types never achieved in reality, necessarily carry with them legacies, resentment, inconsistencies, exceptions – all accompanied by their respective self explanations that make of each of them some sort of hybrid species. Unsurprisingly too, we find justifications of modern arrangements that try to revive the old schemes of natural law, or adapt theories of divine creation to new aims. They typically do not carry much weight in political philosophy because they are very far from offering sound justification for the basic institutions of modern societies.4 Some differences with the loose lists of criteria found in previous studies of the modernity of Japanese pre-modern thinking should be clear. I shall not look for example at conceptions of history, nor speak of the divides between public and private, or between politics and morality, or of rationalism in general terms. It is not the fact that these conceptions can easily be found in totally non-modern forms of thought that explains this lack of interest. It is rather the fact that they do not form the theoretical groundwork upon which a justification of contractual arrangements can be built. As such, they do not suggest the logic we shall see deployed in KAIHO Seiryō. We should focus on the “basic assumptions” because only these are, through mutual support and diversity of their perspectives (on nature, knowledge, agency, and society), irresistibly led to provide a strong justification for contractual 4

What constitutes a “sound justification” is clearly a matter for philosophical debate – as the contest between different modern theories shows well. The fact that background assumptions are not provable is a factor in this. Still it seems clear that some types of justification are stronger than others. It is striking that in modern or contemporary political philosophy, religious motives are almost absent, and that movements like fascism and nationalism have not found their Hegel, their Locke, their Burke. As Benedict Anderson, who made this remark, suggests, theoretical inconsistency is likely to be the cause (Anderson 1991). Understanding by “modern political theories” a certain type of philosophical content, rather than all theories found in modern societies, avoids the problems caused by their diversity.

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arrangements. In fact, the main difference with the ad hoc criteria may be precisely that in my working definition those assumptions are interdependent. It is the dynamic embodied in interdependence that gives modern theories their specific character, and it is by focusing on its logic that we may avoid the fortuitous resemblances that have misled so many previous discussions of the issue in Japanese intellectual history. Now that we are equipped with this understanding of “modern political theories,” we can at long last start our examination of the modern dimension of eighteenthcentury Japanese Confucian (or Confucian vocabulary using) political philosophy. I shall start with metaphysics, and the most positivist of the metaphysics offered in the early eighteenth century, that of OGYŪ Sorai.

7.3

Sorai’s Metaphysics

The figure of OGYŪ Sorai (1666–1727), arguably one of the most impressive of Japanese intellectual history, was central in Maruyama’s argument for a modern dimension in Tokugawa political thought. One of his main theses was that Sorai brought to its apogee a break with nature (although its posterity was limited) that had been initiated by the likes of KAIBARA Ekken 貝原益軒 (1630–1714), YAMAGA Sokō 山鹿素行 (1622–1685), or ITō Jinsai 伊藤仁斎 (1627–1705). While it is difficult to detect in those latter thinkers anything resembling the slightest move toward a serious positivism, Sorai’s political philosophy does have a distinct positivist dimension. Didn’t he repeatedly claim that the way – for him, the good society – “is not the way of heaven and earth,” and that “the sages,” whose defining characteristic is precisely that they “create,” “have created the rituals” (Ogyū, Benmei 1973b: 210, 237), the norms and the institutions, of the way without any model, out of their sole ingenuity (Ogyū, Benmei 1973b: 221).5 I want to argue that these statements mean what they seem to mean, and that Sorai, by advancing toward positivism, gave contemporary political thinking a major impulse toward more modern theories. Saying this, of course, is not to claim he was a modern political thinker. This impulse was limited, this essay holds against Maruyama, to the first field considered above, that of metaphysics, or the meta-philosophy of legal philosophy. However, the most important of all the criticisms that Maruyama’s views encountered (many of which do not concern us here, like his oversimplified views of the Chinese tradition, his belief in the existence of an official orthodox ideology, or his historicism, etc.), focused precisely on his appreciation of the break with nature. Most scholars today seem to think that Maruyama did not take seriously enough the aspects of Sorai that were very inconvenient to his thesis. Specifically the numerous “religious” passages in which Sorai states that it is a folly to deny the existence of gods and spirits, or of the mind of heaven (Soraishū 1973: 514; Ogyū, Benmei Sorai is not alone in the Confucian tradition in taking this stance; Xunzi 荀子 (ca. 312–230 BCE) probably did the same – but this is a controversial point that must be left aside. 5

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1973b: 235), or where Sorai argues that divinations and ceremonial cults are integral parts of the way (Ogyū, Benmei 1973b: 239), or where he says that that humans cannot do anything without heaven’s help (Ogyū, Tōmonsho 1973c: 198), affirms that they have to accomplish the task heaven assigns to each and every one of them (Ogyū, Rongochō 1994: I: 20, 33, II: 313), and concludes, most explicitly and most threateningly for the positivist reading, that “the way has to rely upon respect for ghosts, spirits and heaven” (Ogyū, Bendō 1973a: 206). Granted, Maruyama could not totally ignore assertions as frequent and forceful as these but he interpreted them in a much weaker sense than they seem to merit. Maruyama essentially suggested that, Sorai made the sages semi-divine beings partaking of heaven only in order to make possible the later work of human re-creation of the way (Maruyama 1952: 219). The argument is too short – and puzzling. Divine sanction may make the way absolute, but one does not see why this was necessary for later invention. More importantly, the explanation certainly does not address the whole scope of Sorai’s “religious” statements. Maruyama focused on those statements which make the early sages part of heaven. But Sorai’s repeated insistence on universal and constant respect for heaven, ghosts, and spirits cannot be explained by this selective and narrow explanation, and Maruyama’s attempt to reconcile those contrasting views of nature, heaven, and gods in Sorai’s works is widely seen today as the weakest part of his enduring study (Kurozumi 2003: 352). It appears, then, that this is a basic contradiction threatening the intelligibility of Sorai’s political thinking. To say that the way relies upon respect for ghosts, spirits, and heaven is to say something very different from affirming that the way is a creation of the Sages. Curiously this contradiction is more often than not simply overlooked by commentators today, who, when they mention a possible difficulty at all – most don’t – seem to see mere tension or an intriguing paradox.6 Could they be interpreting Sorai as meaning that the sages created a way where humans had to respect the demands of gods and heaven? This would be a totally incoherent statement. If the demands of heaven have normative import for humans, the way cannot be created – it can only be discovered. Thus, if we take Sorai’s various statements seriously and accept that they mean what they seem to be mean, they are definitely incompatible answers to the basic questions that any political theory has to address: where do norms and institutions that structure social life come from? Are they discoveries that humans make when examining nature, “super-nature,” the will or the commands of heaven and spirits, or maybe even “reason”? Are they simply human

6

BITŌ Masahide (Bitō 1982: 48), MINAMOTO Ryōen (Minamoto 1984: 9, 16) and HIRAISHI Naoaki (Hiraishi 1988: 98) mention the religious and spiritual dimension of Sorai’s thought without elaborating on its problematic coexistence. J. A. Tucker, apparently attracted by a non-positivist reading (Tucker 2006: 126), does not comment on a possible tension or a fortiori on possible contradiction; I. J. McMullen (McMullen 2007: 130–131) speaks of “the paradoxical assumptions concerning the status of the way,” but does not address the philosophical issue of the foundations of the way. Some may be tempted to view the respect for gods and heaven as a purely ceremonial and formal. This would not entail any respect for norms, but such a reading would be decidedly odd. It would not explain Sorai’s insistence on respect.

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inventions, or conventions born out of arbitrary habits, without precedent or model in the natural or supernatural order? The vastly different answers to these questions that seem to appear in Sorai’s works raise serious hermeneutic issues. One option is to take each on the same level and accept that they are in contradiction. After all, contradictions exist, as do confused humans. Should not we simply live with this fact, and pay heed to the exhortations of Quentin Skinner who famously affirmed that historians of ideas tend to assume too much coherence from the authors they studied (Skinner 1969). I will not take this road. While it may be the case that certain authors are deeply divided against themselves, the conclusion that there be an allowance for incoherence cannot be made before we have tried to make sense of apparent inconsistencies. Is this not the very movement of human understanding that, confronted with utterances that on face value appear meaningless (and certainly messages we receive in everyday life are rarely naturally consistent and naturally meaningful), we always strive to make sense of them by building assumptions and hypotheses that make them intelligible? There is little reason to opt for the verdict of contradiction if a reasonable and plausible alternative reading allows us to make sense of, and reconcile in one reading, the diverse affirmations of Sorai. This essay thus opts for the charity principle (Davidson 1984) and will try to make sense of Sorai’s political writings as a coherent whole. It should be emphasized, though, that the texts from which this essay reconstructs Sorai’s political theory all date from the same, last, period of his life. Obviously thus, this study is not taking the option taken by many scholars who, unfazed by tension, pronounce Sorai to be positivist or, more commonly, religious without in depth consideration of statements in apparent opposition to their view. This essay shall not try to ignore, minimize, or distort inconvenient statements. On the contrary, this study starts with a robust understanding of each type of affirmation, and stresses the extent of the apparent inconsistencies. After all, the case for the idea that the way rests upon the respect for heaven, ghosts, and spirits is very clear. The brief quotes made above are certainly explicit enough. But the opposite case for the creation of the way is just as convincing. The obvious starting point to reconcile these statements in one consistent interpretation is to take a closer look at these mysterious heavens, ghosts, and spirits. It will quickly be apparent that certain characteristics do not bode well for the common interpretation that Sorai’s political thinking makes a central place for the role of these entities. The first is the fact that Sorai’s remarks on heaven and gods in nature or supernature systematically stress the absolute impossibility for humans to know what they may be, like, or want: “Is this heaven? Is this a god? Is it one, or two? Such things are beyond knowledge” (Ogyū, Benmei, 1973b: 238). Sorai even refuses to speak of what heaven may like or dislike; therefore, we simply cannot form any idea of this (Ogyū, Benmei, 1973b: 226). It is indeed striking that, having affirmed that the way is based on respect for heaven, Sorai closes systematically all access to heaven, gods and spirits that would allow human beings to understand the normative message which would presumably (if the expression is to be

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taken seriously) need to be respected in the construction of the way. Intuition is dismissed, for it implies a reliance on subjective knowledge that Sorai swiftly rejects as the hallmark of folly (Ogyū, Bendō, 1973a: 205). Divination is excluded, because the raison d’être for divination is not the possibility of knowing the will or the nature of ghosts, spirits, and heaven but rather the necessity for the ruler to convince his people of the eventual success of his plans and enterprises (Ogyū, Tōmonsho 1973c: 198). “Divine retribution” (tenbatsu 天罰) is emptied of religious substance as it is presented, not as the result of divine will, but merely as the natural outcome of a disregard for natural constraints (Ogyū, Seidan 1973d: 365). Rational understanding is impossible because heaven, gods and spirits are simultaneously denied thinking and planning abilities, and placed beyond the powers of human observation and analysis (Ogyū, Benmei 1973b: 235, 238; Ogyū, Rongochō 1994: I: 83). Heaven has a mind, which is made by gods and spirits but this “mind” refers simply to the forces of nature (Ogyū, Chūyōkai, 1978: 422). Deprived of agency, it does not think or act (Ogyū, Benmei 1973b: 238) and cannot be understood as the human mind (Ogyū, Benmei 1973b: 235). The result is that one is left to wonder what sort of normative import heaven could have on human life, ghosts, and spirits, given that heaven is so thoroughly beyond human knowledge. One thing is sure: Sorai never explains it. The only avenue through which heaven, ghosts, and spirits may have some normative affect on human lives is that of the notorious and mysterious “mandate of heaven” (tenmei 天命), but the discussion of the concept, which requires a separate development below, will show that this is certainly not the case. The second inconvenient fact for prevailing interpretations is that Sorai mentions respect for heaven, ghosts, and spirits only when he comments on the Chinese classics where these expressions are common: his policy proposals, on the other hand, are simply devoid of all serious religious color. In the Seidan and Taiheisaku, which were political programs submitted – with little success – to the shogun, mention of gods and heaven are few and far between, and only rhetorical. There, the expression “way of heaven” signifies merely the natural course of things (Ogyū, Seidan 1973d: 365). The isolated mention of “lack of respect for heaven” (Ogyū, Seidan 1973d: 382), for example, refers to the prohibition imposed on lowly people (that is, low ranking gentry), to freely express their views. There is “disrespect” simply because such policy goes against the natural fact that Sorai stresses so often: that people in the lower ranks of society, because they suffer hardships, tend to develop their talents more than those born with a golden spoon in their mouths. When Sorai remarks, just after a reference to the ancient Chinese, that if you look for men of talent, you will be helped by heaven, but that if don’t, this is merely the equivalent of our “Heaven helps those who help themselves.” Further, the references to temples and shrines in the Seidan are all made from the point of view of an administrator worried that there is an anarchic, unprincipled, and unauthorized proliferation of temples and shrines (Ogyū, Seidan 1973d: 356). Finding an Inari shrine on a property he is renting which has not been set according to rules, Sorai destroys it (Ogyū, Seidan 1973d: 356). If, for Sorai, the way was based on religious cults and faith, surely those beliefs would have found some expression in the way he designed for

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contemporary Japan! He would have justified his policy proposals by appeal to the will of the ghosts, or made provision for cults and ceremonies, or recommended the taking of oracles, etc., but he does none of these. Lastly, and most importantly, we find a series of statements which, by casting doubt either on the ontological solidity of gods and spirits or on the normative import of the natural, or supernal world, seem to support the radical break between nature and values (created by the sages) that is entailed by the thesis of the creation of the norms. Talking about the gods and spirits of his native Japan, Sorai declares, without flinching: “We have to revere those ghosts, even if the “way of the gods” (Shintō) was [proven to be] empty” (Ogyū, Taiheisaku 1973e: 452).7 As if this idea that gods that do not exist should still be revered was not bold enough, Sorai also remarks, talking this time of the Buddhist notion of transmigration of the soul that: “For a thing that is not present in the teaching of the Sages, for example transmigration, even if it existed, I think it still would not mean anything.” (Ogyū, Tōmonsho 1973c: 192) He adds here that even if the nature of gods was knowable to people, they should not be concerned with this, for there is no other way to deal with them than the way of the sages (Ogyū, Tōmonsho 1973c: 192). Those extraordinary statements – we have to believe things that may be false and discard others which may be true – compose a coherent cluster of various ideas supporting each other to confirm a radical break between values and facts of nature: the gods that appear here are only institutions and must be respected as institutions – and not as entities in nature or super nature. I do not mean that we simply should discard the statements about heaven, gods and spirits, and endorse a positivist reading of Sorai’s affirmations on the origin of the norms of the way. However the examination we have just made suggest that there is probably more than meets the eye in Sorai’s remarks on heaven, ghosts, and spirits, and should urge us to explore now the only possibility for a normative import of heaven, ghosts, and spirits that we briefly saw above: the notion of the “mandate of heaven” (tenmei 天命).

7 It is tempting for some to think, as indeed the editor of the volume on Sorai in the Nihon shisō taikei collection urges us to, and as students in seminars about Sorai are still regularly told, that Sorai is referring only to one specific, and incorrect, view of Shintō. However, this is a purely ad hoc and puzzling attempt to get rid of an annoying – although confirmed by many other indications as we shall see – problem. In fact the organization of the argument in this passage excludes this interpretation. Sorai, in the preceding sentence, has clearly defined Shintō in the broadest terms as the belief in and respect of the local gods called in Japan kami. This Shintō, he even adds, should be seen as part of the way of the ancient sages! Arguing against authors who put into doubt the existence of gods and spirits in general, Sorai then remarks that this shows a misunderstanding and disrespect for the way of the sages – not for the kami! Just after he has stated that even if Shintō was wrong, the gods it assumes have to be respected, Sorai concludes that the way requests that people born in Japan respect the gods of Japan. The argument is thus clearly that gods have to be revered because they are assumed by the way, whether they exist or not in the natural world. In fact Sorai never says that the gods mentioned by some specific Shintō doctrines should be respected because they are real, even if the Shintō vision of them is wrong.

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Sorai’s Two Perspectives on the Way

The notion of “the mandate of heaven” in Sorai’s writings deserves special mention because it refers to one crucial, and not yet mentioned, characteristic of heaven, ghosts, and spirits in nature or “super nature.” Sorai, somewhat paradoxically, considering what he says so forcefully about their un-knowability, adds that these mysterious entities produce all the circumstances of human life, and life itself (Ogyū 1973b: 211). Heaven, gods and spirits are the natura naturans, the unknowable nature ceaselessly producing life and the facts of life. “The mandate of heaven” is the general name Sorai gives to the results of this work. The mandate of heaven thus designates all the natural and social circumstances of human lives: the physical environment, history, traditions, culture, natural resources, or the social status and position that each human being finds itself thrown in (Ogyū, Gakusoku 1973f: 258). It is the given or the fate that humans have to deal with. Granted, Sorai is no fatalist, considering, as we shall see, that the given is only material to be shaped. There is one aspect of the mandate of heaven/ given/fate, however, with which the margin for negotiation is especially limited: it is the personal identity that makes natural beings what they are – their nature and abilities. So pressing is this aspect of the mandate of heaven, that Sorai calls it more specifically “human nature” (sei 性) (Ogyū, Gakusoku 1973f: 258). Now, obviously, the construction of the way, like any construction, be that of a sword or of a residence, starts with materials. The mandate of heaven is precisely the generic name of those materials. Not only this, Sorai’s Instructions for Learning tells us repeatedly that a way must accommodate all the material given/fate/the mandate of heaven (Ogyū, Gakusoku 1973f: 258; also Ogyū, Benmei 1973b: 214). When sages/legislators build a way, they need to integrate all these facts – physical environment, legacy of history, facts of geography, existing mentalities, and traditions. The reason is clear enough: any fact of the mandate of heaven that would have been ignored would sooner or later come back, haunt, and derail the way. The facts of the mandate of heaven are thus constraints for the builders. However, Sorai’s specific explanation of the role of sei, the most pressing aspect of the mandate of heaven in this enterprise, suggests a crucial distinction between two types of constraints – material and normative. The constraints of human nature, the discussion shows, are for their part purely material, never normative. The point is made most forcefully when Sorai repeatedly compares the given of human nature to wood. Different sorts of wood, he says, will be used for different purposes. Some are only suitable for houses, others only for cups, and others yet for furniture. The constraints involved here, however, cannot possibly mean, à la Aristotle, that the use of the material is within the material, like a kind of natural end encrypted into it. Sorai’s Distinguishing the Way says: “If we cut wood to make a residence, we follow the nature of wood. But how could we say that the residence is the nature (sei) of the wood?”(my emphasis) (Ogyū, Bendō 1973a: 201).8 Some type of wood is suited to 8

The same point has also been made earlier in the first section of Distinguishing the Way (Bendō), where Sorai notes that cups are made of certain woods and not of others without allowing us to say that the first have the cups in their nature. It is also found in his Commentary on the Mean (Ogyū, Chūyōkai 1978: 440).

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the building of houses, but we cannot read there some end (the house) that we ought to follow. It just happens that, in making houses or cups, some woods are more suitable for houses than for cups. Here is the crucial distinction between normative (which tell us what we ought to do) and material (which tell us what to expect if we do this or that) constraints. Clearly, in such an interpretation of the mandate of heaven, the necessity to respect heaven, ghosts, and spirits seems to find a ready explanation: they need to be respected as the given, the mandate of heaven, or the nature, which must be integrated in the way. Doesn’t Sorai claim very explicitly that to respect heaven means simply to respect the mandate of heaven (Ogyū, Bendō 1973a: 202), and to respect the given under all its forms (Ogyū, Benmei 1973b: 226, 227)? While such an explanation of Sorai’s insistence on respect for heaven and spirits would not be incorrect, it would not be totally satisfactory, for it would assume something he never states explicitly: that spiritual beings revered within a way are merely allegories for forces of nature and must be respected as such. In fact, in Sorai’s writings, the passages that affirm that ghosts and spirits (kishin 鬼神) are the sources of whatever happens are separate from those that stress the need to respect heaven, ghosts, and spirits. But here again, in this essay’s final move in the reconstruction of a unified interpretation of Sorai’s political theory, the distinction between natural and normative constraints will be useful. The key to a final explanation of Sorai’s contradictory statements on the origin of the way is to understand that natural and normative constraints can only appear in two very different perspectives on the way. Natural constraints, obviously, only appear to those who are building ways. This is certainly not everybody’s business. Very orthodox on this point, Sorai believes that this task – legislation – is the exclusive role of these exceptionally gifted humans called the sages. Because they deal with the way before it exists, and because they look at the materials that their way will integrate before integration, let’s call their perspective the external perspective. On the other hand, ordinary people live within the limits of a way created by the sages. They are certainly not at liberty to modify it or tamper with it. This would invite people to meddle with politics, to argue, to explain. Sorai thought this was a recipe for disaster, (Ogyū, Bendō 1973a: 200, 203, and especially 205). For ordinary people, everything that has been created to appear in the way – norms, dogmas, habits – must be taken as absolutely valid. Their perspective on the way is the internal perspective. The two perspectives are usually kept separate in Sorai’s writings. The external perspective typically appears in works that were not destined to the public – like policy proposals for the shogun – where Sorai assumes the position of policy maker.9 The builder obviously stands outside a yet to be completed building, examining 9

He is taking the external perspective whenever he assumes the position of legislator or policy proposer. Unsurprisingly he was accused of seeing himself as a sage. Lest he departed from the Confucian tradition, focused on the transmission – not the creation – of an existing way, he had to deny it, but as he remarks, about Mencius, one cannot help, by making political proposals, to assume the role of the Sage (Ogyū, Bendō 1973a: 201).

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materials, drawing plans, and assembling devices. Matters are quite different though when Sorai is commenting on classics that expose the way of the ancient kings. People who find their houses already built should not alter them in any way (Ogyū, Tōmonsho 1973c: 190). The way is perfect, and has to be accepted as such. It is not only that not doing so would be tantamount to placing oneself above the great sages. It is also, more essentially, that the way is lost as soon as people start to defend it by argument. Argument, as the sad example of the well-intentioned soul Mencius shows all too well, only deepens doubts and invites further critique. “Mencius hoped that people who did not trust him would come, through his discourse, to trust him.” (Ogyū, Bendō 1973a: 205) But this is the way of disputants, and it is bound to fail. A way has to be trusted, and only if it is blindly trusted will it achieve its ends.10 Thus, when one is in the business of building a way, things are seen from an external perspective. When one is defending a way, the complexity of which defies the understanding of most, the internal perspective should be upheld, as discussion and argument only foster doubts. This explains why, whenever Sorai speaks of the cults of the way as some of those normative institutions characteristic of the internal perspective, he does not explain them by the necessity to take into account forces of nature – which only appears in the external perspective. This essay contends that, by distinguishing, via the opposition between natural and normative constraints, between two voices or perspectives on the way in Sorai’s writings, a very coherent theory of society can be reconstructed. Statements about the creation of institutions, as well as those questioning the validity of the assumption of the existence of ghosts and spirits (kishin), are characteristic of the perspective that creators and legislators must take.11 On the other hand, statements about the way being based on heaven, ghosts, and spirits are marks of the internal perspective that people who live in a way replete with religious ceremonies, divinations, assumptions about heaven, ghosts, and spirits – like the way of the ancient three dynasties – should take. As the political program exposed for contemporary Japan suggests, different ways may make different places to cults and gods. It should be stressed that many of Sorai’s contemporaries were not fooled by his repeated statements that the way (of ancient China, as it now appears) rests on respect for heaven, ghosts, and spirits. They fully understood that Sorai was arguing for the break with nature. This is especially the case of the thinkers, linked to the samurai class, most attached to a naturalist ideology that would justify the actual arrangements. What MURO Kyūsō 室鳩巣 (1658–1734), for example, in his Sundai zatsuwa 駿台雑話, found most objectionable in Sorai’s teaching was precisely the affirmation that norms had to be invented without model. He certainly did not see in Sorai’s

10

However the argument itself hints at the existence of an external perspective, and indeed Sorai’s commentaries on the classics are replete with glimpses of the other perspective: as when he dwells on the differences between the different ways of antiquity. 11 This is, of course, does not settle the issue of religion in the intimate convictions of Sorai – that I am unable and unwilling to try to fathom. The reason for me to revisit the question of heaven, ghosts, and spirits here is only that it supports the idea of a break with nature in Sorai’s political theory.

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numerous calls for respect of heaven, ghosts, and spirits any return to a naturalist paradigm. MIURA Atsuo, a student of Sorai, unambiguously declared that whoever affirmed that institutions were invented was a disciple of Sorai, whoever denied it was an opponent (Maruyama 1996b: 92). This essay has tried to argue that, despite the multiple “religious statements” in Sorai’s writings so much stressed by recent scholarship to weaken or render inconsistent Sorai’s positivism, the distinction between two perspectives in his political theory supports Maruyama’s thesis: Sorai does presents us with a quite exceptional case of a positivist view of legal and moral norms in a pre-modern society. His metaphysics, in the end, was “disenchanted”, even though his reluctant12 modernity probably stops there. Maruyama, however, could not present a fully convincing account of this because he had no explanation for the religious statements – and he had no explanation for those because he perceived neither the distinction between two types of constraints, natural and normative, nor, consequently, the distinction between the external and the internal perspective which discovers them. To see this disenchanted metaphysics developed in a way that would allow new ideas in epistemology, moral psychology and social theory, we need to turn our attention to another, later, thinker – not surprisingly an indirect disciple of Sorai.

7.5

Seiryō’s Metaphysics

In many respects, the next witness seems light years away from Sorai. Full of contempt for the rituals (Kaiho, Yorozuya dan 1976c: 395)13 that were at the heart of Sorai’s political theory, KAIHO Seiryō 海保青陵 (1755–1817) also enthusiastically endorsed the contractual relationships characteristic of social life in the big towns of Tokugawa Japan that were anathema to Sorai. But if this is so, why does Seiryō repeatedly heap laudatory remarks on Sorai – while he ceaselessly pours scorn on “Confucian scholars” (jusha)?14 In fact, Seiryō, who was what the Japanese call a mago deshi, a “grandson disciple” of Sorai, rightly saw the deep affinities between his own thought and that of the grand master. Those appear in many crucial aspects in their understanding of history and appreciation of the relativity of norms, but especially in metaphysics where, far from going back, as his repeated use of the notion of “principle” 12

His disenchanted metaphysics was certainly not accompanied by the enthusiasm that the disappearance of the old cosmology provoked in the first modern European minds – Giordano Bruno or Bacon. 13 Seiryō, however, accepts the concept of rituals as pattern of behavior to control the heart and he repeats one of Sorai’s arguments about this (Kaiho, Sūmitsu dan 1976e: 155). 14 In fact some may be surprised by the inclusion of KAIHO Seiryō in a work on Confucian authors. Seiryō, however, never criticizes Confucius. Quite the contrary, he quotes him often, and abundantly uses his sayings to justify his positions – even if he typically read them in very novel ways. In fact the reason for including him in a study of Confucian thinking lies precisely here: he shows us how far the Confucian vocabulary and texts could be stretched, used, and abused. But even though Seiryō introduces himself as a Confucian scholar, a jusha, (Kaiho, Keiko dan 1976a: 314), it must be admitted that he turns upside down the traditional Confucian wisdom.

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(C: li 理 J: ri or kotowari) extolled by the Cheng-Zhu school may suggest, to the conception of a normative natural source of all moral and political principles that Sorai combatted, he is deepening the break with nature. The distance that separates him from Sorai appears only during his reworking of the disenchanted metaphysics, when he pushes modernity a step ahead in the fields of social philosophy, moral psychology, and theory of knowledge. Therefore it is necessary to first examine the metaphysical stand which will support Seiryō’s social and political positions. “Heaven, ghosts, and spirits” (kishin) were for Sorai the natura naturans, the nature producing everything but devoid of all moral value and purpose. The mandate of heaven (tenmei) was the sum of natural, but non-normative, constraints humans have to take into account to live and act. Resolutely critical of the Cheng-Zhu school’s ethics that saw the world, including humans, as the fountain of all values or norms, Sorai disliked philosophical discourses on principle. Now it is true that Seiryō’s own metaphysics revolves, for a reason that will become clear, around the notion of principle. His view of principle, however, is quite the opposite of that of the neoConfucian scholars. Each and every one of the innumerable instances of the use of principle by Seiryō shows that the term refers simply to the way things happen, whether we like it or not, in the natural world, as well as in the world of humans, for in society there is a principle of money, meaning the characteristics of monetary economy (Kaiho, Yōro dan 1976g: 181), as there is a principle of penal laws. The natural world presents us with a structure of integrated mechanisms of cause and effect (Kaiho, Kōhan dan 1976b: 596) that must imperatively be taken into account in order to survive and prosper. Similarly, the principle of a well-organized human world presents us with laws that ensure that, if we do certain actions, we can expect specific consequences (execution for a crime, reward for hard work, failure for stupid decisions, etc.). Thus, principle attests that if one walks, one will reach the aim of one’s travel, that if one eats, one will satisfy hunger. It also attests that if one commits crimes, one will be caught and punished (Kaiho, Tennō dan 1976f: 501), if one works hard, one will reap reward (Kaiho, Zenshiki dan 1976j: 577). Consequently, when Seiryō affirms that results and states of things are in accordance with principle, he only means that they follow some causal law, offering this intelligible, predictable and reliable system that allows life to prosper (Kaiho, Keiko dan 1976a: 370; 1976c: 389). Even in society, principle never takes a normative value that would show humans what they ought to do in some moral sense.15

15

Principle is also referred to by many other names. The mandate of heaven (tenmei) is a synonym, for the mandate of heaven makes things such that if one does not do anything one will die of hunger (Kaiho, Sūmitsu dan 1976e: 174). Heaven (ten 天) is another one, for heaven makes things such that if a bird makes the effort necessary to fly a mile, it will fly a mile, and that if it does not make the effort, it will not fly a mile (Kaiho, Fuki dan 1976k: 522). Principle, the mandate of heaven, heaven, but also the principles of heaven, all refer to the way things happen as they do happen and not otherwise. By definition, these concepts cover everything and nothing escapes from them (Kaiho, Tennō dan 1976f: 501). They refer to the facts of life. It is impossible to go against those facts of life (Kaiho, Fuki dan 1976k: 521). Only very deluded people claim that what they call the world of the spontaneous (shizen 自然) happens outside principle (Kaiho, Tennō dan 1976f: 510).

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Not surprisingly, the world outlook of Seiryō is decidedly secular. Religious beliefs, notions and cults are repeatedly and explicitly presented by Seiryō as techniques and devices with political aims. Superstitions in fact may be encouraged by the rulers for their political usefulness (Kaiho, Sūmitsu dan 1976e: 156). Seiryō, in other words, is merely developing the insights already present in Sorai (Kaiho, Tennō dan 1976f: 516; Sūmitsu dan 1976e: 156; Yōshin dan 1976h: 415; Yumin dan 1976i: 556). If heaven is not a religious heaven, it is not moral either, for good behavior is never presented as repeating some natural pattern. On the contrary good behavior is affirmed to be non natural (Kaiho, Yōshin dan 1976h: 414). In some sense human action is fundamentally against nature (Kaiho, Kōhan dan 1976b: 609), akin to a sailing ship which uses the wind to navigate against the wind (Kaiho, Kōhan dan 1976b: 607). The worldly character of heaven, principle, or the principles of heaven (tenri 天理) is thus clear, and when samurai, for example, are said not to understand the principles of heaven, it does not mean, in Seiryō’s thinking, that they are ignorant of moral truths, or of cosmology: it means only that they are ignorant of the world as a set of economic and social mechanisms (Kaiho, Keiko dan 1976a: 29). Precisely because of this worldly character, it is crucial that, however empty of moral and political value principle, heaven, the principles of heaven, or the mandate of heaven may be, humans firmly grasp and comprehend the world of facts (Kaiho, Fuki dan 1976k: 528). Many expressions are used here, but they all refer to an intellectual operation.16 Ignorant people are said not to understand principle (Kaiho, Kōhan dan 1976b: 133–134), and the difference between intelligence and ignorance is the speed with which one grasps principle (Kaiho, Tennō dan 1976f: 503). Because of this no discussion is possible with people who do not like principle; in fact, they fall outside the category of humans (Kaiho, Tennō dan 1976f: 501). The reason why Seiryō, although he inherits the external view of Sorai on the natural world, has returned to the word principle is probably clear by now. For Seiryō, the world, natural or social, is, in spite of a few irreducible mysteries here and there (Kaiho, Tennō dan 1976f: 512), basically intelligible to all humans. The word principle expressed most effectively this intrinsic intelligibility and the optimism that comes with it. New theories, in other fields, could now be expressed.

7.6

Seiryō’s Theory of Knowledge

The first is a new theory of knowledge under the exclusive form of instrumental rationality. As suggested above, the question of knowledge and reflection is central in Seiryō’s thought. After all, he holds that the ability to reflect is the defining trait of humans (Kaiho, Zenshiki dan 1976j: 563), not the possession of the cardinal 16

It is here that one difference with Sorai appears. Sorai, while he was not excluding all knowledge of natural things (in fact what he was excluding was rather the knowledge of the origins of things), was keen to make knowledge the preserve of the sages. Seiryō stresses the necessity for all of understanding and knowing the mechanisms of the world of facts.

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virtues or of the heavenly principle. In fact, the place offered to reflection gives Seiryō’s writings their unmistakable tonality. Other authors of the period assert readymade truths, state accepted facts, or affirm allegedly self-obvious principles without bothering to explain the process, if any, through which they reached these conclusions. Seiryō casts himself as a problem solver. Typically invoking his alleged limited intellectual abilities (Kaiho, Fuki dan 1976k: 521), he repeatedly stresses the lengthy and painful process of reflection he had to engage in to understand and solve things. The enigma may be a classic writing in need of reinterpretation (Kaiho, Kōhan dan 1976b; Kaiho, Zenshiki dan 1976j), a painting the meaning of which is obscure (Kaiho, Yorozuya dan 1976c), a Buddhist statue that, for some mysterious reason, has attracted his attention (Kaiho, Tennō dan 1976f), or a pair of concepts like the way of the king and that of the hegemon that he will reread in strikingly novel fashion (Kaiho, Fuki dan 1976k; Yōshin dan 1976h). In all cases a problem has to be solved by reflection. Looking at texts with such intensity that characters seems to collapse under his glaze (Kaiho, Fuki dan 1976k: 522), munching, ingurgitating, reingurgitating tentative meanings and solutions, as one of his preferred analogies goes (Kaiho, Yōro dan 1976g: 189), never stopping until he is convinced (Kaiho, Tennō dan 1976f: 497) that he has the answer, Seiryō shows us an example of relentless efforts and infinite patience. This exercise of brain-racking (chie o semeru, chie o shiboru) he tells us, will ultimately pay off, for if one rakes a river bed hundreds and hundreds of times, one will end up catching an eel (Kaiho, Yōro dan 1976g: 184). Beyond encouragements, Seiryō’s writings offer a general method for rational problem solving. While its steps, points, and advice are scattered through different texts, the gist is simple. Reflection proceeds like a detective inquiry (Kaiho, Yōro dan 1976g: 183): it looks for hints (tegakari) (Kaiho, Yōro dan 1976g: 184, Kaiho, Kōhan dan 1976b: 595), starting with things at hand (Kaiho, Tennō dan 1976f: 497), and patiently collects bits of information (Kaiho, Sūmitsu dan 1976e: 169). Each and every bit of evidence, however, needs to be carefully investigated. The two crucial principles here are the readiness to doubt and the effort to reach objectivity. First, the willingness to doubt – to question beliefs, meaning or consequences – is a great virtue (Kaiho, Yōro dan 1976g: 182). Just like there is no wisdom without thinking, there is no thinking without doubt. Such is the precept Seiryō inscribed in his heart (Kaiho, Yōro dan 1976g: 182; Kaiho, Tennō dan 1976f: 500). Only through objective analysis can doubts be cleared. Objectivity, for its part, is what Seiryō calls “looking from the outside” (Kaiho, Zenshiki dan 1976j: 566). This idea, inherited from Sorai (Ogyū, Seidan 1973d: 290), is a leitmotiv throughout his writings (Kaiho, Yōro dan 1976g: 184; Kaiho, Tennō dan 1976f: 500; 514; Kaiho, Zenshiki dan 1976j: 570; Kaiho, Yorozuya dan 1976c: 400; Kaiho, Sūmitsu dan 1976e: 166; Kaiho, Yōshin dan 1976h: 420). This is a lengthy and painstaking process. The first step is to acquire an external perspective on things and people. The key here is obviously to establish some distance between the observer and the observed. Spending some time in another town among other people is the best way to free oneself from prejudices and habits of thinking, and to acquire the unbiased outside perspective necessary for observation of one’s native place. This rather simple and straightforward step is followed by

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more difficult and sophisticated stages. In a extraordinary development of the topic, which draws on a rather bold re-interpretation of some chapters of the Zhuangzi 莊子, Seiryō suggests that the objective look should be extended first to the self – in order to “look at oneself as if it was another” (Kaiho, Zenshiki dan 1976j: 570), then to the inner points of view and states of mind of others beings and things (Kaiho, Zenshiki dan 1976j: 569). Objectivity is achieved when one has attained the ultimate outside perspective, encompassing all the particular perspectives in the world of the things and beings who compose the world.17 It is also crucial that the conclusions of doubt and objective investigation are checked whenever possible by proof (shōko 証拠). Shōko usually means a reference or sign rather than scientific proof, and is indeed often used by Seiryō in these senses (Kaiho, Keiko dan 1976a: 25, Kōhan dan 1976b: 597), but he also uses it clearly in the sense of evidence proving a theory (Kaiho, Tennō dan 1976f: 510). Lastly, whatever the intensity of the inquiry or the need to focus and investigate details, one must always keep in mind the broader picture: life is complex. If one focuses on only one aspect, one loses sight of the other – and may end up losing his life prematurely (Kaiho, Yōro dan 1976g: 190). All those injunctions, repeated and developed over and over again, produce a very new philosophical tone. Still, the most remarkable aspect of Seiryō’s theory of knowledge is elsewhere. It is found in the aim of this relentless reflection and questioning. Operating from the background of the break with nature initiated by Sorai, Seiryō’s thinking assumes a radical distinction between the ends and the means. The world inhabited by humans, society and its normative apparatus, and the natural world that physically supports it, are totally different dimensions. How could nature tell humans what they ought to strive for – their ends or their moral aims? Nature, only tells them that if they do A, they can expect B, merely suggests the means. In this understanding of nature its constraints are material, not normative, or, in Kantian terms, hypothetical, not imperative. Going further in this direction than Sorai,18 Seiryō expounds in its crudest light the consequences of the break, for the only end that he is ever able to conceive of is self-interest, or, as he calls it, self-love, be that of individuals, of groups, or of countries. Of course self-love, as a natural trait, is linked to the natural world, but this is a mere fact of nature – not a moral rule imposed by the architecture of a significant world. Only when the natural world has no moral message to deliver can this mere fact appear as the sole conceivable end for beings. Whereas natural constraints that we have to respect in order to survive are inflexible, self-interest is colored by the diversity of likings and tastes. The result is that Seiryō’s version of practical reason takes a purely utilitarian form: “we should all set up the principle of self benefit and ask ourselves [for example] if breaking in the warehouse 17

Even this overarching perspective should be encompassed in yet a larger one, triggering possibly a vicious infinite regression (Kaiho, Kōhan dan 1976b: 587). 18 Of course Sorai could have gone further: after all what he was saying was that the origin of things was unknowable, but not the things themselves. But even in his few works openly taking the external perspective – the Seidan or the Taiheisaku – he was not much interested in the production of commodities which obviously requires investigation of the natural world.

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of someone else is a device for loving oneself and for benefiting one self…. In this way we can know in each case if this [proposed conduct] accords with the principle of things or not.” (Kaiho, Zenshiki dan 1976j: 577). Seiryō offered here an early version of what Max Weber was to call Zweckrationalität, “instrumental rationality,” the calculus which supports rational choice theories in their many forms. For him, this is the primary task of human intellect. True, sometimes reflection takes the form of a calculus and seems to be weighing ends rather than discovering means, as in the following passage, which Jeremy Bentham could have written. Well, because pleasure and pain are to be found in each and everything, we have to carefully equalize and assess. If the pain cannot be compensated we have a loss, by suffering. We may speak then of forfeiting good things whereas there was no reason for suffering. If later pleasure cannot compensate for the pain now, it is a case of suffering whereas we should not have suffered. Those are cases of excess and not of equilibrium. Generally speaking it is in the order of things that excess and insufficiency are cases where we suffer loss. This is not how things should be in the order of things. Excess and insufficiency are marks of the ignorant. (Kaiho, Zenshiki dan 1976j: 577)

Here also the ends are subordinated to and justified by the overall end of maximizing wealth or pleasure, which is, as Hume would say, “never a conclusion of reason” – nor of the examination of nature.

7.7

Seiryō’s Moral Psychology

The preceding paragraph moved from Seiryō’s theory of knowledge to his moral psychology. The break with normative nature and the emergence of worlds both disenchanted and intelligible, at the very moment that they entail a dissociation of ends and means and promote instrumental rationality in the field of epistemology, open the way for a new perspective on moral psychology: the study of human motivations in social and moral action. As the quotations given above clearly demonstrated, for Seiryō, ends are given, not by reason or observation of nature’s moral commands, but by desires. These desires, by a fact of human nature, are selfinterested desires. The aim and meaning of reflection, chie, is simply “to obtain good things and avoid bad ones” (Kaiho, Yorozuya dan 1976c: 399). Seiryō embarks thus in a reevaluation of human desires quite similar to the one carried out in Europe by so many of the builders of modern political theories – Montesquieu, Mandeville, Adam Smith, or Hume. While desires were typically seen by mainstream Confucian discourses as possibly dangerous impulses to be controlled or even repressed, Seiryō inheriting here again from Sorai insights that he reworks to give them more emphasis, stresses repeatedly that desires are a fact of life, or of human nature, that it is impossible to ignore, or worse to make disappear. Human nature is made of desires, and no desire is stronger than self-love or self-interest (Kaiho, Fuki dan 1976k: 522, Sūmitsu dan 1976e: 172, Gyoshū dan 1976d: 132). How could there be a single exception to this fact? It would be wishful thinking to pretend otherwise (Kaiho, Zenshiki dan 1976j: 576).

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Of course, Seiryō’s theory of knowledge and moral psychology must be joined in practical action. It is by duly combining them that he distinguishes between ordinary desires for comfort and luxury – which may be dangerous, and the “great wishes” (taigan) which should control them by assigning ends and observing the calculation of means. The semantic is quite intriguing: if ordinary desires do need control (Kaiho, Tennō dan 1976f: 498), it is only other desires that can control them – not moral impulses, nor perceptions of universal moral truths, nor unselfish impulses. These controlling “great wishes” are as material and egoistic as the small, ordinary ones. Examples of “great wishes” are thus, for merchants, desires of commercial expansion, desires of building more and more warehouses for the goods they trade. For artisans, “great wishes” are desires to employ more and more workers and to manufacture more and more goods. We cannot say however that there is no wish [in the hearts of humans] apart from those desires for delicacies for the palate and warm clothes. Apart from those, there are also the great wishes (daigan); the great wishes, for the townspeople, of building up one hundred warehouses; the great wishes, for the artisans, of having one hundred employees, and to live in a house of twenty or thirty ken.… Ultimately, if those great wishes are not fulfilled, this is because the desire to enjoy beyond one’s condition delicacies and warm clothes interferes and becomes a hindrance. The heart of great wish [must] be the master of the heart; the heart which interferes with it [must] be the servant of the heart. (Kaiho, Tennō dan 1976f: 499)

What distinguishes “great wishes” from smaller ones is only that they select longterm goals and have absorbed Seiryō’s theory of knowledge. Relying on careful planning and analysis of the circumstances “great wishes” take into account the reality of “li” – the mechanisms of causes and effects that make the world of facts outside us. Seiryō, however, goes much further than simply acknowledging the unavoidable fact of desires. He also bridges the gap between private selfish desires and the public interest in an impressive manner when he remarks that private selfish desires need to be encouraged, if only because they will work for the public benefit (kokueki 国 益, which is defined not as the benefit of the ruler, but the benefit of all under heaven). It is a good thing, as we shall see, that peasants have desires for comfort and luxuries, for this will motivate them to work harder and produce more (Kaiho, Gyoshū dan 1976d: 133). Renouncing the imposition of rigid moral constraints, acknowledging the force and even the desirability of natural impulses, this moral psychology may sound liberal and open, for interests are inevitably shaped by the widely varying individual tastes (Kaiho, Kōhan dan 1976b: 604). Seiryō, however, uses it mainly to advance a radical and uncompromising view of personal responsibility. Most people are not intellectually gifted, but according to Seiryō, all have enough wisdom to fathom the likely outcomes of their actions and decisions. Displaying a naïve faith in the power of reflection, Seiryō affirms that whatever happens to humans is of their sole doing, and that they should face their individual responsibility. If people are reduced to abject poverty and begging, it is only exceptionally because of circumstances beyond their control; it is generally, in “99 % of the cases,” because of their own

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actions and decisions (Kaiho, Gyoshū dan 1976d: 133). Seiryō does not see any point in helping people whose own actions have brought about their sorry state (Kaiho, Yōro dan 1976g: 188).19 What should be noted here is not so much the harshness of the view, the lack of compassion, or the apparent inability to appreciate the effects of adverse circumstances. It is rather the very optimistic view of individual choice, freedom and power. Up to the end the freedom to act is assumed and exalted; and up to the end the individual’s capacity to solve problems is upheld. Responsibility ensures that their efforts will be rewarded. As mentioned before, even punishments are presented, in a resolutely non-moral way, as what has to be given as consequences of choice (Kaiho, Yōro dan 1976g: 192). This focus on choice brings Seiryō to face the mysterious notion of will – “heart” (shin 心), that we need to assume to explain choice. Just like Sorai had done before him, he notes that whenever practical reason (his “great wishes”) tries to act upon short term desires (“small desires”), it is the same heart that controls and is controlled (Kaiho, Sūmitsu dan 1976e: 155). His intense focus on choice seems to make him aware that, whenever we assume “will” and, to do so, assume a division of this self in different agents, we court the risk of unintelligibility, denounced by so many modern critics – Hobbes, Hume, Nietzsche, precisely because they were so acutely interested in the “self.” It is not, however, the theoretical problems looming here that interest him, but the practical solution that he finds in what we call today pre-commitment devices (designing circumstances such that, at the moment of decision, we can only act one way: for an alcoholic to drink medicine that would kill him if he later drank sake) (Kaiho, Yōshin dan 1976h: 407, Sūmitsu dan 1976e: 155). Seiryō feels no need to dwell on the problem of weakness of the will (see for example Kaiho, Kōhan dan 1976b: 682), and happily sticks to his principle position that humans can always be held responsible for the consequences of whatever they knowingly did.20

7.8

Seiryō’s View of Society

The last and most spectacular element of the philosophy being reconstructed now can find its place. Seiryō’s metaphysics, epistemology, and moral psychology converge to support a most coherent view of a social model: the contractual society – diametrically opposed to the social views of most of his fellow thinkers. 19

This is justified by the fact that such people could not survive in the natural world where they face immediately the consequences of their actions. Still there is no natural model here, for, on the other hand, Seiryō affirms that public help is possible and justified in cases of genuine need: helping families with many children for example is legitimate, for the parents cannot meet the needs of children who later will work for the public good (see Kaiho, Yōro dan 1976g: 199; Yumin dan 1976i: 540). Interest – here public – remains the sole criterion for justification. 20 However, because Seiryō is able to recognize that some factors, like the education received from one’s parents (Kaiho, Kōhan dan 1976b: 646) are a crucial element in one’s success in life, he suggests also that it is more as a necessary assumption that he views the principle of individual responsibility.

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Sorai had held that an invented system of rituals should assign to each individual a fixed and unchangeable role in society. The system was the script, the scenario of a pre-ordered performance that firmly held and shaped each body in a given place and role, on the expectation that the performance of the bodies would sink and internalize social order in the hearts. Sorai saw very well what was threatening his project. The long pages that he devotes in his Seidan to the critique of new forms of relationships that were spreading even inside the samurai group are a fascinating testimony of the generalization of those contractual practices in the large towns of Tokugawa Japan. Sorai lamented the rapid replacement of the old hereditary servants (fudai hōkōnin) by contract workers who “come and go” (dekawari), signing short-term contracts and looking simply for the best bargain (Ogyū 1973d: 290). He regretted the intrusion within the samurai group (6 or 7 % of the population, approximately) of a logic characteristic of the merchants, and was aware he was witnessing a change of social paradigm. He seemed to have thought, however, that the trend could be reversed. Seiryō, who had chosen to settle among the commoners (he was from a samurai family), realized that it could not be reversed and that contractual society had simply to be embraced. Sorai had introduced positivism and utilitarianism in a status based society. Seiryō introduced positivism and radical utilitarianism in a contractual society where agents are all busy maximizing their gains, under natural and social constraints. The following, very famous passage expresses in a nutshell Seiryō’s view of society. Since antiquity, the relation between lord and retainer has been [like] the way of the market. [The lord] gives a fief to his retainer and has him work for him; the retainer sells his strength to his lords and buys his rice. The lord buys his retainers, the retainer sells to his lord; this is buying and selling. Buying and selling is good. There is nothing wrong in buying and selling.… High officials sell their strength and wisdom to lords and live off the daily wages [they receive]. This is exactly like the palanquin bearer who carries the chair for one mile, gets the money for [having carried it just] one mile, and buy sweets and alcohol. (Kaiho, Keiko dan 1976a: 223)

Of course, in spite of what Seiryō affirms, never in Japanese political history had relationships between masters and servants, between the emperor and his subjects, between samurai and his retainers, been represented as mere contracts regulating the exchange of goods and services. As Marc Bloch, following countless Japanese scholars, observed a long time ago (Tsuda 1916–1921: 6/350; WATSUJI Tetsurō 1952: 2/482 ff.), the contractual dimension so important in European feudal societies was carefully ignored in the overt justifications of similar relationships in Japan (Bloch 1968: 301, 320, 618). Obviously, this is not to say that the actual behavior of masters and servants did not display a self-interested dimension – for they did (Ansart 2007). KAIHO Seiryō builds a normative model and argues that contemporary Japanese society should be totally structured around the contractual model and the pursuit of gain. All relationships are and should be about exchange for selfinterested purposes. In this model, all things then become, or are potentially, merchandises: “Between heaven and earth there is nothing but merchandises.” (Kaiho, Keiko dan 1976a: 222). As if foreseeing the distinction between two basic types of social organization that will become a standard topic in modern sociological

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theories from Tönnies to Louis Dumont, Seiryō admits the possibility of another social type – where people simply perform their status, follow its habits, and behave just like traditional ethics would have them to behave: following the “kingly way.” However, having cast doubt on the practicality of this social type, he claims that the only model adapted to Japanese society is the “way of the hegemons,” where every unit in the human world, individuals, or countries, is competing with others to maximize its own personal benefit. In this model, there are other modern-looking features that some have detected in Sorai. However, I am tempted to dismiss some of them as coincidences. Nevertheless, the distinction between public and private, or between morality and politics, appear in much more solid form. No statement is clearer on this point than what Seiryō once wrote about the cardinal virtue in traditional ethics: that of filial piety, which supposedly links together the private and the public realm. Reinterpreting the virtues in order to place on their pinnacle reflection and calculus, Seiryō remarks that he has “no idea what this [filial piety] may be,” and that government policies should never bother about it (Kaiho, Fuki dan 1976k: 534) – an elegant way, I believe, to push the traditional virtues outside the realm of his discourse on public affairs. The reason for this is obvious: the driving force of humans in a contractual society cannot be virtues; it is rather self-interest and appetite for wealth: “that people are inclined to luxury is not a bad thing. People who like to make money off the land (that they cultivate) are good for the owner of the country” (Kaiho, Gyoshū dan 1976d: 133). Of course this supposes a good social system – a li, the laws of which ensure punishment of any action harmful to public prosperity and reward of hard work. Seiryō is no believer in some hidden hand, and pleads for a government able to maintain the systematic legislative and administrative apparatus that guides desires in the right direction. The egotistic nature of humans ensures that this is possible since they respond so readily to the perspectives of gains or losses. “There is no one who cannot be incited [to work and produce]” (Kaiho, Gyoshū dan 1976d: 132; Sūmitsu dan 1976e: 172). At this point, the self-styled Confucian (jusha) who was Seiryō has revealed his true colors. While using the vocabulary inherited from the Confucian classics – the li, the two ways of the kings, and of the hegemons, the virtues, etc. – he has turned upside down their accepted interpretations.

7.9

What Was Modern?

Having tried in the above sections to show that the socio-political thinking developed between Sorai and Seiryō harbored assumptions earlier identified as forming the groundwork necessary to justify the basic structures of modern societies, I should briefly assess its novelty and its limits. Some may be tempted to remark that many of the ideas seen above were already present in the tradition that Seiryō inherited. HAN Feizi 韓非子 (ca. 280–233 B.C.E.) described relationships between a prince and his ministers as contractual, and

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guided by self-interest, each using the other.21 Mencius affirmed, it seems, some basic moral identity or resemblance, between all humans. The utilitarian tradition had a long history in China, from Mozi up to thinkers like LI Gou (1009–1059) and CHEN Liang (1143–1194). I would even add, although many would not accept this, that the break with nature can be found in some thinkers of early China, most notably Xunzi 荀子 (ca. 312–230 B.C.E.). To this it should be replied that very few ideas can claim no predecessors, and that more often than not the novelty of an idea is found, not in some unique meaning, but rather in the way it is associated with others to create an unmistakable dynamic. HAN Feizi, when he was comparing the relationship between a prince and his minister to that of people trading in the market, was not elaborating a general theory of society. He was merely giving cautious advice to a ruler. Mencius could see – as many thinkers in non-modern societies, the sense in which all humans are similar, but he was not arguing, even in some discrete way, against fixed social hierarchies. CHEN Liang and LI Gou could rehabilitate the notion of interest against idealistic moralists, but they were not making the pursuit of gain the sole legitimate pursuit of human endeavor, nor were they conceiving the social bond as a purely contractual association. Xunzi did, in my opinion, understand social and political norms as artifacts without grounding in any natural dimension, but he did not venture any further toward the directions explored by Seiryō. On the other hand, we see in Seiryō’s case the convergence of positivist metaphysics, of a rather cynical conception of agency and motivation, of a full-blown instrumental rationality, of a utilitarian view of society and of the assertion of the contractual nature of the social bond. In this convergence, each element supports the others and the ensuing dynamic establishes the basic assumptions necessary to make sense of a modern social order. Obviously though, it is not my contention that we see in KAIHO Seiryō’s works a full-blown modern political theory, with its characteristic individualism, and its affirmation of the equality and freedom of individuals. By stressing the limits of its modernity, I hope to avoid the charge that my analysis is tainted with the wisdom of hindsight. Seiryō’s theory, just like any other, must also be understood in its own context. True, contract – the social contract – is the concept which in the West largely paved the way for, or expressed, the ideals of equality and freedom. It is thus very tempting, and not incorrect, to consider that any contract entails a tacit recognition of the liberty of the parties to enter the contract, and of their legal equality, since one party in the contract is just as important as the other. Seiryō, while he would have probably accepted some form of those principles, never defended them explicitly. Nothing should surprise us here. Modern political thought appeared as the result of a long process. Freedom and equality do not appear as slogans in Seiryō’s writings, but these notions do start to play a role. They did not in Sorai’s case. Obviously, economic action entails some freedom, and Seiryō makes room for the initiative that 21

HAN Feizi, chap. 36. The Records of the Grand Historian (Shiji, Lianpo liezhuan) of SIMA Qian also contains also a famous expression: “the way of the market,” explained as the practice for humans of looking only after their own interest and engaging in relationships only in this perspective.

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one should display to improve one’s lot and increase one’s wealth and pleasure. Using terminology from the Zhuangzi, he calls this the “empty place” (kū), the yet undetermined outcome of which will be shaped by free choice (Kaiho, Zenshiki dan 1976j: 577). Even more striking is the marked evolution between Sorai and Seiryō of the use of the old term jiyū 自由, which today denotes liberty. While Sorai uses it in a very negative sense – the capricious action of people who act without regard for rituals, Seiryō uses it often in a more positive sense, of power and liberty of action, as when he describes the role of Osaka merchants who freely uses capital (Kaiho, Gyoshū dan 1976d: 136), or of humans when they embark on economic enterprise (Kaiho, Zenshiki dan 1976j: 565). Equality is hinted at even more directly. While he sometimes seems to subscribe to a quasi-racist division of humans in different groups, the lower of which would be next to birds and beasts, Seiryō is perfectly able to see that, from beggars to daimyo, all humans partake a same identity (dōkaku) as humans (Kaiho, Fuki dan 1976k: 531). Even his numerous statements about the stupidity of the commoners must be checked, first against his own, frequent, affirmations that people are getting more clever, and also, most importantly, against his repeated affirmations that samurai are particularly stupid and merchants are the most intelligent. Seiryō goes much further than the ancient idea of some moral similarity between humans when he renders absolutely senseless the status divisions of contemporary Japan. Seiryō needs to exercise some caution here. He has to repeatedly protest that he has no intention whatsoever to criticize the government (Kaiho, Keiko dan 1976a: 16, 314). Still, whenever he argues for a social system that would ensure that work and talent are rewarded, that laziness and incompetence are immediately punished by the impossibility to survive, and when he justifies this by saying that only in this way general wealth will increase, Seiryō unleashes a clear critique of the heredity of function and status. After all, he repeatedly takes aim at the system of stipends, denounces exploitation and parasitism (kuitsubushi) by the samurai (Kaiho, Sūmitsu dan 1976e: 158, Gyoshū dan 1976d: 130), and states his preference for a system of salaries rewarding functions given to the most talented (Kaiho, Yorozuya dan 1976c: 391, Sūmitsu dan 1976e: 170; Honpu dan 1976l: 115). KAIHO Seiryō’s critique of the samurai-based order is in fact quite striking compared to the timid statements of thinkers who were supposed to represent the interest of the merchants such as ISHIDA Baigan 石田梅岩 (1685–1744). However, if Seiryō stops there, it is not because of the weight of some aspects of tradition that would have been too heavy to shake off. He demonstrates well enough that he could interpret tradition any way he liked. It was more probably due to the absence of serious social contest in eighteenth-century Japan. If the spectacle of the market allowed Seiryō to formulate his vision of a purely contractual society, the absence of serious social conflict between the merchants and samurai groups, upon which they so obviously depended, did not give him the opportunity to formulate, theorize, and justify claims and demands. He therefore had no opportunity to extract from the contract the assumptions of equality and liberty. Considering, however, that most of his fellow thinkers were deeply imbued with the old morality, his achievements were considerable. His example shows that, in pre-modern, nonwesternized Japan, it was possible to make a case for modern social order.

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Sociology of Ideas

What, then, pushed Seiryō and Sorai, and what allowed them, to say what they said? Now it is necessary to address the why and the how questions: Why did they go in the directions I have analyzed, and how were they able to do so? We are still obviously a long way from understanding why people believe the things they believe. Far too many factors are beyond our reach – from the chemistry in the brain to biographical accidents, but some models are available. It is certainly tempting to explain, for example, the difference in tonality between samurai thinkers like YAMAGA Sokō 山鹿素行 or OGYŪ Sorai, attached to ideas of social division and inequality of talents and functions, and the bourgeois thinkers like ITō Jinsai 伊藤仁斎, the Kaitokudō 懐徳堂 scholars and YAMAGATA Bantō 山片蟠桃, inclined to a more optimistic view of human nature and of the abilities and worth of all persons, by the social and economic interests of the group with which they were identified. Indeed Sorai’s hostility to the paradigm shift toward contractual arrangements (that he seems to have perceived more than others because of the years he spent in exile with his father outside Edo) neatly fits the interest of the samurai social group to which he was assimilated. It is even likely that his positivism was fuelled by the combination of this hostility and of the belief that life in Edo was the result of a spontaneous and natural trend. Edo, for him, was nature: the collection of the state of things left to themselves (Ogyū 1976d: 306) and the unavoidable outcome of the unwillingness of rulers to build a serious social system. This nature was so different from his understanding of the good society that the link insistently posited by other political thinkers between social norms and nature could not but be weakened. Norms had to be constructed, and while they could not ignore the facts of life, they were not patterned on nature. They had to be invented. However, because it seems very simplistic to see in this way – in the fashion of the Deutsche Ideologie, ideas as mere reflections, even indirect, of economic interests, other classic accounts of links between ideas and the conditions of their production have looked elsewhere. One could see in the discourse of many bourgeois thinkers the expression of the resentment analyzed by Scheler, or one could analyze the role of the residues stressed by Pareto. While these approaches, which stress mechanisms largely independent of the self awareness of the authors, are undoubtedly useful, I would rather focus on more deliberate strategies, especially appealing if we try to make sense of discourses – for we then need reasons rather than causes. Two mechanisms or motives then, not exclusive of the role of self interest, residues, or resentments would help us, I believe, to complete the reconstruction of discourse undertaken above. Firstly, if we remember that scholarship was the profession of Sorai and Seiryō and that their scholarship was delivered in a market, the analysis offered by Pierre Bourdieu, in his Règles de l’Art (Rules of Art), of the dynamic which pushes participants in academic fields to create distinctions, oppositions, and exclusions, and to carve for themselves niches and domains, may be quite useful. In the hotly

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contested field of Confucian studies, Sorai saw an opportunity to distinguish himself by utilizing the inherent assumption that the Way is buried in the past, and by deploying, to uncover it, his exceptional linguistic abilities. Whereas ITō Jinsai fought against ZHU Xi and his followers by arguing that he was going back to the true message of Confucius found in the Analects, disregarding later commentaries, Sorai went one step further by taking at face value Confucius’ claim that he was merely transmitting the way. Sorai went back to the texts that supposedly described the way which Confucius was endeavoring to transmit. No one was better qualified than him, he thought, to read those archaic documents. This strategy, as is well known, was remarkably successful. Sorai’s school was for a time among the most famous in the market of Confucian studies, but it is clear also that the strategy presented some constraints for his discourse. Sorai was bound by the texts he chose to use; they offered him a vocabulary he had to respect. Because these old texts (many of which are today seen as apocryphal) repeatedly spoke of heaven, ghosts, and spirits, Sorai had to make a place for those notions. Indeed, his stress on heaven, ghosts, and spirits – not visible in the earlier works, dates back, not to some putative religious crisis, but to his discovery of the texts of archaic Chinese: the shock was aesthetic, not religious. However, his consequent defence of the religious cults of the ancient Way had to be reconciled with his pragmatic view of desirable policies in contemporary Japan. From this interplay the two perspectives were probably born. Such considerations should be kept in mind to complement the explanation I have given above of his discourse on ghosts, spirits, and heaven. The same would apply to KAIHO Seiryō, an economic consultant in a different but equally demanding field, bound by different and equally important constraints, for whom it would have made little sense to focus on one specific set of documents, but who still had to use the available vocabulary to justify new social arrangements. In Seiryō’s case, however, another sort of mechanism becomes a prime force shaping the discourse. As an economic consultant and lecturer giving advice to actors engaged in the economic market (and using, again, the available vocabulary), he had to justify their behavior. There were, of course, many ways to justify commercial practices while ostensibly using the Confucian vocabulary and the accepted ideas and Classics. The most popular was to ignore inconvenient affirmations, critiques of the merchants and of the pursuit of gains, etc., and to claim that merchants were as a group fulfilling a legitimate function in society. ISHIDA Baigan was especially adept at using the traditional vocabulary to speak of the mandate given to merchants and to present them at the service of the common good just like other groups. Seiryō goes much deeper, demonstrating his philosophical genius, and tries to make sense of economic exchange as the central relationship in society, and of its protagonists as the central actors in society. What he engages in is, I contend, the intriguing process analyzed at length in the first chapter of Das Kapital, where Marx observes that exchange is necessarily accompanied, in order to exist, by a body of representations that allow the agent engaged in exchange to understand what he is doing. Practices indeed would not be possible without those self-representations that allow agents to represent themselves in what they do. In Marx’s explanation, it is the act of exchange of goods which suggests human representations of value, of

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property, of equivalence, etc. Those representations, granted, are just products of the imagination, as Marx relentlessly stressed. However, as “magical” and “imaginary” as they may be, they are indispensable to exchange. Later on, Marx’s insights here have been developed in the concept of “social imaginary,” especially by Cornelius Castoriadis. What Seiryō is doing is simply to formalize the necessary social imaginary called for by the tremendous expansion of contract and exchange: the basic concepts that would allow agents in Tokugawa society to represent and justify to themselves the frantic economic competition they were engaged in, not merely as a meaningful practice, but also as the central practice of a good society.22 It is at this stage (that of the how question), that a deep reworking of the only available moral vocabulary of Confucianism and also, if need be, of Buddhism or Daoism, became necessary. Obviously, applying the old accepted meanings of this traditional vocabulary to these actions could only make them appear repugnant and incoherent, as Sorai’s case amply demonstrates, but this vocabulary was the only one available and so Seiryō had to engage in an extensive enterprise of reinterpretation. His first step was predictable: he boldly declared that the accepted interpretations of Confucian classics were for the most part simply hopelessly misguided: they were the product of an enduring, obstinate, misunderstanding, the result of superficial reading (hayagatten). Due to the crime of hayagatten, Seiryō dismisses all the traditional values and interpretations resulting from it. Various strategies were then put to good effect. Seiryō was not above inventing quotes, retitling chapters, or distorting meaning. When textual evidence proved to be too obstinate, he circumscribed the validity of the meanings he wanted to reject due to circumstances that no longer obtained. Profit, for example, was harshly criticized by Confucius and Mencius, Seiryō admitted, but this was only because they lived in a period when greed was causing so much trouble. Had Confucius and Mencius lived in peaceful contemporary Japan, they would have warmly endorsed the pursuit of economic and material gain. Their ends were valid, and Seiryō enthusiastically subscribed to them, but their policies were shaped by the specific circumstances of their times. Then, of course, Seiryō makes ample use of the reinterpretation of words. The old Daoist notion of emptiness (kū) he transformed into the idea of the initiative in an economic contest; the notion of wisdom (chie) into the idea of the calculus of means; the dreaded interest (li) into the legitimate pursuit of benefit which support human life; the plain expression of sale and purchase (urikai) into a description of 22

This is why there exists in Seiryō’s writings a rich rhetoric centered around words like eye, see, glance, look, perspective, etc., though he urges his audience to look at things in a novel way. Although I do not have time to examine this here, Seiryō realized that the problem so many had with the new social order (Sorai among them) is that they looked at things through the old images – and found the new arrangements repulsive. When Seiryō claimed that one need to realize that land, wood, everything under heaven is in fact merchandise, he was building a new social imaginary. All this means obviously that whatever modernity there was in Seiryō’s theories was only the modernity already existing, in patches of Tokugawa society. It is not surprising then that Seiryō is only synthesizing intuitions that it is not difficult to find, in a non-systematic fashion, in many other of his contemporaries. Seiryō is often described as a maverick, but in fact businessmen-administrators like NOZOKI Yoshimasa in Yonezawa (Ravina 1999) and agriculturalists (nōgakusha) like OKURA Nagatsune knew full well that moral sermons had little influence on people’s behavior and that any solid policy had to motivate people by going some ways toward satisfying their self interest.

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contractual bind; the idea of military domination (ha) into economic entrepreneurship, etc. In so doing, Seiryō demonstrated the inherent semantic elasticity of discourses and the fragility of all attempts to divide them into various “-isms”. I have tried above to analyze the moment between Sorai and Seiryō as an intellectual move toward a theoretical structure that could have made sense of a modern society. I have certainly not attempted to demonstrate that Confucianism is compatible with such or such ideology. Confucianism is only what it means to its interpreters, and, if anything, the cases of Sorai and, especially, Seiryō suggest that words of the classics or the scriptures can be made to mean almost anything. What the above shows rather is that in a non-western, non-modern context, or at least in the nonwestern, non-modern context of Tokugawa Japan, a space existed for imaginative thinkers to move toward a modern standpoint. There was, however, little posterity for these ideas.23 Granted, some decades after Seiryō’s death, status distinctions were abolished, and apologies for individual competition and social Darwinism had become part of common sense. Theories like Seiryō’s show that these ideas did not penetrate in altogether hostile territory. However, the constitution, under foreign threat, of the Meiji government, the absence of an autonomous industrial bourgeoisie, the development of fiercely nationalist movements, etc., all conspired to deny to democratic or liberal conceptions an important place in the political agenda. When those were affirmed it was directly under the influence of the West, even when they were dressed in the worlds of old vocabularies (as in the case of NAKAE Chōmin). Whether or not the ideas we see in Seiryō’s social theory could have led to more explicit notions of freedom and equality is a matter for idle speculation.

References Anderson, Benedict. 1991. Imagined communities. London/New York: Verso. Ansart, Olivier. 2007. Loyalty in samurai discourse. Japanese Studies 27(2): 139–154. Bitō, Masahide 尾藤正英. 1982. Sorai as the Originator of Nationalism 国家主義の祖型として の徂徠. In OGYŪ Sorai 荻生徂徠, ed. BITō Masahide. Tokyo: Chūō kōron sha. 23

Although the focus of this article was the two figures of OGYŪ Sorai and KAIHO Seiryō, the intellectual lineage issued from Sorai can boast other important contributions to the development of modern ideas. DAZAI Shundai especially, direct disciple of Sorai, prefigures in some ways the paradigm shift that would be completed with Seiryō. While still attached to the status-based community that Sorai defended, he perceived much better than Sorai the crucial role of money and of economic strategy. Even more importantly I think, he saw that human relationships have become relationships between strangers – those relationships found in modern towns and not in traditional communities. This explains the extraordinary inversion of the role and function assigned to patterns of behavior Sorai called rituals. For Shundai they have become tools of civility that must govern relations between strangers, even at the cost of dissimulation. I had here to leave aside, however, Shundai’s important contribution to the articulation of modern political ideas. Obviously also we find in many other authors of the period, outside the Sorai’s school, glimpses of movements towards new conceptions of the individuals and of society. My focus on the two figures of Sorai and Seiryō is explained by the coherence, and the extension through different philosophical sub-fields of their intuitions.

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Bloch, Marc. 1968. La société féodale. Paris: Albin Michel. Davidson, Donald. 1984. Inquiries into truth and interpretation. New York: Blackwell. De Bary, William Theodore. 1991. The trouble with confucianism. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. De Bary, William Theodore. 1998. Asian values and human rights. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. De Bary, William Theodore, and Wei-ming Tu (eds.). 1998. Confucianism and human rights. New York: Columbia University Press. Douglas, Mary. 1978. Judgments on James Frazer. Daedalus 107: 151–164. Dumont, Louis. 1986. Essays on individualism. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Dworkin, Ronald. 1977. Taking rights seriously. London: Duckworth. Dworkin, Ronald. 1986. Law’s empire. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Giddens, Anthony. 1991. Modernity and self identity. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Hiraishi, Naoaki 平石直昭. 1988. The deconstruction of Sorai’s School 徂徠学の再構成. Shisō 思想 766: 82–101. Kaiho, Seiryō 海保青陵. 1976a. On the lessons from the Past (Keiko dan 稽古談). In Complete works of KAIHO Seiryō (KAIHO Seiryō zenshū 海保青陵全集), ed. KURANAMI Seiji 蔵並省自. Tokyo: Yachiyo Shuppan. Kaiho, Seiryō 海保青陵. 1976b. On the great plan (Kōhan dan 洪範談). In Complete works of KAIHO Seiryō (KAIHO Seiryō zenshū 海保青陵全集), ed. KURANAMI Seiji 蔵並省自. Tokyo: Yachiyo Shuppan. Kaiho, Seiryō 海保青陵. 1976c. On the Yorozuya house (Yorozuya dan 万屋談). In Complete works of KAIHO Seiryō (KAIHO Seiryō zenshū 海保青陵全集), ed. KURANAMI Seiji 蔵並省自. Tokyo: Yachiyo Shuppan. Kaiho, Seiryō 海保青陵. 1976d. On the government of the people (Gyoshū dan 御衆談). In Complete works of KAIHO Seiryō (KAIHO Seiryō zenshū 海保青陵全集), ed. KURANAMI Seiji 蔵 並省自. Tokyo: Yachiyo Shuppan. Kaiho, Seiryō 海保青陵. 1976e. On the secret stratagems (Sūmitsu dan 枢密談). In Complete works of KAIHO Seiryō (KAIHO Seiryō zenshū 海保青陵全集), ed. KURANAMI Seiji 蔵並省自. Tokyo: Yachiyo Shuppan. Kaiho, Seiryō 海保青陵. 1976f. On the Buddhist kings (Tennō dan 天王談). In Complete works of KAIHO Seiryō (KAIHO Seiryō zenshū 海保青陵全集), ed. KURANAMI Seiji 蔵並省自. Tokyo: Yachiyo Shuppan. Kaiho, Seiryō 海保青陵. 1976g. On the cultivation of reeds (Yōro dan 養蘆). In Complete works of KAIHO Seiryō (KAIHO Seiryō zenshū 海保青陵全集), ed. KURANAMI Seiji 蔵並省自. Tokyo: Yachiyo Shuppan. Kaiho, Seiryō 海保青陵. 1976h. On the development of the mind (Yōshin dan 養心談). In Complete works of KAIHO Seiryō (KAIHO Seiryō zenshū 海保青陵全集), ed. KURANAMI Seiji 蔵 並省自. Tokyo: Yachiyo Shuppan. Kaiho, Seiryō 海保青陵. 1976i. On the persuasion of the people (Yumin dan 諭民談). In Complete works of KAIHO Seiryō (KAIHO Seiryō zenshū 海保青陵全集), ed. KURANAMI Seiji 蔵並省自. Tokyo: Yachiyo Shuppan. Kaiho, Seiryō 海保青陵. 1976j. On Foresight (Zenshiki dan 前識談). In Complete works of KAIHO Seiryō (KAIHO Seiryō zenshū 海保青陵全集), ed. KURANAMI Seiji 蔵並省自. Tokyo: Yachiyo Shuppan. Kaiho, Seiryō 海保青陵. 1976k. On wealth and honors (Fuki dan 富貴談). In Complete works of KAIHO Seiryō (KAIHO Seiryō zenshū 海保青陵全集), ed. KURANAMI Seiji 蔵並省自. Tokyo: Yachiyo shuppan. Kaiho, Seiryō 海保青陵. 1976l. On the origin of wealth (Honpu dan 本富談). In Complete works of KAIHO Seiryō (KAIHO Seiryō zenshū 海保青陵全集), ed. KURANAMI Seiji 蔵並省自. Tokyo: Yachiyo Shuppan. Kinski, Michael. 1997–2006. Talks about teachings of the past: Translations of KAIHO Seiryō’s Keiko-dan. Japonica Humboldtiana 1.1 (1997); 2.4 (2000); 3.6 (2002); 4.10 (2006).

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Kojima, Yasunori 小島康敬. 1987. The Sorai school and its opponents 徂徠学と反徂徠学. Tokyo: Perikan sha. Koyasu, Nobukuni 子安宣那. 1992. Theories of ghosts and spirits 鬼神論. Tokyo: Fukutake shoten. Kuranami, Seiji (ed.) 1976. Complete works of KAIHO Seiryō (KAIHO Seiryō zenshū 海保青陵全集). Tokyo: Yachiyo shuppan. Kurozumi, Makoto 黒住真. 2003. Confucianism and society in pre-modern Japan 近世日本社会 と儒教. Tokyo: Perikan sha. Kymlicka, Will. 1990. Contemporary political philosophy. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Maruyama, Masao 丸山真男. 1940/1996. The characteristics of the Sorai school in the development of pre-modern confucianism, and its relations to national learning (Kinsei Jukyō no hatten ni okeru Sorai gaku no tokushitsu narabi ni sono kokugaku to kanren 近世儒教の発展に おける徂徠学の特質並にその国学との関連). In Collected works of MARUYAMA Masao 丸山 真男集, ed. MARUYAMA Masao, vol 1. Tokyo: Iwanami shoten. Maruyama, Masao 丸山真男. 1941/1996. Nature and invention in Tokugawa political thought (Kinsei Nihon seiji shisō ni okeru ‘shizen’ to ‘sakui’ 近世日本政治思想における「自然」 と「作為」). In Collected works of MARUYAMA Masao 丸山真男集, ed. MARUYAMA Masao, vol 2. Tokyo: Iwanami shoten. Maruyama, Masao 丸山真男. 1944/1996. Kokumin shugi no ‘zenkiteki’ keisei (The Early Formation of Nationalism) 国民主義の「前期的」形成. In Collected works of MARUYAMA Masao (MARUYAMA Masao shū 丸山真男集), ed. MARUYAMA Masao, vol 2. Tokyo: Iwanami shoten. Maruyama, Masao 丸山真男. 1946. Modern thought (“Kindaiteki shii” 近代的思惟). In Collected works of MARUYAMA Masao (MARUYAMA Masao shū 丸山真男集), ed. MARUYAMA Masao, vol. 3. Tokyo: Iwanami shoten. Maruyama, Masao 丸山真男. 1949. The problem of the reason of state in the intellectual history of pre-modern Japan (Kindai Nihon shisōshi ni okeru kokka risei no mondai 近代日本思想史 における国家理性の問題). Tenbō. Maruyama, Masao 丸山真男. 1952. Studies in the history of Japanese political thought (Nihon seiji shisōshi kenkyū 日本政治思想研究). Tokyo: Tōkyō Daigaku Shuppankai. (Mikiso Hane translated parts of this work as Studies in the Intellectual History of Tokugawa Japan, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1989.) Maruyama, Masao 丸山真男. 1961. Japanese thought (Nihon no shisō 日本の思想). Tokyo: Iwanami shoten. Maruyama, Masao 丸山真男. 1980. The teachings of YAMAZAKI Ansai and the School of YAMAZAKI Ansai (Ansai gaku to Ansai gakuha 闇斎学と闇斎学派). Nihon shisō taikei, vol. 36. Tokyo: Iwanami shoten. Maruyama, Masao 丸山真男. 1986. Bunmei no gairyaku o yomu 文明論之概略を読む (Reading an outline of civilization). Tokyo: Iwanami shoten. Maruyama, Masao 丸山真男. 1995. Collected works of MARUYAMA Masao (MARUYAMA Masao shū 丸山真男集). Tokyo: Iwanami shoten. McMullen, James. 2007. History and utility in the thought of OGYŪ Sorai. In Writing histories in Japan, ed. James C. Baxter and Joshua A. Fogel. Kyoto: International Research Center for Japanese Studies. Minamoto, Ryōen 源了圓. 1984. Bantō and Seiryō, Precursors of enlightenment thinking 先駆的 啓蒙思想家: 蟠桃と青陵. In YAMAGATA Bantō・KAIHO Seiryō 山片蟠桃・海保青陵, ed. MINAMOTO Ryōen. Tokyo: Chūō kōron sha. Muro, Kyūsō. 1953. Talks at Sundai (Sundai zatsuwa 駿台雑話). Tokyo: Ichōbon kankōkai. Nagel, Thomas. 1979. Mortal questions. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Najita, Tetsuo. 1998. Tokugawa political writings. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Ogyū, Sorai 荻生徂徠. 1973a. Distinguishing the way (Bendō 弁道). In OGYŪ Sorai 荻生徂徠. Nihon shisō taikei, ed. YOSHIKAWA Kōjirō 吉川幸次郎 et al., vol. 36, Tokyo: Iwanami shoten. Ogyū, Sorai 荻生徂徠. 1973b. Distinguishing Names (Benmei 弁名). In OGYŪ Sorai 荻生徂徠. Nihon shisō taikei, ed. YOSHIKAWA Kōjirō 吉川幸次郎 et al., vol. 36, Tokyo: Iwanami shoten.

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Ogyū, Sorai 荻生徂徠. 1973c. Responsals (Tōmonsho 答問書). In OGYŪ Sorai zenshū, ed. IMANAKA Kanji 今中寛司 and NARAMOTO Tatsuya 奈良本辰也, vol. 6. Tokyo: Kawade shobō shinsha. Ogyū, Sorai 荻生徂徠. 1973d. Discourse on Government (Seidan 政談). In OGYŪ Sorai 荻生徂 徠. Nihon shisō taikei, ed. YOSHIKAWA Kōjirō 吉川幸次郎 et al., vol. 36, Tokyo: Iwanami shoten. Ogyū, Sorai 荻生徂徠. 1973e. Measures for the Great Peace (Taiheisaku 太平策). In OGYŪ Sorai 荻生徂徠. Nihon shisō taikei, ed. YOSHIKAWA Kōjirō 吉川幸次郎 et al., vol. 36, Tokyo: Iwanami shoten. Ogyū, Sorai 荻生徂徠. 1973f. Instructions for Learning (Gakusoku 学則). In OGYŪ Sorai 荻生徂徠. Nihon shisō taikei, ed. YOSHIKAWA Kōjirō 吉川幸次郎 et al., vol. 36, Tokyo: Iwanami shoten. Ogyū, Sorai 荻生徂徠. 1978. Commentary on the mean. (Chūyōkai 中庸解). In OGYŪ Sorai zenshū, ed. IMANAKA Kanji 今中寛司 and NARAMOTO Tatsuya 奈良本辰也, vol. 2 Tokyo: Kawade shobō shinsha, 1978. Ogyū, Sorai 荻生徂徠. 1994. Notes on the Analects (Rongochō 論語徴), vols. 1–2. Tōyō bunko 575–576, ed. OGAWA Tamaki 小川環樹. Tokyo: Heibonsha. Ravina, Mark. 1999. Land and lordship in early modern Japan. Stanford: Standford University Press. Rawls, John. 1993. Political liberalism. New York: Columbia University Press. Skinner, Quentin. 1969. Meaning and understanding in the field of history of ideas. History and Theory 8: 1. Soraishū 徂徠集. (Collected writings of Sorai). 1973. In OGYŪ Sorai 荻生徂徠. Nihon shisō taikei, ed. YOSHIKAWA Kōjirō et al., vol. 36. Tokyo: Iwanami shoten. Tahara, Tsuguo 田原嗣郎. 1991. The world of Sorai’s School 徂徠学の世界. Tokyo: Tōkyō daigaku shuppan kai. Toulmin, Stephen. 1992. Cosmopolis: The hidden agenda of modernity. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Tsuda, Sōkichi 津田左右吉. (1916–1921) 1964. Studies on the thought of the Japanese people as it appeared in their literature 文學に現はれたる國民思想の硏究. In Complete works of TSUDA Sōkichi 津田左右吉全集. Tokyo: Iwanami shoten. Tucker, John A. 2006. OGYŪ Sorai’s philosophical masterworks. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press. Watsuji, Tetsurō 和辻哲郎. 1952. History of moral thinking in Japan 日本倫理思想史. Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten. Yamashita, Samuel. 1994. Master Sorai’s responsals, annotated translation of Sorai Sensei Tōmonsho. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press. Yasumaru, Yoshio 安丸良夫. 1963. KAIHO Seiryō’s historical place (KAIHO Seiryō no rekishiteki ichi 海保青陵の歴史的位置). Meijō Bulletin of Humanities 名城大学人文紀要 1: 27–49. Yoshikawa, Kōjirō 吉川幸次郎. 1975. Jinsai, Sorai, Norinaga: Three classical philologists in Mid-Tokugawa Japan. Tokyo: Tōhō gakkai.

Chapter 8

Human Nature and the Way in the Philosophy of DAZAI Shundai Peter Flueckiger

In his Dialogue on the Learning of the Sages (Seigaku mondō 聖学問答, 1736), DAZAI Shundai 太宰春台 (1680–1747) writes that “in the Way of the ancient sage kings they did not speak of human nature (J: sei 性 C: xing),” and that Confucius “was not much concerned with human nature, but rather took learned behavior (narai 習) as important” (Dazai 1972b: 67). In denying the relative importance of discussions of human nature to Confucianism, Shundai is following his teacher OGYŪ Sorai 荻生徂徠 (1666–1728), who criticized ZHU Xi’s 朱熹 (1130–1200) theory that the Way exists within the original nature of humans, instead arguing that the Way consists of ritual, music, and other creations of the sage kings of ancient China, which Sorai considered external to human nature. The danger Sorai found with defining the Way in terms of qualities inherent in human nature, a view he saw as plaguing a wide variety of Song and Ming scholars as well as their Tokugawa followers, was that it encouraged people to follow only their own personal inclinations, thus giving rise to social and political fragmentation. He claimed that it was only possible to rise above this narrow subjectivism by relying on the historical culture of the Chinese sage kings, and portrayed the Way they created as a tool for practicing government, as opposed to a means for individual moral cultivation. Despite claiming that the Confucian Way is unconcerned with human nature, Sorai and Shundai both do present theories of this nature. In A Treatise on the Way (Bendōsho 弁道書, 1735), Shundai writes that before the existence of Confucian teachings, people lived in a brutal state of nature in which “they were human in form, but their hearts were no different from those of beasts” (Dazai 1902: 215), and “the strong seized the food and clothing of the weak” (Dazai 1902: 216). He then describes the teachings of the ancient Chinese sage kings as having rescued people from the chaos that ensues when they follow only their own instincts and desires. Shundai’s bleak picture of the earliest humans is in marked contrast to Sorai’s description of a natural human tendency toward sociality and cooperation: “Although P. Flueckiger (*) Asian Languages and Literatures, Pomona College, Claremont, CA, USA e-mail: [email protected] C.C. Huang and J.A. Tucker (eds.), Dao Companion to Japanese Confucian Philosophy, Dao Companions to Chinese Philosophy 5, DOI 10.1007/978-90-481-2921-8_8, © Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2014

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the natures of people are different, people are all alike in that whether wise or foolish, superior or inferior, they all have a heart of mutual love, nourishment, aid, and accomplishment, and a capacity for work and production” (Ogyū 1973b: 54). Sorai does not see such a social instinct to be in itself sufficient to give rise to a society properly governed by Confucian norms, but he does depict humans as having a certain natural inclination toward harmonious social and political relationships. Shundai also differs from Sorai in equating the Confucian Way with the “Way of heaven” (tendō 天道) or “Way of heaven and earth” (ametsuchi no michi 天地の道) (Dazai 1902: 215), as opposed to Sorai’s declaration that “the Way of the ancient kings was created by the ancient kings; it is not the Way naturally existing in heaven and earth” (Ogyū 1973a: 14). Shundai does, however, see the teachings of the ancient sage kings as indispensible to bringing the Way to humans, commenting, “The opening up of the Way [by the sages] is like being the first to open up a path through roadless fields and mountains” (Dazai 1902: 215). In this sense, he follows Sorai in connecting the Way to the actions of specific figures in the Chinese past. Moreover, in contrast to ZHU Xi, Shundai does not see the natural origin of the Way as implying a cosmic unity in which the Way inheres in the a priori essence of all things, including human nature. Like Sorai, he sees the Way as necessarily an external force for cultivating and socializing people. While Shundai inherited Sorai’s basic understanding of the Way as external to human nature, his more pessimistic stance toward this nature resulted, as we will see, in a number of departures from his teacher’s doctrines. The philosophical differences between the two are not surprising given that Shundai had always maintained a considerable degree of independence within Sorai’s school, at times resulting in tense relationships with Sorai as well as Sorai’s other disciples. For one thing, Shundai only came to study with Sorai in his early 30s, after having already reached a certain level of maturity as a scholar, making him less inclined to unquestioningly accept Sorai’s teachings. In addition, his insistence on strict adherence to ritual propriety put him at odds with the easygoing atmosphere of Sorai’s school, which emphasized the cultivation of literary elegance, often in the context of parties that combined the composition of poetry with drinking and other entertainments.1 In Shundai’s eyes, Sorai and his students displayed a disturbing lack of interest in correct behavior, and in an unsent letter written while Sorai was sick and approaching death, Shundai complains bitterly about his teacher’s failure to recognize his virtues, writing, “You are able to accept literati and ambitious men, but not scholars who uphold ritual” (Dazai 1986: 296).2 Another criticism he makes of those who lose themselves in literary pursuits is that they neglect government, such as in the following comment from a work Shundai produced shortly after Sorai’s death: “The Way of the sages has no purpose other than governing the realm and provinces… 1 For discussions of Shundai’s relationship to Sorai’s academy, see Takebe 1997: 16–21 and Tajiri and Hikita 1995: 27–36. 2 This letter is discussed at some length in Yamashita 1992. Yamashita points out how Shundai not only displayed personal hostility toward Sorai, but also challenged certain of Sorai’s philosophical ideas.

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Those who discard this and fail to study these matters, instead passing their lives occupied pointlessly with literary writings, are not true scholars. They are no different from the practitioners of such minor arts as the zither, go, calligraphy, or painting” (Dazai 1967: 19). While Sorai himself had been deeply engaged with political questions, providing detailed policy proposals in such works as A Discourse on Government (Seidan 政談) and A Proposal for Great Peace (Taiheisaku 太平策), the majority of his disciples were not, and Shundai’s dismissal of dilettantish literati is a thinly veiled attack on the other surviving members of Sorai’s school, such as the poet HATTORI Nankaku 服部南郭 (1683–1759). Shundai’s scholarship was wide-ranging, covering such topics as political economy, Confucian philosophy, linguistics, and poetry. His main work on political economy is A Record of Political Economy (Keizairoku 経済録, 1729), which he supplemented later with a brief addendum entitled Gleanings from A Record of Political Economy (Keizairoku shūi 経済録拾遺, 1744). In A Treatise on the Way he argues for the superiority of Confucianism over Shinto and Buddhism, and rejects the idea that Japan had any norms for governing society before the importation of Confucianism. Shundai’s Dialogue on the Learning of the Sages is his most significant statement on such philosophical topics as human nature, the heart (J: kokoro 心 C: xin), and the emotions (J: jō 情 C: qing), all of which were central to Song and Ming Confucianism. Shundai, like Sorai, believed that later Confucians were wrong to value the Four Books over the Six Classics, and in A General Outline of the Six Classics (Rikukei ryakusetsu 六経略説, 1745), he discusses the role that each of the Six Classics plays in the practice of the Way. His linguistics studies focus especially on how to read Chinese characters in Japanese, and one of his most important works on this topic is his Guidelines for Reading in Japanese (Wadoku yōryō 和読要領, 1728). Shundai’s two main works on literary theory are A Discourse on Literary Writing (Bunron 文論) and A Discourse on Poetry (Shiron 詩論), which contain criticisms of Sorai and Nankaku’s ideas about literature, and were published together posthumously in 1748. My focus here will be on Shundai’s definition of human nature in relation to the Confucian Way, which I will explore primarily through his Dialogue on the Learning of the Sages, also turning to A Record of Political Economy and Gleanings from A Record of Political Economy for evidence of how his conception of human nature affected his views on political economy.

