Abstract
This famous study examines how the Ansai school—the self-proclaimed inheritor of orthodox Cheng-Zhu learning in Japan—adapted the philosophy and ideology of the Zhu Xi school to the realities of Japanese political ideology during the Edo period. Yet it was very controversial how much the Chinese conception of “orthodoxy” had to be adjusted to fit with the Japanese political tradition and Japanese political ideology. Accordingly, within the school there naturally emerged a wide spectrum of positions regarding how far it was necessary adapt Cheng-Zhu orthodoxy to fit Japanese realities, from those that viewed Japan in terms of Sinocentric categories that made Japan culturally peripheral to China to those that advocated a complete reordering of Confucian categories to make Japan the center of its own world and morally superior to China even in the terms of China’s own standards. Maruyama maps out these different positions, striving to identify universal patterns that structure all discourse regarding orthodoxy, East and West, while also critically analyzing the Kimon school discourse in its relation to the kokutai-centered ultranationalist ideology of imperial Japan.
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.
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Notes
- 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.
- 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.
- 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). “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).
- 5.
There follows here a list of the Shinto teachers whose doctrines he synthesized, beginning with Kikkawa (Yoshikawa) Koretari 吉川惟足 (1616–1694).
- 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.
- 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” 近世儒學史上に於ける闇齋學の地位 (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.
- 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.”
- 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 拘幽操), 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).
- 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 南村梅軒, 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 谷時中 (1598–1649), Ogura Sansei 小倉三省, 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 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 墨水一滴], in Seki 1943: v. 2).
- 16.
Tutor to the daimyo of Oshi 忍 domain; later resigned and changed his name to Genpo 玄甫.
- 17.
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.
- 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 horse-beheading 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.)
- 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 望楠樓 (“the tower overlooking the camphor tree”). The nan (camphor tree) in both names is an allusion to Kusunoki Masashige 楠木正成, a famous loyalist general who supported Emperor Go-Daigo’s 後醍醐 attempt to restore imperial rule by overthrowing the Kamakura bakufu in 1331. (tr.)
- 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.)
- 24.
On the sources of San’yō’s thought see Steben 2002.
- 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 外様) (Wakabayashi 1937: 巻 3: 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 出入) terminated by the teacher.
- 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 屈原, Tao Yuanming 陶淵明, and Wen Tianxiang 文天祥, with references to the deeds of other loyal ministers through Chinese history.
- 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.)
- 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 ruler-minister (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.)
- 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.
- 31.
See Xiong Huanchuan 熊環川, The Lineage of Learning (Xuetong 學統) (Kangxi 24, i.e., 1685), juan 卷53, esp. the preface of Wang Xinming 王新命.
- 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 伏羲, and became the basis of the eight trigrams, and the Luo Writing 洛書was found on the back of a sacred tortoise that emerged from the Luo River in the time of Yu the Great 大禹, and became the basis of the nine divisions of the Hongfan. (tr.)
- 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.
- 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 禊, harai 祓い) 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 広辞苑 dictionary).
- 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.)
- 41.
“Peoples” and “states” are originally separate categories, but in concrete contexts they are identified.
- 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 説文解字 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.)
- 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.)
- 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).
- 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.)
- 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.)
- 47.
Maruyama (like many other Japanese scholars) uses keiki 契機 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 大辞林). These meanings are very relevant to understanding Maruyama’s conception of the historical development of thought. (tr.)
- 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 躬行; the characters are similar and both are pronounced the same in Japanese. (tr.)
- 49.
Lectures for my Students on Reflections on Things at Hand (Jiang Jinsilu wei zhushengji 講近思路為諸生記), in Unzōroku 5.
- 50.
Keisai Sensei isho I, leaf 35ウ.
- 51.
Keisai Sensei isho 1, leaf 28オ.
- 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 胡宏, 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 濱見錄, 1.
- 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.)
- 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.)
- 58.
ang 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.)
- 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 住吉 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 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.)
- 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.
- 65.
“Lord Konoe” must refer to Konoe Iehiro 近衛家熙 (1667–1736) and his aristocratic house, which was directly descended from Fujiwara no Motosane 藤原基實 (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.)
- 66.
The southwestern part of modern Fukui prefecture.
- 67.
A battle in Kyoto between the supporters of the shogun Tokugawa Keiki and the Satsuma-Chōshū 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.
- 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.
- 70.
Mencius attributes this statement to Confucius. (tr.)
- 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.)
- 72.
Locus classicus for dajuzheng: Gongyang zhuan 剬羊傳, Yin Gong, third year. Locus classicus for dayitong: Gongyang zhuan 剬羊傳, Yin Gong, first year. See http://ctext.org/gongyang-zhuan/yin-gong.
- 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 神代巻下). (tr.)
- 74.
Incidentally, the natural law-based theory of rebellion of the Monarchomachists in sixteenth-century 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.
- 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.
- 78.
The Honganji was the headquarters in Kyoto of the powerful Jōdo Shinshū sect of Pure Land Buddhism.
- 79.
aira 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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Maruyama 丸山真男, M., Steben, B.D. (2014). “Orthodoxy” and “Legitimacy” in the Yamazaki Ansai School. 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_13
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