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THE ADOPTION AND ADAPTATION OF NEO‑CONFUCIANISM IN JAPAN: THE ROLE OF FUJIWARA SEIKA AND HAYASHI RAZAN BY W.J. BOOT >>> VERSION 3.0 <<< © W.J. Boot, Leiderdorp Printed: Leiden, December 1992 Revised: Leiderdorp, August 2013 TABLE OF CONTENTS PREFACE 1 INTRODUCTION 2 CHAPTER I : THEORIES AND CONTENTIONS CONCERNING THE RISE OF NEO‑CONFUCIANISM IN THE BEGINNING OF THE EDO PERIOD 13 A. The discovery of Confucianism 14 1. Fujiwara Seika and Kang Hang 14 2. The Seika Legend 35 B. The Line of Succession 49 Kan Tokuan 49 Nawa Kassho 51 Hori Kyōan 53 Matsunaga Sekigo 53 Hayashi Razan 56 CHAPTER II : THE SOURCES OF THE NEW CONFUCIANISM 69 A. The Middle Ages 69 1. Shōmono 70 Daxüe 72 Zhongyong 74 Lunyu 76 Mengzi 78 2. Printed works 81 3. Evaluation 83 4. Conclusions 95 B. The Bunroku‑Keichō Period (1592‑1614) 98 1. Korean influences 99 Conclusions 117 2. The education of Razan 119 3. Evaluation and conclusions 131 CHAPTER III : THE DOCTRINES 138 A. Fujiwara Seika 142 1. The doctrine 146 2. Conclusions 167 B. Hayashi Razan 174 1. The Doctrine 175 2. Conclusions 203 APPENDIX : On Qi 212 APPENDIX : On Ling 215 CHAPTER IV : CONFUCIANISM AND THE BAKUFU 220 Nakae Tōju 250 Serving the bakufu 260 Conclusions 290 BIBLIOGRAPHY 302 PREFACE This is a new version of the text of the dissertation I defended in Leiden on January 19, 1983. Over the last few years I have retyped the original text, because the original version, composed on an Apple‑II, proved to be unusable and inconvertible. My intention was to retype the text as it was originally published, but this turned out to be impossible. I could not refrain from changing the wording and correcting the more egregiousmistakes,andfromtakingintoaccountsomebooksthatappearedafterIhave finished the original. This explains the intrusion of references to works that were published in 1982 or later, e.g. the translation of Kanyangnok that appeared in the Tōyō Bunko and Gernet’s Chine et Christianisme. Basically, however, the text is the same as thatoftheoriginaldissertation. I have decided to make the text available in this form, first, because I intend to makeathoroughrevisionofthewholebook,takingintoaccounttherecentpublications of Herman Ooms and Watanabe Hiroshi, to name only a few of the studies that have appearedinrecentyears,andrecheckingallthetranslationsandreferences.Thesecond reason is that every now and then colleagues ask me for a copy of the original publication. Since at the time I had only 150 copies printed, these can no longer be obtained. Making the text available in this form is the next best thing, until I have completedthesecondrevisededition. Leiden,December1992 On the occasion of this digital publication of my thesis I have again made a number of corrections. Perfection is only approached asymptotically. I have also changed the Chinese transcription from Wade-­‐Giles to Pinyin, and turned the endnotes into footnotes.Thecharactersareprovidedatthefirstoccasionwhenanameortitleappear, or, when appropriate, in the bibliography. As the document can be searched, the index couldbedispensedwith,togetherwiththereferencestotheoriginaledition.Thisdigital editionshouldthereforeberegardedasVersion3.0. Leiderdorp,August2013 2 INTRODUCTION The present book is structured around the proposition, a well‑known and ancient one, that Neo‑Confucianism in Japan began with Fujiwara Seika, that Hayashi Razan was Seika’smostimportantdisciple,andthatRazanwashiredbythebakufuasitsConfucian ideologist.Iamwellawarethatthestatusofthisproposition,atleastamongstspecialist in the field, is rather low, and that in recent years several scholars have queried or disprovedpartsofit.1However,thepropositionoffersaninterestingand,inmyopinion, valid angle of approach for the study of the first beginnings of Neo‑Confucianism in Japan,andofitsproponentsSeikaandRazan. The main interest of the proposition is that it offers — or pretends to offer — a solution for three problems that must be settled before one can embark on further studies of the intellectual history of the Tokugawa period. These problems concern the time of the introduction of Neo‑Confucianism, the nature of the Neo-­‐Confucianism that