8.1

Shundai on Human Nature

Shundai identifies Mencius as the philosopher most responsible for bringing human nature to the forefront of Confucian philosophical discourse, and sees his ideas as having led many later scholars astray from the original content of Confucius’ teachings. Following a line of reasoning presented earlier by Sorai, Shundai argues that Mencius formulated his theory of human nature to defend Confucianism against its Daoist critics, who charged that Confucian teachings were artificial and thus drew

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people away from the true Way that spontaneously fills heaven and earth: “Mencius was averse to these theories, and in order to defeat them he said, with the purpose of explaining that humaneness (J: jin 仁 C: ren), rightness (J: gi 義 C: yi), ritual (J: rei 礼 C: li), and wisdom (J: chi 智 C: zhi) exist originally in human nature, that human nature is virtuous and entirely without wickedness” (Dazai 1972b: 70).3 Elsewhere, Shundai compares Mencius’ rhetorical strategy to the Buddhist idea of “expedient means” (hōben 方便), in other words, teachings that in themselves deviate from true doctrine, yet are designed to draw in unbelievers and eventually guide them to the truth (Dazai 1972b: 62). Shundai does not see Mencius’ goal of upholding Confucian teachings as absolving him from blame, though, as he claims that the kinds of disputes Mencius engaged in, unlike Confucius’ conversations with his disciples, inevitably force people to distort their views (Dazai 1972b: 61).4 Shundai also rejects Xunzi’s 荀子 view of human nature as wicked, maintaining that he developed this theory through the same kind of argumentation that had led to Mencius’ deviations from the original teachings of Confucius. In response to the Daoists’ argument that Confucian teachings are false (itsuwari 偽), Shundai argues, Xunzi acknowledged their falseness, while explaining that they were necessary in order to control the wicked behavior that would result from people following only their natural instincts. He concedes that “Xunzi’s intention was not originally bad, as his point was to emphasize teachings, rather than human nature,” but charges that in his effort to correct Mencius’ flawed notion of the virtuousness of human nature, Xunzi “over-corrected it and distorted it in the other direction” (Dazai 1972b: 71). For this reason, “even though Mencius and Xunzi are at odds in their explanations of human nature, they are equally at fault in departing from the aims of the sages” (Dazai 1972b: 71). Rather than defining human nature as universally virtuous or wicked, Shundai argues that people’s natures differ, and can be divided into three basic types: the virtuous (zen 善), the wicked (aku 悪), and the intermediate (chūyō 中庸). Those with a virtuous nature will always do what is right, while those with a wicked nature will always commit crimes and immoral acts. Those with an intermediate nature, however, take on different qualities depending on their environment and education: “If they live among virtuous people and encounter good teachings, they become virtuous people. If they live among wicked people and are colored by wicked things, they become wicked people” (Dazai 1972b: 69). He presents a slightly different version of the same basic idea in his reading of Analects XVII.3, which states, “Only those of the highest wisdom and the lowest stupidity cannot be moved.” Commenting on this passage he writes, “Those of the highest surpassing wisdom know without awaiting teachings. Those of extremely low stupidity do not know 3

For a similar argument by Sorai, see Ogyū 1973a: 23–24. Sorai makes this point by distinguishing between the methods of teachers and of litigants. True teachers, he argues, educate people by transforming them over a long period of time, and only address themselves to those who have faith in them. Litigants, in contrast, engage in disputes with those who are skeptical of them, and thus attempt to quickly win such people over with detailed argumentation (Ogyū 1973a: 25–26). 4

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even if they are taught…The highest wisdom and the lowest stupidity are two types of nature. Apart from these are intermediate people” (Dazai 1972b: 68).5 As Shundai himself notes, his views on human nature are similar to HAN Yu’s 韓愈 (768–824) theory, put forth in Going to the Origins of Human Nature (Yuan xing 原性), of the three grades (pin 品) of human nature, which HAN Yu describes as follows: “Human nature has three grades: the superior (shang 上), the inferior (xia 下), and the intermediate (zhong 中). The superior is simply virtuous, the intermediate can be guided to become superior or inferior, and the inferior is simply wicked” (Han 1969: 7).6 Shundai does not present the three types of nature as strict categories, however, as he takes care to explain that they are simply rough divisions of the limitless variety of people’s natures: “One’s nature is one’s innate character. Ten people will have ten types of innate character, a hundred people will have a hundred types, a thousand people will have a thousand types, and ten thousand people will have ten thousand types” (Dazai 1972b: 69). Even within the general categories of virtue and wickedness, for example, there are many varieties: “The humane, the wise, the brave, the resolute, loyal subjects, and filial children all have types of virtue, and their natures are not the same. The lustful, the greedy, the mendacious, and the murderous all have types of wickedness, and their natures are not the same” (Dazai 1972b: 69). Sorai similarly presents people’s natures as diverse, and argues that the purpose of the Confucian Way is not to force people to conform to a single ideal, a goal he considers futile, but instead to develop the distinctive qualities bestowed on them by heaven. He sees the variety of people’s natures primarily in terms of their different talents, though, rather than their levels of moral virtue: “‘Talent’ (J: sai 才 C: cai) is the same as ‘capability’ (J: zai 材 C: cai). People have capabilities in the same way that trees do.7 Some trees are appropriate for being made into crossbeams, while others are appropriate for being made into rafters. In the same way, by following that which is different in their natures, humans each have things they can do well. These are capabilities” (Ogyū 1973b: 143). The cultivation of diverse talents is important to Sorai because successful government requires the coordination of different skills and aptitudes: “The governance of the realm is not something that can be done by a single person alone. Its accomplishment necessarily requires many abilities. This can be compared to how it is only when spring, summer, autumn, and winter are combined that a year is brought to completion, or how carpentry can only be practiced when hammer, chisel, blade, and saw are all possessed together” (Ogyū 1973a: 24). Shundai makes a similar point when he writes that “if the people of the realm had only one type of nature, then there would be many things insufficient for the uses of the country,” but this interest in practical talents is overshadowed in his writings by his moral definition of human nature (Dazai 1972b: 85). 5

Shundai’s interpretation of this passage, and how his reading of it relates to his theory of the three types of nature, is discussed at length in Hara 2008. 6 For Shundai’s discussion of HAN Yu, see Shundai 1972b: 69. 7 Sorai is playing on the multiple meanings of “zai 材,” which can mean not only “capabilities,” but also “lumber.”

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A common characterization of Sorai is that he is simply unconcerned with personal morality, which would imply that Shundai is departing radically from his teacher. MARUYAMA Masao 丸山眞男, in his seminal Studies in the History of Japanese Political Thought (Nihon seiji shisōshi kenkyū 日本政治思想史研究), argues that the separation of the public and private spheres is a key element of modern political consciousness, and credits Sorai with developing the beginnings of such a consciousness by defining the Confucian Way purely in terms of politics, rather than personal moral cultivation (Maruyama 1952: 82–83). Some later scholars, though, have pointed out that Sorai does not neglect morality as absolutely as Maruyama claims. HIRAISHI Naoaki 平石直昭, for example, notes that there is not such a clear-cut division between politics and morality in Sorai’s philosophy, as Sorai sees the promotion of the everyday morality that he defines as the content of the “mean” (J: chūyō 中庸 C: zhongyong) – virtues such as filial piety (J: kō 孝 C: xiao), brotherly obedience (J: tei 悌 C: ti), loyalty (J: chū 忠 C: zhong), and faithfulness (J: shin 信 C: xin) – as an important goal of government (Hiraishi 1987: 89–95). Although both Shundai and Sorai see morality as an element of the Confucian Way, they situate this morality differently in relation to the diversity of people’s natures. For Sorai, the mean is a least common denominator of virtue, consisting of “virtues that are not lofty and are easy to perform” (Ogyū 1978: 403). He draws strict class divisions when it comes to the cultivation of the Way, and while the mean is all that is required of the common people, the ruling class of gentlemen (J: kunshi 君子 C: junzi) are expected to not only practice the mean, but also study and develop themselves to a higher level by harnessing their own distinctive talents, which can then be put to use in specific official posts. As Sorai puts it, “even though you may have filial piety and brotherly obedience, if you do not study you cannot escape being a rustic” (Ogyū 1973b: 85), and “even though you may have the virtues of the mean, if you do not study the Way it is not enough to make you a gentleman” (Ogyū 1973b: 109). Sorai, then, takes personal morality for granted as something relatively uncomplicated and unproblematic, and unlike Shundai does not use it as a primary criterion for differentiating people’s levels of cultivation in the Way. Among the three general types of nature that Shundai lists, it is the intermediate that he sees as most common, noting that “those of surpassing wisdom and extreme stupidity are very rare” (Dazai 1972b: 82). The idea that most people both need instruction and are capable of responding to it is reflected in Shundai’s view of the relationship between human nature and the Confucian Way, in which he sees the Way as making use of human nature, while at the same time adding something to it. We can see this notion of cultivation in his discussion of the debate between Mencius and Gaozi 告子 recorded in Mencius, where Gaozi compares human nature to willows, and humaneness and rightness to cups and bowls made from these willows. Mencius objects to this metaphor, claiming that it implies that humaneness and rightness involve doing violence to human nature (Mencius Bk. 6, Pt. 1, Ch. 1). Sorai defends Gaozi against Mencius’ criticisms by explaining, “Other trees cannot be made into cups and bowls, so cups and bowls are in the nature of willows. However, how could cups and bowls be the spontaneous state (J: shizen 自然 C: ziran) of the willow?” (Ogyū 1973a: 10). Shundai makes a similar argument when

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he comments, “Among the various trees, the willow is pliant by nature, so it can be bent and made into cups and bowls. If we were simply to leave it as a willow, it would be useless, but when we make it into cups and bowls through human effort, then it becomes a utensil and is useful” (Dazai 1972b: 82–83). He then goes on to compare this process to Confucian education: “When someone is born with a nature that allows him to become a gentleman, this is like the pliancy of willow wood. Although he has the nature to become a gentleman, if he does not receive the teachings of the Way, he will end his days as an ordinary person. However, with the power of teachings he awakens to humaneness and rightness, and completes the virtue of the gentleman” (Dazai 1972b: 83). Humans have certain potentialities that are crucial to the cultivation of the Way, then, but they cannot develop these innate qualities without external intervention. Many of Shundai’s ideas about human nature that we have seen in this section essentially follow Sorai’s views, particularly in terms of how they both describe the Way as building on human nature, but also adding something that could never be derived from human nature alone. The relative importance they put on practical talents versus moral virtues is a notable difference between Shundai and Sorai, but they both portray the Way as harnessing and developing human nature’s qualities. While they reject any notion of the inherent perfection of human nature, then, they do see human nature as having a certain suitability for the Way. In the discussions of Shundai on human nature that we turn to next, though, we will see him depict the suitability of human nature for the Way in very minimal terms, at times even presenting human nature as in conflict with the Way.

8.2

Shundai’s Reading of the Four Beginnings

One of the most frequently cited statements in the Confucian textual tradition on the basic goodness of human nature is the passage in Mencius on the “four beginnings” (siduan 四端), which starts by declaring, “Humans all have a heart that cannot bear the suffering of others” (Bk. 2, Pt. 1, Ch. 6). As evidence for the instinctual quality of this feeling for others, the passage notes that upon seeing a small child about to fall into a well, no person would fail to feel compassion, a sentiment that moreover arises completely spontaneously, and not out of any calculated motive, such as a desire to be praised or to please others. It goes on to conclude, “From this we can see that whoever does not have the heart of compassion (ceyin 惻隠) is not human, whoever does not have the heart of shame and disapproval (xiuwu 羞悪) is not human, whoever does not have the heart of deference (cirang 辞譲) is not human, and whoever does not have the heart of right and wrong (shifei 是非) is not human.” It then relates these feelings to specific Confucian virtues: “The heart of compassion is the beginning (duan 端) of humaneness. The heart of shame and disapproval is the beginning of rightness. The heart of deference is the beginning of ritual propriety. The heart of right and wrong is the beginning of wisdom.” Interpretations of this passage vary, with some reading into it greater claims to innate human goodness

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than others. Shundai’s commentary on it is notable, though, for his outright rejection of many of Mencius’ claims, and his reluctance to admit anything more than the most minimal natural human inclination toward the norms of the Confucian Way. ZHU Xi’s interpretation of the four beginnings is based on a metaphysical dichotomy between principle (li 理) and material force (qi 気). Principle, in ZHU Xi’s philosophy, inheres in all things in the cosmos, and is the source of their a priori participation in the unified normative order of the Way. In the case of humans, principle is represented by a perfectly virtuous human nature. Principle only exists on the level of abstract value, though; what allows things to come into being in their physical reality is material force, which for humans is represented by the emotions. While principle is purely virtuous, material force can be either virtuous or wicked, depending on whether it facilitates or impedes the manifestation of principle. At times he describes material force as itself a kind of human nature, but when he does so, he refers to this as the “material nature” (qizhi zhi xing 気質之性), as opposed to the “original nature” (benran zhi xing 本然之性), which consists solely of principle. ZHU Xi frames the Mencius passage through his schema of principle and material force when he writes, “Compassion, shame and disapproval, deference, and right and wrong are emotions. Humaneness, rightness, ritual propriety, and wisdom are human nature. The heart is that which encompasses the emotions and human nature. A ‘beginning’ is like the tip of a thread. So when emotions are released, one can see the original state of human nature (xing zhi benran 性之本然), in the way that something inside can be known through the part of it that is visible on the outside” (Zhu 1983a: 238). In this reading, the fundamental goodness of humans exists within their perfectly virtuous original nature, and the four beginnings are outer emotional manifestations of this inner nature. Emotions can be either virtuous or wicked in ZHU Xi’s philosophy, and he sees the particular emotions mentioned in the Mencius passage as virtuous. He depicts their virtue as ultimately deriving, however, from the principle to which they conform. ITō Jinsai 伊藤仁斎 (1627–1705), whose ideas played a pivotal role in Sorai’s intellectual development, agrees with ZHU Xi on the basic goodness of human nature, but criticizes him for locating this goodness in a static and abstract human nature that is defined separately from material force. He charges that ZHU Xi’s dualism of principle and material force ends up divorcing virtue from its actual practice, with the consequence that “humaneness, rightness, ritual propriety, and wisdom become empty vessels” (Itō 1971: 43). He instead defines human nature in terms of a monism of material force, and writes that when Mencius spoke of the virtuousness of human nature, “he did not refer to this apart from material qualities” (Itō 1971: 49). In interpreting the Mencius passage on the four beginnings, Jinsai argues that the term “beginning” refers not to an outer manifestation of something hidden inside, but rather to the fundamental origin of a thing. The implication is that it is not that people begin with, for example, an innate virtue of humaneness, which then comes into physical being in the form of the emotion of compassion, but instead that they begin with the innate heart of compassion, out of which humaneness is then developed (Itō 1971: 54). In this way, Jinsai presents Confucian ethical cultivation not as a search for an inward purity, but as an outward movement in which people

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actively exercise the four beginnings and expand them into full-fledged Confucian virtues. For Jinsai, the four beginnings can legitimately be called human nature, but the four virtues with which they are associated cannot. In contrast to ZHU Xi, then, who sees human nature as containing within itself the perfection of virtue from the start, Jinsai draws a distinction between human nature and the virtues that are eventually developed out of it. Sorai, like Jinsai, rejects the idea of Confucian cultivation as the recovery of a morally pure original human nature, and sees the four beginnings as elements of a human nature that consists solely of material force. One point where Sorai’s interpretation of the four beginnings departs from Jinsai’s, though, is that while Jinsai considers humaneness, rightness, ritual propriety, and wisdom all to be virtues, Sorai draws a distinction between ritual and rightness, which he considers components of the Way itself as a set of norms established by the sages, and humaneness and wisdom, which he considers virtues, that is to say, qualities that people cultivate in themselves by following the Way.8 Sorai also differs from Jinsai in emphasizing that Mencius’ discussion of the four beginnings needs to be understood in its polemical context: “The ancient kings established the Way and virtues by following human nature. Therefore Mencius simply speaks of being ‘rooted in human nature.’ It is just that he enjoyed debating, and was arguing with outsiders, so he did not choose his words carefully, and spoke of things according to his arbitrary personal preferences, so his meaning ended up becoming obscure” (Ogyū 1973b: 71–72). Sorai’s strongest criticism of Jinsai with regard to the four beginnings is that he fails to recognize that their development and extension must take place within the framework of the creations of the historical sage kings. The Mencius passage declares that the four beginnings are something that all people possess, just as all people possess four limbs, and Jinsai describes the development of these into humaneness, rightness, ritual propriety, and wisdom as being like extending the four limbs outward (Itō 1971: 39). Sorai agrees with Jinsai that the four beginnings should be thought of as an innate predisposition toward the Way, but emphasizes that their cultivation must rely on the ritual and music created by the sages, which are extrinsic to human nature. He explains, “Those who do not realize this see a problem with how ritual and music are something external, and are not in the self. Such people do not have faith in the teachings of the sages, and try to achieve humaneness through their own personal intelligence” (Ogyū 1973b: 56). Shundai begins his discussion of the four beginnings by citing Sorai’s argument that humaneness and wisdom, as virtues, need to be distinguished from ritual and rightness, which are the Way (Dazai 1972b: 75). He departs from Sorai, though, by only fully accepting one out of four of Mencius’ formulations of the four beginnings: “[Mencius] says that ‘the heart of compassion is the beginning of humaneness,’ and this is true…Among his explanations of the four beginnings, only this one is reasonable” (Dazai 1972b: 77). He acknowledges a certain validity in Mencius’ I translate rei 礼 (C: li) as “ritual” (rather than “ritual propriety”) when discussing Sorai and Shundai’s use of the term, as for them it refers to actual rituals themselves, not to the virtue of propriety associated with these rituals. 8

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statement that “the heart of right and wrong is the beginning of wisdom,” saying that this “is not unreasonable,” and that “this heart of right and wrong is something that exists spontaneously (shizen 自然) in people, without needing to await the teachings of the sages, so it is not wrong to say that people all have it” (Dazai 1972b: 81). He immediately qualifies this statement, though, by arguing that because different people have different notions of right and wrong, “it is difficult to say that judging right and wrong is the beginning of wisdom” (Dazai 1972b: 81). Instead, he suggests replacing “the heart of right and wrong” in Mencius’ formula with “the heart of adopting and rejecting (shusha 取捨),” which Shundai defines in terms of a natural human tendency toward utilitarian self-interest: “Favoring gain and avoiding harm, and avoiding pain and favoring pleasure, are all the heart of adopting and rejecting. This is the heart of seeking out what is beneficial to oneself, so it is an intelligent heart, and is the beginning of wisdom” (Dazai 1972b: 81). While Shundai does see wisdom as connected to human nature, then, the aspect of human nature that he identifies as the beginning of wisdom is very different from the altruistic compassion that he connects to humaneness. Shundai presents an even less flattering picture of human nature when it comes to his discussion of ritual and rightness. Sorai, while denying that rightness is itself natural, acknowledges that “all people have a heart of shame and disapproval” (Ogyū 1973b: 77). Shundai, however, writes, “Shame and disapproval do not originally exist in the human heart. It is only after people heard the sages’ teachings of ritual and rightness that they knew to have shame and disapproval. Left just as they are born within heaven and earth, people are no different from beasts” (Dazai 1972b: 78). He makes a similar criticism of Mencius’ statement about the relationship of ritual to the heart of deference: The heart of deference does not originally exist in people. This, just like shame and disapproval, is a heart that only emerges after receiving the sages’ teachings of ritual and rightness. Among the people of the realm, there are none who do not have a competitive heart… In matters of wealth and fame, people strive to get ahead even if it means pushing aside others, when toil is required, they try to make others do it while avoiding it themselves, and when dividing things up with others, they try to get for themselves better things and more of them, even if just a little. People are drawn to gain the way flies gather on meat, and they avoid harm in the same way they fear poisonous snakes. (Dazai 1972b: 79–80)

Far from developing as an extension of qualities inherent in human nature, then, ritual and rightness impose proper norms by suppressing human nature. Moving from ZHU Xi to Jinsai to Sorai to Shundai, we can see a gradual erosion of the idea of the innate goodness of human nature, accompanied by an increased emphasis on the need for people to look outside themselves for norms. Both Sorai and Shundai see at least certain aspects of human nature as inclined toward proper social behavior, while at the same time considering it necessary to rely on the creations of the historical sages in order to cultivate people in the Confucian Way. They present quite different versions, however, of this basic paradigm for understanding human nature and the Way, and we will turn next to how Shundai’s more pessimistic take on human nature affects his portrayal of self-cultivation.

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225

Shundai on External Compliance and Internal Transformation

Sorai and Shundai, together with their questioning of ZHU Xi’s formulation of human nature, criticize him for granting a central role to the notion of “genuineness” (J: makoto 誠 C: cheng). ZHU Xi defines “genuineness” in terms of the unity with the Way that comes from uncovering the pure virtue of human nature: “[Genuineness] refers to being true and without delusions, and is the original state of heavenly principle” (Zhu 1983b: 31).9 Shundai rejects this reading, instead expressing agreement with Sorai’s interpretation of “genuineness” as “the matching of outer and inner” (hyōri itchi 表裏一致) (Dazai 1972b: 99).10 Shundai also explains this idea in terms of the relationship between the “heart” (kokoro 心) and “affairs” (koto 事): “Affairs are external (soto 外), and the heart is internal (uchi 内). The matching of external and internal is called ‘genuineness’” (Dazai 1972b: 100). This state of genuineness, Sorai and Shundai note, can be attributed to completely natural behavior that is based on the qualities people are born with, as well as behavior that, while initially involving artifice, is over time learned and practiced to the point that it becomes as if natural. By making genuineness a merely descriptive reference to any situation in which external behavior is in accord with the internal heart, Sorai and Shundai remove the normative component central to ZHU Xi’s definition of the term. Their repudiation of ZHU Xi’s idea of the innate virtue of human nature is an important part of this redefinition of genuineness, as they see it as possible for people, either through instinct or by absorbing the wrong teachings and habits, to be “genuine” even when acting improperly. As Shundai puts it, “There is genuineness in virtue, and also genuineness in vice” (Dazai 1972b: 101). Sorai makes the same observation, concluding that due to its normative emptiness, “genuineness was not originally something that the sages made part of their teachings” (Ogyū 1973b: 94). This is not to say that genuineness is completely meaningless to them, but they see its value as deriving not from the matching of inner and outer per se, but rather from the internalization of correct teachings. In Shundai’s words, “In the Way of the sages, one discards the genuineness of vice, and takes hold of the genuineness of virtue” (Dazai 1972b: 101). He describes the importance of internalizing teachings when he writes, “The teachings of the sages come from the outside and enter into the inside. When these teachings have been completely absorbed, then the outer and inner are matched. This is considered accomplishment, and is called the ‘attainment of virtue’” (Dazai 1972b: 95). Elsewhere, though, Shundai goes in a different direction, one that Sorai does not, by making a point of dismissing the importance of such a process of internalization, 9

This passage from ZHU Xi is cited in Dazai 1972b: 99. In his commentary on the Doctrine of the Mean, Sorai interprets “genuineness” as the “unity of inner and outer” (naigai itsu 内外一) (Ogyū 1978: 442). Shundai is slightly modifying Sorai’s wording, but retains the same basic idea. 10

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instead declaring that the cultivation of the Confucian Way is simply a matter of external behavior: “Those who in their comportment uphold the rituals of the ancient kings, in dealing with affairs make use of the rightness of the ancient kings, and on the exterior (gaimen 外面) display the demeanor of the gentleman are considered gentlemen. One does not inquire as to the state of their internal heart (naishin 内心)” (Dazai 1972b: 95). The control that Confucian ritual exercises over the heart, he argues, should be understood in terms of preventing immoral emotions from manifesting themselves in improper behavior; the emotions themselves have no bearing on one’s adherence to ritual. Discussing the ritual of marriage, he writes, “In the Way of the sages, even if one looks at another’s wife, feels in one’s heart how beautiful she is, and takes pleasure in her appearance, as long as one does not commit a violation of ritual then one is considered a gentleman who upholds ritual. This is what is meant [in the Book of Documents] by the phrase ‘with ritual control the heart’” (Dazai 1972b: 126). Shundai contrasts Confucianism’s focus on external behavior with the inward orientation of Buddhism, which “even when one does not commit any fault on the exterior, considers it a sin when one has something bad in one’s internal heart, referring to this as delusions, earthly passions, and fantasies” (Dazai 1972b: 96). He sees Song Confucians’ definition of self-cultivation in terms of regulating the internal desires of the heart, much like their idea of recovering a purely good original nature, as a result of their infiltration by Buddhist thought: “The Cheng 程 brothers and ZHU Xi…consider human desires (jin’yoku 人欲) a blemish on human nature…This is an erroneous theory that came about from how they envied the Buddhist idea of cutting oneself off from delusions and clarifying the Buddha nature” (Dazai 1972b: 106). Shundai’s external definition of the gentleman has been one of the most famous and controversial aspects of his thought in modern scholarship. INOUE Tetsujirō 井 上哲次郎, an influential Meiji period scholar of Tokugawa thought, condemned Shundai for his acceptance of a gap between internal feeling and external behavior, claiming that it amounted to an idealization of hypocrisy (Inoue 1902: 692). MARUYAMA Masao, in contrast, evaluated this aspect of Shundai in positive terms, arguing that it represented a characteristically modern liberation of the private sphere from public norms (Maruyama 1952: 247). A weakness of both of these readings, though, is that they do not sufficiently account for how Shundai’s external definition of the gentleman fits with other aspects of his philosophy, such as the profound unease that he expresses about improper emotions. On the one hand, he stresses that “not to have emotions is not to be human” (Dazai 1972b: 74), and that, as we saw above in his discussion of ritual, the Way of the sages “does not inquire as to the virtue or wickedness of one’s emotions” (Dazai 1972b: 95). At the same time, he does see unrestrained emotions as dangerous. As NAKAMURA Shunsaku 中村春作 has noted, Shundai is similar to both Jinsai and Sorai in seeing the heart as an “active thing” (katsubutsu 活物), an assertion directed against ZHU Xi’s notion of the heart as governed by a static principle, but Shundai goes much further than Jinsai and Sorai in his concern for the instability of this active heart (Nakamura 1991: 267). In explaining why the ritual of marriage is necessary, for example,

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Shundai writes, “The desire between men and women is a great desire (taiyoku 大欲) of humans, and if it were left to run rampant, then people would be no different from beasts” (Dazai 1972b: 125). Statements like this suggest that even if the Confucian Way does not strictly demand that people eliminate immoral inner emotions, these emotions still threaten the stability of the Way. While Inoue and Maruyama see Shundai as purely concerned with external compliance to norms, other scholars have called attention to his views on the internalization of the Way. KOJIMA Yasunori 小島康敬, criticizing Inoue’s reading of Shundai, argues that although Shundai describes ritual as beginning with mere external performance, he sees the ultimate goal of ritual as being to transform people from within, resulting in the achievement of the matching of inner and outer that Shundai identifies with the term “genuineness” (Kojima 1994: 77–78). BITō Masahide 尾藤正英 also writes about this process through which teachings that come from outside human nature are gradually learned to the point of becoming natural. He points to a significant distinction between how Sorai and Shundai envision this process, noting that while Sorai sees it in terms of being unconsciously transformed by teachings bestowed by others, Shundai presents it as involving intense personal effort (Bitō 1972: 503–4).11 In describing the proper role of the teacher, for example, Sorai writes, “Those who teach others always situate their students within their techniques, and after the students are at ease for a long time, the teacher transforms their eyes and ears, as well as their hearts and thoughts. Therefore without even awaiting the teacher’s words, they spontaneously understand” (Ogyū 1973a: 25). Shundai has a similar result in mind, but imagines a very different process for arriving at it: “Sometimes one suppresses one’s emotions and endures, sometimes one is diligent and uses one’s strength, and by applying some care and artifice, an affair is accomplished. However, once one has brought that affair to completion, it becomes one’s own, and becomes like a personal habit. After that, there is no more need for endurance and diligence, and it becomes as if it were one’s heaven-endowed nature received at birth” (Dazai 1972b: 100). Shundai’s discussions of self-cultivation incorporate two tendencies that at first glance may appear at odds. On the one hand, he displays a radical permissiveness toward internal emotions, going out of his way to declare that even the most immoral desires have no bearing on whether we consider someone a Confucian gentleman. On the other hand, he emphasizes the need for people to exert themselves to internalize the Way. These aspects of his thought appear less contradictory, though, when we see them as both emerging out of Shundai’s negative view of human nature, and the conflict between human nature and the Way that such a view entails. In this context, we can interpret his external definition of the gentleman not merely as a liberation of the private sphere, or a hedonistic celebration of emotionality, but rather as a recognition of how internal attitudes will diverge from external behavior 11

Bitō argues that Shundai’s emphasis on personal moral cultivation, as well as his view of the Confucian Way as existing in nature, represent in some ways a return to ZHU Xi’s ideas. He sees Shundai’s views on the relationship between the internal heart and external actions, though, as clearly opposed to ZHU Xi (Bitō 1972: 507).

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when people try to follow something that clashes with their nature. Sorai is able to imagine the internalization of the Way as occurring without such conflicts, but Shundai’s more pessimistic view of human nature leads him to highlight the personal struggle needed to cultivate the Way, as well as to consider, as a second-best alternative to fully internalizing proper norms, how people can be said to follow the Way even in the absence of such internalization.

8.4

Non-action and the Limits of Sagely Government

In its basic outlines, Shundai’s vision of Confucian political economy draws heavily on Sorai’s ideas. Sorai criticizes Tokugawa society for its lack of appropriate institutions (seido 制度), the establishment of which he sees as the primary task of the founders of dynasties. He finds particular fault with the Tokugawa policies of removing the samurai from the countryside and concentrating them in castle towns, and of subjecting daimyo to the alternate attendance requirement and the large expenditures that it entails. The physical separation of the samurai from the peasants, he maintains, prevents the personal connection between rulers and ruled that he sees as essential to Confucian government. Moreover, he claims, in cities the samurai “live as if in an inn,” paying for everything in cash to satisfy their increasingly extravagant tastes, in the end driving themselves into poverty (Ogyū 1973c: 305–6). Throughout Tokugawa society, he argues, people relate to each other as isolated individuals, connected only through monetary exchange and contractual arrangements, rather than through feelings of mutual obligation or a sense of membership in a community. It is in response to this diagnosis of his society’s ills that Sorai proposes that the samurai be resettled in the countryside, where he believes they will naturally develop feelings of empathy for the common people, as well as lead more frugal lives, saving them from financial hardship on an individual level, and on a broader class level from subordination to the urban merchant class and its values. This proposal is related to his idealization of feudal (J: hōken 封建 C: fengjian) social relationships, where “feudalism” refers specifically to the type of decentralized government characteristic of the Three Dynasties of ancient China, in which local rulers have power over their own fiefs and maintain contact with the people they govern over multiple generations. This arrangement is in contrast to the centralized bureaucracies of later Chinese history, in which territories are administered by officials appointed from the capital for fixed terms of office. He sees these different forms of rule as leading to different forms of human relationships, commenting, “In the Way of feudalism, the relationship to the people is like that of a father and son within a house. In a [centralized] system of prefectures and counties (J: gunken 郡県 C: junxian), though, they rely only on laws; everything is explicit and impartial, but there is no kindness and affection” (Ogyū 1973a: 21–22). The problem he sees with laws is that they merely enforce external compliance, without permeating people on a deep level. Proper institutions, though, are able to transform customs

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(fūzoku 風俗), which he describes as actually changing people from within. While he agrees with the goals of sumptuary legislation, for example, he finds such a policy futile because of how it relies on laws, without altering customs: “[Such legislation] is like ordering to people from the mountains that they learn to swim, or ordering to people from the coast that they burn charcoal. To do so would be to set aside that which custom permits people to do, and to try to govern through laws. When one does this one is trying to force what cannot be done, so in the end this is impossible” (Ogyū 1973d: 462). The ideal Confucian society that Shundai presents in A Record of Political Economy largely overlaps with Sorai’s ideas, with a preference for feudal over centralized government, and an affirmation of the Tokugawa four-class system of samurai, farmers, artisans, and merchants. Shundai sees agriculture as the backbone of the economy, arguing that although no class can be dispensed with, “in the tasks of the common people there is the root and there are branches; farming is the root task, and the activities of artisans and merchants are branch tasks” (Dazai 1967: 115). He is critical of the urbanization of the samurai, writing, “The Way of governing the common people is based in being attached to the land,” and complaining that in his own day, “the only people who are attached to the land are farmers, while all others are separated from the land, and are like guests at an inn” (Dazai 1967: 260). He also echoes Sorai when he emphasizes how “in governing the realm and provinces, in all matters the foremost task is to establish institutions (seido 制度) in all matters” (Dazai 1967: 248). Even when defending Confucian government, though, Shundai at times presents its goals in more modest terms than Sorai. In one description of governing with the Confucian Way, Shundai writes, “Controlling the people with ritual and rightness is like holding back water with a levee” (Dazai 1972b: 125). His use of this image is telling when contrasted with how Sorai employs a similar metaphor to illustrate how it is impossible to control people with mere laws, without carrying out any deeper transformation of society: “This is like not stopping a flow of water at its source, and instead putting a levee downstream. The water will grow higher and higher, and in the end the levee will surely collapse” (Ogyū 1973d: 462). Shundai departs even further from Sorai’s ideals when he argues that if circumstances make it impossible to put Confucianism into practice, it is acceptable to make use of other Ways, such as Legalism and Daoism. In A Record of Political Economy, he explains this point by comparing Confucianism to the five grains that people normally rely on for nourishment, and other Ways to medicines that people turn to when they are ill, and that achieve results precisely because of their unbalanced, poisonous character. Shundai states, Such medicines are not things that one ought to consume ordinarily, but their effectiveness in curing illness is something that the five grains cannot achieve, so doctors make use of these. The Ways of people like Laozi 老子 are like this. They are not the ordinary Way for governing the realm and provinces, but in later ages, when various illnesses have arisen in the land, the Ways propounded by the various philosophers, including Laozi’s non-action, Mozi’s 墨子 universal love, and SHEN Buhai 申不害 and Hanfeizi’s 韓非子 punishments and laws, all have their uses. When these are used well, they are all good medicines, and will not fail to cure the illnesses of the country. (Dazai 1967: 287)

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In the final book of A Record of Political Economy, it is Daoism that he ultimately prescribes for his society: “With the non-action of Laozi, neither those above nor those below carry out any actions, and they leave everything to the natural course of heaven and earth. They do not meddle at all in matters of the realm, and just let things run their course. From the point of view of Confucians, this seems to lack humaneness, but in fact this is not the case. This is the Way appropriate for a decayed age” (Dazai 1967: 283).12 Later he argues that his own time is precisely such an age: “In the present age, since Genroku 元禄 [1688–1704], both the samurai and the common people have become impoverished throughout the realm, and the vitality of the country has decayed, so now is a time when we should stop everything, and entirely practice non-action” (Dazai 1967: 287). In Gleanings from A Record of Political Economy, Shundai uses the notion of “medicines” in a more positive, proactive way, one that reflects what Tetsuo Najita has pointed to as the centrality of economic well-being as a goal of his political thought (Najita 1972: 834). One issue he takes up in this work is the impoverishment of the samurai class, which, as in his own and Sorai’s earlier work, he attributes to the fact that they live in cities and are forced to purchase things in a currency economy. Ideally these problems should be resolved through the creation of institutions, without which “customs will decline, and the country’s finances will be in the red” (Dazai 1972a: 300). He notes, however, that “it is beyond the power of a single domain to transform the institutions of the entire realm” (Dazai 1972a: 300). Therefore, he argues, “just as in an emergency a doctor cures only the symptoms, one should look at what is critical in the illness of the present, and seek deliverance from this” (Dazai 1972a: 301). The way to do this, he proposes, is for daimyo to earn money through trade: “When it comes to techniques for amassing gold, nothing is better than to profit through trade. As a feudal lord, to seek profit through trade is not the optimal policy for governing the country, but it is one technique for finding salvation from the current emergency” (Dazai 1972a: 305). More specifically, he advocates cultivating the products that the climate and other characteristics of a particular domain make it most suited for, and trading these with other domains. While he still casts such activities in somewhat negative terms, he shows a greater willingness than Sorai to flexibly adapt the Confucian Way to respond to the economic and social changes of his day.

8.5

Conclusion

In his discussions of both the cultivation of the Confucian Way by individuals and its application to governance, Shundai offers in many ways a more limited vision than Sorai of the transformative potential of Confucianism. Sorai’s ambitious hopes for 12

Shundai argues that Confucianism has its own kind of “non-action,” distinct from that of Daoism. In Confucian non-action, a political system is put in place, and then things are allowed to run their course within the bounds of this system.

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enacting the Way of the sages in his society are tied to a view of human nature as fundamentally in harmony with the Way, but for Shundai the Way has to overcome human nature, meaning that it can at best only be practiced through intense effort, and at times is not a feasible ideal at all. It does not do justice to Shundai, though, simply to depict him as offering a diluted version of Sorai’s philosophy. While Shundai often takes a less purist approach to Confucianism than his teacher, he does so not out of a mere abandonment of Confucian ideals, but rather out of an acute consciousness of the difficulties involved in putting these ideals into practice. By grappling with problems that Sorai’s optimism keeps him from seeing as problems to begin with, Shundai presents in a certain sense a more carefully considered, even if less confident and philosophically consistent, account of Confucianism as a philosophy for the Japan of his time.

References Bitō, Masahide 尾藤正英. 1972. DAZAI Shundai’s person and thought (“DAZAI Shundai no hito to shisō 太宰春台の人と思想”). In Sorai gakuha 徂徠学派, Nihon shisō taikei 日本思想大系, vol. 37, ed. RAI Tsutomu 頼惟勤. Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten. (Summary of Shundai’s life and thought, with a focus on his philosophical departures from OGYŪ Sorai.) Dazai, Shundai 太宰春台. 1902. A treatise on the way (Bendōsho 弁道書). In Nihon rinri ihen 日本倫理彙編, vol. 6, ed. INOUE Tetsujirō 井上哲次郎 and KANIE Yoshimaru 蟹江義丸. Tokyo: Ikuseikai. Dazai, Shundai 太宰春台. 1967. A record of political economy (Keizairoku 経済録). In Nihon keizai taiten 日本経済大典, vol. 9, ed. TAKIMOTO Seiichi 滝本誠一. Tokyo: Meiji Bunken. Dazai, Shundai 太宰春台. 1972a. Gleanings from A record of political economy (Keizairoku shūi 経済録拾遺). In Sorai gakuha 徂徠学派, Nihon shisō taikei 日本思想大系, vol. 37, ed. RAI Tsutomu 頼惟勤. Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten. Dazai, Shundai 太宰春台. 1972b. Dialogue on the learning of the sages (Seigaku mondō 聖学問答). In Sorai gakuha 徂徠学派, Nihon shisō taikei 日本思想大系, vol. 37, ed. RAI Tsutomu 頼惟勤. Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten. Dazai, Shundai 太宰春台. 1986. Writings from Master Shundai’s Ganoderma Garden (Shundai sensei shishien kō 春台先生紫芝園稿). Edited by KOJIMA Yasunori 小島康敬. Kinsei juka bunshū shūsei 近世儒家文集集成, vol. 6. Tokyo: Perikansha. Han, Yu 韓愈. 1969. Going to the origins of human nature 原性. In HAN Yu’s Prose works 韓愈文. Taipei: Taiwan Shangwu Yinshuguan. Hara, Takashi 原貴史. 2008. On Sorai’s and Shundai’s theories of human nature (“Sorai to Shundai no seisetsu ni tsuite 徂徠と春台の性説について”). Chūgoku tetsugaku 中国哲学 36: 131–161. (Analysis of Sorai’s and Shundai’s conceptions of human nature and its cultivation.) Hiraishi, Naoaki 平石直昭. 1987. A critique of wartime and postwar interpretations of Sorai (“Senchū • sengo Sorairon hihan 戦中・戦後徂徠論批判”). Shakai kagaku kenkyū 社会科学 研究 39(1): 63–136. (Survey of scholarship on OGYŪ Sorai since the Second World War.) Inoue, Tetsujirō 井上哲次郎. 1902. The philosophy of the Japanese ancient learning school (Nihon kogakuha no tetsugaku 日本古学派之哲学). Tokyo: Fūzanbō. (Pioneering study of YAMAGA Sokō, ITō Jinsai, OGYŪ Sorai, and their schools.) Itō, Jinsai 伊藤仁斎. 1971. The meaning of terms in the Analects and Mencius (Gomō jigi 語孟字義). In ITŌ Jinsai • ITŌ Tōgai 伊藤仁斎・伊藤東涯, Nihon shisō taikei 日本思想大系, vol. 33, ed. YOSHIKAWA Kōjirō 吉川幸次郎 and SHIMIZU Shigeru 清水茂. Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten. Kojima, Yasunori 小島康敬. 1994. Sorai Learning and Anti-Sorai (Soraigaku to han Sorai 徂徠学 と反徂徠), Rev. ed. Tokyo: Perikansha. (Study of Sorai, his followers, and his various intellectual opponents.)

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Maruyama, Masao 丸山眞男. 1952. Studies in the history of Japanese political thought (Nihon seiji shisōshi kenkyū 日本政治思想史研究). Tokyo: Tōkyō Daigaku Shuppankai. (Highly influential study that presents OGYŪ Sorai’s philosophy as the beginning of a modern political consciousness in Japan.) Najita, Tetsuo. 1972. Political economism in the thought of DAZAI Shundai (1680–1747). Journal of Asian Studies 31(4): 821–839. (The most significant English-language work on Shundai.) Nakamura, Shunsaku 中村春作. 1991. The development of the concept of the ‘material nature’: A discussion of DAZAI Shundai (“‘Kishitsu no sei’ no yukue: DAZAI Shundai ron 「気質の性」 の行方:太宰春台論”). Hiroshima Daigaku kyōiku gakubu kiyō 広島大学教育学部紀要, part 2, 40: 261–268. (Discussion of Shundai’s ideas on the individuality of people’s natures.) Ogyū, Sorai 荻生徂徠. 1973a. Distinguishing the way (Bendō 弁道). In OGYŪ Sorai 荻生徂徠, Nihon shisō taikei 日本思想大系, vol. 36, ed. YOSHIKAWA Kōjirō 吉川幸次郎 et al. Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten. Ogyū, Sorai 荻生徂徠. 1973b. Distinguishing names (Benmei 弁名). In OGYŪ Sorai 荻生徂徠, Nihon shisō taikei 日本思想大系, vol. 36, ed. YOSHIKAWA Kōjirō 吉川幸次郎 et al. Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten. Ogyū, Sorai 荻生徂徠. 1973c. A discourse on government (Seidan 政談). In OGYŪ Sorai 荻生徂徠, Nihon shisō taikei 日本思想大系, vol. 36, ed. YOSHIKAWA Kōjirō 吉川幸次郎 et al. Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten. Ogyū, Sorai 荻生徂徠. 1973d. A proposal for great peace (Taiheisaku 太平策). In OGYŪ Sorai 荻生徂徠, Nihon shisō taikei 日本思想大系, vol. 36, ed. YOSHIKAWA Kōjirō 吉川幸次郎 et al. Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten. Ogyū, Sorai 荻生徂徠. 1978. An interpretation of the Doctrine of the mean (Chūyō kai 中庸解). In OGYŪ Sorai zenshū 荻生徂徠全集, vol. 2, ed. IMANAKA Kanshi 今中寛司 and NARAMOTO Tatsuya 奈良本辰也. Tokyo: Kawade Shobō. Tajiri, Yūichirō 田尻裕一郎 and Hikita, Keiyū 疋田啓佑. 1995. DAZAI Shundai and HATTORI Nankaku (DAZAI Shundai • HATTORI Nankaku 太宰春台・服部南郭). Tokyo: Meitoku Shuppansha. (Study of the life and writings of DAZAI Shundai and his fellow Sorai school disciple HATTORI Nankaku.) Takebe, Yoshito 武部善人. 1997. DAZAI Shundai (DAZAI Shundai 太宰春台). Tokyo: Yoshikawa Kōbunkan. (Biographical study of Shundai with a focus on his views on political economy.) Yamashita, Samuel Hideo. 1992. School Relations in OGYŪ Sorai’s Miscanthus Patch Academy. The Case of DAZAI Shundai (1680–1747). Asian Cultural Studies Special Issue 3: 273–286. (Analysis of Shundai’s ideas in the context of his relations with Sorai’s academy.) Zhu, Xi 朱熹. 1983a. Collected commentaries on Mencius 孟子集注. In Section and sentence annotations and collected commentaries on the Four Books 四書章句集注. Beijing: Zhonghua Shuju. Zhu, Xi 朱熹. 1983b. Section and sentence annotations on the Doctrine of the mean 中庸章句. In Section and sentence annotations and collected commentaries on the Four Books 四書章句集注. Beijing: Zhonghua Shuju.

Chapter 9

Kokugaku Critiques of Confucianism and Chinese Culture Peter Nosco

9.1

Introduction

The word Kokugaku 国学 has been used to refer to a broad range of scholarly, intellectual, and academic pursuits in Japan. During the Nara 奈良 period (710–793), it referred to provincial academies, distinguishing them from the university (daigaku 大学) in the capital. A thousand years later, Kokugaku came to be synonymous with various forms of Japanese studies, which were also known at the time by such terms as Wagaku 和学 (Japanese studies), waga kuni no manabi 我が国の学び (studies of our country), and even simply by the word gakumon 学問 (scholarship). The word “Kokugaku” has been just as variously translated into English, with the most common translations being National Learning, National Studies, and nativism. For roughly a century from the 1720s to the 1820s, the leading figures in Japanese studies or Kokugaku in Japan were typically critical of China in general, and both Chinese studies and Confucianism in particular. This essay examines how this unusual circumstance came about, since such opposition between the two was exceptional both beforehand and afterwards. It is helpful to think of two kinds of Kokugaku. At the broader and more inclusive end of the spectrum, Kokugaku included such fields of study as national literature (later called kokubungaku 国文学), Japanese history (Nihonshi 日本史), antiquarian matters (yūsoku kojitsu 有職故実) and so on. At the narrower end of this spectrum, Kokugaku came to refer to ideologically essentialist activities that sought to articulate what is fundamentally Japanese about Japan, and to contrast that favorably with the circumstances of those in other lands. Since this narrower Kokugaku typically aspired to revive an ancient pre-Confucian and pre-Buddhist native Japanese Way, it has often been allied with the field of Shintō theology (Orikuchi 2011: 536–539). P. Nosco (*) Department of Asian Studies, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada e-mail: [email protected] C.C. Huang and J.A. Tucker (eds.), Dao Companion to Japanese Confucian Philosophy, Dao Companions to Chinese Philosophy 5, DOI 10.1007/978-90-481-2921-8_9, © Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2014

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It was during Japan’s early modern Tokugawa 徳川 or Edo 江戸 period (1600–1867) that this narrowing and focusing of Japanese studies took place, and the early modern Kokugaku critiques of China and Confucianism are best understood within this context. Attitudes in Japan toward China and Chinese thought have a long and complex past, which extends into prehistory and is often framed as a Sino-Japanese dialogue (Pollack 1986). Looked at in this way, Japanese studies or Wagaku always existed to some extent in juxtaposition against Chinese studies or Kangaku 漢学, resulting in what has been styled a Wa-Kan 和漢 binary, with the sharpness of the juxtaposition varying from one field to another. For example, from the outset and in the earliest extant historical and poetic works, Japanese editors and compilers demonstrate an awareness of their corresponding endeavors in China. In the recording of Japanese history, the tendency to embrace Chinese models continues through the nineteenth century, while in the compilation of poetry anthologies, the patterning diminishes so sharply after the tenth century that the composition of Chinese poetry in Japan acquires the character of an altogether separate field. Since at least the Nara period, the Wa-Kan dialogue and synthesis have been crucial to the formation of Japanese identity, as China provided an appropriate Other against which to measure Japan. However, for most of these centuries, the Wa-Kan dialogue has resembled a conversation rather than the lecture as it has more typically been portrayed. Thus, when examining the intellectual environment in Japan on the verge of the Tokugawa unification, one should regard Japanese studies and Chinese studies as parts of a singular realm of scholarship or gakumon 学問. The scholarly realm in Japan incorporating Japanese studies alongside Chinese studies expanded dramatically during the seventeenth century, only to splinter during the eighteenth century, resulting in the binary opposition between Sinological and Japanological discourses that has come somewhat misleadingly to characterize the dialogue. After a century of often bitter opposition, Wagaku and Kangaku converged in the nineteenth century as a response to scholarly activities in the domain of Mito 水戸 and soon thereafter throughout Japan. The convergence of the two discourses in turn empowered the emergent thought giving it the power of ideology, and heralding in its contours a new order in Japan (Nosco 1990, 1996).

9.2

Japanese Studies and Confucianism in the Seventeenth-Century

At the very outset of the Tokugawa period there emerged a new attitude toward information, which after centuries of esoteric transmission suddenly became publicly accessible, though generally for a price. Prior to the Tokugawa period, knowledge of literature (especially poetics), or familiarity with the Confucian classics were specialized fields of knowledge, restricted to the socially privileged like the military and court aristocracies, those who belonged to the most powerful Buddhist temples, and those blessed with independent wealth or a patron. This restricted access made such information all the more precious, as one observes in

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the celebrated life of HOSOKAWA Yūsai 細川幽斎 (1534–1610). Yūsai possessed exclusive knowledge of an esteemed esoteric interpretation of the Anthology of Ancient and Modern Japanese Poems (Kokinshū 古今集), known as Commentaries on the Kokinshū (Kokin denju 古今伝授), and he likewise had in his library numerous rare texts and manuscripts of other important works. This knowledge and the related writings were valued so highly that what likely would have been the fatal siege of Yūsai’s castle in 1600 was lifted by imperial command so that Yūsai might obtain safe passage and preserve this precious poetic legacy. In other words, while Yūsai may have been expendable as a daimyo, the knowledge he possessed as a poet was not. Yet just three years later in 1603, circumstances could scarcely have been more different. In that year the young HAYASHI Razan 林羅山 (1583–1657) broke with centuries of tradition by delivering public lectures on the Analects (C: Lunyu 論語 J: Rongo) of Confucius 孔夫子 (551–479 B.C.E). Razan even persuaded his older friend MATSUNAGA Teitoku 松永貞徳 (1571–1653) to join him in this unprecedented exercise by having Teitoku lecture publicly on works of Japanese literature such as Essays in Idleness (Tsurezuregusa 徒然草) and One Hundred Poems by One Hundred Poets (Hyakunin isshu 百人一首). At the time these Japanese works were relatively unknown except to a privileged few, though over the next century they would become part of a new canon of Japanese classics popularized in nativist academies (Keene 1984: 120–21). It was in those private academies that instruction in Japanese studies of all sorts was for the first time made available to men and women from all classes who could afford the tuition and who could find such learning personally or professionally worthwhile. The new attitude toward knowledge, as exemplified in the efforts of Razan and Teitoku to undermine esoteric transmissions, was similarly evident in the proliferation during the seventeenth century of published information of all sorts, including chapbooks, almanacs, lists, maps, guides and so on, leading one scholar to dub this new knowledge the “library of public information” (Berry 2006). Indeed, an astonishing array of information of all sorts became available, most often for sale in one form or another, though much of this information also circulated for free, as information does in every age. Rapidly expanding urbanization and literacy supported a growing printing industry, which resulted in the proliferation of texts of all kinds, making the book into a familiar item by the end of the seventeenth century (Kornicki 1998). This emergent print culture contributed to the construction of collective identity in Japan as elsewhere not only by creating a community of readers who shared in the “library,” but also by disseminating a sense of Japan as inclusive of a cultural patrimony which was bequeathed from one generation to the next. Consider in this regard MATSUO Bashō’s 松尾芭蕉 (1644–1694) short masterpiece of 1694, Road to the Deep North (Oku no hosomichi 奥の細忻), in which one finds celebrated descriptions of historical sites like the ruins of the Fujiwara 藤原 family’s compound at Hiraizumi 平泉, or the breathtaking natural beauty of the Taira 平 family’s sanctuary at Miyajima 宮島,

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as if they were equally part of the birthright of his readers, who also partake of the newly emergent sense of Japaneseness. The study of Japan’s history and its prose writings also expanded dramatically during the seventeenth century, with more histories of Japan written during those hundred years than in all the years preceding. In literature as well during the seventeenth century a Japanese canon of prose classics took its place alongside the more traditional canon of poetic classics. It was clear that there was a Chinese model for this knowledge, since the study of history and ancient poetry were fundamental to a Confucian curriculum. In the case of literature, the earliest extant prose works in Japan were reexamined with Confucian eyes looking for examples of virtue being rewarded and vice punished, just as Confucian literary moralism predicted. In a manner that replicated developments in Chinese literary criticism, a lively debate arose in Tokugawa Japan as to whether poetry and literature had legitimate didactic value, or whether, as the avant garde argued, they were fundamentally forms of entertainment whose contributions to society were at best indirect. The consequences of the newly invigorated interest in Confucianism and its NeoConfucian variants can be surprising, as when the historical mindedness and ethnocentrism so characteristic of Chinese Confucianism inspired their domesticated counterparts in scholarship undertaken in Japan. For a Chinese Confucian, the study of history was inseparable from the quest for historical principles demonstrating the rewards of a life of virtue. Thus, it was not long before Confucians in Japan began to scour their own tradition for examples of the same principles in action. Nowhere in Japan was this interest in early history and culture more prominent than in the small but strategically placed domain of Mito 水戸, whose daimyō lineage was one of the three collateral houses from which a Tokugawa shogun might be drawn. Mito was also a domain so committed to culture that fully a third of its annual revenue during the Tokugawa period was regularly dedicated to scholarly pursuits. From the mid-seventeenth century on, the search intensified for definitive editions of and commentaries on the earliest extant works produced in Japan, including the earliest mytho-histories, liturgies, and poetry. Owing to dramatic changes in the written language during the eighth and ninth centuries, much of this earliest writing had been unintelligible for nearly a thousand years. Historical linguistics and philology became the keys to unlocking these earliest works, and developed into two of the leading intellectual accomplishments of the age. The new interest in Confucianism even touched Shintō circles. For hundreds of years the worship of kami 神 in Japan was understood to be part of a fundamentally Buddhist cosmology, whereby according to different formulae, the universal primal Buddhist substance (honji 本地) manifested itself in specific local noumena (suijaku 垂御) like Japanese kami. However, during the first half of the seventeenth century, Confucian elements replaced Buddhist ones in the metaphysical superstructure embraced first by Japanese intellectuals and later more broadly, serving as further confirmation of the prestige Confucianism enjoyed. This attendant reevaluation of the nature of kami was a harbinger of more fundamental changes in Shintō theology during the eighteenth century, when in various ways the theological effort was directed to recapture an ancient Japanese Way. But what was perhaps most remarkable was the

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manner in which most of the more prominent seventeenth-century Japanese authorities on Confucianism—HAYASHI Razan 林羅山 (1583–1657), YAMAZAKI Ansai 山崎 闇斎 (1619–1682), KUMAZAWA Banzan 熊沢蕃山 (1619–1691), KAIBARA Ekiken 貝 原益軒 (1630–1714) and so on—either authored works on Shintō and the history of kami worship, or as in the case of Razan and Ansai, fashioned entirely new ConfucianShintō theologies. When seen in this light, there emerged an intellectual world in which there were no discernible tensions between Confucian-inspired Sinology and Confucian-inspired Japanology, i.e., Kokugaku in the broad sense. For the Tokugawa period’s first century there was scarcely a Wa-Kan ripple in this smooth sea of scholarship, in which domesticated Confucian currents coexisted harmoniously alongside an expansive enquiry into Japanese history, literature, and early spirituality. Nonetheless, all the pieces were in place for the adversarial relationship that developed. By 1700, familiarity with Confucianism was part of the expected intellectual equipment of Tokugawa society’s actual or would-be elites, and this facilitated the emergence of private academies in which Confucianism was the featured subject. The first truly successful such academy was the Kogidō 古義堂 of ITō Jinsai 伊藤 仁斎 (1627–1705) in Kyoto, through which Jinsai made an impressive contribution to Confucian studies and a name for himself as a scholar. Only a few decades later, the first Kokugaku academy in adjacent Fushimi appeared. The moment these two discourses—Confucian and nativist—found themselves in competition for the same hearts and minds, their mutual criticisms became virtually assured. The first traces of fissure in the once seamless world of scholarship appeared in the Genroku 元禄 period (1688–1704), during the reign of the fifth Tokugawa 徳川 shogun Tsunayoshi 綱吉 (r. 1680–1709). The rupture was more or less complete by the time of the eighth shogun, Yoshimune 吉宗 (r. 1716–1745). It is here that the story of the Kokugaku critiques of Confucianism and Chinese culture begins.

9.3

Keichū and KADA no Azumamaro

Since the mid-eighteenth century, students and practitioners of Kokugaku had found a genesis for their studies in the careers of the Shingon 真言 priest Keichū 契沖 (1640–1701), and the scion of the Shintō Fushimi Inari 伏見稲荷 shrine, KADA no Azumamaro 荷田春満 (1669–1736). Equally formative for later Kokugakusha was the way in which Keichū had come to author a full commentary on the Myriad Leaves of Poetry (Man’yōshū 万葉集). Formidable linguistic issues rendered all but about 400 of the 4,400 verses in the Myriad Leaves unintelligible before the Tokugawa period, and by the mid-seventeenth century studies of the Myriad Leaves had scarcely improved on this total. Most likely owing to his sense that the Myriad Leaves was as deserving of scholarly attention as the Confucian Classic The Book of Poetry (Shijing 詩経), the daimyō of Mito, TOKUGAWA Mitsukuni 光圀 (1628–1701), commissioned two scholars in his employ to begin

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to select from the available manuscripts in order to prepare a standard edition and commentary. The assignment proved beyond their ability, forcing Mitsukuni subsequently to enlist the leading authority of the age, SHIMOKōBE Chōryū 下河辺長 流 (1624–1686) to take over the project. Chōryū made considerable progress but the gradual onset of blindness eventually rendered his further work impossible. Chōryū recommended that Mitsukuni turn to his friend Keichū, who was able to bring the project to completion in 1690. Keichū both wrote and in his later years lectured on a number of poetic and prose classics such as the Anthology of Ancient and Modern Japanese Poems (Kokinshū), One Hundred Poems by One Hundred Poets (Hyakunin isshu), the Tale of Ise (Ise monogatari 伊勢物語), and the Tale of Genji (Genji monogatari 源氏物語), all of which became central to the Kokugaku canon. However, it was principally Keichū’s study of the ancient Myriad Leaves that seemed to later “nativists” (Kokugakusha) to herald their own studies. It was also in Keichū’s study of the Myriad Leaves that the first suggestion of a Kokugaku critique of Confucianism appears. One passage in particular stands out in this regard. In the “Miscellaneous Theories” (zassetsu 雑 説) section of his commentary on the Myriad Leaves, Keichū wrote, Japan is the land of the gods. Therefore in both our histories and our administration, we have given priority to the gods and always placed man second. In high antiquity, our rulers governed this land exclusively by means of Shintō. Since it was not only a naïve and simple age but an unlettered age as well, there was only the oral tradition which was called ‘Shintō,’ and there was no philosophizing of the sort one finds in Confucian classics and Buddhist writings (Nosco 1990: 61; Taira and Abe 1972).

At one level, this was an unremarkable characterization of early Japan. Many contemporary textbooks emphasize several of the same themes upon which Keichū touched: the pre-literate nature of early Japan; the sacerdotal or priestly authority of the early Yamato monarchy; and the contrast of this simple culture with the comparatively more advanced culture of China. The passage stops well short of a nativist critique of either Confucianism or Chinese culture, begging the question of why it is regarded by many as having such watershed significance. The reasons for this are both complex and contextual. Within the context of a commentary on Japan’s earliest extant poetry anthology—a work in this respect comparable to that of the Confucian classic, The Book of Poetry (Shijing)—and in a project commissioned by one of the Tokugawa period’s paradigmatically Confucian daimyō, Keichū posits a binary between the simple yet sufficient Shintō-based society of early Japan, and the sophistication of Chinese philosophical thought and religion as epitomized by Confucianism and Buddhism. Keichū criticized neither Confucianism nor Buddhism, but there is no escaping his understanding that their influence on this early society was profound, and that as a result of this encounter, conditions of life in early Japan change irreversibly. Further, when one juxtaposes Keichū’s 1690 commentary alongside Bashō’s contemporaneous Road to the North (Oku no hosomichi, 1694), one discerns a subtle but important shift in the cultural landscape, one distancing an increasingly metaphorical understanding of China from an ever more insular understanding of Japan and Japaneseness.

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Keichū’s training as a Shingon priest included rigorous study of Sanskrit which profoundly affected his understanding of both language and grammar (Murphy 2009). However, this same Shingon career also ultimately worked against Keichū’s full acceptance as a Kokugakusha by later nativists, for whom Keichū’s Buddhist vocation rendered his work and its conclusions suspect. No such taint affected KADA no Azumamaro, however, who was raised on the precincts of the Fushimi Inari Shrine as scion to one of Japan’s most distinguished Shintō families. Perhaps inspired by the success of the Hayashi family in securing bakufu sponsorship for their academy, the Yushima Seidō 湯島聖堂, in Edo during the reign of Shogun TOKUGAWA Tsunayoshi, and perhaps also looking to the success of ITō Jinsai’s private academy the Kogidō in neighboring Kyoto, Azumamaro dedicated his adult life to establishing Japanese studies as a viable alternative to Chinese studies and especially Confucianism. He traveled frequently to Edo, living there from 1700 to 1713, actively soliciting the interest of daimyō and other notable residents, and then finally returning in disappointment to Fushimi, where he lived the rest of his life. It is with KADA no Azumamaro that we encounter the first sustained critique of Chinese thought by a Kokugakusha. Indeed ever since 1824, when HIRATA Atsutane 平田篤胤 (1776–1843) first declared him such, Azumamaro has been the Kokugakusha most commonly identified as the first of Kokugaku’s “great men.” Azumamaro spearheaded the effort to retrieve a pristine Shintō so archaic that it was unsullied by non-native ways of thought like Confucianism. In this respect Azumamaro is also often regarded as a pioneering figure in what some style a “Shintō revival,” i.e., the effort to restore the Shintō of an imaginary time in Japan’s ancient past before exposure to Buddhism or Confucianism. But Azumamaro is best known for his petition addressed to the bakufu requesting a tract of land in Kyoto for the founding of a school where he might teach Japanese studies. Azumamaro justified his request as follows, Alas, how ignorant the Confucian scholars were of the past, not knowing a single thing about the imperial Japanese learning. How painful, the stupidity of later scholars—who cannot bewail the destruction of the ancient learning? This is why foreign teachings have prevailed, and one meets them in street conversations and corner gossip. This is why too our teachings have so declined. False doctrines are rampant, taking advantage of our weakness (Tsunoda et al. 1964: II: 8–9).

It was not entirely remarkable that a Shintō priest would speak so critically of Confucian scholars in eighteenth-century Japan. The Shintō popularizer MASUHO Zankō 増穂残口 (1655–1742) ridiculed “stinking Confucian half-wits who know nothing at all about Kokugaku” (Taira and Abe 1972: 222). Shintō theologians like YOSHIMI Yukikazu 吉見幸和 (1673–1761), as early as 1743 warned against embracing the “Ways of foreign lands.” Also, MATSUOKA Yūen 松岡雄淵 (1701–1783) wrote that from the point of view of the Japanese spirit (Yamato damashii 大和魂) Chinese sages were “bastions of treacherous evil” (Taira and Abe 1972: 237, 246, 260.) What is remarkable is how common it had become for Shintō theologians in the first-half of the eighteenth century to ridicule China and Confucians. KADA no Azumamaro’s criticism of Confucianism amounted to the understandable vilification of a rival creed with which he was in competition. However, what

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made his critique remarkable is that it was couched in a fundamentally scholarly argument: “The teachings of our divine emperors are steadily melting away, each year more conspicuously than the last. Japanese learning is falling into ruin and is a bare tenth of what it once was” (Tsunoda et al. 1964 II: 7). Simply put, Japanese studies had never had such a compelling advocate, and Azumamaro’s petition represented the radical expansion of that narrow fissure first opened some four decades earlier in Keichū’s commentary on the Myriad Leaves. Azumamaro’s advocacy of Japanese studies, which for him meant principally Shintō, Japanese poetry (Waka 和歌), and literary studies generally, as well as his criticism of Confucian scholars were rooted in an unmistakable xenophobia, as was evident in the earlier quotation. Confucian scholars were, in Azumamaro’s mind, “ignorant” of Japan’s past and seemingly unaware of their own “stupidity.” As a result “foreign” teachings were represented as an enervating contagion. Azumamaro described these Confucian scholars as ignorant and disingenuous adversaries whose teachings were not just mistaken but false. Azumamaro’s petition and its critique of Confucianism were fraught with ironies. As noted previously, Azumamaro likely drew his inspiration for the founding of a private academy in Fushimi from the success of ITō Jinsai’s Kogidō, which championed the study of Confucian classics; his inspiration for seeking bakufu support for these efforts was likely indebted to the Hayashi family’s success in garnering support for their Neo-Confucian academy, the Yushima Seidō; his methodology of seeking to clarify the ancient meanings of words in order not to lose “the Way of the former kings” was derived from OGYŪ Sorai’s 荻生徂徠 (1666–1728) “study of ancient [Chinese] words and phrases” (kobunjigaku 古文辞学). Moreover, his petition, which champions the study of Japanese philology, was composed in florid classical Chinese, and even the “pristine” Shintō he tried to promote was replete with Chinese cosmological elements. Within a few short decades, it would no longer be remarkable to see Shintō theology joined to the study—linguistic and otherwise—of Japanese prose and poetic classics in the construction of a native Way, believed to be ancient and linked to the imperial throne in Kyoto. It was Azumamaro who made these linkages first, and in doing so decisively pioneered the narrowing in the meaning of Kokugaku referred to at the outset of this essay. Prior to Keichū, and indeed through his scholarship as well, a broadly inclusive Kokugaku became evident, one that coexisted comfortably with Sinology, and Sinology’s offshoots like Confucianism from which it drew all manner of inspiration. But at a certain point Kokugaku ceased to be simply an ideologically innocent exercise in Japanology—a kind of domestic antiquarianism for the intellectually broadminded—and it became ideological, with a center that included the glorification of Japan and the vilification of things Chinese in general, and Confucianism and Buddhism in particular. The evident irony of Kokugaku’s locating a dual genesis of sorts for itself on the one hand in the scholarship of a Shingon priest, and on the other hand in a document written in classical Chinese, equally reveals the narrowing of Kokugaku’s aims. Kokugaku was from the start less a movement than a succession of schools (Nosco 1990: 9), more successful with each generation, and each seeking to build

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on and supplant its predecessors in the establishment of an accepted lineage. These schools were inevitably in competition with any number of contemporaries vying for essentially the same goal of growth and prestige (McNally 2005). It is surely significant that these competitions typically included a clash of perspectives on the subjects of Confucianism and Chinese culture.

9.4

KAMO no Mabuchi

We observe the first such competition in the wake of KADA no Azumamaro’s death in 1736, when the question remained for several years open as to who would inherit the mantle of his authority on Japanese culture and antiquarian matters. The principal competitors were Azumamaro’s gifted adopted son KADA no Arimaro 荷田在満 (1706–1751), and an equally gifted relative latecomer to Azumamaro’s school, KAMO no Mabuchi 賀茂真㶝 (1697–1769). Mabuchi hailed from Hamamatsu 浜松, a major castle town along the Tōkaidō 東海忻 roadway, where as a boy and by fortuitous chance he was taught to read by KADA no Azumamaro’s niece. Mabuchi joined Azumamaro’s school in 1728 and in 1733 moved to Fushimi for full-time study and part-time teaching. After Azumamaro’s death, Mabuchi moved to Edo, where he initially lodged with both Arimaro and the late-Azumamaro’s brother, KADA Nobuna (1685–1751). Arimaro had already been in Edo for some years representing his adopted-father’s wish to cultivate the bakufu’s interest in Japanese studies. Though there is no evidence that TOKUGAWA Yoshimune ever responded to the late-Azumamaro’s 1728 “Petition to Found a School,” Arimaro enjoyed considerable prestige owing to his position as tutor in Japanese studies to the Shogun Yoshimune’s second son, TAYASU Munetake 田安宗武 (1715–1771), an appointment that also conferred exceptional prestige upon Kokugaku as a field of study. For his part, the elder Mabuchi rapidly established a reputation as an authority on several native classics including the Myriad Leaves, the One Hundred Poems by One Hundred Poets, and the Tale of Genji, and in 1742 Munetake commissioned Mabuchi to undertake a study of the Anthology of Ancient and Modern Japanese Poetry (Kokinshū). The issue that put KADA Arimaro at odds with his patron Munetake, concerned the didactic or normative value of poetry relative to its aesthetic satisfactions, but it was TAYASU Munetake who drew KAMO no Mabuchi into the fray. Representing the avant garde aesthetics of the day—and the application of the late OGYŪ Sorai’s theories regarding the value of ancient Chinese verse—KADA Arimaro argued that since the composition of poetry was not one of the traditional Confucian Six Accomplishments (etiquette, music, archery, riding, calligraphy and mathematics), “it has never been of benefit to the administration of the country, nor is it of help in one’s daily ordinary activities,” so it was “ignorant” to suggest that poetry constituted a Way. His position was a kind of anathema to TAYASU Munetake, who had been tutored as a boy by a former student of ARAI Hakuseki 新井白石 (1657–1725), and who embraced the traditional Confucian perspective that great poetry is a form

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of etiquette and thus reflects eternal natural principles. KAMO no Mabuchi’s position straddled the two, claiming that in ancient times poems were “a spontaneous (onozukara 自ずから) expression of human concerns in which a person sang about his feelings whenever they arose [and] it was in this very manner that the age was naturally (onozukara) governed” (Nosco 1981). By disclosing and ventilating an individual’s innermost feelings, poems thus made a subtle but still important contribution to social order. Mabuchi eventually replaced Arimaro in Munetake’s service, and with the deaths of both Arimaro and Nobuna in 1751, Mabuchi suddenly emerged as the premier nativist of his age. More importantly, Mabuchi’s notion, given early expression here, of a natural alternative in ancient Japan to Confucian morality, became a hallmark of both his and of much later Kokugaku philosophy and its critiques of Confucianism and Chinese culture. Mabuchi argued that the rhythms of Japanese poetry with its alternating sequences of seven and five syllables replicated the natural rhythms of heaven and earth, i.e., of the universe itself. Further, since poetry at its best and most fundamental evoked what was within the heart, according to Mabuchi, it was an expression of one’s “true heart” (magokoro 真心). It thus stood to reason that the most ancient extant Japanese poems served both as a window on that past allowing a glimpse into the hearts of ancient individuals, and as a medium for transporting one back to the times of the poems’ composition and in the process reanimating the dormant virtues of those times within oneself in the here-and-now. As Mabuchi expressed this, “Naturally (onozukara) the verses will color one’s heart and may even enter and become part of one’s speech until only one’s body is left behind in this later age as one’s heart and speech return to the distant past.” The period that Mabuchi idealized spanned several centuries “from the time when the imperial court was at Ōtsu 大㳍 through the period of the Fujiwara 藤原 Court at Yamato 大和.” However, Mabuchi’s highest regard was reserved for the two decades immediately preceding the Nara period when “grand and august government reached perfection [only to] decline somewhat in the Nara period, together with the ‘true heart’ (magokoro).” Mabuchi identifies a host of virtues with this ancient past, including truthfulness or sincerity (makoto 誠), directness and an absence of guile in speech (kotoba naoku), vitality (ikioi), manliness (ooshikushite) and elegance (miyabi taru koto). According to Mabuchi, his forebears lived in a virtual arcadia, where they “worshiped the imperial deities, had no foulness (kitanaki) in their hearts, venerated their emperors, and committed no transgressions (tsumi).” Mabuchi blamed the loss of this apparent state of grace on Chinese written culture. He dated the disruption from the introduction of Chinese language, which he blamed for an initial interest in and eventual preference for Chinese writings, so that many Japanese “thoughtlessly” forgot their own traditions and were “no longer able to understand our august Way” (Nosco 1990: 119–132). While he remained in service to TAYASU Munetake, Mabuchi stopped short of vilifying China, settling for the historically uncontroversial proposition that the introduction of Chinese writings disrupted native ways of doing things. But not so after his retirement from this service in late 1760, when Mabuchi gave full vent to a spirited attack on China and its Confucianism. The crux of Mabuchi’s critique

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stemmed from his ironic agreement with OGYŪ Sorai that the Chinese Way of the early kings was a Way invented by men who, their sagely wisdom notwithstanding, remained just that, men. While Sorai admired these sages for what they fashioned, for Mabuchi these human origins were precisely what made the Confucian Way inferior to Japan’s natural Way of heaven and earth. Buddhism was of less concern to Mabuchi, who deemed it not a “major evil” as it just “makes men stupid.” Chinese Confucianism was another matter altogether, as it “reduces the spirit of heaven and earth to something exceedingly trivial.” Mabuchi was particularly critical of what he styled the Chinese attempt to explain the world’s principles, a clear reference to ZHU Xi’s 朱熹 (1130–1200) Song 宋 dynasty (960– 1279) formulation of Neo-Confucianism. Mabuchi criticized the Chinese intellectual approach to rational understanding as a kind of vanity and exemplification of its proponents’ arrogance. Moreover, he lambasted the Confucian assumption that a single system for society and a state established once in the ancient past was somehow sufficient as a model for the rest of all time. Worst of all, he claimed, were Japanese proponents of the study of things Chinese, whom Mabuchi labeled “stupid people addicted to pleasures who have no idea where they are going” (Nosco 1990: 137). During the time of his service to Munetake, it would have been inappropriate for Mabuchi to be drawn into an exchange with a scholar from the rival Sorai camp. However, that was not so after his retirement, when Mabuchi launched a blistering rebuttal to the late DAZAI Shundai’s 太宰春台 (1680–1747) Essay on Distinguishing the Way (Bendōsho 辯道書, 1735), in which Shundai had put forth the nominalist argument that one can prove that there is no native Way in ancient Japan by virtue of the fact that there are “no native Japanese words for humaneness, rightness, propriety, music, filial piety, and so on.” Mabuchi in his Thoughts on This Country (Kokuikō 國意考, 1765) countered Shundai by arguing that in ancient Japan people were “naturally (onozukara) endowed with humaneness, rightness, propriety,” and every other so-called Confucian virtue, which had existed as universally and naturally as “the movement of the four seasons.” This question of whether there was or was not a Way in ancient Japan was the single most contentious issue in the centurylong debate between the Confucian and nativist camps. Mabuchi’s was one of not fewer than 30 attacks on the Sorai school authored between 1750 and 1790, and inspired a series of rebuttals and subsequent defenses (Nosco 1990: 143–44). It was in retirement in the last years of his life that Mabuchi gave full vent to his idealization of life in ancient Japan, and his castigation of Confucianism as the decisive disruptive factor in the ancient fall from this state of grace. Again in Thoughts on This Country, Mabuchi wrote in a manner that initially echoed the characterization of the ancient past that had been evident in Keichū some 75 years earlier. He states, Ancient Japan was governed well in accordance with the spirit of heaven and earth, and, there was none of this petty sophistry; but then, suddenly, when these convincing theories were imported from China, ancient men in their straightforward fashion took these theories as truth, and the theories spread far and wide.

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Mabuchi made explicit the abruptness of the transition, and took this much further as he now vilified Confucianism for its deleterious effects. He wrote, From high antiquity and for countless ages, Japan had enjoyed a measure of prosperity; but, no sooner were these theories introduced … [than] tremendous chaos erupted. Later, in the Nara court, dress and procedures and so on were all Sinified, and, while outwardly all was elegant, men’s hearts turned to wickedness. Since Confucianism made men crafty, men became excessively reverent by aggrandizing their lords until the entire country acquired the heart of a servant.

In Mabuchi’s characterization, Confucianism was not simply responsible for a civilizational change, but it also caused harm: it generated “chaos” then, and as Mabuchi elaborated elsewhere, did so anew in each successive generation. Instead of being an agent of virtue, it generated “wickedness” and made men crafty and obsequious. Lest his readers somehow miss this point, Mabuchi compared the introduction into ancient Japan of Chinese thought and ways of doing things to giving a healthy individual a too-strong dose of unneeded medicine, which now sickened instead of healed (Nosco 1990: 147–48). Mabuchi’s vilification of things Chinese and Confucianism in particular is revealing of some of the key issues in eighteenth-century Japanese thought that resonated between Mabuchi’s philosophy, and both orthodox Neo-Confucianism and philosophic Daoism, all three of which shared a basic naturalism and moral optimism. Just as Confucianism maintained about Chinese people since the time of Mencius, Mabuchi’s Japanese man—both ancient and contemporary—possessed seeds of goodness, which needed only to be activated and nurtured in order for socially constructive behavior to ensue naturally. And just as Neo-Confucianism did, Mabuchi believed in the essential perfectibility of humankind, which in NeoConfucianism was accomplished through a return to the principles of heaven, and in Mabuchi’s thought through embrace of the ancient natural Way of heaven and earth. It is important to note that these resonances with Confucian and Neo-Confucian assumptions were surely unconscious on Mabuchi’s part, and simply reflected how competing discourses inevitably appropriate much from each other as they vie in the marketplace of ideas. Perhaps out of deference to his patron TAYASU Munetake who, it will be recalled, had been tutored in Confucianism by one of ARAI Hakuseki’s students, Mabuchi singled out ARAI Hakuseki for limited praise, acknowledging that, “There are often good points in his writings,” but one is otherwise hard-pressed to find anything other than criticism of Confucianism in Mabuchi’s writings (Nosco 1990: 141–42). Mabuchi’s appropriation of Daoist notions, however, is another matter altogether. Mabuchi shared with classical Daoism the assumption that a primordial state of natural social grace had been disrupted by the introduction of moral teachings. Mabuchi referred to Laozi’s 老子 Daodejing 道德䴻 as “a correct work” and readily acknowledged that one could find “numerous points of agreement between Laozi and our own ancient thought.” Mabuchi went so far as to credit Laozi with hoping “for something like the customs and practices of our own country’s past” and admitted that there “is wisdom in what he wrote.” Nonetheless and perhaps mindful of what he believed to be the seductive harm of Chinese writings, Mabuchi also cautioned that

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while teachings like Laozi’s might be “of some small help, one should not be drawn to them” (Nosco 1990: 142.) This caution notwithstanding, one is struck by Mabuchi’s warmth toward Laozi, which represents an important qualification to his otherwise uniformly negative statements regarding China and its traditions.

9.5

MOTOORI Norinaga

In the months immediately following KAMO no Mabuchi’s death in 1769, there was no clear successor to the mantle of nativist leadership, but over the following decade MOTOORI Norinaga 本居宣長 (1730–1801) emerged as Japan’s most prominent nativist, and this despite his having only met the late Mabuchi on one occasion, and also despite a number of prominent differences between the two. Unlike Mabuchi who is remembered today largely for his “ancient Way” (kodō 古道) speculations derived from his work on the Myriad Leaves, Norinaga is best known today for his aesthetics and literary criticism, and especially his handling of the concept of “the pathos of things” (mono no aware). Norinaga argued that what makes the Tale of Genji great is the author Murasaki’s ability to express the pathos of things. Mono no aware forms the cornerstone of Norinaga’s poetics as well as his literary criticism, since he also maintained that the classic verse form of “Japanese poetry” (waka 和歌) originally stemmed from a consciousness of the pathos of things, and that the composition of poetry occurs whenever an individual finds this consciousness too intense to contain without giving vent to it in verse. Japanese scholarship on Kokugaku tends to conflate Norinaga’s ancient Way thought with that of KAMO no Mabuchi, though the two differ in a number of important respects. For example, where KAMO no Mabuchi looks to the Myriad Leaves as the fountainhead of a pristine Japanese spirit, MOTOORI Norinaga extols the Record of Ancient Matters (Kojiki 古事記) as Japan’s “true book” (makoto no fumi), exhibiting a fundamentalist’s confidence in the text as a source of information on the ancient past. Unlike Mabuchi who styled the ancient Way the natural Way of Heaven and Earth, Norinaga wrote of the ancient Way as the Way of the kami or what one nowadays would call Shintō, and insisted that it only resembles a natural Way but is not. Where Mabuchi castigated Buddhism for making men “stupid,” Norinaga was loath to criticize the teachings that he embraced as a discreetly devout Shin Buddhist. And in contrast with Mabuchi who regarded the verses of the Myriad Leaves as the best medium to transport one back to the ancient past and its primordial virtues, Norinaga believed that only through the assistance of the naobi (rectifying) kami might one ever revive the pristine Way of the kami in the here-and-now. These differences notwithstanding, Norinaga nonetheless agreed with Mabuchi on the crucial question of whether there was a Way in ancient Japan. Like Mabuchi, Norinaga maintained that there indeed was a Way in ancient Japan, a Way so comprehensive that it was not until foreign Ways were introduced that the native Way was even recognized as such. Again like Mabuchi before him, Norinaga saw Chinese writings as the key to the loss of the primordial state of grace: “In due course time

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passed by and [Chinese] writings were introduced. People began studying these writings and later imitated the Chinese practices that lay behind those writings, until eventually countless aspects of Chinese life were adopted.” As a result, according to Mabuchi and Norinaga, ancient Japanese hearts (kokoro 心) were affected, and actions which once had been “straightforward and pure” (naokukiyoki) became “defiled” (kitanaki). Compounding this loss, in their naiveté, persons turned for help to the Confucian Way of the sages, confusing the toxin for the antidote and only making a bad situation worse. What made Confucianism so flawed, according to both Mabuchi and Norinaga, was its origins in the calculations of the human mind, for exactly as OGYŪ Sorai maintained, the sages were indeed “just men.” With the words being Norinaga’s but the sentiment identical to Mabuchi’s, the sages’ Way was “merely a weapon that generations of Confucians have arrogantly used to criticize others” and ultimately a “source of disorder.” Norinaga argued that the proof was to be found in an examination of Chinese history, for if there actually were such a thing as the “will of heaven” (tianming 天命) then how could heaven allow a vulgar brute like QIN Shi Huangdi 秦始皇帝(r. 221–207 B.C.E.) to bully the Chinese people, or to allow them to be subjected to the rule of foreign barbarians like the Mongols centuries earlier or the Manchus in his own times? (Nosco 1990: 185–87; Nishimura 1991). MOTOORI Norinaga’s anti-Chinese invective was markedly more focused than anything Mabuchi wrote. Consider the following poem by Norinaga from 1786 (Nosco 1990: 196–97), By the taint Of the Chinese Crafty heart Has the heart of man Been corrupted

Mabuchi attributed a loss of innocence and grace to exposure to Chinese writings, but Norinaga saw the consequences as defilement and moral corruption. Elsewhere Norinaga specifically wrote of how this Sinification of a Japanese heart constituted the sin (tsumi) of defilement (kitanaki), with the solution being to exorcize and cleanse (harai kiyomete) oneself of the contaminating effects of exposure to Chinese writings, a contagion so virulent that “even illiterate farmers who could not read a single character lost their true hearts” through exposure to it (from Naobi no mitama, ibid., p. 197). Norinaga was inconsistent as to whether through Naobi’s healing one can acquire a kind of immunity to the ill effects of exposure to the Chinese heart, and whether one ought to risk re-exposure to Chinese writings. In the same collection of a hundred poems on the Way, Norinaga wrote, Though he may think himself, rid of the Chinese heart. The heart of a man, who reads Chinese, is still Chinese.

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But elsewhere in his Tamakasuma 玉勝間, which dates from his later years, Norinaga maintained more optimistically that once one’s pristine “Japanese heart” (Yamatogokoro 大和) has been restored by the Naobi deities, then by holding fast to it, one will ever after prevail unscathed even if again exposed to such thoughts and words, “As long as one understands that Chinese practices are thoroughly evil and one maintains unwavering dedication to one’s Japanese spirit (mikuni damashii), the heart will not be led astray” (Nosco 1990: 197–8, 212). The virulence of Norinaga’s anti-Chinese rhetoric relative to that of KAMO no Mabuchi was also evident in Norinaga’s hostility toward Daoism along with its paragons Laozi 老子 and Zhuangzi 莊子, and in Norinaga’s interpretation of the cosmogonic myths contained in the Records of Ancient Matters (Kojiki). By contrast with KAMO no Mabuchi who found “numerous points of agreement” between the tenets of Daoism and ancient Japanese beliefs, Norinaga asserted that the problem with Daoism was that its founders “were born in a defiled land which was not the land of Amaterasu, and since they were accustomed to hearing the theories of generations of sages, what they thought to be natural was actually a view of nature based on the thought of the sages.” For Norinaga, the issue was more fundamental than simply asking whether the sages possessed insight or not, and the clarification rested in Norinaga’s revised cosmogony or theory of origins. Based on his reading of the Kojiki, in 1786 Norinaga referred to Japan as the “original, great and primal source” (genpon taiso 原本太祖), and in 1798 as the “original ancestral country” for the entire world, meaning that other countries around the world all owed a debt of gratitude not only specifically to the solar goddess, Amaterasu, for her radiant gift of sunshine, but also broadly and in a filial capacity to Japan itself for being their ancestor (Nosco 1990: 199–200). The Kokugaku decentering of China, the condemnation of its sages, and the exalting of an essentialized Japan were now complete. We recall a century earlier Keichū’s uncontroversial positing of a binary between Japanese simplicity and Chinese sophistication, and the key to understanding how Keichū’s statement of historical fact evolved into Norinaga’s racialist, anti-Chinese polemic lay in the broader transformation of the social, intellectual and ideological role of China in the eighteenth-century imagination. Donald Keene describes how as a consequence of the limited direct contact between the two countries from the 1630s on, and in response to the fall of the Ming dynasty to alien Manchu rule in 1644, China as a reality gradually receded in the popular Japanese consciousness, only to be replaced by a metaphorical China which satisfied any number of qualities of an “Other” against which to measure oneself (Keene 1976, 1984). The large and mature country of China, whose people were depicted as wise, mature, and rational, was now juxtaposed with the small but young and verdant country of Japan whose people were described as brave, spontaneous and intuitive. In KADA no Azumamaro’s writings “China” was inseparable from Sinology, which was ultimately an academic rival to be overcome. In KAMO no Mabuchi’s writings, Confucianism was the problem, since Mabuchi’s own positing of a universalist cosmology in the form of the ancient natural Way of heaven and earth rendered China and its people as much victims of Confucianism as Japan and the Japanese. But in his

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writings, Norinaga made China into an intrinsically problematic extreme, which he posited against an equally idealized Japan. China was not just the source of great evil, it was uniquely so, and Norinaga repeatedly appealed to an examination of the Chinese historical record in order to confirm that the Chinese were an inherently disobedient people who changed their dynasties and masters. Norinaga’s historicist appeal to the empirical evidence of the past may, in fact, have represented an effort on his part to mitigate the extreme and irrational nature of his anti-Chinese invective. At the same time Norinaga, like Azumamaro and Mabuchi before him, was indebted to much of what he castigated. That is to say, where Azumamaro found a model for his nativist private academy in its Confucian counterpart, and where Mabuchi similarly found a model in Confucianism for an originally good nature that could enable one to live in a natural state of grace, Norinaga found in Sorai’s school of Confucianism confirmation that what China regarded as a Way was ultimately a human invention. These origins in the human intellect would, according to Norinaga, inevitably relegate the Chinese Way to an inferior status relative to Japan’s Way, which originated in the workings of the same supernaturally transcendent deities who fashioned Japan and the earth itself. This universalization of the argument of Japanese superiority was taken to an even greater extreme by the last of Kokugaku’s “great men,” HIRATA Atsutane.

9.6

HIRATA Atsutane

After Norinaga’s death in 1801, a posthumous student HIRATA Atsutane 平田篤胤 (1776–1843) took Norinaga’s highly focused critique of China and Confucianism and both broadened and popularized it. At the same time he exhibited a more complex and nuanced attitude toward China than any of his principal nativist predecessors. A salient feature thus far has been the reliance on philological method in the scholarship of Mabuchi and Norinaga as the principal means to glean the literal textual message and the emotive spirit of Japan’s most ancient extant works of poetry and mytho-history. The breadth and depth of their nativist enquiries, however, left no philological stones unturned, or at least none of the magnitude of the Myriad Leaves of Poetry or Records of Ancient Matters. There was simply no other ancient text save the Historical Records of Japan (Nihon shoki 日本書紀, 720) which could speak with authority comparable to Records of Ancient Matters, and the Historical Records of Japan was of course suspect in some nativist circles owing to its having been written in language more closely resembling classical Chinese. These developments taken together allowed the vanguard of nativism to move in new directions, with the result being the liberation of Kokugaku from both the scholastic classicism of Mabuchi and the rigorous fundamentalism of Norinaga. HIRATA Atsutane was born into a samurai household in which there was a tradition of following the Neo-Confucian teachings of YAMAZAKI Ansai 山崎闇斎 (1618–1682). However, one week into the new year 1795, his twentieth, Atsutane

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left his natal Kubota 久保田 (present-day Akita 秋田) in northeast Honshū 本州 for Edo 江戸, and it was there that Atsutane first heard of MOTOORI Norinaga (d. 1801) in 1803. In 1805, Atsutane requested permission to join Norinaga’s posthumous school, the Suzunoya 鈴屋, which at the time was led by his gifted blind son MOTOORI Haruniwa 本居春庭 (1763–1828). Atsutane brazenly supported his request for admission by confiding to Haruniwa that Norinaga appeared to him in a dream where he confirmed Atsutane to be his one true disciple. Despite his affiliation with the Suzunoya, the years 1803–1809 were a time of heterodox intellectual exploration for Atsutane, who turned to several quite different scholarly and spiritual traditions, only one of which was MOTOORI Norinaga. In his maiden work of 1803, Rebuke of Error (Kamōsho 呵妄書), Atsutane entered into the fray between the Confucian and nativist camps over the critical issues of whether there was a Way in ancient Japan and whether native virtues existed. Rebuke of Error seeks specifically to refute DAZAI Shundai 太宰春台 (1680–1747) on these points, but it is an unoriginal work even by the standards of the time, in that it relies almost entirely on arguments that first appeared in a number of works by Norinaga.1 Then two years later in 1805, Atsutane authored A New Treatise on Ghosts and Spirits (Shin kishin ron 新鬼神論) as a response to the Confucian ARAI Hakuseki’s 新井白石 (1657–1725) Treatise on Ghosts and Spirits (Kishin-ron 鬼神論), which analyzed the concepts of ghosts and spirits (C: guishen 鬼神 J: kishin) using rationalist arguments rooted in ZHU Xi’s 朱熹 (1130–1200) ideas, especially as related in CHEN Beixi’s 陳北㹒 (1156–1223) The Meanings of Neo-Confucian Philosophical Terms (C: Xingli ziyi 性理字義 J: Seiri jigi), and much of it informed by metaphysical notions such as generative force (ki 気) and others drawn from yin-yang 陰陽 theory. Still relying on arguments fashioned by MOTOORI Norinaga but less so, Atsutane countered that contemporary Confucians had lost the spirituality that so characterized the early sages, rendering their latter-day theories lifeless. Then a year later in 1806 Atsutane wrote Foreign Expressions of Our Teachings (Honkyō gaihen 本教 外篇), which includes a pastiche of the writings of such Catholic theologians as Matteo Ricci (1552–1610), Giulio Aleni (1582–1649), and Didacus de Pantoja (1571–1618), in order to represent Christianity as if it were a derivative of a more ancient Shintō. Though his aim was clearly patriotic, Atsutane’s use of arguments from Catholic texts had an outré quality that suggested that Atsutane would go to virtually any extreme in his quest for insight into the ancient Way of Japan, and confirmation of his a priori conclusions. Despite their obvious differences, these works also all demonstrate Atsutane’s wish to universalize the truths of Shintō—Rebuke of Error by using the arguments of Norinaga, A New Treatise on Ghosts and Spirits by embracing variants of Confucian arguments, and Foreign Expressions of Our Teachings by attempting the same through Christianity. In this we also see an important shift in the parameters of Kokugaku discourse, which like the broader Japanese environment of which it

1

Kamōsho can also be regarded as a spirited defense of Norinaga’s Naobi no mitama, which had itself been attacked by the Sorai-school Confucianist ICHIKAWA Tazumaro (1740–1795).

