Arai Hakuseki

Arai Hakuseki.

Arai Hakuseki ( Japanese 新 井 白石 , Arai Hakuseki ; born March 24, 1657 in Edo , † June 29, 1725 ibid) was a neo-Confucian scholar, economist, poet and advisor to the Shogun Tokugawa Ienobu . Hakuseki was a pseudonym, the real first name was Kimiyoshi ( 君 美 ) or in respectful reading Kinmi. He is best known because he postulated a law in his writings that economists know as the quality theory of money or Gresham's law . He also wrote books on Shintō ( Koshitsū , Koshitsū wakumon and Tōga ) as well as historical and geographical works. He also left numerous poems in the Chinese style.

Life

Hakuseki's father was Arai Masazumi ( 新 井 正 済 ), who was in the service of the Tsuchiya Princely House of the Kururi Domain . Even as a child, Hakuseki showed an alert mind; according to legend, at the age of three he copied a Confucian work character by character. Because he was born in the year of one of the greatest fire disasters of the Edo period (" Meireki Great Fire ", Meireki no taika 明 暦 の 大火 ), and because his eyebrows contracted to the character 火 ( hi , fire) when he got angry, gave him the nickname Hi-no-ko ( 火 fand 子 ; "child of fire") by Prince Tsuchiya Toshinao, who took great pleasure in him . After Toshinao's death, the Tsuchiya house went downhill. The deranged son and successor Tsuchiya Naoki lost the fiefdom and the castle was even destroyed. The thus unbound Hakuseki had to look for a new master. Finally he entered the service of Hotta Masatoshi , who as regent ( tairō ) held the highest position in the Shogun's imperial council. But after Masatoshi fell victim to an attack by his cousin Inaba Masayasu in 1684 , the fiefdom was relocated and the Hotta House lost influence, Hakuseki had to readjust his life again. Finally in 1686 he took up the study of Confucianism under the famous scholar Kinoshita Jun'an (1621-1699). Here he met some illustrious people like Amenomori Hōshu who had great careers ahead of them.

In 1693 he entered the service of the prince (daimyo) of the Kofu domain, Tokugawa Tsunatoyo (1662-1712). Tsunatoyo was one of the grandsons of Iemitsu, the 3rd Shogun of the Tokugawa dynasty. When the childless Shogun Tsunayoshi died in 1709, the 48-year-old Tsunatoyo was his successor and ruled under the name of Ienobu . During the few years leading up to his death, he pushed powerful supporters of his predecessor out of office and began reforming finance and foreign trade with the help of Arai Hakuseki and Manabe Akifusa . This policy was continued by the two under the only surviving son and successor, Ietsugu , who took office at the age of four and died at the age of seven. In particular, it was important to get the state finances under control. An analysis of the trading books showed that 75% of the gold and 25% of the silver flowed out in foreign trade, which destabilized the own currency due to the lack of coverage. "New regulations for overseas trade" ( Kaihaku Goshi Shinrei , 海 舶 互市 新 例 ) have limited the number of Chinese and Dutch ships calling into Nagasaki each year, as has the volume of trade. In addition, the imported goods were paid for with Japanese products such as silk, porcelain and dried seafood. Nagasaki was under direct government control. The trade with Korea and the Kingdom of Ryūkyū (now Okinawa Prefecture), which ran through the provinces of Tsushima and Satsuma , was operated largely independently by the local royal houses. Since important goods such as ginseng came into the country here and payment in silver was unavoidable, Arai quickly encountered resistance and the central government reached the limits of its control. There were also protests from Tsushima when the costly ceremonial was simplified for the embassy that the Korean Joseon dynasty sent to Edo every time a new shogun assumed rule.

In 1709, with the help of the talented interpreter Imamura Eisei, he questioned the illegally entered Jesuit Giovanni Battista Sidotti and established a relationship of trust with him, which gave him a lot of information. The script Seiyō Kibun , compiled on this basis around 1715, reproduces Arai's conversations with Siddotti in the first part. The second part is devoted to the five continents, the third to Catholicism. A second text, written around 1713, describes the geography, history, customs and living beings in the world under the title Sairan Igen .

After Ietsugu's death he gave up his post at court and devoted himself entirely to writing. When he died in 1725 he was first buried in the Hōon Temple (Hōon-ji, 報恩寺 ) in Asakusa (today Taitō-ku , Tokyo ), but the grave later in the Kōtoku Temple (Kōtoku-ji, 高 徳 寺 ) ( Nakano , Tokyo).

Works (selection)

• Hankanfu ( 藩 翰 譜 ) - family trees of various sovereigns (daimyō)
• Koshitsū ( 古史 通 ) - A work about Japanese antiquity
• Oritaku Shiba-no-ki ( 折 り た く 柴 の 記 ) - memoir. English translation: Joyce Akroyd, Told round a brushwood fire: The autobiography of Arai Hakuseki. Tokyo: University of Tokyo Press, 1979.
• Sairan Igon ( 采 覧 異言 ) - A five-volume description of many regions of the world (geography, history, customs, wildlife, etc.)
• Seiyō Kibun ( 西洋 記 聞 ) - A three-part description of Europe
• Tokushi Yoron ( 読 史 余 論 ) - a work of history. Annotated English translation: Ackroyd, Joyce, Lessons from History. The Tokushi Yoron by Arai Hakuseki. St. Lucia: University of Queensland, 1982,

literature

• Ulrich Kemper: Arai Hakuseki and his view of history. A contribution to the historiography of Japan in the Tokugawa period . Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1967.
• Kate Wildman Nakai: Shogunal politics - Arai Hakuseki and the premises of Tokugawa rule. Cambridge, Mass. : Harvard University Press, 1988.
• L. Lönholm: Arai Hakuseki and Father Sidotti. Communications from the German Society for Natural History and Ethnology of East Asia. Tokyo: Hakubunsha, 1894.

Web links

• Yazaki Hiroyuki:  "Arai Hakuseki" . In: Encyclopedia of Shinto. Kokugaku-in , October 1, 2007 (English)

Remarks

1. ↑ Japanese yūsokuyomi ( 有 職 読 み ). The Japanese name reading was replaced by a Sino-Japanese on reading .

Japanese name: As is common in Japan, the family name comes before the first name in this article . Thus Arai is the family name, Hakuseki the first name.