wasintroduced,andthewayinwhichitfunctionedinitssocialandpoliticalcontext. According to the proposition Neo‑Confucianism began with Fujiwara Seika. As it is commonly understood, this means the Neo‑Confucianism was introduced in the last decade of the sixteenth or the first of the seventeenth century. Both during the Edo period and later many scholar have tried to explain “why this should be so.” Their explanationsfallintotwomaincategories,oneofwhichistheavailabilityofnewsources 1 For details, cf. Ch. I, n. 1. Here I will confine myself to one quotation, from an article by Ishida Ichirō ("Tokugawa hōken shakai to Shushi‑gakuha no shisō," 1962), that gives the proposition more or less in full:InthebeginningoftheTokugawaperiodConfucianism,or,morespecifically,theschoolsofZhuXiand WangYangming,triedtotakeovertheroleofatheology(shingaku)intheformationandpreservationof the new feudal society, instead of creeds like Buddhism, “Tentō,” or Christianity. However, it seems that theschoolofWangYangmingcouldnotfaithfullydischargetherolethatthenewfeudalorderrequiredof it....Itisahistoricalfact,deservingourattention,that,ontheotherhand,eversincethebeginningofthe bakufu,theschoolofZhuXiworkedloyallyinsupportofthepoliciesofthebakufuandthefiefs. Tokugawa Ieyasu first invited Fujiwara Seika. Seika had originally been a monk of the Five Monasteries,butafterhehadcomeintocontactwithKeian’sJapaneseexplanationofthecommentariesof Zhu Xi he had immersed himself in the study of Zhu Xi's teachings. Eventually he had returned to the lay‑state,andheexertedhimselftoliberateZhuXi‑ism from Buddhism.SubsequentlyIeyasuappointed Seika’s disciple Hayashi Razan, and put him in charge of civil affairs (bunji wo tsukasadorashimeta)(pp. 72‑73). Wemaynotoverlook,thatintheiressencetheteachingsofZhuXi‑ismagreedwiththestructure and spirit of the feudal system of the Edo period and supported it. By its very nature, a feudal system demandsintellectualuniformity.Butthiscertainlydoesnotmeanthatitisamatterofindifference,which "thought"becomesthestandardofunification.Thefactthatoneteaching,oversuchalongperiodoftime, became interwoven so deeply with all areas of life, cannot have been the result of a fortuitous union; it musthavebeenduetomutualsympathyandresponse(ibid.,p.75). 3 (i.e. “books from China”), and the other, the establishment of the Tokugawa realm of peace. The first explanation we find mentioned several times in Edo sources, and has recently been greatly developed by Abe Yoshio.2 In his theory Abe emphasizes the sudden availability of Korean (not Chinese) books, and argues that the rise of Neo‑Confucian studies was linked causally to the introduction of Korean Neo‑Confucian works into Japan as a result of the invasions of Korea that took place in the 1590’s. Abe’s theory is discussed in Chapter II.B of this study; for the reasons stated there, I cannot consider his theory as proven or even as plausible, though it might be allowed to live on in an attenuated form, i.e. that a number of Korean Neo-­‐Confucian workswerebroughttoJapanintheseyears,thatSeikaandRazanhadreadtheseworks, and that they had some knowledge of Korean Neo‑Confucian debate during the Yi Dynasty. The other explanation, which considers the rise of Neo-­‐Confucian studies in relation to the establishment of the Tokugawa bakufu, has always enjoyed great popularity. In the older Edo sources (introduced in the second part of Chapter I) it generally took the form of the assertion that the peace brought by the Tokugawa had been responsible for a flourishing of the literary arts, and therefore of Neo-­‐Confucian studies. In consideration of the fact that one of the Neo-­‐Confucian patriarchs, Hayashi Razan, had been employed by the bakufu, it was further developed into the assertion that the bakufu had taken a positive interest in Neo-­‐Confucianism and used it to establish its rule of peace. This development of the original assertion in its turn led to the idea, postulated by some modem scholars (e.g. Ishida Ichirō and Maruyama Masao), that a “compatibility” existed between Neo-­‐Confucianism and the social and political structureofTokugawaJapan. Such a “compatibility,” however, did not exist. The feudal society that developed inJapanwasquitedifferentfromthatofChina,boththecontemporaryChinaandthatof Zhou or Song times. The other argument, namely that Neo-­‐Confucianism was “used” becauseitfavoursthepreservationofthestatusquo,isalsonotvalid.Neo-­‐Confucianism is primarily concerned with the ends and means of individual self-­‐cultivation, and its most important political demand is that administrative offices be filled with those who have succeeded in cultivating themselves. Depending on the circumstances, this can 2SeeespeciallyhisNihonShushigakutoChōsen(1965). 