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formed a part, grew less focused on China per se, and more on the non-Japanese world at large. A number of factors were at work behind this change. For centuries Japan was understood both inside Japan and beyond as having a core comprised of the three islands of Honshū 本州, Kyūshū 九州, and Shikoku 四国, with a near-periphery of Hokkaidō 北海忻 to the north and the Ryūkyū 琉球 islands to the south. Just beyond these zones of exceptional interest was Japan’s closest neighbor, Korea, and its most formidable neighbor, China. Metaphorically or not, China remained the single most important point of comparison in the framing of a Japanese identity throughout most of the Tokugawa period. However, after roughly 150 years of effective management of foreign relations, the security of the Sino-centric worldview in Japan was shaken to its roots by several factors. In terms of international contacts, Russian explorations of Siberia in the 1780s soon reached as far as Ezo 蝦夷, which included the Kurils, Sakhalin and Hokkaidō. Following unsuccessful Russian efforts to open trade relations through Nagasaki 長崎 in 1804, Russian naval vessels attacked Ezo in 1806–1807. Not to be excluded from any competition over Japan, and dishonoring Japan’s neutrality in the European conflict between England and Holland, Britain (in the form of the British vessel Phaeton), in 1805, entered Nagasaki harbor with hostile intent toward the Dutch settlement there, but was rebuffed. The Americans were still a few decades behind, but expansion of their whaling interests in the northwest Pacific from the 1830s prompted an overture in 1837, from the merchant vessel Morrison, which was likewise rebuffed. The bakufu initially responded to a number of these challenges to its sovereignty with an 1825 order to coastal daimyō to “fire on and expel” (uchi harai 撃ち払い) foreign vessels. There was, however, an equally significant challenge to the traditional Sinocentric worldview. Its origins were again European, but the challenge was intellectual; it spread in an accelerated fashion from the 1770s on; and it was symbolized by the new knowledge of “Dutch Studies” (Rangaku 蘭學, abbreviating Holland, Oranda 阿蘭陀). Once forbidden along with Christianity, access to European books was relaxed from the 1720s when Dutch studies became a highly specialized form of knowledge. It was particularly in scientific fields like anatomy that the new knowledge began to demonstrate its value and even its superiority to traditional Sino-Japanese knowledge. The implications were radical. To use an example from the field of anatomy: any autopsy would confirm the superior accuracy of European anatomical charts, which in turn suggested the possibility of a universal humanity on the one hand, and Chinese errors on the other (Jansen 1995; Nosco 2007). In response to these developments, there was a broad shift in Japanese philosophical consciousness of the outside world over the approximately six decades from 1770 to 1830. The 1770s began with a still narrowly shared awareness of a more diverse but essentially benign world beyond Japanese waters—a world which despite its diversity appeared to offer the possibility of operating according to certain universal norms. This benign view gradually receded only to be succeeded by a more broadly shared sense that this world might represent a measure of threat, and was hence best avoided. By the end of the 1820s the relationship between Japan and

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the outside world, especially its European manifestations, was clearly antagonistic, and well understood as such. The Kokugaku representation of China and the world beyond Asia moved in a manner consistent with this broader shift. KAMO no Mabuchi’s ancient Way of heaven and earth resembled Daoism and was shared by China and Japan in high antiquity, but seemed recoverable only in Japan. Norinaga universalized Japan’s cosmogonic myth by writing in 1786 of Japan as the “original, great and primal source” (genpon taiso 原本太祖), and again in 1798 as the “original ancestral country” for the entire world. This was key to Norinaga’s argument that the world in turn owed a debt of filial gratitude to the sun goddess, Amaterasu, for the gift of her radiant sunshine and to Japan itself as the world’s ancestral country. Nonetheless Norinaga’s expressions of Japan’s status in the world were always articulated vis-à-vis China. China likewise represented a major presence in HIRATA Atsutane’s writings, but so increasingly did the world at large. In what might now be styled good Kokugaku tradition, Atsutane used the pseudo-historicist argument castigating China as an inherently unruly land which, owing to its proclivity for overthrowing rulers, had no alternative other than to invent a Way in order to restore a modicum of order. Atsutane contrasted this condition with Japan, the home of Amaterasu, where “those above and those below coexisted peacefully by virtue of their straightforward “true hearts” (magokoro 真心), and where the land is naturally governed splendidly without any shrill teachings at all” (Tsunoda et al. 1964, II: 42; Muromatsu 1911–1918, III.3: 38–39). According to Atsutane, in generation after generation, Japanese individuals lost their magokoro as a consequence of exposure to the Karagokoro 唐心 (Chinese heart) embedded in Chinese Ways like Confucianism. This led Atsutane to conclude, much as KAMO no Mabuchi had in Kokuikō, that when viewed correctly, it should be an “embarrassment if a country had to resort to didactic teachings.” Atsutane similarly held that it was precisely in the ancient Japanese innate possession of all basic Confucian virtues that one found “the essentially Japanese quality of Japan…, and a magnificent example of Japan’s superiority to all other countries of the world” (Muromatsu 1911–1918, I.2: 102; emphasis added as in Tsunoda et al. 1964, II: 43). Atsutane’s arguments would have been familiar to nativists of all schools, though his versions typically had distinctive embellishments. For example, Atsutane claimed that since the world was created as a consequence of the actions of Japanese deities, Japan was created first among all countries, making it the highest and most esteemed land, while the rest of the world was, by implication, created from material left over from Japan’s pristine conception. Evidence of this vertical superiority and temporal priority was found, according to Atsutane, in the fact that alone among all countries, only Japan did not have a legend of a great flood having destroyed much of humanity (Muromatsu 1911–1918, I.1: 42). In Atsutane’s world view, not only was Japan “the ancestral country of the ten thousand countries” whose deity Amaterasu provided sunlight for all the world, just as MOTOORI Norinaga had maintained, but “our great ruler (taikun 大君) is [also] the great ruler of the ten thousand countries” (emphasis as in Muromatsu 1911–1918, I.4:19). As for Confucius,

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Atsutane claimed that if only he had been born in Japan, “then he certainly would not have studied Chinese things” (Muromatsu 1911–1918, V: 230). These claims went well beyond the essentialist patriotic assertions of either KAMO no Mabuchi or MOTOORI Norinaga. Atsutane’s defensiveness vis-à-vis China was also evident in his reporting on “immortals” (sanjin 仙人), supernatural denizens of the mountains about whom Atsutane had learned from a self-styled “wizard” (tengu 天狗) named Torakichi 寅吉. Although barely a teenager when Atsutane first met him in 1820, Torakichi became Atsutane’s informant on “immortals,” who represented in Atsutane’s cosmology a domestic Japanese counterpart to the traditional Chinese notion of the “mountainhermit/sage” (sennin 仙人). Wilburn Hansen has described the sanjin as “an alternative native Japanese religious virtuoso who could undermine claims of foreign superiority,” concluding that while the “impressive array of sanjin technology could have been used in an argument against China, … it would be a more appropriate answer to Western challenges to Japanese scientific and technological ability” (Hansen 2008: 102, 172). HIRATA Atsutane’s cultural and racial defensiveness, and the xenophobia that colors their expression, were now informed and supported by a worldview conscious of European military technology and scientific knowledge. Showing how quickly such knowledge spread, as early as 1807 Atsutane wrote that “last year in 1806 Russians suddenly came to the islands of Ezo [Hokkaidō] with hostile intentions. After that, barbarians called the English came rudely and uninvited to Tsukushi’s Nagasaki” (emphasis added, Hansen 2008: 188). In other writings Atsutane compared the Dutch and Russians to dogs, using any number of vulgar racialist arguments in doing so (Keene 1969: 170). The virulence of Atsutane’s xenophobia was unmistakable. Along the way, he repeatedly marshaled a novel rebuttal to the assertion that Japan had historically been a net importer of superior doctrines and technology from abroad. As Atsutane insisted, even if more recent circumstances suggested otherwise, because Japan was ancestral primal country, it was ipso facto the original source of all that was good and beneficial, which of course included such blessings as technology, science, medicine, rice, the Way, and so on. These salutary civilizational blessings were exported in most ancient times from Japan to China, but owing to the deleterious effects of the “Chinese heart” (Karagokoro), these boons were variously corrupted and Sinified, and their Japanese origins either deliberately effaced or innocently forgotten. As a result, when these once wonderful things were finally reintroduced to Japan from China, their Japanese origins were unappreciated, and their corrupted forms harmed instead of helped (Tsunoda et al. 1964, II: 43–44.) Atsutane’s complex critique of China and Confucianism marked a new stage in what might be styled, owing to his prominence, the Kokugaku critique of Confucianism and China. The fact was that by the 1820s, Kokugaku itself had become more richly multi-vocal, and Atsutane had succeeded in dominating this polyphonic discourse only after prevailing over numerous competing voices (McNally 2005). By separating nativism from philology Atsutane was able to cite verification for his theories wherever it could be found, even in otherwise

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problematic (owing to their origins) Confucian or Chinese sources. Even as the high watermark of the Kokugaku critique of Confucianism and China was framed by the last of the tradition’s “great men,” it was evident that China and its Confucian philosophical doctrines had proven to be remarkable adversaries and objects of attack for Kokugaku and its proponents, making the Kokugaku victory in the early-nineteenth century contest for hearts and minds all the more impressive on the eve of the end of the old order.

9.7

The Mito Convergence and Modern Denouement

The Kokugaku victory proved to be at best temporary. Along the way several themes and symbols had become central to nativism across generations and across schools, including a new focus on Amaterasu and her descendants, the successive generations of emperors of Japan; the belief in the ancient presence of naturally virtuous behavior without need for moral instruction; the disruption of this ancient state of grace by the introduction of Chinese learning and Chinese Ways, especially Confucianism; and the optimistic suggestion that the blessings which Japan’s ancient forbearers enjoyed were recoverable in the here-and-now. Nevertheless, after more than a century of competition and adversarial contention between Japanese studies and Chinese studies, the two fields—and their major themes— were about to be subsumed under a Confucian rubric, and this as a direct consequence of the ideological and philosophical production accomplished once again in the scholarship of intellectuals in Mito 水戸 domain. Foremost among these Mito scholars was AIZAWA Seishisai 会沢正志斎(1782– 1863), whose New Theses (Shinron 新論) of 1825 both warned about the danger posed by foreign vessels entering Japanese waters, and articulated the concept of “national polity” (kokutai 国体) (Wakabayashi 1986). Aizawa blunted the Kokugaku critique by arguing that there was a “congruence” (angō 暗合) between the Confucian Way of the sages and the Japanese ancient Way of heaven and earth. Aizawa posited that as a consequence of Amaterasu’s mandate to her grandson Ninigi 瓊瓊杵 and his descendants to rule Japan in perpetuity—a mandate symbolized in the regalia of mirror, sword and jewel—one found in ancient Japan a counterpart to the Chinese Way of the sages. This correspondence made it possible for Aizawa and his Mito colleagues to meld into a singular imperative what previously had been posited as a Confucian understanding of filial piety and a nativist understanding of loyalty to one’s sovereign. Aizawa thus straddled the universalist-essentialist divide by arguing that this ancient imperative, although rooted in heaven and earth, was unique to Japan. Accordingly, the virtues of which Chinese sages wrote in ancient times were actually known in pre-literate ancient Japan but they were known in practice as opposed to in theory, and as a result there was no contradiction between the Chinese and Japanese experience of these virtues. In other words in ancient Japan people practiced Confucian virtues without recognizing them as such. This convergence of

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nativist and Confucian ideals was just one aspect of a host of speculations on the Japanese and Chinese pasts, which culminated in what is aptly styled “Mito ideology” (Koschmann 1987). In the last decades of the Tokugawa period this Mito ideology pitted “Eastern morality” against “Western science,” and became the fountainhead of a number of slogans—“loyalty to parents and loyalty to sovereign are one,” “the military and the civil are not two,” and perhaps the most potent of these, “revere the sovereign, expel the barbarian” (sonnō jōi 尊王攘夷)—that in the end contributed to justifying the demise of the Tokugawa order. Despite the rapid introduction of Western technologies and institutions during the two decades following the Meiji Restoration of 1868, Confucianism infused by the nativist legacy of Kokugaku became the moral bedrock of the new Meiji state. Scholar-activists in the public sphere like MOTODA Eifu 元田永孚 (1818–1891) and NISHIMURA Shigeki 西村茂樹 (1828–1902) argued persuasively for Confucian morality’s foundational importance to the national weal. Their exertions climaxed in October 1890 with the promulgation in the Meiji emperor’s name of the Imperial Rescript on Education. Like the writings of A IZAWA Seishisai and his Mito colleagues a half-century earlier, the Rescript represented a remarkable melding of traditional Confucianism with the young state’s progressive aspirations. In the classic language of Confucianism it exhorted a population now defined as “imperial subjects” to “be filial to your parents, affectionate to your brothers and sisters; harmonious as husbands and wives, true as friends; modest and moderate in comportment; [and] humane to all.” At the same time the Rescript defined a new model for imperial subjects, enjoining them to “pursue learning and cultivate arts, and thereby develop intellectual faculties and perfect moral powers.” Principally, however, imperial subjects were to dedicate themselves to the advancement of the state: “advance public good and promote common interests; always respect the Constitution and observe the laws; should emergencies arise, offer yourselves courageously to the Imperial State; and thus guard and maintain the prosperity of Our Imperial Throne coeval with heaven and earth.” In a perfect symbol of the renewed convergence of Chinese and nativist ideals, we see here the cardinal Confucian virtues—filial piety, harmony, modesty, humaneness, and love of learning—once again thoroughly domesticated and this time harnessed in service to the Japanese imperial throne. The nativist critique of China and Confucianism indeed had come full circle, returning to the status quo ante of the early- and mid-seventeenth century, when classical Japanese studies and Confucian studies were streams within a single scholarly flow. This time, however, far more than the samurai order, the newly ascendant imperial throne served as the focal point of moral authority.

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Conclusions

Tokugawa-period Kokugaku has been closely identified in the Japanese historical imagination with criticism of China in general and Confucianism in particular, but this characterization takes what was true for roughly a century and extrapolates this antagonistic condition both into the past and the future. The essential congruence of nativist and Confucian goals, and between Japanese studies and Chinese studies eventually reasserted itself, making possible the more familiar conditions of the present, when virtues like filial piety, harmony, humaneness, and studiousness have been thoroughly domesticated in their contemporary Japanese setting. Whether this represents a victory for Confucianism in its competition with nativism, or rather a kind of draw between the two makes for interesting speculation, although this essay favors the latter interpretation. Moral traditionalists in Japan still vie with moral emotionalists (shujōshugisha 主情主義者), but both have legitimate claims to antecedents in the Tokugawa period, and neither can cast the other fairly as some sort of Other. In this respect both moral traditionalists and their foes in Japan are thoroughly domesticated aspects of a single discursive field, making their century of contention all the more exceptional.

References Berry, Mary Elizabeth. 2006. Japan in print: Information and nation in the early modern period. Berkeley: University of California Press. Hansen, Wilburn. 2008. When tengu talk: HIRATA Atsutane’s ethnography of the other world. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press. Jansen, Marius. 1995. Japan and its world: Two centuries of change. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Keene, Donald. 1969. The Japanese discovery of Europe, 1720–1830. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Keene, Donald. 1976. World within walls. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston. Keene, Donald. 1984. Characteristic responses to Confucianism in Tokugawa literature. In Confucianism and Tokugawa culture, ed. Peter Nosco. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Kornicki, Peter Francis. 1998. The book in Japan: A cultural history from the beginnings to the nineteenth century. Leiden: Brill. Koschmann, J. Victor. 1987. The Mito ideology. Berkeley: University of California Press. McNally, Mark. 2005. Proving the way: Conflict and practice in the history of Japanese nativism. Cambridge: Harvard University Asia Center. Muromatsu, Iwao (ed.). 1911–1918. HIRATA Atsutane zenshū 平田篤胤全集, 15 vols. Tokyo: Itchidō shoten. Murphy, Regan E. 2009. Esoteric Buddhist theories of language in early Kokugaku. Japanese Journal of Religious Studies 36(1): 65–92. Nishimura, Sey. 1991. The way of the gods: MOTOORI Norinaga’s Naobi no Mitama. Monumenta Nipponica 46: 21–41.

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Nosco, Peter. 1981. Nature, invention and national learning: The Kokka hachiron controversy, 1742–26. Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 41(1): 75–91. Nosco, Peter. 1990. Remembering paradise: Nativism and nostalgia in 18th-century Japan. Cambridge: Council on East Asian Studies, Harvard University. Nosco, Peter. 1996. Nativism and Confucianism in Tokugawa Japan. In Meeting of minds: Intellectual and religious interaction in East Asian traditions of thought, ed. Irene Bloom and Joshua Fogel. New York: Columbia University Press. Nosco, Peter. 2007. The place of China in the construction of Japan’s early modern world view. Taiwan Journal of East Asian Studies 4(1): 27–47. Orikuchi, Shinobu. 2011. The goal of native studies. In Sourcebook in Japanese philosophy, ed. James Heisig, Thomas Kasulis, and John Maraldo. Nagoya: Nanzan Institute for Religion and Culture. Pollack, David. 1986. The fracture of meaning: Japan’s synthesis of China from the eighth through the eighteenth centuries. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Taira, Shigemichi 平重道, and ABE Akio 阿部秋生 (eds.). 1972. Kinsei Shintō ron Zenki kokugaku 近世神道論・前期国学. Nihon shisō taikei 日本思想大系, vol. 39. Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten. Tsunoda, Ryusaku, Wm. Theodore de Bary, and Donald Keene (eds.). 1964. Sources of Japanese tradition, 5–9. New York: Columbia University Press. Wakabayashi, Bob Tadashi. 1986. Anti-foreignism and Western learning in early-modern Japan: The new theses of 1825. Cambridge: Harvard University Council on East Asian Studies.

Chapter 10

Saints as Sinners: ANDŌ Shōeki’s Back-to-Nature Critiques of the Saints, Confucian and Otherwise Jacques Joly

10.1

Introduction

As recently as just after the Second World War, a handful of scholars in Tokugawa intellectual history still maintained that the name of ANDŌ Shōeki 安藤昌益 (1703–1762) was the product of some academic hoax. Proof of the existence of this author was, however, eventually ascertained. He is believed to have been born in 1703 (Genroku 元禄 16), in a place located on the outskirts of Ōdate City 大館, Niida 二井田, in the midst of an area called the Hinai 比内. This area, referred to as the rice-basket of northern Japan, stretches along the Yoneshiro river 米代川, roughly speaking halfway between the cities of Akita 秋田 and Aomori 青森. After coming of age, Shōeki, probably with the recommendation of the local Zen temple in Niida, moved to a (yet unknown) Zen temple in Kyoto in order to become a monk. After receiving his certificate of enlightenment, for some unknown reason, Shōeki abandoned monkhood, severed his ties with Buddhism and took up medical studies under the direction of AJIOKA Sanpaku 味岡三伯, one of the most famous physicians of his day. Once recognized as a physician, Shōeki did not stay a long time in Kyōto. In fact, the only reliable documents on Shōeki date back to 1744 when he was 41 years of age. These documents relate that Shōeki was engaged as a domain physician (han’i 藩医), a rather valuable position, by the local lord of Hachinohe 八戸. The Annals of the Hachinohe Fief 八戸藩丁日記延享元年延享二年 (ASK 1982–1987: 16B, 396–397) states that ANDŌ Shōeki healed some archers and declined a reward from his lord. He began to participate in the local intellectual life and wrote some Japanese style poems (waka 和歌) during poetry sessions, but soon refrained from these mundane activities in order to concentrate on his own school, the “Adepts of the Celestial Principle of Authenticity” (Tenshin Keikai 転真敬会), for which we J. Joly (*) Notre Dame Women’s College, Kyoto, Japan Eichi University, Amagasaki, Japan e-mail: [email protected] C.C. Huang and J.A. Tucker (eds.), Dao Companion to Japanese Confucian Philosophy, Dao Companions to Chinese Philosophy 5, DOI 10.1007/978-90-481-2921-8_10, © Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2014

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have no documents. In the Spring of 1758, Shōeki left not only Hachinohe but also his wife and three children for his supposed homeland, Niida 井田, in order to take charge of his family line after the death of his elder brother, Magojamu 孫左衛門 who was childless. Shōeki died from illness 4 years later, in the autumn of 1762, and his grave was discovered by a local historian in 1978, in the cemetery of the Onsenji 温泉, a Sōtō 曹洞 temple to which the Andō family was affiliated. This is the extent of reliable information about Shōeki’s life; the rest unfortunately pertains of the domain of conjecture. The only book Shōeki published is The Way of the Operations or Activities of the Principle of Spontaneity (Shizenshin’eidō 自然眞営道), in three volumes (ASK 1982: 21, 297–580). However, Shōeki’s magnum opus work was his unpublished manuscript (稿本) of the Shizenshin’eidō 自然眞営道, in 101 volumes (hereafter, the Greater Shizenshin’eidō), of which all except 16 (ASK 1982: 17–19) were “kept safe” in the Tokyo Imperial University library before being completely destroyed by a fire resulting from the Great Kantō Earthquake in 1923. A long report, the Kasumishoku shuki 掠職手記, written in 1765 (ASK 1982: 101–154), relates that 2 years after Shōeki’s death, his disciples were persecuted and banned from Niida by the local Shintō priests after the disciples erected a stele on which they had written: “Dedicated to Master ANDŌ Shōeki, Deity (kami) of the Peasants” 守農太神確竜堂良中先生. It seems that his main disciple, KAMIYAMA Senkaku 神 山仙確, was forced to flee and handed the Greater Shizenshin’eidō over to several people. Among these people was a physician from Nikkō 日光, Tanaka Shinzai 田 中眞斎 (1789–?), who in the first half of the nineteenth century wrote a compendium of Shōeki’s treatises focusing on medicine known as the Shinzai Manpitsu 眞斎謾筆 (ASK 1982: 15). According to Shōeki’s son and disciple, ANDŌ Shūhaku, more than in the Odate 大館 region, Shōeki’s thought was apparently much better regarded along the roads leading to Tokyo, especially in Senjū 千住, a town located on the northern edge of Edo and the first station on the road leading to the Tōhoku 東北 region. In short, we are now certain that Shōeki did have a number of disciples and was far from the “forgotten thinker” described by E. H. Norman (1950). In 1885,TANAKA Shinzai’s 田中眞斎 descendants sold the Greater Shizenshin’eidō to a local bookseller who in turn sold it to another at Hongō 本郷, in front of Tokyo Imperial University. KANO Kōkichi 狩野亨吉 (1865–1942) purchased the books in 1899. Kano was a well-known figure in those times, who resigned from his prestigious position of dean of the Faculty of Letters at Kyoto Imperial University in order to concentrate on his hobby, collecting old books. At first glance, Kano’s reaction upon reading the Shizenshin’eidō was unequivocal: in Kano’s view the books were the writings of a madman (kyōjin no sho 狂人の書). Eight years later, however, Kano reopened the books and did not hesitate to state in an article entitled: “We Have a Great Thinker” (Dai shisōka ari 大思想家あり). He added, “ANDŌ Shōeki is the greatest thinker ever born in our land 吾が日本の国土が生むた最大思想家にし て; even at the level of the universal history of thought, he is a very special figure” 世界史相思上にも特筆すべき人物 (Kano 1908: 3). During those 8 years between his purchase of Shōeki’s works and his article about Shōeki, Kano had gradually

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moved towards socialism and then anarchism, political stances which of course made him consider Shōeki’s works in a totally different light. It should be noted that the 15 volumes of the Greater Shinzenshin’eidō which escaped destruction by fire during the Great Kantō Earthquake were in the hands of WATANABE Daitō 渡 辺大涛 (1879–1958), a disciple of Kano who reinforced Kano’s views about Shōeki and his works. Watanabe also contributed largely to the introduction of Shōeki’s thought to socialist-oriented thinkers of the Taishō 大正 (1912–1926) and early Shōwa eras 昭和 (1926–1989), and among them only (Watanabe 1939). The decisive start for studies of Shōeki’s thought occurred after WWII with Herbert Norman’s (1909–1957) famous work: ANDŌ Shoeki and the Anatomy of Japanese Feudalism (Norman 1949), published in the Transactions of the Asiatic Society of Japan. Norman’s study truly shocked the Japanese intellectual world, amazed as it was by the fact that a Canadian had discovered such an important intellectual who had been ignored for centuries by the Japanese themselves. The Japanese translation of Norman’s work appeared just 2 months after the English version, under the provocative title: A Forgotten Thinker (Wasurerareta shisōka 忘れられた 思想家). In fact, Norman had been searching in Tokugawa thought for the voice of an advocate representing the needs of the people, e.g. the peasants, against feudal power. Norman was convinced that such a voice could not be found among the wellknown big names of the intellectual world of the times, such as OGYŪ Sorai 荻生徂 徠 (1666–1724) and others. Therefore he decided that such a thinker had to have been a non-academic fellow, living among the peasants. Without a doubt, Norman’s works brought the impetus for a revival of studies on ANDŌ Shōeki. At the same time, however, they were definitely responsible for giving these studies their main direction: a non-academic one, focusing on a so-called harsh criticism of the feudal regime, supposedly pioneering the socialist thinking of the next century. This trend became even more acute, with the founding of the Association for the Study of ANDŌ Shōeki 安藤昌益研究会, which produced important studies of Shōeki’s writings, culminating in the Complete Works of ANDŌ Shōeki (ANDŌ Shōeki zenshū 安藤昌益全集). This Association was headed by TERAO Gorō 寺尾五郎 (1921–1999), a Maoist thinker who celebrated ANDŌ Shōeki as “the philosopher of the oppressed, the poet of the productive classes, the genius of the peasants” (ASK 1982: I, 16). Terao once dared declare: If Marx and Engels, at the time they wrote the Manifest of the Communist Party, had not yet discovered the existence of the pristine communitarian society, Shōeki, around the 1750s, was convinced of it, and had put it at the very root of his system of thought, preceding both Marx and Engels by a hundred years. At the level of universal history, ANDŌ Shōeki is the forerunner of communism (ASK 1982: I, 16).

YASUNAGA Toshinobu later redirected interpretations of Shōeki, casting him as an ecological thinker as is attested by the title of the English translation of his book, ANDŌ Shōeki, an Ecological philosopher of the XVIIIth Century (Yasunaga 1992). Perhaps many in Japan had come to realize that the former approach, i.e., the Marxist or Maoist one, was not on the right track. Certainly the main trend in Japan recently has been toward considering Shōeki chiefly as a pioneer of ecologist

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thought in Japan, and possibly in the whole world. In this, the interpretive focus has been on the intimate relationship between Shōeki’s thought and the soil, which refers not only to the earth, which he enjoins us to cultivate, but also to his native land, that of the nativist thinkers among whom Shoeki must be included. Thus, we can perhaps interpret this recent trend as a hidden attempt to rehabilitate the last Kokugaku 国学派 current by stressing some of the main positions of Shōeki’s as integral parts of today’s intellectually fashionable ecologist thought. In any case, the important thing to remember is that such interpretations of Shōeki as a socialoriented, ecologist-oriented thinker, even as a feminist thinker, have become and remain the predominant ones in Japan. It should be clear that the history of the studies on ANDŌ Shōeki’s thought coincides almost totally with the history of the process of appropriation of his ideas. The question that might then arise is what, inside Shōeki’s system of thought itself, can explain this take-over or appropriation process? What leads to such a treatment of his thought? Of course, at first glance, many studies have addressed his harsh criticisms of the society in which he lived. And it is a fact that an entire fourth of the 101 volumes of the Greater Shinzenshin’eidō are devoted to such criticism. However, two things need to be kept in mind. First, Shōeki was not the only one to utter so harsh criticisms. Many other thinkers, even those who later supported the shogunate, such as OGYŪ Sorai 荻生徂徠 (1666–1724), engaged in a very deep denunciation of their society, yet without expressing insults on every page as Shōeki did. Second, Shōeki’s condemnations remain at a theoretical level: although there are, here and there, some allusions towards the present state of the Tokugawa society, Shōeki never actually describes such a society. Moreover, never are the present rulers of his time held accountable for the sad situation Shōeki saw around him everyday, such as the famines in the Hachinohe fief. Even the samurai warriors who were then ruling Japan are just considered as the avatars or the followers of the ancient Saints and the Buddha, and are thus lacking, in Shōeki’s view, any direct initiative or full responsibility. For the famines which were plaguing the Tōhoku area are not explained as the direct result of the shogunal policy, but rather as the result of the action of an evil generative force – ki 氣 – infecting the heaven and then descending back to earth to infect the crops. And why is it that the peasants are emitting such an evil generative force? Because, according to Shōeki, people have abandoned their pristine spontaneous way of living (shizen no yo 自然の世) in favor of a world of law (hōsei 法世), instituting distinctions and differences (nibetsu 二別) between people, between high and low, ruler and ruled, with the former “stealing the realm” – tenka o nusumu 天下を盗む – and the latter being oppressed by the former. Consequently, all the troubles of the present times are not ascribed -as anyone would be logically inclined to do – to the actual rulers of Japan, but to a great number of people whose common attribute was that they thought. Thus, every school of thought, philosophical and otherwise, of every epoch became the target of Shōeki’s vituperations. Moreover, when we trace the ultimate causes responsible for all the illnesses in the society in which Shōeki lived to those who initiated the decline of humanity with their invention of culture, then, according to Shōeki, we are confronted with a small number of people, or rather quasi-mythical figures, namely,

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the ancient sage kings (sennō 先王), or the Saints – (shengren seijin 聖人) – as they will be called hereafter*. The first volume of Shōeki’s Tōdō shinden 統道眞傅 is expressly and entirely devoted to “mending the errors of the Saints” (seishitsu o tadasu 糺聖失) (ASK 1982: XX, 4–155). It consists of a general critic of the teaching of the Saints. Moreover, three volumes of the Greater Shinzenshin’eidō, called “Confucian Writings” (Jusho 儒書) (ASK 1982: XVII, 459–574; ASK 1982: XVIII, 3–234), are also devoted to a general critique of the Confucian tradition and its Saints. For instance, concerning those Saints, Shōeki is curiously grateful to Zengzi 會子 for having explained that they stole the way of heaven (天道ヲ盗ンテ゛), robbed the labor of ordinary people (衆人ノ直耕ヲ掠メ取リ), instituted their tricky learning of the egoistic law (私法ノ学術ヲ制シテ), installed themselves by force on the top of others (押サエテ以テ上ニ立チ); greedily ate the products of others without working themselves (不耕貪食ニシ賁リ), dressed up with plenty of luxurious ornaments and lived in an extravagant way” (衣テ栄曜ヲ為ス明ラカニ 見ワレタ) (ASK 1982: XVIII, 201). It must be emphasized, however, that the word Jusho 儒書 did not refer only to what Westerners today call the Confucian tradition of learning; it signifies the whole tradition of the Chinese Classics and their Japanese commentators, Daoist writings included, or any other writing which does not belong to the Buddhist sphere of teaching. It is noteworthy that, on the one hand, this category of “Confucianism” was created for and by the Western world, and on the other hand, as NOGUCHI Takehiko 野口武彦 (Noguchi 1993: 7–102) and others have shown, that what we or what the Japanese today call bungaku 文学 is not the same thing as what people in the Edo period meant by this word. During the early Edo period, intellectuals were often reluctant to label themselves as Confucian, Daoist, Nativist (Kokugakusha 国学者) or even Buddhist: those labels mainly came from the middle of the Meiji period and were primarily popularized by INOUE Tetsujirō 井上哲 次郎 (1855–1944) who, himself most influenced by Western philosophy, was eager to reproduce in the Japanese intellectual world of the Edo period some distinctions which might be similar to those he observed in Europe. Edo thinkers, moreover, did not appreciate each other according to such a supposed general trend of their writings: in many instances, that did not really count for them as these writings were in fact sponsored compositions for some lord. As we know, HAYASHI Razan 林 羅山 (1583–1657), often misleadingly celebrated for having propagated the socalled neo-Confucian thought in Japan, was in fact much more interested in putting his own Shintō forward. What seemed far more important to many of them was rather to compose poems, and especially Chinese-mannered poems – Kanshi 漢詩. Even in the case of ANDŌ Shōeki, in addition of the works cited above, what remains from him in other people’s documents and what he was praised for were two poems he wrote for the closing ceremony of a series of lectures he gave at the Tenshōji 天聖寺 in Hachinohe, poems which were recorded (but not the lectures themselves) by the priest of that temple in a booklet called the Shibun monjoki 詩 文聞書記 (Yasunaga and Yamada 1986: 24–25). For all these reasons, it is best to understand Shoêki’s criticisms as addressing the tradition of the Saints since such an approach allows one to grasp something much more concrete than when dealing with the Confucianist tradition in general.

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In the Tōdō shinden 統道真伝, Shōeki focuses his attacks on a list of 11 Saints, “chronologically” ranging from Fuxi 伏羲 to Confucius 孔丘, a list which was very common in his day (ASK 1982: XX, 14). These are, first, eight personalities quoted from a list more or less fixed by the so-called Confucian tradition: Yao 堯 (J: Gyō), Shun 舜 (Shun), Yü 禹 (U), Tang 湯 (Tō), Wen 文 (Bun), Wu 武 (Bu), the Duke of Zhou 周公 (Shūkō), and Kongzi 孔子 (Kōshi), or Confucius. As was common practice, Shōeki added a list of three: Fuxi 伏羲 (Fukki), Shennong 神農 (Shinnō), and Huangdi 黄帝 (Kōtei), who from the Han became revered by the Daoist sects. That makes 11: “Fuxi, Shennong, Huangdi, Emperor Yao, Emperor Shun, Emperor Yu, King Tang, King Wen, King Wu, the Duke of Zhou, and Confucius: they are revered as Saints by the Chinese for they were the first to teach things and their knowledge as well as their conduct was perfect. Among the immense population of China, these Saints only numbered eleven.” (ASK 1982: XVII, 478). For what does Shōeki reproach the Saints? In the Tōdō shinden (統道真伝) chapter, “A Discussion of How the Saints Have Robbed Nature throughout the Ages” (Yoyo no seijin mina shizen o nusumu no ron 世世ノ聖人皆自然ヲ盗ムノ論), Shōeki reviews the Saints and presents a list of their main offenses. Shōeki first characterizes Fuxi by stating: “The one who made trouble for the entire natural world was Fuxi. He was responsible for having instigated the unceasing wars which plagued the world for a myriad of generations” (一般ノ自然ノ世,伏羲之レヲ乱シ,万々 ノ后世ニ兵乱ノ絶エザルハ伏羲ニ始マル所ナリ) (ASK 1982: XX, 60). Why is that so? According to Shōeki, it was because Fuxi had invented the trigrams, and he did so as a part of a stratagem to deceive the ordinary people (shū o taburakasu hakarigoto tame ni eki o tsukutta 衆ヲ誑カス計為ニ易ヲ作ッタ). The trigrams are simply falsifications. Following the patterns of the trigrams, Fuxi then devised the characters. These characters are false too, according to Shōeki, because they base themselves upon a prior process of falsification, namely the invention of the trigrams. Fuxi is also accused of having concocted the “three-yin-three-yang theory” (三陰三陽) which supposedly breaks the natural unity of the five elements by dividing in two the element fire. From Shennong on, people forgot how to live in the spontaneous order of things. Shōeki maintains that the very fact that Shennong had no recourse other than to taste all of the plants in order to establish the art of medicine proves that “he did not know the spontaneous course of the qi throughout all things” (自然ノ気行ヲ知ル者ニ非ズ) (ASK 1982: XX, 62). Shōeki chiefly reprimands Huangdi for his wars, but he also disapproves of the cosmological theories of the Lingshu 霊枢 and the Suwen 素問 (ASK 1982: XX, 63). According to Shōeki, both treatises were composed later, on the basis of the Book of Documents (Shujing 書經). The sage emperor Yao was the fourth to commit such offenses: that was too much for heaven to bear, so it became angry and reacted by flooding the land for nine years. Shōeki explains this phenomenon by a logic derived from the idea of the mandate of heaven 天命, alluded to in Japan as “the earth being affected by the ire of heaven” tenhen ji’i 転変地異. Because of Yao’s offenses, people were sheltered in the woods but could no longer till the soil. That caused famines. The lamentations of the people reached heaven and set trouble on

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its own course. Heaven then reacted by sending more rain, people become more distressed, and so on. Consequently, in Shōeki’s view, to consider Yao’s reign as peaceful is a complete lie. By giving his two daughters to Shun, Yao also violated the natural spontaneous law of monogamy and initiated the habits of polygamy and incest. On more theoretical grounds, Shōeki reprimands Yao for “having established distinctions leading to a false dual knowledge” (分別知の失り) which “does not conform to the spontaneous order of the things” (ASK 1982: XX, 68). Shōeki also rejects the distinction between “the mind of man” (jinshin 人心) and “the mind of the way” (dōshin 道心), a distinction regarded by ZHU Xi as the beginning of “the transmission of the way” tōdō no den 統道の伝 in its globality). In Shōeki’s view, the mind of man and the mind of the way are “the two manifestations of but one spirit” (人心 道心にして一心) (ASK 1982: XX, 69). Then came the sage emperor Shun who continued, in Shōeki’s view, the devastating activity of his predecessors. First, he did not have to receive the realm from Yao: by doing so, he reasserted the duality among things between a donor and a receiver. Besides, the 9 years of flooding which plagued the realm were caused by the common fault of the one who gives and the one who receives. Also very serious: “Shun dug out gold and silver from the mountains and put them on the market at a great scale: that caused great harm for future generations and became the root for all the world to be misled into desire and violence (乱世ノ太本ナリ). All the ills of the world have but one cause, namely gold and silver” (万悪根,只此ノ一ツ金銀ニ有リ) (ASK 1982: XX, 72). Shun also invented the 13-stringed koto: but according to Shōeki, “music does not soften our manners (楽音ハ人情和グル者ニ非ズ), but rather it dissolves our character, invites us to laziness and to the desire to maintain our dominant position, thus fostering violence” (ASK 1982: XX, 73). By inventing the board game go (weiqi 囲碁) for his dull son to learn yin, yang, and the course of the four seasons, Shun in fact taught him to speculate in terms of winners and losers, thus reinforcing notions about the differences between things of the universe. This is the source of all sorts of gambling games that have generated jealousy, violence and crime again and again (ASK 1982: XX, 73), Finally, Shun was wrong to punish Yu’s father by death because he allegedly had been unconcerned with the floods. In fact, according to Shōeki, the ones to be held accountable for the appearance of the floods were Yao and Shun! (ASK 1982: XX, 74). The sage emperor Yu is blamed for having established nine countries and appointed a governor for each one; he also continued casting metal and putting coins on the market. Hence, this judgment from Shōeki: “He could not be an honest man but just a dangerously insane fellow.” The first of the sage kings, Tang the Victorious, followed their path and also came to be blamed for his famous inscription on his bath that read: “Renew yourself fully, renew yourself each day and never stop renewing yourself” (Couvreur 1972: 6) (ASK 1982: XX, 76). King Wen, ironically, was just a “little thief” because he only seized the two-thirds of the realm (see Lunyu, 4/20). He is also blamed for having ousted the inhumane Zhou 紂 merely for the sake of later giving the power to King Wu, the founder of the Zhou 周 dynasty” (ASK 1982: XX, 77). King Wu did not do anything good either: he just

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had to take over the throne after the Great Duke Hope (Taigong wang 太公望) did all the work. Moreover, King Wu fostered the forbidden pleasures, jeopardizing royal authority and instigating trouble in the realm” (ASK 1982: XX, 79). The Duke of Zhou 周公, who was King Wu’s younger brother, failed to blame King Wen for having ousted Zhou. But his main fault was having followed Fuxi’s taste for intellectual activities. Thus he composed his own diagram and also the Book of Odes 詩経. Shōeki devotes three pages to lambasting him, often resorting to insults such as, “One must be a fool to praise homosexuality, and that is the case with the Duke of Zhou,” or “He is just insane, out of his mind” (ASK 1982: XX, 80). As for the Book of Odes, Shōeki’s conclusion leaves little doubt: “It is entirely composed of insanities dictated by egoism, there is not a single passage in it conforming to the natural order of things: all the lines follow the path of stealing the spontaneous way” (ASK 1982: XX, 82). It is not surprising that in Shōeki’s view, the Duke of Zhou, together with King Wen and King Wu, share responsibility for the emergence of the sad era of the Warring Kingdoms (ASK 1982: XX, 80). Then came the last but not the least of all these malefactors of mankind, the sage Confucius. Shōeki devotes 15 pages to castigating the man himself and the works traditionally ascribed to him. According to Shōeki, Confucius had in mind the same aim and resorted to the same strategy as his predecessors: “Bestowed at birth with an arrogant and partial knowledge, he was revered by the princes, and because he had the secret desire to become king and do the same things as the preceding Saints, he explained their message….” (ASK 1982: XX, 83). His originality was in accordance with the scale of his teachings: by traveling the length and width of China and composing so many books, not only did he succeed in teaching the errors of the Saints, he also made everyone revere those errors. Thanks to Confucius, everyone “learned the way of stealing established by the earlier Saints” (ASK 1982: XX, 84). Shōeki considers and then duly condemns the writings attributed to Confucius: the Book of Changes (Yijing 易經 Ekikyō), Shōeki calls a “black beast;” regarding the Book of Rites (Liji 禮記 Raiki), he states, “All ritual codes are the self-absorbed contrivances of the Saints (諸法ノ礼義ハ聖人私法ノ作事ナリ); for that reason, it is not enough to say they do not deserve to be revered, they must be annihilated” (故ニ諸法ハ敬スルニ足ラズ破無スベキナリ) (ASK 1982: XX, 84). Shōeki declares that the Spring and Autumn Annals (Chunqiu 春秋 Shunjū) “are just words” (言ノミニシテ). The Doctrine of the Mean (Zhongyong 中庸 Chūyō) (ASK 1982: XX, 86) and, of course, the Analects (Lunyu 論語 Rongo) are also targets of Shōeki’s anger. Shōeki summarizes his criticisms by stating, “Everything Confucius said during his entire life expresses his own egoistic laws” (孔丘一生謂フ所、皆孔丘 ノ私法ナリ) (ASK 1982: XX, 90). To be fair, it must be added that in too many instances Shōeki’s critique is so radical that we may question his seriousness; for example, he dismisses the Guanzong mingyi (關宗明義) chapter of the Book of Filial Piety (Xiaojing 孝經 Kōkyō) because it only refers to our genetic parents and fails to make us revere our true parents, namely the rice and the other cereals (父母ハ乃チ米穀ナリ) (ASK 1982: XX, 97). Why did the Saints commit such crimes? The answer is found in Shōeki’s theory of the three-directional circulation of the generative force (tsūō gyakki 通横逆気). By reference to this theory, Shōeki explains the development of all life. Human

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beings were generated first, directly, and in a straightforward manner (通), from a ki descending from the heavenly shin 真. This is why humans are spontaneously straight-minded, have their heads oriented towards the sky, and their feet on earth. The direction of this ki curves then, becoming lateral (横), to generate the animals. When the ki curves up 90° and takes an ascending course, returning to the shin, it produces an inverted (逆) ki which generates the plants. That explains why the plants have their roots, equivalent to their heads, in the earth and their feet facing the sky. This theory is not unique to Shōeki. It is apparent in embryonic form in the Jizhong Zhoushu 㰚⠂␐㚠 chapter of the Wenzhuanjie 文傳解, a collection of ordinances of the Zhou dynasty (mostly written during the Spring and Autumn period) and in other documents from ancient China. It was only with the Song philosophers, however, that the idea actually began to take shape. SHAO Yong 邵雍 (1011–1077) introduced the notion of trajectory (zong heng ni ䷙㨓微 direct, lateral, and inverted) (Noguchi 1971: 390–391). CHEN Chun 昛㶛 (Beixi ⊿㹒), one of ZHU Xi’s 朱熹 (1130–1200) last disciples, conceptualized the theory in terms of zheng heng xia 正橫下 (straight, lateral, and downward). Several Japanese thinkers later took up the same idea. Among the most famous were the Shintō thinker YOSHIKAWA Koretaru 吉川惟足 (1615–1694), with his notion of rei-ō-gyaku 霊横逆. According to Koretaru, “Humans are the souls of all beings. Beings proceed from a slanting, oblique ki. That is why beasts live in a horizontal position. Plants grow the other way round” (Noguchi 1971: 391). BITŌ Jishū 尾藤二州 (1746–1814) and MIURA Baien 三浦梅園 (1723–1789) in his main work, Abstruse Words (Gengo 玄語), mention the theory too. However, according to NOGUCHI Takehiko, apart from Shōeki, the only thinkers to have made some valuable description of this particular course of the ki were HAYASHI Razan 林羅山 and KAIBARA Ekiken 貝原益軒 (1630–1714). In his Santokushō 三徳抄, Razan molds this primarily Daoist notion into a Confucian discourse by stating, Living beings of the entire universe … differ according to their ki (凡テ天地ノ間ニ生ル ル者其気ニ不同アルユエニ). There are plants, beasts, and humans (草木アリ、禽獣ア リ、人倫アリ). Plants come up the other way around; their roots are their heads and their branches are their limbs (草木ハサカサマニ生レテ、根ヲカシラトシ、枝ヲ末トス). Beasts are born sideways and move laterally (禽獣ハヨコサマニ生レテ、横ニ走リア ルクナリ). Humans, because they receive the correct ki, make theirs the ki of the universe (人ハ正気ヲウケタルユヘニ天地ノ気ヲソノ気トシ). (Noguchi 1971: 390)

In his work, On the Principles of Beings (Butsuri o ronzu 物理ヲ論ズ), KAIBARA Ekiken, known for his more positivistic mind, established a link with his theory of knowledge: If we examine the problem at its origin, we find that humans are born normally (人ハ順ニ 生ジ), plants come up the other way around (草気ハ倒ニ生ジ) and beasts live sideways (禽獣ハ横ニ生ズ). That is why plants have no knowledge at all (故ニ草気ハ知ル事無シ), beasts have an imperfect knowledge (禽獣ハ知テ全カラズ) and as for humans, there is nothing of which they are ignorant (人ハ則チ知ラザル事無シ). (Kaibara 1709: 45)

Nevertheless, this theory played a very limited part among these authors. They mention it simply in order to advocate a specific argument about the superiority of human beings. Shōeki alone seems to have developed and systematized it to the point of making it an essential part of his doctrine.

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Needless to say, in the realm of life, every being must enjoy a particular balance of these three kinds of ki so that one does not jeopardize the predominance of another. Humans are governed by the downward directed ki, animals by the lateral one, and plants by the upward inversed one. Otherwise, they become ill. Shōeki’s understanding of medicine is thus based on this theory: Men, who were born through a downward action, become ill when they receive, from outside or from within, the lateral ki (通気ノ人ハ、外内ニ横気ヲ受タルトキ、病ヲ為ス). Likewise the four species of animals, which depend on the lateral ki, become ill when they receive the malicious influence of the upward one (横気ノ四類ハ逆気ノ邪ヲ受タルトキ ハ、病ヲ為ス). Plants, which depend on the upward ki, become ill too when they receive the malicious influences of the downward and lateral ki (逆気ノ草木ハ通横ノ邪ヲ受タル (トキ) ハ、病ヲ為スナリ). (ASK 1982: XVII, 71)

In fact, there is a hierarchy of values among these three kinds of ki: “The downward straight ki is that of good sense (通気ハ賢ナリ); the lateral ki is that of silliness (横気 ハ愚ハリ) and the upward ki is the one of vice and perversity (逆気ハ邪念ナリ)” (ASK 1982: XXI, 272). As for the Saints and Buddha: Man is governed by the direct ki, but when he is ill, he is governed by the lateral one/he lies down. Sickness is a state of disarray (病ハ迷ナリ). When we are in such a state, we cannot stop speaking (迷フ則ハ数言ス) … Then appeared the Saints and the Buddha who, instead of working, were just teaching theories and making a living off their speeches (聖釈出テ゛ テ不 耕･教説ノミヲ為シ口ヲ利ス). But they were not speaking to other people, they were delivering monologues about their own problems. In other words, they were simply sick people in a delirious state (乃チ病者ノ譫語ナリ). (ASK 1982: XX, 139)

According to Shōeki, the Saints were basically sick persons: not completely humans, but rather like monsters. They received at birth an overabundance of lateral ki, which accounted for what Shōeki called their advancing ki (or their yang). Such a ki aggregated in the upper part of the body, swelling their heads (which is why all they were able to do was think) and distorting their bodies to the point that they in fact belonged more to the animal realm than to the human. That is why Shōeki insists on the physical deformities the Chinese tradition used to ascribe to them: the Saints’ actions are fully comprehensible if we consider them as beasts rather than as humans. Therefore, it was because the dragon-horse (龍馬) regarded Fuxi as a fellow animal that he gave him the trigrams. Shennong “was bestowed from birth with a horn protruding from his forehead (額ニ角有リ), because of an advancing ki aggregated to the side” (ASK 1982: XX, 60). Huangdi’s skull was abnormally flat, insists Shōeki (ASK 1982: XX, 63), and Yao had “an abnormal figure, with large ears, a large face and flat eyes” (ASK 1982: XX, 65). Moreover, the fact that a phoenix reacted to him proved that Yao and birds were of the same ilk (ASK 1982: XX, 70). Through a similar line of reasoning, Yu and the turtle from which he received the diagrams were both of the same ilk as the mushi 虫 (ASK 1982: XX, 74). Even Confucius himself was some kind of beast: combining an event related at the end of the Spring and Autumn Annals and a passage from the Analects, Shōeki ascribes to Confucius’ animal nature his reaction of great

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despair when he saw that hunters who had caught a qilin 麒麟 did not know what it was (ASK 1982: XX, 86). Shōeki summarizes his analyses by stating, The Saints… had their viscera placed higher than usual, and also at an angle. That is why they impressed normal people with their tall size, their large, thick heads and their partial and arrogant knowledge. For that reason the masters of China and India perverted Japan and made her a sad land of beasts (漢士･天竺ヨリ日本ヲ迷ハス､暗晦ノ畜国ト爲ス). (ASK 1982: XX, 15)

Thus, Shōeki is now able to accommodate the entire history of thought in a large bird-cage: Some imitated the magpie and so you have the Cheng brothers’ teaching; some then imitated the lark’s twittering and so you have ZHU Xi’s teaching; afterwards, some imitated the troglodyte‘s twittering: that produced OGYŪ Sorai’s teaching. Finally, some imitated the quail’s twittering: you obtained the Tang, Song and Ming poetry (ASK 1982: XIX, 26).

According to Shōeki, when the ki curves on a biased and then a horizontal course, it induces a loss of energy; that explains why animals cannot stand up, but rather crawl or slide; they are wicked (their mind is bent, because they don’t have a straight relationship with the authenticity of things, shin 真) and devour each other. That is precisely the way the Saints behave. In Shōeki’s view, Saints have basically “a partial knowledge.” They do not participate on a full scale with the spontaneous authenticity, the shizen shin 自然真, and their being does not fully coincide with the Whole. That explains why they are animated with desire or lust: they are always longing for something: “Desire is lateral ki; lateral ki is polluted and perverse (欲心 ハ横気ナリ｡横気ハ汚邪ノ気ナリ)” (ASK 1982: XVII, 70). Therefore, this term “lateral” (横) denotes a way of being: the way of biasing, of putting oneself off to the side, of introducing a gap between reality and oneself, and thus, of keeping one’s true being to oneself, referred to by Rousseau as the paraître, “the showing,” “the displaying.” That is why the Saints, Shōeki explains, are always preoccupied with adorning themselves, and putting on the most luxurious clothing. And just as beasts who wander in all directions in order to find a mate, the Saints and their followers wander throughout the streets of the town in order to find an occasional partner, and again just as beasts, kill each other in order to keep for themselves what they found, or in order to steal what another stole for himself. In the realm of thought, this biasing activity manifests itself as a prejudicing one: the Saints established an artificial scission into the spontaneous oneness of things and introduced a way of seeing things as separate or differentiated (nibetsu 二別), as high and low (jōge 上下), good and evil (zen’aku 善悪), etc. Shōeki summarizes the main faults of the Saints with the expression, “the five violations or perversions and the ten errors” (gogyaku jūshitsu 五逆十失). He devotes a special chapter at the end of the first volume of the Tōdō shinden (統道真 伝) to explaining what these five violations and ten errors consist of. The term gyaku is significant: the Saints inversed the spontaneous order of things by “forcing” it (ōshite 推して) in the same way we force a lock, breaking its mechanism. The term gogyaku (Sk.: pañcånantarya) in Buddhism, refers to “the five rebellious acts or

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deadly sins that lead to immediate damnation: patricide, matricide, killing an arhat, shedding the blood of a Buddha, and destroying the harmony of the Buddhist fraternity” (Soothill and Hodous 1962: 128), the first of these sins being the lightest. Its use by Shōeki therefore conveys a very strong emotional charge. The first violation consists of “acting against the spontaneous order of things with which everyone identifies (萬萬人ニシテ一人ノ自然ニ逆シテ) by forcing one’s way and by asserting oneself in order to become king (推シテ私ヲ以テ王ト 為ル).” The second violation consists of “acting against the perfect way of cultivating the direct relationship which generated all the universe and without taking any part in it, rather greedily devouring what the others produced (転定･萬物ノ生生ス ル直耕ノ眞道ニ逆シテ､耕サス゛ シテ､衆人ノ直耕ヲ貪リ食フ).” The third violation is to institute the five social relationships (五倫) to make oneself the prince, to install ministers, and then, ignoring those same five relationships, to steal the treasures produced by the strenuous populace and indulge in a luxurious way of living” (五倫ノ法ヲ立テ､己レ君ト為リ､臣ヲ附ケ､五倫ノ上ニ立チ､衆人直 耕ノ財宝ヲ貪リ取リ栄華ヲ為ス). The fourth violation consists of “one man taking several women to let oneself go to debauchery and debase oneself to the level of beasts” (己一男ニ多女ヲ附ケ､放(ホシイママ)ニ淫乱シ､己ト禽獣ノ業ヲ為 ス｡是レ四逆ナリ) (ASK 1982: XX, 151). The fifth and final violation is described as follows: Metal lies inside the rock; its ki makes the cover of heaven (金ハ石中ニ在リ､気ヲ以テ 転外ヲ包ミ); it strengthens men’s and animals’ skin and is the basic constituent of bones… Going against those inalienable resources which were spontaneously generated to extract metal from the hills (自然ノ具ハリニ逆シテ､山中ヨリ金ヲ堀リ取リ), cast it to make money, and put it into circulation everywhere in the world, was the first step in instilling desire into the pure hearts of originally good people and causing them to later sink into greed (之レヨリ無欲･清心ノ自然･正道ノ衆ヲシテ始メテ欲心ヲ発セシメ 利欲ニ迷ワシム).

Shōeki’s “ten errors” (jūshitsu 十失) parallel the Buddhist notion of “ten major sins” (juu’aku or shie 十悪) which are: killing, stealing, adultery, lying, doubletongue, coarse language, filthy language, covetousness, anger, perverted views” (Soothill and Hodous 1962: 50). Shōeki’s “ten errors” merit brief mention. The first consists of making musical instruments (music leads to laziness and cupidity); the second involves playing chess and gambling in general; the third involves sacrificing of living beings (showing the way to meat consumption); the fourth, creating domains with administrators (administrative functions lead to laziness); the fifth, formation of a class of civil servants (shi 士); the sixth, institution of punishments against the people; the seventh, the institution of the class of craftsmen (they build luxurious residences and costly furniture); the eighth, establishment of trade and commerce (tradesmen always rely on lies and flattery); the ninth is the institution of weavers who spend their time making unnecessary clothing and adornments for the ruling class and their families; and the tenth, revering and installing at the top of the society those who are well-versed in literature or who display rhetorical skills and who thus contemptuously consider normal people as inferior and stupid (ASK 1982: XX, 152). Such a rejection of culture and all its artifacts in favor of a pristine natural state of spontaneity reminds us of course of another rejection found in the Daoist discourse

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and might tempt us to include Shōeki among the Daoist oriented thinkers. Shōeki’s discourse is reminiscent of some famous passages of the Zhuangzi, especially chapter 9: Those were the times of perfect virtue … You could find no path or way in the mountains, no boat or bridge on the waters; beings multiplied and lived at the same spot where they were born … How could you distinguish a gentleman from the populace? All were equally ignorant and used to live according to their own virtues. Devoid of any artificial desire, they were as simple as raw silk and coarse wood […] Then came the Saints. People began to make a great deal of effort in order to practice benevolence and strove toward their duties. Uncertainty loomed under the sky. Music weakened mankind and rites separated people, that explains why discord arose under the sky. (Zhuangzi yinde 1986: 23)

Another passage from the Zhuangzi, chapter 16, directly attacks the Saints and might have been a perfect motto for Shōeki: Then came the decadence. Sui Ren 燧人 and Fuxi 伏羲 wanted to act upon people and things. Instead of maintaining the perfect unity, all they could obtain from people was that they got along well. Decadence expanded further on. Shennong 神農 and Huangdi 黄帝 wanted to act upon people. They just got peace. Decadence deepened. Yao 堯 and Shun 舜 wanted to act upon people. They instituted a civil service and wanted to educate the people. Purity and simplicity disappeared. People abandoned the dao in favor of the good; proper conduct took precedence over virtue and so did the individual spirit over our natural essence …. Everybody was thrown into disarray and violence without any possibility of regaining one’s nature and one’s feelings and rejoining one’s primordial indistinctiveness (Zhuangzi yinde 1986: 41).

But even if Shōeki shares the same spirit as Zhuangzi, the fact is that Shōeki devotes a great number of pages to fighting Daoist treatises. His invectives against the Daoist thinkers are almost as harsh as his vituperations against the Saints. Consider Shōeki’s criticisms of Zhuangzi: “Because he misunderstood what the fundamentals of the way are, namely the cultivation of one’s spontaneous way of living (shizen 自然), it becomes obvious that everything he said in his writings were absurdities. What a pity!” (ASK 1982: XX, 105) In short, concludes our author, “He [Zhuangzi] and those who stole the way are of the same ilk” (故ニ道盗 ミノ同類ナリ) (ASK 1982: XX, 106). Shōeki’s writings may be considered as one odd example of what had become Confucianism in Edo Japan. As mentioned earlier, Confucianism is a term that had a very broad meaning in Tokugawa Japan. In fact, it was almost equated with the learning of the Classics. In this sense, one way to gain a better understanding of such thought might be to consider what kind of learning or what kind of ‘Confucianism’ was prevalent, not only during Shōeki’s lifetime, but at the very place he was living, namely within the Odate 大館 region where he was probably born and where he died, and also in the Hachinohe 八戸 region where he spent the most active part of his existence. The term jugaku 儒学 which we translate as “Confucianism,” perhaps did not have the same meaning in the Tōhoku 東北 area as in the intellectual circles of Edo, and likewise, could also have been used in a still different sense in the Kansai area. In this regard, it should be noted that in the Tōhoku during Shōeki’s day, the term jugaku broadly corresponded to what we call ‘neo-Confucianism’ or rather a certain

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accommodation of Neo-Confucianism in Japan called Shushigaku 朱子学. As MIYAKE Masahiko’s research on the Shibunmonjoki 詩文聞書記 seem to suggest (Noda and Miyake 1991: 532–553), these studies are far from being finished and are hindered by a lack of documents. The type of Confucianism which constituted the breeding ground of ANDŌ Shōeki’s thought (and also to some degree, what he intended to fight), was in fact a kind of thought which considered as a prerequisite for the unity of Confucianism and Buddhism. This was quite natural considering that Shōeki’s most active period stretched some 40 years before the implementation in Edo of the Ban on Heterodoxy (寛政異学の禁), and that even after HAYASHI Razan 林羅山 (1583–1657) and FUJIWARA Seika 藤原惺窩 (1561–1619), the teachings of neo-Confucianism did not become the sole property of the Razan family (as their descendants succeeded in making many believe) but rather remained part of the legacy of Zen Buddhism at the Gozan 五山 monasteries (Ooms 1984: 27–61). It was precisely that school of Buddhism which was predominant in the Odate area. As previously stated, Shōeki’s grave itself is situated in the precincts of a Zen temple, the Onsenji 温泉寺. Given this fact, even if he engaged in a severe criticism of the theoretical contents of Shushigaku, Shōeki came from a breeding ground, namely that Shushigaku, whose main foe was the kogaku 古学, the so-called School of Ancient Learning, and especially its main master, the only Japanese thinker who had the honor to dwell inside his bird-cage: OGYŪ Sorai, who, moreover, was the only Japanese thinker ever quoted (and several times) by him. That is why instead of speaking of a socalled denunciation of Confucianism – too vague a term in this context- when treating Shoeki’s relations with “tradition,” it is preferable to focus on his denunciation of the Saints, or even better, his denunciation of the absolutization of the Saints such as undertaken by OGYŪ Sorai. Much has been said about OGYŪ Sorai since MARUYAMA Masao’s Studies in the Intellectual History of Tokugawa Japan (Maruyama 1952), which gave rise to numerous other studies. This study does not address the debate as to whether Sorai’s position is a revolutionary one which introduced the very possibility of a historical – and thus modern – consciousness in the midst of the Edo period. Instead, it will limit itself to a brief summary of some basic facts concerning the relationship between Sorai and Shōeki. According to Sorai, the way consists in the actualization of norms or moral values. These norms, contrary to what Shushigaku taught, are not naturally inscribed in the order of the universe (shizen 自然) and preexisting the appearance of mankind, nor are they, as in the Mencian tradition of thought, constitutive of man in his pristine nature (xing 性). They were rather invented by this small group of people formed by the Saints or the sage-kings whose main accomplishment was not to invent marriage or agriculture, but rather to have orchestrated the essentially political undertaking of having inaugurated a new dynasty, a new political order. Sorai, in the Bendō 弁道, repeats several times almost in the same terms in what becomes almost a leitmotiv: “The way of the ancient kings (the Saints) was accomplished by the ancient kings themselves; it is not the spontaneous way the universe operates” (先王之道, 先王所造也. 非天地自然之道也) (Yoshikawa et al. 1973: 201).

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As noted earlier, Shōeki anchors his thought in a deep naturalistic background: he just cannot conceive of the possibility of anything operating in any other way than this “spontaneous way of the universe.” Therefore, his understanding of the word shizen 自然 is here of vital importance. It is well known that what Shōeki advocates, “the spontaneous way of the universe,” is one of the cardinal notions – if not the most important one – in Oriental thought. It expresses the way things happen by themselves, without any external intervention, the very opposite of what which relies on human intervention (zuowei 作為 sakui). In this sense, it greatly resembles the Greek notion of physis (Joly 1996: 456–470; Naddaf 1991: 456–470). This idea is not only a Daoist one. It later became a very important notion in all other currents of Chinese philosophy. For instance, Confucian rites can be conceived as tools provided to man by heaven in order that he might be able to fulfill his own vocation, namely reaching his own authenticity, his state of ziran 自然, or natural spontaneity, through the mediation of the accomplishment of morality. Eventually, the Chinese notion of ziran came to refer to the state of things as they were at the origin, then the meaning of the ‘nature’ of things. The notion tiandi ziran 天地自然 alluded to the universe in its pure spontaneity and especially, in the neoConfucian current, to the general and innate order of the universe (ziran zhi li 自然 之理). OGYŪ Sorai, in the above quotation, took ziran/shizen in this latter meaning. In Buddhism also, ziran, often read in Japanese Buddhist contexts as jinen instead of shizen, played a very important part, not only in Chan Buddhism (Zen), but also in the Pure Land teachings. From the time of Shinran 親鸞 (1173–1263) on, this term described the way of being at the moment of rebirth inside Amida’s Paradise. Let us add that this identification with ziran is not only to be understood in a cognitive or a moral mode (as in Confucianism), but also in an aesthetic mode. In fact, these three stances appear as only one for the sage who immerses himself in shanshui 山水, in the landscape of mountains and rivers, and who is sure to come very near the dao by experiencing a state referred to by the word ziran. It is noteworthy that this is not a pure contemplative attitude: the sage and the landscape are interacting, each helping the other to be as it should be, making it perfect, namely: ziran. This total communion is mainly to be revealed through the practice of painting during which the artist, deeply feeling the spontaneous character of all things, fulfills his own nature and at the same time allows the natural world to fulfill its own. Thus the artist does not represent the world, but re-creates it, in the same way that Shōeki recreates the world by writing the Greater Shizenshin’eidō, supporting and perfecting the mutual relationship between heaven, earth and man. Thus, Shōeki’s message seems to be a very classical one: let us obey the way things happen in their absolute spontaneity. While interpreting his thought in such a way is not at all irrelevant, Shōeki’s deepest concern goes beyond such a simple interpretation. In this regard, let us consider more closely how Shōeki defines shizen. First, and this could place Shōeki among the Nativist current, he is not fully satisfied with the classical Sino-Japanese reading of shizen: he constantly uses pronunciations borrowed from the Japanese vernacular, usually onozukara suru 自ずから する or mizukara suru 自らする, which mean “what is” or “what acts by itself.” At the same time, Shōeki reads the same word shizen as hitori suru 自リ然ル. Hitori

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for ji or shi is a very interesting and unusual reading. Hitori means “one,” “alone,” “oneself but here,” in the sense that this ‘self’ is a self-sufficient being. In his so-called dictionary 字書巻 Shōeki assigns this sense of “self-sufficient being” to the character ji and to its Japanese reading as mizukara in a very curious manner: The character ji 自 is a representation of the character mi 身, meaning the body, inside of which the four members are retracted inside the body of the character in order not to extend beyond it. And so we get a shape where the upper part represents the head and the lower part the rounded shape taken by the body when the four limbs are all huddled up or curled up inside it. In this way is conveyed the idea of concentrating one’s whole power – chikara 力 inside one’s body (mi), without using the extended strength from the limbs. That is why mi-chikara 身力 is nowadays expressed by the character ji 自 (of shizen). Later mi-chikara 身力 was phonetically transformed into mizukara 自 (ASK 1982: II, 149).

As the reader suspects, everything in this so-called etymology is false. The character ji originally was a representation of the nose. Shōeki is nevertheless very serious: the idea he wants to insist on is that of self-sufficiency, and moreover, of totality. Shizen or hitori suru expresses the way the shin 真, the principle of life, accomplishes its process of generation of all beings: alone, “without master nor pupil, without being subject to any increasing or decreasing” as Shōeki often repeats. Thus, shizen refers to the way of being of a totality, or to the fact that the way of truly being – shizenshin 自然真 – is to be or to act as a totality: the totality of the cosmos which corresponds to the course of the shin 真, at the image of which is the totality of the village, and then the totality of the lineage, organized around the rigid system of the kamado 竃. It is a very strange world indeed, the one that Shōeki presents in volume 25 of the Greater Shinzenshin’eidō: people don’t talk while working, the only words uttered are for praising the sight of a boiling-pot which is itself a living micro-cosmos with all five elements (五行) interacting within it. There is no exchange, no communication at all: everyone is self-sufficient (ASK 1982: XIX, 140–141). Cosmos, village, lineage: all of these unities are autarkical, perfectly closed worlds corresponding to a world that is the exact opposite of the one OGYŪ Sorai postulated. No wonder the outcome of such a stance is the proclamation of a vitalism: “The universe, the stars, mankind, all beings, all minds, all that happens and all our deeds are but the same thing, namely rice” (自然ト転定ト同自ナリ・ 転定･日月･人倫･万物･万心･万事･万行ハ是レ一ニ米ナリ) (ASK 1982: XXI, 293–294). Thus the exclamations in front of the pot are simply expressions of joy from those who took part in the great work of nurturing the universe by their labor in the fields: they can now see the fruit of their hardship returning to feed them. Therefore, one’s duty is to directly engage in that breeding of the universe, and the word Shōeki chose to convey such a message is chokkō 直耕, which has often been interpreted as “direct cultivation,” but the meaning of which is actually far wider; it must rather be understood as being in direct touch with the universe, in a straightforward relation with it, without any intermediary, any mediation, without curving, bending. Such a relationship is conceived as the only right one.

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Thus, according to Shōeki, shizen not only has the meaning that things happen naturally and spontaneously, but also that this spontaneous way of happening is the right one and the only possible one: ziran always has a laudatory sense. Shizen equates what is with what should be. Even from the ancient Chinese tradition, a tradition that Shōeki reappropriates for himself, shizen refers to the way the dao acts. So, shizen is a kind of ultimate notion, e.g. a notion beyond which we cannot go further, because it can only refer to what is inside or short of it, and then can only serve to put a closure to every discourse. Thus, the (mainly?) ideological use of this word: this is the notion that can be invoked to justify anything by its sole authority. Because it is the notion that refers to what goes without saying, it is almost never discussed in and of itself. We do not usually discuss obvious things that go without saying. This study holds that is what Shōeki implicitly understood. He perhaps assumed – or realized? – that relying on shizen empowered him to be right in every instance and allowed him to avoid the risk of having to argue with others, especially those of the Sorai school. If Shōeki felt the need for reasserting these obvious things, was it because what was obvious before, no longer appeared to be so in his time? If Shōeki’s discourse seems to attempt to reestablish a totally naturalistic one, is it because, at Shōeki’s time, such a discourse was beginning to become outdated? If we consider Shōeki’s purpose as an attempt to justify what had already become unjustifiable, then his only possibility of fulfilling such a task was to center his discourse on the word shizen because that is the word which creates the largest consensus possible, playing the role of our concept of absolute or universal, which is never discussed in itself, in short, because it sounds like a “magic word,” the function of which is to close every discourse by signifying: “let’s stop discussing it!” On the other hand, Shōeki’s discourse cannot but be harmed by the limitations imposed by the notion of shizen itself. Because it can only refer to what is inside and never to something external, anything can just be or not be shizen. As this notion circumscribes a totality, a discourse centered on shizen cannot but describe the world as it is: namely spontaneous and perfect. It cannot therefore explain the appearance of changes: changes can only be considered as non-existent and that is why they are defined as illusions. Events that seem not to conform to the natural order of things, such as the bad governments of the Saints and the disorders or the famines of Shōeki’s epoch, can but be proclaimed as unreal, as artifices 作為, the very existence of which appears to be an ontological scandal for Shōeki. Thus, Shōeki’s political thought can only long for a sudden – and, of course, impossible – return to the situation prior to the scandal of the appearance of the Saints: the fact that he bases his discourse on shizen actually prevents him from propounding a set of realistic actions on the world, because such actions would inevitably fall into some type of artifice. His discourse is compelled to be a tautological one, describing and recreating the world along its own process, and at the same time a moralistic – and thus a very boring one! He is reiterating in a somewhat wearisome manner the same criticism and the same lessons on every page. As a totality can speak only about itself, Shōeki’s discourse often appears as nothing else than an immense tautology!

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One final remark. Having installed artifice in this world does not in and of itself account for the harshness of Shōeki’s criticism. The fact that he had to resort to such vituperations might be evidence that for him the matter was not purely an intellectual one. Shoeki’s discourse may indeed be easily considered Nativist insofar as it displays themes that would become the common ground of the Kokugakusha a few years later: a xenophobia especially directed towards China and her Saints; an affirmation of the unique and sacred character of the Japanese; a leniency toward Shintō; a deep interest toward phonology; and above all, the emphasis on shizen. But if Shōeki’s discourse can be situated at the crossroads of the adventures of Confucianism in the Edo period, I think it is due above all to its deepest concern with the problem of the origins and of their relationship with authority. And here, this paper holds, Shōeki’s condemnation of the Saints is totally relevant. The Saints are not the origin, for the world existed before them (in a good manner for Shōeki and in a bad one for Sorai). This simple fact that they are not the true origin is just enough for Shōeki to dismiss them. According to him, the origin lies in the spontaneous way of living (shizen no yo 自然の世). Shōeki referred to what existed prior to the Saints in order to identify an authority – that of the origin – to dismiss theirs. On the other hand, Sorai denies any authority to the origin. For him, the origin does not count in itself. What counts is the fact there actually existed sage-kings, or Saints. According to Sorai, before the appearance of the Saints, the world indeed existed, but it was as if it did not exist: the world pre-existing the appearance of the first of the Saints – a world without anyone playing the role of a sage – simply following its spontaneous course, namely, the world of shizen, was to him of no interest at all. That is why Sorai shifted the source of authority from the natural world to the Saints: they must be revered because they invented the norms, each one recreating his own. Such a pre-modernist discourse seemed absolutely unbearable to Shōeki who understood that the Saints’ achievements undermined every source of authority. In other words, culture is always a form of subversive activity. In this regard, Shōeki’s thought can but appear as a deeply conservative one.

References ANDō Shōeki kenkyūkai 安藤昌益研究会 (ASK). 1982–1987. Complete works of ANDŌ Shōeki 安 藤昌益全集, 22 vols. Tokyo: Nōsangyoson bunka kyōkai. Couvreur, Séraphin, trans. 1972. Les Quatre livres. Taipei: Kuangchi Press. Joly, Jacques. 1996. Le Naturel selon ANDŌ Shōeki. Paris: Maisonneuve et Larose, Collège de France and Bibliothèque de l’Institut des Hautes Études Japonaises. Kaibara, Ekiken. 1709. Yamato Honzō, 1. http://www.lib.nakamura-u.ac.jp/kaibara/yama/pdf/y01.pdf. Kano, Kōkichi 狩野亨吉. 1908. We have a great thinker (Daishisōka ari 大思想家あり). Tokyo: Naigai kyōiku hyōron 内外教育評論 1.8. Maruyama, Masao 丸山真男. 1952. Studies in the History of Japanese Political Thought 日本政 治思想史研究. Tokyo: Tokyo daigaku shuppankai. English trans. by Mikiso Hane. 1975. Studies in the Intellectual History of Tokugawa Japan. Princeton: Princeton University Press. French trans. by Jacques Joly. 1996. Histoire de la pensée politique au Japon. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France.

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Miyake, Masahiko 三宅正彦. 1995. ANDŌ Shōeki and the Tradition of Local Culture 安藤昌益と 地域文化の伝統. Tokyo: Yūzankaku. Naddaf, Gérard. 1991. L’Origine et l’évolution du concept grec de physis. Lewiston: Edwin Mellen Press. Noda, Kenjirō 野田健次郎 and MIYAKE Masahiko三宅正彦. 1991. Complete Works of ANDŌ Shōeki 安藤昌益全集. Tokyo: Azekura Shobō 校倉書房, vols. 1, 10. Noguchi, Takehiko 野口武彦. 1971. ANDŌ Shōeki, Nihon no Meicho, vol. 19. Tokyo: Chūō kōronsha. Noguchi, Takehiko 野口武彦. 1993. The Concept of bungaku in Confucianism in Modern Japan 近世朱子学における文学の概念. In A Morphology of Edo History of Thought 江戸思想史 の地形. Tokyo: Iwanami. Norman, E.H. 1949. ANDŌ Shoeki and the Anatomy of Japanese Feudalism, 3rd series, vols. 1–2. Tōkyō: The Transactions of the Asiatic Society of Japan. Norman, E.H. 1950. The Forgotten Thinker: ANDŌ Shōeki (Wasurerareta shisōka – ANDŌ Shōeki no koto 忘れられた思想家—安藤昌益のこと). Translated by Ōkubō Genji 大窪愿二. 2 vols. Tokyo: Iwanami shoten. Ooms, Herman. 1984. Neo-Confucianism and the Formation of Early Tokugawa Ideology: Contours of a Problem. In Confucianism and Tokugawa culture, ed. Peter Nosco. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Soothill, William Edward, and Lewis Hodous. 1962. A Dictionary of Chinese Buddhist Terms. Kaohsiung: Fo Kuang. Tchouang-tseu. 1969. Traduction, préface et notes de Liou Kia-hway. Paris: Gallimard, Connaissance de l’Orient. Wakao, Masaki 若尾正希. 2004. Modern Japan as seen by ANDŌ Shōeki 安藤昌益からみえる日 本近世. Tokyo: Tokyo daigaku shuppankai. Watanabe, Daitō 渡辺大涛. 1939. ANDŌ Shōeki to Shizenshin’eidō 安藤昌益と自然真営道. Tōkyō: Mokuseisha shoin 木星社書院. Yasunaga, Toshinobu. 1992. ANDŌ Shōeki; Social and Ecological Philosopher of EighteenthCentury Japan. New York: Weatherhill. Yasunaga, Toshinobu 安永寿延, and YAMADA Fukuo 山田福男. 1986. ANDŌ Shōeki the Man 人間 安藤昌益. Tokyo: Nōsangyoson bunkakyōkai. Yoshikawa, Kōjirō 吉川幸次郎 et al. (eds.). 1973. OGYŪ Sorai 荻生徂徠, Nihon shisō taikei, vol. 36. Tokyo: Iwanami shoten. Zhuangzi yinde 莊子引得. 1986. Shanghai: Shanghai guji chubanshe.

Chapter 11

Moral and Philosophical Idealism in Late-Edo Confucian Thought: ŌSHIO Chūsai and the Working Out of His “Great Aspiration” Barry D. Steben

11.1

MISHIMA Yukio and the Apotheosis of ŌSHIO Chūsai

The name ŌSHIO Chūsai 大塩中斎 (ŌSHIO Heihachirō 大塩平八郎, 1793–1837) is well known to students of Japanese history for the fiery rebellion he led against the government of Osaka in 1837. In the history of Japanese philosophical thought, he is also remembered as one of the most famous followers of the WANG Yangming 王陽 明 (J: Ōyōmei or Ō Yōmei) school of Confucianism, known in Japanese as “Yōmeigaku.” In late Tokugawa and modern Japan, Chūsai has been respected by activists on both the left and right as a rare example of a philosopher who gave his life to put his convictions into practice, dying to protest the corruption of government and the suffering it was causing among the common people. Because of the influence of his rebellion and his ideas on leaders of the anti-bakufu movement at the end of the Tokugawa period, he has also been regarded as a precursor of the mode of thought and political activism that characterized the Meiji Restoration. Nevertheless, apart from a classic study authored some 45 years ago by Tetsuo Najita (Najita 1970), surprisingly little has been written about his philosophy in English. The present study undertakes to examine Chūsai’s interpretation of “the learning of the inborn awareness of the good” (liangzhi 良知 ryōchi) as a path leading to wisdom, inner peace, and the transcendence of life and death, with careful attention both to the Sinological sources of his philosophy and to the relationship between his philosophical praxis and his rebellion. The aim is to clarify how such a philosophy, which never inspired anything like rebellion in China, managed to take on a revolutionary and nationalistic character in nineteenth century Japan. For that reason, and because the core of WANG Yangming’s teaching is the inseparability of knowledge and praxis (tied together through the will), it is impossible to examine Chūsai’s

B.D. Steben (*) Graduate Institute of Interpretation and Translation, Shanghai International Studies University, Shanghai, China e-mail: [email protected] C.C. Huang and J.A. Tucker (eds.), Dao Companion to Japanese Confucian Philosophy, Dao Companions to Chinese Philosophy 5, DOI 10.1007/978-90-481-2921-8_11, © Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2014

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philosophy without also examining the life-career in which he attempted to put that philosophy into practice, without giving some consideration to the socio-political context in which that life-career was lived, and without examining Chūsai’s rather unusual psychological make-up that tied together his philosophy and his life-project. Accordingly, this study also aims to situate itself within the context of anthropological and psychological studies of Japanese conceptions of the self, offering a perspective from early modern intellectual history to complement the pre-Tokugawa or contemporary focus of most recent studies (see Kasulis 1994; Lebra 1992). One of Chūsai’s greatest admirers in modern times was MISHIMA Yukio 三島由 紀夫 (1925–1970), who, shortly before his staged suicide in November 1970, published an impassioned philosophical essay decrying the moral torpidity of modern Japanese politics and mass society and exalting the uncompromising dedication to self-sacrificing moral action represented by the Japanese WANG Yangming thought tradition, which he saw as epitomized by Chūsai (Mishima 1970). Largely following the view of Edo Confucian schools put forth at the beginning of the twentieth century by the nationalist University of Tokyo philosophy professor INOUE Tetsujirō 井上哲次郎 (1855–1944) (see Inoue 1900), Mishima portrays the Yōmeigaku tradition as a philosophy that had truly taken root in the spiritual soil of Japan, unlike more “foreign” schools of thought such as the ZHU Xi 朱熹 (1130–1200) school and Marxism, which, he says, could never serve as true expressions of the Japanese spirit. In describing the tenets of Yōmeigaku philosophy, Mishima explains that its core concept of “the inborn awareness of the good” (C. liangzhi; J. ryōchi 良知) referred to something more than just a cognitive conscience. Rather, entering into the “great vacuity” (taixu 太虚 taikyo) itself, it signifies nothing less than the primal moving force of creativity and action. “Where the activistic side of Yōmeigaku is apparent is, after all, at the stage where one leaps from cognition (ninshiki 認識) into action, with the “great vacuity” as the fulcrum. Without the great vacuity, we would become submerged in cognition, and we would never be able to extricate ourselves from intellectualism and cognitionism” (Mishima 1970: 43). In its teaching of the unity of knowledge and action, he emphasizes, Ōyōmei philosophy conveyed a most dangerous message regarding the relationship of cognition and action, a message that can be identified with the samurai principle of action. Chūsai’s own philosophy, Mishima explains, centered on the concept of “returning to the great vacuity” (gui taixu 帰太虚 ki taikyo): Ōshio [Chūsai] taught that the great vacuity is the fountainhead of the creation of all things, as well as the ultimate entity that is capable of discriminating between good and evil by means of the inborn awareness of the good. He taught that if a person reaches this great vacuity all his actions will return to the justice (seigi 正義) that transcends life and death. As Ōshio illustrated it, it is like the vacuity within an urn, which, if the urn is broken, returns just as it is to the great vacuity from which it emerged and from which it is no different. That is to say, if one’s thought has attained the inborn awareness of the good and truly reached the great vacuity, then if the physical body that envelops it is destroyed, it will return in an instant to the eternally omnipresent great vacuity. (Mishima 1970: 28)

In examining the roots of Chūsai’s indomitable will, Mishima attributed great significance to a mystical insight into the death-transcending, eternal, immovable

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nature of the inborn awareness of the good that Chūsai experienced while sailing home on lake Biwa after making a pilgrimage to the school where NAKAE Tōju 中 江藤樹 had taught. NAKAE Tōju (1608–1648)—the “first patriarch” of WANG Yangming learning in Japan—had already combined ZHANG Zai’s 張載 (1020–1077) concept of the great vacuity with Yangming’s teaching of the intuitive knowledge of the good. According to this teaching, anyone who can return to the great vacuity by eliminating the self-centered desires in his mind will find that, like the sages of old, heaven itself dwells within his heart. It is because of his insight into this truth, Chūsai wrote, that “The sage does not despise the death of the body, but the death of the spirit” (Mishima 1970: 36). Mishima’s essay gives a stirring account of the mystical experience that enabled Chūsai to awaken to the truth of this teaching, an account based on Chūsai’s own Sino-Japanese (kanbun 漢文) account included in his magnum opus, Reading Notes from the Cave of Mind-Cleansing (Senshindō sakki 洗心洞ࢴ記). Mishima relates, In the sixth month of the year 1832 ŌSHIO Heihachirō made a pilgrimage to the academy where NAKAE Tōju had taught his disciples some two hundred years earlier, that is, to the birth place of the Japanese tradition of WANG Yangming learning. He wrote the following about his experience in his journal: “I made a visit to the site of NAKAE Tōju’s academy in the village of Ogawa. On my return, I hired a boat on Lake Biwa and headed south toward Sakamoto, I only sailed the eight li from the Ōmi road to Sakamoto. The sky was clear, the waves were calm, and I was enjoying a pleasant journey. Then suddenly, when I was near Komatsu, a great wind arose from the north. The mountains encircling the lake started to howl, and the waves raged like a hundred thousand angry horses. When I looked down at the water, it looked as if the sea had split and the sky had opened. A typhoon blew in fiercely from both north and south, screeching and gasping in all directions, so that the sail billowed alternately to the front and back without cease. The boat would shift forward and then back and then forward again. When it swayed to the right, I would stand to the left; when it lurched to the left I would stand to the right, but water was already flowing into the hull. I said to myself, ‘I leave my fate to heaven.’ Yet I could not help thinking of death. Then in a sudden flash I remembered the last line of the poem I had just written at Tōju’s academy. ‘No one extends this awareness (wu ren zhi ci zhi 無人致此知).’ As I reflected on this line in my heart, it occurred to me that I had written it to call people to task for not working to extend their inborn awareness of the good into action, but not to call myself to task. If I didn’t call myself to task, I thought, then what is the use of all my learning? As I so reflected, sitting still and firm while the waves lashed around me, I felt as if in a vision I was looking right into the faces of Masters CHENG Yichuan 程伊川 and WANG Yangming. If I just forget that I am myself, then what can even whirling waves do to worry me? At that thought, in an instant, all traces of fear and regret disappeared like snow melting in boiling water. From then on, I sat calm and motionless in the boat, and the winds of themselves subsided. The boat sailed on peacefully until it arrived at the western shore of Sakamoto. It was already the second watch of the night.” (Mishima 1970: 33–34; Sagara et al. 1980: 614–615; 509–514)

Chūsai was convinced that this mystical experience of the true import of NAKAE Tōju’s teachings changed his life permanently by freeing him from the fear of death. After the experience, he returned several times to Tōju’s rustic academy on the shores of Lake Biwa, where he gave lectures to the villagers on the learning of the inborn awareness of the good (Mishima 1970: 34). Let us examine just what this “learning of the innate knowledge of the good” meant to Chūsai and how he endeavored to make it known in a world dominated by teachings that, as he saw it, just turned people’s minds away from their own inner light.

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The Learning of the Cave of Mind-Cleansing (Senshindō)

In the fourth year of Tenpō (1833), Chūsai completed his major philosophical opus: Reading Notes from the Cave of Mind-Cleansing. He knew that his book, a searching presentation of the ideas he found most inspiring in the writings of Chinese Confucianism, had an important message for the world. But his contacts with other scholars and officials had convinced him that the people of his generation were still not ready for what he had to say. Accordingly, after having the work printed privately at his academy, he made up his mind to take a copy to the summit of Mount Asama at Ise and burn it as an offering to the Sun Goddess, Amaterasu Ōmikami. He would then take another copy to the top of Mount Fuji, where he would bury it in a stone chamber to preserve it for scholars of future generations. However, before he let anyone know of his plan, Chūsai received a visit from a Shinto priest from Yamada in Ise by the name of AJIRO Hironori. Hironori was a man of considerable learning, and was alarmed to hear of Chūsai’s plan. He explained to his host that the Ise Shrine maintained two libraries of books that had been offered to the Sun Goddess, and urged him to desist from his plan of burning the book. Unable to deny the reasonableness of the priest’s argument, Chūsai at length agreed to his suggestion. But he still carried through with his plan to bury a copy in a “time capsule” at the top of Mount Fuji. With several disciples, he arrived at Mount Fuji on the seventeenth day of the seventh month of 1833. After burying his book, he stayed on the mountaintop to worship Fuji at sunrise, writing a poem to express his deep emotions. On his return, he traveled by sea to Yamada, where, through Hironori’s good graces, he presented a two-volume set of his work to each of the two imperial libraries (OMM 1976: 25). While at Ise, Chūsai took the opportunity to peruse the catalogues of the two libraries. He was exceedingly pleased that, “even though conventional society (ninjō 人情)1 in both ancient and modem times has shunned the teachings of Master WANG Yangming,” Wang’s complete works were already included in one of the Ise collections. On the other hand, even though what the world reveres is the teaching of ZHU Xi, no one had yet presented his complete works to the sacred library. From this it became even more evident to me that the reverence for ZHU Xi’s teachings exists in name only, lacking any real substance. (Uno et al. 1972, 8: 410–11)

What Chūsai means, of course, is that the absence of these writings at Ise validated his observation that men are following “the learning of Master Zhu” (Shushigaku 朱子学) because it is prescribed by the authorities, not out of a sincere quest for truth. That is, ZHU Xi learning is not being pursued selflessly for the good of the nation, but for personal and worldly advantages unworthy of a true Confucian aspiration 1

This meaning of ninjō is unusual in Japanese, but Chūsai was a Sinologist steeped in Chinese texts. One meaning of the word given in dictionaries of classical Chinese can be translated as “the standards for judging things agreed upon by conventional society (J. seken)” (世間約定俗成的事 理標準) or “the mood and wishes of the multitude” (衆人的情緒, 願望).

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(kokorozashi 志). Interestingly, the offering of his book to Amaterasu at Ise was for Chūsai the supreme testimony of sincerity and disinterested dedication to truth. As for NAKAE Tōju (1608–1648) two centuries earlier, confessing one’s sincere heart at the temple of the Sun Goddess was equivalent to making a covenant with heaven itself, the source and vindicator of all true conscience.2 Both the Ise Shrine and Mt. Fuji represent the most important sites in the Japanese sacred landscape where the realm of heaven meets the realm of humanity. The depth of their significance in the world of religio-political symbolism, not to mention the world of poetic sentiment and national identity, is difficult for a non-Japanese to imagine. Shocked by his discovery of the gaps in the Imperial Collection, Chūsai, after returning to Osaka, put together some money with some of his students and purchased two sets of a 60-volume Japanese edition of ZHU Xi’s works for the Ise libraries. His purpose in doing this, he writes, was that the works of “this great Confucian scholar would help cleanse the people of this Eastern land of their crude customs and eccentric ways.” Yet it would not be complete to offer up only ZHU Xi’s collected works. The complete works of LU Xiangshan 陸象山 (1139–1192) would have to be presented as well. In his afterword written for the presentation of Xiangshan’s works, Chūsai explained that the philosophies of Zhu and Lu were at bottom really one, and bemoaned the fact that misunderstandings among their followers led to the separation of their teachings into two mutually competing schools of thought. Although Zhu criticized Lu’s way of teaching people as too simplistic and Lu criticized Zhu’s way of teaching as too fragmented, according to Chūsai, neither directed these criticisms at the other scholar himself. It was only their later followers, out of a competitive and sectarian spirit, who came up with the doctrine of the incompatibility of the two teachings, obscuring the single core of the Confucian way (Ōshio Chūsai 1972). Thus Chūsai decided to offer the collected works of Zhu and Lu in the hopes of helping to restore the original balance between the two sides of Neo-Confucian teachings, the one more concerned with inner integrity and ethical autonomy, and the other with the individual’s conformity with the highest norms and ritual forms of the cultural tradition. Like WANG Yangming, NAKAE Tōju, and MIWA Shissai 三輪執齋 (1669–1744), Chūsai was concerned to distinguish his rejection of ZHU Xi learning as an institutionalized teaching, bound up with all kinds of conventional formalities, from a rejection of the original intention (honmō 本望) of ZHU Xi’s philosophy. On this basis he argued that the teachings of WANG Yangming, which were held together throughout by a single principle, were true to the original teachings of Confucius 2

In 1641, Tōju made a pilgrimage to Ise, where he offered up a poem praising Amaterasu as the embodiment of “Efflorescent filial virtue that continues without cease/Just like the creative work of Fu Xi/I pray in silence to the sages’ teaching of the divine way (shintō 神道)/Which illuminates the temple of the Great Goddess through all six regions of space” (Fukunaga 1974: 1). As the purported creator of the eight trigrams, Fu Xi 伏羲 was the father of the Book of Changes. “Efflorescent” and “illuminates the six regions of space” are allusions to the Chronicles of Japan (Nihon shoki 日本書紀). In the Chronology (Nenpu 年譜) of Tōju’s life, he is quoted as saying “The Great Shrine is [the shrine of] the primal ancestor and progenitor of our country, and every person who lives in Japan must visit it before he dies” (Yamanoi et al. 1974: 297).

