Hirata Atsutane
You can help expand this article with text translated from the corresponding article in Japanese. (January 2022) Click [show] for important translation instructions.
|
Hirata Atsutane | |
---|---|
Born | Ōwada Taneyuki (大和田胤行) October 6, 1776 |
Died | November 2, 1843 Kubota Domain, Dewa Province, Japan | (aged 67)
Nationality | Japanese |
Hirata Atsutane (平田 篤胤, 6 October 1776 – 2 November 1843) was a Japanese scholar, conventionally ranked as one of the Four Great Men of Kokugaku (nativist) studies,[1] and one of the most significant theologians of the Shintō religion. His literary name was Ibukinoya (気吹舎), and his primary assumed name was Daigaku (大壑, Great Abyss)[1]. He also used the names Daikaku (大角), Gentaku (玄琢), and Genzui (玄瑞). His personal name was Hanbē (半兵衛).
Biography
Early life
Hirata was born as the fourth son of Ōwada Seihē Toshitane (大和田 清兵衛 祚胤), an Obangashira (low-ranking) samurai of Kubota Domain, in what is now part of the city of Akita in northern Japan. Little is known of his early childhood, but it appears he was impoverished and faced hostility from his step-mother. He left home in 1795, renouncing his ties to his family and to the Domain and traveled to Edo and worked as a laborer and as a servant, while pushing opportunities to study rangaku, geography, and astronomy. In 1800, at the age of 25, he caught the attention of Hirata Tōbē (平田藤兵衛), a scholar and instructor in the Yamaga school of military strategy, formerly of Bitchū-Matsuyama Domain, who adopted him and from whom he received the family name of Hirata. Around this time, he met his future wife, the daughter of Ishibashi Tsunefusa (石橋常房), a hatamoto of Numazu Domain, whom he married the following year. Evidently the two became romantically involved while Hirata was working as a menial servant in the Ishibashi household.[2] Taking his family name, she was known as Hirata Orise (平田織瀬).
Development of Kokugaku studies
While in Edo, Hirata was a student of the
Though he is traditionally ranked fourth in the lineage of kokugaku scholars, Hirata actually represents a break with the purely scholarly urban culture characteristic of the revival of classical nativist learning, and represents a trend toward a populist message. Hirata laid particular emphasis on reaching the average man, and adapted his own style to them by employing at times the vernacular idiom. Hirata frequently expressed hostility to the Confucian and Buddhist scholars of the day, advocating instead a revival of the “ancient ways” in which the
The contents of his 1841 treatise Tenchō mukyūreki, in which he suggested that loyalty to the Emperor ought to take precedence over loyalty to one's lord (i.e. the shogun), angered the ruling Tokugawa government, and he was sentenced to house arrest in Akita until his death in 1843.
Influence
Part of a series on |
Conservatism in Japan |
---|
Hirata's activities eventually attracted over 500 pupils, including Okuni Takamasa and Suzuki Shigetane. His nationalist writings had considerable impact on the samurai who supported the Sonnō jōi movement and who fought in the Boshin War to overthrow the Tokugawa Shogunate during the Meiji Restoration.
Hirata's influence on kokugaku has recently been thought to be overestimated. While he is called one of the "four great men of kokugaku", this is a phrase he invented himself. His work more often influenced religious groups than the government in the Empire of Japan.
