Born Kyoto, Japan, 1639
Died Edo (Tokyo), Japan, 1715
Harumi Shibukawa inaugurated his country's first calendar reforms in many centuries and belonged to the first generation of Japanese scholars who assimilated knowledge of western astronomical ideas and practices. Shibukawa was born into the Yasui family; his father was a professional go (board game) player. As a child, he was called Rokuzo. After his father's death in 1652, Shibukawa took up go as a profession and adopted his father's first name, Santetsu. From early childhood, he had the reputation of being a prodigy and showed a remarkable understanding of astronomy and calendar study. Shibukawa received his education from many of the leading scholars of the day. These included Ansai Yamazaki, with whom he studied Confucianism and the Shinto doctrine, and both Jyunsho Matsuda and Gentei Okanoi, from whom he received training in calendrical methods.
Shibukawa spent most of his life in Edo (present Tokyo) but passed time in Kyoto...
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Selected References
Miyajima, Kazuhiko (1994). “Japanese Celestial Cartography before the Meiji Period.” In The History of Cartography. Vol. 2, bk. 2, Cartography in the Traditional East and Southeast Asian Societies, edited by J. B. Harley and David Woodward, pp. 579–604. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Nakayama, Shigeru (1969). A History of Japanese Astronomy: Chinese Background and Western Impact. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press.
——— (1975). “Shibukawa, Harumi.” In Dictionary of Scientific Biography, edited by Charles Coulston Gillispie. Vol. 12, pp. 403–404. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons.
Sugimoto, Masayoshi and David L. Swain (1978). Science and Culture in Traditional Japan. Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press.
Watanabe, Toshio (1986–1987). Kinsei Nihon Tenmongakushi (A Modern History of Astronomy in Japan). 2 Vols. Tokyo: Koseisha Koseikaku.
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Renshaw, S.L., Ihara, S. (2007). Shibukawa, Harumi (updated). In: Hockey, T., et al. The Biographical Encyclopedia of Astronomers. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-30400-7_9128
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