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and Mencius. In offering up these two great collections, he left the final judgment as to the truth or falsity of their teachings to the gods themselves. At first Chūsai concluded that since WANG Yangming’s writings were already included in the Ise collection, he would be denied the honor of presenting them himself. However, he later reconsidered, and made additional offerings of the Ancient Text of the Great Learning, the Record of Transmission and Practice (Chuanxi lu 傳習䤴 Denshūroku), and a collection of Wang’s other writings. In his dedicatory afterword to the Record of Transmission and Practice, Chūsai wrote, The essence of WANG Yangming learning lies in extending the inborn knowledge of the good. The term “inborn knowledge of the good” (liang zhi) is derived from Mencius. Mencius, in turn, derived the term liang zhi from the qian zhi 乾知 or “heaven knows,” of the Book of Changes and the words of Confucius. This qian zhi [“heaven presides”] is nothing other than the spiritual radiance of the great vacuity.3 Scholars with narrow and twisted views fail to recognize this only because their minds have not returned to the spiritual radiance of the great vacuity. If one asks the ancient sages of our own country, one will also find [the teaching] that no moral principles, no learning, and no human affairs exist outside of the inborn knowledge of the good. How can I say this with such certainty? LU Xiangshan wrote, ‘If a sage appears in the Eastern Sea, this mind is the same, and this principle is the same.’ Who is worthy of being called the sage of the Eastern Sea, if not the Great kami Amaterasu herself?… The spiritual radiance of the Great Goddess corresponds precisely to the “inborn awareness of the good” taught by Confucius, Mencius and WANG Yangming…. Unfortunately, this statement will certainly offend people. But it will not offend the gods. Therefore, it is enough just to understand this truth secretly in the depths of one’s own heart. (Uno 1972, 8: 410–11)

For Chūsai, not only does the teaching of WANG Yangming constitute the “correct lineage” (seitō 正統) of the way of Confucius and Mencius, rooted in the Book of Changes, but its central concept is equivalent to the divine original essence of the Japanese imperial line—the eternally sovereign light of the Sun Goddess herself.4 Yet this is a truth that has been forgotten by the purveyors of learning in this generation. So a man who has awakened to this truth must hide it secretly in the depths of his heart, just as he buries it on the peak of the sacred mountain and offers it as a burnt offering to the Goddess of Heaven. This agonizing solitude of the sincere heart in 3

The Commentary on the Appended Phrases (Xici) of the Book of Changes contains the passage, “Qian yi yi zhi; Kun yi jian neng” 乾以易知,坤以簡能: “Qian (Heaven) presides [over the great beginning] through easiness; Kun (Earth) is capable [of bringing things to completion] through simplicity.” According to the commentator WANG Fuzhi 王夫之 (1619–1692), “easiness” refers to the fact that nothing obstructs the creative power of heaven, and “simplicity” refers to the malleability or receptivity of earth, its absence of resistance that brings heaven’s initiatives to completion (Xici A:1, Honda 1978: B: 261). The character for zhi consists of the graph for “arrow” and the graph for “mouth,” indicating the idea of speaking the essence of things directly, i.e., to inform, to know, to govern, to preside. 4 In Okina Mondō, question 84, NAKAE Tōju (1608–1648) had written that the sage from birth is one body with heaven, so that his “original spirit” (genshin 元神) and his “original vital force” (genki 元氣) function naturally together in perfect coherence, brimming with the creative force of life (Yamanoi et al. 1974: 130). MIWA Shissai had taught that the inborn knowledge of the good was nothing other than the “god of heaven” (tenjin 天神). Chūsai did not have to go much further to arrive at his proposition that “the mind itself is heaven” and his identification of heaven with the Sun Goddess.

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the face of the world is sustained, however, by the heart’s inner communion with the gods of this sacred land—a communion that needs no institutional intermediary— and by the knowledge that these same gods will eventually vindicate the heart’s uncompromising stand for the truth. The work that Chūsai offered up to heaven at these two sacred sites begins with the following proclamation, Heaven does not only mean the vast voidness of the blue sky above. Even the voidness between two stones or the voidness inside a length of bamboo is heaven. If this is so, how much more is it true for what Laozi 老子 calls the “god of the valley” [ch. 6]. Now, the god of the valley is nothing other than the human mind. Thus the mystery of the human mind is the same as the mystery of heaven. This is fully evident in the case of the sage. But the ordinary person has lost this vacuity.

The philosophical idealism adumbrated here was the core of Chūsai’s teaching at the Senshindō, containing the principles by which he distinguished his version of Confucianism from that of other schools. Its point can be compressed into the one statement that “the mind itself is heaven” (xin ji tian 心即天 kokoro sunawachi ten). The voidness that is the mind is not inside the body, but outside of the body, and it encompasses all things. From the point of view of physical forms, the mind is inside of the body. But from the point of view of the way, the body is inside of the mind. If one thinks that the mind is within the body, then as soon as the effort (gongfu 功夫 kufū) of holding and preserving is neglected, the self is encumbered by things. If one realizes that the body is inside of the mind, then one can constantly enjoy detachment, and the self will be in charge of things. (Sakki A: 6, Sagara et al. 1980: 371)

As the body is inside of the mind, the things of the “objective” world outside of the body are also inside the mind. For instance, the mental pain one feels when one sees an animal killed or a plant or even an inanimate thing destroyed proves that these things “actually exist within the mind.” However, if the mind is plugged up with desires, it is no longer empty, and it loses its original sentience and moral sensitivity. Thus it becomes alienated from and encumbered by things. It ceases, that is, to be the “substance of heaven,” and its possessor is rightly characterized as a “small person” (Sakki A: 2, Sagara et al. 1980: 370). “Rooting it in his own person, verifying it by [the confidence of] the common people, testing it by reference to the three [sage] kings so as to commit no error, establishing it on the basis of heaven and earth so as not to go against their operation, inquiring about it before ancestors and gods so that all doubts are dispelled. This way one can wait a hundred generations for a sage to appear and remain without perplexity” (Zhongyong 29: 3, Legge 1971: 425–426). All of a person’s words and acts must be like this. Only then will the mind-nature be luminous and vast like the heavens and the earth, like the sun and the moon. If one obeys private feelings and lets oneself be ruled by selfish intentions, then even if one’s head is full of ten thousand volumes, it will be nothing more than a library, and nothing really to be valued. (Sakki A: 3, Sagara et al. 1980: 370–371)

Quoting CHENG Yi, Chūsai taught his students that “externally directed learning” that focuses only on words and phrases, and “peripheral learning” that aims only at the historical comparison of texts, are nothing but “playing with things at the expense of one’s will or true aspiration” (Sakki B: 100, Sagara et al. 1980: 507). In the context of

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Chūsai’s time, “externally directed learning” referred particularly to ZHU Xi learning as normally pursued, while “peripheral learning” referred particularly to the philological learning (kōshōgaku 考證學) developed in Japan under the influence of OGYŪ Sorai 荻生徂徠 (1666–1728) and the later Eclectics (settchūgaku 折衷學), who were in turn influenced by the rise of evidential learning in late Ming and Qing China. Confucius said, “Do you regard me as a man who studies many things and [endeavors to] remember them? Not so. I connect them all together with one thread” (Analects 15: 2, Legge 1971: 295). Chūsai comments, “If this one thread is something other than extending the inborn awareness of the good, then what is it?” (Inoue and Kanie 1901: 3: 252). The classics and the Four Books must be read, and read with diligence, but one must seek the principles of one’s own spirit in doing so (Sakki B: 122, Sagara et al. 1980: 528). As the Cheng brothers’ disciple YANG Guishan 楊龜山 taught, one must read with the mind empty and tranquil, in an attitude of freedom from the cares of the world, in order to be able to rise above the consciousness of books, words, images and ideas (Sakki B: 118, Sagara et al. 1980: 522). In other words, it is not so important to investigate what the text you are studying really meant in its original socio-historical or historico-linguistic context—an attempt that lays a net of abstract “objective” concepts between the text and one’s own subjective concerns—but to find its meaning in the context of one’s own life projects here and now. This is the attitude whereby one’s reading itself becomes the extension or drawing out of one’s inborn awareness of the good, that is, the attitude whereby the “original substance” of the mind becomes expressed as kokorozashi (will, resolution, aspiration, sense of purpose). Read in this way, as LU Xiangshan taught, the Six Classics become the footnotes of one’s own mind, or in Chūsai’s words, “the text of one’s own mind” (wa ga kokoro no kiseki 我が心の記籍). For this reason, when a disciple asks him how to identify his brand of learning in terms of previously existing schools of thought, Chūsai rejects every attempt to categorize it. He explains, “Is it the learning of WANG Yangming?” “No.” “Is it the learning of Master Cheng and ZHU Xi?” “No.” “Is it the commentarial learning of the Mao brothers, ZHENG Xuan, JIA Lu, and KONG Anguo?” “No.” “Is it the ancient learning of ITō Jinsai and ITō Tōgai, or the philological learning of OGYŪ Sorai?” “No.” “In that case, what after all is the learning for others that you pursue, master?” “My learning consists only of the pursuit of sensitive concern (jin 仁). Thus it has no name. If I am compelled to give it a name, I would call it the learning of Confucius and Mencius.” (Uno 1972, 8: 390, 553)5

The attempt to pin down his teaching in terms of any particular school of thought, he implies, would relativize it and make it just one learning out of many, thus depriving it of the power to move the hearts of men directly without the mediation of conventional concepts and categories. But that does not mean that there were no principles 5

The quotations collected in Senshindō sakki make it clear that those whom Chūsai regarded as representatives of “WANG Yangming learning” in China were men of great integrity who devoted their lives without fear of death to popular welfare or national salvation at times of national crisis, as typified by the scholars of the Donglin Academy 東林書院. Like the Donglin scholars, he condemned the representatives of the so-called left wing of the Yangming school, as typified by WANG Gen 王艮.

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of priority in the reading curriculum of his school. The foundation of the curriculum was the Classic of Filial Piety (Xiaojing 孝經). This reflected Chūsai’s belief that the root of the inborn awareness of the good is nothing other than the innocent “mind of the infant” that spontaneously reveres its parents—one of the core teachings of NAKAE Tōju (see de Bary et al. 2005: 119 and Steben 1998: 244). Knowing this, and knowing that in the distant future Confucian scholars would be fighting among themselves over the true interpretation of his teachings, Confucius reportedly presented his disciple Zengzi 曾子 with the Classic of Filial Piety, explaining that this book embodied “the supreme virtue and the essential way” of the ancient kings. Next in order in the curriculum was the ancient text of the Great Learning, followed by the Doctrine of the Mean, the Analects, and the Mencius. After these come the ten classics, the writings of the Song Neo-Confucians, the histories, and, finally, belles lettres. History must be read with caution, however, observing the directive of the Cheng brothers that one read only the biographies of heroic men and women who were paragons of loyalty, chastity, and filial piety. For such biographies will give rise to shame regarding the condition of one’s own mind and rouse the heart into right action (Sakki A: 173, Sagara et al. 1980: 440–41). In one’s literary studies as well, one must read works that express a pure and virtuous heart, avoiding the pursuit of fame through mere rhetorical flourish. For students in the earlier stages of their study, Chūsai prohibited the works of the Cheng-Zhu school written after WANG Yangming, on the grounds that “they mostly attempt to exalt Zhu and depreciate Wang artificially from a competitive or sectarian spirit.” Yet even such unwholesome books can be read once the student has found the master of his own mind and is able to make his own judgments regarding what is true and false (Sakki A: 66, Sagara et al. 1980: 390). Chūsai’s fear of publicly proclaiming his philosophy was undoubtedly related to the fact that Yōmeigaku was one of the four schools expunged from the shogunate’s authorized educational curriculum by MATSUDAIRA Sadanobu 松平定信 (1759–1829) in 1790 with the Kansei Prohibition of Heterodoxy. To justify this prohibition, the idea was promulgated that ZHU Xi’s philosophical learning had been established through HAYASHI Razan as the orthodox teaching of the realm by TOKUGAWA Ieyasu 徳川家康 (1543–1616) himself. Since ZHU Xi learning was now proclaimed as the official philosophy of education in both the shogunal college and many of the domain schools, it was difficult not to associate it, to some extent at least, with the rampant corruption, moral laxity and easy living among a samurai-staffed officialdom whose members were supposedly educated in the strict ethical principles of ZHU Xi learning. This corruption and moral laxity was a direct result of the growing wealth of the urban centers, and was particularly acute in Osaka—with its flourishing commercial culture and its general lack of respect for traditional samurai values and rigorous Confucian ethics. The Kansei Reform, inspired by traditional Confucian administrative ideals, attempted to impose strict sumptuary laws and other restrictions on upper and lower classes alike. However, it met with little success, and was followed by another period of shogunal laxity and liberal spending that further increased the gap between the privileged rich and the struggling poor. Sadanobu’s unpopular and puritanical regency had been succeeded by the return of authority to

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the shogun, but TOKUGAWA Ienari 徳川家斉 (r. 1787–1837), a man of insatiable sexual appetite, was widely regarded as incompetent. His government, led by his protégé MIZUNO Tadanari 水野忠成, had become infamous both for bribery and for the conspicuous consumption of its officials (Miyagi 2005: 219–22). This period was also marked by ill feeling between the shogunate and the imperial court, because of the shogunate’s policy of impoverishing the court and its fear of the subversive potential of imperial loyalist sentiment. The Bunka and Bunsei years (1804–1830) were characterized by booming urban prosperity and extravagant pleasure seeking, but perceptive men could see that they were “dancing madly on the top of a volcano” (Sansom 1963: 209). It is rather understandable that Chūsai was led to despair of the possibility of reforming such a world through his work as a police official in the city bureaucracy, and decided to turn instead to teaching and writing. Yet there was also a great deal of personal moral struggle behind his decision to resign.

11.3

Chūsai’s Philosophy and the Book of Changes

The phrase “mind-cleansing” in the name of Chūsai’s academy is derived from the following passage in the Commentary on the Appended Phrases (Xici 繫辭) of the Book of Changes: The Master said: “What is it that the Book of Changes does? The Changes opens things up and [enables men to] carry their undertakings to completion, embracing everything under heaven. It is nothing more than this. Therefore, the sage relies on it to give proper course to the aspirations of all within the realm (yi tong tianxia zhi zhi 以通天下之志), settle the undertakings of all within the realm, and clear the doubts of all within the realm.” Accordingly, the virtue of the yarrow stalks lies in their being round and spiritual (shen 神), while the virtue of the hexagrams lies in their being square and thus giving rise to wisdom (zhi 知). The meaning of the six lines lies in their changes, by which they inform (gong 貢) [of impending good and bad fortune]. “The sage relies on these [three virtues] to cleanse his mind. Drawing back and concealing himself in the unmanifest, in both good and bad fortune he suffers together with the people.” “Through its spirituality he knows the future, and through its wisdom he stores within himself [the constant laws of] the past.” Who can equal this? Only the wise and discerning sage-ruler of ancient times was able to win the allegiance of the world without the use of violence, his spirit-like martial power (shenwu 神武) growing out of his mastery of the arts of divination. (Xici A: 11, Honda 1978: B: 293–94)

Like NAKAE Tōju, Chūsai considered the Book of Changes (always read with its Confucian commentaries) to be the ultimate fountainhead of the way, and many principles of his philosophy were derived from it. Let us consider how Chūsai might have read this particular passage, given the ethical and political sensibilities that burned within him. In other words, let us consider what “principles of his own spirit” Chūsai would likely have found within it. The virtue of the Changes translated above as “spiritual,” of course, could also be understood as “divine”—connected to the realm of the gods—as in the “divine principles” (shinri 神理) of NAKAE Tōju. This would also be consonant with the ancient religious conception of the functioning

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of the arts of divination that lay behind the sages’ creation of the Changes, as opposed to the rationalistic interpretation of the Cheng-Zhu school. The second virtue of the Changes, “wisdom” (zhi 知 chi), is understood by Chūsai as equivalent to the inborn awareness of the good. This identification is strengthened by Chūsai’s characterization of Yangming learning in terms of the alternate meaning of the character “change” (yi 易)—easy (Uno 1972, 8: 390). That is, Yangming learning brings out the single and simple essence of the way of Confucius and Mencius. This incorporation of the alternate meaning of the character “change” also occurs near the beginning of the Commentary on the Appended Phrases, from which this and Chūsai’s other quotations from the Book of Changes were drawn. Qian 乾 (heaven) presides (zhi 知) through the easy; kun 坤 (earth) is capable through the simple (jian 簡). Being easy it is easy to preside; being simple it is easy to follow. Being easy to preside there is intimacy; being easy to follow, there is efficacy. There being intimacy, it can last long; there being efficacy, it can be great. Since it can last long, it is the virtue of the wise; because it can be great, it is the enterprise of the wise. With the easy and the simple, the principles of all under heaven can be obtained. When the principles of all under heaven are obtained, one achieves a position at the center. (Xici A: 1, Honda 1978: B: 261–62)

The divinational efficacy of the Changes is explained as rooted in the fact that it functions without thought or deliberation just like heaven and earth, a functioning which the commentary describes as exquisitely subtle, sublimely simple, unerring, and “god-like.” Such adjectives, as Chūsai later pointed out in his dedicatory essay to the Ise Shrine, apply equally to the functioning of the inborn awareness of the good. “Spiritual” is of heaven (yang 陽), while “wisdom” is of earth (yin 陰). Thus, the inborn awareness of the mind reflects the nature and potency of heaven in the human realm (i.e., “the mind itself is heaven”). In Yangming’s own writings, as well as those of NAKAE Tōju, MIWA Shissai 三輪執齋 (1669–1744), and Chūsai, the inborn awareness of the good is likened to a mirror which reflects things as they truly are, a mirror which must be constantly polished by the practice (gongfu 功夫 kufū) of eliminating selfish desires. The Commentary on the Appended Phrases further states, “The Master said, ‘To labor, but without bragging; to have accomplishments, but without taking the credit: such is the height of magnanimity’” (Xici A: 8, Honda 1978, B: 281). As Chūsai constantly admonished himself, actions that arise from the inborn awareness of the good permit of no admixture of motivations for personal aggrandizement. Thus on the basis of this passage Chūsai established the unity of the three fundamental virtues of the Changes (shen 神, zhi 知, yi 易), with Yangming’s inborn awareness of the good and its manifestation in selfless action, a manifestation through which the sage “gives proper course to the aspirations of all within the realm, settles the undertakings of all within the realm, and clears the doubts of all within the realm.” Moreover in combination with the notion of the Book of History and the Mencius that the will of heaven is known through the people, the passage also enabled him to identify the “will of the realm” (the imperial realm) in its original substance with the will or mandate of heaven, reflected in the human realm through the inborn ethical awareness of the mind.

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The sage-ruler of “spirit-like martial power” (shenwu 神武) mentioned in the Book of Changes passage quoted above is traditionally interpreted as referring to King Wen 文王, co-founder of the Zhou dynasty and reputed author of the Book of Changes’ oracles. King Wen refrained from taking up arms against the despotic last ruler of the Shang dynasty, waiting instead with unperturbed dignity in his loyal service for the time when heaven would grant him the mandate (WANG Fuzhi, Zhouyi 周易, quoted in Honda 1978, 2: 294). The compound shenwu (J: jinmu), however, also happens to be the posthumous name of the mythical founder of the Japanese imperial line.6 The identification of the Zhou dynasty and its concepts of legitimacy with the Japanese imperial line was, needless to say, a hoary tradition, dating back at least as far as Japan’s first official history, the Records of Ancient Matters (Kojiki 古事記), and it was also an important pillar within the endeavor by Edo-period Confucian scholars to harmonize Confucianism with Japanese political institutions. In the seventeenth century, NAKAE Tōju had implicitly affirmed this identification by associating Amaterasu with FU Xi 伏羲, the legendary creator of the hexagrams, and by showing interest in the theory that the Japanese imperial line was originally a scion of the Zhou royal house (Fukunaga 1974: 1). YAMAZAKI Ansai 山崎闇齋 (1618–82) liked to say that “The Book of Changes is China’s ‘Chronicle of the Gods’ just as our ‘Chronicle of the Gods’ is Japan’s Book of Changes” (Maruyama 1980: 625). It is clear that Chūsai, as well, had a deep commitment to the metaphorical identification of the Zhou and the Japanese imperial line, and of their respective founders. King Wen and Jinmu were not only the founders of the ideal forms of the political systems of China and Japan respectively, but like the Book of Changes itself, they represented the meeting point of the mandate of heaven—or the “gods of heaven”—with the political institutions of man, not to mention the meeting point of martial and civil virtue that is necessary to found a polity that will last. In the context of Chūsai’s thought, all of them represent the point where his cosmic philosophy of mind was translated into concrete ethical action in the context of particular political institutions with a particular historical destiny.

11.4

Chūsai’s Letter to SATō Issai

Chūsai had searched long and hard for a teacher of WANG Yangming’s philosophy in Osaka, but to no avail. Now he had put the innermost aspirations of his heart into writing, but he feared there was no one in Osaka who would be able to give him a sympathetic understanding. Chūsai had long heard of SATō Issai 佐藤一齋 (1772–1859), who had for 30 years been professorial head of the bakufu college, the 6

Chinese-style posthumous names were given to the Japanese emperors and presented to the reigning emperor by Oumi no Mifune 淡海三船 (722–85), a Nara-period literatus and nobleman. It is not impossible that “Jinmu” was chosen for Japan’s “first emperor” because of the identification of these two characters in this Yijing passage with Ken Wen.

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Shōheikō 昌平黌, in Edo, and he had been deeply impressed by some of Issai’s poetry and prose writings. But Chūsai had never met or communicated with this eminent gentleman, who at 62 was 21 years his senior. Yet the more he thought about it, the more he felt convinced that if anyone could understand the aspiration (kokorozashi) of his work, it would have to be SATō Issai. And only one who could understand his aspiration would be able to advise him regarding the next and higher stage of its fulfillment in practice. So Chūsai made up his mind to send the work to Issai. To explain his motive in such a bold act, he composed a long letter of selfintroduction (self-justification?) to send along with the work. As a sincere confession of a kokorozashi that he had had to keep hidden from the world, yet written to a famous scholar he had never even met, the letter combines a somewhat strained effort at humility with a highly revealing account of the subjective side of Chūsai’s life. As a result, the document is the closest thing to a spiritual autobiography that Chūsai left to the world. In it, he describes the growth from age 15 of the great kokorozashi that inspired his work, recalling the famous passage in Analects 2: 2 where Confucius describes the stages of his ethical maturation from the age of 15 to 70. After praising the depth of Issai’s scholarship and explaining why he is unable to go to Edo to study at his feet, Chūsai begins to explain his kokorozashi in the following terms: Your humble servant was originally a petty official in a far-off place. I could have been satisfied with just obeying the directions of my superior and proudly handing out sentences in criminal cases, contenting myself that in this way I could keep receiving a salary until the end of my days. However, I was unable to devote myself single-mindedly to my work, developing privately this lofty aspiration (kokorozashi) to study the way. Yet this just caused me to be rejected by the world. Does the fact that I am not loved by people not prove that my endeavor was mistaken? Ah, only one who understands me will have sympathy for my intention! If those who do not understand me condemn it as misguided, there is nothing to be done about it. Now, there were three turning points in [the development of] my aspiration. (Sagara et al. 1980: 559, 633)

Chūsai was born in the fifth year of Kansei (1793), 3 years after Sadanobu’s prohibition of heterodox learning. His father, Heihachirō Yoshitaka, was a samurai of modest rank who was to inherit the family’s hereditary position of town constable (machi yoriki 町與力) in the city magistrate’s office. At the age of 30 (1799), however, Yoshitaka died, leaving Chūsai, who was only seven, to inherit his grandfather’s position. When Chūsai’s mother died in the following year, his upbringing was entrusted to his grandparents. Becoming heir-designate to the family mantle at such an early age certainly helped accelerate his education, but it also laid the seeds of a conflict between the outer and inner sources of ethical motivation that was to torment him for the rest of his life. Chūsai was not content with the fate that the rigid system of hereditary office holding laid down for him, and looked down on the type of work he was expected to perform. At the age of 14 (1806), he began his apprentice training as a town constable, one of a total of 60 divided equally between the Osaka East and Osaka West magistrate’s offices. Within the Tokugawa ranking system, a position as constable was defined as a one-generation appointment, and was thus nominally much lower in status than that of a hereditary vassal (gofudai-seki). In practice, however, the position was passed

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from father to son and carried a great deal of actual authority (Hangai 1977: 7–11; Okamoto 1965: 40–44). With a stipend of 200 koku (about 1,024 US bushels) and an estate of 500 tsubo (1,653 m2), the town constable position was well-remunerated, comparable in income to a chief councilor (karō 家老) in one of the lesser domains or to a Confucian teacher in the bakufu college. According to Chūsai’s letter to Issai, it was after about a year’s experience in learning how to perform such official duties that he had the first “turning point in his kokorozashi.” The occasion for this was his first perusal of his family genealogy. At the age of fifteen, I read my family genealogy. From this I discovered that my ancestor was a retainer to a relative of the Imagawa 今川 clan. After the Imagawa clan was destroyed, he entered the service of our godly forebear [shinso 神祖, i.e., TOKUGAWA leyasu]. In the campaign of Odawara [1590], he impaled an enemy general with his sword before Ieyasu’s very eyes. For this he was rewarded with a bow that had belonged personally to Ieyasu, and was granted a fief in Tsukamoto village in Izu. At the time of the winter and summer campaigns in Osaka [1614 and 1615], however, he was too old to fulfill his aspiration by joining the battle, and only guarded the fort at Kashiwasaki in Echigo. After the establishment of the Tokugawa peace, he ended up in the service of Owari domain, where his house has been carried on by his legitimate heirs to the present day. His youngest child became a city official in Osaka. This is the person from whom I am descended. On learning all of this I was deeply grieved, and felt ashamed at being a petty document writer in the company of jail keepers and municipal officials. It seems that my aspiration (kokorozashi) at that time was to fulfill the will (kokorozashi) of my ancestor by winning fame as a man of great deeds and heroic spirit. Thus I constantly felt frustrated and despondent, unable to have any real enjoyment. (Sagara et al. 1980: 559–60, 633)

The Imagawa house was a branch of the Ashikaga 足利, enfeoffed as shugo daimyō 守護大名 of Suruga 駿河 province (now part of Shizuoka Prefecture). By the sixteenth century, the Imagawa had become the most powerful sengoku daimyō house in the strategic Tōkaidō 東海道 region. In 1560, however, the Imagawa house was defeated by Nobunaga at Okehazama in Owari 尾張, marking the beginning of Nobunaga’s rise to national dominance. TOKUGAWA Ieyasu had been a petty vassal of the Imagawa until this time, but in 1562 he entered into an alliance with Nobunaga, his lord’s archenemy, and annexed the Imagawa province of Tōtōmi 遠江 to his home base of Mikawa 三河 in 1569. This marked the beginning of Ieyasu’s rise to great daimyo status, first under Nobunaga and then under Hideyoshi. It was at the time of Ieyasu’s abandonment of the Imagawa, we may surmise, that Chūsai’s ancestor entered the service of Ieyasu. It was highly significant to Chūsai that he had established his kokorozashi at the same age as Confucius, and that this kokorozashi was inherited directly from his Warring States (sengoku) period ancestor. Thus the experience of reading his family genealogy was, from his adult retrospective, the ultimate source of his “original aspiration” (honmō 本 望) as both a Confucian scholar and a samurai. Compared to the glorious martial exploits of his ancestor, who had played a part in the heroic founding of the Tokugawa shogunate itself, being a civil official in a bureaucratic hierarchy writing documents and rubbing shoulders with petty clerks, criminals, and jailors seemed like the height of shame. In such company, all that entered his ears and eyes was “either talk of glory and profit, money and tax grain, or matters of weeping and wailing, grief and rancor” (ibid.).

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The contrast between the urban environment of lower officialdom in which fate had placed him and the warrior self-image he derived from his Warring States period ancestor evidently gave rise to a form of indignation which became a primal motive force of Chūsai’s subsequent moral aspiration. His perception of the incompatibility of his station in life and his martial inheritance was also a matter of rank: his ancestor having been a direct vassal of the founder of the shogunate, his rank should have been equal to a hereditary (fudai) daimyo. However, because his aged ancestor had had to sit out the battles in which Hideyoshi’s forces were defeated and Tokugawa supremacy secured, his family had ended up with the relatively minor post of town constable. Chūsai could not get over the insult to his samurai pride that this contradiction caused him. In this frustrated mental condition, Chūsai tells Issai, he saw over 20 years of his life pass by. This 20 years included not only his apprenticeship period, but his subsequent work as a police patrolman between the ages of 19 and 26, and the first 8 years after he formally took over the position of constable upon his grandfather’s death in 1818. The letter also makes clear that the nature of Chūsai’s work as a police constable directly contributed to this persistent sense of moral frustration. For he was not just an office-bound bureaucrat, but a prosecutor of criminal cases, engaged in tracking down thieves and thugs and punishing them for their wrongs. Becoming increasingly conscious of the deficiencies in his own character, however, he began to feel that there was really not so much difference between himself and the criminals he was punishing. “If you wish to correct the sins of others,” he wrote, “you must first cure your own sicknesses” (ibid.). Since in Chinese and Japanese the word for sin (zui 罪 tsumi) is the same as the word for crime, the difference between the two concepts is considerably less prominent than it is in Western languages, where their separation has been reinforced by the whole history of the separation of church and state that is so prominently missing in East Asia. Conceivably, this may help account for the fact that Chūsai had trouble distinguishing between violations of law and violations of conscience, and experienced recurrent anxiety in trying to determine which was the most serious. This inner struggle recalls the arguments over the relative priority of public legal authority and “private” samurai morality that had exercised Confucian scholars in the controversy over the Akō rōnin incident during the first few decades of the seventeenth century (see de Bary et al. 2005: 354–87). Tormented by the conflicting demands of duty and conscience and thirsting for confidence regarding the true bases of righteousness, Chūsai resolved to take up Confucian learning—the “exploration of moral principles.” This, he told Issai, was the second turning point in the growth of his kokorozashi. Chūsai explains, At this point, my earlier aspiration to achieve fame through heroic deeds was transformed of its own accord. However, my aspiration at that time was still to eliminate my faults and correct my mind through worldly merit…. Thus I was not able to avoid the sickness of superficiality…. Now what the Confucian scholars teach is either the meaning of ancient words and phrases, or else the techniques of composing poems and essays. This is what I studied when I could find the time. Thus, although I was unaware of it, I naturally fell into conventional and stereotyped patterns. With these to rely on, I was always abundantly supplied with the tools needed to cover my mistakes and embellish my words, and I had no scruples against using them. It seemed that my sickness was now even worse than before.

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Upon reflection, it became clear that this was still far removed from my real aspiration, and I could not but feel deep regret. (Sagara et al. 1980: 560, 633)

Chūsai’s original aspiration was to fulfill the unfulfilled kokorozashi of his Warring States period ancestor by training himself in the military arts. He had actually begun to put this aspiration into practice by studying the arts of spear and cannon use, arts in which he is said to have attained considerable proficiency. But the demands of his official duties, and particularly the kind of social environment these official duties put him in, made this heroic aspiration seem more and more like a distant dream. The retrospective presented in his letter reflects a point of view developed through Chūsai’s later adoption of the Confucian practice of “vigilance in solitude” (shendu 慎獨 shindoku) (see Steben 2012: 50–51). Here, he is recounting the process by which his original kokorozashi gave rise to shame when used as a standard to judge the actual condition of his mind, and how this shame repeatedly motivated a reaffirmation and deepening of the original kokorozashi. Each step of maturation of the original aspiration—which occurs spontaneously when an objective awareness of the actual condition of one’s mind is achieved—exposes the inadequateness of the previous aspiration. But at the same time it also fulfills the true intent of the previous aspiration, by bringing the field of its realization one step closer to the ground of the mind itself. That is to say, the frustration and melancholy produced by the gap between kokorozashi and reality eventually impels a breakthrough to a deeper kokorozashi more capable of realization, by cleansing the original kokorozashi of its attachment to externally imposed conditions. As MIWA Shissai had emphasized, this process of “mind cleansing” also gives rise to an acute awareness of one’s own sinfulness. Chūsai continues, At this point I withdrew from the tutelage of those [Shushigaku] scholars to pursue study on my own. The pain of this type of study is almost more than I can describe. Finally, through the help of heaven, I was able to purchase a copy of Words of Moaning (Shenyin yu 呻吟語) by Ning Ling [LÜ Kun 呂坤, 1536–1618]. This work is also a record of Master Lü’s words in the midst of sickness.7 When I investigated further the ultimate source of Ning Ling’s wisdom, I discovered that it came from none other than Yaojiang [WANG Yangming]. However, in our country, the learning of the inborn knowledge of the good has died out in Kansai since the days of Tōju, Banzan, and Shissai. Thus there was not even one person giving lectures on this teaching. Secretly I managed to dig out some old and forgotten copies of The Ancient Text of the Great Learning and The Record of Transmission and Practice that had been printed by MIWA Shissai. In this way I was able to rediscover something about how to make moral effort upon the mind-nature itself, and I began teaching this to others. At this point my aspiration, which had been directed toward seeking externally and gaining [rightness] by attack, again underwent a turnabout. Now my aspiration was only to make my mind’s intentions sincere through the practice of extending my inborn knowledge of the good [into outward activities]. From that point on I was able to move straightforward courageously, without hesitating to consider before and after, only focusing all of my energy on the

7

Chūsai’s “also” means that his own work, like Lü’s, was written in a state of inner torment and self-questioning arising from the self-demanding pursuit of rightness. LÜ Kun (a native of Ning Ling in Henan) was not a follower of the WANG Yangming school, but his philosophy was based on ZHANG Zai’s philosophy of qi. Chūsai’s Senshindō sakki also contains many quotations from ZHANG Zai. On LÜ Kun (1536–1618), see Handlin 1983, 1987: 219 and Tsang 1997.

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official duties right before me. In this way I was able to repay as well as any man the blessings (on 恩) I have received from my lord, my ancestors, and from the teachings of the sages and philosophers. (Sagara et al. 1980: 560–561, 634)

Chūsai’s aspiration (kokorozashi) at this time was still not aimed completely in what he later realized was the right direction, leaving him unable to sustain a “correct mind” of moral rectitude. Nevertheless, even this glimpse of the true way of practice liberated him from the sense of personal sinfulness that had plagued him so long, a sense of guilt rooted in the fact that his heroic aspiration had been totally at odds with the mundane reality of his daily official duties. Even after he had set his will upon the learning of moral principles, he was unable to achieve this liberation from the sense of sin as long as his aspiration was directed toward conceptions of rightness (objects of kokorozashi) originating in a realm outside the ground of his own mind-and-heart (kokoro). The nature of the purification of aspiration he achieved after reading Words of Moaning is clarified if we consider the two quotations from this work included in Senshindō sakki. When the people of old were close to one another in fame, they obtained it for one another. When the people of today are close to one another in fame, they envy one another (Sakki B: 10, ibid.: 461). Seeing profit, they go forward; seeing harm, they retreat. When they have the same accomplishment as another, they appropriate all the merit to themselves. When they have the same fault as another, they put all the blame on the other. This is the constant state of the inferior man. (Sakki A: 60, ibid.: 387)

Chūsai was obviously struck by the accuracy with which these words described not only the moral condition of the people around him, but also the tendencies of his own mind when he did not keep careful watch over its intentions. After quoting these passages in the Senshindō Sakki, he adds that he regularly repeats them to himself as admonishments to “whip the lazy mind,” and endeavors to practice the opposite—crediting only others and blaming only himself. In other words, from his WANG Yangming philosophical point of view, the energy of moral aspiration must be continually drawn back to the pre-cognitive ground of one’s own will, resisting the tendency of this energy to be dissipated outward in the seeking of personal advantage and the condemnation of others. The belief that moral principles will be mastered by the study of external things and affairs, or that one will be morally justified by accumulating merit in the eyes of the world, sets up a tension between the subjective and the objective self—between “original substance” (benti 本體 hontai) and “practice” (gongfu 工夫 kufū)—which can never be fully resolved without a breakthrough to an entirely new level of moral endeavor. Interestingly, Chūsai claims in effect that after the focus of his moral effort was drawn away from external things through reading Lü’s book, the gulf between his ideal self and his empirical self was bridged. As a result, it became possible for him to focus the moral aspiration of his mind steadily on the daily tasks of his official position without the shame and frustration these tasks had hitherto aroused, confident that the tasks that lay before him were in themselves the proper field for the realization of ethical greatness. In other words, in his own view, the achievement of his aspiration to sagehood now depended only on the outward extension of the

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intuitive knowledge of good and evil that was already fully present in the original heavenly light of his own consciousness, through the sustained effort of eliminating thoughts of self-interest from the mind. His sense of personal fulfillment and liberation from the sense of sin expressed itself in the conviction that, through his work, he was now able to repay simultaneously the debts of gratitude he owed to the bestowers of his life, his livelihood, and the light of Confucian teaching. Ironically, however, Chūsai’s new-gained ability to find satisfaction and meaning in his work was soon followed by a decision to resign his position to devote himself full time to introspective praxis and the teaching of the Way. What now was the reason his official work conflicted with his kokorozashi? His letter to Issai continues, Unexpectedly, however, I soon began to become quite well known both locally and in other regions. It seemed to me that, since I had as yet no real accomplishment, to have such an empty reputation was something detestable to the Creator (zōbutsusha 造物者).8 For that reason, I resolutely resigned my position and began a life of retirement. It was not only because I was afraid of the attacks of other people. At the time I was thirty-eight years old. Since then I have devoted myself exclusively to cultivating the nature, observing the mind, and correcting my faults in seclusion. I have no other pursuit. However, since I have no teacher or friend to guide me, I am afraid that my aspiration will slacken when I reach the age of fifty of sixty. I worry about this day and night. How should I direct my effort (gongfu) from this point on, so that my aspiration (kokorozashi) will become more and more firm and my mind will return to the great vacuity? (Sagara et al. 1980: 561, 634)

Actually, there was considerable lapse of time between these different stages in the development of Chūsai’s kokorozashi. His acquisition of LÜ Kun’s Words of Moaning occurred in 1816, at the age of 24 (Uno 1972, 8: 88). The attainment of a sense of accomplishment in his work was not until about 10 years later, between 1826 and 1830. Then, in the seventh month of 1830 (Bunsei 13), Chūsai suddenly resigned his position. Needless to say, a great deal is left out in his self-confession to Issai, and we shall have to consider other sources of information before we can hope to understand more fully his motivations. One easily overlooked source of insight into his intentionality at the time of his retirement is the nom de plume, Rensai 連齋, which he adopted at this time to symbolize his new identity. The “Ren” of this name was the personal name of LU Zhonglian 魯仲連, an itinerant statesman of the Warring States period in China whose biography appears most famously in SIMA Qian’s 司馬遷 (145–86 B.C.E.) great history, Records of the Historian (Shiji 史記, Sima 1959). At the beginning of the biography, SIMA Qian introduces Lu’s character in the following terms. LU Zhonglian was a man of the state of Qi 齊. He was fond of grand and unusual strategies, but he was unwilling to accept an official position. He had a passion for holding to the highest principles of personal integrity. He was sojourning in the state of Zhao 趙.

8

The term zōbutsusha is not an orthodox Confucian term, deriving rather from the Daoist works Zhuangzi and Liezi. In Chinese usage, it is more or less a synonym for heaven-and-earth or for the Way of nature, but it obviously carries a greater connotation of agency or personification than the former two concepts.

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LU Zhonglian’s state of Qi, formerly strong enough to hold up against the power of the militaristic state of Qin 秦, has become weak, and now Qin is determined to compel the state of Zhao to submit. Having already defeated a Zhao army, Qin proceeds to besiege the Zhao capital Handan 邯鄲. The king of Wei 魏 sends a general to save Zhao, but the general stops half way out of fear of the Qin army. So the king of Wei dispatches a guest general, XIN Yuanyan 新垣衍, to Zhao, to have him persuade the Zhao nobleman PING Yuanjun 平原君 to advise the king that since Qin’s only motive is to become the suzerain state (Di 帝), if Zhao sends an emissary to the Qin king to offer Zhao’s recognition of Qin’s suzerainty, Qin will abandon its siege. LU Zhonglian happens to be in Zhao at the time, and when he hears of this plan he meets with Ping Yuanjun and asks him what he plans to do. Hearing Ping’s gutless argument that there is no way to resist Qin, Lu rebukes him for his lack of courage and principle and asks him for an introduction to General Xin so he can persuade him to return to Wei. The meeting is arranged. When the general asks Lu why he would stay on as a visitor in a besieged city when he is not seeking anything for himself, he explains that Qin is a state that has abandoned ritual and moral rightness and oppresses its own people, aiming unscrupulously to gain control over all the other states through its ruthless military machine. He would rather walk off into the eastern sea, Lu says, than become a subject of Qin. He then proceeds to present the general with a plan by which Zhao can be saved by getting the other states to ally with it against Qin. He explains that formerly the king of Qi led all the feudal lords in maintaining their fealty to the Zhou royal house (the “Son of Heaven”), but that now that the Zhou has become economically and militarily weak, all the lords have abandoned it except Qi. “At first I took you, sir, for an ordinary man. But I know today that you are a knight of the imperial realm (tianxia zhi shi 天下之士). Please allow me to leave Zhao. I will not dare speak again of submitting to Qin.” Lu’s plan is put into effect, and the besieging army of Qin retreats. After the success of Lu’s strategy, Ping Yuanjun tries to reward Lu with a fief, but Lu adamantly refuses. Ping then offers Lu wine, and after he has enjoyed several cups, offers him a generous monetary reward. Lu laughingly replies, What is to be valued in a knight of the imperial realm is his ability to eliminate afflictions, dispel disorder and resolve altercations on behalf of others while seeking nothing in return. If he takes anything in return, it becomes a matter of conducting a business transaction. This is something that I could never bear to do. (Shiji: 83: 2459–2465)

Evidently, Chūsai had gone through an intense internal crisis concerning the true meaning of loyalty, and, after considerable soul-searching, had concluded that he had no choice but to resign his position. His self-identification with LU Zhonglian reveals that the will behind this decision was far more than a mere desire for freedom from official responsibilities. Those who can penetrate the political symbolism in Chūsai’s reading of Lu’s biography may feel inclined to concede him the honor he so relentlessly sought of being a prophet of his nation, even before the supreme performance which gained him an immortal, if somewhat problematic, place in Japanese history. Another important source of insight into Chūsai’s motivations is an essay he wrote to justify his retirement, entitled “A Poem and Preface on the Occasion of My Resignation” (Rishoku no shi narabini jo 離職の詩並びに敘). Here we learn that

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there were objective reasons for his resignation in addition to his Confucian desire to “hold to the highest principles of personal integrity” and his professed shame over having a reputation greater than his achievements. Actually, we discover, Chūsai’s newfound ability as an official to accomplish things, which he believed truly fulfilled his ancestral loyalty, had depended on the patronage and trust of his superior, TAKAI Yamashiro-no-kami Sanenori. In 1820 (Bunsei 3), Sanenori was transferred from another locality to become city magistrate of Osaka East, the ward in which Chūsai was employed (Gotō 1972: 88). Impressed by Chūsai’s character and abilities, Sanenori promoted him successively to the positions of “public inquirer” and “public examiner” (Miyagi 1977: 14). In 1826, Chūsai submitted a request for resignation on the grounds of a chronic pulmonary disease. However, Sanenori talked him out of resigning by emphasizing Chūsai’s superior talents and the importance of his work, encouraging him by granting him a number of new titles (Okamoto 1965: 46). It was Sanenori’s retirement in 1830, due to advancing age, that precipitated Chūsai’s resignation. Evidently, Chūsai’s good relationship with his superior (his “lord”) had finally made it possible for him actually to fulfill his samurai kokorozashi, which he envisioned in the terms of WANG Yangming’s philosophy as a resolution to rectify the world by making his will sincere through extending into action his “intuitive” awareness of what was morally right. His rapid rise up the promotional ladder had given him ample opportunity to extend his inner convictions regarding good and evil downward into society “in the midst of practical affairs” (shishang molian 事上磨䥺 jijō maren), a core principle of practice in the WANG Yangming school. With Sanenori gone, Chūsai apparently felt he would no longer have the power to effect significant change in the world through the conscientious execution of his official duties. Accordingly, he wrote in the preface that In spite of my humble position, he [Sanenori] listened to my words and followed my policy recommendations. For this reason, I was able to have a hand in important governmental decisions, succeeding in getting rid of a corrupt official, eliminating a scourge of the people, and rectifying monastic discipline. Was this [trust] not something one could encounter only once in a thousand years? But now my lord has submitted his request for retirement. Rightness dictates that I have no choice but to relinquish my position as well and go into retirement. (Uno 1972, 8: 384, 552)

Here, Chūsai refers to the so-called “three great achievements” of his official career—law-enforcement successes of which he was exceedingly proud. Part of his motivation in mentioning these achievements was to excuse his retirement on the grounds that he has already made more than sufficient contributions as an official. Yet his tremendous pride in these achievements was based on the objective fact that they were difficult legal cases that required great courage and uncompromising personal probity to prosecute successfully. Thus the nature of the three legal cases concerned is obviously related closely to the development of Chūsai’s kokorozashi both before and after his retirement. Moreover, these legal cases are the points where this developing kokorozashi intersected with the social and political history of Japan in the first few decades of the nineteenth century.

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297

Chūsai’s “Three Great Accomplishments”

The “three great accomplishments” to which Chūsai refers were: (1) the exposure of a Kirishitan cult and the arrest of its members, (2) the prosecution of a large bribery scandal, and (3) the banishment of Buddhist clergy who had persisted in committing violations of monastic discipline. Perhaps it is no coincidence that these three legal cases cover the three main concerns of Confucian bureaucratic morality—the suppression of activities subversive of ideological, philosophical, and political order; the encouragement of integrity and conscientious dedication to duty among officialdom; and the promotion of ethical self-discipline, sobriety, and obedience to authority among the populace. The three cases also represent three of the major recurrent problems within the Tokugawa polity, problems which had grown particularly acute in the early nineteenth century—heterodox religious movements, official corruption, and moral laxity among clergy and townsfolk. From a samuraiConfucian perspective, all of these were aberrations in the proper order of society that could prompt questions about the effectiveness and rectitude—if not the very legitimacy—of the Tokugawa structure of authority. These legal cases represented the high points in Chūsai’s practice of WANG Yangming philosophy before his retirement, and they show the way in which the indomitable will embodied in his Reading Notes from the Cave of Mind-Cleansing expressed itself in his work as an official. Thus they have even more relevance than Chūsai’s later rebellion for understanding what the practice of WANG Yangming’s teachings actually meant in the context of the Tokugawa political system. Since these cases were instrumental in precipitating a fourth and a fifth turning point in the maturation of Chūsai’s kokorozashi, our primary point of reference will be his own view of them. This is revealed in “A Poem and Preface on the Occasion of My Retirement,” as well as in his official reports to the shogunate. The preface begins, The realm has been at peace now for over two hundred years, and both the upper and lower classes are enjoying a life without warfare. Nevertheless, one cannot say that there are no evil things in the realm. In the fourth month of the tenth year of Bunsei (1827), the seventh year after my superior TAKAI Yamashiro-no-kami became the magistrate of Osaka East, my lord ordered me to arrest an evil band of Kirishitan believers in Kyoto and Osaka and conduct a thorough investigation of their crimes. I immediately had them arrested, and my lord reported this to the government. The government submitted the case to the supreme judicial office (hyōjōsho 評定所) in Edo, which deliberated for three years before delivering its verdict. After this, the instigation and misleading of the common people by this heretical teaching seems to have subsided to some extent. (Uno 1972: 8: 383)

In 1825 and 1826, a woman in Kyoto claiming to be a relative of the imperial clan began to promote herself as a medium possessed of special spiritual powers, saying that through incantations and prayers she could predict good and bad fortune, heal illness, and guarantee prosperity in business. As her fame spread, she came to the attention of the city magistrate’s office, which ordered an investigation. It was soon found that her claims of royal ancestry had been fabricated, and that she was deceiving gullible people by claiming to be able in trance to invoke Inari, the fox deity who is god of the harvest. In the first month of 1827, she and her followers

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were arrested, and Chūsai was put in charge of the investigation (Miyagi 1977: 14). It was found that the woman, whose name was Sano, had duped people out of over 72 kan 貫 of cash, a sizeable amount.9 Chūsai was alarmed about the extent of the fraud, and suspected that sorcery (kitsune-tsukai 狐使い) was involved. Under interrogation, Sano confessed that she had used sorcery to deceive people. Chūsai pressed on with his questioning, refusing to believe her story that her arts came from Yamada in Ise. Suffering from the burns inflicted by the interrogators, Sano then pleaded to be given the death sentence. Chūsai reasoned that to be willing to die for a crime no greater than sorcery was quite unusual, and that there must be something else involved that Sano was concealing. A search of her home turned up a paper doll with a nail driven into it, and a search of her previous place of residence produced evidence that she had connections with another Inari medium by the name of Kinu. A search of Kinu’s home turned up the same sort of paper doll, as well as records of communication with a faith healer and fortune-teller (onmyōji 陰陽師) named TOYODA Mitsugu. After obtaining the consent of the Kyoto city magistrate, Chūsai had Mitsugu arrested and brought to Osaka. All three women were in their mid to late fifties. After determined and unyielding interrogation, Chūsai came to the conclusion that the three were practitioners of Christian sorcery (kirishitan jahō 邪法), in flagrant violation of the strict Tokugawa laws against Christianity. Further interrogation under torture extracted a confession from Mitsugu that several years earlier a yarn shop operator named Wasa had been initiating women into the secret arts of Christian sorcery. It was also ascertained that the group had possessed a picture of a god whom they called the “Supreme Heavenly Lord Tathāgata” (Tentei Nyorai 天帝如來). Wasa had died 10 years earlier, but she had had two adopted daughters. These adopted daughters were tracked down and brought in for interrogation, along with the person who had claimed Wasa’s body after her death. Chūsai’s persistence in questioning the adopted daughters finally brought forth the name of Wasa’s teacher, a man named MIZUNO Gunki. Although it turned out that Mizuno had died some three years earlier, Chūsai refused to give up. Through further investigations, including compiling a list of those who had attended Mizuno’s funeral, Chūsai finally managed to track down and imprison all those who had connections with this man. It seemed that Mizuno, while of questionable character, was exceedingly well versed in all kinds of esoteric details, including Chinese and Japanese military lore, Buddhist rituals, fortune telling, and information about Western nations. It was he, it was determined, who had possessed the ritual portrait of Tentei Nyorai (Hangai 1977: 37–47). Here we are struck by a number of things regarding the nature of this cult and Chūsai’s character. As far as the cult is concerned, it seems at least by modem standards to have been a fairly innocuous affair. It hardly presented any significant threat to public order, and the only real crime of its latter-day initiates seems to have been their apparent willingness to dupe people out of their money. Even the extent of this “malicious intent” is mitigated by the consideration that large numbers of people would not likely have paid Sano their money if they did not feel they were getting 9

In the Edo period a kan was nominally equal to 1,000 mon of cash, though the actual value was 960 (Kōjien, 4th edition).

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something in return. Secondly, it is obvious that the cult’s connection with “Christianity” (Catholicism) was extremely tenuous. The investigation actually turned up only four individuals who confessed to having recited a mantra before the portrait of Tentei Nyorai. None of the investigators ever set eyes upon this portrait, which reportedly had been burned some time previously.10 Chūsai ascertained that Sano had once been to Nagasaki, where she had voluntarily performed the act of fumi-e (treading on a Catholic devotional picture), the test that the Tokugawa authorities often used to expose Christian faith. Nonetheless, Chūsai managed to get her to confess that the trip to Nagasaki demonstrated her confirmation of commitment to the Christian faith, for there she was able to fulfill her desire, impossible in Kyoto, to set eyes on a picture of Tentei (Hangai 1977: 41–42). Needless to say, such confessions, extracted under torture, would not be admissible in a modern court of law. On the other hand, for Chūsai the linking of the mediumistic cult with Christianity was essential to his effort to identify these activities as scandalous and illegal, so that he could eliminate this “scourge of the people” in the name of the greater public good. His tenacious, almost fanatical prosecution of the case reveals, certainly, an unusual degree of determination, which is an essential element of what Chūsai refers to as his kokorozashi. But it is also apparent that, in the execution of his official duties, this uncompromising kokorozashi produced a degree of scrupulousness which must have alienated many of his colleagues, and which caused tremendous suffering on the part of its unfortunate victims. Chūsai’s remark in his letter to Issai that he was “not loved by people” becomes quite believable. Yet at the same time it is understandable why Chūsai felt so proud of his performance in this case. His determination from the beginning to get to the bottom of what was initially quite a minor case, and his perceptiveness regarding the psychology of those he interrogated, eventually yielded up the original ringleader of a large-scale network of illicit activities that had been going on for years totally beyond the eyes of the government, and brought the retribution of the law to bear upon every single individual who had been materially involved. As for the suffering that these individuals and their families had to endure, Chūsai no doubt felt it was more than recompensed by the benefits it brought to the public welfare and by the concomitant reassertion of governmental authority among the populace. From the point of view of the authority structure to which Chūsai owed his loyalty, his actions would probably merit only the highest praise. Yet Chūsai’s conviction of the absolute rightness of his actions was not necessarily shared by the rest of the world. In the ninth month of 1827 (Bunsei 10), Chūsai submitted a meticulously prepared set of reports and documents on the case through TAKAI Sanenori and the Osaka deputy castellan to the bakufu’s supreme judicial office. After deliberating for a year and a half, the office presented its preliminary judgment of the case to the bakufu Council of Elders (rōjū) for consideration. That judgment contained the following statement, 10

Descriptions by those questioned in the case indicated that it was a picture of a standing woman with disheveled hair embracing a child in her left arm and holding a sword in her right. Evidently, the interrogators took this to be a portrait of the Virgin Mary, as they took the paper dolls to be figures of the crucified Christ. At any rate, Sano had never even seen the portrait.

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MIZUNO Gunki is already dead, and the picture of Tentei Nyorai has been burned. Therefore, it is completely unclear in what way the Kirishitan sect could have been transmitted to the people arrested in this case. Those who use heretical arts to perform strange and shocking things are not necessarily all Christians. Moreover, to take Sano’s performance of fumi-e in Nagasaki as evidence that her Christian faith was strengthened by seeing a Christian picture is equivalent to saying that fumi-e is totally ineffectual as a technique of testing for Christian faith. On both of these counts, it is difficult to judge whether the people charged were really practitioners of Christian rites. In spite of this, it appears that the officials in charge of the investigation had concluded from the beginning that these people were all Christian practitioners. (Hangai 1977: 44)

In spite of the moderate (and quite “modern”) tone of the supreme judicial office’s judgment, using it as the basis for concluding the case was not such an easy matter. A tremendous commotion had been created in Osaka and Kyoto by the investigation, and to drop or reduce the charges on the grounds of insufficient evidence would have been a tremendous affront to the pride of the Osaka police force and its superiors in the magistrate’s office. Such a turnabout could weaken the authority of the antiChristian laws, one of the foundational principles of the Tokugawa order, and impact indirectly on the authority of the bakufu itself. Accordingly, the rōjū issued their reply to the supreme judicial office in the following terms, Although the judgment you have issued is eminently reasonable, if one considers all of the circumstances involved, it is necessary to stand behind the opinion of the officials in charge of the case, judging those accused to have been Christians and punishing them accordingly. However, the matter of the fumi-e should be deleted from the inquiry report. (Hangai 1977: 45)

In the ninth month of 1829, the supreme judicial office drew up an official verdict and sentence in accord with this order, and the sentence was delivered to the accused by the Osaka city magistrate, TAKAI Sanenori, in the twelfth month of the same year. Sano, Kinu, Mitsugu, two others connected with them, and an unconnected physician whose bookshelf had been found to contain some books on Christianity were all punished by crucifixion (haritsuke 磔) after being paraded through the streets of Osaka. Actually, four of them had already died of illnesses in prison, so their saltfilled corpses were paraded through the streets and then nailed up for public exposure. Sano’s assistants were also all sentenced to death, and the graves of Mizuno and Wasa were destroyed. Mizuno’s son, Wasa’s adopted daughter, Mitsugu’s adopted son, the wives of the two men crucified, and 56 others who had associations with those executed were all sentenced to life imprisonment. The punishment even extended to the leaders of the neighborhood organizations in which those executed had lived, who were stripped of their duties and fined (Hangai 1977: 45–46). As in the case of the Akō rōnin vendetta, the disposition of the Kirishitan case involved the fundamental question of the legitimacy of the bakufu’s legal authority, and Chūsai really had no choice but to stick to his hard line. As the chief prosecutor and the man who had personally directed the investigation, he could hardly admit that he might have gone too far. Even if he himself did have second thoughts, he had to defend the honor of his staff, who had after all only been obeying his orders. He had already built himself a reputation for hard-handedness in the handling of legal cases, and consistency is an indispensable virtue in the enforcement of the law.

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Personal pride, loyalty to superiors, group honor, and defense of legal authority all pointed in one direction. Yet if the thought ever occurred to him that the severity of the punishment meted out to all those he had rounded up was not, from some higher perspective of justice, absolutely right and correct, it would have been no small torment to his conscience. It is not known whether or not Chūsai ever saw the preliminary judgment of the supreme judicial office, but it is quite likely that, in view of his powerful connections, at least its gist would have been conveyed to him. We have no way of knowing whether or not such feedback caused a recurrence of his old attacks of self-doubt. But the degree to which he boasts of his “three great accomplishments” in several of his writings makes one suspect that he may have been trying to justify himself. At any rate, the complexity of this case and the extent of the reactions it provoked must have compelled Chūsai to reflect deeply about the true meaning of loyalty and righteousness. The second of Chūsai’s “three great accomplishments” was the exposure and impeachment of another constable (yoriki), whose list of official titles was quite similar to Chūsai’s own. This man, named YUGE Shin’emon, enjoyed the special favor of the magistrate of his ward of Osaka West, again calling to mind Chūsai’s own situation. Yuge had been abusing the magistrate’s favor for some 7 years to commit various atrocities, with the aid of henchmen drawn from among police agents (shikasho) who resided in four of Osaka’s districts under his jurisdiction. However, Yuge’s rank and connections had made it impossible for anyone to touch him. His misdeeds began with the forceful extraction of bribes, and escalated until he was arresting anyone who refused to pay him a bribe for the most minor infractions, and banishing them or throwing them into prison to die. It was also reported that he had hounded sellers of Chinese goods and medicine dealers until they were forced to cease from doing business. His henchmen were bullying the weak and appropriating people’s money and valuables by extortion. Finally, in the third month of 1829, TAKAI Sanenori responded to Chūsai’s reports (see Nakada 1990) by ordering Chūsai to begin an inquiry. Upon receiving the order, Chūsai immediately left his concubine, Yu, in order to eliminate any personal attachments that might cause him to hold back in his prosecution of the case. Chūsai relates this case as follows, In the third month of the twelfth year of Bunsei, my lord again ordered me to investigate a cunning official and his traitorous underlings who were undermining government and plaguing people through their hidden connections with the powerful. However, their activities expanded to reach the deputies of some very highly placed officials. The authorities were well aware of these goings-on for a long time, but it seems they did nothing about it because of their fear and trepidation. If that is true, this represents a flagrant neglect of their responsibility to concern themselves with the welfare of the people. I myself, moved by the loyal indignation of my lord, finally decided to put all considerations of personal interest aside and secretly devise a plan to deal with the wrongdoers. Applying a classical strategy that struck like lightning, giving them no time to cover their ears, I succeeded in exposing their hidden treacheries and bringing them all to justice. (Uno 1972, 8: 383, 551)

A summons for Yuge’s arrest arrived at his residence while he was seeing off the town magistrate to a new post to which he had been transferred. Meanwhile, his henchmen and associates were arrested in rapid succession. Arriving home to find

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the summons, and knowing that his patron was no longer able to protect him, Yuge committed seppuku. Chūsai sentenced his henchmen, the police agents, to crucifixion, imprisoned Yuge’s associates, and distributed among the poor and destitute the 3,000 ounces of gold and silver that they had illicitly appropriated (Hangai 1977: 48–50; Uno 1972: 8: 384; Miyagi 2005: 123–25; Okamoto 1965: 84–92). This time, Chūsai’s bold prosecution of the case would seem worthy of nothing but the highest praise. Nevertheless, while it made his name even more known throughout the country, there were those among his contemporaries who criticized the way he had handled it. KOGA Tōan (1788–1847), a Confucian scholar and an instructor at the bakufu college, wrote the following evaluation of the case: YUGE Shichisaemon, constable of Tenma, was of a higher rank than ŌSHIO Heihachirō. Because of his insatiable desires, he intimidated people and posed as their benefactor in order to extract bribes. These acts were certainly of a criminal nature. However, did they deserve the death penalty? Heihachirō made a long list of Yuge’s crimes and reported them to his superior, but some of these crimes were fabricated. Flashing the severity of the law before Yuge’s eyes, Heihachirō intimidated him and left him no choice but to commit suicide. Then he had his own son take over Yuge’s post and salary. Ever since this affair, everyone is terrified of Heihachirō, pricking up their ears and feeling weak at the knees whenever they hear his name. (Hangai 1977: 50)

A book called The State of Affairs in the Floating World (Ukiyo no arisama), written by a physician who lived in the same part of Osaka as Chūsai, also contains the following reference to the incident: Admittedly, Ōshio’s merit in this case was great. Nevertheless, everyone is praising Ōshio himself, while no one mentions the name of Mr. Takai. Would it not have been gentlemanly of Ōshio if he had given the credit to Mr. Takai? The man has certainly violated the principle that, “If a samurai (shi 士) has merit, he credits it to the daimyo’s councilor (taifu 大夫); if a daimyo’s councilor has merit, he credits it to his lord (shokō 諸侯); if a lord has merit, he credits it to the Son of Heaven (tenshi 天子).” What a shameful affair! (Hangai 1977: 51)

While the questions raised certainly cast some shadows onto the picture of Chūsai’s faultless performance in this case, one cannot help reflecting that any law enforcement official who takes bold action against official malfeasance and thus exposes himself to the public eye inevitably draws criticism from some quarters, and that Chūsai or anyone in his position would have been foolish to let such murmurings affect him. All the same, it appears that in the outcome of this case as well, Chūsai’s spotless self-image may be something of a deliberate creation. The criticism raised by Tōan, which likely reflected a segment of public opinion, is extremely interesting in view of Chūsai’s intense desire to believe that he was performing his duties with selfless Confucian dedication out of an ancestral loyalty to the Tokugawa house. As, we have seen, the only exhortation from LÜ Kun’s Words of Moaning that managed to get into Reading Notes from the Cave of Mind-Cleansing was just this principle that only the small man appropriates all the merit to himself. In his “Poem with Preface” as well, while praising himself, he was careful to give ultimate credit to Takai.

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This prosecution, which led Chūsai to submit to the bakufu a long list of the names of well-placed bushi, kuge (court aristocrats) and temple or shrine officials whom he had found to be involved in the corruption scandal, also resulted in tension between Chūsai and the bakufu (see Nakada 1990). Later, in 1834, a student at the bakufu’s college, KOGA Daiichirō, wrote a letter to Chūsai in which he said that, ever since the Prohibition of Heterodoxy, the college had been turning out lots of scholars of noble character and impeccable morality who were adept in the art of governing. Chūsai wrote back that, if ZHU Xi learning were really cultivating talented men truly of use to the shogunate, he would like a list of the actual names of the men Koga was referring to. This statement was judged at the college to be “insulting to the Shōheizaka Gakumonsho [i.e. the Shōheikō]” and it was recommended that Chūsai be summoned to Edo for questioning (Aiso 2003: 828; Miyagi 2005: 295–98). The third of Chūsai’s “great accomplishments” occurred in 1830 (Bunsei 13), the same year as his resignation. Violation of monastic discipline by Buddhist monks was a commonplace of Tokugawa society, and the authorities generally turned a blind eye to it as long as it did not threaten public order. Any attempt to deal heavily with violations of discipline among the clergy threatened having an adverse effect on their role within the bakufu system of social control. But Chūsai was a moral perfectionist, and it is easy to imagine how he reacted to reports of sexual license, meat eating, and other irregularities in the monasteries. In the twelfth month of 1829, having received an order from Sanenori, he issued a circular order to the Buddhist temples under his jurisdiction warning them about violations of discipline. He was aware that such orders had been issued before with little effect, but he was already determined that the same would not happen again. This action reportedly drew praise from all quarters, and other magistrate’s offices were moved to issue similar orders in response. Chūsai waited for a period to see if there was any reaction in the temples, and then began his crackdown. Tracking down those monks who were reported to be continuing their illicit behavior, he had them summoned one by one to his official residence, and handed each a detailed list of his violations. He ordered each monk to read the list over carefully, saying that if they did not remember the violation in question, they should explain themselves, and that if they did remember, they would be forgiven this one time only. But if they did not reform themselves, he added, any further scandalous behavior would be dealt with severely. After the monks had been sent back to their temples to reflect, they were again called one by one to Chūsai’s residence and questioned relentlessly regarding each one of the listed violations “until cold sweat appeared on their foreheads.” It was said that some monks, just hearing about the questioning going on in the Chūsai mansion, began to quiver and immediately sent their mistresses home. After Chūsai had summoned the monks from over 60 temples, he called an end to this procedure and moved on to the next stage of his crackdown. In the third month of 1830, he had monks from over 30 temples who were reported to be continuing their former behavior arrested, and sentenced all of them to banishment. The comportment of Buddhist monks in Osaka after this case was reported to have become extremely stiff and proper. It does not appear that Chūsai was faced with any significant criticism over this third and last of his “great accomplishments.” But that very fact may have also

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contributed to his decision to resign. This time he had prosecuted the case in a totally creditable manner, and no one was even executed. Even the chastised Buddhist community would have to admit that, strictly speaking, the monks punished had been given ample chance to repent and had in the end got what they deserved. Chūsai had been teaching at his academy while he prosecuted these cases, and in spite of his fiery spirit, his perfectionism and almost fanatical (shinimonogurui 死に物狂い) style of work must have exhausted him. As a serious scholar with a sense of mission that continually thrust beyond the bounds of his official duties, Chūsai undoubtedly longed to have more time for his studies and teaching, and he was most likely still bothered by the chronic pulmonary ailment that had precipitated his request for retirement 4 years before. Now that he had concluded a major case without drawing much criticism, he could count on leaving his post with as good a reputation as he could hope to achieve, and those who hated or disliked him would at least gain no new ammunition from this case. When his superior, Sanenori, announced his resignation, this must have been just the last straw that finally made up his mind. His statement to Issai that he retired because he was ashamed before the Creator at the extent of his fame was a very proper Confucian expression of modesty, but it represented at best only the subjective tip of his motivational iceberg. However, as his performance as a police official shows, this subjective tip could generate a great deal of “righteous energy.”

11.6

The Problem of Chūsai’s Ancestry

The matter of ŌSHIO Chūsai’ s ancestry has been one of the greatest controversies in the study of his life, reflecting the intense concern for ancestral pedigree that permeated traditional Japanese society and even now remains a characteristic of Japanese society. In view of the central role of his ancestry in the formation of his kokorozashi, this is also a matter that bears directly on our understanding of his philosophy and its relation to his motivational make-up. It was claimed as early as 1888 (Meiji 20) that Chūsai’s grandfather was actually born in Awa Tokushima domain in eastern Shikoku, having been adopted into the Ōshio clan at a later date. This would make Chūsai the descendant of a vassal of a tozama 外様 (outside) lord, rupturing his claim of direct and legitimate descent from a fudai 譜代 daimyō. Some even claimed that Chūsai himself had also been adopted from Awa domain, and in his panegyric for Chūsai discussed above, MISHIMA Yukio accepts without question that Chūsai was adopted twice before becoming heir to the Ōshio clan. KŌDA Shigetomo 幸田成友 (1873–1954), in the process of compiling a history of Osaka in 1909, had the opportunity to put together materials on Chūsai, and his findings led him to deny the theory of Awa origin, noting that Tenma constables rarely established marital connections with tozama lords. He thus defended Chūsai’s own claims regarding his ancestry (Kōda 1982–1983). (In the following year Kōda published a full study of Oshio: Kōda 1910). In 1918, ISHIZAKI Tōgoku 石崎東国 researched the problem while compiling a chronology of Chūsai’s life. After collecting documents in Awa,

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he concluded that the evidence was insufficient in the case of Chūsai himself, but his grandfather had definitely been born in Awa (Ishizaki 1920). In her 1977 study of Chūsai’s life and thought, MIYAGI Kimiko states that it has now been established that Chūsai’s grandfather was born in Awa and was adopted into the Ōshio clan. Moreover, she points out, there is strong evidence that Chūsai’s grandfather had been adopted not once, but twice, having entered the Ōshio clan only after his first foster parents died (Miyagi 2005: 16–17; OMM 1976: 8–9). The reconstruction goes as follows. Chūsai’s grandfather, MASANOJŌ Narimasu, was a vassal of INEDA Kyūrōbei, chief councilor (karō) of Tokushima domain (in eastern Shikoku). He was born in Awa as a younger brother of MANABE Ichirō. Later, he was adopted by SHIODA Kakinosuke, another vassal of the same lord. Kakinosuke then took Narimasu to Osaka, where they took refuge with ŌSHIO Sahei, the family into which Kakinosuke’s deceased daughter had married. As Narimasu’s foster parents both died early, he was later adopted by the Ōshio family as heir, in the absence of a natural son. Convincing evidence of the double adoption was found in the testimony of a man named MIYAKE Hiromu who was brought to Tokushima shortly after Chūsai’s rebellion in 1837 for questioning regarding the degree of his relatedness to Chūsai. Miyake testified that there was a tradition that another younger brother of MANABE Ichirō (Narimasu’s natural brother) was sent to SHIODA Kakinosuke at the age of two or three (OMM 1976: 8). From this it can be inferred that ŌSHIO Sabei’s wife was SHIODA Kakinosuke’s daughter. Chūsai had exchanged letters with MIYAKE Hiromu, who was the son of MANABE Ichirō’s daughter. In 1833, for instance, he wrote Miyake that he was presenting him with a copy of his Notes from the Cave of Mind-Cleansing in response to his fervent request, and that he had already presented a copy to Lord Ineda. This and other correspondences confirm that there were four generations of intercourse as relatives between the Ōshio family and the Miyake family of Awa Tokushima domain (Miyagi 1984: 8). Thus Chūsai must have known about the fact that his father was of Awa origin. Yet he never mentioned this in any of his essays, letters, or other writings. On the contrary, he always emphasized his pride in his Imagawa background and his legitimate succession to this ancestral lineage through the male line. It almost seems as if he was deliberately trying to deny his tozama origins. On the tombs of his grandfather and father respectively, Chūsai wrote the words “built by his legitimate grandson Heihachirō” and “written by his eldest son.” In 1826, lacking a natural son who could continue his line, Chūsai approached the main line (sōke 總家) of the Ōshio clan in Nagoya, the castle town of Owari domain, seeking a boy he could take as adopted son (yōshi 養子). In a letter sent to the main line of the family, Chūsai wrote, “To take an heir from another house because one is misled by an unreasonable desire for gain is tantamount to cutting off the family line, and is something greatly to be lamented” (Miyagi 2005: 18). In 1830, after resigning his post, he wrote the following in a letter to a colleague, OGINO Kanzaemon, another town constable of Osaka East: Even though I have obtained freedom from official duties, because I have inherited the blood lineage of ŌSHIO Namiemon, who gained great merit before our godly forebear’s [TOKUGAWA leyasu’s] eyes and was personally presented with Ieyasu’s bow, I am bound in spite of my lowly status by a moral duty between lord and vassal that can never leave me for life (Miyagi 2005: 18).

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In the ninth month of the same year, he paid a visit to the main line of his clan in Nagoya in order to make obeisance to the famous bow, writing a long poem to express his sentiments. Two years later, he paid a visit to the Iwashimizu Hachiman Shrine 石清水八幡宮 in Yawata, south of Kyoto, where the tutelary deity of the Minamoto clan is worshipped. This shrine had possessed a suit of armor said to have been offered by MINAMOTO no Yoshiie 源義 家 (1039–1108), nicknamed “Hachiman Tarō,” who had used his great martial prowess to consolidate the power of the Minamoto clan in eastern Japan. However, the treasure had been destroyed by fire in 1751, leaving only a star helmet bowl and an armor-plate girdle. Chūsai had a new Chinese-style chest made for these artifacts and presented it to the shrine.

This act of veneration demonstrates Chūsai’s awareness of the ancestral lineage beginning with the Emperor Seiwa 清和 (r. 858–79), who founded the Iwashimizu Hachiman Shrine, continuing through the Minamoto clan and the Ashigaka clan, and leading to the Imagawa clan (Miyagi 2005: 19). Moreover, Hachiman is “the god of bow and arrow,” i.e., the samurai god of war. Later, when Chūsai’s foster son had a son, Chūsai named him “Yumitarō” after the bow (yumi) that Ieyasu had presented to his ancestor. In 1833, as discussed earlier, Chūsai journeyed to Suruga province to bury his newly completed opus on the summit of Mount Fuji. Since Suruga was the native domain of the Imagawa clan, it would seem extremely likely that that this strange declaration of independence from the contemporary world was also an offering to the spirit of his sengoku-period ancestor, the purported originator of the kokorozashi embodied in his work. However, Chūsai’s 1826 attempt to adopt an heir from the main line of the Ōshio house had not been successful. Kakunosuke, the foster son he ended up adopting, was a boy from the parental family of his mother’s stepmother, a family that, like Chūsai, served as town constable under the town magistrate of Osaka East (OMM 1976: 5). He could hardly have departed further from the “pure and legitimate descent through the male line” of which he was so proud. The very fact that the main line of his house had been unwilling to provide him with an heir suggests that there was something unacceptable about his ancestry, i.e., that his Awa background was known. In no other way, it seems, can we account for the fact that he had to content himself with an adopted son whose ancestry was “on the outside of the outside of the outside” in terms of the patriarchal line. It appears that Chūsai’s story of an ancestry that can be traced back not only to the founding of the Tokugawa shogunate, but to the imperial line itself, descended from the very founders of the nation, may have been a deliberately created personal myth, formulated and insistently reasserted to establish and legitimate what was not a truth about his biological ancestry, but about his spiritual ancestry. The story thus appears as a continuation of the central theme of his entire life, the agonizing discrepancy between his actual or natural circumstances and the unbounded nature of his kokorozashi. That is to say, it appears that the genealogical image Chūsai was trying to create about himself, and, more importantly, trying to believe about himself, was not merely a psychological necessity, but an ideological necessity, an essential foundation for the aspiration and will-power (kokorozashi) necessary for the historical fulfillment of his personal mission. For the very essence of his personal mission was the conviction that this personal mission was not and could not be merely a personal mission, that his personal agony was not and could not be merely a personal

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agony, that his personal sickness was not and could not be merely a personal sickness. As Najita put it, “Because that which is personal and that which is social are identical and coincidental, ‘self-clarification means public action,’ and the way of the sage is [always] in the public realm. In short, Chūsai used the concept of re-identification [ki taikyo] to mean action by which to dissolve self into non-self so that every relentless attack aimed at expunging evil from the self was by its very nature an utterly public act” (Najita 1970: 163). And, I would add, every act aimed at expunging evil from society was at the same time an act to expunge evil from the self. To fulfill this mission that could not be just a personal mission, it seems, his true and ultimate identity had to be completely identified with the spiritual essence of the nation that he served. In other words, his personal ancestors had to be none other than the ancestors of the nation. In just the same period that Chūsai was developing his philosophy, the Later Mito school formulated a doctrine of national salvation tied together by the idea that in Japan, and only in Japan, the supreme Confucian virtue of filial piety was at its root completely equivalent to the supreme samurai virtue of loyalty (chūkō ippon 忠 孝一本). That is to say, devotion to one’s personal ancestors is not only fulfilled in, but totally identified with, devotion to the ancestors of the nation—the imperial ancestors who are worshipped at the Ise Shrine. The debt of gratitude one owes to the ancestors for life and nurture is so great, as Chūsai wrote in his letter to OGINO Kanzaemon, that it binds one for life to the effort to repay it. That is, the debt of gratitude (on 恩) binds one to endeavor with one’s whole mind, heart, and soul to inherit and fulfill the kokorozashi of one’s national and personal ancestors, sacrificing if necessary one’s physical self in the process. It is only this loyalty that constitutes the “greater righteousness” (taigi 大義). When it absorbs every ounce of one’s spiritual and physical energy, it is nothing less than the blessed state of “perfect sincerity” (zhicheng 至誠 shisei), equivalent for Chūsai to returning the self to the eternal “great vacuity” from which it originally arose. The structure of Chūsai’s loyalty, thus defined in terms of lineage, can by its very intensity center upon only one ultimate object. Yet at the time of his consecratory act of 1833, he had to offer up his kokorozashi to two symbolic objects. One testified his ancestral loyalty to the Tokugawa house, and the other his loyalty to the imperial line. Both offerings, however, were made at points where the realm of humanity touches the realm of heaven, the ultimate source and final objective of all human endeavor. The ultimate equivalence of these two loyalties was a fundamental tenet of Tokugawa feudal ideology, since the Tokugawa house’s authority and legitimacy were, in theory and ritual, delegated by the emperor. Chūsai’s dedicated service to the Tokugawa as a police official suggests that he believed implicitly in the unity of these two loyalties. Loyalty to his superior, loyalty to the bakufu, loyalty to his ancestors, and loyalty to his aspiration (kokorozashi) all coincided, he claimed, during the period of his three great accomplishments. But Chūsai was also a serious student of Confucian thought who, as we have seen in his postscript to the offered sets of ZHU Xi’s works, regarded Chinese Confucian norms as a higher form of ethical and political order than actually existed in Japan. His immersion in Chinese learning

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inevitably made him aware of the theoretical anomaly of the Tokugawa political order from the point of view of the Chinese concept of world order, which allowed for only one supreme center of both political and ritual authority. After he took up Confucian learning, he told Issai, his kokorozashi changed from a desire for martial heroism of the sengoku variety to a desire to achieve virtue (external accomplishment in the eyes of others) on the basis of an intellectual understanding of the true nature of the duty he owed to the Tokugawa house. But Chūsai was still frustrated by his inability to accomplish something truly great in the fulfillment of this duty, because the rigid strictures of the hereditary system of office-holding bound him to an official position removed from the true object of his loyalty—the Tokugawa house—by many layers of intermediate authority. These intermediate layers of authority bound the exercise of loyalty-and-filial-piety to narrow and conventionalized patterns of behavior that only stifled the original inner urge to distinguish himself as an individual through courageous and loyal action. It was in such a state of frustration that Chūsai began to reflect deeply about the true meaning of loyalty, and about the true meaning of being descended from a direct vassal of TOKUGAWA Ieyasu. If this reflection impelled him to trace the ancestry of the loyalty of his sengoku ancestor back further to the Ashikaga, the Minamoto, and the imperial line itself, could it not have impelled him to consider also that his ancestor’s original lord was actually Ieyasu’s lord, and far superior in ancestral status to Ieyasu himself? At the very least, such a process of reflection or tracing back would have led to a relativization of his loyalty to the Tokugawa house. Moreover, such an idea was hardly new to the world of Confucian scholarship in the late Tokugawa period. If it occurred to him that his real loyalty was not to the Tokugawa but to the imperial house, this was an “unthinkable thought” that had already been condemned by the bakufu as heterodox and subversive. YAMAGATA Daini 山縣大弐 (1725–1767), a disciple of a disciple of the Kimon scholar MIYAKE Shōsai who was executed in 1767, is only the best known example (Wakabayashi 1995: 32–42). The anxieties caused within the shogunate by the emergence of this idea were undoubtedly part of the motivation for the Kansei Prohibition of Heterodoxy, which, as noted earlier, was followed by a time of increased tension between the imperial court and the bakufu. Could Chūsai have failed to feel a sense of indignation when he considered the impoverished and powerless condition of the imperial court in his day? As an unpopular person himself with few close friends and many enemies, is it possible that he looked to the imperial institution as a source of inner consolation and alternate identity, and that this thought was also a part of his motivation in resigning his post? Is it also possible, perhaps, that his apparent effort to glorify himself by boasting about his noble ancestry and changing his nom de plume was in part an attempt to communicate this “unthinkable” idea in a coded way to others who had ears to hear? No bakufu agent on the lookout for subversive ideas could suspect a samurai who glorifies an ancestor for his loyal service to Ieyasu. But no Confucian scholar would be unaware of the ancestry of the Imagawa clan, and few would miss the undertones of the final Chinese character from the name of the famous strategist LU Zhonglian.

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309

The Culmination

When MIZUNO Tadanari died in 1834 (Tenpō 5), Chūsai wrote in a letter that his death was the censure of heaven. In wielding power, he continued, Mizuno and his cronies knew only how to move forward but not how to take a step back, for they were ignorant of the principles of the Book of Changes and incapable of perceiving that the long series of natural calamities that accompanied Mizuno’s administration was due to the anger of heaven (Miyagi 2005: 222). These calamities included a flood in Kyushu in 1828 and more natural disasters in 1829, 1831, and 1832 that led to a long series of bad harvests in western Japan, causing serious famine in many regions. Before the people could really recover, starting in the middle of the second month of 1836, the Osaka region was struck by a series of great storms with heavy rainfall, leading to the loss of many boats and many lives. The storms and the cold caused dozens of sacred trees at the Ise and Kasuga shrines to wither and die, which led to all sorts of rumors among the people. Early in the fifth month great storms and unseasonable cold struck again, leading to massive flooding in low-lying villages. More rains in June, before the water had subsided, brought the situation to a critical head; the rivers overflowed their banks, breaking through embankments and washing away two of Osaka’s major bridges. The flooding affected not only Osaka, but most of western Japan, leading to great loss of life. A serious scandal in the same year in the Osaka East magistrate’s office further disturbed Chūsai and his students, who believed deeply that a nation’s welfare depends on the morality of its ministers and officials. The scandal led to the dismissal of the magistrate and his replacement by the younger brother of MIZUNO Tadakuni, the protégé and relative of Tadanari who had replaced Tadanari in the bakufu after his death (ibid. 231–232). Chūsai’s relationship with the new Edo-appointed magistrate (named ATOBE Yoshitada) was prickly. It certainly did not look like the reform of city and shogunal government he had so fervently hoped and petitioned for had any hope of being realized. But if Chūsai was not already seething with indignation, there was one more straw that broke the proverbial camel’s back. In Osaka and nearby villages, there were people dying of starvation in the streets, and Yangming’s teaching of “the benevolence that feels all things as one body (banbutsu ittai no jin 萬物一體之仁)” meant to Chūsai that the pain of the people is no different than pain in one’s own body. In an attempt to deal with the situation in his jurisdiction, Atobe had already prohibited the shipment of rice out of Osaka, even to Kyoto and Fushimi, which were dependent on Osaka rice. Then in the eleventh month of 1836 (Tenpō 7) the bakufu ordered the Osaka magistrate’s office to ship a large quantity of rice to Edo, which was also suffering from famine. Atobe, turning a blind eye to the grave situation in the Osaka-Kyoto region, issued a decree that Edo be sent as much rice as they wanted, and he made arrangements with a wealthy merchant in Hyōgo to purchase the rice on the market. The bakufu was preparing for a major ceremony the next year for the accession of a new shogun, and this was apparently one of the reasons for the large rice order. Atobe’s unhesitating obedience suggested that he was only concerned

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with his own personal career advancement, and Chūsai’s anger was so great that he could not bear not to take action (Miyagi 1977: 48–49). After selling his massive library to raise money for weapons and famine relief, he wrote up a revolutionary call to arms (gekibun 檄文) and had his disciples distribute it among the common people in the villages around Osaka and post it at Shinto shrines. The proclamation declared, Since the time of ASHIKAGA Takauji 足利尊氏 (1305–58), the son of heaven has been removed from participation in government and has lost the power to carry out reward and punishment. For this reason the rancor of the people has for long had no place to which it can appeal, and finally it has reached to heaven itself. In response, heaven has sent down a long series of calamities: every year there are earthquakes and fires; mountains crumble and rivers overflow their banks. As a result, the five grains no longer ripen, and famine fills the land. Yet even though these are all grave and venerable warnings from heaven, those in authority have failed to notice them. Instead, small people and corrupt officials have taken over the reins of government, busying themselves only with devising more ways to extract money and rice from the tormented populace below…. Recently the price of rice has gotten higher and higher, and the various officials of the Osaka magistrate’s office, forgetting the benevolence that feels all things as one body, have been running the government just as they please for their own benefit. They have sent rice to Edo while they will not send any to Kyoto, where the son of heaven resides, and while they are arresting people who come into the city to buy merely a peck or two of rice…. This is absolutely not a plot for a revolt or uprising. We are going to reduce the rice taxes and various labor levies one by one, handling everything with a magnanimous heart in the manner of the restoration (chūkō 中興) government of Emperor Jinmu, totally reforming the extravagant and dissipated life-style of recent times and returning to the original frugality, so that all people in the realm will forever be able to enjoy the blessings (on 恩) of heaven with a grateful heart and care properly for all the members of their families. (OMM 1976: 31; Miyagi 1977: 452–454)

At eight in the morning of the nineteenth day of the second month of 1837 (Tenpō 8), clad in a crested helmet, armor, and a black battle-cloak, Chūsai led over 20 of his disciples in a cannon attack on the mansion across the street from his residence, after which they set fire to the residence and sallied forth into the city. In front they carried a banner reading “save the people,” followed by another reading “the great shrine of Amaterasu.” This was flanked by two more banners reading “the sage-kings Tang and Wu”11 and “the great bodhisattva Hachiman.” They also carried the crest of the Ōshio house, made up of three sprigs of paulownia flowers (with seven flowers in the middle and five on each side) arrayed over three paulownia leaves, which was a mark of the imperial house as well. Finally, they carried the crest of the Imagawa house, the ultimate symbol of Chūsai’s indomitable will (OMM 1976: 30; Miyagi 1977: 49–51). His purpose, stated clearly in the call to arms, was to punish the city officials who had been afflicting the people and the rich merchants who had been acting in collusion with them and hoarding rice for profit, then distribute their hidden hoards of money and rice to the hungry and needy. While he must have realized his 11

Tang and Wu are the ancient Chinese sage-kings who overthrew the tyrannical last kings of the Xia and Shang dynasties, respectively, thus carrying out heaven’s punishment and receiving the transfer of the mandate of heaven to found new dynasties. As symbols of armed revolution in a polity (Japan) where dynastic revolution was illegitimate, their status as “sages” had been highly controversial in Edo Confucian thought. See MARUYAMA Masao’s study in this volume.

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rebellion was doomed, he was apparently quite convinced that the absolute justice and selflessness of his cause could not fail to bring a response from heaven, gods, and angry men that would ultimately vindicate his action. Instead of his book, it was the mansions of the rich and powerful of Osaka that finally formed his burnt offering to heaven, lit by a fire from within that itself was heaven’s sovereign command for justice. When he was discovered by the police a month later, it was Chūsai’s own dying body—and that of his adopted son—that he entrusted to the flames. As he returned his consciousness to the light of the great vacuity from which it came, Chūsai left nothing behind but his fiery will. He had finally assured that the scholars of future generations would have no choice but to try to read the kokorozashi of his life and try to give it its rightful place in the history of the Japanese spirit, and no longer was it necessary for them to open his “time capsule” to do so.12 It is clear that Chūsai’s desperate rebellion was in many ways a “logical” (or illogically logical) expression of the principles of his philosophy, combined with the impetuous and idealistic nature of his temperament and the intractability of the objective situation that impelled it. Perhaps only a nihilist like MISHIMA Yukio, who ended his own life by his own will at virtually the same age as Chūsai to express the sincerity of his own convictions, could totally revere the man without any problem over the ineffectiveness of his strategy. It is clear that to some extent Mishima’s image of Chūsai was a creation of his own Nietzschean philosophical convictions and his Hagakure-inspired exaltation of dying in the midst of committed loyal action (see Steben 2008). But at the same time, there is no doubt that Chūsai’s philosophy grew organically out of a number of deep-rooted currents in Japanese thought. The concept of the great vacuity as the ultimate ground of existence, for instance, was also central in medieval Shinto theology and the Confucian and Shinto teachings of YAMAZAKI Ansai 山崎闇斎 (1619–82), while the Classic of Filial Piety had been held in highest esteem since the earliest days of Confucianism in Japan. Moreover, through the shock impact of his rebellion, Chūsai himself lived on after his death in the powerful world of Japanese political symbols. Thus, in spite of the deep Sinological roots of all of the concepts that came together to form his philosophy, there is no doubt that, as Mishima claimed, there was something deeply Japanese both in his mode of thought and his mode of action. Both as a philosopher and as a historical figure, Chūsai is deeply connected with the world of concepts and symbols that constitute the resources of the Japanese self and Japanese national culture. Whether or not we find ourselves “liking” the man, his unique combination of indomitable determination, inveterate idealism, and fascination with traditional religious and political symbolism (which are closely linked in Japan) is something no reader of his biography can easily forget. We may have to revise the view of many Japanese scholars that Confucianism never sank really deeply into Japanese culture.

12 Historians have generally looked back to the Tenpō period for the social and economic beginnings of the Meiji Restoration. Some, such as HORIE Hideichi, have even seen Ōshio’s rebellion itself as the beginning of Japan’s modern transformation (Horie 1954).