Among Hirata's more enduring contributions to Japanese thought was to remind that all Japanese were descended from the kami, not only the Imperial family and certain aristocratic families. As he put it, "this, our glorious land, is the land in which the kami have their origin, and we are one and all descendants of the kami. For this reason, if we go back from the parents who gave us life and being, beyond the grandparents and great-grandparents, and consider the ancestors of ancient times, then the original ancestors of those must necessarily have been the kami."[4]
Hirata Atsutane's grave
Hirata died at his home in Nakakame-cho, Akita in 1843, and as per the provisions of his will, was buried on a hillside in the city. 39°43′43″N 140°08′14″E / 39.72863931°N 140.1372221°E The tombstone is a natural stone simply inscribed with his name, surrounded by a stone fence and a stone torii gate are placed at the entrance. The tomb was designated a National Historic Site of Japan in 1934.[5]
Selected works
- Chishima no shiranami (千島の白波, White Waves of Chishima)[2]
- Honkyō gaihen (本教外篇, Outer Chapters of Our Doctrine)
- Kodō taii (古道大意, General Introduction to the Path of Antiquity)
- Tama no mihashira (霊能真柱, True Pillar of the Spirit)
- Tamadasuki (玉襷, The Precious Tasuki)
- Zoku shintō taii (俗神道大意, General Introduction to Folk Shintō)
- Koshichō (古史徴, Index to Ancient History)
- Koshiden (古史伝, Commentary on Ancient History)
- Shizu no iwaya (志都能石屋, The Quiet Cave)
- Shutsujō shōgo (出定笑語, Laughing Discourse upon Emerging from Meditation)[3]
- Indo zōshi (印度蔵志, Collection of Truth About India)
- Morokoshi taikoden (唐土太古傳, Transmission of Ancient Chinese History)
- Senkyō ibun (仙境異聞, Strange Tales from the Land of the Immortals)
- Katsugorō saisei kibun (勝五郎再生記聞, Account of Katsugorō's Rebirth)
- Reihō gogaku shinkeizu (霊宝五嶽真形図, Accurate Diagram of the Five Peaks)
- Saiseki gairon (西籍慨論, Reprobation of Western Scholarship)
- Tenchūki (天柱記, Record of the Pillar of Heaven)
- Kamōsho (呵妄書, Rebuke of Insolent Writings)
- Kokon yōmikō (古今妖魅考, Investigation of Paranormal Phenomena of the Past and Present)
- Tenchō mukyūreki (天朝無窮暦, Calendar of the Immortal Imperial Court)
- A commentary on the Inō mononokeroku (稲生物怪録, Account of the Haunting of Inō) of 1749.
Notes
- 1.^ The name was inspired by a passge from the Zhuangzi. Although the term is today generally translated as "ocean", its use in classical Chinese literature with which Hirata had intimate familiarity included a more general meaning of vast profundity and was used metaphorically with regard to qi and its source. "Zhun Mang (諄芒), on his way to the ocean, met with Yuan Feng on the shore of the eastern sea, and was asked by him where he was going. 'I am going,' he replied, 'to the ocean;' and the other again asked, 'What for?' Zhun Mang said, 'Such is the nature of the ocean (大壑, dàhè) that the waters which flow into it can never fill it, nor those which flow from it exhaust it. I will enjoy myself, rambling by it.'"
- 2.^ A treatise on national defense advocating a military buildup on Sakhalin and throughout the Kuriles to counter Russian expansion into Northeast Asia.[6]
- 3.^ This text's name is a pun on the strongly anti-Shinto Tominaga Nakamoto's 1745 Shutsujō gogo , or "Discourse upon Emerging from Meditation".
See also
- Hayashi Ōen
- Sugiyama Sōjō
- Hirata Kanetane (1799-1880)
- Hirata Nobutane (1828-1872)
- Hirata Moritane (1863-1945)
- Hirata Munetane (????-1973)
References
- ^ "Hirata Atsutane (1776-1843) is best known as the fourth Great Man of kokugaku." Hansen, Wilburn. "Dancing as if Possessed: A Coming Out Party in Edo Spirit Society." Japanese Journal of Religious Studies (2010): pp 275-294, of which page 277, footnote 3.
- ^ "2004 Hirata Atsutane Exhibition". National Museum of Japanese History. Retrieved 10 January 2022.
- ISBN 9784000244688.
- ^ Earl, David Margarey, Emperor and Nation in Japan, Political Thinkers of the Tokugawa Period, University of Washington Press, 1964, p. 80
- ^ "平田篤胤墓" (in Japanese). Agency for Cultural Affairs.
- ISBN 9780824832094.
Further reading
- ISBN 9780195110616; OCLC 49704795
- ISBN 9780674003347; OCLC 44090600
- McNally, Mark (2005). Proving the Way: Conflict and Practice in the History of Japanese Nativism. Harvard University Asia Center. ISBN 0-674-01778-1.
External links
- Encyclopedia of Shinto
- Akita Prefecture official site (in Japanese)
- NIkaho Tourist Information (in Japanese)