Mitogaku

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The mitogaku ( Jap. 水戸学 ; to German as "Mito School") was a Confucian or neo-Confucian and shintōisch oriented school of scholars and intellectuals in Mito - han was organized, a fief that by one of the highest three branches ( go-sanke , Mito-Tokugawa ) of the Tokugawa dynasty. The mitogaku took in feudal Japan of the Edo period to the Meiji Restoration active influence on policy and ideology all over the country and brought alongside the Kokugaku some of the most important thinkers and ideas for the ideological development in the emerging Japanese nationalism and Tennōismus against the end of the shogunate out . In this context she was particularly active in the ethnocentric - nativist Sonnō-jōi movement .

history

The activities of the Mitogaku were essentially determined by the view, often propagated by their representatives, that learning ( 学問 , gakumon ) and politics ( 政 , matsurigoto ) form an inseparable unit. In the history of Mitogaku, two phases of activity can accordingly be identified, in each of which one of the two aspects dominated:

  1. Historiography (beginning in the late 17th century)
  2. Critical engagement in politics (beginning in the late 18th century).

Some authors, however, prefer a historical classification of the Mitogaku based on the feudal lords ( daimyō ) of the Mito-han, whose terms of office can be set in correspondence with certain development phases of the Mitogaku.

Early Mitogaku

The early Mitogaku was determined by the Dai Nihon shi ( 大 日本史 , "History of Greater Japan") project initiated in 1657 . Under this name began on the instructions of the then daimyo of Mito-han, Tokugawa Mitsukuni ( 徳 川 光 圀 ; 1628-1701), the creation of a comprehensive account of Japanese history in writing. This should formally be based on models from Chinese historiography, in particular the Shiji of Sima Qian , and thus include annals (general chronology), essays (special, institutional topics), biographies (of special personalities) and tables (schematic diagrams). In 1672 a separate institute, the (later so called) Shōkōkan ( 彰 考 館 ), was set up for this purpose and scholars from various schools and parts of the country were hired to work there on the project; these formed the first generation of the Mitogaku. Among them were u. a. the exiled Chinese Confucianism scholar Chu Shun-shui ( Chinese  朱 之 瑜 , Pinyin Zhū ​​Zhīyú ; Japanese Shu Shunsui ; 1600–1682), his disciple Asaka Tanpaku ( 安 積 澹泊 ; 1656–1737), the Daoism scholar Hitomi Bokuyūken ( 人見卜幽軒 ; 1598-1670), the Buddhist monk Sassa Munekiyo or Sassa Jitchiku ( 佐々宗淳 ; 1640-1698), the Kimongaku scholars Kuriyama Senpō ( 栗山潜鋒 ; 1671-1706) and Miyake Kanran ( 三宅観瀾 ; 1673-1718). The Shōkōkan was initially located in the quarters of the Mito daimyō in Edo (see Sankin kōtai ) until Tokugawa Nariaki (1800–1860) became the daimyo of Mito-han in 1829 and the seat of his government and the institute in the castle town of Mito let embarrassed.

The Kami Amaterasu , shown here by Kunisada leaving her cave, founded the myths according to the sovereignty of the Tennō over Japan and was therefore considered by most Mitogaku scholars as the highest of all deities.

The historiographical work of the early Mitogaku was strongly influenced by the Kimongaku ( 崎 門 学 ) of Yamazaki Ansai ( 山崎 闇 斎 ; 1618–1682), who then became influential within the framework of Bakufu , whose doctrine consists of a synthesis of Shinto and Neoconfucianism in the tradition of on Zhu Xi consisted of declining shushigaku ( 朱子学 ). Within the Kimongaku the accounts of the strongly mythological Japanese histories (especially Nihonshoki and Kojiki ) were literally taken to be true. In addition, the texts also contain deeper levels of meaning and significance that contain eternal truths and can develop moral and ethical effects (especially through the knowledge of right forms of worship, filial piety and loyalty ). These teachings were unified and systematized under the hypothesis that Japan was the land of the gods ( kami ) and thus in principle superior to all other countries. Other important pioneers of the Mitogaku were the restorationist - (neo) Confucian reformers Kumazawa Banzan ( 熊 沢 蕃 山 ; 1619–1691) and Ogyū Sorai ( 荻 生 徂 徠 ; 1666–1724).