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References Aiso, Kazuhiro 相蘇一弘. 2003. Studies of the letters of ŌSHIO Heihachirō (ŌSHIO Heihachirō no shokan no kenkyū 大塩平八郎の書簡の研究). Tokyo: Seibundō Shuppan. (Miyagi 2005 points out that, because of the discovery of many previously unknown letters, this work forms a new milestone in the study of Chūsai’s biography.) De Bary, Wm. Theodore, Gluck, Carol, and Tiedemann, Arthur, comp. 2005. Sources of Japanese tradition, vol. 2, 2nd ed. New York: Columbia University Press. (Volume Two reflects a great deal of relatively recent research done on Japanese Confucianism, as well as other streams of Japanese thought, by many of the top scholars in the field, centering on translations from the most influential primary texts.) Fukunaga, Mitsuji 福永光司. 1974. NAKAE Tōju and Shintō 中江藤樹と神道. In Iwanami Shoten’s publication announcement for Yamanoi 1974. Gotō, Motomi 後藤基巳. 1972. ŌSHIO Chūsai 大塩中斎. In Uno et al., comp., 1972, 8: 87–98. (Gotō is responsible for all the annotations and studies of Chūsai’s writings in this volume.) Handlin, Joanna. 1983. Action in late Ming thought: The reorientation of LÜ K’un and others. Berkeley: University of California Press. Handlin, Joanna. 1987. LÜ K’un. In The records of Ming scholars, ed. Julia Ching. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press. Hangai, Jirō 半谷二郎. 1977. ŌSHIO Heihachirō: His character and situation (ŌSHIO Heihachirō: Sono seikaku to jōkyō 大塩平八郎: その性格と状況). Tokyo: Oshisha. (One of the standard Japanese studies of Chūsai and his psychology.) Honda, Wataru 本田済. 1978. The book of changes (Eki 易). Tokyo: Asahi Shinbunsha. In 2 vols. (The best known modern translation in Japanese, this meticulously written work contains the original text, classical and modern Japanese translations, and copious references to the major commentaries, particularly that of ZHU Xi. For the original text on line, see http://ctext.org.) Horie, Hideichi 堀江英一. 1954. The social structure of the Meiji restoration (Meiji Ishin no shakai kōzō 明治維新の社会構造). Tokyo: Yūhikaku. Inoue, Tetsujirō 井上哲次郎. 1900. The philosophy of the Japanese school of Yangming learning (Nihon Yōmeigakuha no tetsugaku 日本陽明学派之哲学). Tokyo: Fuzanbō. (The first study of the WANG Yangming school in Japan written in modern Japan under the influence of Western philosophy; the book’s influence continued well into the post-war period and even to the present day.) Inoue, Tetsujirō 井上哲次郎, and KANIEYoshimaru 蟹江義丸, compilers. 1901. A classified compilation of Japanese ethical thought (Nihon rinri ihen 日本倫理彙編). In 10 vols. Tokyo: Ikuseikai. (This huge publication project was designed to help draw Edo-period Confucian ethical thought back into the ethical discourse of the new modern Japan of the Meiji period as a counterweight to Western thought and modern Western utilitarian ethics.) Ishizaki, Tōgoku 石崎東国. 1920. A life chronology of ŌSHIO Heihachirō (ŌSHIO Chūsai Sensei nenpu 大塩中斎先生年譜). In ŌSHIO Heihachirō den 大塩平八郎伝, ed. Tōgoku Ishizaki. Tokyo: Daitōkaku. Kasulis, Thomas. 1994. Researching the strata of the Japanese self. In Self as person in Asian theory and practice, ed. Roger Ames, Thomas Kasulis, and Wimal Dissanayake, 87–106. Albany: SUNY Press. (Kasulis shows how the social science approach and the history of philosophy approach can complement one another to give a better understanding of Japanese perceptions of self than either approach alone.) Kōda, Shigetomo 幸田成友. 1910. Ōshio Heihachirō. Tokyo: Tōadō Shobō. Kōda, Shigetomo, comp. 1982–1983. Osaka in the Meiji Period (Meiji jidai no Ōsaka 明治時代 の大阪). Osaka: Osaka-shi shi hensanjo 大阪市史史編纂所. Lebra, Takei. 1992. Self in Japanese culture. In Japanese sense of self, ed. Nancy Rosenberger, 105–120. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. (Lebra offers a tripartite analysis of the Japanese self in which the deepest dimension, the “boundless self,” corresponds to a surprising degree with what Ōshio referred to as the “great vacuity.”)

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Legge, James, translator and annotator. 1971. The Doctrine of the Mean (Zhongyong 中庸). In The four books: Confucian Analects, the Great Learning, the Doctrine of the Mean, the Works of Mencius. Taipai: Datong Shuju. On line in Chinese text project: http://ctext.org/confucianism. Maruyama, Masao 丸山真男. 1980. Ansai learning and the YAMAZAKI Ansai school (Ansaigaku to Ansai gakuha 闇斎学と闇斎学派). In The YAMAZAKI Ansai school (YAMAZAKI Ansai gakuha 山 崎闇斎学派), NISHI Junzō 西順藏, ABE Ryūichi 阿部隆一, and MARUYAMA Masao (compilers). Nihon shisō taikei 日本思想大系, vol. 31, 601–674. Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten. (This brilliant and path-breaking study is included in translation in the present volume.) Mishima, Yukio 三島由紀夫. 1970. Yangming learning as a revolutionary philosophy (Kakumei tetsugaku to shite no Yōmeigaku 革命哲学としての陽明学). In Shokun! 諸君! September 1970: 33–43. Tokyo: Bungei Shunjūsha. (Revolutionary thought, Mishima emphasizes, must be naturalized and given flesh by becoming rooted in the soil, must be amalgamated in a creative tension with the spirit of nationalism, which has not happened, he claims, with Marxism in Japan.) Miyagi, Kimiko 宮城公子. 1977. ŌSHIO Heihachirō 大塩平八郎. Tokyo: Asahi Shimbunsha. (Probably still the best overall study of Chūsai and his thought that has been published in spite of the subsequent discovery of previously unknown documents.) Miyagi, Kimiko 宮城公子. 1984. ŌSHIO Chūsai 大塩中斎, Nihon no meicho 日本の名著 series, vol. 27. Tokyo: Chūō Kōronsha. (Contains modern-Japanese translations of Chūsai’s three major philosophical works, his letter to Issai, and the gekibun, along with an excellent biographical introduction.) Miyagi, Kimiko 宮城公子. 2005. ŌSHIO Heihachirō. Tokyo: Perikansha. (A reissue of Miyagi 1977 with errata corrected, containing a new postscript discussing documents discovered after 1977 that have enabled advances in the study of Chūsai’s biography in books by NAKADA Masayuki and AISO Kazuhiro.) Najita, Tetsuo. 1970. ŌSHIO Heihachirō (1793–1837). In Personality in Japanese history, ed. Albert Craig, and Donald Shively, 155–179. Berkeley: University of California Press. (In footnote 2 of this classic study, Najita outlines the voluminous history of the interpretation of Ōshio through the 1960s, showing how deeply involved his memory has been in the political and ideological struggles of modern Japan.) Nakada, Masayuki 仲田正之 (comp.). 1990. ŌSHIO Heihachirō’s recommendations to the Government (ŌSHIO Heihachirō kengisho 大塩平八郎建議書). Tokyo: Bunken Shuppan. Okamoto, Ryōichi 岡本良一. 1965. ŌSHIO Heihachirō 大塩平八郎. Osaka: Sōgensha. Osaka Municipal Museum (OMM) (compiler). 1976. Special exhibit No. 73, ŌSHIO Heihachirō 大塩平八郎. (A highly useful compilation of original sources for the study of Chūsai.) ŌSHIO Chūsai. 1972. Collection of afterwords written on the occasion of offering books [Hōnō shoseki shūbatsu 奉納書籍集跋], 2, In Uno et al., comp. 8: 410–411. Sagara, Tōru 相良亨, MIZOGUCHI Yūzō 溝口雄三, and FUKUNAGA Mitsuji 福永光司, comp. 1980. SATŌ Issai, ŌSHIO Chūsai 佐藤一斎 • 大塩中斎, Nihon shisō taikei, vol. 46. Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten. (The most authoritative compilation of the most important writings of these two great scholars of WANG Yangming learning, with interpretive studies and annotations by the compilers.) Sansom, George. 1963. A history of Japan, 1615–1867. Stanford: Stanford University Press. (Still a very valuable and readable study of Japanese history in the Edo period, like the two preceding volumes covering pre-Edo Japan.) Sima, Qian 司馬遷. 1959. Records of the Historian (Shiji 史記), Mainland punctuated edition. Beijing: Zhonghua Shuju. (There are many editions of this most famous of all Chinese histories, and all standard Chinese editions keep the traditional pagination.) Steben, Barry. 1998. NAKAE Tōju and the Naturalization of Confucianism in Japan. In Monumenta Serica, vol. 46, 249–294. (Focusing on Tōju’s famous Okina Mondō 翁問答, this study examines how Tōju, under the influence of ancient Chinese religious ideas, Japanese religious thought, and the thought of Yangming’s disciple WANG Ji 王畿, transformed WANG Yangming learning into a veritable religion of filial piety with a deeply Japanese character.) Steben, Barry. 2008. The art of the Samurai: The Hagakure of YAMAMOTO Tsunetomo. London: Duncan Baird Publishers. (A new selective translation of a classic of Edo-period samurai thought

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that expostulates through true stories a Kyushu provincial strain of thought centered on the ritual practice of seppuku and the samurai’s need to be ready to die in the service of loyalty.) Steben, Barry. 2012. NISHI Amane and the birth of ‘philosophy’ and ‘Chinese philosophy’ in early Meiji Japan. In Learning to emulate the wise: The genesis of Chinese philosophy as an academic discipline in twentieth-century China, ed. John Makeham, 39–72. Hong Kong: Chinese University of Hong Kong Press. The Great Treatise, or Commentary on the Appended Phrases (Xici 繫辭). (The most important ancient commentary and the most philosophical part of the Book of Changes. For a complete translation of the text and the WANG Bi commentary, see Richard John Lynn. 1994. The classic of changes, 47–102. New York: Columbia University Press.) Tsang, Wing-hung. 1997. The life and thought of LU Kun (1536–1618). Hong Kong: University of Hong Kong Press. Uno, Tetsuto, and YASUOKA Masahiro, supervising (eds.). 1972. Japanese WANG Yangming learning (Nihon no Yōmeigaku 日本の陽明学), in 3 vols., forming vols. 8–10 in Yōmeigaku taikei 陽明 学大系 (Compendium of WANG Yangming Learning), in 13 vols. Tokyo: Meitoku Shuppansha, 1971–1991. (Contains many of the chief primary texts for the study of Japanese Yangming learning, with classical-Japanese translations, annotations, and interpretive essays.) Wakabayashi, Bob Takashi. 1995. Japanese Loyalism reconstrued: YAMAGATA Daini’s Ryūshi Shinron of 1759. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press. (The author takes a scalpel to previous images and depictions of Daini influenced by ideological fashions, and strives for a more historically grounded understanding of the man and his distinctive version of imperial loyalism.) Yamanoi, Yū 山井湧, YAMASHITA Ryūji 山下龍二, KAJI Nobuyuki 加地伸行, and BITō Masahide 尾 藤正英, comp. 1974. NAKAE Tōju 中江藤樹. In Nihon shisō taikei, vol. 29. Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten. (The most authoritative of annotated scholarly compilations of the writings of the founder of Japanese Yangming learning, with interpretive and biographical studies by the compilers.)

Chapter 12

Divination and Meiji Politics: A Reading of TAKASHIMA Kaemon’s Judgments on the Book of Changes (Takashima Ekidan) Wai-Ming Ng

12.1

Introduction

TAKASHIMA Kaemon 高島嘉右衛門 (Donshō ੎象, 1832–1914) is an important but little-studied philosophical figure of the Meiji period (1868–1912).1 Historically, Takashima is remembered as a pioneering entrepreneur who launched modern industries and businesses as well as a traditional scholar who specialized in one of the classics of Confucian philosophy, the Book of Changes (C: Book of Changes 易䴻 J: Ekikyō). Takashima was not unique among Meiji Japanese in playing modern and traditional roles at the same time. In a sense, that Meiji intellectuals like Takashima played such dual roles reflected the interplay of modernity and tradition that was so important in the making of modern Japan (Pyle 1969; Sil 2002: 123–194). Takashima was a successful modern entrepreneur. Born into a merchant family in Edo, he was interested in the Book of Changes in his early years and used its predictions in his business decisions. In 1855, having predicted that there would be a major earthquake in Edo, Takashima made a fortune by buying and selling timber for reconstruction after an earthquake, the Ansei Earthquake 安政の大地震, did indeed happen. Takashima was later imprisoned for 7 years for engaging in illegal financial exchange activities. During his time in prison, Takashima became an ardent reader of the Book of Changes, mastering the images and texts associated with that classic. In the early Meiji period, Takashima accumulated huge wealth from his work in timber

1

There are only several biographies of Takashima in Japanese for general readers, including Honda (1914), Kidō (1966), Takagi (1982) and Mochida (2003). Although he made major achievements in modernization and Book of Changes scholarship, Takashima has not been studied by Japanese scholars, and is largely unknown outside Japan. W.M. Ng (*) Department of Japanese Studies, Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, Hong Kong e-mail: [email protected] C.C. Huang and J.A. Tucker (eds.), Dao Companion to Japanese Confucian Philosophy, Dao Companions to Chinese Philosophy 5, DOI 10.1007/978-90-481-2921-8_12, © Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2014

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trading and construction (Mochida 2003: 108).2 Financially he supported the newlyfounded Meiji government and personally he maintained a close relationship with Meiji leaders, such as ITō Hirobumi 伊藤博文 (1841–1909), ŌKUBO Toshimichi 大久 保利忂 (1830–1878), YAMAGATA Aritomo 山縣有朋 (1838–1922), ŌKUMA Shigenobu 大隈重信 (1838–1922), SOEJIMA Taneomi 副島種臣 (1828–1905) and SANJō Tanetomo 三條實美 (1837–1891).3 Based in Yokohama, Takashima devoted himself to the development of public utilities and modern enterprises such as electricity, railway, iron and steel, gas, cement, Western education, maritime transportation and experimental agriculture. In 1873, the Meiji Emperor (1852–1912) presented three sets of silver cups to Takashima as a token of appreciation. In the following year, the Meiji Emperor attended the opening ceremony of a Western street lamp built by Takashima. In recognition of his distinguished services in Yokohama, two wards, Takashima-chō and Kaemon-chō, were named after him.4 In 1887, he donated 10,000 yen to the imperial navy and was thus awarded the Fourth Class Order. Takashima also created another identity for himself as a diviner. During the Meiji period, prime ministers, cabinet members, generals, diplomats, mayors, prefectural heads, high-ranking officials, intelligence officers, and judges all came to him to consult the oracles. Gaining the trust of some Meiji leaders, his divinatory activities made an impact on Meiji politics and military affairs. Takashima was famous for predicting the outcome of the First Sino-Japanese War 中日甲午戰爭 (1894–1895), LI Hongzhang’s 李鴻章 (1823–1901) visit to Japan, the assassinations of MORI Arinori 森有䥖 (1847–1889) and ITō Hirobumi, and even the date of his own death.5 Takashima did not find his two roles as an entrepreneur and a diviner to be necessarily conflicting. To him, both roles were subject to the wisdom of the Book of Changes. In his autobiography, TAKASHIMA Kaemon, A Self Biography 高島嘉右衞門 自序傳, Takashima attributed his success in business to the Book of Changes. In particular, he liked to use the divinational method promoted by ARAI Hakuga 新井白蛾

2

Takashima helped to pioneer the development of modern architecture in Japan. Some foreign residents in Meiji Japan even regarded him as “the number one architect in Japan 日本一大工.” He built the Foreigners’ House (Ijikan 異人館), the Swiss Embassy Building, and several Westernstyle hotels in Yokohama. 3 Takashima was very close to ITō Hirobumi. His daughter married to Itō’s son Hirokuni 博邦 (1870–1931) and he frequently divined for Itō. In 1909, he foretold Itō’s assassination and tried to stop him from going to Manchuria. MOCHIDA Koichirō 持田鋼一郎 believes that Takashima’s interest in public utilities and his enthusiastic spirit in serving the public were influenced by Itō (Mochida 2003: 122). Takashima also befriended SOEJIMA Tanetomi, serving as his matchmaker as well as diviner. Soejima wrote the preface for the Takashima Ekidan. 4 Only Takashima-chō near Yokohama Station has survived into the present. It was a landfill created by Takashima at the request of the Meiji government in the early years of the Meiji period. 5 The credibility of his oracles aroused discussion in his lifetime. Some people questioned the credibility of Takashima’s records for two reasons: First, Meiji leaders seldom mentioned Takashima in their writings; Second, most oracles were not open to the public before the publication of the Takashima Ekidan. TAKAOKA Noriaki 片岡䲨明 is fair enough to point out that although most oracles were unclosed by Takashima after the events, there were cases that he gave them to the press before the events (Takaoka 1995).

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(1725–1792), a prominent mid-Tokugawa scholar of the Book of Changes.6 After his retirement from the business world in 1876, Takashima focused on the study of the Book of Changes, hoping that he could serve the nation with his divinational skills. He became a kind of semi-official diviner and was named “the sage of the Book of Changes” (Eki sei 易聖) by the media. Takashima wrote down his ideas and examples of divination in Takashima’s Judgments on the Book of Changes (Takashima Ekidan 高島易斷), first published in 1882, and then republished in an expanded edition in 1901. This book had a wide circulation in Japan and was even published in English (1888) and Chinese (1901) editions.7 Through a textual analysis and critical reading of Takashima’s Judgments on the Book of Changes, this study examines the impact of Book of Changes divination on Meiji politics and warfare. It seeks to deepen our understanding of the nature of Meiji modernity and the formation of the ideology of the “imperial system” (tennōsei 天皇制) in modern Japan.

12.2

Takashima in the History of Book of Changes Divination

Takashima was the most well-known and influential Book of Changes diviner in modern Japan. He made important contributions to scholarship on the Book of Changes in two respects. First, Takashima popularized a simplified divination method advocated by ARAI Hakuga, regarded as the founder of the school of “Takashima Divination 高島易,” the most popular divination school in modern Japan.8 Second, he maximized the use of divination according to the Book of Changes by applying it to political, military, medical, business and agricultural matters. Divination played an important role in politics in the ancient world (Ciraolo and Seidel 2002). Ultimately, divination according to the Book of Changes became the

6 ARAI Hakuga was a prolific writer and enthusiastic educator of Book of Changes divination. Takashima recalled that he read Arai’s books in his early years and used the divination method of the Arai School, but he could not understand the images and texts of the hexagrams until he studied the Book of Changes seriously during his imprisonment (Mochida 2003: 80). 7 In order to promote this book overseas, Takashima asked SUGIURA Shigetake 杉㴎重剛 (1855– 1924), the founder of the Tokyo English School 東京英語學校, to translate it into English, entitled Takashima Ekidan: Translated from the Work of Kaemon Takashima (Tokyo: Keigyōsha, 1888). He distributed the English edition for free at the Parliament of World’s Religions held in Chicago in 1893. In 1901, Takashima asked WANG Zhiben 王㱣本 (1835–1907), a Qing scholar who spent his last 30 years in Japan, to prepare for the Chinese edition. The Chinese edition was influential in China. Takashima presented it to Qing leaders such as LI Hongzhang and YUAN Shikai 袁世凱 (1859–1916). Li praised it as an attempt to revive orthodox Book of Changes tradition that had lost in China. The Chinese edition was reprinted in China and had a wide circulation. HANG Xinzhai 杭辛齋 (1869–1924), a renowned Book of Changes scholar, regarded Takashima’s scholarship as a return to orthodox Book of Changes divination. 8 Takashima himself, during his lifetime, did not found any divination school of his own. After his death, many people popularized Takashima’s divination, claiming that they were the successors or relatives of Takashima (Hardacre 1987: 207–208).

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most common way of divination in Japanese history. However, before the introduction of the Book of Changes to Japan by Korean envoys in the sixth century, ancient Japanese had used deer bones for divination. Book of Changes divination was institutionalized in the Heian period (794–1186), being studied and used in the Bureau of Divination (Onmyōryō 陰陽寮). Diviners of the Bureau applied Book of Changes oracles to politics, military, medicine, and calendar (Nakayama 1969: 7–73). The spread of Book of Changes divination in ancient Japan was somewhat limited, as it was largely a part of the aristocratic culture. Even within the aristocracy there was a taboo that prohibited the learning of divination before the age of 50. Book of Changes divination became more prevalent in the medieval period (1186–1603), as it was sponsored by the imperial court and Buddhist monasteries. Some emperors such as Godaigo 後醍醐 (1288–1339) and Sukō 崇光 (1334–1398) used the oracles frequently. The Sugawara 菅原, hereditary doctors of letters (monjō hakase 文章博士), the Kiyohara 㶭原, doctor of classics (myōkyō hakase 明䴻博士), as well as the Abe 安倍 and the Kamo 賀茂, families of the Bureau of Divination used their divination skills to serve the government. Zen monks ran the Ashikaga School 足利學校, a divination academy, to train military advisors to regional military lords of the Sengoku period (1467–1600). Using the Book of Changes as its main textbook, the Ashikaga School taught 14 divination methods and performed a ceremony to worship the deities associated with the Book of Changes (Ng 2000: 5–21). The scholarship and application of Book of Changes divination reached a peak during the Tokugawa period (1603–1868). Not satisfied with the divination methods suggested by ZHU Xi 朱熹 (1130–1200) and other Song scholars, many Tokugawa scholars, such as DAZAI Shundai 太宰春台 (1680–1747), ARAI Hakuga, HIRATA Atsutane 平田篤胤 (1776–1843) and KAIHō Gyōson 㴟保㺩村 (1798–1866), strove to restore the ancient method of divination by changing the number of yarrow stalks, the order of the hexagrams, the method of separating the yarrow stalks or the lines of the eight trigrams. During the Tokugawa period, Book of Changes divination became open to all classes, as professional diviners were consulted by people at street corners. Diviners also taught divination at school. People from different schools of philosophical thought and religions used Book of Changes divination to promote their political, economic or intellectual agendas. For instance, in his explanation of an oracle, SAKUMA Shōzan 佐久間象山 (1811–1864) urged the Tokugawa samurai regime to carry out political reforms. ŌHARA Yūgaku 大原幽學 (1797–1858) applied Book of Changes divination to his advocacy of agricultural reform. Takashima belonged to the ARAI Hakuga School, praising Arai for faithfully restoring the ancient divination of the Eastern Han period (206 B.C–220 A.D). Takashima’s scholarship on Book of Changes divination represents a breakthrough as well as a continuation in terms of popularization and practical application. Regarding sincerity as the most important virtue in divination, Takashima’s divination can be summarized into following three steps: first, clear one’s mind and then pray to deities; second, hold one’s breath and divide the 49 yarrow stalks; third, follow and repeat a standard procedure 18 times to get the six lines from the bottom to the top forming a hexagram. He explained,

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When you divine, you must hold your breath. Putting the bundle of the yarrow stalks on your front forehead, you should focus on the thing that you augur. By the time you cannot hold your breath any longer, you divide the stalks into two piles. If you follow this, your divination will always be accurate. You should pay attention to the Line Statements 爻辭 to make a full understanding [of the hexagram]. You will suddenly come to realize that you are connected with the deities. You will know that the accuracy of the Book of Changes depends on the state of mind when you hold your breath with sincerity (Takashima 1997: Vol. 1, 10).

Even though it is simplified, Takashima’s method is time-consuming and troublesome. The good thing is that anyone can make a hexagram as long as he/she follows the procedure. The most difficult part rests with interpretation, as one must take the image, text, and even the time and date of divination into consideration. Takashima thus reminds students, “If you read the Book of Changes, you must first examine the image of the hexagrams and the time you make the lines and the trigrams, and then you can finally read the text. If you only focus on the text, even though you spend your whole life, you will never get the point (Takashima 1997: Vol. 1, 267).” Takashima’s Judgments on the Book of Changes, in a sense, is thus a divination manual on the interpretation of the oracle. It explains the image and text of each hexagram, applying them to different areas in divination and providing the readers with his examples. It differs from many commonly used divination methods that ignore the image and text of the Book of Changes.9 Takashima applied his understanding of the Book of Changes way of divination to different facets of public and private lives. In particular he was interested in political and military matters. He believed that divination according to the Book of Changes was not only meant for fortune-telling and help with one’s direction in life at the personal level, but was also related to the governance of the family and the nation. Hence, he gave divination a respectable place in the Confucian order and justified his divination service for the Meiji government.

12.3

The Book of Changes’ Oracles and Meiji Ideology

Heretofore, scholars have focused their attention on aspects of modernity in Meiji Japan, overlooking the fact that much of Meiji Japan was rooted deeply in tradition. However, underneath the surface of the Civilization and Enlightenment (bunmei kaika 文明開化) Movement, an intellectual movement launched in the early Meiji era to modernize Japan in the Western fashion, the traditional value system and mode of thought remained strong (Swale 2000; Pyle 1969).10 Meiji Japan turned 9 Coin throwing was one such method commonly practiced in China and Japan. Credited to JING Fang 京房 (77–37 B.C) of the Western Han period (206 B. C–9 A.D), this method was introduced to Japan during the Sui (581–618) and Tang (618–906) periods and became very popular in the Tokugawa period. Takashima himself used this method in his early years. 10 For instance, a study of MORI Arinori, a champion of the Civilization and Enlightenment Movement, suggests that at heart Mori was conservative in political ideology (Swale 2000).

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increasingly conservative after the promulgation of the Meiji Constitution in 1889, and the Imperial Rescript on Education 教做敕語 in 1890. From that point forward, many Meiji developments were increasingly channeled to forge the emperor-state ideology. MARUYAMA Masao has stressed the role of the Meiji government in formulating and orchestrating the official ideology (Maruyama 1963: 1), whereas Carol Gluck sees the formation of late Meiji ideology as the convergence of official promotion and social collaboration (Gluck 1987: 102–156). Takashima’s Judgments on the Book of Changes provides a significant footnote on both the nature of Meiji modernity and the formation of the Meiji state ideology. The extensive use of divination based on the Book of Changes in Meiji politics demonstrates that modern Japan was not always “modern” and that it was indeed often torn between tradition and modernity as well as East and West.11 It is interesting to note that some important Meiji political and military decisions were shaped by the oracles. For example, in 1898, the prime minster, ITō Hirobumi, asked Takashima to use the oracle to see if his proposed list of cabinet members was appropriate or not (Takashima 1997: Vol. 2, 559). Takashima’s political ideas, as can be seen from Takashima’s Judgments on the Book of Changes, were conservative, matching the changing intellectual climate in the Meiji era. Consciously or not, oracles based on the Book of Changes were used to promote late Meiji conservatism.12 As a semi-official diviner, Takashima maintained close personal relationships with a number of Meiji leaders. He recalled, “Born into a merchant family, I devoted myself to family business and cared less about national affairs. I was lucky to live in a holy era and be given the opportunity to meet top leaders on a daily basis (Takashima 1997: Vol. 1, 191).” In the early years of the Meiji, he opened a Western hotel, Takashimaya 高島屋, in Yokohama where he provided divination service for Meiji leaders.13 ITō Hirobumi, SANJō Tanetomo, KIDō Takayoshi 木ᡦ孝允 (1833– 1877), ŌKUBO Toshimichi, SOEJIMA Taneomi, and MUTSU Munemitsu 陸奧宗光 (1844–1897) checked in this hotel every now and then to discuss national affairs. Takashima always welcomed them in person and divined at their request (Takagi 1982: 203). In the late Meiji era, Takashima retired to his own mansion in Yokohama, Takashima-dai 高島台 (also called the Otsuna Sanso 大䵙山莊) where Meiji leaders visited him often. Inside his mansion, Takashima built a small temple dedicated to Kenneth Pyles case study of TOKUTOMI Sohō 德富蘇峰 (1863–1957) shows that many advocates of Westernization turned conservative in the late Meiji period as part of their search for cultural identity (Pyle 1969). 11 Modern Japanese have never lost their interest in divination. Regarding the development of various forms of divination from the Meiji to the present, see Suzuki 1995: 249–266. 12 Takashima was not the only Book of Changes scholar in Meiji Japan whose ideas were in agreement with state ideology. NEMOTO Tsūmei 根本忂明 (1822–1906), in this explanation of the hexagrams, upheld the national character (kokutai 國體) about the unbroken imperial line (Nemoto 1901: 25–27). 13 Takashimaya was the most high-class hotel in Yokohama in the early Meiji period, patronized by the imperial family, high-ranking officials and foreign businessmen. It was a venue to gather information about Japan and the world as well as to build political and business networks (Mochida 2003: 115–116).

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Confucius where he performed divination. SANJō Tanetomo wrote a tablet “The Hall of the Holy Book of Changes” (Jin Eki dō 神易堂) for the temple. Of the 800 oracles recorded in Takashima’s Judgments on the Book of Changes, about one-third are related to politics and the military. There were two formats for these semi-official oracles. One involved Meiji leaders and high-ranking officials asking Takashima to divine for their reference. The other format involved Takashima divining on his own initiative and then sending the oracle to the Meiji leaders or the press. For example, Takashima customarily predicted the fortune of the emperor and cabinet members on the winter solstice, and then sent the result to the prime minister (Takashima 1997: Vol. 2, 689).14 He emphasized the importance of using his approach to Book of Changes divination in national affairs as follows, “Divination according to the Book of Changes is always accurate and thus the government must not forget to use it. In particular, the Imperial Army and Navy should use it to make decisions that have an impact on human life and even the fate of the nation. The court should use it for making judicial decisions (Takashima 1997: Vol. 1, 253).” Consulting the oracle in politics was a Japanese tradition that should be kept, he maintained. “We should revive this ancient practice. The Urabe 卜部 family was put in charge of divination. The government consulted the deities. When the deities were touched, they would protect the nation. How amazing it was!” (Takashima 1997: Vol. 1, 181). Takashima even called for the reestablishment of the Bureau of Divination, In ancient times, people divined for their fate, for the military and for recruiting talents. The Book of Rites (Liji 䥖記) reads, ‘Divination helps us make decisions and clear our doubts.’ Our nation has been practicing this since the past and that was why we had the Bureau of Divination. Now, we have 26,000 people working for the government at different levels. However, we have not reinstated the Bureau of Divination (Takashima 1997: Vol. 1, 286).

Although his call was unanswered, Takashima found comfort in his personal influence on Meiji politics. In this sense, the Meiji did not break away from Japan’s tradition in using political oracles. Why were Meiji leaders so interested in divination based on the Book of Changes? First, it was a continuation of Japan’s tradition. Using oracles in politics and the military was a common practice in Japanese history. Meiji leaders received Confucian education in their early years and were not unfamiliar with the Book of Changes. It is undeniable that there were religious and philosophical reasons for them to consult the Book of Changes. In other words, they believed that the oracle could help them predict the future and make right decisions. Second, they used the oracle to promote official policies and ideology. Takashima, in his explanation of the oracles, advocated the cult of the Meiji Emperor, military expansion in China and Korea, as well as the revival of Eastern morality and Shinto. These views were all in line with the government. While admitting the value of Western science and technology, Takashima believed in the superiority of Eastern morality and criticized the advocates of the 14

The winter solstice, the shortest day of the year, represents the return of yang. One such yearly prediction recorded in 1894 is kept in the archive of ITō Hirobumi 伊藤博文関係文書 (#341), in the National Diet Library.

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Civilization and Enlightenment Movement in the early Meiji period for undermining the traditional value system centered on loyalty and filial piety.15 The ultimate goal for writing Takashima’s Judgments on the Book of Changes, as Takashima put it, was to revive Eastern morality at home and promote it overseas. He remarked, Nowadays, our material life has become increasingly convenient and advanced, but our spiritual mind is not settled. How can we claim that we have civilization and enlightenment? The way to achieve civilization and enlightenment does not rely on physics of Europe and America, but on Eastern metaphysics. The Book of Changes is the best book to promote Eastern metaphysics. Therefore I wrote Takashima’s Judgments on the Book of Changes in ten volumes (Takashima 1997: Vol. 1, 12).

To Takashima, morality was more important than law in governing the nation because he believed that law would only be functional with the support of civil morality. He added, We are importing their things and giving up our things unselectively. Someone suggested that we should give up our morality and adopt their law. Alas! How misleading it is! Choosing the good and giving up the bad is the natural thing to do, but why must we giving up our traditional morality? Now the most urgent thing is to let people know what our morality is all about. How do we achieve this? The best way is to explain the way of the Book of Changes in simple language. The Book of Changes is the origin of morality. Thus I will have my book translated into English in order to promote it among Western nations. I want the Westerners to know that our nation has divination and our governance rests with morality rather than law (Takashima 1997: Vol. 1, 13).

In 1897, Takashima acquired the hexagram gu 蠱 (decay) when asking about education in Japan. He criticized Meiji Japan for making progress in many aspects except education. Furthermore he claimed that Western values, like the image of this hexagram, were destroying the foundation of the nation. He explained the oracle as follows, The present is better than the past in national strength, but I do think that the past is better than the present in education.... Influenced by the West, we care less about the order of knowledge and seniority. In the name of freedom, self-interest, and survival for the fittest, we know nothing about natural duties of humaneness and rightness.... Crimes like murder, theft, rape, and deceit have poisoned our minds heavily and there is no way to rectify them. The learning of the West belongs to the position of yin. Hence, we call it ‘the decay caused by mother.’ The decay is now too serious to rectify. The line [nine in the second place] reads, ‘Setting right what has been spoiled by the mother. One must not be too persevering’ (Takashima 1997: Vol. 1, 263).

Takashima therefore praised the Meiji Emperor for issuing the Imperial Rescript on Education to reinstate traditional morality as the core value and essential principle in Japanese education. He claimed credit for himself by asserting that the Rescript was actually written under his influence. According to Takashima, he wrote an article, entitled “The Origins of Morality” (Dōtoku hongen 忻德本原), to promote traditional morality in education, which he submitted to Prime Minister 15

Takashima held that Western science and technology could be found in the Book of Changes. For instance, he associated the 8 trigrams and 64 hexagrams with 8 attributes in physics and the 64 elements of chemistry (Takashima 1997: Vol. 1, 8–11).

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YAMAGATA Aritomo and Education Minister YOSHIKAWA Arimasa 芳川顯正 (1842–1920). Later the Meiji Emperor consulted Yamagata and Yoshikawa before promulgating the Rescript. Hence, Takashima believed that his ideas were incorporated in the Rescript. In 1890, Takashima once again divined about education in Japan and the result was the hexagram kui 睽 (opposition). He explained the line, nine in the second place (“He happens to meet with his lord in a bye-passage. There will be no error”) as follows, Lately, the Ministry of Education follows the Western educational model that focuses on wisdom and rationality. Traditional moral education in my country, like the second line [of the hexagram kui], has been abandoned.... I am worried about it. I wrote an article, ‘The Origins of Morality,’ and submitted it to Prime Minister Yamagata on October 18, 1889. I explained it to him in front of all the prefectural heads. Yamagata said, ‘What you said is what we need now,’ suggesting to me that I should meet Education Minister Yoshikawa. Later, the Imperial Rescript on Education was promulgated. How fortunate I am to have my ideas heard by the emperor. The line text reads, ‘He happens to meet with his lord in a bye-passage.’ It happened to me. How wonderful the Book of Changes is! (Takashima 1997: Vol. 2, 526).

Takashima did not care for the People’s Rights Movement (jiyū minken undō 自 由民權運動) that advocated Western concepts of democracy, liberty, human rights, social reform, equality and constitutionalism in the early Meiji period. Hence, he did not rate Westernizers such as MORI Arinori and FUKUZAWA Yukichi 福㽌諭吉 (1835–1901) highly. In 1889, he predicted the ill-fate of Mori, who was indeed later assassinated. Having served as education minister from 1896 until his death in 1889, Mori carried out reforms that emphasized traditional morality in primary education and allowed more academic and intellectual freedom in higher education. This middle-of-the-road approach pleased neither the Westernizers nor the conservatives. In his explanation of an oracle, Takashima remarked, “This man [Mori] lived in Europe for a long time. Although he knows the democratic system, he does not understand the governance of our nation” (Takashima 1997: Vol. 1, 33). In 1894, Takashima divined the hexagram qian 謙 (modesty) when asking about the future of Japan. He condemned the People’s Rights Movement in his explanation of the oracle, Later our government promoted European and American culture to educate the people. In the name of liberty, our regulations became lenient. People misunderstood the meaning of liberty and abused it. They became rebellious and were no longer under the control of the government. I asked about the future of our nation and acquired the hexagram qian. The line [six in the fifth place] reads, ‘No boasting of wealth before one’s neighbor. It is favorable to attack with force. Nothing that would not further.’ Now many of our countrymen do not engage in production, but want to get rich from others. They are influenced by the Socialist Party in Europe. Although our government is very lenient towards its subjects, it must punish those who should face the music (Takashima 1997: Vol. 1, 224).

Likewise, Takashima criticized party politics severely for not being in agreement with Japan’s national character (kokutai 国体). In 1898, he divined the hexagram weiji 未㾇 (before completion) on the future of the House of Representatives. He explained,

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Our government has striven to learn from Europe and America to strengthen the nation. Members of the House of the Representatives use the Western notion of freedom to seek their own power and interest. Like the image of the hexagram with fire at the top and water at the bottom, the two do not fuse together. Most members of the parliament have acquired their post through bribery and thus are not in a legitimate position (Takashima 1997: Vol. 2, 862).

What was Japan’s “national character” in the mind of Takashima? First, he believed that Japan was a nation of deities and has an unbroken imperial line. Therefore, the emperor should take part in politics with the help from the ministers. Second, the parliament and parties should assist the emperor and the ministers in ruling the nation, and should not challenge their leadership. Hence, Takashima never missed any chance to scold the political parties and politicians who participated in the People’s Rights Movement. In 1898, he attacked the Liberal Party (Jiyūtō 自由黨) in his explanation of the hexagram heng 豐 (abundance) as follows, The Liberal Party presents the selfish opinions of the ordinary people who want to interfere with the running of the government. Their ideas are all from uneducated people. That is why the oracle [six in the second place] reads, ‘The sky is covered with clouds.’ The lower offend the upper, yin covers yang, and the evil star hides the Sun. That is why the Book of Changes reads, ‘We can use the Big Dipper at noon.’ It is no coincidence that the leader of the Liberal Party is named Hoshi [literally “star”] Toru 星亨. Hoshi confuses the world with his arrogant and crazy ideas and therefore many people do not like him. The Book of Changes reads, ‘He meets with mistrust and hate.’ If the Liberal Party can rectify its mistake and use sincerity rather than force to air their opinions, then their voices will be heard. The Book of Changes reads, ‘If one rouses him through truth, good fortune comes’ (Takashima 1997: Vol. 2, 749).

Takashima was later pleased to see that the Liberal Party changed its stance and began to toe the line of the government. Takashima was an interesting figure in Meiji modernization and conservatism. He was a pioneer in economic modernization, but at the same time he was an advocate of traditional morality and “national character” (kokutai). Not only can this ambivalence between modernity and tradition be found in Takashima’s thinking, it also characterized the very philosophical nature of Meiji Japan. Takashima’s political philosophy was also both a byproduct and a reinforcement of Meiji conservatism. He was influenced by the changing intellectual climate of the Meiji era, but at the same time, his own political ideas, as reflected in this commentary on the Book of Changes, reinforced the late Meiji ideology. His advocacy of divination according to the Book of Changes became a means for Meiji leaders to spread official ideology and to gain confidence and authority in politics. This was the main reason behind Takashima’s popularity as a semi-official diviner.

12.4

The Book of Changes’ Oracle and Meiji Warfare

Takashima was most famous for his military oracles due to their accuracy and the media coverage they received. Concerned about Japan’s interests in the Korean Peninsula and China, Takashima divined on many occasions regarding Japan’s

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military expansion into Korea and China. His prediction that Japan’s would emerge as the victor in the First Sino-Japanese War brought him national fame. Furthermore, Takashima’s military oracles justified Japan’s territorial ambitions in Taiwan, Korea, and China, and gave the Imperial Army and Navy confidence to engage in overseas warfare. In 1873, the Meiji government was divided over the issue of whether Japan should go to war with Korea or not (seikan ron 征韓論). Supporting his friends – ITō Hirobumi, ŌKUBO Toshimichi, and IWAKURA Totomi 岩倉具視 (1835–1883) – who opposed war, Takashima believed that Japan was not yet militarily or diplomatically prepared for it. In the same year, he asked about the outcome of the debate over Korea and received the hexagram kun 坤 (the receptive). He predicted the coming of civil wars and no sooner, the Saga Rebellion (1874) broke out. In 1877, ITō Hirobumi asked Takashima to divine regarding the Satsuma Rebellion, and the augury foretold the demise of SAIGō Takamori 西䜹隆盛 (1827–1877). This divination enhanced the confidence of the Meiji leaders to suppress the Rebellion. In 1884, as China and Japan sent opposing troops into Korea, the atmosphere became very tense. Takashima divined and obtained the hexagram lu 履 (treading). As a result, he rationalized Japan’s ambition in Korea as follows, The hexagram includes qian 乾 (father) at the top and dui 兌 (daughter) at the bottom, which makes an image of a daughter following her father. That is why this hexagram is called lu (treading). The importance of my country to Korea is that we have carried out Western reforms and want to help Korea to reform. If Korea is controlled by the Europeans, then it will become the burden of Japan and an obstacle for all of Asia. However, the Koreans are stubborn and they do not trust foreigners. This is the cause of the current riot (Takashima 1997: Vol. 1, 151).

This statement was more or less the Japanese version of the “white man’s burden.” It drew public attention in Japan, because it was published in the Tokyo Nichinichi Shinbun 東京日日新聞 (now Mainichi Shinbun, one of the top national dailies based in Tokyo). This news was attacked by FUKUZAWA Yukichi in the Jiji Shinpō 時事新報, a daily founded by Fukuzawa, for being too far-fetched. Yet publicly it was wellreceived because it provided a rationale for Japan to invade Korea. In January 1885, ITō Hirobumi came to China to discuss the Korean issue with LI Hongzhang. Shortly before Itō’s departure, Takashima divined regarding the outcome of the negotiations and acquired the hexagram qian 乾 (creativity). Takashima interpreted this as an indication that Itō would achieve his goals. Eventually after five-round negotiations lasting for 2 months, Itō and Li reached an agreement in March in which both sides agreed to withdraw their troops from Korea. In his explanation of this hexagram, Takashima also advocated the Japanese version of Pan-Asianism by which Japan would lead the rest of Asia in getting rid of Western imperialism. He wrote, The line text reads, ‘The yellow lower garment, there will be great good fortune.’ This really shows the grave concern of our leaders. They are worry about the security of the yellow race, believing that we should unite together. If the leaders of the two nations pay attention to this message, this will bring good fortune to the people of two nations (Takashima 1997: Vol. 1, 14–15).

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Takashima divined regarding Sino-Japanese relations many times, expressing pan-Asian views in his explanations of the auguries. For instance, he received the hexagram heng 恆 (endurance) on the prospect of Sino-Japanese relations. He explained it stating, Heng means endurance. In regard to foreign relations, China has been our oldest partner. This is the image of the hexagram heng. We are both in Asia, relying on each other. We are closer to each other than any other country, as we share the same writing system (Takashima 1997: Vol. 2, 452).

Here we can see the making of the Japanese versions of orientalism and imperialism in the guise of pan-Asian friendship (Saaler 2006: 1–18). In his explanation of the Commentary on the Great Images 大象 remarks on the hexagram tai 泰 (peace and prosperity), Takashima advocated colonialism as the way to bring peace and prosperity to Japan. He remarked, European nations, due to the shortage of land for human activities and farming as well as the difficult livelihood of the people, built colonies and migrated their people to North and South America, California, Australia, and Pacific islands.... Now we are building railways in Hokkaido and will gradually move ten million people there in order to cut down the population growth on mainland Japan by half. This move can bring peace and prosperity to Japan for fifty years. During this period, we will establish colonies overseas as a national policy. This is why [the Book of Changes] reads, ‘It brings peace and prosperity to the people’ (Takashima 1997: Vol. 1, 158–159).

In June 1894, the Tonghak Uprising 東學黨之亂 in Korea became the immediate cause of the Sino-Japanese War. PAK Yonghyo 朴泳孝 (1861–1939), a Korean political reformer who found refuge in Japan and studied the Book of Changes under Takashima, asked Takashima to divine on the future of Korea. Takashima justified Japan’s ambition in Korea with his explanation of the hexagram huan 渙 (dispersion). Takashima stated, Pak asked me about the political prospect of his country and I acquired the hexagram huan. Judging from the line commentary, we know that the ill fate is falling on the imperial court. Nine in the fifth place is the position of the king. The [Korean] king should issue an order to expel the evil group, so that the imperial court will be safe. The lower trigram of the hexagram is zhen 震 (thunder). Zhen stands for the East. Hence, we know that only my country can save Korea. I told Pak not to worry (Takashima 1997: Vol. 2, 801).

Finally, the Sino-Japanese War broke out in the same year. Takashima divined on it more than ten times. In the beginning of the War, he acquired the hexagram xu 需 (waiting) that foretold the victory of Japan at sea and on land. He explained, “‘Good fortune for crossing the big river’ refers to the victory of our Navy. ‘It will achieve’ means our Army will win” (Takashima 1997: Vol. 1, 80). He passed this augury to the military and it was published on June 28, 1894 in Kokumin Shinbun 國民新聞 and Yūbin Hōchi Shinbun 郵便報知新聞, two of the top dailies in Meiji Japan, to boost the morale of the campaign. On the outcome of the War, Takashima acquired the hexagram qian 乾, and he predicted that Japan would win the War and the peace treaty would be concluded in April 1895. He passed this message to prime minister ITō Hirobumi. In September 1894, the Meiji government established the General Staff Headquarters in Hiroshima to direct military campaign in China. ITō Hirobumi and the

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admiral SAIGō Tsugumichi 西䜹從忻 (1843–1902) invited Takashima to accompany them to Hiroshima to provide oracle consultation. Takashima did not go himself, but recommended that his brother, Tokuemon 德衛門, go on his behalf. He divined for them in Yokohama (Takagi 1982: 301). In December 1894, the Sea Battle of Weihaiwei 威㴟衛㴟戰 broke out. At first, the Northern Fleet of Qing China held their position firmly. HIJIKATA Hisamoto 土方久元 (1833–1918), the Imperial Household Minister, perhaps under the instruction of the Meiji Emperor, came to consult Takashima. The result was the hexagram shihe 噬嗑 (biting through). Takashima urged Japan to launch an attack on Qing navel as follows, This hexagram has the image of something in the jaw. The Qing Navy retreated due to an early setback, surrounded by our Army and Navy. This matches the image of something in the jaw. Now it is the time for us to launch an attack on our enemy and we will get unexpected result. That is why the Book of Changes [sixth in the fifth line] reads, ‘I gnaw at dried flesh, but find the yellow gold.’ Although our move may sound risky, I can ensure that it will be no harm. The Book of Changes reads, ‘Although I am in a dangerous position, no harm’ (Takashima 1997: Vol. 1, 310).

As predicted, Japan launched a surprise attack on the Northern Feet and won the Battle. He added that, “The Vice Admiral ITō [Sukeyuki 伊東祐亨, 1843–1914] used torpedo to destroy the iron chains. Our fleet then sailed into the harbor and sank several enemy battleships including Dingyuan 定怈. Enemy generals like DING Ruchang 丁㰅昌 (1836–1895) committed suicide. Zhenyuan and other enemy battleships became ours (Takashima 1997: Vol. 1, 310).” In April 1895, ITō Hirobumi and LI Hongzhang signed the Treaty of Shimonoseki 下関条約. Subsequently, however, France, Russia and Germany worked together to force Japan to return the Liaodong Peninsula to China. Meiji leaders had an emergency meeting in Kyoto to discuss how to respond to the Triple Intervention. Takashima also went to Kyoto to divine the matter at the request of the ministers. This serves as a proof of his status as a semi-official diviner (Takashima 1997: Vol. 1, 196–197). Taiwan became Japan’s colony after the Treaty of Shimonoseki. In 1896, Takashima asked about conditions in Taiwan and acquired the hexagram qian (modesty). He used it to rationalize the colonization of Taiwan and suppression of anti-Japanese forces there. He explained, “The sixth in the fifth place: We are not rich because our neighbor loots us. There is no harm to use force.” Takashima explained that Qing China conquered Taiwan and used high-handed policies to rule. As a result, the Taiwanese became very rebellious. Although Japan adopted a lenient policy in Taiwan and did its best to civilize the natives, some Taiwanese rioted against the Japanese occupation. He asked Japan to suppress by military force in accordance with the spirit of this hexagram (Takashima 1997: Vol. 1, 225–226). 1898 was a turning point in Sino-Japanese relations, as the Manchu government launched the late Qing reforms modeled after the Japans Meiji reforms. China was on good terms with Japan during the following decade (Reynolds 1993). In 1898, Takashima divined regarding the prospects for Sino-Japanese relations and the result was the hexagram daguo 大忶 (preponderance of the great). In reference to Sino-Japanese relations in the Meiji period, Takashima concluded as follows,

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My country wanted to protect Korea with China. However, China regarded Korea as its vassal state and refused to negotiate with us. That was the reason why the two nations fought. China was defeated and ceded territory. Russia, Germany, and France stood in the way to protect China, forcing us to return the Liaodong Peninsula. The three nations had their own ambition and used this Triple Intervention to gain profit and land from China. Qing China realized that it could not trust European nations and thus wanted to form an alliance with us. My nation was willing to work with Qing China to resist Western nations for the security of East and Southeast Asia. This matches the image [nine in the second place] of ‘a dry poplar sprouts at the root.’ The Image Commentary reads, ‘Make up for the past.’ It refers to the reconciliation of our bilateral relations after the Sino-Japanese War (Takashima 1997: Vol. 1, 401).

Shifting from war to peace and upholding pan-Asianism, Takashima’s view of China matched the official stance and once again his oracle toed the line of the Meiji government. Takashima’s military oracles for Japan addressing questions related to the RussoJapanese War (1904–1905) were not, of course, included in Takashima’s Judgments on the Book of Changes, published in 1901, but they were indeed influential. Takashima passed the responses to his divinations to ITō Hirobumi and other late Meiji leaders regarding the Battle of Port Arthur (February 1904), the Battle of Mukden (February 1905), and the Battle of Tsushima (May 1905). His predictions of Japanese victories enhanced the confidence of the Japanese military in each case.

12.5

Concluding Remarks

TAKASHIMA Kaemon was the most well-known and influential diviner in modern Japan. He popularized divination according to the Book of Changes and applied it to every aspect of life. He was very wealthy and never divined for money. He had a sense of mission to use its divination skills and mastery of the Book of Changes to help Japan make political and military decisions and to spread Eastern morality overseas. His divinations put emphasis on practical use. In the late Tokugawa period, he applied the method of divination grounded in the Book of Changes to business and later, during the Meiji period, used it in relation to political and military matters. The focus of this study is not on the accuracy and creditability of Takashima’s divination, Takashima’s way of divination, or his Book of Changes scholarship, but on the impact and philosophical significance of his political and military oracles. Takashima’s Judgments on the Book of Changes is an important book on divination and Book of Changes scholarship. It is also a valuable primary source on the life and thought of TAKASHIMA Kaemon and Meiji philosophical history, showing as it does how one important text of traditional Confucian philosophy, the Book of Changes, remained a significant tool for decision-making well into modern times. Through a textual analysis of Takashima’s Judgments on the Book of Changes, this study deepens our understandings of the often tradition-bound nature of Meiji modernization and the role of traditional philosophical sources in the formation of late-Meiji ideology. The extensive use of divination based on the Book of Changes by Meiji

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leaders reveals a surprising and neglected side of Meiji Japan. Takashima’s work makes evident that Meiji Japan was indeed shaped by the interplay of modernity and tradition. Meiji leaders and Westernizers were at times undoubtedly quite conservative. They used Book of Changes divination as a philosophical guide in making political and military decisions, and as an ideological tool to promote conservative political agendas such as the emperor-state ideology, pan-Asian colonialism, the political and moral implications of Shinto, and aspects of traditional morality. Takashima gained the trust of Meiji leaders and the attention of the media not only because of his divination skills, but also because of his role in appropriating a traditional practice based on a Confucian philosophical text for the sake of promoting state ideology and policies.

References Ciraolo, Leda, and Jonathan Seidel. 2002. Magic and divination in the ancient world. Leiden: E. J. Brill. (An examination of the role of divination in ancient world.) Gluck, Carol. 1987. Japan’s modern myths: Ideology in the late Meiji period. Princeton: Princeton University Press. (An important study of the intellectual formation of the emperor-state ideology in prewar Japan.) Hardacre, Helen. 1987. Shinmeiaishinkai and the study of shamanism in contemporary Japanese life. In Religion in Japan: Arrows to heaven and earth, ed. Peter F. Kornicki and I.J. McMullen. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. (A study of new religions and shamanism in modern Japan.) Honda, Yoshiyasu 本多良恭. 1914. A biography of Donshō TAKASHIMA Kaemon ੎象高嶋嘉右衛 門翁伝. Tokyo: Tōzai shuppasha. (A useful autobiography of Takashima Donshō.) Kataoka, Noriaki 片岡䲨明. 1995. Meiji events as seen from Ekidan 易断に見る明㱣諸事件. Tokyo: Chuokoronsha. (An essential study of oracles and Meiji politics.) Kidō, Kennosuke 䲨藤元之介. 1966. Book of Changes, Money and Business: TAKASHIMA Kaemon, The Master of the Book of Changes 易と金と事業と:易豪高島嘉右衛門. Tokyo: Kubo shoten. (A helpful biography of TAKASHIMA Donshō.) Maruyama, Masao. 1963. Thought and behavior in Japanese modern politics. London: Oxford University Press. (A political analysis of the rise of militarism in prewar Japan.) Mochida Koichirō 持田鋼一郎. 2003. The man who wrote the Takashima Ekidan 高島易断を創 った男. Tokyo: Shinchosha. (A helpful biography of TAKASHIMA Donshō.) Nakayama, Shigeru. 1969. A history of Japanese astronomy. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. (An outline of Japanese astronomy.) Nemoto, Michiaki 根本通明. 1901. The Right Interpretation of Images and Texts of the Zhouyi 周易象義辯正. Tokyo. (An important Meiji commentary on the Book of Change.) Ng, Wai-ming 2000. The I Ching in Tokugawa thought and culture. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press. (An important study of the reception of Book of Changes in Tokugawa Japan.) Pyle, Kenneth. 1969. New generation in Meiji Japan: Problems of cultural identity, 1885–1895. Stanford: Stanford University Press. (A helpful study of the problem of modernity and identity among Meiji generation.) Reynolds, Douglas. 1993. China 1898–1912: The Xinzheng revolution and Japan. Cambridge: Council on East Asian Studies, Harvard University. (A useful study of an important decade in Sino-Japanese relations.) Saaler, Sven. 2006. Pan-Asianism in modern Japanese history: Overcoming the nation, creating a region, forging an empire. In Pan-Asianism in modern Japanese history, ed. Sven Saaler and Victor Koschmann. New York: Routledge. (An examination of the origins and Development of Pan-Asianism in modern Japan.)

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Sil, Rudra. 2002. Managing “modernity:” Work, community and authority in late-industrializing Japan and Russia. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. (A study of tradition in modernization.) Suzuki, Kentarō. 1995. Divination in contemporary Japan. Journal of Religious Studies 22. (A useful analysis of the popularity and impact of divination in contemporary Japan.), pp 249–267 Swale, Alistair. 2000. The political thought of MORI Arinori: A study in Meiji conservatism. Surrey: Japan Library. (A helpful work revealing another side of MORI Arinori.) Takagi, Akimitsu 高木彬光. 1982. The secret of the great diviner: The life of TAKASHIMA Kaemon, the sage of the Book of Changes 大予言者の秘密:易聖高島嘉右衛門の生㵗. Tokyo: Kadokawa shoten. (An important biography of TAKASHIMA Donshō.) Takashima, Kaemon. 1997. Takashima’s Judgments on the Book of Changes (Takishima Ekidan 高島易斷). Translated by WANG Zhiben. Beijing: Beijing tushuguan chubanshe. 2 vols. (A recent study of Takashima’s commentary on the Book of Changes and his divination manual.)

Chapter 13

“Orthodoxy” and “Legitimacy” in the YAMAZAKI Ansai School MARUYAMA Masao 丸山真男 and Barry D. Steben, translator

Translator’s Preface In the striking photograph of MARUYAMA Masao that appears on the first page of the publication announcement of Iwanami Shoten’s 16-volume edition of his Collected Works (MARUYAMA Masao shū 丸山真男集, 1995–1996), Maruyama’s penetrating gaze on the left side of the picture is offset on the right by a plaque on which are written the four characters for “Establish the Nation on the Basis of Truth” (shinri rikkoku 真理立國). If this can be seen as an epitomization of Maruyama’s scholarly mission, it could serve equally well as a statement of the mission of the YAMAZAKI Ansai 山崎 闇齋 (Kimon 崎門) school—as of all schools of thought which claim to be inheriting and propagating an intellectual orthodoxy that is also conceived to be the ideological basis of the state and the way to remedy the ills of society. In the case of Maruyama and those who share his sense of mission in the postwar period, the translation is

Based on a translation from the Japanese language edition: Ansaigaku to Ansai gakuha闇齋學と闇齋學派 by MARUYAMA Masao 丸山真男published in Nihon shisō taikei 日本思想大系, vol. 31 edited by NISHI, Junzō 西順藏, ABE Ryūichi 阿部隆一, MARUYAMA Masao 丸山真男, originally published in 1980 by Iwanami Shoten, Publishers, Tokyo. Copyright © 1980, 2011 by Tokyo Woman’s Christian University. All Rights Reserved During the work on the first draft of the translation, Professor Maruyama was kind enough to provide explanations for several especially difficult passages in his quotations from Edo-period writings, even though he was hospitalized at the time. Regrettably, on August 15, 1996—not long after he provided this assistance—Professor Maruyama passed away. He was 82, having been born in 1914. M. MARUYAMA 丸山真男 Faculty of Law and Graduate Schools for Law and Politics, University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan B.D. Steben, translator (*) Graduate Institute of Interpretation and Translation, Shanghai International Studies University, Shanghai, China e-mail: [email protected] C.C. Huang and J.A. Tucker (eds.), Dao Companion to Japanese Confucian Philosophy, Dao Companions to Chinese Philosophy 5, DOI 10.1007/978-90-481-2921-8_13, © Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2014

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probably best left without a “the” before the word “Truth.” Certainly the conception of truth that motivates his scholarship has much more room for critical pluralism than the conception propagated as orthodoxy in the imperialist period. Nevertheless, as Herman Ooms has shown for the early Tokugawa period, Carol Gluck for the Meiji period, Stefan Tanaka for the Taishō and imperialist periods, and Maruyama in the present study for the Edo period, a “national ideology” or claimant to such status is never something static and monolithic, but a living process in which various often contradictory versions of the “single truth” are constantly being reformulated out of a complex dialectic between various inherited structures of ideas (texts) and people’s perceptions of the momentum (ikioi 勢) of objective events (Ooms 1985; Gluck 1985; Tanaka 1993). Indeed, on the far left side of the same picture, opposite the plaque, we see a book entitled Hiroshima, written in the katakana script normally used to write words of Western origin, as if to balance the Sinitic echoes of the calligraphic plaque on the right. Truly, Maruyama’s career has been framed by the tension between the Confucian intellectual tradition epitomized on the right and the implications of the cataclysmic imposition of foreign power we are reminded of at the left—an event that fundamentally changed the project of relating Japan to its past. So it is inevitable that Maruyama’s efforts to reexamine from new critical perspectives the sources of Japan’s national ideology to further the rise of a new world outlook in Japan have elements both of continuity and discontinuity with earlier scholarly traditions. That is, his endeavor to objectify the archetypes in the thought of the past in order to inhibit their power of irrational fascination (Maruyama 1974: ix) also, in a certain way, helps to keep those archetypes alive. To deconstruct a defunct national ideology is also to reconstruct it in a sense for newer generations, or at least for the significant portion of the academic community that continues to take an interest in such matters.1 It is no more possible for Japan to abandon the historical trajectory of its political philosophy in forging its national future than it is for the United States or European nations to do the same. Even his task of promoting the creation of “an autonomous mind that can function as an intermediary between reality and ideas” (ibid.: xvii), something the Japanese intellectual tradition is said to have lacked, sounds like a restatement of the perennial educational mission of Confucianism—a mission that was also taken up energetically in different ways by the three eminent teachers of the Kimon school.2 1

It is significant that Maruyama was a professor in the Faculty of Law of the University of Tokyo, the university and the faculty that have always been most closely associated with the intellectual training of Japan’s elite, including high government officials. 2 Consider, for example, SATō Naokata’s statement: “Even if one possesses the true traces [recorded teachings] of the sages of all times, if one does not establish one’s own will, one will not achieve [true] learning…. There are few even among scholars who can see their way through all of this; how much more so for the uneducated.” See A Miscellaneous Record of Discussions on Learning (Gakudan zatsuroku 學談雜錄), in Nishi et al. 1980: 437. Whether Confucian and Neo-Confucian teachings have historically promoted an “autonomous” self has been highly controversial since at least the writings of Max Weber. What I am referring to is their promotion of a personality capable of standing up for moral principles even against political and social pressure (including the complex Confucian ethics of when it is acceptable to accept, retain, or resign an official position), which is certainly an essential strain of Confucian teaching, however much Confucianism may have been exploited at times as a handmaiden of autocratic government. See the excellent analysis of this problem in Roetz 1993, esp. chapter 1.

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What is distinctively new in Maruyama’s studies from the point of view of this tradition, of course, is his masterful incorporation of philosophically and historically informed European methodologies into the task of analyzing the thought of the past, with the result that without losing sight of “the internal structural interrelations between the basic categories of thought” (ibid.: xxiv) he is also able to see these ideas from the outside, as it were, with an acute consciousness of their ideological and social functions and the pattern of their historical development. The main significance of the present study, certainly, lies in its clarification of the basic categories of Neo-Confucian thought and the dynamics of their historical unfolding in relation to the struggle to define orthodoxy and legitimacy especially in early modern (and modern) Japan, but also in China as well, and the resulting clarification of the fundamental differences between Japan and China in the realm of political ideology. Further, the analysis of the nature of “the orthodox pattern of thought” that emerges from this examination offers tremendous insight into the forces that determine intellectual history over the longue durée in any cultural system, and his comparisons of the ideological struggles over orthodoxy in the history of Confucian thought and the history of Christian thought are particularly fascinating. Whether or not this means that Maruyama has found in Neo-Confucianism the closest thing in the Japanese tradition to “an axial intellectual system comparable to Christianity in the West” (ibid.: ix),3 I do not venture to say, but there is no doubt that Confucianism constituted such a system in China, and that the Kimon school attempted to establish such a position for ZHU Xi learning in Japan as well. The present study demonstrates powerfully that purely through the study of Chinese Confucian texts, before any major entry of modern European thought into the Japanese scholarly world, the consciousness of the history of “culture” and “civilization” was already highly developed, constituting a very fertile conceptual ground for the rapid absorption of Western thought in the bakumatsu and Meiji periods (see Steben 2012). Due to the fact that Maruyama’s essays on Edo thought of the 1940s, published in book form in 1952 as Studies in Japanese Political Thought (Nihon seiji shisō shi kenkyū 日本政治思想史研究) and in English translation in 1974, have continued to be regarded as a “point of departure” for the study of Tokugawa Confucianism, he is still frequently associated with the rather oversimplified, Hegel-influenced views of the history and structure of Neo-Confucian thought presented in those essays. One reason we thought it important to present this study in translation is that it reflects the much more nuanced understanding of the dynamics of Neo-Confucian thought that Maruyama developed after the 1950s, partly in response to the waves of criticism his early work drew, and partly as a result of his wide and perceptive research in both Chinese and Japanese Confucian sources. Like his earlier works, the present study strives to situate Japanese intellectual history within a universal framework that searches for the basic laws of development of thought systems and worldviews in general. For this reason, it reveals new levels of meaning in Confucian ideas that reach well beyond their traditional boundaries. Just as Maruyama’s work has brought this “universal,” or at least European, perspective to the study of East 3

Hane notes here that the thesis of one of Maruyama’s essays of the late 1950s is that Japan lacked such an axial system.

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Asian thought, endeavoring to counter the parochialism of the Japanese toward their own tradition that has survived even the influx of Western thought since the Meiji Restoration, students and scholars in the West can also use Maruyama’s insights to help bring the rich world of East Asian thought into our own often too Westerncentered understanding of the world. Even new trends in methodology in Englishlanguage scholarship on East Asia are still dominated by Western names and Western theories, lacking some of the dynamics of the interplay between European and Asian thought traditions that characterize the intellectual world in Japan. One of the reasons for this is the higher prestige given to translation in Japan as a legitimate mode of scholarly endeavor—a way of thinking which reflects a very long tradition in the evolution of Japanese thought. The present study of the Ansai school is an extremely difficult piece to read in Japanese, and it is hoped that presenting it in translation will help keep Maruyama’s insights fully involved in the increasingly sophisticated discourse on the history of East Asian thought in Western-language scholarship. Moreover, it is hoped that its availability in translation will further the incorporation of Neo-Confucian concepts and experience into the discipline of philosophy and other humanistic fields beyond the still somewhat exotic areas of premodern Chinese and Japanese intellectual history. Of course, by the very fact that Maruyama’s studies are informed by postwar trends in Western methodological theory, as that theory itself evolves, the present work will also be subjected to criticism. From the point of view of more recent methodological trends a number of scholars have argued that it calls for critical reexamination (see, for instance, Sakai 1995 and Koyasu’s essay in this volume (Chap. 17)). But if the seminal nature of a work is directly proportional to the amount of attention and criticism it draws, as suggested by the fate of Maruyama’s 1940s essays, then this is all the more reason for presenting this study in English translation. It is also clear that there is a great deal of perennial value in the present study that will not be affected by critiques from post-Foucault methodological perspectives. For one thing, Maruyama does not claim that his textual material necessarily gives us access to some reality either “out there” in the objective world or “in there” in some elusive realm of subjectivity—he is merely concerned with the structure of thought and a school of thought in both a synchronic and a diachronic scheme of relationships. For another, the basic categories or archetypes of Confucian philosophy, as inscribed in the Confucian classics themselves, constitute one of the major axial traditions of world thought, and a penetrating study by one of modem Japan’s greatest intellectual historians that delves into those basic categories, their relationships, and their historical working out over some three hundred years in a cultural system quite distinct from that of China is guaranteed to have lasting relevance, especially as Confucianism becomes more and more prominent on the world stage as a major medium of both intra-Asian and East–West dialogue. One reason that this study opens new ground is that, as widely as the importance of the Kimon school in Japanese intellectual history is recognized (see Najita 1974 and Ooms 1985),4 not very much material exists on it in English, and even the 4

Najita argues that the Ansai school provided one of the two definitions of bureaucracy that converged to form the ideology of the Tokugawa system of rule (the other being the Sorai school).

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limited number of non-Japanese scholars who have the linguistic competence to read the voluminous kanbun and Japanese texts involved may well have better things to do with their time. Researchers in other areas of Edo thought and history often meet with caricatures of the Kimon school from the mouths of its critics, and the lack of an “inside perspective” can lead to erroneous conclusions regarding the intertextual dynamics among the various schools. Scholars working to clarify the Song-dynasty origins and post-Song development of the daoxue 道學 tradition— whose work also helps illuminate the controversies within the Kimon school—can conversely gain a broader perspective to test their generalizations from more documentation on the unfolding of this tradition in Tokugawa Japan. The present study, based on a wider knowledge of the textual records of Edo Confucian thought than any Western scholar is likely to have for a long time, provides a sort of map of the various sub-schools and controversies within the school that can form a foundation or reference point for further studies, studies that will necessarily be more limited and localized in their scope. This map can help researchers keep the larger picture in view while they look into the thought of individual thinkers, even as they seek to refine the picture of the school as a whole that has been provided by Maruyama. No matter what else this study is, we must certainly recognize it as a depiction, based on certain philosophical projects and intentionalities and rooted in the particular time in which it was written. Maruyama would be the first to tell us that we should not mistake his depiction for the school itself, that is, for a definitive picture of the way the school “really was.” Certainly, though, it is an attempt to depict the school with a more detached, more objective, less infatuated perspective than that from which the school was portrayed in the militaristic period—what he refers to as the “abnormal period” (or, perhaps, the “period of national emergency”) (hijōji 非常時). Therefore, before concluding this introduction, it will be instructive to look at an example of the way the school was portrayed during the height of Japan’s self-righteous effort to extend its East Asian empire into the Middle Kingdom itself, the very homeland of Confucianism and the fountainhead of East Asian culture. Maruyama’s study takes its starting point from this type of ideologically-charged, nationalistically inspiring portrayal of the school, and then proceeds to take it apart by examining the complex contours of the intra-school discourse in rather minute detail. Yet one feels that the author of the essay quoted below, ABE Yoshio 阿部吉雄 (1905–1978), was as committed as Maruyama to the ideal of shinri rikkoku, and even to the ideal of promoting the development among the Japanese of what he would have understood as an awakened or self-aware (jikakuteki 自覺的) “self.” Abe may have had an inkling that his portrayal of the Ansai school was in part a reconstruction put together to serve contemporary ideological purposes, yet he was also undoubtedly convinced that this reconstruction “Yamazaki argued that the ethical nature of politics is conceivable only in the light of fixed, nonarbitrary norms outside of historical processes that make it possible for men to establish rules, rituals, and structures.” On the other hand, “What Yamazaki stressed … was not so much internal devotion to enable one to perceive norms, since norms are explicit and given, but rather the indefinable potential in human personality to act out one’s convictions in a public context and thereby make history approximate norms of goodness.” (Najita 1974: 30–33).

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represented the true historical significance of the school, at a time when this “historical significance” was impacting on the unfolding (nariyuki) of East Asian history in ways that went far beyond the bookish boundaries of the world of historical scholarship. Here is how Abe depicted Ansai and his school in the 1930s: Like other great thinkers, Ansai [1619–82] also, after long intellectual torment and searching, finally returned to the spirit of his ancestral land [Shinto]…. In the first year of Manji [1658], at forty years of age, he first came to Edo, becoming the guest teacher of men like Lord INOUE Masatoshi 井上正利 and Lord KATō Yasuyoshi 加藤泰義. From that point on he would spend half the year in Edo serving as the guest teacher of various daimyo, and half the year in Kyoto devoting himself to the education of his disciples. In this period he became the teacher of HOSHINA Masayuki 保科正之 [1611–73], daimyo of Aizu, an illustrious relative of the shogunate whose fame filled the four seas. Not only did this further enlarge Ansai’s influence; it also gave him the opportunity to realize his aspirations regarding social education in the Aizu region and to have a hand in government through the auspices of his lord. Moreover, his researches regarding Shinto were able to progress more and more due to the support of Lord Hoshina. After Masayuki’s death in the second year of Kanbun [1662], he never again set foot in the Kantō region, engaging exclusively in writing and teaching until his death at sixty-five in the second year of Tenna [1682]. SATŌ Naokata 佐藤直方, ASAMI Keisai 淺見絅齋, and MIYAKE Shōsai 三宅尚齋, who are known as the three eminent teachers of the Kimon school, were all disciples of Ansai’s later years. It is said that it was especially Keisai who inherited his orthodox line (seitō 正統). Those who came and went within the Ansai school numbered 6,000, and his school is compared with that of KINOSHITA Jun’an 木下順庵 in the number of talented individuals it produced…. Ansai’s school spread throughout all regions of the country and flourished more and more as time went on. In particular, the fact that it became a great source for our country’s imperial loyalist movement will shine brilliantly in Japanese history for all time. That is, it exerted great influence on the Mito 水戸school, and loyalists such as YAMAGATA Daini 山形大貳, TAKEUCHI Shikibu 竹内式部, RAI San’yō 頼山陽, HIRATA Atsutane 平田篤 胤, UMEDA Unpin 梅田雲濱, ARIMA Shinshichi 有馬新七, FUJIMORI Kōan 藤森弘庵, and HASHIMOTO Keigaku 橋本景岳 appeared one after another. As Ansai himself said, he did not have a regular teacher, but he received the tradition of “Southern Learning” in Tosa. He directly referred to ZHU Xi as his teacher, revering only a few Confucians from the Yuan and Ming dynasties. Among them, those who can be thought to have influenced his style of learning were XUE Jingxuan 薛敬軒 [XUE Xuan 薛瑄, 1389–1464], HU Jingzhai 胡敬齋 [HU Juren 胡居仁, 1434–84], and YI T’oegye 李退溪 of Korea.5 …The great mission (daiganmoku 大眼目) of his learning lay in fostering the way of the three bonds and five constants in our country and teaching the meaning of the great duty in accord with name and status (taigi meibun 大義名分), in order to promote the dignity of our national polity (kokutai 國體, 国体). That is, his aspiration was to clarify the way of our country, and for this he used ZHU Xi learning as an aid. In the fact that he established this great purpose lies his great insight as a scholar and his important historical significance. Men who left their names in the history of Confucianism contributed in no small way to the improvement of our country’s culture in the areas of morality, government, the arts, and so on, and they should all be respected. But it goes without saying that scholars who endeavored to arouse the national consciousness (jikaku 自覺) and make manifest the kokutai—the very foundation upon which our country is established—possess an especially great historical significance. Ansai and those of his school not only proclaimed this like a lion’s roar in their studios, but when the time arrived they also expressed it in practice. When one died the next would take over, not fearing any difficulty, giving themselves totally to the cause of the 5

There follows here a list of the Shinto teachers whose doctrines he synthesized, beginning with KIKKAWA (YOSHIKAWA) Koretari 吉川ᜏ足 (1616–1694).

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nation with the same single mind, becoming one great stream leading to the realization of the great enterprise of the Restoration. There was absolutely no other school of learning in the history of our country’s early modern period that presented such a magnificent sight, and the extent of its influence exceeds our ability to imagine. Why then did the school exert such a great influence? We must not forget that the great root of this influence came out of their penetrating study of ZHU Xi’s learning, as well as their profound study of Shinto and the national history…. Ansai’s academic research combined with his noble character to become a burning conviction that gave birth to an intense spiritual energy. It was just because of this spiritual energy that his learning possessed such power. Moreover, one must consider the fact that this learning and energy were transmitted in one unbroken line within his school on account of his strict and intense method of study. Ansai’s ZHU Xi learning was based on pure belief in ZHU Xi without any admixture of other teachings such as Buddhism or the Lu-Wang school. His Shinto doctrine, as well, rejected admixture with Buddhist theories. He took it as a cardinal article of faith that “the ways of foreign countries should not be mixed in through the making of forced analogies.”… In the preface to his Compendium on the Great Norm 洪範大全 (Kōhan taizen), he argued that: “Since the universe is only one principle, even though there is a difference in the gods and sages born in the place where the sun rises and the place where the sun sets, there is something that mysteriously corresponds in their Ways.”… While this was based on ZHU Xi’s theory of li and qi, in his time it was truly a penetrating view, as different as clouds and mud when compared to the view of some later Shintoists who vainly rejected Confucianism. That is, for Ansai, one believes something not because it is ZHU Xi learning or because it is Shinto, but because it is the one principle of the universe…. At the time, with the rise of education in the literary arts, the worship of China (Shina 支那) was extremely widespread, and the idea that China was the middle civilization and Japan was barbarian ruled the minds of Confucians…. Ansai took a great iron hammer to these worshipers of foreign countries, elucidating the true moral duty of the kokutai on the basis of the theory of taigi meibun, making this the great root of his teaching. He stated that “…As for the name ‘middle kingdom’ (chūgoku 中國), if we speak from the point of view of each country, one’s own country is the middle and the foreign countries in the four directions are barbarians. Therefore, the fact that we call our country ‘the middle country of the luxuriant reed plains’ (toyo ashihara no nakatsu kuni 豐葦原中國) is not something that we can claim for ourselves alone….”6 Moreover, he aspired to compile a Japanese Mirror (Yamato kagami 大和鑑) in order to demonstrate taigi meibun in our national history. Only the table of contents of this Japanese Mirror has come down to us, but not only is it in perfect accord with the four great characteristics of the Great History of Japan (Dai Nihonshi 大日本史) of Mito domain, but even the year the compilation was begun is the same. The spirit behind Ansai’s compilation of a national history was learned from the Outline of the Comprehensive Mirror for Aid in Government (Tongjian gangmu 通鑑綱目) of ZHU Xi (ZHU Xi 1167–1185). What it comes down to is elucidating the spirit of the founding of the country, honoring the uniqueness of the kokutai, distinguishing between our country and foreign countries, revering lord and father, extolling the great moral duties of loyalty and filial piety, revering the legitimate lineage (seitō), and praising honor and integrity…. Ansai once wrote in a poem that “learning is nothing other than loyalty and filial 6

This quotation from Ansai continues with a quotation from CHENG Yi to the effect that wherever one goes in the world, there is no place that is not the “center.” “The middle country of the luxuriant reed plains” is a phrase used in the Record of Ancient Matters (Kojiki 古事記), which records Japan’s ancient creation mythology, to refer to the islands that constitute Japan as existing between the high plain of heaven, where the gods reside, and the underworld. However, the fact that Japan is here called “the Middle Kingdom” or “Middle Country,” using the same characters as those used in the Chinese name for China, was often used by Japanese Confucian scholars to claim a kind of equality with China.

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piety.” Moreover, his loyalty and filial piety were the loyalty and filial piety of a Japanese. He held that if there is learning that departs from loyalty and filial piety, that learning is in the final analysis useless, and the person [who engages in this learning] is also useless. (Abe 1939: 335–342).7

It may seem paradoxical that Ansai’s total devotion to China’s ZHU Xi learning orthodoxy and its moral principles should be understood as demonstrating his absolute devotion to the Japanese kokutai, but it becomes obvious from Maruyama’s study (and from an examination of the political dimensions of ZHU Xi learning) how this could have been the case. Even Ansai’s mere intention to write a national history, though it never got past the stage of a table of contents, is adduced as indubitable evidence of his total comprehension of the historical soul of the Japanese nation, supported by the fact that he was also a Shinto initiate and, through his elucidation of the kokutai, seems to have influenced later imperial loyalist thinkers. It would be interesting to compare the ideas of Ansai’s school with the nationalidentity “myths” of various European and non-European nations that were constructed in various periods stretching from the sixteenth to the nineteenth and twentieth centuries to support programs of national unity and national independence. In most cases, however, the latter exalted poetry and legends written in the national language and its ancestral forms rather than in the “universal language” of the larger region of which the nation was historically a part. The history of nationalism needs to fully include cases where the core texts initially feeding the definition of national identity were written in the “universal language” of the time, where the language of national loyalty and national autonomy was borrowed from another, more ancient, political entity, and actually Japan is far from being a unique example in this regard.8 Moreover, a bridge with the cases where texts in the vernacular played the dominant role is provided by Ansai’s concurrent mastery of Shinto texts and by the fact that the main “texts” of his school became his oral lectures in emotionally vivid colloquial Japanese on the core texts of the ZHU Xi school. Japan’s national self-image as the center of its own world, either equal to or superior to China, was constructed on the basis of its historical refusal to become a tributary state of China and its historically autonomous (shutaiteki 主体的) absorption of Chinese culture and philosophy, and it was this image, having absorbed the structure of the Sinocentric view of the world, that grounded the idea that Japan should be the center of a new East Asian world order. The defeat of August 1945 subjected this self-image to a tremendous shock, 7

The large book in which Abe’s essay was included was published to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the succession of TOKUGAWA Iesato 徳川家達 (1863–1940) to the headship of the Tokugawa clan after the Restoration in 1868. The essay was based on (or possibly was identical to) Abe’s 34-page study of the Ansai school published in 1933, called “The Position of the Ansai School within the History of Early Modern Confucianism” 䘁世儒學史上に於ける䯷啻學の地 位 (Kinsei Jugakushi ni okeru Ansaigaku no chii). In 1944 Abe published a book on YI T’oegye, and for over three decades after the war he published a stream of works on Chinese philosophy, including the complete works of YI T’oegye, another study of T’oegye, and several studies on ZHU Xi learning in Korea or comparing ZHU Xi learning in China, Korea and Japan. 8 For example, much or even most of the national-liberation rhetoric of colonized peoples was borrowed from the metropolitan power, thus becoming considerably influenced by the history of nationalism and political thought in Europe.

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and sheared off its imperialist outgrowth, but with the economic recovery under American shelter the image was reborn in the 1950s and 1960s, only to come under widespread challenge again following the “bursting of the bubble” in 1991. There is still a tension between nationalist conservatives and internationalists in Japan’s intellectual and political spheres, but the continuing popularity of self-justifying and even self-glorifying accounts of Japanese history and culture among the general populace suggests that the spiritual legacy of the Ansai school, in all of its positions on the spectrum, is still very much alive in contemporary Japan. Maruyama’s detailed dissection of the school thus becomes important not only for understanding the historical trajectory of Japanese thought and philosophy, but even the “national psychology” of contemporary Japan. Text9

13.1

The Continuity and Distinctiveness of the Kimon School

This volume [Compendium of Japanese Thought 日本思想大系, vol. 31] is entitled “The YAMAZAKI Ansai School,” and not “YAMAZAKI Ansai.” One might wonder why a giant like Ansai does not get an independent volume. Commentators do not participate in considerations on the level of editorial technology, but in the case of Ansai it would seem there are sufficient reasons in substance as well to lump him and his followers together as a single “school.” To begin with a “negative” reason, as all students of Ansai are aware, in spite of the extensiveness of the writings Ansai left behind, those which can be called “works” in the usual sense of the word constitute a remarkably small proportion. As a token of this, we can consider what is quantitatively speaking his greatest work—the Notes from Literary Gatherings (Bunkai hitsuroku 文會筆錄), in twenty volumes. The great majority of this work consists of quotations from a wide range of books, including Cheng-Zhu writings such as Classified Conversations of ZHU Xi (Zhuzi yulei 朱子語類) the Collected 9

Translator’s note: Italicized phrases and quotation marks used for emphasis throughout this translation represent emphasis added by Maruyama, and likewise for the occasional question mark or exclamation mark in parentheses following a word. Unless otherwise indicated, elided parts of quotations in the text proper represent elisions in the original. Explanatory comments in parentheses, except for single words added to explain the meaning of terms used in the original, are Maruyama’s comments. Words in square brackets in quotations to clarify the meaning are in most cases added by the translator. The section headings are added by the translator, though the section divisions exist in the original. Explanatory notes added by the translator are, when not totally obvious, identified with “(tr.)” at the end of the note. A certain number of long and complicated footnotes in the original that would only be of use to Japanese scholars have been eliminated in the translation. The word “leaf” identifying pages in traditional Japanese-style books is a translation of 丁, which means “one leaf of a thread-bound piece of paper.”

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Writings of ZHU Xi (Zhuzi wenji 朱子文集), Questions on the Great Learning and Questions on the Doctrine of the Mean (Daxue huowen 大學或問 and Zhongyong huowen 中庸或問), and the Compendium on the Doctrine of the Mean (Zhongyong jilue 中庸輯略), as well as the writings of YI T’oegye of Korea, the twenty-four histories, and even the miscellaneous philosophers 諸子. One only occasionally finds direct statements of opinion by Ansai in paragraphs that begin with “Ansai says…” or “Ansai notes…” Confucius’s dictum “to transmit and not to create” truly represented Ansai’s basic attitude toward classical studies. Moreover, though the Japanese reading marks (kunten 訓點) that Ansai provided for the Four Books and ZHU Xi’s commentaries had an important impact on the history of the Japanese reading of Confucian texts, on the level of philosophical meaning they totally followed ZHU Xi’s own original texts, rejecting in principle the later glosses (matsuso 末疏) and sharply criticizing authoritative commentaries such as the Great Compendia (Daquan 大全) and the Introductions for Students (Mengyin 蒙引) as “muddled and obstructed in the highest degree” (Bunkai hitsuroku 3, in NKG 1978, v. 1).10 When it comes to important questions—such as the concrete basis of his rejection of the later glosses in particular cases, the reasons for his distinction between not yet established theory and established theory in ZHU Xi’s own writings, the criteria he used to select certain compilations from the vast body of “original texts,” or the reasons why he concentrated on specific chapters of the classics or the explication of specific concepts—in the last analysis these are almost completely left to the records of Ansai’s talks made by such eminent disciples as ASAMI Keisai, SATō Naokata, and YUSA Mokusai 遊佐木齋, as preserved in Lecture Notes (Kōgi hikki 講義筆記), The Teacher’s Sayings (師説 Shisetsu), and the Records of Teacher-Disciple Dialogues (Mondō hikki 問答筆記). This applies not only to the Four Books and Reflections on Things at Hand (Jinsilu 近思錄), but equally to works like Fidelity in Imprisonment (Juyoucao 拘幽操) and Maxims of the Reverence Studio (Jingzhai zhen 敬齋箴), which, though short, became basic texts of the Kimon school.11 That is to say, basically Ansai’s learning and thought can only be revealed through the medium of his disciples. And the same pattern is repeated successively, for instance, between Keisai and his disciple WAKABAYASHI Kyōsai 若林強齋, between Naokata and his disciples INABA Usai 稻葉迂齋 and NODA Gōsai 野田剛齋, or between MIYAKE Shōsai and KUME Teisai 久米訂齋, and then again between WAKABAYASHI Kyōsai and YAMAGUCHI 10

In this sense, one could say that it was Ansai who was the pioneer of textual criticism within Classical Studies in early modern Japan. While the Ansai school critically examined the commentaries of Yuan and Ming dynasty Confucians with the Cheng-Zhu texts as their standard, ITŌ Jinsai and OGYŪ Sorai traced their textual standard further back to the Han and Tang dynasties, subjecting Song learning—including ZHU Xi’s commentaries—to criticism from the standpoint of a reversion to the “original classics,” whether the Analects and the Mencius in the case of Jinsai, or the pre-Analects Six Classics in the case of Sorai. 11 Juyoucao (J. Kōyūsō ᤈᒭ᫽), by HAN Yu 韓愈 (768–824), extols King Wen’s loyalty to King Zhòu 紂, the evil last ruler of the Shang dynasty, even when Zhòu had Wen imprisoned. Ansai’s version of Maxims of the Reverence Studio (Jingzhai zhen), a work by ZHU Xi, added interlinear notes taken from several commentators and references to Jingzhai zhen writings by later Confucians (see Nishi et al. 1980: 531 ff. and 539).

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Shunsui 山口春水, between Usai and his son Mokusai 黙齋, and between SACHIDA Shizen 幸田子善 and SAITŌ Naoshi 齊藤尚志. In all cases the oral materials—lecture notes, miscellaneous conversations, and study talks—constitute an important clue to understanding the learning and thought of the teacher or the founder of the school. Bit by bit, it becomes clear just what sort of philosophical nuances there were. For now it is sufficient just to note the fact that the records made by Ansai’s eminent disciples, or by disciples of the second and third generations, have a decisive importance for understanding Ansai’s teachings. The fact that it is difficult to approach Ansai’s teachings except through the whole school to which they gave rise means, in other words, that there were few other schools of Edo Confucianism that had so much the character of a “school.” Though it may be a superficial illustration, it is enough just to look at the classificatory charts of schools of learning given in reference works on Edo Confucianism or in books like The Origins of the Confucian Community (Jurin genryū 儒林源流). Here, in almost all cases, the Ansai school, or the “Keigi 敬義 school,”12 is separated from the other schools of ZHU Xi learning, even from the Nan 南 (Southern) school,13 and treated as an independent entry. This sort of lineage scheme of teachers and disciples, reminiscent of a clan lineage, is more appropriate for doctrinal Shinto, which has a tradition of secret oral transmission. Such a statement will call to mind the branch of Ansai’s teaching known as Suika Shintō 垂加神道, which if not anti-Confucian was at least non-Confucian. Of course, the existence of the field of Suika Shintō within Ansai’s school is certainly an important characteristic of the school. But that is not the only reason that the Kimon school is distinguished from the other schools of Cheng-Zhu learning. Within the Kimon school the Shinto side was hardly recognized as academic doctrine. Even as a pure Confucian lineage that strove for a thorough devotion to Cheng-Zhu learning, the school distinguished itself from ordinary Cheng-Zhu learning by using the name “the Learning of the Way” (daoxue 道學 dōgaku). INABA Mokusai, for example, said: “If we speak of ‘ZHU Xi learning,’ MURO Kyūso 室鳩巢 and KAIBARA Ekken 貝原益軒 also fall into this category. If one says ‘dōgaku,’ however, these two are not included.” The term dōgaku itself was, of course, not something monopolized by the Ansai school, and from its very origins as a term, it circulated widely among other Confucians, particularly ZHU Xi learning (Shushigaku) scholars. But for the Kimon school, this was a self-appellation that carried a very rigorous and extraordinary meaning.14 Moreover, this view of themselves as a special school was not limited to 12

Keigi was Ansai’s literary name (azana 字). Meaning literally “reverence and moral duty,” it is a reference to the classical phrase that, for Ansai, embodied the essence of Neo-Confucian praxis— “Reverence to straighten the internal, moral duty to square the external”—which also became the focal point of his distinctive interpretations of Confucian doctrine. 13 The Nan or “Southern” school was founded in Tosa domain in the late Muromachi period by MINAMIMURA Baiken 南ᶁẵ䔂, who had studied under the Zen monk Keian 桂庵. “Nan” is also the first character of Minamimura’s surname. The lineage included TANI Jichū 䉧時中 (1598– 1649), OGURA Sansei 小‫ع‬三ⴱ, NONAKA Kenzan 野中兼山, and YAMAZAKI Ansai. This school is also called simply Nangaku (Southern learning) to distinguish it from the Edo-based Shushigaku line of the Hayashi school. (tr.) 14 Inaba Usai (a disciple of Naokata) defined dōgaku as follows: “To state briefly [the meaning of] the two characters dōgaku, it is a combination of the character dō from the word dōtai 道體 and

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the school’s own self-perception. Among Shushigaku scholars who were contemporaries of Ansai, as well as those of later generations, the image of the Kimon school as something special was very common. Even for Confucian schools which observed the Shushigaku camp “from a distance” due to their more clearly distinguished philosophical positions, such as WANG Yangming learning and Ancient Learning, the Keigi school appeared as a group with a very distinct shading. Reported even in the latter half of the seventeenth century to have some six thousand disciples,15 the Kimon school had no rival in the early modem period in the matter of historical continuity. Its lineage was continued almost without break into the period after the Meiji Restoration. No matter how we understand the great transformation of the Restoration, it need hardly be said that the dissolution of the bakuhan 幕藩 system and the tumultuous inflow of Western civilization was a fatal blow not only to institutionalized Confucian learning, but also to the ideological importance of Confucianism and the degree of circulation of Confucian concepts in everyday discourse. In being subjected to this blow, the Kimon school after the Restoration was of course no exception. Nevertheless, among the many schools of Edo Confucianism, it was the Kimon school that, as a school of learning, was the first to recover its footing in modern Japan. To mention this situation at the beginning of this essay is to reverse the historical order. But precisely in its being an easily overlooked existence within the overall picture after the radical transformation of the “great tide of the realm” (天下の大勢 tenka no taisei), it demonstrates the diachronic continuity of the school that has been referred to above. In the 16th year of Meiji period (1883), a group of scholars centering on ISHII Shūan 石井周庵, of the school of MIKAMI Zean 三上是庵 (Keiyū 景雄, a Confucian scholar of Matsuyama 松山 domain), founded the Dōgaku Association, and from November of the same year they began publishing a monthly called the Dōgaku the character gaku from the word igaku 為學 in the Jinsilu [both words are names of chapters in the Jinsilu]. As for the origin of the term, one cannot find it in other books, but the preface of the Doctrine of the Mean (Zhongyong) should be considered to be the origin” (this refers to the statement by ZHU Xi in the preface of his commentary, Zhongyong zhangju, that ZI Si wrote the Zhongyong because he was worried that the transmission of the “study of the way” would be lost). However, what should be noticed is that the Ansai school recognized that the various “heterodoxies” that differ from the way of the sages, such as Buddhism and Daoism, also each have their own dōgaku, so for that very reason it is necessary to do all one can to refute these heterodox schools of learning. From this way of thinking arises the idea of the orthodox or correct line of learning that I examine below. 15 It seems that already from the Edo period there were doubts about the claim of 6,000 disciples. INABA Mokusai gave the following explanation: “Confucius was supposed to have had 3,000 disciples, but people have doubts about this and point out that there were only 70 who understood his teachings. In the same way, they doubt that Ansai had as many as 6,000 disciples. I say that they are wrong. At the time when people had audience with Ansai according to the proper ritual, his disciples kept a record, and quite naturally the number reached 6,000. But that does not mean they were all among the ranks of his disciples. Ansai was very strict as a teacher, and those who met with him for the first time all treated him with the greatest ritual respect. If not, they would not have been granted audience. Those who met him one time only were also certainly many…. Everyone in Aizu domain wanted to meet Ansai. When we see the records, the number given is 6,000. What need is there to doubt this?” (One Drop of Ink [Bokusui itteki 墨水а┤], in Seki 1943: v. 2).