4 becomeahighlyexplosivedoctrine. Suchessentiallyegalitariandemandsstoodnottheslightestchanceofbeingmet infeudalJapan,whereeveryofficetendedtobecomehereditary,andwherenoamount ofeducationorself-­‐cultivationwouldeverhelponetocrossthesocialbarrierslaid downbybirthandfamilyaffiliation. The only way, therefore, for Neo-­‐Confucian thinkers to fulfil at least part of their objective was to educate those who were born to fill the offices of power. In this they succeeded to some extent by introducing Neo-­‐Confucianism as part of the basic curriculum for the higher classes: the ability to write Chinese poems was a prized accomplishment,andeveryonewhowantedtolearnhowtowritethem,firsthadtoread theConfucianClassics.Theonlyproblemwiththis“scheme”was,thattheneareronegot to the top of the hierarchy, to the daimyō and the shōgun, the less important such important intellectual accomplishments became. Such persons could not be educated, but only lectured to, at give times, at ceremonial occasions, and when their underlings forsomereasonthoughtitnecessary. This pattern of frustration, this necessary marginality of Neo‑Confucian studies, the reader will find described in Chapter IV, where Razan’s career with the bakufu is described. Not only did the supposed “compatibility” not exist, the bakufu as such took no positive interest in Neo‑Confucian studies, either. Perusal of the chapter “kangaku no igi” in Bitō Masahide’s Nihon hōken shisōshi kenkyū will make this clear. What remains, therefore, is the assertion that the establishment of peace brought about the flourishing oftheliteraryarts,andthatNeo‑Confucianismwaspartandparceloftheseliteraryarts. Here, I think, lies the true explanation. As I argue at the end of Chapter II, social and economic circumstances that came about in the Azuchi‑Momoyama period created a “market” for intellectuals, and gave them an, always precarious, basis of existence outside the old court schools or the Buddhist church. Interesting side‑lights on this intellectual milieu, as it existed in the first years of the seventeenth century, are offered by the glimpses we get through Razan’s and Seika’s letters, or through writings like MatsunagaTeitoku’sTaionki(cf.ChapterII.B). This development was new. However, it remained a development; it was not a fundamentalrevolution.Theprizedpolitearts(theabilitytoexpressoneselfthroughthe medium of Japanese and Chinese poetry; the tea‑ceremony) remained the same. The 5 Confucian Classics, the basis of Neo‑Confucian education, had also been the basis of education during the Middle Ages. Razan or Seika lecturing to daimyō or shōgun are not much different from the Kiyohara or the Zen priests who travelled through the country to lecture on the identical classics to, admittedly rather different, daimyō and shōgun. The question obtrudes itself, whether the supposedly new Neo-­‐Confucianism was not, alsoasregardsitscontents,acontinuationofthemedievalConfucianstudies. Thesemattersarediscussed,andtherelevantmaterialsandtheoriesreviewed,in Chapter II.A. The conclusion is that most of the essential Neo-­‐Confucian works and commentarieswerealreadyknown,thatthestudyofConfucianismwiththeaidofthese Neo‑Confucian commentaries had reached a high level of sophistication, especially within the Kiyohara family, and that the form of Seika’s and Razan’s written works very much resembles that of the writings, the so-­‐called shōmono, of the Kiyohara. Taken in conjunctionwiththefactthatbothSeikaandRazanhadcontactswiththeKiyohara,and that works of Kiyohara origin or inspiration were still being compiled and printed until the second half of the seventeenth century, these are interesting findings. They prove that a great deal of continuity existed (at least