Abstract
This chapter examines the introduction and subsequent evolution of mechanical clocks in Japan. The mechanical clock was first brought by Jesuit missionaries as a gift to the rulers of Japan and China in the sixteenth century. After the prohibition of Christianity in Japan in the early years of the Tokugawa period, the clock evolved quite differently in the two countries. In China, increasingly elaborate Western clocks were either brought from the West or constructed in shops locally. In Japan, mechanical clocks were constructed exclusively by domestic craftsmen who modified them to indicate a seasonally variable system of hours. Although mechanical clocks were not owned and used widely, they were used by time-keepers at castles as well as at time-bell towers, to tell the time to city dwellers.
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Notes
- 1.
G. Dohrn-van Rossum, History of the Hour: Clocks and Modern Temporal Orders. Trans. T. Dunlop. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996.
- 2.
D. S. Landes, Revolution in Time: Clocks and the Making of the Modern World. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1983.
- 3.
C. M. Cipolla, Clocks and Culture. London: Norton, 1967, pp. 83–114.
- 4.
J. Crasset, The History of the Church of Japan. Vol. 1, trans. N.N., London: s.n. 1705, p. 76.
- 5.
Ryuji Yamaguchi, Nihon no tokei (Clocks of Japan). Tokyo: Nihon Hyoronsha, 1950, pp. 11–12; Taizaburo Tsukada, Wadokei. Tokyo: Toho Shoin, 1960, pp. 24–26.
- 6.
Crasset, op. cit., Vol. 2, 1707, p. 154.
- 7.
Crasset, op. cit., Vol. 2, 1707, p. 160.
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J. Elisonas, “Christianity in Daimyo” in Cambridge History of Japan. Vol. 4, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991, pp. 301–372.
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C. Pagani, “Eastern Magnificence and European Ingenuity”: Clocks of Late Imperial China. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2001, p. 2.
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C. Jami, “Clocks,” in Handbook of Christianity in China. Vol. 1 (635–1800), N. Standaert, ed., London: Brill, 2001, pp. 844 f.
- 11.
Pagani, op. cit., pp. 50–51.
- 12.
Chinaadopted such a clock time system from ancient times and used it in cities. Medieval Japan introduced the Chinese system of counting time, and the activities inside the palace were conducted according to such a clock time system. However, it did not prevail in the provinces, and as the time descended, the seasonal time system became more common, and the time system itself was not rigorously determined. See Manpei Hashimoto, Nihon no jikoku seido (The Japanese System of Hours). Tokyo: Hanawa Shobo, 1966.
- 13.
It should be noted that the Japanese used the time of dawn and dusk, rather than sunrise and sunset, as the point to divide daytime and nighttime. They were defined as 36 minutes before the sunrise and 36 minutes after the sunset. The period, 36 minutes, came from 1/40 of the length of a day. They were later more precisely redefined as the time when the sun was 7 degrees 21 minutes below the horizon. See Kuniji Saito, Nihon Chugoku Chosen kodai no jikoku seido (The System of Hours in Ancient Japan, China, and Korea). Tokyo: Yuzankaku, 1995; Takehiko Hashimoto, “Kansei reki to wadokei: Yoake no teigi o megutte” (The Kansei Calendar and Japanese Clocks: On the Definition of Twilight,” Tenmon Geppo (The Astronomical Herald), 98 (2005): 373–379.
- 14.
Manpei Hashimoto, op. cit., pp. 128–130. Hashimoto refers to the existence of the different system of counting time based on the 12 zodiac symbols and the confusion among the public on the use of this counting system. Ibid., p. 130.
- 15.
Manpei Hashimoto, op. cit., pp. 131–134.
- 16.
The exception was the clocks of the astronomers who used a different unit of time which uniformly divided the day. See M. P. Fernandez and P. C. Fernandez, “Precision Time-Keepers of Tokugawa Japan and the Evolution of the Japanese Domestic Clock,” Technology and Culture, 37 (1996): 221–248. For the overview and explanation of various types of the Japanese clocks, see J. Drummond Robertson, The Evolution of Clockwork with a Special Section on the Clock of Japan. London: Cassell, 1931; N. H. N. Mody, A Collection of Japanese Clocks. London: Kegan Paul, 1932; Ryuji Yamaguchi, Nihon no tokei (Clocks of Japan). Tokyo: Nihon Hyoronsha, 1950; Taizaburo Tsukada, Wadokei, Tokyo: Toho Shoin, 1960; Sachiko Oda, ed., Seiko Tokei Shiryokan zo wadokei zuroku (A Catalogue of Japanese Clocks Preserved at the Seiko Clock Museum). Tokyo: Seiko Tokei Shiryokan, 1994.
- 17.
Ryuji Yamaguchi, Nihon no tokei (Clocks of Japan). Tokyo: Nihon Hyoronsha, 1950, p. 104; Taizaburo Tsukada, Wadokei. Tokyo: Toho Shoin, 1960, pp. 130–131.
- 18.
On the development of shaku dokei, see Ryuji Yamaguchi, Nihon no tokei (Clocks of Japan). Tokyo: Nihon Hyoronsha, 1950, pp. 183–196.
- 19.
Sakae Tsunoyama, Tokei no shakaishi (A social history of clocks). Tokyo: Chuo Koronsha, 1984, pp. 66–82.
- 20.
Toru Morishita, “Time in an early modern local community,” in Shigehisa Kuriyama and Takehiko Hashimoto, eds., The Birth of Tardiness, The Formation of Time Consciousness in Modern Japan, Special issue of Japan Review: Journal of the International Research Center for Japanese Studies, 14 (2002): 65–78.
- 21.
S. A. Bedini, The Trail of Time: Time Measurement with Incense in East Asia. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994; Toru Morishita, op. cit., p. 69.
- 22.
Sachiko Urai, Edo no jikoku to toki no kane (Time in Edo and the Time Bell). Tokyo: Iwata Shoin, 2002.
- 23.
Ibid., p. 29.
- 24.
Ibid., p. 108.
- 25.
Ibid., pp. 188–190.
- 26.
Ibid., pp. 173–174.
- 27.
The document did not specify how the bell strikers at other time bell towers determined the time stroke the bell, but it would be probable that the synchronized gongs of these four bells forming the inner circle around the castle were heard by the strikers of the other time bells which formed the outer circle around the castle and they followed the suit to gong the bell.
- 28.
Kenji Imazu, ed., Tanaka Oumi Daijo, unpublished revised edition, 1993, pp. 16–23.
- 29.
Takehiko Hashimoto, “Mechanization of time and calendar: Tanaka Hisashige's myriad year clock and cosomological model,” UTCP Bulletin, 6 (2006): 47–55, reproduced in idem, Historical Essays in Japanese Technology, UTCP Collection, vol. 6, 2009, p. 31.
- 30.
Kenji Imazu, ed., op. cit., 1993, p. 67.
- 31.
Shigehisa Kuriyama and Takehiko Hashimoto, eds., The Birth of Tardiness: The Formation of Time-consciousness in Modern Japan. A special issue of Nichibunken Japan Review, 14 (2002): 65–78; Takehiko Hashimoto, “The Japanese clocks and the history of punctuality in modern Japan,” East Asian Science, Technology, and Society: an International Journal, 2 (2008): 123–133.
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Hashimoto, T. (2011). The Adoption and Adaptation of Mechanical Clocks in Japan. In: Günergun, F., Raina, D. (eds) Science between Europe and Asia. Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science, vol 275. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-9968-6_9
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