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Association Magazine (Dōgaku kyōkai zasshi 道學協會雜誌). Since MIKAMI Zean had studied under OKUDAIRA Seichian 奥平棲遲庵,16 and Seichian was of the school of INABA Mokusai, from the point of view of teaching lineage he was close to the SATŌ Naokata branch of the Kimon school. The “Intent of Publication” that appeared in the first issue of the magazine read: It all began when YAMAZAKI Ansai appeared in our country, bearing unusual talent. Revering, reciting, and pondering the classics, over time he finally fathomed the deepest meaning of the learning of the sages and was able to obtain the true transmission of their learning…. Since his outstanding eminent disciples, Masters Satō, Asami, and Miyake, each one of us has remained in his lineage (monryū 門流).

Not to Confucianism in general, but to this school in particular, is assigned the duty of saving society from moral degeneracy: “Ultimately we aspire only to be able to remedy the moral condition of society (yoku fūka no man’ichi o hiho shi 能ク風 化の万一ヲ裨補シ), and to attain to the realm of the endless transmission of the learning of the way.” At the same time, the association took up the task of publishing the works of the Kimon school. Using the funds left over from donations for the restoration of Naokata’s grave, they appealed for the publication of a movable-type edition of Naokata’s Collected Teachings (Unzōroku 韞藏錄) (the records of his teachings put together by his second-generation disciple INABA Mokusai). They also used the magazine to republish Kimon works, printing for instance MIYAKE Shōsai’s Records of the Tripping Wolf (Rōchiroku 狼疐録) in installments starting from issue number 45 (September 25, 1887). The Dōgaku Association split up four years later over the publication policy of Posthumous Dōgaku Writings (Dōgaku isho 道學遺書) and over the table of gravesites of the Kimon predecessors that was included in this collection, but subsequent issues of the magazine, renamed Dōgaku Magazine (now with IKEDA Kenzō 池田謙藏 as publisher), continued to carry basic Kimon texts such as INABA Mokusai’s Lectures on the Rules of the White Deer Grotto Academy (Hakurokudō gakki kōgi 白鹿洞學規講義),17 as well as biographies of important Kimon personalities. The spirit of “dispelling heresy,” which had always been a strong tradition in the Ansai school, also showed great vigor, as in the following diatribe that appeared in issue 11 against an editorial by TOKUTOMI Sohō 德富蘇峰 carried in the magazine Friend of the Nation (Kokumin no tomo 國民ノ友). If one opens the volume [one sees] it is entitled “Familistic Autocracy.”… On reading it one is scandalized. Truly it is something that cannot stand up to a sigh of indignation or a smile of pity…. How flagrant! He is intoxicated with the dregs of Western civilization and has lost the ability to distinguish between right and wrong! Does he not know the limit of error, confusion, and self-indulgence? … If one were to implement an individualistic system to the extreme that he advocates, society would decline to the level of the birds and the beasts, becoming nothing more than the lair of rebellious vassals and bandit sons who deny their fathers and lords…. How can we fail to imitate the example of the Spring and Autumn 16

Tutor to the daimyo of Oshi 忍 domain; later resigned and changed his name to Genpo 玄甫. The White Deer Grotto Academy, in the southern foothills of the “five old peaks” of Mount Lu in modern Jiangxi province, was China’s first full-scale academy, founded in 940 C.E. ZHU Xi rebuilt the academy and taught there personally, laying down the academy’s regulations and objectives. 17

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Annals in executing by the pen, borrowing the horse-beheading sword of Naokata to cut off heretical ideas and awaken others to the danger?18

The work The Origins of the Japanese School of the Way (Nihon dōgaku engenroku 日本道學淵源錄), which could well be called the “Biographical Encyclopedia of the Ansai School,” was completed in seven volumes (including a supplementary volume, Zokuroku 續録) in the thirteenth year of Tenpō 天保 (1842). It passed through the hands of TSUKIDA Mōsai 月田蒙齋 and KUSUMOTO Tanzan 楠本端山, and in 1900 (Meiji 33), Tanzan’s younger brother Sekisui 碩水 and his son and heir Kunshō 君翔 wrote a revised and enlarged edition of the Zokuroku in two volumes. OKA Chokuyō 岡直養 later re-edited the entire work, and published it in a movabletype edition in 11 volumes; it is symbolic that the year of its actual publication was 1934 (Shōwa 9). One can glimpse the original intention of the Origins of the Japanese School of the Way from the phrase “modeled after the The Origins of the Cheng Brothers’ Learning (Yi-Luo yuan yuan lu 伊洛淵源錄, by ZHU Xi)” that appears in the preface to the Tenpō edition. Here, as well, the compilers continued the editorial policy of “even for those who were pure followers of ZHU Xi learning, if they were not in our school, they are not recorded.” Thus the “orthodox transmission of the Way” (daotong 道統 dōtō) of CHENG Yi 程頤 (1033–1107) and ZHU Xi 朱熹 (1130–1200) was constituted for a second time into an orthodox transmission by the dōgaku of the Ansai school, and this transmission was carried on in one uninterrupted line into the Shōwa period.19 This so to speak “self-completing” nature of the Ansai school, along with its historical continuity, led to the formation of a certain fixed image of the school. As is common anywhere, this image became generalized more on the level of a style of learning or a mode of action than on the complicated level of academic theory. The “Kyoto style of learning” came to be represented by Ansai. Early on, KAIBARA Ekken had criticized the school for its narrow-mindedness, and OGYŪ Sorai 荻生徂徠, in A Manual of Translation (Yakubun sentei 譯文荃蹄), had ridiculed the teacher’s authoritative manner of lecturing and the imitative attitude of his disciples to the point of mimicking the teacher’s every clearing of his throat and every inflection of voice. From the middle of the Edo period such things came to be pointed out again and again in the intellectual world as the characteristics of the Kimon school. And the attaching of such labels was not necessarily limited to the anti-Shushigaku camp. 18

Here “Naokata” 直方 must be a pun on the name SHANG Fang 尚方 (which can be read “Naokata” in Japanese) who appears in the “Biography of ZHU Yun 朱雲” in the History of the [Former] Han Dynasty (Han shu 漢書). The “horse-beheading sword,” one of the famous swords of the Han dynasty, is taken from this passage. The passage in question reads, “I wish to grant the horsebeheading sword to SHANG Fang, so that he may execute the one flattering minister to encourage the others.” 19 In China the explicit concept of the “orthodox transmission of the way,” including the idea of defending the way against heterodoxy, began with Mencius (372–289 C.E.) and was later developed by HAN Yu, CHENG Yi and ZHU Xi, all of whom claimed that the true transmission of the Confucian way had been lost after Mencius. This is the major reason why the Cheng-Zhu school referred to itself as the school of “the Learning of the Way” (daoxue). On the origins and meaning of the concept, see Makeham 2010: xxii–xxiii and xxxvii. (tr.)

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For instance, NAKAI Chikuzan 中井竹山 of the Kaitokudō Academy, who was no less vigorous than the Kimon school in his condemnation of the learning of ITŌ Jinsai 伊藤仁齋 and OGYŪ Sorai, wrote the following in 1782 (Tenmei 天明 2): The Yamazaki clan, in their dealing with books, do not go beyond the Four Books, the Elementary Learning, Reflections on Things at Hand, and ZHU Xi’s Collected Writings and Classified Sayings. They do not even venture much into the Five Classics and ZHU Xi’s Outline of the Comprehensive Mirror. As for other works and histories, they completely forbid them and do not even show them to their students…. As for the practice of learning, they only lecture on books, and the students only take down notes on what they have heard. They have no other skills…. They just handle affairs with a pretentious air, making waves where there is no wind, falling into the kind of rigorism that leads to impassioned contention with others. (Nishimura 1911: 6).20

In the same writing, Chikuzan expressly excludes the “Yamazaki school” only from within the ranks of Shushigaku. The greatest compendium (?) of this “bad image” would have to be NAWA Rodō’s 那波魯堂 The Fountainhead of Learning (Gakumon genryū 學問源流, 1799). Rodō criticizes the limited range of books studied, the prohibition of reading the histories and miscellaneous philosophers, the lack of emphasis on good writing, the rejection as heterodoxy of everything that does not agree with the master, the devotion to copying the records of the master’s lectures and keeping them from the eyes of non-believers, the unusual passion for maintaining uniformity within the school, and the disciples’ refusal to mix with the followers of other schools.21 For the time being let us leave aside the question of how accurate this image was. If the pole of value judgment is reversed, however, exactly the same tendencies could be seen in a favorable light. For instance, in regard to the authoritarian nature of the teacher and the conformism of the disciples toward this (not singing in chorus, but singing in unison), the followers of the Kimon school and the new Kimon school must have answered their critics with a strong sense of pride: If our teacher represents the vanguard of the way, why is it bad to follow faithfully in the direction he has shown? Why are we criticized for seeking uniformity in the face of the truth? To give one example, the disciples of NISHIYORI Seisai 西依成齋, who studied under WAKABAYASHI Kyōsai and continued his “Bōnangen” 望楠軒 line of learning,22 praised their teacher’s “conduct” in the following terms: “In understanding the meaning of the classics, he earnestly believed his teacher and never departed from his teachings…. When disciples recorded his words, there was nothing which did not accord precisely with his teacher’s teachings” (Ōtsuka 1934b: leaf 40オ, and Gokyū 1910, v. 2: 396–397). In even more 20

The last phrase is an allusion to Analects 17:16, where Confucius says, “The stern dignity of antiquity showed itself in grave reserve; the stern dignity of the present day shows itself in quarrelsome perverseness” (Legge’s translation, see http://ctext.org/analects/yang-huo). 21 This sentence is a paraphrase of a 7-line quotation in Maruyama’s text. 22 Bōnangen was the name of Kyōsai’s academy, based on Keisai’s alternate name of Bōnanrō ᵋᾐ樓 (“the tower overlooking the camphor tree”). The nan (camphor tree) in both names is an allusion to KUSUNOKI Masashige ᾐ木正成, a famous loyalist general who supported Emperor Go-Daigo’s 後䞽䟀 attempt to restore imperial rule by overthrowing the Kamakura bakufu in 1331. (tr.)

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recent times, HIRAIZUMI Kiyoshi’s 平泉澄 Master Ansai and the Japanese Spirit (Ansai sensei to Nihon seishin 闇齋先生と日本精神, 1932: 33) quotes precisely the words of NAWA Rodō summarized above and adds admiringly: “Even though the school had several thousands of disciples and was transmitted for two hundred years, the import of the teaching was preserved without variation. Truly one cannot but say it is magnificent to behold!” The kind of “emanationist” (ryūshutsuronteki 流出論的)23 explanation of the historical meaning and role of the Ansai school that was made into the generally accepted view, so to speak, by the new Kimon school in modem Japan was also, moreover, nothing other than a correlate phenomenon of the school’s appearance of being “self-completing” and “diachronically continuous.” What I am referring to is the supposition that the “spirit” inherent in the character and thought of the founder of the school, Ansai, was passed down without interruption through several generations of disciples, developing in one straight line into one of the great moving forces of the imperial restoration movement. Needless to say, this tune played in close harmony with the pre-war “national polity” (kokutairon) ideology. The argument that the essence of Ansai’s learning—the elucidation of the heaven-and-man-as-one origin of the Japanese nation and the great moral duty (taigi 大義) between lord and vassal and father and son grounded in that origin, plus the exaltation of the title-andstatus-rooted moral duties (meibun 名分) of revering the emperor and driving out the hegemon (sonnō sekiha 尊王斥霸) and of distinguishing civilization from barbarism and native from foreign (ka’i naigai 華夷内外)—was carried on through two centuries of the Tokugawa shogunate to gush forth as the “revere the emperor, repel the barbarian” (sonnō jōi 尊皇攘夷) movement of the bakumatsu period to further the glorious enterprise of the Meiji Restoration, became the undercurrent of a whole series of academic books, including not only the work of Hiraizumi mentioned above, but also ITOGA Kunijirō’s A Study of the Development of ZHU Xi Studies in Shikoku (Kainan Shushigaku hattatsu no kenkyū 海南朱子學發達の研究, 1935), GOTŌ Saburō’s The National Polity Thought of the Ansai Line of Learning (Ansai gakutō no kokutai shisō 闇齋學統の國體思想, 1941), and YAMAZAKI Ansai and His School (YAMAZAKI Ansai to sono monryū 山崎闇齋と其門流, revised and enlarged edition, 1943), edited by the Society for Biographical Studies (Denki gakkai 傳記 學會), books that I would find it unbearably tedious to quote from one by one. It should also be noted that this kind of argument was by no means limited to writings of the abnormal [militarist] period (hijōji 非常時). There is a pamphlet published in 1914 (Taishō 3) containing an epitome of Keisai’s works and the record of a ceremony held in 1909 (Meiji 32) on the 200th anniversary of Keisai’s death, commemorating the granting to Keisai of the posthumous court rank of junior fourth grade. An essay

23

“Emanationist,” from the Latin emanare, “to flow from,” means pertaining to the theory that everything proceeds in stages from the One. Here the word does not necessarily imply, as in classical emanationism, that with every step away from the One the emanating beings are less pure, less perfect, less divine. However, as this study shows, many later followers of the school believed they were witnessing such a decline. (tr.)

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included therein discussing the “influence” of Keisai enumerates the following instances of influence: The Master’s vast influence on loyalist thought (kinnōron 勤皇論) is clear from what was stated in the previous chapter…. The Master’s learning influenced the Mito school…. The Master’s theories exerted salutary moral influence (kanka 感化) in Tosa…. The Master’s learning influenced Akita domain…. The loyalist thought of [HIRATA] Atsutane was not necessarily all derived from MOTOORI Norinaga; we can infer that some of its content also came from the Master…. TAKEUCHI Shikibu, the leader of the loyalist incident of Hōreki (1751–64), drew from the school of the Master, as is shown in the lineage chart at the left…. The world knows that the loyalist thought of RAI San’yō was derived from BITō Nishū 尾藤二洲, his uncle and his teacher in his youth…. In the Kaei and Ansei periods (1848–60), UMEDA Unpin of Wakasa 若狭, the leader of the loyalist shishi 志士, belonged to the Master’s school, as did ARIMA Shinshichi 有馬新 七 of Satsuma…. …In Fukui 福井 domain, YOSHIDA Tōkō 吉田東篁, the teacher of HASHIMOTO Keigaku (Sanai 左內), … both men may also have belonged to the school of the Master.

After showing again a lineage chart of the entire school, the text concludes with the statement: If we look back at the great enterprise of the restoration of royal government, even though it seems as though the Great History of Japan 大日本史 (Dai-Nihon shi) of Mito domain and the style of learning to which it gave rise, the three great teachers of National Learning … and the ideas advocated by men such as TAKAYAMA Hikokurō 高山彦九郎, GAMō Kunpei 蒲生君平, and RAI San’yō combined and harmonized with one another naturally to engender the loyalist movement, the school that truly constituted loyalist thought from beginning to end, mediating between these other schools from its base in Kyoto in an unbroken transmission, was actually the school of YAMAZAKI Ansai. (Uchida 1914).

That is to say, both the Mito school and the National Learning (kokugaku 國學) school of HIRATA Atsutane 平田篤胤, which are normally cited as the genealogy of the “revere the emperor, repel the barbarian” (sonnō jōi) movement of the bakumatsu era, are here situated and connected within the line running from Ansai to the Bōnangen lineage of WAKABAYASHI Kyōsai, or within the development of Suika Shintō. There is much room to find fault with this all-inclusive theory of “influence” with regard to individual instances. For instance, where is the lineage of TACHIHARA Suiken 立原翠軒, which played such an important role in Mito historiography? Or, with regard to RAI San’yō, who is cited repeatedly above, how far can his thought and literary learning (let alone that of his father, Shunsui 春水) be explained through the Kimon tradition?24 There is also the problem of what sort of political dilemma is involved in the Kimon theory of “the great moral duty between lord and vassal,” a question we will return to later. It is, rather, the very fact that this “emanation theory” has been accepted as plausible, along with the fact of the continuous compilation of the Dōgaku engenroku from the Tokugawa period through the modem period that, for better or worse, symbolically expresses the vivid coloring of the whole of the Kimon school. 24

On the sources of San’yō’s thought see Steben 2002.

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13.2

Tensions and Rifts Within the School

However, does the assumption of an equivalence between Ansai’s learning and the learning of the Ansai school that is common to both the positive and the negative images really hold so indubitably in terms of content as well? Can the existence of a single Ansai school, in place of a plurality of Kimon scholars or of different tendencies within the school, really stand as such a self-evident premise? It was Karl Marx himself who said, “I am not a Marxist.” His statement suggests the almost inevitable fate that awaits any thought system or worldview from the moment it leaves the hands of a specific individual to circulate within society at large. Marx could already make such a statement from observing the situation in the same period in which he lived. When it comes to the historical development of a system of thought or theory, the problem becomes even more complicated. Actually, in spite of the monolithic appearance of completeness and continuity that set the Kimon school apart from other schools, if we go one step closer and look at the situation inside the school, what we find is a scene fraught far more by internal tension and opposition than any other school of Edo thought. As mentioned earlier, Ansai did not even produce a philosophical work that can be said to represent the Ansai school, and intentionally no effort was made to publish even commentarial books on the Four Books, Reflections on Things at Hand, and the other basic classics of the school. That is the extent to which the pattern of the personal inheritance of Ansai’s learning by powerful disciples became the Kimon tradition. At first glance this looks like a strong guarantee of the self-identity of Ansai and the Ansai school as well as the self-identity of Ansai learning throughout the course of its historical unfolding. Yet there was ambiguity attendant on this as well. The fact that the foremost among the direct disciples—those who left behind their notes on Ansai’s lectures, commented on the teachings contained therein, or discoursed upon the teacher’s thought and style of learning through informal conversations— were no less virulent in their idiosyncrasies than Ansai himself is already sufficient to lead us to expect a difficult situation regarding preserving the school’s identity in terms of content. And indeed there was the incident in Ansai’s later years when he imposed excommunication (zetsumon ㎅門) or semi-excommunication upon his most beloved disciples, SATŌ Naokata and ASAMI Keisai.25 Moreover, the repercussions of this incident expanded even more after Ansai’s death, so that the Shinto-leaning 25

I have used the word “semi-excommunication” here because, according to Keisai’s disciple WAKABAYASHI Kyōsai, unlike the case of Naokata, “Because Keisai, in the matter of Shinto, was not necessarily repelled and cast away, there was no ‘excommunication.’ However, the feelings between teacher and disciple were somehow not good, and the two did not meet or communicate with one another in other ways…. It truly looked as if he was being treated as an outsider (tozama 外 ) (Wakabayashi 1937: ᐫ3: leaf 16 ウ). However, in UETA Gensetsu’s On Rebelling Against one’s School (Hanmonron) and in Record Commemorating Mokusai (Mokusai kinenroku), sources which relate this incident from the side of an opposing school, even though Naokata is called the “principal offender” and Keisai the “secondary offender,” the treatment received by the two is not much distinguished, and it is recorded that both had their privilege of attendance (shutsunyū ࠪ入) terminated by the teacher.

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wing among Ansai’s disciples, including UETA Konpai 植田艮背 and ATOBE Kōkai 跡部光海, broke off relations (gizetsu 義絶) one after another with Naokata. The ideological problems involved in the excommunication will be taken up later. However, although the world speaks of “the three eminent teachers of the Kimon school,” if we consider that MIYAKE Shōsai entered the school when he was 19, less than 3 years before Ansai died, at this point in time he can hardly be put in the same category as the other two. In that case, what do we make of the fact that the two most gifted among Ansai’s direct disciples—Naokata and Keisai—were both excommunicated, not even being allowed to attend Ansai’s funeral? Moreover, if we look at the relationship between these two, while they were said by Shōsai to have been as close as brothers early on (Miyake 1933: 卷 3), in their later years they ended up estranged to the point that they were only able to dispute with one another through the mediation of the letters of a third party. Regarding this, Shōsai wrote: Keisai’s severing of relations with Naokata is also something that could not have happened in former times. If it does not suit one’s fancy, then scholarly inquiry itself would be unnecessary. Even if they were to exchange letters, what would there be to complain about? This also [like their attitude after being excommunicated] is not a good example for posterity (Record of Shōsai’s miscellaneous talks 尚齋雜談䤴 (Shōsai zatsudan roku): ken 乾).

Ironically, Shōsai himself ended up becoming estranged from WAKABAYASHI Kyōsai over Shōsai’s work Complete Writings on the Great Norm, Continuing Record (Kōhan zensho zokuroku 洪範全書續錄). Kyōsai’s character was as resolute and stern as his teacher, Keisai. Yet he wrote the following about his break with Shōsai to his disciple YAMAGUCHI Shunsui, showing neither self-admonishment nor self-justification: The Heike clan was weak, but in their weakness the whole clan stayed on friendly terms with one another, facing life and death together. As for the Genji clan, they were all clever in the way of the bow and arrow, and had more than their share of martial courage. However, fellow clan members injured and harmed one another, and, for one reason or another, they were never on friendly terms. Thus people speak of “the friend-eating of the Genji clan.” It is a shameful thing. Yet the followers of Master Ansai, while they seem each to have genuine strength in the realm of scholarship, are markedly lacking in interpersonal harmony. It is like the friend-eating of the Genji clan. Thinking that this is something each one of them should be ashamed about, I myself have been very careful in this regard. Though I, too, recently fell inadvertently into the ranks of the friend-eaters, but I think that there was nothing I could do about it. (Wakabayashi 1937: 巻3: leaf 20オ)

There is a saying, “The obsequiousness of the Hayashi family, the severing of relations of the Kimon.” This is just said to be “a saying of the Confucians of the day” and it is not clear who started saying it or when (see Ōtsuka 1934a: 巻4: leaf 4 オ). However, there is probably nothing that expresses so succinctly the two representative forms of Shushigaku in the Edo period. In a word, the closedness and exclusiveness of the Kimon school that distinguished it from other schools was, indeed, operative within the school as well. The paradoxes inherent in the Kimon school’s self-completing “one great lineage of learning” do not end here. At the stage of Keisai, Naokata, Shōsai, and Kyōsai, it was the divergencies brought about in the process of a “great disciple”

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inheriting the same teaching from the master. However, in the historical development of a school of learning, decline at the hands of epigones is almost unavoidable. Moreover, in the case of the Kimon school, as the will to personal identification with the teacher in the form of carrying on his line of orthodox transmission (dōtō) was especially strong, the two tendencies of the school toward standardization and differentiation went on to reproduce themselves in more diminutive forms. INABA Mokusai lamented: The scholars of our school are unable to observe with wisdom and believe the things that are more or less the same in the teachings of our predecessors (sho senpai 諸先輩), so they argue over small points of difference with the greatest acrimony. For this reason, the school splits into all kinds of sub-schools, making for a particularly bad atmosphere. (Wa ga gaku genryū, in Seki: 1943)

In Collected Sayings of the Wise Men of Former Times, Continued (Sentetsu sōdan zokuhen 先哲叢談續編), we also find the same observation regarding the tendency toward sectarianism promoted by the transition to epigones and men of lesser stature: In the An’ei and Tenmei periods (1772–89), those in Edo who revered Yamazaki were as many as the stars in the sky. Although I have heard there are those who observe Yamazaki’s teachings, most of them are lacking in scholarly accomplishments and do not practice writing. If we think about it, since SATō Naokata, ASAMI Keisai, and MIYAKE Shōsai passed away, the transmission of the teaching has gone through several changes, and the line of transmission is no longer one. Inevitably, the various branches and sub-schools have certain differences with one other. (Minamoto 1994: 巻7, entry on HATTORI Rissai 服部栗齋)

So as the tendency for the epigones of each of the three eminent teachers to form their own sects worked itself out, what sort of situation appeared? Mokusai wrote: Master Satō saw directly into the substance of the way, and every sentence of his writing echoes with the wonderful principle. Later Confucians relied on his tone of voice and vainly repeated his sayings. This is making glosses on the substance of the way. Master Asami wanted to make rigorous the teaching of names and duties and arouse the morale of the samurai, so he wrote the Immortal Words of Acquiescent Self-dedication (Seiken igen 靖獻遺言).26 Later students were of the kind who conform with the time and the fashion, and they just fatuously lectured on this text. This is making glosses on the “immortal words.” Master Miyake was profoundly sincere and compassionate, and he was able to experience communication with departed spirits. Thus he wrote The Theory that the Ancestors Come to Participate in the Worship Service (Saishi raikaku setsu 祭祀來格說). But we were frivolous and heedless, lacking true devotion, so that sometimes we managed to talk about having intimate communication with departed spirits. This is making glosses on the “worship service.” Thus we know that the interpretive dreaming of the Han and Tang commentaries is just what is going on today. Since my father and teacher [INABA Usai] died, the learning of the way has declined to this pass! (Wa ga gaku genryū, in Seki 1943)

26

Seiken igen is a compilation of the writings and records of famous loyal ministers in China who were not favored by their times, such as QU Yuan ቸ原, TAO Yuanming 䲦淵明, and WEN Tianxiang 文天⾕, with references to the deeds of other loyal ministers through Chinese history.

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This is somewhat hard to understand if we do not know the works of the three eminent teachers and their content, but basically it is describing a situation in which, because in each lineage the master’s style of learning was adhered to intently, they fell into a kind of commentarial learning that followed only the external forms of each respective master’s teachings. Originally in Ansai’s learning, commentarial scholarship, memorization, or literary composition that forgot the necessity of “personal realization” (tainin 體認, a term of ZHU Xi learning especially emphasized in the Kimon school) of the way of the sages was strictly rejected as “playing with things and losing the will.” This is illustrated bluntly by the episode where a certain student asked the master about a phrase in the commentaries (kunko 訓詁) and Ansai immediately answered, “it’s in the dictionary” (Inaba 1767). But now the school was itself turning toward a kind of commentarial learning. This is a good example of how in intellectual history there is frequently a “turn toward the opposite.” At any rate, it seems that the historical course of the Kimon school was not simply a matter of one continuous line of development that formed a raging river leading up to the bakumatsu period. While it was a large school clearly demarcated from its surroundings, a distinctness that it took as a matter of pride, at the same time it had within it from the start an unlimited internal tendency toward sectarian schism. To state it more precisely, it harbored an ambivalence between uniformity and fragmentation, and existed as a living school only within the posture of that ambivalence. Why is it that such a dynamism was at work within the Kimon school? From the first there were men of extraordinary talent among the various Kimon teachers, like Masters Asami and Satō. However, because they were excessively rigorous in disposition, both the debates and the way of doing things within the school became overly virulent, and there were many cases in which they lost moderation and balance. Adhering rigidly to ZHU Xi’s “Letter to LI Jingzi 李敬子,” Naokata condemned the 46 rōnin of Akō 赤穂 as criminals. Keisai censured MIYAKE Kanran for serving Mito domain, saying that it was not for the sake of the way, and immediately struck Miyake’s name from the register of disciples. Similarly, because of a disagreement with Keisai over when it was right to accept official position, Naokata ended up cutting off his friendship of many years and refused to call on him for the rest of his life. This sort of thing was unknown among the disciples of Confucius and the disciples of ZHU Xi, and it can only be called narrow-minded. (Yōshi hidan 養子鄙斷, in Hiraizumi and Gō 1938: v. 3)

This explanation by ŌHASHI Totsuan 大橋訥庵, blaming the “narrowness” of the Kimon scholars on their “rigorous disposition,” is easy to understand and accept, but actually it is not really an explanation. In virtually all schools one can find internal disagreements because of “disposition.” For instance, direct disciples of OGYŪ Sorai like DAZAI Shundai 太宰春台 were close to having a “rigorous disposition.” Thus Shundai could not get along with the decadent wing of disciples such as HIRANO Kinka 平野金華, and in practice as well he criticized this sort of literati proclivity within his school without end. Nevertheless, in this case nothing like “excommunication” or “severing of relations” appeared, nor did their disagreements become the talk of the town. In the case of the Kimon school, certainly, intense personalities and stern dispositions sufficient to engender all kinds of anecdotes

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about Ansai and his three eminent disciples must certainly have helped precipitate the severing of relations. However, why was it that men who already possessed a closed, exclusive, and intolerant “disposition” happened to flock together in the Kimon school, and why was it that this situation continued to repeat itself, giving rise to the school’s tendency toward factional splits? Would it not be better to approach the situation from the opposite direction, and say that a certain mode of thinking and sensibility inherent to the Ansai school molded those who studied in the school, in varying degrees, toward a certain type of temperament and mode of acting? Let us seek the locus of the problem in the words of the Kimon scholars themselves. Naokata made the following remarks about two kinds of friendship: Among the students in our school, there are those who associate for study, and those who associate because of old acquaintance. Those who associate for study are truly friends in the moral principles of the way (dōgi 道義), and they remain friends for life. Those who associate because of old acquaintance, even though they meet for lectures and read books every day, are not friends in learning who share the same aspiration. Once Master CHENG [Hao] met Master ZHANG [Zai] at the Xingguo Temple 興國寺 and said “In former times, I wonder who talked about this same topic in this same place?” This is what we can call being friends in learning who share the same aspiration. (Unzōroku 2, in NKG 1979 v. 1. Quotation from Jinsilu 14: 20)

That is, the fellow travellers of the Kimon school did not associate with each other directly because of interpersonal connections, but were only friends through the mediation of the “study of the Way,” and that is the way it must be. These are the words of Naokata, who was said to have had a frank and easy-going character compared to Keisai and to have a relaxed attitude toward the etiquette between teacher and student. WAKABAYASHI Kyōsai, while regretting the circumstances of his aforementioned break (dankō 斷交) with Shōsai, replied as follows when his disciple YAMAGUCHI Shunsui offered to mediate between them: Your thoughtfulness in this matter is something in which you had no choice, but it is of no use. Why? Even though I dislike “friend-eating,” it is for the sake of scholarship (gakujutsu 學術) and moral principle (giri 義理). It is because there are points where what I see as giri is different from Miyake that the aforementioned state of affairs has come about. Yet if I were to put aside these points of difference about giri and just associate with him on friendly terms, that would be the same as the friendship of a worldly person who gives no deep thought to matters of principle. (Wakabayashi 1937: 3: leaf 20ウ–21オ).

To disregard giri (what is true and just) and simply continue one’s relationship indiscriminately is to be a “worldly person,” not the proper attitude for a student of the way (dōgaku 道學). Shōsai, although not speaking directly of his problem with Kyōsai, also affirmed the severing of relations as a general principle when it is done for the sake of the way, striking back at the “worldly people” who criticized it: Severing relations with a fellow disciple for matters of principle (gizetsu 義㎅) is indeed something that should be. For those whose association is on the basis of the way, it cannot be otherwise. Even ZHU Xi broke relations with one or two people. Worldly people reprove this, saying that because Master Yamazaki severed relations with people when it was not necessary, those like Keisai and Naokata are always carping about severing relations. But this is something that can be expected to happen naturally. (Miyake: ken)

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INABA Mokusai later wrote the following retrospective discussing the background of these paradigmatic splits in the school: The falling out between Ansai and Naokata began over the interpretation of the phrase “reverence to straighten the internal and moral duty to square the external,” but in reality the disagreement was over the doctrinal blending (shūgō 習合) [of Confucianism and Shinto]. The break between Asami and Satō was because they revered different things. This can be seen by looking at the books they compiled. The break between Miyake and Wakabayashi, although it began with their understanding of the “Great Norm” chapter of the Book of History, was also in the last analysis because of [Wakabayashi’s] taking the side of Shinto. All five of these gentlemen [broke relations] for reasons of scholarly lineage (gakumyaku 學脈). Later scholars often fell out with one another because of personal animosities. This should be considered disgraceful. (Inaba 1891)

In this sort of Kimon school explanation, one cannot say for certain that there is no self-justification based on embellishment of the actual circumstances. After all, can one really distinguish so clearly between friendship based on giri or scholarly lineage on the one hand and friendship based on “relationships” (enko 㐓故) on the other? Conversely, were these cases of the severing of relations purely due to “scholarly lineage,” with no admixture of emotional elements? As a case in point, Mokusai admits that the situation between Keisai and Naokata was aggravated by the insults thrown out by the disciples on both sides on the basis of their preconceptions, especially by those who had never even met the other teacher. But that is only to say that here, too, such seamy dimensions of interpersonal relations are operating, which is, as it were, a self-evident matter. The problem, rather, lies in the relative weight occupied by scholarly principles and moral principles (giri) within the interpersonal relations of the Kimon school. An admixture of emotional problems does not necessarily contradict the importance of the role of scholarly principles. Rather, in certain cases, just because of the strength of commitment to the “way,” human loves and hates may become more intense. Of course, there is a certain precondition that must be satisfied before interpersonal relations mediated by the way and by scholarly concerns will produce a tendency toward the “severing of relations.” This is, above all, the thesis that “there is only one truth.” This thesis itself has been put forward by almost all religions in the East and West in modem as well as ancient times, and it is not unusual as a position in the halls of learning. Yet even in the case of religious faith, where in the absence of theological systematization a number of different interpretations of one truth arise, in many cases it does not go so far as to produce a schism. However, if this thesis is carried consistently through every single phrase and every single category of the “system,” then the one truth will be split up infinitely, so that it will harbor a tendency toward infinite differentiation (ika 異化). If one speaks of this as a problem in the realm of scholarship, where a settlement regarding the truth or falsehood of a proposition is reached through a procedure of verification that accords with scientific “convention,” as in the case of mathematics or natural science, then in principle interpersonal relations do not play a role. Even in the social sciences, in the consciousness of the researcher, one’s own personality is from the beginning separated from the object of research, and in those cases where one cannot generally consider

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a situation where the result of cognition flows back into the mode of being or mode of living of the subject of the cognition, then of course all matters remain events in the world outside of the self. Accordingly, even if a dispute arises premised on the existence of “one truth,” the discussion will proceed smoothly as a discussion of “differences of opinion” regarding the object. However, even in empirical science, if there is a common awareness that this proposition is founded on a “worldview,” then the whole of one’s own personality is also on the line. Therefore, it seems we cannot confine differences of cognition entirely to the realm of events in the “external world.” Disputes regarding doctrine or ideology, not being amenable to empirical verification, are inevitably charged with a sort of magnetic force that totally draws in the human beings or the groups of human beings that are involved. These disputes may be shrunken in stature by the intellectual or moral level of the participants, which may give them an ugly aspect. However, anyone who simply ridicules doctrinal or ideological controversies as appalling or absurd, or believes that he has no connection with such bothersome problems, can only be someone insensitive to what “worldviews” are all about. It is the task of the person who thinks systematically not to turn his eyes from this desolate scene, but to consider how to control the pathology that accompanies this sort of magnetic force. Confucianism, needless to say, is an ideological system centered on the cultivation of the self and the governing of others, and it is also a system of learning. Therefore, in its very essence, it is not able to limit itself merely to the cognition of objective realities, but has a character that bridges both knowledge and action. Thus when Song Neo-Confucianism sharply separated itself from the exegetical Confucianism of the Han and Tang dynasties and constructed an elaborate system of metaphysics, it exhibited all of the conditions of dynamism of the sort of struggle over worldviews referred to above. It is well known that the Neo-Confucian scholarship of the Northern Song gave rise to virulent and majestic philosophical controversies from the Southern Song onward. Of course, the forms and the degree of factional struggle in China and Yi dynasty Korea, with the meritocratic examination system and bureaucratic system in the background, were different than they were under the bakuhan 幕藩 system of Tokugawa Japan. However, on the other hand, just because Cheng-Zhu learning was systematized as the single truth known as the “way of the sages,” when Japanese scholars attempted to commit themselves body and soul to this total world view imported from China, they were confronted with difficult national identity problems (shisō mondai 思想問題) of a nature that could not have arisen for scholars in China or Korea. These problems, of course, were not faced only by the Ansai school. However, even if other schools studied the same system of ZHU Xi thought, if their study did not to the same degree reflect back to the subject as a total self-discipline of personal conduct, then the commitment to the “single truth” and the multivalence of interpretation born from the permeation of this single truth into all of the particular aspects of the system did not express itself in the form of acute internal opposition in the way it did within the Ansai school. One would expect, rather, that they would be able take the scholastic logic and

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categories of the Cheng-Zhu school on the level of knowledge or information and pride themselves on their “broad learning.” In fact, this was the general character of Shushigaku as represented by the Hayashi school. In that case, it appears that the saying “the obsequiousness of the Hayashi school, the severing of relations of the Kimon school” actually captured these two polar opposite types of approach to the same system of learning and doctrine in a far deeper sense than those who repeated the saying were likely aware of. UETA Gensetsu 植田玄節 was a scholar who played a role on one side in the excommunication (hamon 破門) of Naokata and Keisai, and he is said to have been both a “loyal retainer” and a “treacherous retainer” of Ansai (Ōtsuka 1934a: 1:17ウ, 18 ウ). At the time of the incident, Gensetsu sent a notice of breaking off relations to Naokata and Keisai, and because of his strong leaning toward Shinto, he eventually became estranged from Shōsai as well. When KARASAKI Genmei 唐崎彦明, a disciple of Shōsai, met Gensetsu’s adopted son and successor, Isuke 伊助, Isuke said to him by way of warning: I hear that you study under a fellow named MIYAKE Shōsai. Shōsai used to be good friends with Asami and Satō. Naokata was crafty, and Keisai was foolish. Shōsai was also probably led astray by them. Why don’t you quickly change your plans and study with the orthodox Ansai lineage?

Genmei straightened his countenance and replied: The orthodox Ansai lineage can be known quite well by studying the regulations of his school and his collected teachings, the Bunkai hitsuroku. What need do I have for your superfluous comments?

With this, he “then ceased from further meetings” with Isuke (all quotations from Inaba 1767). Once again, a breaking off of relations. Incidentally, KARASAKI Genmei was the author of a book critiquing the Sorai school, called A Critical Examination of Sorai Learning (Butsugaku benshō 物學辨證). Further, Isuke’s comment that “Naokata was crafty and Keisai was foolish” follows the descriptions of the two masters given by his foster father Gensetsu in his works On Rebelling against One’s School (Hanmonron 叛門論) and A Critique of the Biography of Master Yamazaki by MIZUTARI Yasunao 批水足安直 (Yamazaki sensei gyōjitsu 山崎先生行實), which relate the “true circumstances” of their respective excommunications (Ōtsuka 1934a: 001). In the above exchange between Isuke and Genmei, which ended in their severing relations, the word “the orthodox Ansai lineage (seitō 正統)” happens to be expressed as the core of the issue. What is the “orthodox lineage” of the Ansai school? This question itself is the pivot that defined from within the learning style of the Kimon school discussed at such length above, with its ambiguity between uniformity and differentiation. And it was the motive power underneath the endlessly advancing exclusiveness within the school surrounding commitment to the “single truth.” This question involved both the orthodoxy of the Ansai school as the correct transmission of the Cheng-Zhu line of Neo-Confucianism, and the orthodox transmission within the Ansai school itself.

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Doctrinal Orthodoxy vs. Political Legitimacy

When KARASAKI Genmei and UETA Isuke argued, both of them using the concept of Ansai’s “orthodox lineage” (seitō 正統), it was not that this expression just happened to occur to them. This word seitō appears frequently in the Ansai school, in almost the same meaning as “the principle of leaming” or the “orthodox lineage of the way” (dōtō 道統). To give two or three examples, this is the “orthodox line” referred to when SATŌ Naokata criticized ITō Jinsai, as in the following passage: “ZHU Xi was the one person since Confucius, and a great scholar of the orthodox tradition of the learning of the way. Those who have criticized him are merely common men—twisted Confucians and men of worldly learning since the Yuan and Ming dynasties (Distinguishing the Overgrowth to be Pruned [Basshinbu ben 跋蓁蕪辨], in Unzōroku 2, NKG 1979 v. 1). In INABA Usai’s “Talks on Learning” (Gakuwa 學話) as well, we find the passage: At any rate, the dispelling of heterodoxy by those who take responsibility for the way is something rightful and necessary that accords with the norms of heavenly principle. To think that it is like the arguments between different schools of geisha and make mild and meek statements is a despicable view. In the equitable and upright heart of the sages and worthies, there are no biases like in the case of the ordinary person, yet to take a lot of trouble like looking after the young is just like a doctor who has made a wrong diagnosis and says, “It is not that I had the desire to do so, but just that I made a small misjudgment.” In the case of an important patient one does not use that medicine. The purpose of the eludication of orthodoxy by the four masters of the Northern Song was also in this…. Scholars who are concerned enough to take up responsibility for the moral standards of the world must discriminate this very clearly.27 (Inaba Usai, item 2)

Again, there was WAKABAYASHI Kyōsai’s response to YAMAGUCHI Shunsui’s statement that, though he had been bothered by doubts about such lines in the Mencius as, “I have heard about the execution of an ordinary man named Zhòu, but not of the murder of a king,” he finally realized that Mencius “fully inherited the tradition of the Way passed down from Yao and Shun and was totally in accord with Confucius.” Kyōsai replied: “As you say, compared with the likes of Confucius and YAN Hui, this can hardly be in the same category, but be that as it may, the orthodox lineage (seitō) of the school of Confucius does run through it” (Wakabayashi 1937: 巻2: leaf 22 オ toウ). WATANABE Yosai’s 渡邊豫齋 The Origins of Our Learning (Wa ga gaku genryū 吾學源流), in criticizing Kyōsai’s sobriquet of Bōnan, states: Why has Wakabayashi always taken the correct and complete as his standard? Is the transmission of the learning of the way really like that? I have private doubts as to whether he has insight into the substance of the way. Nevertheless, Ansai’s doctrinal amalgamation and Keisai’s Immortal Words of Acquiescent Self-dedication both represent a gradual trend which has finally brought us to this…. Both OGINO Hiroshige’s 荻野祐重 slighting of Keisai and Miyake’s censure of Wakabayashi are both only the defending of the orthodox line of Cheng and Zhu. (Seki 1943: v. 2). 27

Because of the problem of logical coherence, the translation of the metaphor of the physician is slightly tentative, especially the physician’s hypothetical statement, which is partly indecipherable. (tr.)

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Setting aside the question of the validity of this view in terms of content, the term seitō is here being used in precisely the same way as in the previous examples. What all of these cases have in common is that a certain doctrine or principle of learning is first taken as premise, and on that basis the “correct lineage” of this particular learning or ideology is discussed. That is to say, one can say that the concept of seitō corresponds almost exactly to the European concept of “orthodoxy.” If that was all there was to it, the matter would look quite simple. However, what about the following use of the same concept of seitō? When ZHU Xi compiled the Elementary Learning, he gave priority to the love between father and son. But when Ansai compiled Abbreviated Transcription of ZHU Xi’s Writings (Shu sho shōryaku 朱書抄略), he gave priority to the moral duty between lord and vassal. This is followed in Keisai’s later work, Immortal Words. Even though Keisai continued Ansai’s intent, Ansai’s mind was not so narrow. Even though the followers of Wakabayashi expounded Keisai’s theory of correct lineage (seitō), Keisai’s learning did not believe like them in the mediums and sorcerers. What a pitiful decline! How can one not give careful thought to this sorry state of affairs? (INABA Mokusai 1891: 巻1).

What is being argued here is that: (1) Ansai reversed ZHU Xi’s order of the ethical relationships between father and son and lord and vassal; (2) although Keisai’s Immortal Words expounded this point of view of Ansai, it exhibits a more narrow perspective than Ansai; and (3) further, by the time we get to the sub-school from Keisai’s disciple Kyōsai, its Shintoistic side has already fallen into shamanistic superstition. As I will discuss later, the thesis that the factor (keiki) of a small deviation at the beginning will become enlarged with historical development until it exhibits a manifest heterodox nature is an argument that has often been used in East and West by those claiming to stand for orthodoxy. However, the problem at hand is not the validity of Mokusai’s argument. What is more interesting is the phrase “expounded Keisai’s theory of correct lineage.” “Theory of correct lineage” in this case does not refer to the orthodoxy of Keisai’s teaching. Concretely, it is the exaltation of Japan’s “single imperial line” monarchic system that was promoted strongly in Keisai’s works Immortal Words and Reading Notes (Satsuroku ࢴ錄)—the same “correct lineage” as that spoken of in KITABATAKE Chikafusa’s Record of the Legitimate Succession of the Divine Sovereigns (Jinnō shōtōki 神皇正統記). In Kitabatake’s case, the ideological connection of this line with the ZHU Xi school’s theory of “great duty in accord with name and status” (taigi meibun)28 is not 28

Taigi meibun (C. dayi mingfen) literally means “great duty, name and status.” “Name” here refers to the five fundamental human relationships that determine ethical duties, beginning with the rulerminister (lord-vassal; ruler-subject) relationship and the father-son relationship, and “bun” (status, duty, portion) refers to the responsibilities and roles that are incumbent upon those relationships respectively. In serving one’s ruler as a minister or official, history forms the major basis of deciding what is right action. The concept of taigi meibun originates in the Spring and Autumn Annals history, thought to have been edited by Confucius with an eye to moral evaluation. SIMA Guang’s Comprehensive Mirror for the Aid of Government (Zizhi tongjian), and ZHU Xi’s Outline of that work were attempts to inherit that tradition and clarify the meaning of loyal action in China’s later history. Needless to say, in times of disorder, of the presence of more than one claimant to the legitimacy of rule, or of foreign invasion, the determination of what is or was truly loyal action could become very complicated, as it did in bakumatsu Japan. (tr.)

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necessarily clear. In Keisai’s case, however, the “theory of correct lineage” developed by ZHU Xi in his Outline of the Comprehensive Mirror is taken as the theoretical model, and, with the theory of the distinction between civilization vs. barbarism (or our country vs. alien countries) in the background, the idea was emphasized that, even according to the standards of the ZHU Xi school, the Japanese political tradition is superior to that of China. That is to say, we are here confronted with a concept of “correct lineage” on another level. In the latter sense, the concept is not an argument about the propagation or explication-as-truth of a certain inherited doctrine or ideology. In Chinese history, it was the argument over whether imperial succession or changes of dynasties had been carried out “with the correct pedigree” or by illegal and improper usurpation or rebellion, and further the problem of whether a dynasty that began by usurpation should be considered “legitimate” (seitō) if it manifested the “actual” ability to unify China, or whether such legitimacy should only be granted to rulers or dynasties that preserved the “name” of legitimacy, even if they had lost “actual” ruling power by being driven out of the heartland of China. The Song dynasty saw a vigorous inquiry into the concept of correct lineage, represented not only by SIMA Guang’s Comprehensive Mirror (Zizhi tongjian 資治通鑒) and ZHU Xi’s Outline, but also by writings on the problem by such scholars as OUYANG Xiu 歐陽修, SU Dongpo 蘇東坡, LIU Yan 劉弇, CHEN Shidao 陳師道, and BI Zhongyou 畢仲遊. In all cases, it was the latter meaning of “correct lineage” that they were concerned with. This theory of correct lineage can be considered as one expression of that problem referred to in political science and sociology as “the legitimacy of rule,” i.e., the problem of giving qualifications to a specific ruler or ruling system such that it is able to procure the obedience of the ruled without relying solely on violence. At the beginning of the Meiji Restoration, in An Outline of a Theory of Civilization (Fukuzawa 1875), vol. 1, FUKUZAWA Yukichi wrote: In a state there is something called [in English] “political legitimation.” “Political” means [related to] government. “Legitimation” means orthodox (seitō 正統) or of true pedigree. Here I will translate it provisionally as “political lineage” (seitō 政統). What it means is the true pedigree of government such that, when that government is carried out in a state, it will he accepted by the whole people of that state.29

It is a shame that Fukuzawa’s apt translation of this concept did not catch on as a word. At any event, in order to avoid confusion between the two meanings of seitō, for convenience I will henceforth refer to the problem of orthodoxy revolving around a doctrine or worldview as “O-orthodoxy,” and the problem of the orthodoxy (legitimacy) of a ruler or system of rule as “L-orthodoxy.”30 In Chinese, the opposite of O-orthodoxy—that which is premised on the truthvalue of a doctrine or world view—is called “aberrant learning” (yixue 異學 igaku), 29

The above is this translator’s literal translation. An interestingly different translation of this passage can be found in Fukuzawa 2008: 31. 30 The problem labelled here as “L-orthodoxy” is not limited to the theory of “correct lineage” as defined in the narrow sense by Jinnō shōtōki, but it includes that theory as one answer to the problem of political legitimacy.

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“strange doctrines” (yiduan 異端 itan), “aberrant teachings” (yijiao 異教 ikyō), or “twisted theories” (xieshuo 邪說 jasetsu), where the characters yi/i (different) and xie/ja (incorrect) have a strong connotation of “strange,” “alien,” “dangerous,” and, in the case of xie/ja at least, evil or perverse. Let us consider these words in comparison with the English words that are the opposite of “orthodoxy”—“heresy and “heterodoxy.” Yiduan, for instance, appears first in Analects 2/16. As shown in ZHU Xi’s explanation of this passage as referring to “something which is not the way of the sages but has been constituted as another system of teaching, such as the teachings of YANG Zhu 楊朱 and MO Zi 墨子” (Zhu 1985), it includes not only heresy in the narrow sense, but also “alien teachings” (“paganism” in traditional Christian vocabulary) such as Buddhism. However, as the consciousness of orthodoxy became exacerbated in the history of Confucianism, the word came to be used for “the heterodoxy within our own school,” corresponding precisely to the English word “heresy.” In substance, also, the weight came to be put more on “dispelling heresy” (pixie 闢邪 hija). In the Kimon school, as well, the same situation pertained. On the other hand, in the history of Confucianism, the opposite of L-orthodoxy (legitimacy) was not, at least in the first order of priority, yiduan (“heterodoxy”) and yijiao (“aberrant teachings”). In Song learning, frequently used terms included “the lineage of the hegemons” (batong 霸統 hatō), “the irregular line” (runtong 閏統 juntō), “illegitimate deception” (jianwei 僭偽 sengi), and “rebellious usurpation” (cuanzei 竄賊 sanzoku). I shall not enter into a discussion of these various terms here, but it should be immediately clear that all of them are related to changes in the ruler or ruling system. In short, the question of correct lineage on the level of L-orthodoxy is a problem that arose in the realm of political history or political philosophy within Confucian learning, particularly within Song Neo-Confucianism. In the editorial preface to the Complete Works of SATŌ Naokata (SATŌ Naokata zenshū 佐藤直方全集) published in 1941 by the Japan Society for Classical Studies (Nihon Koten Gakkai 日本古典學會), we find the following words: If we look broadly at the Kimon school today, it generally takes the Keisai branch as the correct lineage, giving impassioned lectures on his Immortal Words of Acquiescent Selfdedication, worshiping Nankō 楠公 [KUSUNOKI Masashige 楠木正成], and believing that thus they have captured the quintessence of the Kimon learning. But I cannot help wondering secretly if such is really the tradition of the Kimon school. The theory of correct lineage is noble. But does this represent the whole of the Kimon learning?

Of course, the passage “takes the Keisai branch as the correct lineage” is referring to O-orthodoxy in the sense of “regarding the Keisai branch as the correct lineage of Ansai learning.” But if we do not take the later passage “the theory of correct lineage is noble” as referring to the theory of dynastic legitimacy, i.e., L-orthodoxy, then the phrase “does this represent the whole of the Kimon learning” makes no sense. It is not clear to what extent the author of this preface was aware of the distinction and the relationship between the two levels of the concept of “correct lineage.” However, the fact that both usages of the word happen to appear in this short passage discussing the Kimon learning is not without interest. For there are extremely deep implications in dismissing this problem as a confusion of words.

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The fact that O-orthodoxy and L-orthodoxy are concepts on different levels that refer to different subjects or different concerns does not mean that they are unrelated. On the contrary, these two “correct lineage” problems have always been intertwined in various ways within religions, doctrines, and worldviews in both East and West. In the history of Christianity as well, which regarded both the teachings “my kingdom is not of this world” and “give to Caesar what belongs to Caesar” as its essence, doctrinal conflicts concerning O-orthodoxy—conflicts that in themselves were concerned with apolitical doctrines—were transformed into political struggles or even international religious wars. At such times, when specific political powers adopted Christianity as their ideological support, it was inevitable that conflicts on the level of O-orthodoxy would become intermingled with those on the level of L-orthodoxy. This was even more so when secular powers made Christianity or a certain Christian sect into a “state religion,” as in the case of Caesaropapism. In the case of Islam, where the idea of the unity of government and religion was incorporated into religious doctrine, the interrelation and intermingling of the two types of “orthodoxy” were bound to appear in an even higher degree. What about the case of our present subject of inquiry, Confucianism? Confucianism, in the last analysis, was always a system of learning for the purpose of “governing the state and bringing peace to the realm.” Thus, even more than for any of the other major world religions, O-orthodoxy and L-orthodoxy were tied together by internal necessity. I have taken the trouble to distinguish between the two levels of orthodoxy precisely because of my belief that, in order to see the structural connection they possess in Confucianism, it is first necessary to acknowledge their difference of level. Even Song Neo-Confucianism, with its majestic system of cosmology and its great emphasis on the “self-cultivation” pole of the bipolar system of cultivating self and ruling others, is by no means an exception. Both the animated controversy within Song learning over which of the three kingdoms—Wu, Shu, or Wei—had inherited the “legitimate mantle” (zhengtong 正統) of the Han royal house and the controversy over the criteria of legitimacy that was tied in with the study of the Spring and Autumn Annals arose on the background of a very recent and very worrisome political situation: the pressure exerted on China by the northern “barbarian” dynasties such as the Liao and Jin during the transition between the Northern Song and the Southern Song. All the same, the “theory of correct lineage” of the ZHU Xi school was something constructed as one link in its total world view, transcending this sort of direct political motivation. In his work An Elucidation of the Outline of the Comprehensive Mirror for Aid in Government (Zizhi tongjian gangmu faming 資治通鑒綱目發明), YIN Qixin 尹起莘 (Song dynasty) spoke of the spirit of ZHU Xi’s Outline in the following terms: Of its great constant principles and great laws—such as respecting ruler and father and suppressing rebels, revering the correct lineage [meaning L-orthodoxy] and suppressing false usurpation, … revering the Middle Kingdom and despising barbarians—there are none that are not connected to the greatness of the three bonds and the five constants. (Yin 1995)

That is, the establishment of correct learning was considered an indispensable task for the grounding of the L-orthodoxy of the dynasty as well. On this premise,

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to borrow the terms of the ZHU Xi school of the Qing dynasty, in the line running through the ancient rulers Yao, Shun, Yu, Tang, Wen, and Wu there is an inherent coherence of the two sides of the concept of “correct line”—the lineage of learning (xuetong 學統 gakutō) and the lineage of rule (zhitong 治統 chitō), but there is a perception of a lack of this coherence in the development from the Spring and Autumn through the Warring States periods.31 When the “lineage of learning” is lost and heterodoxies run rampant, the “lineage of rule” becomes confused, resulting in a continuous succession of rebellions and usurpations. Therefore, it was a fundamental conviction at the root of the Cheng-Zhu school that to stabilize the disordered, disunited realm and rectify the morals of the world, it was first necessary to elucidate the orthodox transmission of the way by dispelling heresy in the realm of thought and world view. The fact that, in Reflections on Things at Hand, the chapter called “Distinguishing Heterodoxy” (bian yiduan 辨異端) was placed just before the concluding chapter also reflects this belief. And ever since Ansai, in his maiden work, Dispelling Heterodoxy (Hii 闢異), proclaimed, “The myriad words and phrases of the school of Cheng and Zhu have no other intention than to lead scholars to preserve the correct way and reject heterodoxy,” the scholars of the Kimon school, each in faithfulness to the spirit of their teacher, wagered the very raison d’être of their school to grapple with the intellectual task thrown upon them by “orthodoxy” in both of its meanings, attempting to pursue this orthodoxy completely within the context of Japan’s history and cultural climate.

13.4

The Universality of the Way vs. the Particularity of Japan

The principal heterodoxies that Ansai had in mind in Dispelling Heterodoxy in this point as well precisely follow the Cheng-Zhu school in China, consisting of the schools of YANG Zhu, Mozi 墨子, the Daoists, and particularly Buddhism. And, as was the case for early-modern Japanese Confucianism in general, Buddhism continued to be known within the Kimon school by the name “heterodoxy” (itan). However, from the Genroku 元禄 period (1688–1703) onward, when the direct disciples of Ansai were active, heresies of a sort that Ansai probably never imagined— the Jinsai school and then the Sorai school—arose at a rapid pace. The Ansai school, with its keen consciousness of orthodoxy, naturally had to turn the blade of its “dispelling heterodoxy” against them. Buddhism, from which Ansai had struggled so hard to free himself in his youth, was already, for Keisai, nothing more than an ideology that could be driven off with one kick. “Someone asked, ‘What about the heterodoxy known as Buddhism?’ [Keisai] answered, ‘If you know the way of the sages, it is something that does not even merit talking about. It is a ridiculous thing.’” 31 See XIONG Huanchuan ➺⫠川, The Lineage of Learning (Xuetong 學統) (Kangxi 24, i.e., 1685), juan 卷53, esp. the preface of WANG Xinming 王新命.

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In its place, Keisai wrote a work that refuted, point by point, ITō Jinsai’s work A Proof that the Great Learning Was Not Written by Confucius (Daigaku hi Kōshi no isho ben 大學非孔氏之遺書辨), as well as another work critiquing Jinsai’s The Meanings of the Words in the Analects and Mencius (Gomō jigi 語孟字義). (Incidentally, as UETA Gensetsu mentions teasingly in connection with the excommunication incident, Keisai was a convert from the Jinsai school). Even Naokata, whose easy-going and unrestrained character (at first glance similar to Sorai) was often contrasted with Keisai’s severe disposition, was no less vehement in his defense of orthodoxy and denunciation of heterodoxy than Keisai and Kyōsai. Naokata wrote the following of Jinsai: Jinsai directly denounces Cheng and Zhu, professing himself to be the heir to the orthodox line (seimyaku 正脈) from Confucius and Mencius. If so, how does he view himself? He even went so far as to get the stamp of approval of the heterodox Indophiles, to the great delight of both sides. What a decline of the learning of the sages! I have looked at his works A Proof that the Great Learning Was Not Written by Confucius and The Meanings of Words in the Analects and Mencius, and he does not even understand the literal meaning of the Great Learning, the Analects, and the Mencius. How could he judge the validity of their underlying principles? To criticize the teachings of Cheng and Zhu on the basis of such a shallow understanding is the height of audacity. (Unzōroku 1, in NKG 1979, v. 1).

In his postscript, he quotes the famous saying of Mencius that “He who is able to speak so as to refute YANG Zhu and Mozi is a disciple of the sages,” comparing himself to Mencius in his fervor to refute heretical doctrines. Truly, the struggle against heterodoxy had turned into a struggle over the “orthodox bloodline from Confucius and Mencius,” and moreover into a struggle against “the heterodoxies within our own ranks” who were born in Japan. A Critique of the Sorai School (Hi Soraigaku 非徂徠學), by KANI Yōsai 蟹養齋, was probably the first work which proclaimed in its very title the intent to offer a counter-critique to Sorai. And Yōsai was an unalloyed follower of the Kimon school, in the line of MIYAKE Shōsai. In the writings of the Kimon school published around the Genbun and Hōreki periods (1736–64), the shadow of the Jinsai and Sorai schools is visible everywhere. The “of itself” (an sich) orthodoxy of Ansai’s learning could not avoid being transfigured into the “for itself” (für sich) orthodoxy of the Ansai school. Even so, the Kimon school was able to turn its spearheads and beat its drums in unison against the deviations or departures from the way of the sages represented by the WANG Yangming school and Japanese Ancient Learning. However, the premise inherent in the conception of orthodoxy that holds that “truth is one,” through the sort of dynamism we have seen above, came to be reflected back within the Kimon school as a questioning of the orthodoxy in Ansai’s teaching. Since this question was brought forth in every aspect of Ansai’s teaching, as a possibility it was split up according to the various fine categories of the interpretation of the Cheng-Zhu teachings, and no sect of the Kimon school was able to escape it. However, no matter what we say, the greatest problematic regarding the orthodoxy (O-orthodoxy) of Ansai’s teachings was in their encounter with Shinto, especially in the fact that they gave rise to the doctrine known as Suika Shintō. Here, as well, the point at issue was deeply connected with L-orthodoxy, but to avoid confusion, I will first discuss

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it by focusing on the reception of the Cheng-Zhu teachings as a worldview—a thought system that gives meaning to the universe, society, and the self. In this case, if one cites only the thesis of the congruence of Shinto and Confucianism, this is hardly something that can be called a special characteristic of the Kimon school. This was a position seen widely in Edo Confucianism in general, beginning with HAYASHI Razan 林羅山 and going through scholars such as NAKAE Tōju 中江藤樹, KAIBARA Ekken 貝原益軒, KUMAZAWA Banzan 熊澤蕃山, and YAMAGA Sokō 山鹿素行. It is actually quite difficult to find scholars who, like MURO Kyūsō, argued clearly against this congruence theory. On the other hand, within doctrinal Shinto as well—as can plainly be seen in the development from Ryōbu Shintō 両部神道 to Ise Shintō 伊勢神道, Yoshida Shintō 吉田神道, and Yoshikawa Shintō 吉川神道—the transition from the medieval period to the early modem period was a process of switching the object of “doctrinal amalgamation” (shūgō) from Buddhism to Confucianism. If there is something that distinguishes the encounter with Shinto within the Kimon school from the above-mentioned “mutual fraternization” of Confucianism and Shinto from both sides, then it is to be found not so much in the scriptures and various oral traditions of Shinto—in that aspect, the continuity of Suika Shintō with its predecessors in doctrinal Shinto is strong, and one can say that the full-scale compilation and certification of scriptures was begun after the death of Ansai—but in the point that it confronted without flinching the task of fulfilling the demand for universality and totality implicit within the conception of orthodoxy, as well as the question of how far this demand could also be realized in the “faith-truths” of Shinto. How can the way of the sages and the Shinto of Japan coexist as “one truth?” As a rule there were no words as much loathed in the Kimon school as “eclectic faith” (zasshin 雜信) and “doctrinal amalgamation.” This was true not only among the Confucian wing of the “three eminent teachers,” who either rejected Shinto or refused to enter deeply into it, but within the Suika lineage as well. KATō Shōan 加 藤章庵, who is classified with the Shinto-Confucian dual-learning branch of the Kimon school, wrote (in kanbun) in his Code for Elementary Learning (Shogaku shikimoku 初學式目), In learning, to guard against miscellaneous learning; in books, to guard against miscellaneous books; in making friends, to guard against miscellaneous people; in talking, to guard against miscellaneous talk; in affairs, to guard against miscellaneous tasks; in the mind, to guard against miscellaneous thoughts. This is the formula for entering the true Confucian learning. (Ōtsuka 1934b: 1: leaf 33ウ).

This quotation can truly serve as a symbol of the puritanism of the Kimon school. However, the same book says, “Shinto is the Confucianism of Japan, and Confucianism is the Shinto of China.” Even if one does not make the interchangeability of Confucianism and Shinto into such a total proposition, Keisai reported that the dictum, “the Book of Changes is China’s Book of the Age of the Gods, and the Book of the Age of the Gods is Japan’s Book of Changes,” was a frequent saying of Ansai (Wakabayashi 1937: 5: leaf 7オ). In this case what is important is that, unlike the proposition of HAYASHI Razan (1583–1657) and others that Shinto is the

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Kingly Way (ōdō 王道), there is the premise that the Book of the Age of the Gods or “Shinto” speaks uniquely about the unique (dokuji 独自) way of Japan, and the Book of Changes or the Confucian classics speak uniquely about the way of China, that neither has been borrowed or imported from the other. That is, there is a pure Shinto and a pure Confucianism (the latter meaning, concretely, the Cheng-Zhu teachings), and in content the two are conceived of as flowing together in the universal “one truth” through a “marvelous correspondence” (miaoqi 妙契 myōkei), a mysterious agreement or congruence, not a forced analogy. Ansai wrote that, The one and only principle of the universe is sacred life. Although there are differences between the land where the sun rises and the land where the sun sets, yet in the way of each there exists something that, of its own accord, marvelously corresponds. This is something that we human beings should revere and reflect upon deeply. (Kōhan zensho 洪範全書, in NKG 1978, v. 1).

It is precisely this theory of “marvelous correspondence” that was the ground for the coexistence in the Ansai school of both the strict denunciation of “eclectic faith” and “doctrinal amalgamation” on the one hand, and the positive defense of or acceptance of Shinto as the “way of Japan” on the other. Of course, the subjective rejection of doctrinal amalgamation is a different matter than the question of whether, objectively speaking, there is doctrinal amalgamation within the teaching. With regard to the passage in the Japanese creation mythology where the god Izanagi cuts the god Kagutsuchi into five sections, in Lectures on the Book of the Age of the Gods (Jindai no maki kōgi 神代卷講義), Ansai had written: There is an impulse to say “Ah, this is the same as the five in the River Chart and the Luo Writing.”32 This is just the same as the doctrinal mixing of Ryōbu [Shintō], and it is a bad thing…. It is not a matter of making such forced analogies. It may say this and it may say that in the Confucian books, but it doesn’t make any difference: the way of Japan’s age of the gods is still just the way it is. (Yamazaki 1979, v. 1, and Taira 1972: 143, 145).

But no matter how much Ansai did his best to argue against forced analogies, as in the first quotation, or argued for the independence of Shinto from Confucianism, as in the second, his argument that his correspondences based on phonetic similarity were not “forced analogies” lacked persuasiveness even in the Edo period. In Ansai’s work just quoted above, for example, the god Kashikone is equated with kashikomi (deep awe and respect), the tightening up of the soil (tsuchi shimaru) that produces metal is equated with tsutsushimi (reverence), and so on (see de Bary et al. 2005: 88–89). This type of correspondence, tying the cosmological to the ethical, appears frequently in Suika Shintō, and is already seen in a text by Ansai of 1671 (Kanbun 11) called Fuji no mori yuzue mandokoro ki 藤森弓兵政所記. It did not necessarily have to wait for MOTOORI Norinaga’s 本居宣長 and HIRATA Atsutane’s 平田篤胤 vilifications of the Sinitic “forced analogies” in Suika Shintō before 32

According to the Book on Changes and the Hongfan (Great Norm) chapter of the Book of History, the River Chart 河圖 was found on the back of a dragon-horse that emerged from the Yellow River in the time of FU Xi Կ㗢, and became the basis of the eight trigrams, and the Luo Writing ⍋書 was found on the back of a sacred tortoise that emerged from the Luo River in the time of Yu the Great 大⿩, and became the basis of the nine divisions of the Hongfan. (tr.)

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people could see through the likening of Amaterasu with the ancient Chinese sage rulers Yao and Shun based on the idea that they were respectively the founders of “the way,” or of the god Sarutahiko with Confucius, based on the idea that both were the founders of “teaching”.33 The leading Kimon scholars, who were trained in the subtle metaphysics of the Cheng-Zhu school, could hardly have been unaware of the weakness of this sort of Shinto theology. Rather, the fact that their doubts did not surface until the incident of Ansai’s excommunication of Naokata and Keisai seems to have been because, ironically, precisely from his position of rejecting eclectic faith, Ansai was clearly separating the two “ways” in his lectures and explanations of doctrine. TANI Shinzan 谷秦山 said: “When Master Ansai talks of Confucian books, he says not a word about Shinto. When he talks about Shinto, he says not a word about Confucian books. It is as if one was in a different seat and hearing the words of a different man” (Tani 1716). As this comment suggests, Ansai was implementing a kind of “separation of usage” whereby, while he assigned the study of Cheng and Zhu to his Shinto disciples as a sort of compulsory course, he did not compel those who were “majoring” in Confucianism to audit his lectures on Shinto. One can only guess what Ansai’s inner psychological state was at such times. However, in his final years, it appears to be a fact that while this format was maintained, his Shinto disciples had suddenly come to occupy the seats of honor at his lectures on Cheng-Zhu learning (i.e., his lectures for both Shinto and Confucian students). This is suggested by Shōsai’s comment, “Before, Master Ansai used to put those like Keisai and Naokata in the seats of honor. Since they began to say this and that about Shinto they have been relegated to the lower seats. This shows the error in his emphasis on Shinto.” And, independently from this, lNABA Usai reports another instance of Naokata’s characteristic sarcasm in his observation that: “Master Yamazaki’s Shinto has been thriving, and his Shinto disciples have been placed in the seats of honor, while those who obtained Shinto initiation are in the lower seats (sueza, matsuza 末座).34 Master Naokata said: ‘Today, too, there were a lot of idiots sitting in the seats of honor!’” Keisai and Naokata were not so mean-spirited as to get into an overblown argument over something as trifling as seating order, but the above episode tells us something about how, without destroying the principle of rejecting mixed faith, Ansai gave more weight to the Shinto wing of his school in his later years. It also serves as counterevidence against those who argue that, in view of the fact that when Naokata and Keisai became Ansai’s disciples Ansai had already received Shinto initiation 33

According to the mythology recorded in the Kojiki and Nihon shoki, the earth deity Sarutahiko met Ninigi no Mikoto at the “eight-way fork in the road” when he descended from heaven to earth to found the Japanese state and proceeded to lead Ninigi’s way. In the Nihon shoki he is taken as the god of actors and the god of the crossroads. (tr.) 34 The withdrawal of initiates to the lower seats symbolizes the difference between the Confucian and Shinto styles of learning and teaching. In the case of Confucianism, since learning is of course an unrelenting life-long task, there is no question of a one-time event wherein one is initiated into the secret transmission. The three eminent teachers all criticized this Shinto practice, as well as the granting of a sacred shrine name to the initiate and the closed transmission of the tradition to only one son.

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from KIKKAWA Koretari 吉川惟足, the Shinto problem could not have been the ideological background behind their excommunication. The problem that was covered up by Ansai’s separation of Shinto and Confucianism surfaced in Ansai’s later years. His confrontation with Naokata and Keisai over the interpretation of the Book of Changes’ concept of reverence as internal and moral duty as external35 occurred in the same period (about 1679–80) and likewise with the Shinto problem in the background. Moreover, Ansai’s unique interpretation of “internal” in the phrase “reverence to straighten the internal” as not the mind, but all five items in the Great Learning series from “investigation of things” to “cultivation of the person,” and of “external” in “moral duty to square the external” as the remaining three items from “ordering the family” to “bringing peace to the realm,” is internally connected with his Shintoistic understanding of the category of “reverence.”36 On top of the incident that Kyōsai reports of their arguing down of an elderly Shintoist,37 this disagreement was probably enough to bring about the falling out with their teacher. However, I will not go further into the philosophical background of this excommunication incident.38 The main point is that, for Naokata of course, and for Keisai as well, in spite of the theory of “wonderful correspondence,” the doctrine of Suika Shinto could in no way be considered as something on a par with the Neo-Confucian teachings of CHENG Yi and ZHU Xi. According to Keisai: The Shintoists of today say that the “reverence” of China is gongfu 工夫 (effort, practice), while the “reverence” of Japan is more exalted because it is the original substance of the way. To ask of Lord Yamazaki but at the same time say such illiterate things is ridiculous. Even though we speak of Lord Yamazaki’s Shinto, he was totally averse to the doctrinal amalgamation of Shinto and Buddhism (Ryōbu shugō 両部シュ合), and the [idea of] rising and falling within the same vital force (ki 氣) was a great mistake. The Suika Shintoists took this in the wrong way, and failed to understand his original meaning. (Asami 巻2: leaf 26 ウ) Even though there is nothing as superb as the way of the ancestral spirits and gods (kishin 鬼神), because the character shin (gods) was put before [the character “way” (dō)] and taken to be the way, the tradition of the shamans and shamanesses (kanko 神子, kannagi 巫, 覡)39 came into being. (Ibid.: leaf 27オ)

35

The controversy concerned the phrase “The noble-minded person uses reverence to straighten the internal and moral duty to square the external” 君子敬以直內, 義以方外 in the Wenyan 文言 commentary on the Book of Changes, Kun section, verse 11. 36 Ansai rejected the interpretation of “inner” as “the mind” as Buddhistic, and insisted on regarding body and mind on the same level in the process of self-cultivation. This accords with the fact that Shinto rituals of purification (misogi ⾺, harai ⾃い) were believed to cleanse the body of defilements, not the mind. 37 Reportedly, an elderly Shintoist whom Ansai revered visited Ansai frequently, and their long conversations delayed Ansai’s lectures. Naokata’s and Keisai’s attempt to take the matter up with the old man greatly angered Ansai (see Nishi: 669, note 15). 38 For more details on the background and interpretation of the excommunication, see note 15 to the original text of the present study, Nishi et al. 1980: 667–669. 39 Kanko and kannagi were shamans or shamanesses who “served the gods and played holy music in order to placate the gods, or transmitted the will of the gods through mediumistic trance or spirit possession” (Kōjien ᒳ䗎㤁dictionary).

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Because Master [Keisai] spoke of the defects of the Shintoists, what he says citing the words of Master Yamazaki [is that] men like Tamibe 民部 (IZUMOJI Nobunao 出雲路信直, known as the most outstanding theologian in the Suika school) are called negi 禰宜 [a middle rank of Shinto priests]…. Since principle is one, there is no such thing as doctrinal amalgamation…. The Shintoists of today only speak about what sectarian tradition they have transmitted, but they do not inquire at all into the one invariable principle. This is a shameful thing. (Ibid. 巻3: leaf 8ウ)

Here, the denunciation of “doctrinal amalgamation” is in every case clearly based on the “principle is one” (one truth) standpoint of orthodoxy, and this has become the ground of the critique of the Suika Shintō school. When we get to WAKABAYASHI Kyōsai, Keisai’s eminent disciple, the leaning toward Shinto becomes even more explicit. Holding that “the way of the Sun Goddess was originally taught by Sarutahiko, who also taught the state,” and therefore that “Sarutahiko is the patriarch of Japanese Dōgaku,” Kyōsai clearly affirmed the significance of the Blue Warrior Festival (kōshinsai 庚申祭)40 (Nishi et al. 1980: 479). However, even for Kyōsai, the basic proposition that “since there is no duality in principle, there is no such thing as a different way for governing people in China and Japan” remains the same. He attacked the Suika school, saying that “those who transmit the Shinto of Yamazaki” “say foolish things like,” since “in our country the way of our gods is complete in itself,” “it is bad to draw in the Confucian books to preach it” (ibid.: 481). This was because of his perception that since his teacher “gave his best energies to the study of the Confucian classics,” he had no time left for the study of Shinto, while, to Kyōsai’s regret, in the end no successors to the orthodox lineage of the way (dōtō 道統) appeared within Suika Shintō (Asami 巻3: leaf 16オ). In that case, beyond abstract concepts like “wonderful correspondence” and “mutual issue,” just how were Confucianism (or the Cheng-Zhu school) and the Shinto of Japan to be connected to one another within one universal truth? In this point, Kyōsai offered an interesting theory of the universal stages of historical development concerning ideology. As stated above, the Shinto of Japan was originally the same in essence as the Book of Changes of China (an expression of the mythology or divination lore of a primitive preliterate society). However, after that, in China, “sages and philosophers arose one after another,” from Yao and Shun to the Three Dynasties, Kings Wen and Wu, Confucius, ZI Si, Mencius, CHENG Yi, and ZHU Xi, developing this ancient tradition, “according with the time and the momentum of events, each opening up new paths of thought, defining the substance of the way and the methods of learning, distinguishing the affairs of government, the substance of government, and the methods of government, filling the world with moral principles (giri) as heaven and earth opened up.” In the case of the Shinto of Japan, unfortunately, a different situation developed: since no sages and worthies appeared, it did not follow a course of being systematically put in order and refined, so that “the simple and unsophisticated way of the sagely gods of ancient times came

40

The Kōshinsai was a medieval Buddhist and Shinto festival of Daoist origin in which, for Shinto, Sarutahiko is worshipped and people observe an all-night vigil. This festival became particularly popular in the Edo period. (tr.)

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directly down to the present day.” Thus, “looked at with our present civilized eyes, it is something that one can hardly expect people to give their assent to” (Wakabayashi 1937 巻1: 483–484). In other words, if looked at with an eye that has seen the Confucian classics, which are products of the “civilized” (bunmei 文明) stage of human development, Shinto appears as something “ridiculous.” Yet to reject it outright just for that reason is mistaken, for something innocent and unsophisticated should also be esteemed. Actually, the same sort of view was also present in embryo in Keisai. It is because of the actual character (koto 事) of the age of the gods of high antiquity that it is called the “age of the gods.” ZHU Xi also spoke of the sagely gods of ancient times. Heaven and man were not far separated. Before the way of man had been opened up, things were in their natural state (shizen 自然). Thus it is called the age of the gods…. For that reason the Book of Changes is the way of the gods (Shintō)…. As literate culture (bunka 文化) gradually opened up, this initial situation also opened up in accord with the times. (Asami 巻3: leaf 9 ウ)

Therefore, as an ideology, the concept of “Shinto” “could hardly have existed in ancient times.” It is only that “the form of what the sagely gods did in ancient times was given that name in later generations.” This is close to the conception put forth later by the school of Ancient Learning. It is just that Keisai’s positive view of the history of the “opening up of culture” reflects, of course, his awareness of the development that culminated in the Cheng-Zhu learning. By being situated thus within a universal history that transcends any specific ethnic group or culture, both Shinto and Confucianism come to express the “one truth” within their own stage of historical development. In WAKABAYASHI Kyōsai, who so attacked those schools of Confucianism that made “a reckless rejection of Shinto,” “more than the sort of Shinto that performs purification by the straw festoon (shimenawa しめ縄), it is the flat refusal to accept anything strange or hard to explain that is amusing (omoshiroi 面白い)” (Wakabayashi 1937: 1: 484). Here it is enough just to note that there is an attack on shamanistic Shinto, to the point of using paradoxical language. Both Keisai and Kyōsai, after all, had been baptized by Confucian rationalism, and the difference between them and Naokata and Shōsai—insofar as it relates to this “universalism of the way”—was not as great as it was portrayed by the later scholars of the Suika wing. Of course, while SATō Naokata similarly inherited Ansai’s “one principle in the universe,” he affirmed Cheng-Zhu learning as a total world view and rejected Shinto—and therefore also the theory of “wonderful correspondence”—totally. Within the universe, there is only one principle. Therefore there is no place for the existence of two ways. If Confucianism is correct, then Shinto is heterodox. If Shinto is correct, then Confucianism is heterodox (ja 邪)…. How could there be a principle by which one could follow both of them? I do not comprehend the meaning of the mixed faith of our master. (Tōron hikki, in Unzōroku 2, NKG 1979)

Here, the rejection of “mixed faith” in Ansai’s teachings has been turned around and directed to Ansai himself. This passage is taken from Discussion Notes (Tōron hikki 討論筆記), which was written in 1700 (Genroku 13), that is, 18 years after Ansai’s death. Overall, this work vehemently denounces the “honoring [of Ansai]

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on the surface but belittling underneath” in the writings of “a certain man of letters.” This probably refers to the Nangakuden 南學傳 of ŌTAKAYAMA Shizan 大高山芝山 (in Seki 1942–43 v. 2). “In recent times,” declares Naokata, “Master YAMAZAKI Ansai revered and believed in ZHU Xi, and obtained much from Zhu’s writings. The richness of his broad learning and the correctness of his arguments truly constituted the first propagation of the orthodox school of Confucianism in our land.” The above-quoted criticism of mixed faith was written as an addendum to these words of homage, which placed Ansai in the highest position of honor. And with regard to Shinto itself, as well, while Naokata carefully reserved his judgment regarding its ultimate meaning, he also said finally: “How can I manage to just truckle to what I like [in his teachings] while avoiding the unpleasant task of judging the learning of our teacher?” That is, while he was conscious of the suspicion—or rather a backlash close to hatred—on the part of the Shinto wing of the Kimon school, he dared to demonstrate an attitude not so much of personal kowtowing to his teacher, but of choosing to be faithful to the “true” way that his teacher taught. We cannot, however, overlook the following sort of attacks introduced there that were made against the position of Naokata and his camp: To be born in our country but revere the way of another country is to be like a person who does not respect his own parents but respects someone else’s. There is no greater unfiliality and disloyalty than to forget the grace of the gods and lose the great moral duty between lord and retainer. Why do such people not quickly reform themselves and return to their roots?

This was a question put by “a certain person” who was formerly in very close contact with Ansai and under his influence, but it is not mentioned exactly who the person was. Yet Naokata himself also thought that his teacher had “gone too far” in declaring that a person who does not follow the way of Japan—concretely, Japan’s “teaching of the divine country” that appears in such sources as the “Age of the Gods” book of the Chronology of Japan 日本書紀) and the Nakatomi Purification (Nakatomi no harai 中臣祓)—is a “son of a foreigner” who cannot be said to be the son of his own father and mother. The idea that, as a Japanese, to forget the way of Japan and follow the “teaching of a foreign country” is to be an unfilial and disloyal “alien” was actually a refrain that was being chanted clamorously all around us in this country until just a short time ago. The “certain person” referred to above was not necessarily ASAMI Keisai. However, the small difference in viewpoint that was a major element (keiki) in leading Keisai—who saw a universal truth in the Cheng-Zhu school of Confucianism—to a parting of the ways with Naokata, was unmistakably rooted in this. Keisai went so far as to say: The fact that the gods of our country are said to be different from the gods of China is because everyone is muddled in their thinking…. The term “heavenly emperors and earthly emperors” existed in ancient China as well…. Because the country of China is well endowed with people and resources and has a large territory, sages arose in rapid succession, establishing the teaching of moral principles and the way of man on the basis of the natural way of heaven and earth. Therefore, the way of ancestral spirits, men, and gods was also made correct and clear, so that it did not degenerate into the strange and heterodox. But the Shinto of Japan degenerated into the mystical and mysterious, becoming a shallow and base form of learning. (Tō ATOBE Ryōken monmoku 答跡部良賢問目)

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Here, he rejected the claim of the Shinto wing regarding the uniqueness of the gods of Japan and their way. But what was the real identity of the magnetic force that drew Keisai toward the kind of Japanism seen in his Lectures on the Seiken igen 靖獻遺言講義 and Reading Notes (Satsuroku) and which also became a gradually intensifying crescendo in the Bōnangen lineage? In reference to the approaching death of Ansai, MIYAKE Shōsai said to his son-in-law, KUME Teisai: Regarding the idea that, at the time of death, even if it is not one’s true wish to die at the hands of a woman, if one is poor and has no choice in the matter, unlike the daimyo who have their stipends, then it is acceptable, Master Yamazaki said: “How could this be said to be the way of Japan?” Even though there is nothing at all misguided in this, it is wholly the fault of Shinto. However, things which cannot be spoken outside should not go beyond this room. (Miyake: ken)

UETA Gensetsu of the Shinto wing transmitted the same words in an affirmative vein: “In his dying command, [Ansai] said regarding the idea that ‘a man does not die at the hands of a woman, and a woman does not die at the hands of a man’ that this is the ritual of a foreign country, but it is not so in our country” (Ōtsuka 1934a: 1: leaf 14ウ). Whether or not Shōsai emphasized “things which cannot be spoken outside” because this was something said especially in regard to Ansai’s approaching death is even more unclear. However, one gets the feeling that, regarding the way (or customs) of Japan and the way of an alien country there was already an air of something taboo hanging over the Kimon school. This problem is intertwined in substance with the theme of L-orthodoxy discussed below, but for the present I will approach it from the point of view of the manner in which the universal “way” relates to particular peoples or states41 like Japan and China, i.e., from the point of view of the connection between universality and particularity. ASAMI Keisai argued: The way of the sages should be revered. To revere it by doing things such as receiving the Confucian classics with an air of pompous self-importance—this is what is called heresy (itan). Having been born in Japan in this time of Great Peace, we are able to live peacefully through the grace of our rulers and nourish our lives. To be partial toward a foreign country is a great heresy. Even now, if Confucius and ZHU Xi should attack Japan on the orders of the ruler of an alien country, we should be the first to march forward and blow off their heads with our cannons…. This precisely is what is called the great moral duty (taigi) between lord and vassal…. Run-of-the-mill Confucianists without real insight read [the Confucian] books and in their hearts become aliens…. People imitate the people of alien countries because they do not know the true Way. (Asami sensei gakudan, in Kondō 1989)

This same idea appears in Collected Sayings of the Wise Men of Former Times and elsewhere in the form of the episode in which Ansai said to his disciples that if Confucius and Mencius were to come and attack Japan, it is the way of Confucius and Mencius to take them prisoner. This episode had such appeal as an expression of the self-authorizing nature (shutaisei 主體性) of the Japanese people in refusing 41

“Peoples” and “states” are originally separate categories, but in concrete contexts they are identified.

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to blindly follow a foreign ideology that it was even put into modern Japan’s school textbooks. However, even Naokata himself, who became Keisai’s opponent in the matter of the “Middle Kingdom” vs. the “Land of the Gods,” regarded the autonomy of Japan in its international relations as a totally natural principle. He retorted that if Confucius and Mencius invaded another country by military means, since this would be an action in conflict with their own “way,” one should follow the way and fight against them. Yet Confucius and Mencius, he continued, could hardly be expected to take an action so contradictory to their own teachings. In regard to the terms “civilization” (zhonghua 中華 chūka)42 and barbarian (yidi 夷狄 iteki) as well, he said that without any regard to the level of their morality, the goodness or badness of their customs, and the extensiveness of their territory—and whether or not they had sages like Kings Wen and Wu—the Middle Kingdom (chūgoku) was still the Middle Kingdom, and Japan had qualities in which it was not inferior to China (kara 唐). Therefore, if one were to achieve sageliness (seiken 聖賢) through learning, China (kara chūgoku) would also feel ashamed (Chūgokuron shū 中国論 集, in Nishi et al. 1980: 420–25). In regard to the controversy over the definition of civilization (chūka) and barbarism (iteki), Keisai himself also said that the very use of the terms chūka and iteki in the course of this controversy was an “imitation of China.” What was important, he insisted, was that the Japanese not blindly follow the books or teachings of an alien country, but take Japan as their standard of thought and action. To do so, moreover, was itself the spirit of the ZHU Xi school’s concept of “great duty in accord with name and status” (taigi meibun). In other words, the terminological controversy regarding the terms “Chinese” and “barbarian” in itself could not be said to be a very productive question. Rather, the idea that the Japanese should take Japan as primary (shu 主) and alien countries as secondary (kaku 客)—that is, that duty (meibun) should be understood in terms of “inside” (i.e., one’s own country) and “outside” (i.e., alien countries)—was in substance opposed to the idea that if the way is established with the state as its foundation, it means that one should respect the ways of each country (the southern barbarians, India, and so on), which must mean that in the end one falls into a “relativism of the way.” The quickest way to illuminate simply where the problem lies is to bring in an ideologue of the Shinto wing of the Kimon school who put forward a thoroughgoing particularism. MIYAKE Shōsai confronted TANI Shinzan with a question similar to the 42

The term zhonghua/chūka 中華 evolved in the Wei-Jin period (220–420 C.E.) as a synthesis of two very ancient names for the states centered along the Yellow River in or near present-day Hunan Province, one being zhongguo 中國 (J. chūgoku) (“central states” or later, “Middle Kingdom”) and the other being huaxia 華夏 (J. kaka). The first character in the latter compound (hua) was glossed in the Shuowen jiezi 䃜文解字 dictionary (c. 100 C.E.) as meaning “flourishing, luxuriant,” and by Kong Yingda 孔穎達, in a seventh century commentary on the Zuozhuan 左傳, as referring to the beautiful garments worn by the officials in the central states. Kong glossed the second character (xia, the name of the first dynasty in the “Three Dynasties”) as referring to the grand rituals and ceremonies practiced in the central states. These are the attributes that distinguished the huaxia peoples culturally from the “barbarian” (yidi) tribes that surrounded them in the four directions. (tr.)

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argument that Naokata put forth in Record of Discussions (Tōron hikki 討論筆記) that the idea of the way of Japan and the way of some country leads in the end to a pluralism of ways: “If it is true that for one born in a certain country the way of that country is the true way, then I think that Buddhism should be considered the true way in India.” Shinzan calmly responded: This is a simple matter not worthy of discussion. The way that says there are times when it is permissible even to kill one’s ruler exists in that country [China]. When we look at it from the point of view of this country, we think it is preposterous. Nevertheless, even if a person of that country points this out, the people will just not listen, saying that such is the true way of the sages. To make matters worse, in other countries too there are foolish people who agree with this idea [an allusion to those in Japan who affirmed the theory of revolution]. If this is the case, why should we extend our care (sewa 世話) even to the Indophiles [the Buddhists in our midst]? (Shinzan 1939: 卷下, letter dated 1/4/Kyōhō 3 [1718])

When Shōsai lamented that: The way the Shintoists say at the drop of a hat “our country, our country” is really distressing. Theoretically speaking, when people speak out “Your Excellency” [kubōsama 公方様, used here in reference to the shogun], it is the same as having to hold their tongue.