The historiography of the Mitogaku particularly emphasized the (supposedly never interrupted) dynastic line of the Tennō , because the Tennō was considered in the Mitogaku as a mystical-symbolic embodiment of the unity of Japan and thus also the continuity of Japanese history. However, this depiction had the consequence that actual power relations (which were often shaped by military and economic factors that were only extremely rarely dominated by the Tennō) were omitted in the annals of the Dainihonshi , or required creative and innovative approaches for the depiction of the shoguns .

For the annals and biographies that were completed in 1720, Mitogaku also made three, then innovative new interpretations regarding the question of legitimate succession:

  1. that Jingū was not a Tennō, but only a regent for her son, the Ōjin -tennō,
  2. that Temmu illegitimately usurped the throne that should have been granted to his nephew, Prince Ōtomo ,
  3. that during the schism of the north courtyard-south courtyard time, the southern court at Yoshino was the legitimate Tenno line.

The Confucian concept meibun ( 名分 ) was decisive for the historiographical interpretations of the Mitogaku, which meant the right correspondence between name and share or title and status of the members of a society, i.e. an ideal of legitimate rule that could be systematized in terms of transcendent idea of ​​the description of historical processes was logically upstream. This concept was dominant in Japan of the 18th-century in the late mitogaku under the Fujita Group, as these accounted for as a cause of the multiple political and social crises that time mainly a decline of morality, the misunderstandings about meibun could be found .

Late Mitogaku

Work at the Shōkōkan had largely stagnated for about 70 years, until it was revived under the new director Tachihara Suiken ( 立 原 翠 軒 ; 1774-1823), who took office in 1786. Tachihara's thrust of not starting work on the outstanding essays and tables but continuing to comment on the annals and biographies met with strong opposition from within the Mitogaku, which is why he had to resign in 1803. His student and rival Fujita Yūkoku ( 藤田 幽谷 ; 1774-1826) took over his post. Fujita was a samurai of low rank and of non-noble origin, as well as next to Komiyama Fūken ( 小 宮 山 楓 軒 ; 1763-1840) one of the leading figures of the anti-Tachihara faction. During Fujita's tenure, the direction of the Mitogaku became increasingly political and the Tennō even more subordinate. In addition, the Mitogaku, especially after the Shōkōkan moved from Edo to Mito in 1829, increasingly dealt with contemporary domestic and socio-political issues.

Fujita Tōko, representation from the Teikoku jinmeijiten ( 帝国 人名 辞典 ; 1907)

Important later Mitogaku representatives in the Fujita tradition were his son Tōko ( 藤田 東湖 ; 1806–1855) and his pupil Aizawa Seishisai ( 会 沢 正 志 斎 ; 1782–1863), who in 1825 with his work Shinron ( 新 論 , "New Theses") ) laid the theoretical foundation for Japanese nationalism. Aizawa argued for a return to the Kokutai ideal, which he imagined as mythological-archaic (which was to become the basic conception for the late Mitogaku) ​​and polemicized in a strongly xenophobic thrust against Buddhism as a genuinely Indian and thus essentially foreign religion to Japan. Christianity serving the Western powers , Sinocentric forms of Confucianism, and the subversive element of Holland studies .

Other representatives of the late Mitogaku were Aoyama Nobuyuki ( 青山 延 于 ; 1776–1843) and his son Nobumitsu ( 青山 延光 ; 1808–1871), as well as Toyoda Tenkō ( 豊 田 天 功 ; 1805–1864) and Kurita Hiroshi (栗 田 寛; 1835 -1899).

The late Mitogaku became particularly involved in two political trouble spots in Tokugawa Japan at the end of the 18th and early 19th centuries. Domestically, the collapse of the Shinōkōshō system in the form of increasing urbanization of the population was extremely explosive . As a result, on the one hand, the farmers came under the rule of fewer and fewer, wealthy large landowners and massive famine and peasant uprisings broke out and, on the other hand, the Bushi in the cities often got deeply in debt to the increasingly powerful traders. This crisis was closely related to the foreign policy situation in Japan, which had been dominated by the greatest possible isolation of Japan from the outside world since the beginning of the Tokugawa Shogunate , but is now - like China of the Qing Dynasty and the Indian Mughal Empire - increasingly under pressure the imperialist trading companies and colonial powers , such as B. the edict for the expulsion of foreign ships of the Bakufu from the year 1825 clearly showed.

