Uncharted Waters: Intellectual Life in the Edo Period: Essays in Honour of W.J. Boot

273 Pages·2012·3.709 MB·English

by  Anna Beerens

Uncharted Waters:
Intellectual Life in the Edo Period
Brill’s Japanese
Studies Library
Edited by
Joshua Mostow (Managing Editor)
Caroline Rose
Kate Wildman Nakai
VOLUME 38
The titles published in this series are listed at brill.nl/bjsl
Uncharted Waters:
Intellectual Life in the
Edo Period
Essays in Honour of W. J. Boot
Edited by
Anna Beerens and Mark Teeuwen
LEIdEN • BOSTON
2012
Cover illustration: Minagawa Kien (1734–1807), Boat on a lake, ink on paper (private collection,
The Netherlands).
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication data
Uncharted waters : intellectual life in the Edo period : essays in honour of W. J. Boot / edited by
Anna Beerens, Mark Teeuwen.
p. cm. — (Brill’s Japanese studies library ; v. 38)
Includes index.
ISBN 978-90-04-21673-0 (hardback : alk. paper)
1. Japan—Intellectual life—1600–1868. 2. Japan—History—Tokugawa period, 1600–1868. I. Beerens,
Anna, 1957– II. Teeuwen, Mark. III. Boot, W. J.
dS822.2.U57 2012
952’.025—dc23
2012004674
This publication has been typeset in the multilingual “Brill” typeface. With over 5,100 characters
covering Latin, IPA, Greek, and Cyrillic, this typeface is especially suitable for use in the
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ISSN 0925-6512
ISBN 978 90 04 21673 0 (hardback)
ISBN 978 90 04 22901 3 (e-book)
Copyright 2012 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands.
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CONTENTS
Preface  ................................................................................................................ vii
“Met vriendschappelijke groet”  .................................................................. ix
Harmen Beukers
Introduction: Aspects of intellectual life in Edo Japan  ....................... 1
Anna Beerens and Mark Teeuwen
INTELLECTUAL NETWORKS
Entertainment and education: An antiquarian society in Edo,
1824–25  .......................................................................................................... 13
Margarita Winkel
The prince who collected scholars: The network of Myōhō-in no
miya Shinnin Hōshinnō (1768–1805) .................................................... 35
Anna Beerens
LEGITIMISING TOKUGAWA RULE
“Not perfectly good”: Some Edo responses to Confucius’s
characterization of Kings Wen and Wu .............................................. 55
Kate Wildman Nakai
Confucianism versus feudalism: The Shōheizaka academy and
late Tokugawa reform ............................................................................... 75
Kiri Paramore
Minding the gaps: An early Edo history of Sino-Japanese poetry  ... 93
Ivo Smits
The Way of Heaven in 1816: Ideology or rhetoric?  ............................... 109
Mark Teeuwen
vi contents
The history and miraculous efficacy of the Black Amida:
Its significance for Zōjōji and its role in the diffusion of
Tokugawa myths  ........................................................................................ 129
Marc Buijnsters
Insincere blessings? Court-Bakufu relations and the creation of
engi scrolls in honour of Tokugawa Ieyasu  ....................................... 159
Lee Bruschke-Johnson
WESTERN CONNECTIONS
What’s in a name? Padre João Rodriguez’s discussion of naming
practices in his Short grammar of the Japanese language  ............. 181
Jeroen Lamers
The Dūfu Haruma: An explosive dictionary  ........................................... 197
Rudolf Effert
The Kurisaki school of sword wound surgery: From Sengoku to
Genroku; Nagasaki to Edo (via Manila)  .............................................. 221
Thomas Harper
List of publications by Prof. dr. Willem Jan Boot  ................................ 241
Steven Hagers
List of contributors  ......................................................................................... 251
Index  ................................................................................................................... 255
PREFACE
The present collection of essays is a tribute to the scholarship and teach-
ing of Willem Jan (Wim) Boot. It contains contributions written by former
Phd students and close colleagues, who in this way seek to honour him
and show their appreciation. The volume presents new work by scholars
inspired by or in tune with Wim Boot’s work on aspects of intellectual life
in the Edo period (1600–1868). The terms “intellectual” and “life” should be
taken very literally; these essays not only explore the intellectual climate
of the time as it manifested itself in the works of the individuals who were
part of it, but also the on-the-ground interaction between scholars, artists
and literary figures, as well as aspects of actual practice.
The title of this volume has been chosen first of all for its watery conno-
tations. For some of Wim Boot’s acquaintances it may come as a surprise
that the dutch word boot refers to something one uses to travel across
water, and not to something one wears on one’s feet. The use of the term
“uncharted” should not be seen as a promise that this book will trans-
port the reader to a stunning terra incognita. Rather, the image of the
little boat, diligently making its way, appears particularly appropriate as a
metaphor for a scholar’s life and labour. And every scholar who broaches
a new subject, or attempts to look at an old one in a new way, enters into
“uncharted waters.” That is what scholarship is all about.
It is our sincere hope that these essays will contribute to the charting
of the vast expanse of water that is the Edo period, and that Wim Boot
himself will look with pride and pleasure upon this volume, which reflects
so many of his own interests in this many-sided subject.
The editors
Leiden/Oslo, december 2011

“MET VRIENdSCHAPPELIJKE GROET”1
Harmen Beukers
It must have been at the summer meeting of the Netherlands Association
for Japanese Studies (NGJS) in 1981 that I met Wim Boot for the first time.
I went to that meeting at the suggestion of my predecessor, professor
Luyendijk-Elshout. As I had been invited to a unique workshop on medi-
cal history in Japan, she had advised me to learn more about Japanese
manners and customs. The NGJS meeting took place at the department
of Japanese Studies in Leiden, located at the time at Rapenburg 129/131.
It gave me a good opportunity to get to know the department’s staff: the
famous professor Frits Vos, his assistants Erika de Poorter, Miao-Ling
Tjoa, and Boudewijn Walraven, and the librarian Wim Boot. As I remem-
ber it, the meeting was rather relaxed thanks to the friendly atmosphere
and maybe to the spiritual support—a satchel with a variety of alcoholic
beverages—supplied at the end of the meeting by Mr. Creemers of the
Embassy of Japan.
Professor Vos represented the classic man of learning, a philologist in
heart and soul, but with a good sense of humor and every inch a gentle-
man. I felt that the librarian had many points in common with the profes-
sor, but even then it was clear to me that the former was by no means an
imitation of the latter, on the contrary. Wim Boot has always been inde-
pendent minded. He grew up in a family where at least two generations
had been active in engineering and he inherited strong analytical facul-
ties. It made him a critical, sometimes feared, participant in meetings, as
well as an excellent teacher who presented his courses in a clear-cut and
systematic way. Erudition was another family trait: the family spent their
Sundays in silence, reading books. Often Wim and his mother—a widely-
read woman—would be engaged in “reading competitions.” Wim’s strict
protestant upbringing fostered many of the qualities I admire so much in
him: fairness, sincerity, sense of justice, and above all loyalty. However,
Wim has always been cautious concerning the interpretation of words; as
early as 1978 he wrote a paper on the proper translation of the term chūkō
1 Literally “with amicable greetings.”