in this field) from the Middle Ages to the modem period, and that an influx of Chinese or Korean books was not in any way a necessary precondition for the rise of Neo-­‐Confucian studies. The materials and the interest were there already. The findings also suggest that the proponents of Neo-­‐ Confucianism had to contend for several decades with other schools, which could claim tobecontinuinganoldertradition. The evident interest Razan evinced in Shintō studies points the same direction. The Kiyohara were intermarried with the Yoshida, the family that hereditarily headed the Yoshida shrine in Kyoto. Attempts at "unifying" Shintō and Confucianism, and at understandingtheoneintermsoftheotheralreadyhadalongstandinginthesecircles. InmanyrespectsRazancontinuedthistradition.(Imustadd,however,thatSeikaseems tohavebeenlesskeenlyinterestedinShintōstudies.) In other, words, the differences between the Middle Ages and the Tokugawa periodseemtobetheresultofevolutionary,ratherthanofrevolutionarydevelopments. Why,then,wastheclaimmadethatNeo-­‐ConfucianismbeganwithSeika? This problem is discussed in Chapters II and III, from different angles. In chapter I, the main points under discussion are Seika’s conversion to Confucianism and the nature of his relations with his disciples. Both matters hinge, in turn, on the 6 interpretation of biographical writings. The first problem is that Seika seems to have madetheclaimthatheoriginatedNeo-­‐Confucianismindependently,onlyonce.Thiswas in a written communication to a Korean prisoner-­‐of-­‐war, Kang Hang, dating from 1598 or 1599. The claim is reiterated several times in writings of Hang that he composed in order to praise Seika, and it is given a prominent place in Seika’s necrology, the Seika-­sensei gyōjō, which Razan wrote in 1620, the year after Seika’s death. The claim contains two elements: (1) Up till Seika’s days all Japanese Confucian studies had been based on the old Han commentaries and Tang sub-­‐commentaries; (2) Seika had realised the truth of the Neo‑Confucian teachings of the Song philosophers, and he had done so throughreading“thebooks,”notthroughtheinstructionofanylivingperson. The problem is how to understand this claim. Did Seika make it in relation to his celebrated project of making a complete edition of the Confucian Classics according to the Neo‑Confucian interpretations? Then his claim is understandable. Text editions of the Classics according to the new commentaries hardly existed in Japan, and the Kiyohara, who as the old myōgyō-­ke had a tradition to uphold, had never attempted to make one. Seika’s project marked a new departure, though it was not quite as unprecedentedashemadeoutandothers,e.g.theZenpriestBunshifromSatsumawere engaged in similar projects. The other element of his claim, namely that “from his youth he never had a teacher,” is also understandable, though again not literally true. Seika, of course,hadhadmanyteachers,butevenifhehadwantedtodoso,theredidnotexistan identifiable,establishedtraditionfromwhichhecouldhaveclaimeddescent. Whatever Seika’s motives were, Razan decided to take Seika’s claim and Kang Hang’s panegyrics literally. And he relates them, not to Seika’s project of editing the Classics according to the new commentaries, but to Seika’s conversion from Buddhism to Confucianism, which took place several years before Seika met Kang Hang. A few added touches, many of them taken over from Kang Hang’s writings, were sufficient to turn Seika into someone rather resembling the Neo-­‐Confucian patriarchs of the Song. And Razan was not the only one to do so. We find the same tendency in writings related tootherdisciplesofSeika. From their perspective they were right to do so. Traditions were important. The “transmission of the Way” was an important concept within Neo‑Confucianism. It presupposed a handing‑down of the truth from master to disciple, and the only recognised gap in this tradition was the interval from Mencius to Zhou Dunyi, who had

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that Neo‑Confucianism in Japan began with Fujiwara Seika, that Hayashi commonly understood, this means the Neo‑Confucianism was introduced in the last.
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