Shinzan would admonish: Having to hold one’s tongue toward the shogun (kubōsama) is not self-centeredness (watakushi 私) but a fully natural principle (dōri no tozen 道理の當然). Those in the service of Edo should take the shogun as fundamental. Those in the service of a domain (kuni 國) should take the lord of that domain as fundamental. The people of Japan should take Amaterasu Ōmikami as fundamental. The people of China should take Confucius as fundamental. This is the ultimate of reasonableness (dōri). You are also a Japanese. In spite of that, to advocate discarding Amaterasu and taking Confucius as fundamental—is this not the most grievous error? (Ibid., letter dated 6/7/Kyōhō 3)

Along with regional “particularism,” it is also necessary that morals be set up on diverse levels in this way according to the different degrees of consanguinity or geographic distance defining the human relationships involved. If one counterposes the spirit of East Asia (tōyō 東洋) against the Western way of the “southern barbarians,”43 then within East Asia, one counterposes China (kara) and Japan, then within Japan one counterposes Edo and Tosa: in this way, the “affliations” (shozoku 所属) between regions and people can be split up minutely ad infinitum. Within each level a more distant universality is “abstract,” and a closer individuated particularity can be seen as “concrete” (in this sense, blood relations are the most “concrete”). Since a concrete “domain” (kuni, e.g., Tosa) is uchi 內 while Edo is soto 外, to disregard the near and concrete kuni and idolize Edo is a preposterous attitude. Such “affiliationism” with region and group is precisely at the 180-degree opposite pole from the following gibe of Naokata: Someone said that the Confucians imitate China in foreign (i 異) things, and that if one is born in Japan it is a natural principle (ri no tōzen) that one study the way of Japan. The 43

Since the European maritime powers during the Edo period (except for Russia, a late-comer to the scene) approached Japan from the south (Southeast Asia and Taiwan), not from the Pacific, they were identified using the Chinese word for “southern barbarians.” (tr.)

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Master [Naokata] replied, I have imitated Japan [sic], but this is because in Japan there is no teaching like the Analects and the Great Learning. Now why is it that, although you were born in Edo, you like shaved bonito fish (katsuobushi 鰹節) from Tosa and other things from distant places? It must be because these things are not available in Edo. Likewise, scholars imitate China because these things do not exist in Japan. And that is not all. Why do you wish for life after death? Even that is the teaching of India. (INABA Usai: 1, Yoron 余論)

The identification of the origination theory—i.e., because shaved bonito fish is produced in Tosa it “belongs to” Tosa and is the “tradition” of Tosa—with the theory of semantic appropriateness (imi datōron 意味妥當論) gives particularism its special characteristics.44 Together with this, one can conclude that as a rule what we call an aspiration or inclination toward “objectivity” is an empty abstraction and that, concretely, it is an observation from a foreign country. Thus regarding MIYAKE Shōsai’s statement that “since there is no duality in heaven and earth, the way is also without duality,” TANI Shinzan said, “Is this not a statement said looking at Japan from the point of view of China?” “I think it is a heart that is partisan to another country—a scandalous thing.” “Because it is the way that we know, I believe it is right and proper to take our own country as primary (shu) and other countries as secondary (kaku)” (Tani 1939, ge). Here one has no alternative but either to see Japan as the basis of judgment (shutai) or to see “foreign countries” as the basis. The “being-the-basis-of-judgment-ness” or “self-authorizing nature” (shutaisei) of Japan, if we can use such an expression, cannot be conceived except for a Japancentered image of the world based on distinctions between domestic and foreign, intimate and non-intimate, and near and far. If we look at it in this way, then we must say that even the above-mentioned condemnation of someone who reveres the way of another country as “truly the son of a foreigner,” which for SATō Naokata was completely outrageous, is, from the standpoint of Shinzan’s type of affiliationism and particularism, an extremely natural sort of evaluation. In that case, standing between the “universalism” represented by Naokata— based upon a complete acceptance of the Cheng-Zhu learning—and the “particularism” of Shinzan, what sort of ideological or logical position does the “wonderful correspondence” theory of ASAMI Keisai occupy? Keisai, as well, based himself on the premise of the transnational universality of the “way,” as shown in the following statements from his lectures on the “Diagram of the Sagely Learning” (Seigaku zu 聖學圖), which he drew himself on the basis of Cheng-Zhu theory: In China and Japan alike, teachings that depart from this constitute misguided words and heretical theory. (Bōgen jasetsu 妄言邪説) The phrase “valid both far and near” [tsū enkin 通遠近, a phrase in his Seigaku zu] means that it is true in China, in Japan, and in all countries…. At any rate, if one does not depart from this yardstick, then it is one principle regardless of the country in which it is taught. (Seigaku zu kōgi, in Inoue 1970: leaf 12オ–14オ)

44

(Therefore, if we follow this “logic,” it becomes mistaken to say, for instance, that Christianity is a Western tradition—not to mention a tradition of Western countries—or a religion that developed “indigenously” in the West, since Christianity was born in the Orient).

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Therefore, in the controversy over the identity of the “Middle Kingdom,” as well, he held firmly to the position that: The way taught in the Confucian books is the way of heaven and earth. What we study and develop [in Japan] is also the way of heaven and earth. Because there is no distinction in the way between primary (shu 主) and secondary (kaku 客), between here and there, then if we study this way on the basis of the books that reveal the way, this way is the way of our heaven and earth. It is like the fact that fire is hot and water is cool, crows are black and herons are white, parents are worthy of love and lords are difficult to abandon whether one speaks from [the point of view of] China, our country, or India. No one of them can claim that this is the way of our country. (Chūgoku ben, in Nishi et al. 1980: 416–17)

As far as this point is concerned, Keisai was no different from Naokata and Shōsai. It is easy to see that TANI Shinzan was ferociously attacking this position of his teacher. Keisai wrote a letter to Shinzan (dated Genroku 11 [1698] fifth month, first day) in which he stated: The way of heaven and earth is not something which one distinguishes as belonging to Japan or China like one compares tea bowls and medicine containers. If one compares them only on the basis of customs and national essences, then in addition to the correct lineage (seitō) of ruler and minister, your thoughts about the differences between Japan and China in interpersonal ethics and miscellaneous matters are to some extent reasonable.

In scathing terms, Shinzan replied: Here there is “the way of heaven and earth,” and then you speak of “the correct lineage of heaven and earth.” In always talking about the topic (sata 沙汰) of heaven and earth, you are not revering Japan, but are captivated by China. I believe that you speak in this way partly as a kind of strategem…. Indeed, since you so adulate the Chinese, before long you ought to be able to get a stipend increment from China! (Shinzan sensei shukan 巻1)

From the point of view of Shinzan’s thoroughgoing particularism, no less than the author of the Immortal Words of Acquiescent Self-dedication was nothing more than a badger of the same lair as Naokata and Shōsai. In the above words of Keisai, the phrase “the correct lineage of ruler and subject” (i.e., the level of L-orthodoxy) is precisely where Keisai and Naokata decisively parted ways. Even so, because of its logical grounding, it was still impossible for Shinzan to give Keisai his approval. Against Keisai’s statement that, “If, excluding the correct lineage of heaven and earth, there is another line (ha 派) that has the continuity of the correct lineage, then Confucius and ZHU Xi were both liars, and so was Mr. Yamazaki,” Shinzan’s position was that: The correct lineage of heaven and earth is the same as the correct lineage of ruler and subject, and the correct lineage of ruler and subject is the same as the correct lineage of heaven and earth. In this country, if the correct lineage of ruler and subject is correct, the correct lineage of heaven and earth is correct. In the western land [China], because the correct lineage of ruler and subject is not established, even though heaven and earth exist, their correct lineage is not established. Truly, Confucius and ZHU Xi did not lie. This is already made clear in Master Yamazaki’s Kōyūsō 拘幽操. (Ibid.)

The conflation of O-orthodoxy and L-orthodoxy in the argument here was something that ran through the entire Kimon school, so it is insufficient to set this particular argument apart. The true dispute between Keisai and Shinzan, rather, lies in whether

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one argues for the superiority of Japan’s unbroken imperial line from the universal standard of the “way of heaven and earth” (Keisai), or considers the very premise of a way that transcends national essence to be an aberration (Shinzan). And whether one likes it or not, the structure of the Japanese myths recorded in the Records of Ancient Matters (Kojiki 古事記) and Historical Records of Japan (Nihon shoki 日本書紀) is not favorable to Keisai’s theory of “wonderful correspondence.” For here, the myths regarding the beginning of heaven and earth, just as they are, are directly tied to the myths concerning the birth of the Middle Country of the Reed Plains (ashihara no nakatsu no kuni 葦原中國)45 and its rulers, so that the gods of heaven flow into Amaterasu and Amaterasu flows into the successive generations of tennō 天皇 in one continuous lineage. No matter how much Chinese ethnocentricism exists in the “way” of Chinese Confucianism (including the chūka 中華 thought that regards China as the center of true civilization), its concepts of the way of heaven and the mandate of heaven are ideals that transcend any concrete ruler, including even Yao and Shun, and they are the standard by which the value of actual rulers or dynasties is judged. The Chinese books and Chinese “myths” that became the model for the myths of the creation of heaven and earth found at the beginning of the Historical Records of Japan were miscellaneous writings and stories that were totally ignored or regarded with disdain by Confucianism, to say nothing of Neo-Confucianism. Ancient legends and stories regarding the birth of the universe and the world (the legend of Pan Gu 盤古, etc.) stood in no necessary relationship with either the metaphysics of li and qi or the ethical norms of the five relationships and the five constant virtues. In contrast, in the Japanese myths, the gods of heaven were linked in one lineage to the gods who gave birth to the kuni 國, and the gods that gave birth to the “kuni” were linked in one lineage to the ancestor gods of the imperial house as the “rulers.” All forms of Japanism that based themselves on these myths had no choice but to universalize the imperial ancestral gods themselves into world gods and either see Japan as the “parent country of all countries,” or else shut Japan off from the world and confine it in a closed uniqueness that had no connection to the logic of universality vs. particularity. Without even waiting for the Hirata school of National Learning, the Japanism of the Kimon school—premised on the structural characteristics of the Japanese myths—led inevitably to the conclusion that, just as there are no two suns in the sky: The son of heaven can also only be one in the ten thousand countries. In that case, the socalled son of heaven of another country has the status of a feudal lord (shokō 諸侯) and cannot be said to be the real son of heaven. (Wakabayashi 1937: 9, Bōnan shobun 望楠所聞: leaf 39オ)

In the face of this, the position that a universal truth and universal justice transcending state and ethnicity existed in a concrete mode within Confucianism in China and within Shinto in Japan (whether or not one uses the name “Shinto”), and that there was a “wonderful correspondence” between them, fades by comparison. 45

In the myths “Middle Country” refers to the land of Japan being in the middle between heaven and the underworld. However, the conflation of this with the name of China (Chūgoku), written with the same characters, is of course closely tied with the controversy being examined here. (tr.)

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The reverse side of the proposition of wonderful correspondence is that both Confucianism and Shinto contain a partial error and a partial injustice, which means that the two concrete ways and countries are illuminated and exposed by a standard that transcends them both. The idea that “heaven and man are only one” (tenjin yuiitsu 天人唯一) held up by the Suika wing of the school, not to mention the correlation between and “unity of” the way of heaven and the way of man, was finally incompatible with the logic of the premise on which the theory of wonderful correspondence was based. WAKABAYASHI Kyōsai relates that “Master Keisai said frequently that when what he said was heard by the Confucianists, they would say he was misled by Shinto, and when it was heard by the Shintoists, they would say he had forgotten Shinto” (Wakabayashi 1937: 9, leaf 7ウ). Evidently, Keisai was aware of his own condition of being attacked from both sides—on the one hand by Naokata’s brand of universalism (which was, from Keisai’s point of view, dogmatic), and on the other hand by the Japanism of the Suika wing, which was not willing to grant to Cheng-Zhu learning anything more than the role of a handmaiden to Shinto. All the same, the virulent sort of Japanocentrism expressed in the Lectures on the Immortal Words of Acquiescent Self-dedication—the position that, although if each country takes itself as the center and takes other countries as barbarian, the different standpoints will conflict with one another, it is just this mutual discord that is the correct moral principle (giri)—appears to bring Keisai closer to Shinzan without limiting the confrontation with Naokata to the problem of abdication and anti-dynastic rebellion. In the passage of Keisai’s quoted previously, he says “to be partial toward another country is a great heresy (itan).” This definition of heresy has already deviated from the idea of heresy relating to the interpretation of doctrine (the problem of O-orthodoxy), showing that Keisai has slipped unawares into an “either/or” mode of framing the problem wherein it becomes necessary to choose between being “partial to” one’s own country or being infatuated with “another country.”46 When Naokata, who unlike most scholars of the Kimon school managed to get by without either a sinitic nom de plume (gō 號) or an alias (azana 字), was asked if it would not present a problem if he went to China for books or something, he answered: “Even if I went to China, I would still be Gorōzaemon 五郎左衛門” (INABA Usai: 1). Elsewhere, he even wrote: Nowadays it is difficult to explain the way to people from China. Look even at the Koreans. Even though that place [China] is the origin, it is different (i). That is the way you would expect it to be. Even though India is the source of the Buddhist Dharma, it gradually moved in this direction. In India now the Buddhist Dharma is not even taught any more! (Naokata 1979, v. 1, Unzōroku 2: leaf 88オtoウ)

Since Naokata made such a clear separation between the genesis of the way and the actuality of China (or India), one wonders why Keisai relegated him to the company of the heretics who are “born in Japan … but are partial to a foreign country.” 46 The “other” (i 異) in “another country” is identical with the “other” in the words for “heresy” (itan 異端) and “heterodoxy” (igaku 異學) (and in the quotation below) and it often carries the same connotations of alienness and incorrectness. (tr.)

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However, as mentioned earlier, one cannot deny that an image of the world that made the way belong to the “country” (kuni) possessed a magnetic force powerful enough to attract Keisai in spite his belief that “in the way there is no distinction of subject and object, here and there,” to the extent that he would cast even on MIYAKE Shōsai the suspicion of having “a heart that is partisan to a foreign country.” It is likely that a synergism of two moments or elements (keiki 契機)47 is in operation here. The first is the problem that the principle of discrimination between superior and inferior, noble and base, intimate and distant, always constituted the content of Confucian ethics. The problem of human beings in general, apart from the particular human relationships between ruler and subject, lord and vassal, father and son, husband and wife, and elder and younger brothers, basically holds no place within Confucian ethics. Since an ethic for human beings that transcends these particular relationships can only be applied in the form of an extension of the basic ethics of the five relationships and five constants, other people can naturally only be treated in a way that corresponds to their degree of intimacy with oneself (or with a group that has been identified with the self). If one were to act otherwise, it was thought to be a fall into the “universal love” of Mozi. It is a fundamental premise of the ethics of discrimination that a mere human being or individual is only an abstract concept, that people exist “concretely” only as particular relationships, as a Japanese person, as a lord, as a vassal, and so on. One large factor that has persistently hindered, even in the modem period, the taking root of the idea that no matter where a person lives in the world, in no matter what concrete situation, he or she possesses inalienable rights as an individual is this ethics based on the degree of closeness of interpersonal relationships, backed up as it is by natural human emotions and instincts. Accordingly, there is probably no Confucian who could deny in principle the giri which Keisai preached in the following terms: “Other people have parents, and I also have parents. To act so that my own parent does not get swindled, even if somebody else’s parent is swindled, is the giri of a son.” Although this is a problem of a choice made in a dilemma situation, looked at in the light of a universal standard of justice that transcends the consideration of whether the parent is mine or someone else’s, the thought that in certain situations it might be right to make the reverse choice has by definition no room to materialize. The order of priority is determined from the start according to the degree of intimacy of the particular relationship. As far as this kind of particularism of ethical content was concerned, even the person most representative of universalism in the Kimon school, SATŌ Naokata, could be no exception. The problem of the transregional, transnational Maruyama (like many other Japanese scholars) uses keiki ཱྀ₏ in a philosophical sense, a sense which can be translated into English as “moment.” However, the word “moment” in English has several other much more common meanings, so that this translation can easily lead to misunderstanding. What keiki means as a philosophical word is “an essential element that gives rise to change, development, or occurrence” (Kenkyusha’s New Japanese-English Dictionary), or “a basis or factor that moves or prescribes a certain thing”. In Hegelian dialectics, it means “an element that is incorporated into development and has become something indispensible in constructing even greater relationships” (Daijilin 大䗎᷇). These meanings are very relevant to understanding Maruyama’s conception of the historical development of thought. (tr.)

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appropriateness of the Confucian worldview itself should not be confused with the particularism inherent in the definition of ethics in terms of the five relationships. Secondly, however, within the historical and natural climate of Japan, this particularism was expressed as a propensity of thinking which made the way belong to the “kuni,” and in which the image of the world in terms of degrees of relatedness to the self crystallized around the unit of “country” (kuni). The fact that in Japan the category of civilization (chūka) vs. barbarism (iteki), which originally centered on a cultural conception of civilization, was grasped in the relationship of “our country” toward “other” (yoso 他所) countries, at the level of the state and the nation, was no more than one of its corollaries. Here I will not discuss how complex a modality the previously mentioned multilayered nature of the concept of kuni—in which multiple meanings extending from one’s native place all the way up to the rulers and the government are superimposed one on top of the other—gives to this inside (uchi) vs. outside (yoso) ethics of discrimination by degree of relationship. Suffice it to say that the Japanese people of today, bathed in international criticism for their low level of concern with the problems of Indo-Chinese refugees or political exiles (i.e., for their view of such matters as “someone else’s problem”—yosogoto 他人事), may not be qualified simply to scoff at Keisai’s discrimination between “someone else’s parents” and “my own parents,” or even at Shinzan’s objection to “extending our care to the Indophiles” in his own country.

13.5

The Coincidentia Oppositorum

The Keigi school is said to be the first school that “Japanized” ZHU Xi learning. Roughly speaking, this cannot be said to be erroneous. However, if we emphasize only the ethico-political side of what Keigi learning learned from ZHU Xi learning, such as (1) the theory of names and statuses regarding civilization vs. barbarism and inside vs. outside, and (2) the great moral duty between ruler and subject, this does not represent a fair approach to or a complete understanding of Keigi learning. Even with regard to the problem of universal vs. particular examined in the last chapter, the Kimon school—or at least the eminent teachers of the school—tried to investigate this thoroughly in the light of what was referred to in the ZHU Xi school as the metaphysics of principle and material force, that is, in the light of the fundamental philosophical categories of what was classified in the compilation of Reflections on Things at Hand as “the substance of the way.” The aim of the textual narrowness that became the target of criticism from the Edo period on, as well as the school’s manner of delving over and over into specific chapters or specific paragraphs of the Four Books or other texts—apart from whether or not this was the best means for the purpose—lay in the conviction that one could only approach the philosophy of the classics through a close reading of the texts that was both “narrow and deep.” In this lay the basis for distinguishing the best aspects of Keigi learning from mere fanatical faith and from its opposite, broad learning for its own sake. To enter into the Kimon school’s individual interpretations of the basic categories of classical

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studies is beyond the scope of this bibliographical introduction, but the above also holds true of the problem of orthodoxy (seitō) that we have been examining hitherto. Much as the one who cries “Lord, Lord” is not necessarily Jesus’ disciple, a mere enthusiasm for shouting orthodoxy and condemning heterodoxy is not a guarantee of the orthodoxy of the way one has embraced. The problem of orthodoxy vs. heterodoxy arises in any world religion or universalistic worldview, but apart from political, economic, and social conditions, in each there are certain conditions of thought that must be met before a certain position can become orthodox. This is the problem of whether the position is appropriate to function as an orthodoxy, i.e., whether it corresponds to a pattern of thought common across the board to all sorts of different religions and worldviews, transcending the substantial differences in doctrinal content. Since it is not the task of the present study to present a general theory concerning this problem, I have no choice but to start out almost arbitrarily from the conclusion, but in essence the problem is as described below. For a worldview to have completeness and consistency as something that gives meaning to the universe, the world, and man, it must fulfill the condition of the unification of bipolarity. This corresponds almost exactly to what Nicholas of Cusa (1401–64) called the coincidentia oppositorum, and we may call it the “dialectical unification of contradiction,” if one has not grown weary of the vulgarization of the term. The concrete form of these bipolarities or oppositions varies with the particular doctrine or religion in question. If take the Christian tradition, which saw a typical development of the dogmatics of orthodoxy vs. heterodoxy, as an example, the unification of the contradiction between the divinity and humanity of Jesus is at the core of the problem, but on that foundation the tradition encompassed all sorts of dualistic tensions—between man’s “original sin” and his conscience, between interiority and ritual, between the principle of “non-resistance” toward the enemy as preached in the Sermon on the Mount and the justice of the Crusaders, between the sanctification of secular power (the idea that all authority comes from God) and the right of resistance (“follow God rather than man”). The unbalanced advance of one of the elements (keiki 契機) of this bipolarity at the expense of the other was what orthodoxy saw as the conceptual (shisōteki 思想的) characteristic of heresy (itan). If we ask why such an unbalanced advance occurs, it is because, unable to bear the continual tension between the contradictory and opposed poles, there is an attempt to obtain unity (ichigensei 一元性) by rejecting or giving up one of them, or to solve the problem by a single leap toward the final goal. Thus direct mystical unity with the Absolute, a philosophy of quickly achieving all-at-once, an extreme simplification of one’s attitude toward living, a longing for purity of spirit and freedom from rules, and so on, have since ancient times always been the common characteristics of thought tendencies that are condemned as heresies. Conversely, the reason why “unity” or “congruity” become necessary in the orthodox thought pattern, needless to say, is that they correspond to the monism of order and the demand for “one truth” discussed above. If the single truth collapses, for orthodox thought this means a disintegration of the universe and the world toward a frightening chaos. On the one hand, it is a question of how to put a stop to the diversification of truth that leads to

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the morass of disorder; on the other hand, however, it is a question of how to deal with the danger of exhausting the fertility of the world and losing the catholicity of world interpretation—this itself comes back again to the problem of the unification of contradiction. If we were to list at random the categories from the Cheng-Zhu school according to the problem of dualistic opposition or “contradiction” expressed characteristically in the orthodox thought pattern, none of the following polarities would be excluded: the great ultimate vs. yin and yang and the five agents, principle vs. generative force, the unmanifest (weifa 未發 mihatsu) vs. the manifest (yifa 已發 ihatsu), principle as one vs. the diversity of particularities, substance vs. function, human nature vs. the emotions, preserving the mind vs. extending knowledge, intellectual inquiry vs. honoring the virtuous nature, reverence to straighten the internal vs. moral duty to square the external, self-cultivation vs. the governing of others, and so on. These categories mutually overlap, and they are also subdivided further (as, for instance, in the logic of “distinguishing and uniting” between the “moral feelings” (qing 情 jō) of Mencius’s four beginnings and the “emotions” (qing 情 jō) of pleasure, anger, sadness, and happiness). However, what is important for the problem at hand is not to look at the debates over the meaning of these individual categories, but at the coexistence of a magnetic force toward the opposite direction between each of the two poles of concentration and diffusion, inwardness and outwardness, the transcendental (senkenteki 先驗的) moment and the empirical (kōtenteki 後天的) moment, analysis and intuition, the commonplace and the lofty, impersonal objectivization and practical self-examination, as well as at the “noncontinuous continuity” tendency of thought that runs through the entire structure of ZHU Xi’s philosophy. The loss or severence of this balance leads to a falling into various forms of heterodoxy, such as the heterodoxies of overemphasis on the inner (e.g., Buddhism and the Lu-Wang school) or overemphasis on the outer (e.g., Legalism), the heterodoxies of overemphasis on the lofty or overemphasis on the commonplace, and the heterodoxies of overemphasis on external recognition (kishō 記章) or overemphasis on personal practice.48 Only when they are situated within this bipolarity can one understand the great importance placed on propositions like “substance and function are of one source,” “the way that unites inner and outer,” or “the way that unites the lofty and the lowly.” In this sense, the criticism they were subjected to by the Lu-Wang school of “the defect of excessive diversification” (shiri 支離) serves rather to illuminate in reverse the thought pattern of the unification of opposites in the ZHU Xi school. Even though the ZHU Xi school was once branded as “spurious learning” (weixue 偽 學 gigaku), the reason that in the end it was able to represent the “orthodox transmission of the way” as against the Lu-Wang school—although there were, of course, various historical and social conditions—was that it better fitted in with the above sort of orthodox pattern of thought. 48

The only dictionary-certified meaning of the first term, kishō, is a “badge” or “medal” awarded for achievements in the line of duty or to show rank or membership. Thus my translation. For the second term, the text has 窮行 here, which must be a typographical error for 䓜行; the characters are similar and both are pronounced the same in Japanese. (tr.)

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Ansai learning did indeed Japanize the learning of ZHU Xi, but insofar as this was the Japanization of ZHU Xi learning, it learned the above sort of pattern of thinking precisely from the thought structure of the ZHU Xi school. And it learned it frantically. In spite of the single-minded passion that the Kimon school wagered on “the way,” the sort of sense of balance seen in their method of learning or in their understanding of the Cheng-Zhu school, or the paradoxical propositions born from their attempt to express contradictory elements simultaneously as one truth, seem to be deeply rooted in that Shushigaku foundation. Naokata’s paradoxical metaphors, such as his dictum lauded by Inaba Usai that, “Learning is not achieved in a hurry, nor achieved by puttering around at leisure; one braces oneself for the effort and then moves forward step by step” (Usai sensei gakuwa, v. 1), or his statement that, “The mean (chūyō 中庸) is a marvelous thing. Not to long for money, but not to have no use for it either. Not to long for a wife, but not to despise having one either. To long for things is human desire, to despise things is heterodoxy [Buddhism]” (Unzōroku 13, recorded by NAGAI Gyōtatsu 永井行達). Such metaphors are often explained as Naokata’s Zen-like tendency. But such an explanation requires the following supplementary comments. First, to come out with this sort of paradox in expressing a truth that transcends generally accepted ideas is something by no means limited to Zen (the Sermon on the Mount is full of paradoxes!), and it can also be found in proverbs for getting along in daily life like “if in a hurry, take the long way around” (isogaba maware 急がば廻れ). Second, the coexistence of opposite directionalities and the logic of the equilibrium of contradictions found in the Ansai school permeates not only such simple proverbs, but every aspect of the positioning or interpretation of the categories of classical studies or of the classics themselves. This is not limited to Naokata or his lineage, but for convenience I will first illustrate it with examples from Naokata. Naokata situates the ZHU Xi school’s theory of principle and generative force between the following two “deviations.” One is the Buddhistic heterodoxy typified by Zen. (By way of precaution, let me say that “heterodoxy” is used at times as in the examples above in reference to specific objects seen as heterodox, such as Buddhism or philosophical Daoism, and at other times in reference to the heterodox mode of thought in the dynamics between orthodoxy and heterodoxy). The Buddhist hatred for principle is its “diversity” (fenshu 分疏 bunshu) aspect. “Heterodoxy despises reason and logic (jōri 條理); recklessly saying that all is one, that good and evil are not two, that heterodox and orthodox are one (jasei ichinyo 邪正一如). This is also the reason for its dislike of the investigation of principle.” To investigate principle in relation to each individual thing or affair is “cramped and confined, unable to operate freely, so that it is something that they have evaded as ‘obstruction by principle (rishō 理障).’” From their evasion of the principles that operate within generative force, they say “lofty things,” confusing this with the truth of the ultimate of non-being (mukyoku 無極). On this topic, CHENG Yi remarked that “The more [they] get close to principle the more [they] confuse the truth.” Regarding Buddhism’s “discarding the self and leaving family life,” that is, its fleeing from the world, and its loftiness, “Our Confucian way” is such that “although there are all kinds of hardships within the five relationships, we do not try to evade them, but act according to the normative principles of

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these affairs.” Escaping from the hardships (of “overcoming self” and “energetic practice”) in the ordinary world is “something that seeks what is agreeable to one’s self alone.” “People in the world who do not care about principle are often called ‘self-willed’ (kizui 氣隨, literally ‘those who follow their qi’)” (another metaphor based on a common saying). However, there is on the other hand a deviation in precisely the opposite direction. Confucians who lack insight know about the side of logical sequence (jōri) and differentiation (bunshu), but because they do not know that one principle, they are entangled in things. Even if we say that the followers of the CHENG Yi school drifted into Zen-like ideas, this was because they were not worldly Confucians. Among the scholars of practical learning in the world, there is no worry about drifting into heterodoxy. Therefore ZHU Xi said that the insight of Confucians today is worse than that of the heterodox. (Gakudan zatsuroku, Unzōroku 3, in Nishi et al. 1980: 433–439)

That is, Naokata holds that even though “the principles of the way (dōri) dwell in the patterns of the friction between principle and material force,” “heterodoxy goes forward on one leg.” That is, he sees the heterodox mode of thought as consisting in a deviation of leaning to one or the other extreme, losing this “catholicity” of the unification of contradictions. If we say that Naokata inclines toward “Zen-like ideas,” this is because of his own brand of strategic judgment that in the Japanese intellectual climate the deviation of the “scholars of practical learning”—the deviation toward diversity—was stronger than the opposite deviation toward principle as one. (The same judgment flows in his persistent criticism of military studies). As for whether Naokata’s understanding of Buddhism is correct when he rejects the idea that heterodox and orthodox are one, or whether his position managed objectively to avoid the “two deviations,” that is another question. It is sufficient merely to take note of the pattern of thinking that underlies the inclination seen above. What must not be overlooked in this sort of orthodox thought pattern is the point that the equilibrium between the two poles by no means signifies holding mechanically to a middle position, and further that the discrimination of the orthodox position from heterodoxy is not something so easy that it is enough simply to “draw a line.” This is expressed clearly in the grounding of the Mean within ZHU Xi learning. In his Commentary on the Mean (Zhongyong zhangju 中庸章句), ZHU Xi systematically put forth the idea of the orthodox transmission of the way (daotong) and developed his theory of heterodoxy. The order of the study of the Four Books in ZHU Xi learning, and hence in Keigi learning—the Great Learning, the Analects, the Mencius, and the Mean—was strictly observed, but this was not only because the Mean contained the most difficult to understand metaphysical categories, but also because ZHU Xi saw the basic proposition of the logic of O-orthodoxy in this work. (To ignore the above order of study and jump into the ultimate truth of the Mean corresponds to the “one-leapism” mentioned above). To maintain the balance between two mutually contradictory or opposing principles without abandoning either one of them and without one-sidedly enlarging either one of them is the mean, and this imposes a difficult and extremely subtle task both as the problem of interpreting the “equilibrium of the unmanifest” (weifa zhi zhong 未發之中) and as a practical virtue (what the Mean calls “according with the time and holding to the

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middle,” i.e., shizhong 時中). In this way, two theses that are common to orthodox thought in every age and culture are born as corollaries of the above task. One is the dictum of CHENG Yi that appears in the preface to ZHU Xi’s commentary on the Mean that “the closer [they] get to principle the more [they] greatly confuse the truth” (already seen in the quotation from Naokata). Heterodoxies which were like heterodoxies from the start, like those of YANG Zhu, Mozi and the Legalists, are immediately distinguished as such. If truth and heterodoxy are separated by a clear line, then from the beginning no difficulty arises. But precisely because the balance that has held within it a coexistence of opposite directionalities collapses due to a difference as thin as a hair, the closer a heterodoxy comes to being indistinguishable from the truth the more dangerous it becomes. The argument between Arius and Atanasius over the definition of Christ that Gibbon describes dramatically, though as doctrinal history somewhat simplistically, in The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire—the course through which the latter’s view was ultimately made into orthodoxy in the interpretation of the Nicene Creed—revolved around the difference between homoiousios (Christ is a likeness of God) and homoousios (Christ is identical with God), a difference of only one letter i. This is an excellent symbol for the fact that the distance between orthodoxy and heterodoxy that in time becomes a gigantic gulf begins at first as a hardly perceptible discrepancy. In the Confucian tradition, this second corollary of the orthodox thought pattern is expressed by the maxim that “an error the breadth of a hair can lead to a gulf of a thousand li.” However, just because this is true, the living maintenance of orthodoxy must take the risk of stepping into heterodox ideas by a discrepancy as thin as a sheet of paper. Look at Naokata’s above criticism of “scholars of practical learning” to the effect that “the scholars of practical learning in the world do not worry about drifting into heterodoxy [Buddhism].” For the scholars of practical learning, who have from the beginning tranquilly situated themselves in the safety zone away from “Zen-like ideas,” how can there be an understanding of the dialectic of the unity of principle vs. the diversity of particularities? Naokata liked to use the adage, “If you don’t enter the tiger’s lair, you can’t catch any tiger cubs” to describe the attitude one should have toward learning. “The way that the scholars of today read books is like someone aiming their spear while a long way from the river. They do not have the slightest intention to step in and strike to kill.”49 In recounting the development of Confucianism, INABA Mokusai also speaks of the fact that the Cheng-Zhu school’s very orthodoxy itself was born as the dynamic process of the sublation of contradiction: Because they had studied the annotative exegesis of Han and Tang Confucian learning, in the books of the two Cheng brothers moral principles (giri 義理) are spoken of in lofty terms. And because their followers subsequently further deviated recklessly in the direction of loftiness, Master Zhu corrected and rebuked them. All of these were rectifications appropriate to their times. The scholars of today say “Master Zhu, Master Zhu,” rashly repeating over and over only commonplace things, ending up as worldly Confucians. If we consider this in the light of the gradual trend from the Han and the Tang dynasties, it is now the turn

49 Lectures for my Students on Reflections on Things at Hand (Jiang Jinsilu wei zhushengji 講䘁思 路為諸生記), in Unzōroku 5.

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of the scholars of our school to become worldly Confucians. … It would be best if we study with a clear understanding of this fact. (Gakuwa, ge, 9)

The moment one tries to maintain statically the equilibrium within ZHU Xi learning that was effected as a unification of opposites—the Han and Tang exegetical learning vs. the metaphysics of CHENG Yi—then orthodoxy falls into “worldly learning.” The sense of danger regarding “the learning of our coterie” and the self-criticism that was based on that sense are expressed beautifully in the logic of orthodoxy. The rigorism of the Kimon school was not simply an ethical puritanism in the narrow sense. It was nothing less than an attitude of spirit born from the awareness of the hairline difference between holding to and deviating from the mean. This logic is also basically carried through in ASAMI Keisai’s approach to classical learning. Regarding the same problem of the positioning of the mean, Keisai asked why, although ZI Si (reputed author of the Mean) transmitted the way of Confucius and Zengzi, he only expounded the mean and did not speak of sensitive concern for others (ren 仁 jin). According to Keisai, this was because “The essential thing (sōkane) is not to be confused on account of heterodoxy and not to shrink from the heterodox theories of 10,000 generations, because if it were not for the one word ‘middle’ [i.e., the mean] the lineage of the way would go astray. When the correct line of the transmission of the way is spoken of, it is called the mean.” “Because the Mean takes on heterodoxy and tells exhaustively about the subtleties of our way, it is especially important.”50 This is an accurate grasp of ZHU Xi’s consciousness of the problem in his commentary on the Mean. The relationship between sensitive concern and moral duty must also be grasped as this sort of unification of opposites. The paradoxical definition that sensitive concern (jin 仁) is something “undignified” (furippa 不立派) and specific moral duties (gi 義) are something “dignified” (rippa), which can already be seen in Ansai, is introduced by Naokata as “interesting” (omoshiroshi). Keisai explains the relationship between the two as follows: At the stage of Confucius, sensitive concern possessed a wholeness that encompassed specific moral duties. “If one speaks of the totality of sensitive concern, then sensitive concern and moral duties are both naturally complete within it. Confucius spoke of the goal that is attained completely in one’s own person.” However, “at the time of Mencius, not just personal attainment, but already the process of study and everything that follows were confounded by heterodox teachings. Thus if he did not establish the concept of specific moral duties, then when he spoke of sensitive concern, people would have misunderstood it as meaning the same as universal love, compassion, or equality.” “When one gets to the word ‘moral duties,’ this is a dreadful word that is very difficult to approach. Even if we could have caught hold of Sakyamuni and asked him, ‘How can it be acceptable for human beings to leave the basic human relationships? How would it be if the first born son of Brahma abandoned his parents?’ he would not have been moved…. Look at this! When the word ‘moral duties’ appears, no one can make any objection.” “lf we speak in terms of the 50

Keisai Sensei isho I, leaf 35ウ.

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totality of sensitive concern, it is the one word sensitive concern; if we speak in terms of the method (sujime 筋目) of sensitive concern, it is the one word moral duty; if again with regard to this sensitive concern and moral duty we combine the two ends completely, then this will cause propriety and wisdom as well to separate out from their midst.”51 The “of itself” (an sich) orthodoxy that was “harmoniously complete” in Confucius became in Mencius the “for itself” (für sich) orthodoxy confronting heterodoxy, and the addition of “moral duty” became necessary. The general law of orthodoxy that the arising of heterodoxy first propels the definition and refining of “dogma” is set forth here, even if Keisai did not intend it as such. In that sense the interpretation to the effect that Keisai put the emphasis on moral duty rather than sensitive concern is not necessarily correct. If we look at the way he positions sensitive concern and moral duty respectively, Keisai’s teachings are in common with those of other scholars of the Cheng-Zhu school. But the feeling that sensitive concern, precisely because it represents “totality,” holds within it the danger of falling into heterodoxy, kept Keisai’s vigilance well-honed. Those who only know Keisai as the author of Immortal Words of Acquiescent Self-dedication, as a common citizen out of office fervently lamenting the state of the world, will perhaps be surprised at his interpretation of the phrase, “The superior man is cautious about what is not seen and apprehensive about what is not heard,” which appears in the opening section of the Mean, and especially at the almost scholastic, “exhaustively precise,” word-for-word argument he pursued in four letters exchanged with SATō Naokata concerning the categories of “what is not seen and not heard” and “the unmanifest and the manifest” (ibid.: leaf 53オff). The argument goes beyond ZHU Xi’s two commentaries on the Mean (the Zhangju and the Huowen) to include his Classified Sayings and Collected Works. However, as through and through a scholar of the ZHU Xi school, Keisai criticized the tendency to jump beyond analysis and try to arrive at unity with one leap, so that it was reported that, “Master Keisai said that the learning of the Lu-Wang school only dislikes analysis and likes lumping things together (hunhe 渾合 kongō). For this reason they just dreamily idolize moral principles (giri).” For the sake of maintaining the totality of the way, he even dared choose to risk the danger of “excessive diversification.” In his own way Keisai tried to walk the narrow ridge between the two ravines of the objectivistic deviation of the investigation of principle on the one hand and the sentimentalistic deviation referred to in the following criticism of Shinto on the other: The virtue of gentle straightforwardness (shōjiki 正直) taught by Shinto is a good thing, but if there is no examination of true and false, heterodox and orthodox, … but just an exaltation of the absence of evil (jaki 邪氣) in the heart and of a clear temperament, even if there may be no defilement in the heart, actually one is able to know nothing at all. (Ibid., Isho 1, leaf 32ウ)

Of course, the aspiration for balance between the two poles that is demanded by the orthodox thought pattern, as I have repeatedly said, is a different matter than the question of whether a particular thinker has achieved this equilibrium. Rather, since

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Keisai Sensei isho 1, leaf 28オ.

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it is a question of a hairline balance, in the actual world there is no way to avoid the appearance of an inclination based on an unintentional deviation or a somewhat intentional preference conditioned by the temperament or environment of the specific thinker in question. In particular, it is a natural phenomenon that, as different thinkers view each other from opposite sides, a deviation from the mean in the opposite direction from oneself will stand out. Thus the mutual denunciation of “deviation” is something that almost always accompanies the debate over orthodoxy. WAKABAYASHI Kyōsai made the following criticism of Naokata’s theory of ‘benevolence’: If one looks at Mr. Satō’s theory of benevolence, although it is not bad, because he tends to speak from an angle of contemplation apart from actual things and affairs, one can see there something extremely different from the style (shitate 仕立) of Keisai. (Wakabayashi 1937: 2: leaf 27オ)

But on the other hand, we are told by Usai, OGINO Shigehiro,52 and others of the Naokata lineage that Keisai’s Seiken igen and his lectures on it expressed in a concentrated way precisely the tendency to be ensnared by “things and affairs” and to fail to discern the substance of the way spoken of in Reflections on Things at Hand. Even more interesting are characterizations of Keisai and Naokata such as the following passage in Hinkenroku 濱見錄. Master Asami is cordial in interpersonal relations. Master Naokata speaks only in terms of principle. Master Miyake [Shōsai] … possesses both these qualities in combination. Master Naokata holds that the overthrow of an evil ruler (hōbatsu 放伐) should also be [included within] the principles of reform. Master Asami speaks from the point of view of the idea of Fidelity in Imprisonment (Juyoucao), so he takes the position that the overthrow of a ruler is evil under any circumstances.

INABA Usai himself said that, If everything is brilliant, the substance becomes sparse; when there is substance there is no brilliance. Wengong 溫公 (SIMA Guang 司馬光) was [a man of] substance, and for that reason he was not brilliant. ZHANG Nanxuan 張南軒 (ZHANG Shi 張栻, 1133–80)53 was a man of brilliance, so his substance was sparse.

Using the same description in another passage, Usai declares that “both Master Naokata’s brilliance and Master Miyake’s cordiality are harmful.”54 Here there is a divergence between the two accounts in the position of MIYAKE Shōsai, at the further expense of clarity, but this in itself, as in the other cases, can be seen as signifying 52

The characters of the name Shigehiro are the same as those of the name Hiroshige that appeared above. Since the surname in both cases is the same, it is highly likely that both names refer to the same person. (tr.) 53 ZHANG Shi was a follower of HU Hong 㜑宏, who held that “the unmanifest” referred to the nature and “the manifest” referred to the mind. Since the unmanifest cannot be an object of sensual awareness, he held, it is not an object of cultivation. One perceives and cultivates the heavenly principles that appear in the manifest until one is finally able to realize heavenly principle itself. ZHU Xi met with Zhang and admired his thought, later writing his own essay on the subject. While ZHU Xi argued against Zhang’s theory, its influence on ZHU Xi’s own theory was great. (tr.) 54 The above are from Hinkenroku ☡見錄, 1.

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the compromise position of Shōsai in relation to the other two eminent teachers. At any rate, do not these respective characterizations of Naokata as “brilliant” (sae 冴え) and of Keisai as “cordial” (atsui 厚い) or “substantial” (jitsu 實) vividly illuminate their intellectual inclinations? It is not clear why Usai thought that both of them were harmful. Perhaps this is a consequence of Usai’s wholesome banality. Indeed, in the end neither Naokata’s “brilliance” nor Keisai’s “cordial substantiality” could escape paying a price both logically and historically. What appears on the scene as a test case for these two opposite inclinations is the debate over “the moral duty between ruler and minister” and over the problem of legitimacy with which it is intertwined. Ever since the Meiji period, whenever the thought of the Kimon school was mentioned, this principle had to be given special prominence. And so it is that a theme that became hackneyed to such an extent comes to the surface on the route of an inquiry into the orthodox mode of thought.

13.6

The Moral Duty Between Ruler and Minister

The moral duty between ruler and minister, needless to say, is the ethic of the relationship between the ruler and his minister as tied together by the norm of “moral duty.” Thus in it there are two sides—the way of the ruler or lord and the way of the minister or vassal.55 Confucius’s dictum that “the ruler employs the minister with propriety and the minister serves the ruler with loyalty” (Analects 3/19) gives the classical expression of the reciprocity of the two.56 ZHU Xi’s commentary quotes the words of a man named Yin to the effect that “Ruler and minister are united by moral duty. Therefore, if the ruler employs the minister with propriety, then the minister serves the ruler with loyalty.” This further clarifies the reciprocity of the relationship between ruler and minister as they are united by moral duty by adding the character meaning “if … then” (ze 則 sunawachi). Yet, looked at from the side of the way of the minister, since there is the important premise that the status distinction (mingfen) between ruler and minister is strictly maintained, outside of an extremely unusual situation, disobedience or, even more, resistance, toward the ruler is seen as

55

The word jun/kun 君 referred in ancient China to high-ranking state officials and feudal lords, as well as the son of heaven, though under the imperial system it often referred particularly to the emperor. Chen/shin 臣 referred to the ministers or officials in general who served these rulers, and at times the whole populace (the ruler’s subjects). Certainly, though, the ethical concept was also extended to hierarchical service relations in general. In feudal Japan, the words kun/shin were also used to refer to “lord” and “vassal” in general, so that the entire samurai class (except the masterless rōnin) was bound up within the kun/shin relationship. This is shown quite clearly in the quotation from Naokata below where he says “within the realm there are a great many people who are called lords” and raises the problem of samurai having to change lords even though that was contrary to the idea that a person could only serve one lord. (tr.) 56 In the Analects, the character zhong 忠 carries a broader meaning that includes but is not yet limited to the idea of “loyalty,” a meaning that was historically glossed as “unselfishness,” genuineness,” and “doing one’s utmost.” (tr.)

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contrary to the moral duty between ruler and minister. This “unusual situation” would include tyrannical government or misgovernment by the ruler. Here, normally, the logic of “the moral duty between ruler and minister” has always been posed in a way that it is difficult to separate from the theme of the legitimacy (L-orthodoxy) of rule, which involves not only the relationship between ruler and minister, but also that between the ruler and the people. However, for convenience of exposition, here I will first separate the two and take up the problem from the side of the relationship between ruler and minister in the narrow sense. The mutuality of the relationship between ruler and minister stands out more clearly than anywhere else in the problem of “remonstration” (jianzheng 諫爭 kensō). A good example is the contrast seen in the Quli 曲禮 chapter of the Book of Rites between the moral duty between ruler and minister, expressed in the principle that “if one remonstrates three times and is still not heard one takes one’s leave,” and the intimacy (qin 親) between father and son, expressed in the phrase “if one remonstrates three times and is still not heard one weeps and obeys.” This escalated from the Analects’ statement, “Those who are called great ministers serve their ruler on the basis of the way; if unacceptable, they withdraw their service” (11/23)57 to Mencius’s pronouncement, “If the ruler regards his minister as dirt or grass, then the minister will regard the ruler as an enemy” (4B/3). Since from the beginning, as mentioned above, the priority of the value of order—the status distinction between superior and inferior—over the value of justice is included in the content of the norm, the mutual limitation of ruler and minister inherent to the concept of “moral duty” by no means signifies “equality before the way.” Nevertheless, in regard to ruler and father, the idea that ruler and minister are united by moral duty and father and son are united by heaven (Nature) is the very essence of Confucianism in its original form. One cannot deny that the development of political history from the Tang to the Song was a process of the strengthening of the absolute authority of the ruler, and that, reflecting that, the moment of reciprocity in the moral duty between ruler and minister suffered a further retrogression. Yet there is a problem in whether in fact we can expand the view expressed in Fidelity in Imprisonment and its ChengZhu interpretation—the view that placed ruler-minister and father-son on the same level and emphasized absolute loyalty—into a general proposition of the system of ZHU Xi learning. An exploration of this theme is not within the scope of this essay. If we ask, rather, how far the normative character that is clear in the Cheng-Zhu school even in the interpretation of Fidelity in Imprisonment is grasped on the level of “principle,” here, too, a parting of the ways within the Kimon school is already abundantly apparent at the stage of Ansai’s direct disciples. The one who represents, relatively, the “dogmatic interpretation” is, after all, SATŌ Naokata.

57

Maruyama glosses the characters buke 不可 (not able to; not acceptable) as bu ting 不聽 (not listen) to give the meaning “if they are not listened to they withdraw.” This corresponds to ZHU Xi’s interpretation of this passage as meaning that the great minister does not follow improper orders from his ruler. The context of this quotation is where Confucius is asked by the lord served by two of his disciples whether they can be called great ministers, and Confucius says no because they do not remonstrate when they ought to. (tr.)

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Even though lord (kun 君) and father are said to be the same thing, because there is a distinction between lord and father, there must to that extent be a difference between the two. In the realm there are a great many people who are called lords. While one is in the service of one’s lord one has one lord and no other, but after the passage of time another person becomes one’s lord…. One does not hold to the idea that one only serves one lord to the extent that one becomes a rōnin. Even Confucius served many rulers. WANG Zhu’s 王蠋 saying that one does not serve two lords meant mainly that one does not serve the enemy of one’s lord. (“Loyalty and Filial Piety Cannot Both Be Fulfilled” Chūkō furyōzen ben 忠孝不兩善辨, Unzōroku 5, in NKG 1979 v. 1).58

This seems to be an austere argument indeed, but even Naokata is not saying that it is all right to change one’s lord according to one’s own convenience. Rather, he is talking about the contrast in principle between the fact that “even a man of noble character (kunshi 君子) will be compelled to change his lord if in his serving there is something that does not accord with what is right (giri),” and the fact that, because “there is no other person like one’s father between heaven and earth,” it is absolutely unrighteous to take an adopted son with a different surname. In this point, MIYAKE Shōsai took exactly the same position. Lord and vassal are united by moral duty; if unacceptable [if you are not listened to], you take your leave.59 This is a constant principle in the world, the timeless great moral duty which cannot be changed. However, people who are in positions of authority think that if this is the case, then how will those [vassals] with whom they are not on intimate terms discard their selves and serve them with their whole heart and mind? As a result, they regard those who flatter and fawn—the eloquent sycophants with shallow wisdom, those who hasten to their tasks and are eager to win merit—as good vassals who can assist them on the right and the left. They do not realize that it is only those who will leave if they are not listened to who are able to discard their selves, devote their whole heart, and carry matters to completion, rendering meritorious service to the lord to whom they are united by moral duty. (Miyake 1938, preface; in Ōtsuka 1934a, 1934b: 4: leaf 14オ)

In Shōsai’s declaration that taking one’s leave if one’s remonstrances are not heard is a “constant principle”—the duty commanded by the “way”—there is a poignant echo of his own unhappy fate of having been suddenly imprisoned in the fifth month of 1707 (Hoei 4) on account of his remonstrance to and retirement from the service of ABE Masataka 阿部正喬, daimyo of Oshi domain in Musashi province. On the other hand, even though Shōsai was congenial by character, when it came to the prohibition of adopting sons from different families—a corollary of the heavenborn bond between father and son—he was totally intolerant, permitting no excuse of any sort from his disciples regarding the fulfillment of this principle. However, concerning the contrast between lord and father in the matter of “if not listened to, one leaves,” the opposition within the Kimon school is seen mostly 58

WANG Zhu was a man of the state of Qi in the Warring States Period who, after Yan defeated Qi, committed suicide rather than accepting an invitation to serve the Yan ruler. See Shiji 史記 82, and Hanshu 漢書 20. 59 Here Maruyama again glosses bu ke 不可 as “if you are not listened to.” This sentence is from the Baihu tong 白虎通 of the Han historian BAN Gu 班固, a compilation of discussions held in the White Tiger Hall in 58 A.D. A very similar statement occurs in the Record of Ritual (Liji): “If it accords with the way, one obeys; if not acceptable, one leaves.” (tr.)

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between those in the Confucian camp and those in the Suika Shinto camp. Between the line of Keisai and Kyōsai and the line of Naokata, there is not that much of a difference in principle. Rather, the strong influence on MIYAKE Shōsai in the basic ethic of the prohibition of adopting sons of different surnames came from ASAMI Keisai’s work On the Discrimination of Clans (Shizoku benshō 氏族辨證). Here as well, even more interesting in terms of intellectual history than the zeal of SHIBUKAWA Shunkai 澀川春海 (alias Santetsu 算哲 or Junsei 順正) and TANI Shinzan to distinguish the “way of our country” from the way of China is the inclination seen in Keisai and his line to seek the philosophical foundation of the “way” completely in the Cheng-Zhu school—an inclination of thinking that even transcends their own intentionality. The aspiration to seek the core of the moral duty between lord and vassal in the one-sided loyalty of the vassal and the son cannot but lead to the emotionalization of “moral duty.” Keisai’s lecture, Our Teacher’s Interpretation of Fidelity in Imprisonment (Kōyūso shisetsu 拘幽操師說), finds the essence of the perfect sincerity and loyalty of King Wen toward King Zhòu in “the heart of deep attachment and fellow feeling (kenken sokudatsu 繾綣惻怛) that he calls “not having a trace of the mind of resentment (urami 怨) towards one’s lord, for ‘is it not that the retribution for not caring for the person who cares for me is that the person whom I care for does not care for me?’” (Nishi et al. 1980: 232).60 If in the treatment one receives from one’s lord there is the slightest thing that does not accord with one’s wishes, the mere thought that “in spite of all the service I have rendered him he does not listen to me” leads directly to the mind that wants to “immediately murder one’s lord” (ibid.: 230). The feeling, no doubt, is that “a miss of a millimeter leads to a gulf of a thousand li.” However, when we get to Keisai’s disciple, WAKABAYASHI Kyōsai, the inclination toward emotionalism already revealed in the quotation from the ancient song reaches the point of an equation of “moral duty” with the deep emotion of romantic love, in which one chooses the “poignancy” (shimijimi) of feeling over “reasonableness” or “principle” (dōri). Love is a poignant thing, and the longing of love is not necessarily limited to husbands and wives and men and women. The longing of love between parents and children, between lords and vassals, and between brothers and friends is the same thing. In our land the way of our country is expressed with the herb of forgetfulness; in that other country [China] the way of sensitive concern for others (jin 仁) is expressed with the one character “self” (ji 己).61 That is what is meant by the wonderful agreement without 60

The poem quoted by Keisai at the end of this quotation is from Kokinshū 古今集 19, zatsu 雜, item 1041: Ware o omou hito o omowanu mukui ni ya ware omou hito no ware o omowanu (see http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/japanese/kokinshu/kikokin.html). 61 The herb of forgetfulness = wasuregusa or koiwasuregusa, an herb (yellow daylily) traditionally offered to the gods at the Sumiyoshi տ吉 Grand Shrine in Osaka, which was believed to enable one to forget the pain of love if carried on the person. Here the meaning seems to be that the way of Japan is symbolized by the deep yearning of romantic love. There are three sayings in the Analects where the character “self” is directly associated with humaneness or sensitive concern: “Wishing to establish himself, he establishes others” (6:30), “To take sensitive concern for others as one’s own mission” (8:7), and “Overcoming oneself and restoring ritual is sensitive concern” (12:1), and some others where the connection is implicit or indirect. The only way the present reader can see any trace of “wonderful correspondence” between these two conceptions of the way

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prior arrangement, the unity of principle in the universe, the unity of principle in heaven and earth…. This is the reason why a section of love poems is established in the poetry books…. Their power to move us is at once their principle (dōri). The punitive campaigns (hōbatsu) [of Kings Tang and Wu] accord with principle, but they are not something poignant. The obstinate people of Yin do not accord with principle, yet they move us poignantly. The Duke of Zhao and the Duke of Zhou [acted in] accord with principle, yet they do not move us poignantly. This poignancy is the real thing, … it is precisely this that is the core of loyalty and filial piety. (Wakabayashi 1937: 9: leaf 11ウ to 12ウ)62

Here the element of objective normativeness called “[lord and vassal] united by moral duty” has been markedly diluted, and there is but a hair’s difference from the philosophy of In the Shadow of Leaves (Hagakure 葉隠), wherein both Sakyamuni and Confucius are no longer necessary for a single-minded loyalty toward the lord of the Nabeshima house, a loyalty that is compared to unrequited love between a man and a woman (see Steben 2008). It is highly suggestive that in the passages quoted above Kyōsai brings in the tradition of establishing a “love section” in Japanese poetry collections. It was precisely the “heart that knows mono no aware” expressed in medieval love songs and love romances that was the initial stimulus from which MOTOORI Norinaga later derived his categorical negation of normative (tōiteki 當為的) propositions and his view that “it is the absence of teachings that is most to be prized.” Instead of reading the Japanese “myths” as an artistic fantasy, in the last analysis Kyōsai and his line (including the other branches of Suika Shinto) were bent on extracting a Chinese-style (karagokoroteki) ethico-political theory. From the point of view of Norinaga, one would think, they could be situated in the transitional stage of the breakaway from “ideology.” However, it is not difficult to imagine that, for those in the lineages of Naokata and Shōsai, the Japanese revisionism of the way of the sages that expanded the significance of love to the point of making it the “root” of the five relationships appeared as an extreme deviation from the normative philosophy of “principle.” In the theory of abdication and expulsion (zenjō hōbatsu),63 which can be grounded only on a concept of legitimacy (L-orthodoxy) based on virtuous rule or the mandate of heaven, this dissociation and incongruity takes on a decisive modality.

is by translating ren/jin as “sensitive concern for others,” which does seem to me to capture the core of the concept better than conventional translations like “benevolence,” “human-heartedness,” “virtue,” and “humaneness,” or even Roger Ames’ “authoritative conduct” and his virtuously virtuosic “relational virtuosity.” (tr.) 62 The “obstinate people of Yin” is an allusion to the Book of History (Duoshi, preface, and Biming), and refers to the Shang loyalists (aristocrats, no doubt) who, after the victory of the Zhou, remained attached to the old ways and did not wish to follow the new government. King Wen had them relocated to his capital at Luo in order to keep them under supervision. The Duke of Zhao (ZHAO Bo) was the son of King Wen and the younger brother of both King Wu and the Duke of Zhou. He assisted Wu’s successor King Cheng after Wu’s death. (tr.) 63 “Abdication” refers to the concept that succession to the position of ruler should not necessarily be based on heredity, but on the virtue of the successor, as typified by Yao’s turning the empire over to Shun. “Expulsion,” as discussed previously, is the concept that it may be justified to overthrow an evil ruler, as typified by the campaigns of Kings Tang and Wu. (tr.)

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Yet for both Keisai and Kyōsai, who emphasize absolute loyalty to lord/ruler, “lord/ruler” (J. kun, kimi 君) referred directly to the liege lord within the lord-vassal relationship among the samurai. In this lay the highly problematic nature of preaching the Chinese concept of “the moral duty between ruler and minister” under the bakuhan system. When ASAMI Keisai heard in Kyoto about the above-mentioned incident of MIYAKE Shōsai’s imprisonment, he stated his feelings as follows: To appeal to the obligation (giri) between friends and sneak him out [of prison]—such a thing would be a great wrong (fugi 不義). Since that is the case, Mr. Miyake’s acting on account of a great disloyalty in violation of the mind dedicated to serving one’s superior is, for the present, an ignoble thing. From my side, there is nothing I will say to him but the words “song of an upright spirit” (seikika 正氣歌). From that point on, there is nothing to be concerned about on my side. It is all up to those on his side.

Of course, since Shōsai’s younger brother HIRAIDE Jinzō 平出甚藏 was his own flesh and blood, it was natural for him to try to get Shōsai out of prison, but “this moral duty is something that cannot be urged from outside.” If the situation gets tense, “one appeals to those in authority and first tries to have his death postponed, but even if this is not the true wish of Mr. Miyake,” for his own brother there was no choice in the matter. Like the story in Records of the Historian (Shiji) of trying to help the imprisoned XI Bo 西伯 even to the point of giving gifts to King Zhòu through his favorite retainer, even if it is something expected of a vassal or a son, “yet this does not become the rule” (Asami: 3).64 Here also, by overlapping the image with that of Fidelity in Imprisonment, Keisai is trying to spell out his own brand of “moral duty.” It becomes apparent that it is not merely as metaphors for the convenience of persuasion that in Our Teacher’s Interpretation of Fidelity in Imprisonment, Keisai mentions things like “stipend increment” and “one person support” (Nishi et al. 1980: 230). This application of “the moral duty between ruler and minister” to the samurai stratification system does not undergo a qualitative change even with the assertion of “the great moral duty of reverence for the emperor” (sonnō no taigi), whereby the emperor is placed above the shogun as the supreme authority. Ansai had already validated the bakuhan system by his teaching that: Heavenly matters are [the concern of] the present emperor (kinri 禁裏). As for the pacification of things, the fact that order is established by means of the sword is the same for the shogun of today as it was for Susa-no-o and Namuchi no Mikoto (Kuninushi no Mikoto) in ancient times. This is the way it has been in Japan since the age of the gods. (Jindai maki kōgi, in NKG 1978 v. 4)

But Keisai, who was in later times deeply admired by the imperial loyalists because of the anecdote that he “wouldn’t set foot in the land of Kantō” (Bunkai zakki 文會雜記) also maintained the basic position that: If there is someone who raises a rebellion against the son of heaven, one ought to rally to the support of the son of heaven without waiting for orders. If someone has the idea that the 64

King Wen, while still a vassal of King Zhòu, was called Xi Bo (Western hegemon) because he had been appointed head of the Western feudal lords and given the exclusive right to use military force by King Zhòu.

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shogun should oust the son of heaven, one ought to do everything humanly possible to dissuade him. If there is a suggestion of overthrowing the shogun from the son of heaven, one should also not go along with it. Why? [The shogunate has committed] no crime. Since it is thanks to this sort of warrior clan (buke 武家) that we now enjoy peace, I think [the shogunate] is very important. This could not have been accomplished just on the strength of Lord Konoe 近衛殿 and his kind. (Asami 1982)65

If seen in historical context, this affirmation by Ansai and Keisai of government by the buke, together with its converse, HAYASHI Razan’s theory of reverence for the emperor, has nothing sufficient to distinguish it. Since even MOTOORI Norinaga’s “way of the imperial land” (sumera mikuni no michi 皇國の道), which was of a much later period, sanctified the government of the bakuhan system from top to bottom as a progressive delegation of authority from the emperor to the shogun to the daimyo to the domainal samurai (in works such as Tamakushige), the only way the style of absolute loyalty advocated in Fidelity in Imprisonment could be expressed was as a political ethic of obedience that concretely supported this class progressively from the bottom as long as there was no explicit withdrawal of the delegation of authority from the emperor. In a crisis situation, this would foment a conflict among a plurality of duties of loyalty of a sort that could not occur under a centralized bureaucratic system like that of China. It was precisely this that was the dilemma actualized on a nationwide scale in every domain during the upheavals of the bakumatsu period. The Matsudaira 松平 clan of Iwami Hamada 石見濱田 domain had their fief transferred from Tatebayashi 館林 in 1836 (Tempō 7), but in the Tatebayashi period INABA Mokusai had named his domainal school the “Pavilion of the Study of the Way” (Dōgakukan 道學館), saying that with this name, “afterward the followers of ITō Jinsai and OGYū Sorai may dare brazenly to show their faces, but there is no way they will get to enter and give lectures” (Engenroku zokuroku: 5, leaf 25ウ, in Ōtsuka 1934b). From Nariatsu 齊厚, the first Matsudaira to study under Mokusai, each generation of domain lords was fervently devoted to the Keigi learning, so that this became one of the domains where the Kimon was firmly established as the domainal learning. But in 1866 (Keiō 2), after joining the second expedition against Chōshū, the domain was defeated, its castle was burned, and the lord and his retainers were re-enfeoffed in Tsuruta. After the transfer, the style and curriculum of learning still strictly followed Ansai learning, and the chief retainer (karō 家老) at the time, OZEKI Hayato 尾關準人, whose father was a leading disciple of Mokusai, also himself became a student of OKUDAIRA Seichian. When he was questioned at the imperial court for the crime that his domainal troops had resisted the imperial troops in the Boshin War (1868–70), Ozeki took responsibility as karō and committed suicide. This is but one small example of the innumerable tragedies born of the dilemma of “the moral duty between ruler and minister.” 65 “Lord Konoe” must refer to KONOE Iehiro 䘁衛家⟉ (1667–1736) and his aristocratic house, which was directly descended from FUJIWARA no Motosane 㰔原ส實 (1143–1166) of the northern branch of the FUJIWARA clan. Iehiro, who held several high ranks around the emperor, was a great calligrapher also known for his broad learning and his proficiency in painting, tea ceremony, and flower arranging. (tr.)

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In Obama domain, the stronghold of Kimon learning in Wakasa,66 learning other than that of the Kimon school was prohibited and a unification of learning was carried out in 1782 (Tenmei 2), 8 years before the Kansei Prohibition of Heterodoxy. In Obama, moreover, the style of the “Bōnangen” lineage was dominant. UMEDA Unpin (1815–59), who was heir to this line and became a pioneering victim of the sonnō jōi doctrine in the bakumatsu period, was also a samurai of Obama domain. Yet this was the domain ruled by the celebrated fudai clan of Sakai generation after generation right up to the bakumatsu period. SAKAI Tadayoshi 酒井忠義, as the deputy superintendent of palace and daimyo affairs (shoshidai 所司代) in Kyoto, devoted himself with great energy to the mediation between the court and the bakufu, but he incurred the bakufu’s rancor and was dismissed from his post. His son, Tadauji 忠氏, took his place, but when as a result of the clash between the imperial troops and the troops of Tsu domain in the battle of Toba-Fushimi67 he was refused entry to Kyoto, he experienced the conflict of loyalties in the minutest detail. Even for those in the Bōnangen lineage, it is difficult to say that through thick and thin they carried through the great moral duty of revering the emperor to the end without ever “failing to discriminate between loyalty and treason” within the momentum of affairs in the domain. Shibata domain had become another stronghold of the Kimon school in the Hokuetsu region (Echigo and Etchū, in the region of present-day Niigata and Toyama prefectures). At the time of the Boshin War, it is said, “most of the domains of Hokuetsu allied themselves with the Northeast Army and resisted the imperial troops. Shibata domain was caught between them, isolated with no one to come to its aid. So then they were able to fulfill their loyalist integrity to the limit” (Sakaguchi 1990). However, within the whirling vortex of civil war, their actions in reality were filled with twists and turns. In the first month of the first year of Meiji, the domain was urged by the court to dispatch troops for the subjugation of the shogun TOKUGAWA Keiki, and in the second month troops from the domain entered Kyoto as the imperial army. In the fifth month, however, there was a second switch and they joined the Mutsu-Dewa alliance against the imperial government.68 Then in the seventh month, no sooner had the imperial army landed at Matsuzaki and Tayūhama than they switched for a third time, serving as the vanguard of the imperial army. In reference to this point, a commentator on “the Yamazaki learning in Shibata domain” argues in Shibata’s defense in the following terms: Those who discuss history may say: “They switched their loyalties (hyōri hanpuku 表裏反覆) like a harlot, sold their fidelity (setsugi 節義), and broke their vows.” Nevertheless, to judge them on the basis of this as having been fence-sitters unable to commit themselves one way or the other (shuso ryōtan 首鼠兩端) is indeed to be lacking in reasonableness. Shibata

66

The southwestern part of modern Fukui prefecture. A battle in Kyoto between the supporters of the shogun TOKUGAWA Keiki and the SatsumaChōshū troops, in which the shogunate troops were defeated. This battle was the beginning of the Boshin War. 68 A military alliance of 31 domains in the Northeast and Hokuetsu, formed in 1868 (Keio 4) against the Restoration government. 67

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domain was loyal to the emperor from start to finish…. To condemn Shibata domain only on the basis of this one time [i.e., the time they joined the Mutsu-Dewa alliance] can be said to be a mistaken view that arises from an insufficient knowledge [!] of the style of learning in Shibata, of the fundamental thought of the people of the domain, and of foreign relations in a time of war. (Denki Gakkai 1943)

Of course, to judge Shibata domain’s dilemma of being “at first tormented by the duress of the rebels, and later afflicted by the requisitions of the government army” (AOKI Seijō 青木青城 memorial of Meiji 1, by GAMō Keitei 蒲生褧亭, in Gamō 1877), as opportunism would be too severe. First of all, in the case of each of the domains mentioned above, to attribute their choices and decisions all to the Kimon school is only a reversal of the “emanation theory” referred to toward the beginning of this essay that aims at glorifying the school. It is no different from the latter in being an oversimplification of the situation. Yet it is also an undeniable fact that, in a crisis situation, the Kimon style of the moral duty between lord and vassal or the Fidelity in Imprisonment style of absolute obedience of the vassal, did not necessarily point in practice to a single, unequivocal mode of action.

13.7

“Inheriting Heaven and Establishing the Pole”

With regard to the problem of L-orthodoxy, due to the limitations of space, I will limit myself to a few supplementary points related strictly to the Kimon school. The word “government by virtue” has often been considered to be characteristic of the Confucian philosophy of government, as opposed to the “government by law” of Legalism. Such a conception is valid as far as it goes. This is the import of the famous dictum in Analects 2:3, “Guide them by edicts, keep them in line with punishments, and the common people will stay out of trouble but will have no sense of shame. Guide them by virtue and keep them in line with the rites, and they will, besides having a sense of shame, reform themselves” (Lau 1979: 63). However, when we speak of “government by virtue” as a problem of L-orthodoxy (legitimacy), it is not simply a policy-level problem of whether one rules by virtue or by law. It is a problem of whether or not virtue rules. That is to say, it is the concept that only a virtuous or wise person who has received the mandate of heaven qualifies for the position of ruler, and that an unvirtuous or “unworthy” (buxiao 不肖 fushō) person loses the right to be ruler or the right to succeed to the position of ruler. The presence or absence of virtue, concretely speaking, is expressed in “benevolent government,” and whether or not benevolent government is being practiced is, concretely speaking, expressed in the obedience or rebellion of the people. In this case, the obedience or rebellion of the people is the sign of the possession or lack of possession of the mandate of heaven, and this is the meaning of the passage “Heaven sees as my people see, and heaven hears as my people hear” in the Taishi 泰誓 chapter of the Book of History. Therefore, this must be distinguished from the concept of legitimacy being based in the sovereignty of the people—in the sense that the freely expressed will of the people ultimate decides the form of rule. Nevertheless,

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what is important here is that “heaven” transcends any particular, concrete ruler or dynasty. None of the sage kings from Yao and Shun on down stands in a genealogical, blood relationship with heaven. In principle this is the same as the fact that, in the “ethnic religion” of Judaism, the supreme God, Yahweh, is not the ancestor god of the Jewish people or of the Jewish king. The importance of this self-evident principle for the present discussion lies in the fact that, not the Shinto wing, but the “Japanistic” (Nihonteki) revisionists of Confucianism within the Kimon school made an ingenious change in the reading of the phrase “inherit heaven and establish the pole” in the prefaces of ZHU Xi’s commentaries on the Great Learning (Daxue zhangju) and the Doctrine of the Mean (Zhongyong zhangju). Neither of the terms “inherit heaven” nor “establish the pole” were created by ZHU Xi, but he put them together in the sentence: “From high antiquity the sage-gods (shengshen 聖神) inherited heaven and established the pole, and the transmission of the lineage of the way (daotong) began from there.” His purpose, needless to say, was to elucidate the origin of the lineage of the way (O-orthodoxy) in the sense of establishing the criterion of the “way” as an inheritance of the way of heaven or the intent of heaven. It is precisely for this reason that the instances of “abdication” (shanrang 禪讓 zenjō) from Yao to Shun and from Shun to Yu the Great appear immediately after the above sentence. Compare this, however, with the interpretation expressed, for example, in WAKABAYASHI Kyōsai’s statement that, The ruler of men is the ancestral leader of heaven and earth; our country’s great goddess Amaterasu, who inspires us with awe, is immediately the honorable ancestral leader of heaven and earth. Because she is the sage-god (seishin 聖神) who inherits heaven and establishes the pole, even in ten thousand generations the legitimate line of succession [L-orthodoxy] cannot be changed. (Wakabayashi 1937: 巻10, Bōnan shobun, leaf 7ウ)69

Here, “inheriting heaven and establishing the pole” is adduced as the standard of reference for the concept of legitimacy based on the continuity of the bloodline from Amaterasu to Ninigi no Mikoto to the successive generations of the imperial line, tying “heaven” directly to the divine ancestor of the imperial line. The heterogeneous nature of the meaning of the two conceptions should be clear. In Confucianism, rather, precisely because of the transcendent nature of heaven, the expulsion of a tyrannical ruler in an extreme situation is recognized as righteous, as formalized in the statement in the Tuan 彖 treatise of the Book of Changes that “Heaven and earth revolve (ge 革), and the four seasons find completion. The revolutions (geming 革命) of Tang and Wu accorded with heaven and responded to man” (Xia jing下經, hexagram 49: ge 革—“radical change” or “revolution”). Needless to say, this contrast between China and Japan in the matter of L-orthodoxy, as seen above, is internally connected to the problem of the structure of the Japanese myths, in which the beginning of the universe is built into the “birth of the country” (on this topic see Maruyama 1972, 1992). 69

The same rereading appears frequently in the literature of the Suika Shintō wing. For some reason ZHU Xi uses shengshen (literally readable as “sage-gods,” “sages and gods,” or “sagely gods”) to refer to the ancient sages who laid the foundations an emphatically of civilization, but by so doing he provided a perfect way for Shintoists to give the passage a theistic Shinto reading.

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The idea of dynastic revolution (ekisei kakumei 易姓革命) is, in reality, not as much of a threat to the monarchical system as it seems to be on the surface. First of all, unlike ancient Greece and Rome, ancient China had no experience of any form of government other than a monarchical system (or government by a king). Therefore, under the concept of legitimacy based on the mandate of heaven, in ordinary circumstances, succession to the position of ruler was carried out according to the hereditary principle. The recognition of abdication in favor of a wise and virtuous person in preference to an unworthy son, let alone of the expulsion of a tyrannical ruler on the part of a wise and virtuous person, was strictly limited to an extreme situation. (The two characters in fangfa/hōbatsu 放伐 have different meanings, respectively “to expel” and “to subjugate by military force,” but it is not necessary to discuss this here). The premise behind the legitimacy of abdication and expulsion was the conception (shisō) of the interrelatedness and harmony between the regular natural cycle of the four seasons and the “order” that brings peace to the realm (ping tianxia 平天下). Tyrannical rulers like Jie and Zhòu, by disturbing the harmony of this system, lost their qualifications as rulers and ended up as what Mencius called “ordinary fellows” (Mencius 1B: 8). “Revolution” is nothing other than expelling this ordinary fellow and restoring the order of the system. This is probably what Max Weber had in mind when he labelled dynastic revolution “the traditionalist revolution.” Mencius, who made the concept of legitimacy based on virtuous rule into a fundamental principle, at the same time recognized both abdication and hereditary succession as righteous by virtue of the mandate of heaven: In the Tang and Yu eras (the reigns of Yao and Shun), [succession was determined by] abdication. In the Xia, Yin, and Zhou dynasties, [it was determined by] hereditary succession. The moral principle (yi 義) is the same. (Mencius 5A: 6)70

However, the proposition of Karl Schmidt that extreme situations determine the essence of the ordinary state applies particularly well to L-orthodoxy (legitimacy). Since L-orthodoxy is at bottom the problem of the legal basis of authority, as distinguished from “factual” relations, it is only in an emergency situation that it comes into action in an overt way in anyone’s awareness. To put it the other way around, the principle of L-orthodoxy that in normal circumstances is hidden or vaguely defined is illuminated as with a sudden flash of light in an emergency situation. Both the story of the abdication of Yao and Shun and the story of the expulsion of Jie and Zhòu by Tang and Wu were virtually universally known in the world of the educated. And the long controversy in classical studies beginning in the Han dynasty about whether abdication and expulsion should be recognized as righteous from the point of view of the moral duty between ruler and minister was generally known in Edo Confucianism. However, it was Ansai and his disciples who were the first to debate this issue concretely within the same school while testing it tenaciously in the light of Japan’s concept of legitimacy based on the unbroken continuity of the imperial line. Moreover, this was the only school in which such diametrically opposed positions were encompassed in mutual tension within the same school. 70

Mencius attributes this statement to Confucius. (tr.)

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For better or worse, their study of the “way” was carried out not simply in the form of the abstract arguments of classical studies, nor in the form of the rote repetition of the stock phrases “virtuous rule” and “benevolent government” in a routine professional consciousness, but as something upon which one wagered one’s whole character and personality. In this the distinctive nature of the Kimon school is vividly revealed. Among the various “logics” that could harmonize the concept of virtuous rule with the special character of Japan’s concept of L-orthodoxy—known by such names as “the single imperial ancestral line” (kōtō ichiin 皇統一胤) and “one king, one kind” (ichiō isshu 一王一種)—there were, broadly speaking, two sets. One was the recourse of making the imperial regalia (jingi 神器) symbolize virtue, what Ansai refers to when he says: “Even a ruler without the way becomes a virtuous ruler by the transmission of the divine regalia. This is because the divine regalia and the person of the emperor are one without distinction.” ŌGIMACHI Kinmichi 正親町 公通 (1653–1733), Ansai’s disciple and successor in the Suika line, added to this the annotation that, “Because the venerable person and the divine regalia are one, even an evil king has virtue in his person” (Kuju jiju gappen 口授持授合編, in NKG 1937). Yet, as seen in the fact that HAYASHI Razan had already assigned the virtues of wisdom, benevolence, and courage to the three regalia, this concept cannot be said to be something that specially characterized the Kimon school. Likewise, as regards the connection between the possession or non-possession of the regalia and the theory of imperial legitimacy (seijunron 正閏論)—especially in the concrete instance of civil war in the Northern and Southern Courts period (1336–92)71—this was a problem of a scale that reached far beyond the Kimon school. Within the school it was mainly the Shinto wing that developed the theory of the regalia. In the Confucian lineages of the three eminent teachers or the basic Confucian wing, what became the standard of reference was, after all, the theory regarding the basic categories of classical studies, as well as the “legitimacy debate” that had so animated Song dynasty Confucian discourse. For convenience, I will first briefly take up the latter. The reason that ASAMI Keisai invokes ZHU Xi’s Outline or FANG Xiaoru’s 方孝孺 (1357–1402) discussion of legitimacy in treating this problem is that he discerned that even Song learning was not successful in explaining the succession of the throne or of dynasties by one criterion in the light of China’s history of dynastic change since ancient times. The split of opinion within Song learning regarding the legitimacy of specific monarchies or dynasties based on the relative degree of 71

In this period, the imperial line was divided into two branches, both of which claimed legitimacy. The Northern branch was a puppet of the newly established Ashikaga shogunate, while the exiled Southern branch in the mountains of Yoshino began with a rebellion by Emperor Go-Daigo aimed at reasserting imperial authority against the previous shogunate. The argument over which of the lines truly represented the legitimate, “unbroken” line of divine sovereigns was a major problem of Japanese historiography from the fourteenth century onward. The defense of the legitimacy of the Southern court in Jinnō shōtōki 神皇正統記 (by KITABATAKE Chikafusa) and Taiheiki 太平記, both historical works of the period, became a major source for imperial loyalist thought of the early modem and modem periods. (tr.)

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emphasis on either “upholding scrupulous adherence to correctness” (dajuzheng 大居正) or “esteeming unity under one ruler” (dayitong 大一統)72 was a natural consequence of the fact that, in the first place, the principle of legitimacy based on virtuous rule (the mandate of heaven) was not discarded, and that moreover this principle was maintained under the bloodline succession that accompanies a monarchical system, so the comparison and judgment of standards of legitimacy were naturally taken as a premise by all involved in Song learning, including the ZHU Xi school (or rather, for that very reason, the theory of legitimacy becomes a meaningful debate within historiography). Therefore, if conversely we view the problem from the position that a legitimacy based on “one royal lineage” is superior, abdication and other forms of “legitimate” (not based on usurpation) succession to the throne by someone of a different lineage—to say nothing of the overthrow of an evil ruler—are ultimately seen as a confusion of the standards of L-orthodoxy. This is the reason why Keisai, while he praises FANG Xiaoru’s exclusion of usurping ministers (cuanchen ㈑臣), rebels who became rulers (zeihou 賊候), and barbarians (yidi 夷狄) from the ranks of legitimate rulers as “the superb opinion of an era,” sees even ZHU Xi’s theory of legitimacy as the “the least harmful choice” coming out of the realities of Chinese history. Keisai writes, Now there is a point about which [Fang’s] theory of legitimacy does not say enough. Therefore, the understanding is that outside of these three [types of illegitimate rulers], if a ruler just succeeds in uniting the whole empire under one stable rule, he is legitimate. Dynasties like the Han, Tang, and Song were of this type. But even these [dynasties], if one examines their origins, were all lacking in the great righteousness (taigi)…. He was wrong in thinking that, just because they appear as legitimate in the Outline, ZHU Xi had unconditionally accepted their legitimacy. (“Seitō setsu” 正統說, Seiken igen kōgi 8, in Kondō 1989)

Yet the question of whether ZHU Xi was really that reluctant in his judgment of the legitimacy of the dynasties from the Qin and Han onward can itself become a problem. If the point of view is changed, this is the reason Naokata raises the criticism that the single imperial line is nothing more than “good fortune” based on “custom,” and not at all a question on the level of “moral principle” (giri). I cannot consent to the view that the correct way consists in the idea that the descendants of the person who first took over the realm at the beginning of heaven and earth should continue [to rule] forever. The person who becomes the lord of the realm ought to be a person of virtue. The establishment of the correct pedigree of the son of heaven in Japan becomes the upright thing (richigi 律義) according to the customs of the country. It is not something that has been done out of virtue, nor is it the light of the age of the gods. It is just that people have followed the custom. It does not reflect an awareness of the moral duty of revering the ruler. (Chūgoku ron shū 中國論集, Unzōroku 14, in NKG 1979, v. 1, and Nishi et al. 1980)

When Naokata says that, “just because one says ‘the mandate of heaven,’ this does not mean that the argument of correct lineage vs. not correct lineage (seitō fuseitō) enters in” (ibid.), he is not saying that it is not the problem of legitimacy 72

Locus classicus for dajuzheng: Gongyang zhuan 公羊傳, Yin Gong, third year. Locus classicus for dayitong: Gongyang zhuan 公羊傳, Yin Gong, first year. See http://ctext.org/gongyang-zhuan/ yin-gong.

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(L-orthodoxy). Rather, he is asserting precisely from the orthodox standpoint of the Confucian “learning of the way” that the theory of legitimacy centering on the continuation of the bloodline does not become the basis of legitimacy (L-orthodoxy). If historical reality is adduced as evidence, it is a matter of course that there is no necessary connection between peace and popular contentment on the one hand and the presence or absence of dynastic change on the other. There have been emperors who, “their father or elder brother having been killed by a vassal, assumed the position of emperor on the orders of that same vassal and did not think it shameful.” Since one can say that struggle over the throne within the imperial house is even more “unrighteous” than the seizing of power by someone of another lineage, “it is thus difficult to say that [Japan] is superior to all other countries in the correctness of the principle of moral duty between ruler and vassal” (Nishi et al. 1980: 424). With this the dispute begins to look a little bit like a chicken-or-egg argument that can never come to an end. After all, the superiority of Japan’s L-orthodoxy does not merely depend on bringing in the history of a continuous unbroken royal lineage. Rather, it must depend upon an oracular legitimacy in which the status distinction of ruler and subject, i.e., the unchangingness of the imperial line, is decided eternally and from the very beginning of time (sententeki ni 先天的に) by the divine oracle of Amaterasu Ōmikami.73 The reference to the Chinese theory of legitimacy presents interesting problems within the context of Chinese history, but it is fated to be swept away in one fell swoop before this concept of oracular legitimacy. Among the classical categories and set phrases of Confucianism, what became a particular focus of controversy was first and foremost the problem of how to relate the discourse regarding the interpretation of the “regular” (jing 經) and the “expedient” (quan 權) to the expulsions (hōbatsu) carried out by Kings Tang and Wu. The argument over the regular and expedient began with Mencius’s question of whether to reach out one’s hand to save one’s elder brother’s wife from drowning was a violation of the ritual rule forbidding direct contact between a man and a woman. Ever since Han Confucians used the concept of “expedient” to refer to cases where the regular rule is violated but the result is in accord with the way, this has been a point of contentious controversy among Confucian scholars, and even in the Cheng-Zhu school opinions were not necessarily of one accord. The arguments are complex, so I will not go into them here. Suffice it to say that the character used to mean “expedient” originally meant a weighing scale, and that all sorts of interpretive 73

This oracle refers to the sacred mandate that the Sun Goddess, Amaterasu, conferred upon her great grandson Ninigi no Mikoto (grandfather of the first emperor Jinmu), together with the three imperial regalia (symbols and conferrers of legitimate sovereignty), when she sent him down from heaven to restore order among the earthly deities and rule the land below. According to the Nihon shoki, the mandate stated, “The land of luxuriant reed plains with fifteen hundred autumns of auspicious rice harvests is a land that shall be ruled by my descendants. Go there, my imperial grandson, and rule. Go, and may your royal sun line prosper without end, just like heaven and earth!” (Ashihara no chiiho aki no mizuho no kuni wa, kore wa ga shison no kimitarubeki chi de aru. Sumemima no nanji ga itte osame yo. Saa ikare yo. Ama tsu hitsugi no sakan naru koto masani amatsuchi to kiwamari naken). (Nihon shoki, Section 9, Kami no yo no shimo no maki 神代ᐫ下). (tr.)

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combinations were established regarding whether the regular and the expedient should be seen as one way or separated into two, depending on whether the emphasis was put on the aspect of determining correct action by weighing the changing contours of the concrete situation or on the aspect of irregular means that are contrary to the constant way (these two meanings are not, of course, unrelated). Therefore, if we leave out the substantive assignment of meaning, we will only fall into arguments that do not engage one another—as in the case of the debate regarding civilization vs. barbarism (ka’i-ron 華夷論). For instance, WAKABAYASHI Kyōsai wrote: If we speak of the “regular way” and the “expedient way” side-by-side, we end up with two ways. If people wish to speak solely also of what is called the “expedient” and to utilize the momentum of the time as they please, this is because at bottom (ōne ni 大根に) there is something that smells like one thing. (Zatsuwa hikki 1, in Nishi et al. 1980: 468)

Here, he is asserting that if we concretely divide the way into two, the revolutions (hōbatsu) of Tang and Wu would also be approved as “expedient,” giving people an excuse for usurpation. Yet since it is also possible to derive an affirmation of revolution against an evil ruler from a monistic point of view, unless we examine in each particular instance in what definition and context the theory of regular and expedient is being used, it does not help us very much in clarifying the present point of contention. Rather, there is another argument over the interpretation of a classical phrase that is more worthy of note as a dispute on the same turf. This argument developed around the passage in Analects 3: 25 in which Confucius evaluates the Shao tunes that are the music of Shun as “completely beautiful, and also completely good,” while he says that the music of King Wu of Zhou is “completely beautiful, but not yet completely good.” The phrase “not yet completely good” refers directly only to the theory of music. However, the lineage of Keisai and Kyōsai that denied the legitimacy of revolution cites the fact that in the same Analects the description “perfect virtue” is used in reference both to the story of TAI Bo 泰伯 (eldest son of King Tai of Zhou) turning over the realm to his third son, JI Li 季歷, and King Wen’s dividing the empire into three parts and holding on to two of them while he served the Shang dynasty. Here Keisai and Kyōsai try to see Confucius’s meaning by contrasting this evaluation of “perfect virtue” with the evaluation of King Wu as “not yet completely good.” Since the commentary on precisely the same TAI Bo passage in ZHU Xi’s Collected Commentaries on the Analects cites both the case of King Wen and the legend of BO Yi 伯夷 and SHU Qi 叔齊, who (as recounted in the Shiji) remonstrate with King Wu as he sets out on his campaign to overthrow the Shang dynasty, the contrast between the “perfect virtue” and “not yet completely good” becomes more and more emphasized. If one does not understand the feeling of “a difference of one millimeter leads to a distance of one thousand li” within the Kimon school, this controversy will probably appear as nothing more than a pedantic, idealistic argument confined to the scholar’s study. Even in the Cheng-Zhu school itself, in concrete contexts there was a delicate wavering regarding the rebellions of Tang and Wu and the difference between Kings Wen and Wu, and each of the two wings of the Kimon school

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mobilized classical discourses that were to its own advantage. If one wing invoked the Cheng-Zhu explanation of Fidelity in Imprisonment, the other would quote passages like CHENG Yi’s “the methods of Yao, Shun, Tang, and Wu were all of the same kind” (Allusion to Mencius 4B:1), or ZHU Xi’s “the abdication of Yao and Shun and the revolutions of Tang and Wu were in no case other than the straight and ordinary” (Daxue huowen). Regarding the “not yet completely good,” if one wing said that “even if it is thrown away or falls over, the ‘not yet’ character cannot be stripped off” (Zatsuwa hikki 1, in Nishi et al. 1980: 467), Naokata’s side would ask why, if Confucius rejected King Wu’s overthrow of the Shang dynasty in principle, he did not clearly say “not good” instead of “not yet completely good (Tōburon 湯 武論, in Nishi et al. 1980). Since revolution is only righteous in the unusual and special circumstances where above there is an evil ruler like Jie or Zhòu and below there is a great worthy or sage like Tang or Wu—since it is not an everyday norm for the ordinary person—Confucius also distinguished it from the cases of Yao and Shun and King Wen. Naokata’s skillful metaphors, such as “viewing the cherry blossoms while clad in a straw raincoat” or “taking the bad road of Kisoji because the Eastern Sea Route is impassible,” were designed solely to emphasize the emergency nature of the situation and the unusual conditions.74 And even for the side of Keisai and Kyōsai, as long as they relied on the learning of the Confucian classics, it was impossible to single out only King Wu for obliteration from the ranks of the sages. For, even if one does not bring in the affirmation of Tang and Wu in the Tuan treatise of the Book of Changes75 and in the Mencius, it is written large in the Doctrine of the Mean that Confucius transmitted the teachings of Yao and Shun and took Kings Wen and Wu as his paragons. If King Wu is removed, then the problem extends to the Duke of Zhou, and even JI Zi 箕子, praised by Confucius as one of the “three benevolent men,” becomes questionable from the point of view of moral principle (giri), since he was enfeoffed in Korea by the “lord-murderer” Wu. This is the reason that even Kyōsai, who represents the “hard-line” wing stemming from Keisai, accepted Tang and Wu, saying that although they “happened to be born in bleak times,” yet since their revolutions “were expulsion campaigns undertaken purely for the public interest (dagong mingbai 大公明白) of the realm for ten thousand generations, from the principle of having not a trace of private interest and having absolutely no choice in the matter,” thus “there is no doubt that they were the actions of a sage” (Zatsuwa hikki 1, in Nishi et al. 1980: 468–469). Only “in Japan, too, the actions of emperors such as Buretsu 武烈76 can be seen as hardly less tyrannical than those of Jie and Zhòu.” Nevertheless, “When we see that” “the hundred officials endured” and in the end 74

Incidentally, the natural law-based theory of rebellion of the Monarchomachists in sixteenthcentury Europe and the theory of the right of resistance put forward by leaders of the Reformation also put a severe status limitation on who could exercise the right; it was absolutely not something that could be tolerated on the part of “the people” in general. 75 The Ten Wings, which include the treatise on the Tuan, were believed to have been written by Confucius. 76 The 25th emperor in the traditional lineage, who reigned from 498–506.

