Ashikaga school
The Ashikaga College ( Japanese 足 利 学校 , Ashikaga gakkō ) in the city of Ashikaga , ( Tochigi Prefecture ) existed for a few hundred years until 1871. It was most important in the Muromachi period .
history
The beginnings of the school go back to the Kamakura period ; it gained importance when the Uesugi princes ruled the province. General Uesugi Norizane ( 上杉 憲 実 ; 1410–1466) sponsored the school, donated important works of the Song era and ensured detailed user regulations. Above all, Chinese literature and science were taught, which also included the art of fortune telling ( Eki ). The Jesuit priest Francisco de Xavier , who began proselytizing Japan in 1549, praised the school as the most important in the country.
Her collection comprised several thousand volumes, mainly Chinese works donated by teachers and students. During the armed conflict in the sixteenth century, the holdings of Toyotomi Hideyoshi were brought to Kyoto. When Tokugawa Ieyasu came to power a little later , he arranged for them to be repatriated and supported the school and library.
The plant today
The school consisted of two parts, the eastern part with the actual school and the western part with the memorial for Confucius. While the memorial was preserved, the school grounds were used to build a modern elementary school. When it became necessary to expand this elementary school in the 1975s, it was decided to move it. In 1982, the reconstruction of the Ashikaga school began, which was completed in 1990.
Preserved western part
- Memorial to Confucius ( 孔子 廟 , Kōshi-byō or 聖廟 , Seibyō ),
- Outer gate ( 入 徳 門 , Nyūtoku-mon ) from 1668 with the nameplate from 1840,
- Inner gate ( 学校 門 , Gakkō-mon ) from 1668, in a sense the symbol of the school,
- Gate to the memorial ( 杏壇 門 , Kyōdan-mon ) originally from 1668, restored after a fire in 1892,
- Legacy Library ( 遺跡 図 書館 , Iseki toshokan ), originally built in 1903 for bibliographic heritage, today's building from 1915,
- Book store ( 収 蔵 庫 , Shūzōko ), 1967 for the national treasures a . a. Valuable book inventory built.
- Finally, there are 17 tombstones in the western part, of which only eight can be identified by name.
- Two trees are important: the "reading aid pine" ( 字 降 松 , Kanafuri-matsu ), on which the student hangs a piece of paper with an illegible or incomprehensible kanji and the next day finds the Kana transcription and helpful explanation, and the Pistacia chinensis ( 楷 樹 , Kai-no-ki ), which was grown from a seed in Confucius' grave in 1922.
Reconstructed eastern part
The eastern part is surrounded on two sides by the restored rampart and moat. The following buildings, whose original naming follows that of a Zen monastery, were reconstructed in 1990:
- Main building ( 方丈 , Hōjō ),
- Dining house ( 庫裡 , Kuri ),
- Rector's room ( 書院 , Shoin ),
- Bedrooms ( 衆 寮 , Shuryō ),
- Bigger and smaller storages,
- Back gate ( 裏 門 , ura-mon ),
- North and south gardens.
The collection
After the Meiji restoration , the college was dissolved in 1871, books and equipment fell to Tochigi Prefecture, which in 1903 set up the “Memorial Library of the Ashikaga College” ( 足 利 学校 記念 図 書館 , Ashikaga gakkō kinen toshokan ) around the remaining approx. 4,000 To give volumes a worthy setting. The collection then expanded over the years and is now a research library with almost 60,000 volumes.
From the old inventory, works from the Song era are registered as national treasures or important cultural assets . The collection does not only include books, it also includes scroll paintings and art objects.
literature
- School leaflet
- Ashikaga Kyoiku iinkai (Ed.): Ashikaga gakkō, Nihon no saiko no gakko - Manabi no kokoro to sono nagare. 2004. 216 pp.
Web links
Coordinates: 36 ° 20 ′ 17 ″ N , 139 ° 27 ′ 6 ″ E