Richard Bowring
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- December 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780198795230
- eISBN:
- 9780191836534
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198795230.003.0017
- Subject:
- History, World Early Modern History, History of Ideas
This chapter traces how Motoori Norinaga built on the base provided by Kamo no Mabuchi, extending the study of the past from poetry to the Record of Ancient Matters (Kojiki). Norinaga devoted his ...
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This chapter traces how Motoori Norinaga built on the base provided by Kamo no Mabuchi, extending the study of the past from poetry to the Record of Ancient Matters (Kojiki). Norinaga devoted his life to deciphering this text, because he believed it contained the essence of a Japan that had been lost after the introduction of things Chinese. Xenophobic to the core, Norinaga thought it was possible via this kind of scholarship not only to discover Japan’s origins but even to generate a return to a ‘prelapsarian’ state of harmony. The anti-Chinese rhetoric was not accepted by all and had no discernible influence on Tokugawa foreign policy, but it certainly led to a flourishing tradition of ‘Japanese studies’ that challenged the high status previously enjoyed by the study of classical Chinese.Less
This chapter traces how Motoori Norinaga built on the base provided by Kamo no Mabuchi, extending the study of the past from poetry to the Record of Ancient Matters (Kojiki). Norinaga devoted his life to deciphering this text, because he believed it contained the essence of a Japan that had been lost after the introduction of things Chinese. Xenophobic to the core, Norinaga thought it was possible via this kind of scholarship not only to discover Japan’s origins but even to generate a return to a ‘prelapsarian’ state of harmony. The anti-Chinese rhetoric was not accepted by all and had no discernible influence on Tokugawa foreign policy, but it certainly led to a flourishing tradition of ‘Japanese studies’ that challenged the high status previously enjoyed by the study of classical Chinese.