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“the world moved in a propitious direction, it would seem that even a Tang or a Wu could not have improved the situation…. Even Jie and Zhòu would hardly have stayed on the throne for two hundred or three hundred years.” He concludes that, therefore, “if one reflects about [the difference between] us and them, one cannot but deplore the matter of overthrowing a ruler (Zatsuwa hikki 4, Wakabayashi 1937: leaf 22–23). While the Keisai wing was afraid that the idea of righteous rebellion had become an excuse for the usurpation of power by rebellious vassals and bandit sons, those on the side of Naokata and Shōsai made a complete distinction between the actions of an “official of heaven” and the power struggles or “squabbling of scoundrels” of later ages, afraid rather of bringing plurality into the way by creating grades of superiority and inferiority among the sages.77 If in this way we only bring out the question of the interpretation of the classics, then the distance between them is at most a difference of weight in their points of emphasis. Nevertheless, both sides were keenly aware that the matter was deeply connected to the question of Japan’s L-orthodoxy at the highest level. This can be seen in Naokata’s statement: Because in our country in the succession of the imperial line we assert and exalt the absence of a change in the mandate that involves a change in lineage, we raise up King Wen and TAI Bo and revere the concept of Fidelity in Imprisonment, so that finally we do not look deeply into the meaning of the anti-dynastic rebellions of Tang and Wu. (Tōburon, in Nishi et al. 1980: 223)

As can be seen in Kyōsai’s juxtaposition of Jie and Zhòu with Buretsu in the passage quoted above, it was this that distinguished them from those many Confucians since HAYASHI Razan who had on the one hand readily affirmed the abdications of Yao and Shun and the revolutions of Tang and Wu while on the other hand extolling the continuity of the Japanese imperial line. The dilemma that lurks here is not the conflict between the duty of loyalty to a plurality of lords. And if this depended only on suspending all ethical judgments of right and wrong or good and evil regarding the virtue of the ruler and only extolling the “fact” of the continuity hitherto of the imperial throne (hōsa 寶祚) and relying on the prospect that this will continue in the same way in the future, then from the first there would be no room for it to be constituted as a dilemma. It was precisely because of this point that WAKABAYASHI Kyōsai was impatient with the optimistic attitude of the “Shintoists,” resting as it did on historical “fact.” Immediately after a passage extolling the imperial house as “truly not of human kind,” because it had “inherited without interruption the blood line from Amaterasu Ōmikami in one line to the present,” Kyōsai wrote: Those who are called Shintoists today say that due to the fact that our country is a divine land (shinkoku 神國) this must be so, but this is a foolish thing…. How do we know that there will not be a Tang or Wu? … Even if we can say that, by good fortune, the bloodline has not been cut off and there has been nothing like the abdication of Yao and Shun or the revolutions of Tang and Wu, it is ridiculous to speak so pretentiously about a royal house

77

The reason that neither wing discusses the abuse of power by the monarchy or in the name of the monarch in the proportion that they consider the problem of abuse of power by vassals is that the reciprocal nature of “the moral duty between lord and vassal” itself is originally unequal.

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that today does not even have as much power and influence (ikioi 勢) as the Honganji 本願寺. (Zatsuwa hikki 巻1, in Nishi et al. 1980: 464–467)78

Therefore, Of course [one should] look up to and revere the imperial line. However, the urgent need today is to be constantly in fear about when change will occur and what sort of change it will be. Even if there has been no change that goes against the edict of the Sun Goddess, there was still a Kiyomori 清盛, there was still a Yoritomo 賴朝, and one never knows when a Masakado 將門 or a Sumitomo 純友 will appear.79 Already in the age of the gods there was Amewakahiko 天稚ᖕ.80 To feel secure that there will be no change for all time is to be remiss. It is a very dangerous thing. (Zatsuwa hikki 5, in Wakabayashi 1937: leaf 22オ)

This sense of crisis was felt not, of course, because people by nature love disorder and rebellion, but because the possibility of the appearance of an emperor whose lack of virtue or talent would give a suitable pretext to “rebellious ministers and bandit sons” was unavoidable as long as legitimacy is premised on the blood-line succession. The Confucian norms of virtuous rule and the contentment of the people were already indelibly imprinted upon Kyōsai’s spirit, and for the maintenance of the “eternal continuation coeval with heaven and earth,” he could only keep sounding the warning bell almost like a man possessed. This can also be seen as the prototype of one kind of “theory of the perpetual crisis of the national polity” that characterized the radical ultranationalists of modem Japan. Naokata, who saw the concept of legitimacy based on the mandate of heaven as a universal principle, pursued with the same thoroughness his determination to trace the case of Japan back to its starting point in the divine edict (shinchoku 神敕) of Amaterasu. Instead of guaranteeing endless prosperity to her descendants, Amaterasu should have sent down a divine edict of revolution based on virtuous rule! If the oracle (takusen 託宣) of the Sun Goddess said “I will protect my descendents for five million years,” it would not be a good thing. If it said “If among my descendents there is one who commits unrighteous acts, I will kick him to death,” that would be a good thing. (Setsuwa kikigaki 説話聞書, 56ウ, Unzōroku, in NKG 1979)

This fits perfectly together, like the two opposite sides of a tally, with the later logic of MOTOORI Norinaga, which, rejecting all normative value judgments as expressions of the “Sinitic mind” (karagokoro 唐心), saw the tradition of the imperial land 78 The Honganji was the headquarters in Kyoto of the powerful Jōdo Shinshū sect of Pure Land Buddhism. 79 TAIRA no Masakado was a warrior of the mid-Heian period who killed his uncle, raised a rebellion, and set up a regime in Sarujima in Shimōsa province in imitation of the imperial court, calling himself the “new emperor” and commanding both civil and military officials until he was defeated in 940. FUJIWARA no Sumitomo became the leader of pirate gangs in the Inland Sea, pillaging official food supplies and lording over most of the Inland Sea region from his base in Iyo until he was overcome in 941. 80 Before the descent of the grandson of heaven (Ninigi no Mikoto), his father Amewakahiko was sent from the high plain of Heaven to pacify “the land in the midst of the reed-plains.” However, he failed to fulfill his mandate, and shot and killed the crying maiden pheasant who was sent to call him to task. He died when the god Takami-musubi caused the arrow to shoot back toward himself.

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(sumera mikuni) that was superior to all other countries as consisting in the fact that it had been presided over by the successive generations of tennō just as in the age of the gods “whether [they were] good or evil.” These two complementary logics together form the political image of Japan. Of course, in the actual history of thought, the two pure types of L-orthodoxy represented by Naokata and Norinaga appeared only rarely. The Shinto wing or the Shinto-leaning wing of the Kimon school here also, though there is a difference of degree, was unable to avoid admixture with ideas derived from the “Sinitic mind,” and there is no need here to discuss how the subsequent development of Norinaga’s nativism followed the path of reconstructing a political theology while embracing all sorts of ideas of foreign origin. Moreover, in the internal development of the Kimon school as a tradition of learning, the line of Naokata and Shōsai was extremely strong. As discussed earlier, it was this line that quickly regained its footing after the Meiji Restoration. Yet with regard to the tenacious and consistent questioning of L-orthodoxy in Japan, the line from INABA Mokusai to OKUDAIRA Seichian retreated, rather, from the “brilliance” of Naokata, and to that extent it decreased its distance from the Bōnangen lineage. Even at Naokata’s stage, as he writes in “On Kings Tang and Wu” (Tōburon): “This is not something known by the Shintoists and their kind. If one follows this line of reasoning persistently there is something that they find offensive.” Even under the bakuhan system, that is, there was a “high pressure area” surrounding this question even in the abstract discussions of Shinto. In addition, the thought of the Later Mito school (which along with the Hirata school of nativism provided the ideological foundations for the sonnō jōi movement) was strongly colored with Confucianistic norms even if it cannot be said to be a “Confucian” school, and it supported the advocacy of the unity of Shinto and Confucianism. As introduced at the beginning of this study, all of these circumstances gave plausibility to the explanation that derived the great chorus of bakumatsu imperial loyalism in its entirety from the Ansai school. However, the other side of the coin was the fact that both SATŌ Naokata and MOTOORI Norinaga—who were “in accord” from opposite directions in the sense of their methodological thoroughness regarding L-orthodoxy—ended up as isolated existences. Then, in the Imperial Constitution (especially the Imperial Declaration and the Rescripts)—born out of the domestic disorder of the Restoration and the popular rights movement of the 1880s—and in the “quintessence of the national polity” of the Imperial Rescript on Education, the two bases of legitimacy—“blood” and “sagely virtue”—were officially unified. The greatest incident “since the founding of the nation” for the oracular legitimacy of the Japanese state was, needless to say, the conclusion of the Second World War by Japan’s unconditional acceptance of the Potsdam Declaration. The Imperial Council (gozen kaigi 御前會議) was split in two over the interpretation of the Potsdam Declaration, and, as is well known, the greatest point of controversy that delayed its acceptance was the matter of “the maintenance of the national polity.” The proposition that the future form of government of the Japanese nation would be entrusted to the free choice of the people was after all incompatible—not as a problem of actual result, but as a problem of the basis of legitimacy—with the principle (tatemae) that the imperial line’s presiding role over the power of rule was

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determined a priori and eternally by “sacred edict.” The tangle over the acceptance of the declaration was finally solved through the “sagely decision” of the emperor. Subsequently, the coup d’état by those officers who questioned a “sagely decision” that accepted the Potsdam Declaration without assuring the protection of the national polity met the same tragic fate as the domains that resisted the imperial army in 1866 because they regarded the imperial command to attack the shogun Keiki as a secret plot by the Satsuma and Chōshū “traitors” supporting the child emperor, the same tragic fate as the series of insurrections against the Restoration government that culminated in the Satsuma Rebellion, the same tragic fate as the rebel soldiers or radical rightists who rose up to eliminate the “bakufu-like existences” who were blocking the “true” manifestation of the sagely will during the “Shōwa Restoration.” The judgment (meibun) that there are “traitors on the side of the monarch,” in that it invokes from below the substantive standards of right and wrong and good and evil and involves arbitrarily inferring the will of the ruler, cannot avoid colliding with the idea of obedience as the way of the vassal that was put forward in ZHU Xi’s interpretation of Fidelity in Imprisonment and exalted by Ansai as “the principle that the vassal or son does not speak of his lord’s or father’s wrongs.” However, for those who took part in this “sagely decision” as well, it is hard not to confront them with the question of whether their acquiescence was based on their assent to a fatal change in the oracular basis of legitimacy, or on a position of unquestioning compliance (shōshō hikkin 承詔必謹) that suspends value judgments regarding the content of the imperial decision and takes it as absolute simply because it is the imperial decision—in other words, whether it was based on the reason that “in Shinto it is said that the way of our country is not to discuss the rights or wrongs of the sovereign’s virtue, and this is something for which one should be deeply grateful” (Wakabayashi 1937: 4: leaf 23オ). It appears that this question, which barely floated up above the waves in the short, stormy period between the catastrophe of defeat and the enactment of the new constitution, again disappeared from sight along with the “normalization” of politics and the “growth” of the economy. Incidentally, the imperial edict which announced the conclusion of the war to the people contains the phrase: “We wish to open up the great peace for ten thousand generations.” “Open up the great peace for ten thousand generations” is a phrase of ZHANG Zai 張載 (1020–77) that appears in “The Essentials of Learning” chapter of the Neo-Confucian anthology Reflections on Things at Hand. It is said that when ASAMI Keisai got to this passage when lecturing on the anthology, he roused his voice and said to his disciples, “Even after I have finished lecturing to all of you on this text today, this passage will still open up the great peace for the sake of ten thousand generations.”

13.8

Conclusion

In spite of the antiquity of the introduction of Confucianism to Japan, and in spite of the multiplicity of the streams of Cheng-Zhu learning in the early modem period, the first school that struggled to personally realize (tainin 體認) this teaching as a

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worldview in both its theoretical and practical dimensions was the Ansai school. And this was not only the Kimon school’s view of itself; even from the “Ancient Words” (komonji 古文辭) school of OGYŪ Sorai, its head-on opponent within the Confucian camp, there appeared the following generous evaluation: [HATTORI 服部] Nankaku 南郭 said: “As for the Song Confucian theory of exhaustive investigation of principle, how could it be easy to master its tenets? Though people today are not even able to understand the finer points in ZHU Xi’s Collected Commentaries on the Four Books, with an arrogant expression they call themselves the [representatives of] Song learning. This is so laughable. In this land is it only YAMAZAKI Ansai who has understood ZHU Xi’s meaning? (Minamoto 1994)

INABA Mokusai characterized “the learning of our school” very aptly using the word “impetus” (hazumi 弾み): If the learning of our school loses its impetus it does not serve any function. It is sustained only by its impetus. Those like the Hayashi family, because of their scholarly achievements (waza), are able to make it as Confucians even if their learning is without impetus. But because those of our school do not care about scholarly achievements, we are only sustained by our impetus. (Talks about Learning [Gakuwa], A, v. 5)

As the “severing of relations” of the Kimon school was contrasted elsewhere with the “obsequiousness” of the Hayashi school, here also “impetus” (or “momentum”) is contrasted with the Hayashi family’s “achievements” or “works,” that is, its talent character. “Impetus” was certainly also the motive power that caused the outstanding figures of the Kimon school each in his own way to “go to excess.” However, is it not the case that through this going to excess the Ansai school led the way, if unintentionally, in bringing out the various philosophical problems that arose in Japan when people devoted themselves wholeheartedly to the “way of a foreign country”—or, strictly speaking, to an all-embracing worldview that originated abroad? In this lay both the glory and the tragedy of the Ansai school.

References Abe, Yoshio 安倍吉雄. 1939. YAMAZAKI Ansai and his education 山崎とその教育 (YAMAZAKI Ansai to sono kyōiku). In Commemoration Society for the Celebration of the Seventieth Anniversary of Duke Tokugawa [Iesato’s] Clan Succession 德川公繼宗七十年祝賀紀念會 (Tokugawa Kō keisō shichijū nen shukuga kinenkai), compiler, Confucianism in early modern Japan 近世日本の儒學 (Kinsei Nihon no Jugaku). Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten. Asami, Keisai 浅見絅斎. 1970. Lecture on the diagram of sagely learning 聖學圖講義 (Seigakuzu kōgi). In Compendium on Japanese ethics 日本倫理彙編 (Nihon rinri ihen), compilers. INOUE Tetsujirō and KANIE Yoshimaru, vol. 7. Kyoto: Rinsen Shoten. (Reprint of two volumes of a series published in 1901 by Ikuseikai.) Asami, Keisai. 1982. Miscellaneous records of common sayings 常話雜記 (Jōwa zakki). Recorded by WAKABAYASHI Kyōsai 若林強斎筆. In Hundred flowers garden of essays, academic category 随筆百花苑, 學藝篇 (Zuihitsu hyakkaen, Gakugeihen), managing ed. KŌSHIN Asama 野間光 辰. Chūō Kōronsha. Asami, Yasumasa 淺見安正 (compiler). The Posthumous works Master Keisai 絅齋先生遺書 (Keisai sensei isho). Unpublished Edo-period manuscript in three volumes in the collection of the Kanō bunko 狩野文庫 at Tōhoku University, Sendai.

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De Bary, William Theodore, Carol Gluck, and Arthur E. Tiedemann (compilers). 2005. Sources of Japanese tradition, vol. 2, 2nd ed. New York: Columbia University Press. (A large collection of selected writings in translation from Japan’s most important philosophers, religious figures, writers, and political leaders from 1600 through the 20th century, with informative introductory essays. Particularly notable for its comprehensive coverage of Japanese Confucian thought.) Denki Gakkai 傳記學會 (Society for Biographical Studies) (ed.). 1943. YAMAZAKI Ansai and his Lineage 山崎闇斎と其門流 (YAMAZAKI Ansai to sono monryū), enlarged ed. Tokyo: Meiji Shobō. Fukuzawa, Yukichi 福澤諭吉. 1875. An outline of a theory of civilization 文明論之概略 (Bunmeiron no gairyaku). Publisher not known. (A book that was read by virtually everyone who could read in the Meiji period and had great influence on the Westernization and modernization movement of the late 19th century.) Fukuzawa, Yukichi. 1973. An outline of a theory of civilization. Trans. David A. Dilworth and G. Cameron Hurst III. Tokyo: Sophia University. Fukuzawa, Yukichi. 2008. An outline of a theory of civilization. Revised translation, David A. Dilworth, G. Cameron Hurst III. Tokyo: Keio University Press. Gamō, Shigeakira 蒲生重章. 1877. Biographies of great people of the early modern period 近世 偉人傳 (Kinsei ijin den). Tokyo: Morita Tetsugorō. Gluck, Carol. 1985. Japan’s modern myths. Princeton: Princeton University Press. (Examining the talk and thought of the late Meiji period, the author reveals the diversity of ideological discourse experienced by the Japanese of the time). Gokyū, Hisabumi 五弓久文 (comp.) and GOKYŪ Toyotarō 五弓豊太郎 (ed.). 1910–1911. Compilation of factual writings 事実文編 (Jijitsu bunpen), 5 vols. Tokyo: Kokusho Kankōkai. Gotō, Saburō 後藤三郎. 1941. The national polity thought of the Ansai School 闇斎学統の国体思想 (Ansai gakutō no kokutai shisō). Tokyo: Kinkōdō Shoseki. Hiraizumi, Kiyoshi 平泉澄. 1932. Master Ansai and the Japanese spirit 闇齋先生と日本精神 (Ansai Sensei to Nihon seishin).Tokyo: Shibundō. Hiraizumi, Kiyoshi and TERADA Gō (compilers). 1938. The complete works of Master ŌHASHI Totsuan 大橋訥俺先生全集 (ŌHASHI Totsuan sensei zenshū). 3 vols. Tokyo: Shibundō. Inaba, Mokusai 稻葉默齋 (alias INABA Masanobu 稻葉正信). 1767. The achievements of our illustrious forerunners 先達遺事 (Sendatsu iji). Osaka: Kagaya Zenzō. Also included in Seki 1942–1943, vol. 2. Inaba, Mokusai (alias INABA Masanobu 稻葉正信). 1891. Snow, plum and grass 雪梅草 (Setsubaisō). In Lonely pine complete manuscript 孤松全稿 (Koshō zenkō, in 27 fascicles 巻): 33. Tokyo: Dōgaku Kyōkai. Inaba, Mokusai (alias INABA Masanobu 稻葉正信). One drop of ink 墨水一滴 (Bokusui itteki). In Seki 1942–1943, vol. 2. Inaba, Usai 稻葉宇齋 (alias INABA Masayoshi 稻葉正信). Master Usai’s talks on learning 宇齋先 生學話 (Usai sensei gakuwa). Recorded by INABA Mokusai et al., ed. INABA Mokusai. Unpublished manuscript in two volumes. In the collection of Kotenseki shiryōshitsu, Tokyo. Inaba, Usai (alias INABA Masayoshi 稻葉正信). An epitome of reflections on things at hand (Kinshiroku taii 近思錄大意). Recorded by UI Kōtoku 宇井弘篤. In Talks on learning (Gakuwa 學話) 巻2. In the author’s collection. Itoga, Kunijirō 糸賀国次郎. 1935. A study of the development of ZHU Xi studies in Shikoku 海南 朱子学發達達の研究 (Kainan Shushigaku hattatsu no kenkyū). Tokyo: Seibidō Shoten. Kondō, Keigo 近藤啓吾 and KANEMOTO Masataka 金本正孝 (compilers). 1989. A collection of ASAMI Keisai’s writings 淺見絅齋集 (ASAMI Keisai shū). Tokyo: Kokusho Kankōkai. Kondō, Keigo. Notes on Master Asami’s miscellaneous talks 淺見先生雑話筆記 (ASAMI sensei zatsuwa hikki). Privately published, no date given. For library listing see https://opac. dl.itc.u-tokyo.ac.jp/opac/opac_list.cgi. Lau, D. C. 1979. The Analects. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books. (One of the classic English translations of the Analects, with an excellent historical and textual introduction.) Makeham, John (ed.). 2010. Dao companion to Neo-Confucian philosophy. New York: Springer. Maruyama, Masao. 丸山真男. 1972. The ancient stratum of historical consciousness 歷史意識の 古層 (Rekishi ishiki no kosō). In A collection of writings on historical thought 歷史思想集 (Rekishi shisō shū), Japanese thought 日本の思想 (Nihon no shisō) series, ed. Maruyama, vol.

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6, 3–46. Tokyo: Chikuma Shobō. (Republished with supplementary material in Loyalty and Rebellion 忠誠と叛逆 (Chūsei to hangyaku). (see Maruyama 1992 below), 294–351.) Maruyama, Masao. 1974. Studies in the intellectual history of Tokugawa Japan. Trans. Mikiso Hane. Tokyo/Princeton: Tokyo University Press/Princeton University Press. Translation of Studies in the history of Japanese political thought 日本政治思想史研究 (Nihon seiji shisō shi kenkyū). Tokyo: Tokyo University Press, 1952. (This is the most influential book ever written on Japanese intellectual history in the Edo period, although many of its stimulating views have been dismantled by more recent scholarship.) Maruyama, Masao. 1992. Loyalty and rebellion 忠誠と叛逆 (Chūsei to hangyaku). Tokyo: Chikuma Shobō. Maruyama, Masao. 1995. A collection of MARUYAMA Masao’s works 丸山真男集 (MARUYAMA Masao shū), 16 vols., Iwanami Shoten, 1995–1996. Minamoto, Ryōen 源了圓 and MAEDA Tsutomu 前田勉 (translators and annotators). 1994. Collected sayings of the Wise Men of Former Times 先哲叢談 (Sentetsu sōdan). Tōyō bunko series, vol. 574. Tokyo: Heibonsha. Miyake, Shōsai 三宅尚齋. 1848. Records of the Tripping Wolf 狼疐録 (Rōchiroku). 3 vols. Kan’utei sōsho 甘雨亭叢書 series. Annaka 安中 (KŌZUKE 上野): Itakura shi (1845) and Edo: Yamashiroya Sahee (1848). (One of the two major records of MIYAKE Shōsai’s teachings. The “tripping wolf” 狼疐 is an allusion to the Book of Songs, where in the “Odes of Bin” 豳風 section there is a poem called Lang ba 狼跋 describing a fat and clumsy but likeable duke. See http://ctext.org/book-of-poetry/odes-of-bin.) Miyake, Shōsai. 1933. Record of silent knowing 黙識録 (Mokushikiroku), 2 vols. Tokyo: Shōundō. Miyake, Shōsai. 1938. White sparrow record 白雀錄 (Hakujakuroku), 2 vols, ken 乾 (heaven) and kon 坤 (earth). Tokyo: Kobunsai. Miyake, Shōsai. Record of Shōsai’s miscellaneous talks 尚齋雜談錄 (Shōsai zatsudan roku). Recorded by KUME Teisai 久米訂齋. Edition at National Diet Library (no year given). Najita, Tetsuo. 1974. Japan: The intellectual foundations of modern Japanese politics. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall. (A highly insightful, philosophically sophisticated examination of the dialectical development of Edo-period Confucian thought focusing on the Ansai and Sorai schools and analyzing the influence of their modes of thought in modern Japan.) Nihon Koten Gakkai (NKG) 日本古典学会 (compilers). 1937. The complete works of YAMAZAKI Ansai, continued, vol. 2 山崎闇斎全集, 續, 下巻 (YAMAZAKI Ansai zenshū, zoku, gekan). Nihon Koten Gakkai (NKG) (compilers). 1941. Complete works of SATŌ Naokata 佐藤直方全集 (SATŌ Naokata zenshū). Nihon Koten Gakkai (NKG) (compilers). 1978. The complete works of YAMAZAKI Ansai 山崎闇斎 全集 (YAMAZAKI Ansai zenshū), 5 vols. Tokyo: Perikansha. (A reprinting of a series of volumes with the same title published by the NKG in 1936 and 1937.) Nihon Koten Gakkai (NKG) (compilers). 1979. The complete works of SATŌ Naokata, 5 vols. Tokyo: Perikansha. Nishi, Junzō 西順藏, ABE Ryūichi 阿部隆一, MARUYAMA Masao 丸山真男 (compilers). 1980. The YAMAZAKI Ansai School 山崎闇齋學派 (YAMAZAKI Ansai gakuha). In Compendium of Japanese thought 日本思想大系 (Nihon shisō taikei), vol. 31. Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten. (An annotated collection of many of the most important writings of the Kimon school with bibliographical, biographical and historical essays by the compilers, including the essay translated here.) Nishimura, Tokihiko 西村時彦 (ed.). 1911. Master Chikuzan’s letters in Japanese (Chikuzan sensei kokujitoku 竹山先生國字牘). In Posthumous Books of the Kaitokudō 懷德堂遺書 (Kaitokudō isho) series. Osaka: Matsumura Bunkaidō. Ooms, Herman. 1985. Tokugawa ideology: Early constructs, 1570–1680. Princeton: Princeton University Press. (This is the first book-length study in English to examine in detail the ideological significance of YAMAZAKI Ansai and attempt to delineate the ideological and moral discourse to which his teachings gave rise.) Ōtsuka, Shizuka 大塚静 (also called ŌTSUKA Kanran 王塚観瀾 (ed.)), SENJU Kyokuzan 千手旭山 and KUSUMOTO Sekisui 楠本碩水 (compiler). 1934a. The origins of the Japanese School of the way 日本道學淵源錄 (Nihon dōgaku engenroku). Tokyo: Okajirō.

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Ōtsuka, Shizuka. 1934b. Record of the origins of the Japanese School of the way, continued 日本 道學淵源續錄 (Nihon dōgaku engen zokuroku). Tokyo: Okajirō. Roetz, Heiner. 1993. Confucian ethics of the axial age: A reconstruction under the aspect of the breakthrough to postconventional thinking. Albany: State University of New York Press. Sakaguchi, Gohō 坂口五峰. 1990. The poets and poetry of the Hokuetsu region 北越詩話 (Hokuetsu shiwa). Tokyo: Kokusho Kankōkai. Sakai, Naoki 酒井直樹. 1995. MARUYAMA Masao and Postwar Japan 丸山真男と戦後日本. Sekai 615: 57–68. Seki, Giichirō 関儀一郎 (ed.). 1942–1943. Historical materials on early modern Confucianists 近世儒家史料 (Kinsei Juka shiryō), 2 vols. Tokyo: Ida Shoten. Steben, Barry D. 2002. RAI San’yō’s philosophy of history and the ideal of imperial restoration. East Asian History 24: 117–170. (An examination of the philosophical sources of the restorationist view of history articulated in San’yō’s famous An Unofficial History of Japan [Nihon gaishi 日本外史] and two of his other writings, plus an exploration of the tremendous influence of Nihon gaishi in the bakumatsu and Meiji periods.) Steben, Barry D. 2008. The art of the Samurai: The Hagakure of YAMAMOTO Tsunetomo. London: Duncan Baird Publishers. (With a comprehensive historical introduction by the translator.). Steben, Barry D. 2012. NISHI Amane and the birth of ‘Philosophy’ and ‘Chinese Philosophy’ in Early Meiji Japan. In Learning to emulate the wise: The genesis of Chinese philosophy as an academic discipline in twentieth-century China, ed. John Makeham, 39–72. Hong Kong: Chinese University of Hong Kong Press. (A study of how Confucianism provided the foundation for the reception of Western academic fields in Japan from the late Edo period into the Meiji period, providing the foundation for its later reception in China.) Taira, Shigemichi 平重道 and ABE Akio 阿部秋生 (recension and annotation). 1972. Early modern Shinto theory and early national learning 近世神道論・前期国学 (Kinsei Shintō ron; Zenki Kokugaku). Nihon shisō taikei series no. 39. Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten. Tanaka, Stefan. 1993. Japan’s Orient: Rendering pasts into history. Berkeley: University of California Press. (A sophisticated study of modern Japanese historiography on the Orient influenced by Edward Said’s critical analysis of European scholarship on the Orient in his 1978 book Orientalism.) Tani, Shinzan 谷秦山. 1716 (Shōtoku 6). Vulgar theories and superfluous distinctions (Zokusetsu zeiben 俗說贅辨), 3 vols. Kyoto: Ibaraki Tazaemon. Tani, Shigetou 谷重遠 (author) and INAGE Minoru 稲毛実 (ed.). 1939. The letters of TANI Shinzan 秦山先生手簡 (Shinzan sensei shukan). Kōchi: Seifūkai. Tōjō, Kindai 東条琴臺. 1917. Collected sayings of the wise men of former times, continued 先哲 叢談續編 (Sentetsu sōdan zokuhen). Tokyo: Kokushi Kenkyūkai. Uchida, Enko 內田遠湖. 1914. An epitome of Master Keisai’s Posthumous works—A record of the ceremony for the 200th anniversary of Master Keisai 絅齋先生遺著要略, 絅齋先生二百 年祭典紀事 (Keisai sensei icho yōryaku, Keisai sensei nihyakunen saiten kiji). The essay is printed anonymously here, but since it is the same as the essay called “The Life Story of Master ASAMI Keisai” (ASAMI Keisai sensei jireki 淺見絅齋先生事歷) by UCHIDA Enko 內田遠湖 in the book YAMAZAKI Ansai and his Lineage, the author is Uchida. Wakabayashi, Kyōsai 若林強齋. 1937. Notes on Master Kyōsai’s miscellaneous talks 強齋先生雜 話筆記 (Kyōsai sensei zatsuwa hikki), recorded by YAMAGUCHI Shunsui 山口春水. Tokyo: Kobunsai. (This work is also included in Nishi et al. 1980.) Yamazaki, Ansai 山崎闇齋. 1671. 藤森弓兵政所記 (Fuji no mori yuzue mandokoro ki) or 垂加 翁弓兵政所記 (Suika Ō yuzue mandokoro ki). Manuscript at Kyushu University. Yamazaki, Ansai. 1979. Nihon kyōiku shisō taikei 日本教育思想大系 series, 2 vols. Tokyo: Nihon Tosho Sentā. Yin, Qixin 尹起莘 (Song dynasty). 1995. An Elucidation of the outline of the comprehensive mirror for aid in government 資治通鑒綱目發明 (Zizhi tongjian gangmu faming). Beijing: Guojia Tushuguan. Zhu, Xi 朱熹. 1167–1185. Outline of the comprehensive mirror for aid in government 資治通鑑 綱目 (Zizhi tongjian gangmu). (A famous work focusing on moral judgments regarding historical personages described in SIMA Guang’s 司馬光 voluminous history, the Zizhi tongjian, written in the Northern Song period.) Zhu, Xi. 1985. Collected annotations by Master Zhu (Zhuzi jizhu 朱子集注 Shushi shitchū). Including ZHU Xi’s Collected annotations on the Four Books 四書集注. Changsha: Yuelan Shushe.

Chapter 14

ZHU Xi and “ZHU Xi-ism”: Toward a Critical Perspective on the Ansai School KOYASU Nobukuni 子安宣邦 and Barry D. Steben, translator

The people of today are more than ever incapable of understanding the fine points of ZHU Xi’s commentaries on the Four Books, but with a proud look on their faces they call themselves the representatives of ZHU Xi learning. How laughable! In this country, the only person who has understood ZHU Xi’s meaning is YAMAZAKI Ansai. Preface to the Record of the Origins of the Japanese School of the Way (Nihon dōgaku engenroku 日本道学淵源録, 1842) There is almost no place in the whole country of Japan that has not been influenced and inspired by the Kimon school. TOKUTOMI Sohō 徳富蘇峰 (1863–1957)

14.1

A Perspective on the Ansai School

I have already discussed in detail elsewhere how the “ZHU Xi-ist” discourse within the YAMAZAKI Ansai 山崎闇齋 school (the Kimon 崎門 school) regarding the reconstruction of ZHU Xi learning unfolded as a discourse regarding the formation of a Japanese “interior” (Koyasu 1998).1 What I refer to as “ZHU Xi-ism,” the conceptual construction of Published as “Shushi to Shushishugi 朱子と朱子主義,” in Koyasu 2000: 139–154. 1

Translator’s note: In the study referred to Koyasu draws attention to the language of practice that surrounds the concept of the diachronic transmission (seitō) of a single truth from mind to mind. Here the core concepts are kei 敬 (reverent attentiveness) and shinpō 心法 (method of cultivating N. KOYASU 子安宣邦 (*) Professor Emeritus, Osaka University, Osaka, Japan e-mail: [email protected] B.D. Steben, translator Graduate Institute of Interpretation and Translation, Shanghai International Studies University, Shanghai, China e-mail: [email protected] C.C. Huang and J.A. Tucker (eds.), Dao Companion to Japanese Confucian Philosophy, Dao Companions to Chinese Philosophy 5, DOI 10.1007/978-90-481-2921-8_14, © Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2014

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which will be explained later, is the reconstructive discourse among the successors of ZHU Xi regarding the inheritance of his teachings. What I wish to discuss in the present essay is the problem of what sort of perspective we should take in approaching the Ansai school, a school that made a strong claim to have inherited the orthodox (seitō 正統) teachings of ZHU Xi, which they regarded as the basis of their own orthodoxy as a school, and which was also highly regarded from the early Shōwa 昭和 period (1926–1989) as a paramount genealogical source of the concept of the Japanese national polity (kokutai 國體, 国体). The inquiry I wish to make here into this problem of perspective cannot, as a matter of course, avoid engaging MARUYAMA Masao’s major study of the Ansai school (Maruyama 1980), which already carried the critical examination of the school’s inheritance discourse to a very high level.2 Or, perhaps it would be more accurate to say that it is only through a positive engagement with Maruyama’s study that we can attempt a clarification of our perspective on the Ansai school. To elucidate what we are talking about here it will be useful first to quote some passages representative of the kokutai-centered discourse regarding Ansai and his school that was flooding the country in the first two decades of the Shōwa era. Since they provided a rigorous critique of their times while investigating to the full the great duty between ruler and subject (kunshin no taigi 君臣の大義),3 not stopping at the level of cognition and argument but trying to verify its truth in their own lives, they were able to stand firm through innumerable difficulties and carry on their teaching mission generation after generation, maintaining the same purpose unflinchingly through a hundred teachers for over two hundred years, both in Eastern and Western Japan, giving themselves without end to the cause of the imperial throne. This sort of thing can only be seen in the Kimon school. (Hiraizumi 1932) The Ansai lineage of learning constitutes one of the three great Tokugawa-period sources of our country’s concept of kokutai, along with the Mito school and National Learning, and its contributions to the Meiji Restoration were extremely great. Moreover, in a sense the Ansai lineage constituted the source of the other two schools. (Gotō 1941, preface) the mind). Ansai saw the concept of kei as already expressed, before the existence of the word, in the two most basic trigrams of the Book of Changes, qian (heaven) and kun (earth). This true meaning has been passed down as shinpō through innumerable generations of sages, defining the inheritors of the transmission of that meaning as “orthodox” (of the legitimate line). The language that tells of this true meaning must be a language that transmits the true meaning directly to the human heart (kokoro), and it is just such a language—aimed at the formation of a Japanese “interior”—that unfolds in the Kimon school in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. 2 In the study referred to, Maruyama distinguishes two different meanings of the concept of seitō 正統 (literally “correct lineage”) using the terms “O-seitō” (the orthodoxy of a teaching or a lineage of learning, the orthodoxy of a world view) and “L-seitō” (the legitimacy of a ruler, a system of rule, or a lineage of rulers). Legitimacy, however, can also refer to the legitimacy of a partisan claim to orthodoxy. As Maruyama also recognizes, a claim of doctrinal orthodoxy always stands on the basis of the legitimacy of a faction or school, and a claim of doctrinal orthodoxy (O-seitō) is always found at the basis of the legitimacy of a faction or school (L-seitō). What I (Koyasu) refer to as the discourse of “ZHU Xi-ism” is just such a discourse in which the claim of orthodoxy gave rise to the legitimacy of a faction or school. [For a translation of Maruyama’s classic study (Maruyama 1980), see the previous chapter in the present volume, “Orthodoxy and Legitimacy in the YAMAZAKI Ansai School”]. 3 Translator’s note: If we were referring to this Confucian concept in the context of Edo-period Japanese thought (i.e., in the context of a feudal society), kunshin would have to be translated as “lord and vassal.”

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There is virtually no place in the whole country of Japan that has not been influenced and inspired by the Kimon school…. Master Ansai, like TOKUGAWA Mitsukuni 徳川光圀, was extremely thorough about investigating the Way and he had grasped the true essence (shinzui 真髄) of our nation. To state what that is, it is to look into the deepest core (kotsuzui 骨髄) of Japanese history. One must consider the true essence of Japanese history by starting from the origins of the imperial house. (Tokutomi 1943)

These quotations are representative of the early-Shōwa kokutai-centered reevaluative discourse regarding the Ansai school, an overwrought discourse for which Maruyama expresses his disdain in his study when he says: “books that I would find it unbearably tedious to quote from one by one.” But is it enough for us just to dismiss this early Shōwa kokutai-centered discourse surrounding the Ansai school— this discourse depicting the personality of the founder in glowing terms while emphasizing the unbroken genealogical continuity of the conception of kokutai that this school had protected so staunchly from being lost—with a look of disdain? Of course, like Maruyama, I also feel a sense of repugnance toward this discourse. But it seems that the attitude with which I regard this discourse is different. This difference is also a difference in the way I regard the image of Ansai and his school that comes to us through this discourse. Let us first look at what Maruyama says about this kokutai-theory discourse that he says he would find too tedious to cite. The kind of “emanationist” (ryūshutsuronteki 流出論的) explanation of the historical meaning and role of the Ansai school that was made into the generally accepted view, so to speak, by the new Kimon school in modem Japan was also, moreover, nothing other than a correlate phenomenon of the school’s appearance of being “self-completing” and “diachronically continuous.” What I am referring to is the supposition that the “spirit” inherent in the character and thought of the founder of the school, Ansai, was passed down without interruption through several generations of disciples, developing in one straight line into one of the great moving forces of the imperial restoration movement. Needless to say, this tune played in close harmony with the pre-war “national polity” (kokutairon) ideology. The argument that the essence of Ansai’s learning—the elucidation of the heaven-and-man-asone origin of the Japanese nation and the great moral duty (taigi 大義) between lord and vassal and father and son grounded in that origin, plus the exaltation of the title-and-statusrooted moral duties (meibun 名分) of revering the emperor and driving out the hegemon (sonnō sekiha 尊王斥霸) and of distinguishing civilization from barbarism and native from foreign (ka’i naigai 華夷内外)—was carried on through two centuries of the Tokugawa shogunate to gush forth as the “revere the emperor, repel the barbarian” (sonnō jōi 尊皇攘 夷) movement of the bakumatsu period, furthering the glorious enterprise of the Meiji Restoration, became the undercurrent of a whole series of academic books, . . . books that I would find it unbearably tedious to quote from one by one.4

Here Maruyama understands the kokutai-centered re-evaluative discourse regarding the Ansai school as a discourse of explanation regarding the “historical meaning of the Ansai school,” seeing in this discourse a pattern of “a kind of ‘emanationist’ explanation . . . that was made into the generally accepted view, so to speak, by the new Kimon school in modem Japan.” Further, the establishment of this “emanationist” explanation is seen as a phenomenon related to the repetitive insistence by the 4 Maruyama 1980: 607. As examples of this type of “academic” book (literally “research” book) Maruyama here first cites Hiraizumi 1932, quoted above, followed by Itoga 1935, Gotō 1941, Denki Gakkai 1943, Ōtsuka 1934, and Abe 1939.

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Ansai school on its orthodoxy as a school, the characteristics of which Maruyama critically identifies as its “self-completing nature” and “diachronicity” (or historical continuity). The “self-completing nature” and “diachronicity” that Maruyama here identifies as the distinguishing characteristics of the school are rooted in the school’s highly distinctive mode of group discourse which can be seen in the school’s selfrighteous and exclusivistic partisan assertions of being the inheritor of the orthodox learning of the way and in its claim of the genealogical continuity of its orthodoxy embodied in the tradition of oral transmission from teacher to disciple. In his study, Maruyama analyzes the various dimensions of this unique group discourse regarding orthodoxy within the school, which at times gave rise to ferocious doctrinal disputes within the school, and he fully exposes its “pathological” nature.5 Now if we epitomize Maruyama’s points about the Ansai school in this way, the perspective that he takes toward the school and the concerns that construct that perspective come to the surface. For Maruyama, what was superimposed doubly or triply on the group discourse of the Ansai school was the state-nationalist (kokkashugi 國家 主義) discourse of modern Japan that reached its frenzied peak in the early Shōwa period, as well as the Stalinist party discourse that left such deep wounds on the intellectual world of postwar Japan. The distinctive strategic nature of virtually all of the arguments Maruyama develops is clear here as well. The Ansai school is the model collective discourse, as the prototype that should exist in a form that will illuminate the pathological nature of the two major group discourses that developed in modern Japan. Even if, from Maruyama’s strategic standpoint, one can say that the kokutaicentered discourse concerning the Ansai school that unfolded in Shōwa Japan was a dwarfed reproduction in the modern period of the Kimon discourse of the early modern period, Maruyama does not accurately see that this discourse is precisely the modern state-nationalist (kokkashugi), kokutai-centered discourse itself, as constructed through the mobilization of the most powerful statist ideologues of modern Japan. The “kokutai thought of the Ansai school” was nothing other than the modern state-nationalist discourse that modern Japan reconstructed in the form of retracing the intellectual lineage of the Ansai school. If that is the case, then it is the discourse of Ansai and his school as connected reconstructively with this modern kokutai-centered discourse that is in question. There is certainly validity in the strategic perspective and method that Maruyama uses to analyze the Kimon discourse as a model of pathological group discourse. However, what falls out of that strategic perspective is the Ansai school as something connected reconstructively with this nationalist discourse of modern Japan. The Ansai school that should be our object of concern is definitely not merely a prototypical case that illuminates the pathology of the modern state-nationalist discourse.

5

While commenting for instance on the doctrinal/ideological controversies that were characterized by the magnetism brought in by the sort of people who were followers of the Ansai school, Maruyama says, “It is the task of the person who thinks systematically not to turn his eyes from this desolate scene, but to consider how to control the pathology that accompanies this sort of magnetic force.”

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14.2

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After noting “it was none other than Karl Marx himself who said ‘I am not a Marxist’,” Maruyama observes that “these words remind us of the fate that almost inevitably awaits any thought system or world view the moment it leaves the hands of a specific individual and circulates in society.” It seems that this statement of Maruyama distinguishing between Marx and Marxism, while appearing to construct a perspective on Marxism as a worldview, relates only to his critique of the ideological nature of the emanationist school discourse within the Ansai school. This is apparent when he points out that “Ansai did not give the world any philosophical (shisōteki 思想的) work of which we can say ‘it is this that represents Ansai’s teachings’.” If so, then Maruyama’s above observation concerning Marxism becomes also something said merely for show that fails to catch the important state of affairs that must of necessity develop out of this disjuncture between the founder and the school based on his teachings. The reasons for distinguishing Marxism from Marx are, first, in order to ensure our perspective regarding the Marxist discourse that unfolded as the worldview of the movement of social thought that attributed the source of its legitimacy to Marx. Second, it is to ensure that we take a new reexamined perspective in approaching the theories of Marx himself, as distinguished from the unfolding of the Marxist worldview subsequent to Marx. Etienne Balibar has said that with the end of the gigantic age in which Marxism functioned as an organized party doctrine (1890–1990), Marxist philosophy no longer existed in the real world, and that from that point the reexamination of Marx’s philosophy in the true sense, apart from all illusions and deceits, begins (Balibar 1995).6 However, the end of a gigantic age for Marxism definitely does not mean the extinction of an analytical point of view toward Marxism. Rather, upon reaching the end of the gigantic century for Marxism, we must ensure anew our perspective toward Marxist discourse as distinguished from Marx himself. Though we speak of Marxism as distinguished from Marx himself, this is something connected to our analytical point of view, and Marxism is, needless to say, a thought movement and worldview that attributed the source of the orthodoxy of its theory and doctrine in an emanationist way to Marx. Moreover, this movement went on to acquire institutional orthodoxy as state and party doctrine beginning in 1931. The establishment of the orthodoxy of Marxist doctrine is the establishment of the orthodoxy of the interpretation of Marx’s theory, and from that Marx’s theory itself went on to be standardized and systematized through the Marxist thought movement. Thus, to ask about Marxism as distinguished from Marx is to ask about the discourse regarding the inheritance of orthodox doctrine among the successors of 6

Translator’s note: Balibar’s actual words are that, with the end of the great age in which Marxism functioned as an organized doctrine, “There is, in reality, no Marxist philosophy, either as the worldview of a social movement, or as the doctrine or system of an author called Marx. Paradoxically, however, this negative conclusion, far from nullifying or diminishing the importance of Marx for philosophy, greatly increases it. Freed from an illusion and an imposture, we gain a theoretical universe.”

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Marx that attributed the source of the orthodoxy of its doctrine to Marx. For that reason, this sort of establishment of a perspective on Marxism is suggestive regarding the way we can establish a valid perspective on ZHU Xi-ism. Distinguishing ZHU Xi-ism from ZHU Xi means to open a new perspective toward the discourse of ZHU Xi’s successors, a discourse that has been obscured within the general term “ZHU Xi learning” (Shushigaku 朱子学). That is, it is to open a perspective on “ZHU Xi-ist” discourse. Now, the establishment of a “new Confucianism” on the part of ZHU Xi entailed a systematic reorganization of the classics and the establishment of a new system of interpretive theory regarding the classics. This process of establishing a “new Confucianism” can be seen as a process of the rejection of heterodox interpretations and, through that, the establishment of a doctrinal orthodoxy regarding the interpretation of the classics. And of course, this orthodox system of interpretation formulated by ZHU Xi went on to acquire in China—through the examination system—the status of institutional orthodoxy as the state’s official system of interpretation. Now the establishment of an inherited system of learning among ZHU Xi’s successors, in other words of a “ZHU Xi-ist” system of learning—which as I have shown elsewhere can be clearly seen in The Meanings of Neo-Confucian Terms (Xingli ziyi 性理字義) of CHEN Beixi 陳北溪 (1159–1223)— occurs through their work of re-accomplishing for themselves the work of reconstructing a “new Confucianism” that was carried out by ZHU Xi (see Koyasu 1996; Tucker 1998). During this process, following the pattern laid down by ZHU Xi in establishing an orthodox doctrine regarding the interpretation of the classics, the orthodoxy of ZHU Xi’s interpretations comes to be asserted by his successors. The orthodox system of learning known as ZHU Xi learning, through this work of reconstruction among his successors, unfolds as the discourse of the inheritance of orthodoxy, in other words, as the discourse of “ZHU Xi-ism.” The Ansai school is the school of Confucianism that accomplished this development of a ZHU Xi-ist discourse in Japan in its purest and most dramatic form. “Faithful exposition” (sojutsu 祖述) and “personal realization” (tainin 体認) were the methods of pursuing learning that Ansai inherited from the great Korean ZHU Xi scholar, YI T’oegye (1501–1570). “Faithful exposition” indicates a mode of inheritance of learning premised on a deep admiration for and devotion to the personality of the master, as is aptly conveyed by the following words in the Chronology of Ansai’s Life (Ansai nenpu 闇齋年譜): ZHU Xi’s learning—dwelling in reverence and plumbing principle—is a learning that faithfully expounds Confucius without any discrepancy. Therefore, if in learning ZHU Xi I fall into error, I fall into error together with ZHU Xi. What regret could there be in that?

“Realizing for oneself,” as another aspect of this personal inheritance of a system of learning, refers to a method of learning emphasizing the self-authenticated (shutaiteki 主体的) inward reception of the teachings of the master. In the Ansai school, this “faithful exposition” and “personal realization” were not only methods of learning, but also methods of thought. It is through these methods that the school was able to establish a coterie of ZHU Xi-ist scholars with its own distinctive ethos, held together by strong personal relationships between master and disciple, and filled with the pathos that comes from intense subjective (shutaiteki) engagement in

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the pursuit of learning. As for the way in which a “Japanese-style ZHU Xi learning” came to be established from this distinctive ZHU Xi-ist school of thought, I have already discussed this in detail in the essay mentioned above. The school of learning that—together with its ethos—came to be reconstructively involved in the kokutaicentered nationalist discourse of Shōwa Japan was this “Japanese-style ZHU Xi learning.”

14.3

The Ansai School and the “My-Country-ist” (Jikokushugi 自国主義) Discourse

The concentration of concern on the foundation on which the “subject” (shutai) of learning stands (one’s own country) constructs a new relational framework that re-apprehends the self-other relationship between uchi 内 (one’s own country) and soto 外 (other countries). Here, an “inside” 内 (my country) is clearly established as something opposed to an “outside” 外 (foreign countries) and, in the clear discrimination between “host” or “subject” (shu 主) and “guest” or “object” (kaku 客), a strong and unbreakable consciousness of one’s own country is established in discourse, a consciousness that a taigi meibun (supreme duty in accord with distinctions of name and status) exists clearly in the fact that the uchi— oneself—is the “host” or “master” in the country of one’s birth. (Koyasu 1998: 75)

The passage cited here, from my above-mentioned essay regarding the Ansai school, is discussing how the “my-country consciousness” within the discourse of the Ansai school exists together with the construction of a new relational framework defined by the binary concepts of “host” vs. “guest” and uchi vs. soto. The Ansaischool discourse poignantly demonstrates how, with the introduction of this new discursive relational framework into early modern Confucian discourse, the “my-country-ist” discourse was established. It was with a heavy reliance on this Kimon school “my-country-ist” discourse that modern Japanese state-nationalism (kokkashugi) reconstructed the intellectual lineage of “the kokutai thought of the Ansai school.” Now what I was aiming to do in the essay quoted above was not to identify the origins of kokutai thought by tracing back the intellectual lineage that was reconstructed in Shōwa Japan under the name of “the kokutai thought of the Ansai school.” Tracing things back to their origin is something engaged in by those with a reconstructive inclination. My intent, rather, was to reveal by what sort of discursive arrangement and mechanism the discourse regarding origins that is discerned by the reconstructive inclination came to be established within the particular circumstances of the early modern period. Let me say that again. My aim was to clarify, using the method of discourse analysis, by what sort of arrangement and mechanism of early modern Confucianist discourse the Ansai school’s theory of taigi meibun that modern Japanese state-nationalism identified as its own origin came to be established. This is the practice of the method of doing intellectual history as “the archeology of modern knowledge.” Now, regarding this “my-country-ist” discourse within the Ansai school, Maruyama identifies it as a discourse of particularism, and he proceeds to expose the pathological nature of particularistic discourse. As something that illuminates

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most distinctly just where the problem lies, Maruyama brings in “an ideologue of the Shinto wing of the Kimon school who put forward a thoroughgoing particularism”—TANI Shinzan 谷秦山 (1663–1718). Quoting Shinzan’s statement that “the people of Japan should take Amaterasu Ōmikami 天照大御神 as their foundation and the people of China should take Confucius as their foundation,” he argues: Along with regional “particularism,” it is also necessary that morals be set up on diverse levels in this way according to the different degrees of consanguinity or geographic distance defining the human relationships involved. If one counterposes the spirit of East Asia (tōyō 東洋) against the Western way of the “southern barbarians,”7 then within East Asia, one counterposes China (kara) and Japan, then within Japan one counterposes Edo and Tosa: in this way, the “affliations” (shozoku 所属) between regions and people can be split up minutely ad infinitum. Within each level a more distant universality is “abstract,” and a closer individuated particularity can be seen as “concrete” . . . The “being-the-basis-of-judgment-ness” or “self-authorizing nature” (shutaisei)8 of Japan, if we can use such expressions, cannot be conceived except for a Japan-centered image of the world based on distinctions between domestic and foreign, intimate and non-intimate, and near and far.

In this way, having defined the “my-country-ist” discourse as a particularistic discourse, Maruyama proceeds to describe the discursive structure of particularism and parochialism critically as a negative discursive structure on the basis of its being a particularistic discursive structure inclined toward particularistic and parochial values. It appears that the “my-country-ist” discourse that comes to be established in the intellectual space of early modern Japan in the eighteenth century is here being lumped together with the ultranationalist discourse of modern Japan, and, on the basis of a feeling of disgust toward the latter, the former is being discursively constructed as particularism. Maruyama’s argument, while relying on the theory

7

Since the European maritime powers during the Edo period (except for Russia, a late-comer to the scene) approached Japan from the south (Southeast Asia and Taiwan), not from the Pacific, they were identified using the Chinese word for “southern barbarians.” (tr.) 8 Translator’s note: Shutaisei means being the “host” rather than the “guest,” the “subject,” as opposed to an “object”, being in the center as opposed to the periphery, having a consciousness of one’s self (and one’s nation) as making one’s own choices on the basis of one’s own priorities, not being subject to standards set by someone else, just as shutaiteki action means acting on the basis of one’s own will and one’s own judgment. In the development of the Ansai school discourse, the emphasis on shutaisei in this sense arose in the context of the reorientation of Confucian worldordering concepts from the point of view of “us, the Japanese” (particularly the Japanese samurai, with their strong sense of corporate and individual pride) as the core, rather than China, so that “we Japanese” have the right, in fact the duty, to reject any element of Confucian teaching (such as the Mencian doctrine of the legitimacy, in extreme cases, of overthrowing an evil ruler) that does not correspond with Japan’s exalted “kokutai.” Maruyama’s own philosophy also focused on the development of the Japanese “shutaisei,” which carried a different sense based on postwar disgust at what the kokutai ideology had done to the Japanese people in the militaristic period (including a destruction of the shutaisei of the individual in the name of national shutaisei). Koyasu’s Foucaultian methodology sublates Maruyama’s liberalist-modernist understanding of shutaisei into an even more reflexive critical awareness of the structure and nature of “modernist” discourse, including the postwar discourse regarding “shutaisei” in which Maruyama was a major participant.

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that different types of behavior are motivated by value inclinations that are more particularistic or more universalistic, more specific or more general, proceeds to discursively construct the historical discourse of my-country-ism typologically as particularism. However, the universalism that ought to lie at the other end of the spectrum of the typology of behavior, more than being described here as a discourse that is the polar opposite of particularism, is rather kept in reserve to serve as Maruyama’s own perspective for describing particularism critically and exposing it as something negative and pathological. The question that arises at this point, however, is the question of the appropriateness of constructing the problem of the nation-state on the basis of a relational framework that typologizes discourse in terms of the polarity of “universalism” vs. “particularism.”

14.4

Universal Versus Particular

When he begins his critical analysis of the discourse of particularism, Maruyama argues: “Let us try to approach it from the point of view of the way in which a universal ‘way’ relates to particular nations or states, like Japan and China—that is, from the point of view of the relationship between the universality of the way and the particularity of the nation-state.” In these words of Maruyama, the problematic nature of the very relational framework of “universal vs. particular” that is used to construct the problem is expressed. Does what Maruyama speaks of here as universal and particular refer to a relational framework based on a typology of behavior and discourse? Or is it not, rather, that there has been a switch in the construction of the problem using the relational framework of “universal vs. particular”? The nation-state appears as a problem in discourse always as the problem of one’s own nation-state. Moreover, the problem of one’s own nation-state appears only within the relational framework of self and other. Until the modern period—in other words, until European imperialism appeared in East Asia in a conspicuous way—the problem of the nation-state in East Asia was a problem that arose in connection with the Chinese empire. When China as an “other” counterposed to “self” came to be separated from China as the land of the sages, then one’s own country, “Japan,” was established in discourse along with the “other” country, China (see Koyasu 1992). In that case, the fact that Maruyama constructs the problem by counterposing the question of “particular nation-states like Japan and China” against “the universal way” reveals the vagueness of the relational framework of “universal vs. particular” in Maruyama’s analysis, or tells us that a shifting of the problem has occurred on the basis of this relational framework. The relational framework of “universal vs. particular” comes to constitute a problem in discourse in modern Japan at the same time as European thought and culture appear in Asia as the vehicle of universal values and the adoption of this

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European thought and culture begins to be promoted in the various regions of Asia in the name of modernization. The reaction against this trend comes to be contraposed as the self-awareness (jikaku 自覚) of a particular Asia against a universal Europe.9 “Universal vs. particular” is a framework for constructing the problem that appears from within the cultural and geopolitical self-definition of modern Asia. In modern Japan, as well, has not the collapse of Marxist theory as a universalistic system of world interpretation served to enhance in the thinking of intellectuals the relative importance of the particularistic Japanese society always right beneath one’s feet? Moreover, in the world of discourse in postwar Japan as well, have not particularistic theories of Japanese society appeared unceasingly as critiques of modernist theory with its inclination toward universal values, or as supplementary theories to modernism?10 It was the “universal vs. particular” framework that went on to construct the problem from within the cultural and geopolitical self-definition of modern Asia, and it is the relational framework that is constructing the problem before our eyes. If we apply this “universal vs. particular” relational framework to pre-modern East Asia, then it would presumably be on the basis of taking the cultural and geopolitical relationship between Europe and Asia as analogous to the relationship between China and the various regions of Asia. Here “China” refers to the Celestial Empire (Chūka teikoku 中華帝国) that is being forcibly likened to the European empires. And the problem that is constructed here is of a totally different nature than the discourse typology problem in Maruyama’s study.

9

Translator’s note: For example, TAKEUCHI Yoshimi (1910–1977), under the catchphrase “Asia as Method,” proposed the construction of an “alternative method to understand the Asian experience” based on a sympathetic understanding of the different responses to the challenge of modernity on the part of the Chinese, Japanese, and other Asian peoples. He conceived this as “a cultural rerolling, or a rerolling of values, that rewraps the West anew from the East, reversing the direction to transform the West itself from our side, transforming the West in order to raise to a higher level the universal values that were themselves engendered by the West. . . . When this rerolling is done, we must have something in ourselves that is distinctively our own. What is this something? One would not expect that it exists as an entity. But can it not exist as a method?” (Takeuchi 1978; Steben 2000: 29–30). As Koyasu interprets it, “Asia as an entity” is Asia conceived by imperial Japan in its opposition to the world dominion of modern imperial Europe, while “Asia as method,” by contrast, is a critical view of history that situates its perspective outside the West, in a China whose revolutionary potential has been recognized. Analogously, Koyasu proposes “Edo as method” (the title of the book in which the present essay appears) as a critical perspective aimed at rereading and reconceptualising Japan’s modern history—formed as a resistance against Western modernity in the very process of pursuing that modernity—from the point of view of the Edo period, through treating Edo not as an entity resisting modernity, but as the methodological foothold outside of modern Japan for a critical reading of modern Japanese history. . . . (Steben 2000: 30–31). 10 Maruyama has already positioned himself on the side of modernism in this controversy.

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References Abe, Yoshio 阿部吉雄. 1939. YAMAZAKI Ansai and his education 山崎闇斎とその教育. In Confucianism in Early Modern Japan 近世日本の儒学, ed. Society for the Celebration and Commemoration of the Seventieth Anniversary of Duke TOKUGAWA Iesato’s Succession, 335–342. Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten. (The character of this study can be gleaned from the long passage translated at the end of the translator’s introduction to the previous chapter in this volume.) Balibar, Etienne. 1995. The Philosophy of Marx. Trans. Chris Turner. London/New York: Verso. (An anonymous Amazon reviewer writes: Balibar is astonishing in his brevity and his lucidity when summarizing a hundred and fifty years of Marxist thought on issues such as ideology and false consciousness, time and history, class struggle and dialectics.) Denki Gakkai 伝記学会 (ed.). 1943. YAMAZAKI Ansai and his school 山崎闇斎とその門流. Meiji Shobō. Gotō, Saburō 後藤三郎. 1941. The Ansai Lineage and the ‘National Polity’ conceptual system 闇 斎学統と国体思想. Tokyo: Kinkōdō Shoseki. Hiraizumi, Kiyoshi 平泉澄. 1932. Master Ansai and the Japanese Spirit 闇斎先生と日本精神. In Master Ansai and the Japanese Spirit, ed. HIRAIZUMI Tomi. Tokyo: Shibundō. Itoga, Kunijirō 糸賀国次郎. 1935. Studies in the development of the Tosa School of ZHU Xi learning 海南朱子学発達の研究. Tokyo: Seibidō Shoten. (This and the preceding two works are central in showing how the Kimon school tradition and concepts of the kokutai and the “Japanese spirit” were re-incorporated into the national ideology during Japan’s militaristic period.) Koyasu, Nobukuni 子安宣邦. 1992. MOTOORI Norinaga 本居宣長. Tokyo: Iwanami Shinsho. (An important study that subjects Norinaga’s attempted reconstruction of the ancient Japanese language—aimed at recovering the pristine Japanese “way” from its long history of being overlain by Sinitic concepts—to a sophisticated Foucaultian discourse analysis.) Koyasu, Nobukuni 子安宣邦. 1996. Two philosophical lexicographies: The reconstruction and deconstruction of Confucianism in ITō Jinsai’s lectures on his Gomō jigi 二つの字義: 儒学の 再構成と脱構築 —– 伊藤仁斎『語孟字義』講義の上. In Shisō, 861. Republished in Lectures on the History of Edo Thought 江戸思想史講義 (Edo shisōshi kōgi): 79–111. Koyasu, Nobukuni 子安宣邦. 1998. The language of “reverence” and “mind-method” in the YAMAZAKI Ansai school—The discourse of the formation of a Japanese “interior” 山崎学の 「敬説」説と「心法」の言語 —– 日本的「内部」形成の言説. In Lectures on the history of Edo thought, 45–76. Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten. Koyasu, Nobukuni 子安宣邦. 2000. Edo as Method 方法としての江戸. Tokyo: Perikansha. Maruyama, Masao 丸山正雄. 1980. Ansaigaku to Ansai gakuha 闇斎学と闇斎学派. In The School of YAMAZAKI Ansai 山崎闇斎学派, vol. 31, Compendium of Japanese Thought 日本思 想大系 (Nihon shisō taikei) series, compilers NISHI Junzō 西順蔵 et al., 601–674. Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten. (Included in translation in this volume under the title “Orthodoxy and Legitimacy in the Kimon School.”) Ōtsuka, Shizuka 大塚静 (ed.). 1934. The origins of the Japanese School of the way 日本道学淵源 録. Tokyo: OKA Jirō (first published 1842). (One of the most important works in laying out the Kimon school’s lineage, claims to orthodoxy, and the disputes within the school from a preRestoration perspective.) Steben, Barry D. 2000. Edo as method: An introduction to KOYASU Nobukuni’s recent scholarship. Sino-Japanese Studies 12. 2: 29–40. (Provides an analysis and “genealogy” of Koyasu’s Foucaultian methodology that is essential to fully understanding the critique of Maruyama’s Kimon study presented in translation in the present chapter. On line at http://chinajapan.org/ articles/12.2/12.2steben29-40.pdf.)

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Takeuchi Yoshimi 竹内好. 1978. Asia as method: Our prewar, wartime, and postwar 1935-1976 方 法としてのアジア：わが戦前˙戦中˙戦後 1935–1976. Tokyo: Sōjusha. Tokutomi, Sohō. 1943. A historical view of Master YAMAZAKI Ansai and the Yamazaki school 歴史 より観たる山崎闇斎先生及び山崎学. In YAMAZAKI Ansai and his School 山崎闇斎とその 門流, ed. Denki Gakkai. Tokyo: Meiji Shoin. Tucker, John Allen. 1998. ITŌ Jinsai’s Gomō jigi and the philosophical definition of modern Japan. Leiden: E. J. Brill. (The importance of Jinsai’s Gomō jigi 語孟字義 in the development of Edo Confucian thought is widely recognized, and Koyasu has applied his Foucaultian methodology to the text in Koyasu 1996. Tucker’s book provides the first complete English translation and situates the text and its influence in its Sino-Japanese historical context.)

Index

A ABE Yoshio 䱯䜘ਹ䳴, 13, 26, 36, 41, 67, 335–338, 407, 413, 421 agriculture, 113, 115, 133 AIZAWA Seishisai Պ⋒↓ᘇᮾ, 12, 98–101, 106, 253, 254 Akō rōnin vendetta, 291, 300, 351 Amaterasu Ōmikami ཙ➗བྷᗑ⾎, 97–99, 101, 247, 251, 253, 280–281, 288, 310, 365, 372, 375, 396, 400, 403–404, 418 Ames, Roger, 14, 28, 312, 391 ancient kings. See sage kings ARAI Hakuseki ᯠӅⲭ⸣, 12, 41, 70, 72, 80–91, 104–108, 241, 244, 249 ASAMI Keisai ␪㾻㍵啻, 336, 340, 345–353, 355–359, 361–363, 365–371, 373–378, 384–387, 390, 392, 393, 398, 399, 401–403, 406–408, 410 Authority, 264, 273, 274

B bakufu ᒅᓌ, 239–241, 250, 288, 290, 299, 300, 302, 303, 307–309, 345 bao ๡ (J. hō, mukui), 120 Beixi ziyi ेⓚᆇ㗙. See Chen Beixi’s 䲣ेⓚ The Meanings of Human Nature and Principle (C: Xingli ziyi ᙗ⨶ᆇ㗙 J: Seiri jigi), aka, The Meaning of Terms Benmei ᔱ਽, xi, 29, 30, 67, 72, 77, 108, 188–191, 193–194, 213, 232 Book of Changes (Yijing; I Ching ᱃㏃), vi, 23, 30, 38, 57, 73, 75, 77–79, 88, 95, 105–106, 144, 166, 175, 179, 264, 281, 282, 286–288, 309, 312, 315–330, 363–364, 366–368, 396, 402, 412

Buddhism, 1, 3, 12, 21, 30, 32, 33, 35, 36, 39–49, 51–54, 63–66, 68, 72, 84, 87, 89, 91, 95–102, 114, 137, 139, 165, 167, 210, 217, 226, 238–240, 243, 245, 257, 267, 270–271, 337, 342, 359, 361, 363, 366, 372, 380–383, 404

C Chen Beixi’s 䲣ेⓚ The Meanings of Human Nature and Principle (C: Xingli ziyi ᙗ⨶ᆇ㗙 J: Seiri jigi), aka, The Meaning of Terms, 11, 13, 31–35, 40–54, 56–58, 60, 62, 64, 67, 124, 249, 265, 416 Cheng brothers (also See Cheng-Zhu), 19, 27, 70, 124, 146, 197, 226, 267, 279, 284–285, 287, 339–341, 344, 354–356, 361–365, 367–369, 373, 376, 380–381, 383, 385, 388, 390–391, 400–402, 406 Cheng-Zhu 〻ᵡ, 124, 146, 197, 285, 287, 339–341, 344, 354–355, 361–365, 367–369, 373, 376, 380–381, 383, 385, 388, 390, 400–401, 406 Christianity, 11, 32, 35, 38–40, 44–46, 48, 63, 64, 66, 81, 91, 98–100, 249–250, 298–300, 333, 360, 373 Chūzan ѝኡ, 111, 113, 114, 119 Chūzan’s King Bunei ↖ሗ, 119 Compilation of Essential Excerpts (Yaowuhuibian 㾱उᖉ㐘), 126 Confucianism, 1–15, 20–26, 28, 30, 32–34, 39–44, 46–49, 51, 53–55, 59, 61, 64–68, 70, 72, 80, 91, 92, 95–98, 100, 102, 106–108, 110–112, 114, 124, 129, 137, 141, 160, 165, 184, 210–215, 217,

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424 226, 229–231, 233–255, 261, 269–271, 274, 277 Confucian theology, 12, 69–71, 81, 101, 105 Confucius (C: Kongzi ᆄᆀ J: Kōshi), 2, 4–5, 8, 11, 21, 33–35, 43, 45, 49, 52, 57–58, 60, 63–64, 66–67, 75, 80, 82–83, 87, 89, 104, 136, 151, 162, 174, 181–182, 196, 209–210, 215, 217, 218, 235, 251, 262, 264, 266, 281–282, 284–285, 287, 289–290, 321, 342, 345, 351, 356–357, 362, 365, 367, 370–374, 384–385, 388–389, 391, 397 Contractual relationships, 183, 196 Council of Three, 109, 122, 123, 132 customs (fūzoku 付؇), 228–230

D daimyō བྷ਽, 90, 92, 98, 100, 110, 167, 169, 175, 177–178, 207, 228, 230, 236–239, 250, 290–291, 304, 336, 343, 370, 389, 393–394 Daodejing 䚃ᗣ㏃, 179, 244 Daoism, 21, 39–40, 42–43, 48, 64–66, 95, 114, 137, 144, 179, 210, 229, 230, 244, 247, 251, 342, 381 daotong 䚃㎡ dōtō, 344, 382, 396 DAZAI Shundai ཚᇠ᱕ਠ, 17–18, 133, 136, 139, 161, 211, 215–232, 243, 249, 318, 351 De Bary, Wm. Theodore, 1, 3, 10, 13, 19, 22, 27, 29–30, 56, 67, 107, 184, 212, 256, 285, 291, 312, 364, 408 demon of the mind, 122–126 desires, 46–47, 53, 58, 120, 129, 187, 201–203, 205, 215, 226–227, 279, 283, 287, 302 diachronicity (historical continuity, diachronic continuity), 414 Dilworth, David, 3, 27, 448 Divination, 14, 22, 75, 79–80, 126, 191, 286–287, 315–330, 367, 408

E emotions (C: qing ᛵ J: jō), 49–53, 85, 88, 123, 144, 148, 186, 217, 222, 226–227 Emperor Jinmu ⾎↖ཙⲷ, 310 equality, 186, 206–208, 211 Essentials of Governance (Tuzhi yaoquan െ⋫㾱ۣ), 120, 128, 129, 131 Essentials of Popular Customs (Suxi yaolun ؇㘂㾱䄆), 117

Index Essential Views Upon Awakening 䟂དྷ㾱䄆 (Xingmeng yaolun), 118–120, 122, 124, 125

F faithfulness (C: xin ؑ J: shin), 220 feudal (C: fengjian ሱᔪ J: hōken), 83, 103, 173, 177, 204, 228–230, 259, 295, 307, 375, 387, 392, 412 filial piety (C: xiao ᆍ J: kō), 161, 162, 264, 285, 311, 389 forest resources, 113, 121 four beginnings (C: siduan ഋㄟ J: shitan), 221–224, 380 Four Books (C: Sishu ഋᴨ J: Shisho), 12, 34, 37, 42, 44, 49, 60, 62, 64, 117, 153–154, 217, 232, 284, 313, 340, 345, 348, 378, 382, 407, 410 Fujiwara Seika 㰔৏ᜪベ, vii, 10, 13, 27, 36–39, 41, 65, 67, 68, 102, 107–108, 270 FUKUZAWA Yukichi ⾿◔䄝ਹ, viii, ix, 5, 323, 325, 358, 408 Fūryūshishaki 付⍱֯㘵䁈, 16, 168, 170, 181, 182

G generative force (C: qi ≓ J: ki) – aka material force, 12, 33–34, 40–41, 59–62, 119, 122–125, 143, 249, 260, 264, 380–381 Genroku ‫ ⾴ݳ‬period, 141, 156, 162, 165, 172, 174, 177, 178, 230, 237, 257, 361 gentleman (C: junzi ੋᆀ J: kunshi), 104, 220–221, 226–227, 269 genuineness (C: cheng 䃐 J: makoto), 44, 54, 102, 225, 227, 242, 245 geomancy, 110, 114, 118, 136 getting for oneself (jitoku 㠚ᗇ), 155 ghosts and spirits (C: guishen 公⾎ J: kishin), 11–12, 26, 34–35, 41, 51, 58, 60–62, 69, 71, 108, 189–197, 209, 213, 249 giri 㗙⨶, 47–48, 151–152, 154–155, 352–353, 367, 376–377, 383, 385, 389, 392, 399, 402 GI Shitetsu 兿༛ଢ, 115 gods, 12, 69–73, 75, 77, 79, 81–87, 89, 91–97, 101, 106, 147, 188–193, 195, 238, 255, 282, 283, 286, 288, 311, 337, 363, 364, 366–371, 375, 390, 392, 396, 399, 404–405 gongfu ࣏ཛ kufū (practice, effort, skill), 55, 148, 283, 287, 293–294, 366 Greater Learning (C: Daxue བྷᆨ J: Daigaku), 34, 37, 43, 49, 54, 60,

425

Index 67–68, 74, 143, 145, 163, 166, 282, 285, 292, 313, 340, 362, 366, 373, 382, 396 “greater righteousness” (taigi བྷ㗙), 307 “the greater substance and the greater function” (daitai-taiyō བྷ億བྷ⭘), 134 great vacuity (C: taixu ཚ㲊 J: taikyo), 22, 278, 279, 282, 294, 307, 311, 312 Groaning Words ફ੏䃎, 120, 138, 292

H Hachiman ‫ޛ‬ᒑ, 306, 310 Hanfeizi 七䶎ᆀ, 206, 229 HAN Yu 七᜸, 219, 231 hatamoto ᰇᵜ, 174, 177 HATTORI Nankaku ᴽ䜘ই䜝, 172, 217, 232, 407 HAYASHI Razan ᷇㖵ኡ, vii, 10, 12, 13, 20, 25, 27, 30, 36–39, 41, 67–68, 70, 72, 74, 91–98, 101, 106–108, 235, 237, 261, 265, 270, 285, 363, 393, 398, 403 heart (C: xin ᗳ J: kokoro), 217 heaven (C: tian ཙ J: ten), 12, 14, 21, 33, 39, 43, 46–47, 49, 51, 52, 54–62, 64–66, 70, 73–74, 76–86, 88, 90–96, 99–106, 119–120, 127, 129, 143–144, 148, 154, 156–157, 159, 163, 175, 179–180, 182, 188–198, 202, 204, 209–210, 216, 218–219, 224, 227, 230, 242–247, 251, 253–254, 260–263, 268, 271, 279, 281–283, 286–288, 292, 294–295, 302, 307, 309–311, 329, 337, 346, 365, 367–369, 373–376, 387–389, 391–393, 395–397, 399–400, 403–404, 409, 412–413 Hegel, 2, 6, 24, 27, 187, 333 HIRATA Atsutane ᒣ⭠㈔㜔, 336, 347, 364 HOSHINA Masayuki ‫↓、؍‬ѻ, 336 humaneness (C: ren ӱ J: jin), 16, 20, 32, 44–46, 48, 52, 54, 79, 96, 171, 218, 220–224, 230, 243, 254–255, 322, 384, 390–391 human nature (C: xing ᙗ J: sei), 13, 17–18, 31–36, 40–41, 49–51, 53–54, 57–58, 60, 62, 64, 67, 80, 92, 124, 126, 170, 175, 193, 201, 208, 215–231, 270, 380

I INOUE Tetsujirō Ӆкଢ⅑䛾, 5–10, 13, 17, 22–25, 27, 28, 36, 68, 226–227, 231, 278, 284, 312, 373 institutions (seido ࡦᓖ), 166, 173–178, 180–183, 228–229

Irinshō ᖍٛᢴ (Ethics), 10, 21, 31, 32, 35, 38–50, 53, 56–68 Ise Ժऒ, 87, 101, 238, 280–282, 287, 298, 307, 309, 363 ITō Jinsai Ժ㰔ӱ啻, viii, 3, 5–6, 24–25, 37, 39, 41, 59, 65–66, 68, 77–80, 108, 182, 188, 208–209, 214, 222–224, 226, 231, 237, 284, 340, 345, 356, 361–362, 393

J jōkamachi ෾л⭪, 176

K KAIBARA Ekken 䋍৏⳺䔂, x, 3, 15, 20, 38, 56, 59, 141–163, 188, 341, 344, 363 Kaiki ᠀₏, 114 kanbun ╒᮷, 141, 142, 154 KANG Youwei ᓧᴹ⛪, 5 Kansei Prohibition of Heterodoxy ላ᭯⮠ᆖ ȃ⾱, 285, 289, 308, 394 keqi ᇒ≓, 123, 129 Kimon school, 13, 308, 331–336, 339–353, 355, 359, 361–363, 365, 369–371, 374–378, 381, 384, 387–389, 393–396, 398, 401, 405, 407, 409, 411–414, 417–418, 421 King Gihon 㗙ᵜ, 119 kirishitan ȵɲȿɇɻ, 44, 63, 66, 297, 298, 300 kishin 公⾎ “aka ghosts and spirits”, 11, 12, 14, 34, 41, 51, 60, 62, 69, 70, 72, 80–81, 106–107, 194–195, 197, 249, 366 kishinron 公⾎䄆, 12, 26, 28, 108 kokorozashi ᘇ (aspiration, will), 41, 281, 284, 289–294, 296–297, 299, 304, 306–308, 311 kokugaku ഻ᆨ, ഭᆖ, vii, ix, 20–21, 107, 213, 233–255, 260, 347, 410 kokutai ഻億, ഭփ, 8, 25, 28, 253, 320, 323–324, 336–338, 346, 408, 412–414, 417–418, 421 KUMAZAWA Banzan ➺◔㭳ኡ, 22, 29, 38, 102, 237, 292, 363 Kumemura ѵ㊣ᶁ, 114–116, 132, 136, 139–140 Kyūyō ⨳䲭, 122–123, 138

L Laozi 㘱ᆀ, 21, 43, 229, 230, 244, 245, 247, 283 legitimacy, 331–407

426 LI Dingyuan ᵾ唾‫ݳ‬, 126 liangzhi 㢟⸕ ryōchi (the inborn awareness of the good), 277, 278 loyalty (C: zhong ᘐ J: chū), 54, 98–99, 109, 220, 307, 387, 389, 409 LÜ Kun ੲඔ, 116, 120–121, 135–138, 294, 302, 312, 314 Lu Xiangshan 䲨䊑ኡ, 281, 282, 284 Lu Zhonglian 冟Ԣ䙓, 294, 295, 308

M manners and etiquette (sahō ֌⌅, reigi ⿞ܰ), 15, 142, 156–158 Marxism, 209–210, 259, 278, 313, 348, 415 material force (C: qi ≓ J: ki), aka generative force, 12, 15, 33, 71, 76–77, 82, 142–147, 153, 222–223, 378, 382 MATSUDAIRA Sadanobu ᶮᒣᇊؑ, 285, 289 MATSUNAGA Sekigo ᶮ≨ቪӄ, 10, 11, 21, 31–67 the mean (C: zhongyong ѝᓨ J: chūyō), 34, 54, 58, 70, 73–75, 108, 145, 163, 193, 214, 220, 225, 232, 264, 285, 313, 340, 342, 381–386, 396, 402 Meanings of Human Nature and Principle. See Beixi’s Accounts of the Meanings of Terms medicine, 258, 262, 266 Meichū ਽⮷, 72–77, 80 Meiji Japan, viii, ix, x, 3, 5–6, 8, 23, 28–30, 107–108, 111, 211, 226, 231, 261, 315–330, 332–333, 342, 387, 394, 408, 410 constitution, 320 divination, 22 emperor, 21, 316, 321–323, 327 ideology, 317, 319–324, 328 military, 316, 324 modernity, 317, 319–320, 324, 328–329 politics, 315–329 restoration, 254, 277, 311–312, 314, 334, 342, 346, 358, 405, 412, 413 Mencius ᆏᆀ, 4, 13, 33, 34, 44, 46–47, 50, 64–65, 67, 75, 86, 119, 138, 142, 180, 194–195, 206, 210, 217–218, 220–224, 231–232, 244, 282, 284–285, 287, 313, 340, 344, 356, 362, 367, 370, 371, 380, 382, 384, 385, 388, 397, 400, 402 metaphysics, 4, 9, 15, 17, 20, 27, 33, 57–60, 62, 96, 124, 183, 186, 188, 196–197, 203, 206, 322, 354, 365, 375, 378, 384 MINAGAWA Kien Ⲷᐍ⏷ൂ, 12, 72–80, 105, 107–108

Index “the mind itself is heaven” (xin ji tian ᗳণཙ kokoro sunawachi ten), 282, 283, 287 ming ભ (destiny), 41, 54, 58, 64, 103, 111, 113, 118–120 MISHIMA Yukio йጦ⭡㌰ཛ (Yukio Mishima), 22, 277–279, 304, 311, 313 MIWA Shissai й䕚ว啻, 281, 282, 287, 292 MIYAKE Shōsai йᆵቊ啻, 336, 340, 343, 349, 350, 352, 355, 362, 365, 368, 370–374, 377, 386, 387, 389–392, 403, 405 moral psychology, 17, 183, 186, 187, 196, 197, 201–203 MOTOORI Norinaga ᵜትᇓ䮧, viii, ix, 5, 20, 182, 214, 245–249, 251–252, 347, 364, 391, 393, 404, 405, 421 Mt. Fuji ᇼ༛ኡ, 169, 280, 281, 306 Mozi ໘ᆀ, 44, 150, 206, 229, 361–362, 377, 383

N Najita, Tetsuo, 1–3, 29, 136, 137, 139, 213, 230, 232, 277, 307, 313, 334–335, 409 NAKAE Chōmin ѝ⊏‫≁ݶ‬, 5, 27–29, 211 NAKAE Tōju ѝ⊏㰔⁩, 15, 22, 161–162, 279, 281, 282, 285–288, 292, 312–314, 363 nativism, vii, ix, x, 1, 27, 66, 233, 248, 252–253, 255–256, 260, 405 nature, viii, 17–18, 20, 23, 28, 91, 120, 179, 186–189, 192–195, 197–198, 200–201, 206, 208, 213, 247, 257–274, 294 NISHI Amane 㾯ઘ, 4, 6, 28, 30, 314, 410 NISHIDA Kitarō 㾯⭠ᒮཊ䛾, 9, 24 Nobunaga (ODA Nobunaga) 㒄⭠ؑ䮧, 290 non-action, 18, 228–230

O OGYū Sorai 㦫⭏ᖲᗐ, vii, viii, ix, 3, 5–6, 12, 15–18, 24–26, 29, 41, 72–73, 77–80, 82, 98, 101, 103–106, 108, 160–162, 165–183, 188–201, 203–205, 207–211, 213–232, 243, 246, 249, 259–260, 267, 270–275, 284, 334, 340, 344–345, 351, 355, 361–362, 393, 407, 409 One Man’s Views ⦘⢙䃎 (Hitori monogatari), 121, 122, 128, 131, 134 Ordinary Household Management (Heiji kanai monogatari ᒣᱲᇦ޵⢙䃎), 135 orthodoxy, 331–407

Index Osaka, 22, 37, 61, 139, 174, 207, 277, 281, 285, 288–290, 296–306, 309–313, 390, 408–409 ŌSHIO Chūsai (ŌSHIO Heihachirō བྷນ ᒣ‫ޛ‬䛾), 22, 277–311

P peasants, 44, 57, 130, 132–133, 136, 166, 168–170, 177–178, 180–181, 202, 228, 258–260 “perfect sincerity” (C: zhicheng 㠣䃐 J: shisei), 307, 390 personal realization (tainin փ䂽), 25, 161, 351, 416 plain reading (sodoku ㍐䃝), 153–155 political economy, 18, 138, 217, 228–232 political philosophy, 3, 11, 31–67, 184, 187–188, 213, 324, 332, 359 positivism, 17, 186, 188, 196, 204, 208 principle (C: li ⨶ J: ri), 1, 3, 13, 15, 22, 27, 29–34, 39–43, 45, 49–51, 54, 56, 59–60, 62, 67, 70–71, 74, 83, 88, 90–97, 106, 128–129, 131, 142–147, 157–161, 179–180, 190, 196–201, 203, 222, 225–226, 282, 295, 337, 352, 356, 364, 367–368, 372–373, 376–378, 380–383, 385–391, 396, 399, 402, 404–407, 416 profit (li ࡙), 130, 131 “proper ming” (zhengming ↓ભ), 119 propriety (rei ⿞, ⽬), 156, 157

R rational, rationality, 185–187, 191, 198, 199, 201, 206 Record of Additional Thoughts (Pianyan xulu ⡷䀰㒼䥢), 127 rectification of names (C: zheng ming ↓਽ J: seimei), 11, 35, 42 ri ࡙ (benefit), 54 rightness/righteousness (C: yi 㗙 J: gi), 32, 44, 46–48, 52, 54, 80, 117, 122, 218, 220–224, 226, 229, 243, 292–293, 295–296, 299, 301, 307, 322, 399 Ryukyu ⨹⨳, x, 13–14, 30, 109–137

S sage kings (sennō ‫ )⦻ݸ‬also early kings, 16–17, 215–216, 223, 261, 263, 270, 274, 283, 310, 396 sage(s) (C: shengren 㚆Ӫ J: seijin), 21, 33, 45–46, 48, 60, 73–75, 78–87, 89,

427 99–100, 105, 109, 118, 127–128, 154, 174–176, 179, 182, 188–189, 192–195, 198, 215–218, 223–226, 231, 239, 243, 246–247, 249, 253, 261–264, 279, 281–282, 287, 293, 310, 332, 337, 342–343, 351, 354, 356, 359, 361–363, 367, 369–372, 391, 396, 402–403, 412, 419 SAI Kokki 㭑ഭಘ, 115 SAI On 㭑⑙, 110, 111, 113, 115–137 SAI On’s autobiography, 116–118, 121, 135, 140 Saishi kō ⾝⽰㘳, 80–81, 89, 107 samurai, x, 36–38, 44, 50, 55, 63–64, 66, 87, 112, 134, 166–168, 170–171, 173–177, 181–182, 195, 198, 204, 207–208, 211, 228–230, 248, 254, 260, 278, 285, 289–292, 296–297, 302, 306–308, 313, 318, 350, 387, 392–394, 418 sankin kōtai ৲औӔԓ, 173, 177 SATō Issai ր㰔а啻, 288–296, 299, 304, 308 SATō Naokata ր㰔ⴤᯩ, 65–66, 332, 336, 340–341, 343–344, 348–353, 355–356, 359, 362, 365–366, 368–369, 371–374, 376, 377, 381–391, 399, 402–405, 409 Satsuma 㯙᪙, 109, 111, 112, 114, 115, 121, 122, 134, 139, 325, 347, 394, 406 self-authenticated, autonomous (shutaiteki ѫ փⲴ), 25, 338, 416, 418 self-authorizing nature (shutaisei ѫ億ᙗ), 370, 373, 418 self-cultivation, 33, 49, 55–56, 97, 117, 224, 226, 227, 360, 366, 380 sengoku ᡠ഻, ᡖഭ (Warring States) period, 290, 306, 308 SHEN Buhai ⭣нᇣ, 229 Shimabara Uprising (Shimabara no ran ጦ৏ ȃҡ), 11, 31, 35, 61 Shinron ᯠ䄆, 98, 106, 253, 314 Shintō ⾎䚃, 1, 3, 7, 10, 12, 14, 31, 32, 35, 39, 40, 44, 53, 62, 64–66, 70, 73, 87, 91–98, 100–101, 106–107, 165, 192, 217, 233, 236–240, 245, 249, 256, 258, 261, 265, 274, 280, 310–312, 321, 329, 336–338, 341, 347–348, 353, 355, 362–371, 375–376, 385, 390–391, 396, 398, 405–406, 410, 418 Shintō denju ⾎䚃ۣᦸ, 70, 92, 95, 96 shizen no dōri 㠚❦ѻ䚃⨶, 179 shizen/ziran 㠚❦, 54, 93, 179, 197, 213, 220, 224, 258, 260, 262, 267, 269–274, 341, 368 Shōheikō ᰼ᒣ哼, 289, 303 SHō Shōken ੁ䊑䌒, 126

428 SIMA Qian ਨ俜䚧, 294 situational weighing (quan ℺), 41, 93, 134, 135, 139, 400 Six Classics (‫ޝ‬㏃), 54, 64, 117, 217, 284, 340 social imaginary, 210 Sō Eki ᴭ⳺, 115 sonnō jōi ሺⲷᭈཧ, 254, 346–347, 394, 405, 413 spontaneity, 258, 268, 271 standard (jing ㏃), 41, 134 superstitions, 111, 118, 122, 130, 137, 198

T taigi བྷ㗙, 413 taigi meibun བྷ㗙਽࠶, 336, 337, 357, 371, 417 TAKASHIMA Kaemon 儈ጦహਣ㺋䮰, 23, 315–329 TANI Shinzan 䉧〖ኡ, 365, 371–376, 378, 390, 418 TEI Junsoku 〻丶ࡷ, 115, 117 tentō shisō ཙ䚃ᙍᜣ, 72, 101–102 tetsugaku ଢᆖ, 4–8, 17, 24, 27–30 toki (male diviners), 126 Tokugawa ᗣᐍ, vii–ix, 1, 3, 11–13, 16, 21–32, 35–39, 43, 53, 55–56, 59, 65–68, 81, 90–91, 108–109, 139–140, 165–166, 172–176, 179–184, 188, 196, 204, 210–211, 213–215, 226, 228–229, 234, 236–238, 250, 254–257, 259–260, 269–270, 274–275, 277–278, 289–291, 297–300, 302–303, 306–308, 317–319, 328–329, 332–335, 338, 346–347, 354, 407, 409, 412–413 TOKUGAWA Ieyasu ᗧᐍᇦᓧ, 36, 90, 99, 174, 178, 285, 290, 305, 306, 308 TOKUTOMI Sohō ᗧᇼ㰷ጠ, 320, 343, 411

U University of Tokyo Center for Philosophy (UTCP), 3, 10, 26–30 utilitarian, 23, 120, 200, 204, 206, 224, 312

V virtue (C: de ᗣ J: toku), 45, 49, 64, 75, 97, 109, 216, 219–223, 225, 226, 285–287, 395, 399, 401

Index W WAKABAYASHI Kyōsai 㤕᷇ᕧ啻, 41, 340, 345, 347–349, 352, 356, 357, 362, 366–368, 376, 386, 390–392, 396, 401–404 WANG Chong ⦻‫ݵ‬, 127, 128 WANG Guodong ⦻഻Ἇ, 130, 133 WANG Yangming ⦻䲭᰾ (J: Ō Yōmei), x, 6–7, 13, 22, 28, 37, 162, 277–282, 284–285, 287–288, 292–293, 296–297, 312–314, 342, 362 the Way (C: dao 䚃 J: michi), ix, 20–21, 29, 41, 43, 45–49, 51–52, 54–61, 63–65, 73–75, 80, 92–93, 95, 97, 101, 103, 105–106, 128, 147, 175–176, 179–180, 182, 188–195, 197, 199, 204, 206, 209, 213, 215–231, 240, 243, 245–246, 252, 255, 258, 261, 263–264, 269–270, 282–283, 286–287, 289, 294, 307, 322, 341–344, 349–353, 356, 359, 361–393, 396, 398, 400–403, 406–407, 409–411, 413–414, 416, 419, 421 wisdom (C: zhi Ც J: chi), 11, 32, 44, 47–48, 52, 54, 79, 96, 127, 150, 179, 204, 218–224, 243, 286, 287, 389, 398 Wittgenstein, Ludwig, 2

X Xingli ziyi ᙗ⨶ᆇ㗙. See Chen Beixi’s The Meanings of Human Nature and Principle Xunzi 㥰ᆀ, 218

Y yaadui system, 113, 134, 140 YAMAGA Sokō ኡ咯㍐㹼, 6, 24–25, 41, 161, 188, 208, 231, 363 YANAGISAWA Yoshiyasu ḣ⋒ਹ‫؍‬, 16, 165–168 YI T’oegye ᵾ䘰ⓚ, 13, 25, 56, 336, 338, 340, 416

Z ZHANG Zai ᕥ䔹, 13, 19, 144, 219, 292, 352, 406 zhengtong ↓㎡ seitō, 282, 336, 355–356, 358, 360, 399, 412

Index ZHOU Dunyi ઘᮖ乔, 13, 56, 59, 83, 94 ZHU Xi ᵡ⟩ (also See Cheng-Zhu 〻ᵡ), ix, 11, 19, 33–34, 48, 53, 55, 59, 63, 68, 96, 124, 144, 146, 162–163, 197, 216, 222–227, 232, 249, 278, 280–281,

429 284–285, 287, 303, 339–341, 343–344, 354–356, 359, 361–365, 367–369, 373, 376, 380–381, 383, 385, 388, 390, 400–402, 406, 410–422 Zizhi tongjian 䋷⋫䙊䪂, 357, 358, 360