Tokugawa Nariaki, daimyo of Mito-han from 1829 to 1844

The Mitogaku's answers to these problems consisted of conservative-restorationist reform proposals that referred to the Mitogaku's own view of history and were partially implemented in the Mito-han in the tempo reforms ( 天保 の 改革 , tempō no kaikaku ). In 1837, Tokugawa Nariaki made a list of high-priority reforms:

  1. The land reform keikai no gi ( 経 界 の 義 ; cadastral revaluation and redistribution of tax burdens)
  2. The military reform nochaku no gi ( 土 着 の 義 ; return of the samurai to the countryside)
  3. The educational reform gakkō no gi ( 学校 の 義 ; establishment of an academy for the Han and regional schools in the country)
  4. The personnel reform sōkōtai no gi ( 総 交代 の 義 ; dissolution of the permanent staff in Edo)

Mitogaku was able to implement decisive ideas, especially for the first three reform points. Aizawa had already called for the samurai to return to the country at the Shinron , so that u. a. coastal defense could be ensured. Fujita Tōko took an active part in the cadastral revaluation in a leading position. This had u. a. This had far-reaching consequences because rural elites who cooperated with the land reform were rewarded with land samurai status, which was still available for sale until Nariaki's term in office.

Most important for the Mitogaku, however, was probably the educational reform, through which their ideals and views were communicated to a previously unattainable number of Japanese. At the opening ceremony of the Han school called Kōdōkan ( 弘道 館 ) in 1841, at which samurai were to be trained in the arts of war and liberal arts by teachers from the Mitogaku, around three thousand people of the highest rank from different social classes were present. The construction work lasted for a few more years, so that the final opening ceremonies could not take place until 1857. Several so-called kyōkō ( 郷 校 ) were established to train elites in rural areas (initially mainly in medicine, later also in (neo) Confucian moral philosophy) : the Keigyōkan in Minato-mura (1835), the Ekishūkan in Ōta-mura (1837 ), the Kōgeikan (later Kashūkan) in Ōkubo-mura (1839) and the Jiyōkan (1850).

Abe Masahiro, Rōjū in Tokugawa-bakufu from 1843 to 1857

The tempo reforms were stopped by the intervention of Bakufu in the form of Rōjū Abe Masahiro ( 阿 部 正弘 ; 1819-1857) in 1844 and partially reversed. The reasons for this were u. a. asserted that in the reforms too much of the previously scarce financial resources of the Mito-han had been used for building projects such as the Kōdōkan, firearms were accumulated and Rōnin had been hired from outside the Hans. In addition, measures were criticized in which the shrine Shinto had been upgraded at the expense of Buddhist temples (see Shinbutsu-Bunri ) and Buddhist idols and bells were melted down to build cannons.

Nariaki was placed under house arrest, power in the Mito-han was handed over to three other daimyo and the Mitogaku scholars involved in the reforms were removed from their offices. This provoked a protest movement whose members were mostly sentenced to prison terms until 1845. However, the attitude of the Bakufu changed radically after Matthew Perry on 8 July 1853 his black ships in the Bay of Edo arrived. Nariaki was pardoned and appointed military advisor to Bakufu. He stayed that way for a short time, but with his ideas he had a considerable influence on Bakufu's foreign policy.

Due to the reconciliation with Bakufu, Nariaki was able to resume his reform policy through his son Yoshiatsu ( 徳 川 慶 篤 ; 1832–1868), so that during the Ansei period (1854–60) nine more schools were built in the country, this time under the Name bunbukan ( 文武 館 ) operated. These rural schools, which were no longer accessible only to the elites, contributed significantly to the propagation of the Sonnō-jōi movement and the political radicalization of the rural population at the national level in the face of the Kanagawa Convention and other difficulties that the Bakufu could no longer overcome . At the schools in Mito-han, the martial arts were primarily taught, which formed the basis for the peasant militias ( 農 兵 , nōhei ) set up in Mito-han for the first time in September 1855 .

