Yamagata Banto

Yamagata statue

Yamagata Bantō ( Japanese 山 片 蟠桃 , actually Hasegawa Yūkyū (長谷川 芳 秀); born 1748 in Kazume (神 爪 村) in the province of Harima ; died March 31, 1821 ) was a Japanese rice trader and scholar of the Edo period .

life and work

Yamagata Bantō was born in Harima Province. When he was 13, he moved to Osaka and began working for the Yamagata family, which traded and operated rice and was involved in finance. He finally called himself Yamagata Yoshihide (山 片 良 英) and led the name of Bantō as a scholar.

Bantō studied at the Kaitokudō (懐 徳 堂), a school that the merchants of Osaka had set up for the general public. He became a student of the brothers Nakai Chikuzan (中 井 竹山; 1730-1804) and Nakai Riken, but also a student of the doctor and astronomer Asada Gōryū (1734-1799).

Bantō developed a deep understanding of European science. He also developed his own theory of the market economy based on his experience as a rice merchant. He also worked his way into Western medicine and advocated simplifying the Japanese writing system.

As a thinker, Bantō insisted on concrete evidence as to the accuracy of historical representations. He resisted superstition and rejected the idea of ​​the existence of the soul after death. He saw religious leaders as his opponents and criticized their untested use of historical evidence. As for everyday life, he paid tribute to the feudal system and worshiped Shogun Tokugawa Ieyasu , who had brought the nation a period of peace.

Bantōs was able to complete his main work, "Instead of dreams" (夢 の 代, Yume no shiro) in 1820. The work includes conversations with his own children and with shopkeepers after the shop closes. However, Bantō's ideas only began to spread in government circles and in the field of education after his death. It was not until the Meiji period that the work was finally published.

After the Pacific War ended , Banto was recognized as a thinker of universal status. Since 1982 the "Yamagata Bantō Prize" (山 片 蟠桃 賞) has been awarded by the Osaka Prefecture to foreigners who have made a contribution to imparting Japanese culture. The Japanologist Josef Kreiner received this award in 1995, the Japanologist Sepp Linhart in 2004.

Remarks

1. ↑ Set up in his birthplace Kazume, today a district of Takasago .

literature

• S. Noma (Ed.): Yamagata Bantō . In: Japan. An Illustrated Encyclopedia. Kodansha, 1993, ISBN 4-06-205938-X , p. 1726.

Web links

Commons : Yamagata Bantō  - collection of images, videos and audio files

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