Abstract
The theme of this essay is the fundamental incompatibility between Confucianism and the worship of ghosts, spirits, deities, and all other categories of “higher beings.” Confucian scholars could not, however, just ignore the worship of ghosts and spirits, for that would have meant abandoning ancestor worship, too. Moreover, the Classics were rife with references to the ghosts and spirits, so some sort of an account had to be provided. In Japan the problem was complicated by the existence of Shinto. Some scholars made an effort to reinterpret it in a Confucian way, while others ignored it or found political uses for it. In my essay I exemplify this through an analysis of Minagawa Kien’s Meichū, Ogyū Sorai’s Benmei, Arai Hakuseki’s Kishinron, Hayashi Razan’s Shintō denju, Aizawa Seishisai’s Shinron, and writings belonging to the tradition of Tentō shisō.
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Notes
- 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).
- 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.
- 4.
- 5.
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.
- 6.
On the attitude of Kien versus Sorai, and on his way of arguing, see Boot 2006.
- 7.
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.
- 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.
A rai 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.
- 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.”
- 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.
- 15.
- 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.
- 19.
Razan uses two different words, 空 and 虗, that I have both translated as “empty.” Kracht (Geist-Diskurse, 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).
- 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.
- 22.
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.
- 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.
- 31.
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.
- 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.
- 34.
NST 53: 139; Wakabayashi 1991: 252.
- 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 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.
- 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.
- 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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Boot, W.J. (2014). Spirits, Gods, and Heaven in Confucian Thought. In: Huang, Cc., Tucker, J. (eds) Dao Companion to Japanese Confucian Philosophy. Dao Companions to Chinese Philosophy, vol 5. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-2921-8_3
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