The Sakurada Gate, site of Ii Naosuke's assassination

After Tokugawa Nariaki had posed on various questions against the conservative daimyo Ii Naosuke, who had meanwhile advanced to Tairō in Bakufu, Nariaki was again placed under house arrest in 1858. Ii suppressed any opposition to his policy in the so-called Ansei Purge from 1858 to 1859. This finally had the consequence that he was on March 3, 1860 by radical Mito reformers (15 samurai and 3 Shinto priests) at the Sakurada Gate the Edo Castle was murdered.

These developments in Mito-han finally culminated on March 27, 1864, when about 150 samurai, priests and (mostly) farmers from the radical Reformation group (including Fujita Tōkos son Koshirō ( 藤田 小 四郎 ; 1842-1865)) on the mountain Tsukuba gathered and declared their intention to propagate sonnō jōi . On their way through several fiefdoms in the following months, during which their number increased to 1,500 to 2,000 men, they distributed political writings that were based entirely on the ideology of the Mitogaku and fought several battles with the forces of Bakufu until they were im December of the same year. These riots, known as the Tengu uprisings ( 天狗 党 の 乱 , Tengutō no ran ), were the first early precursors of the Meiji Restoration (1868), which was particularly brutal in the Mito-han.

With the dissolution of the Han in 1871, the material basis for the Mitogaku disappeared. The Dainihonshi was finally completed under the guidance of the Tokugawa family in 1906 with about four hundred volumes ( 巻 , kan ) and presented to the Meiji- tennō.

literature

  • Klaus J. Antoni : Shintô and the conception of the Japanese national system (Kokutai): religious traditionalism in modern times and modern Japan / by Klaus Antoni . In: B. Spuler (Ed.): Handbuch der Orientalistik  : Department 5, Volume 8 , Brill, Leiden, Boston, Cologne 1998, pp. 156–173 et passim. ISBN 90-04-10316-3 .
  • J. Victor Koschmann : The Mito Ideology: Discourse, Reform and Insurrection in Late Tokugawa Japan, 1790–1864 . University of California Press, Berkeley, Los Angeles and London, 1987. ISBN 0-520-05768-6 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Koschmann 1987, p. 4.
  2. ↑ See e.g. B. Horst Hammitzsch : "Aizawa Seishisai (1782-1863) and his work Shinron", in: Monumenta Nipponica , Vol. 3, No. 1. (Jan. 1940), pp. 61-74. Hammitzsch divides there into 1. founding period under Tokugawa Mitsukuni , 2. growing period under Tokugawa Harumori and 3. maturing period under Tokugawa Nariaki .
  3. ↑ Koschmann 1987, p. 34.
  4. ↑ Yazaki Hiroyuki:  "Mitogaku" . In: Encyclopedia of Shinto. Kokugaku-in , March 30, 2007 (English)
  5. ↑ Antoni 1998, p. 158 f.
  6. ↑ Koschmann 1987, p. 42.
  7. ↑ Koschmann 1987, p. 8 f.
  8. ↑ Koschmann 1987, p. 14 f.
  9. ↑ Koschmann 1987, p. 35 f.
  10. ↑ Koschmann 1987, p. 45 f.
  11. ↑ Koschmann 1987, pp. 38, 43-45.
  12. ↑ Koschmann 1987, p. 36, 39 f.
  13. ↑ Koschmann 1987, pp. 40, 42.
  14. ^ Antoni 1998, p. 166.
  15. ↑ Koschmann 1987, p. 85.
  16. ↑ Koschmann 1987, pp. 132-9.
  17. ↑ Koschmann 1987, pp. 117-20.
  18. ↑ Koschmann 1987, p. 123.
  19. ↑ Koschmann 1987, pp. 139 f., 147.
  20. ↑ Koschmann 1987, pp. 139-41.
  21. ↑ cf. Nariaki's remarks on the foreign policy crisis at the request of Bakufu in August 1853 ( memento of the original from October 15, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , translated into English by Joseph V. O'Brien. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / web.jjay.cuny.edu
  22. ↑ Koschmann 1987, p. 143 f.
  23. ↑ Koschmann 1987, pp. 143-9.
  24. ↑ Koschmann 1987, pp. 141 f., 149 f.
  25. ↑ Koschmann 1987, pp. 152-6.
  26. ↑ Report of the Suifu Meitokukai Foundation ( Memento of the original from May 17, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / tokugawa.gr.jp
  27. ↑ Koschmann 1987, p. 2