Abstract
This chapter focuses on a commoner’s family that chose the pursuit of Neo-Confucianism as a path by which to enter the political sphere of samurai society. The three sons of Rai Matajūrō (1707–1783) were able to earn a living from their cultivation of Confucian studies, and two of them rose to the rank of samurai. Although Japanese society of the Edo period was officially ruled by status and heredity, individuals from the geographical and social periphery were still able to gravitate toward the political center, as recent scholarship has shown. The chapter follows the career of one individual whose path, with its various twists and turns, is well documented. Rai Matajūrō’s oldest son Rai Shunsui (1746–1816) has left us a detailed record of his upward mobility, including consideration of the issues involved, when, as in his case, becoming a low-ranking samurai did not necessarily result in a better life for a commoner—in particular, when the commoner was capable and fortunate enough to succeed in following the path of a scholar. It will also show that, while social mobility was not a rare phenomenon amongst commoners and the lower ranks of the samurai, it remained restricted to the lesser ranks.
A version of this article appeared in Japanese as “Michi o shiru koto: gakumon no tenkanki to Rai Shunsui” 「道を知る」こと: 学問の転換期と頼春水, in Bakuhansei tenkanki no keizaishisō 幕藩制転換期の経済思想, ed. Komuro Masamichi 小室正紀 (Keiogijuku Daigaku Shuppankai, 2016), 1–29.
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Notes
- 1.
Cited in Rai Kiichi 頼祺一, Kinsei kōki shushigakuha no kenkyū 近世後期朱子学派の研究 (Hiroshima: Keisuisha, 1986), 22. I thank Jennifer Guest for the translation of this excerpt.
- 2.
Matajūrō’s eldest son Rai Shunsui traveled with his father to see Mount Fuji in 1770, a trip which Shunsui documented in (Tōyū) Fukenroku (東遊)負剣録, written the same year.
- 3.
For instance, Rai Kiichi identifies the Way with learning, not for the purpose of bringing fame to the family, but for their own cultural enrichment; Rai Kiichi 1986, 22.
- 4.
As discussed in the volume’s introduction, in the Edo period, the concept of the “public sphere” differed from the modern meaning of the phrase. I use the term here to suggest the notion of public authority and government based on a hierarchical order espoused by the Tokugawa shogunate (ōyake or kō 剬). It is in this sense that I prefer the term “political sphere.” On the meaning of private and public, inner and outer in the Edo context, see Luke Roberts, Performing the Great Peace (Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 2012); and Watanabe Hiroshi, A History of Japanese Political Thought, 1600–1901 (The International House of Japan, 2012).
- 5.
In English, see Bettina Gramlich-Oka and Gregory Smits (eds.), Economic Thought in Early Modern Japan (Leiden: Brill, 2010); Anna M. J. J. Beerens, “Friends, Acquaintances, Pupils and Patrons: Japanese Intellectual Life in the Late Eighteenth Century,” Doctoral dissertation (Leiden University, 2006); Mary Elizabeth Berry, Japan in Print: Information and Nation in the Early Modern Period (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2006); and Eiko Ikegami, Bonds of Civility: Aesthetic Networks and the Political Origins of Japanese Culture (Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005). In Japanese, Mega Atsuko 妻鹿淳子, Buke ni totsuida josei no tegami 武家に嫁いだ女性の手紙 (Yoshikawa Kōbunkan, 2011), is of particular interest.
- 6.
On the status of Confucian scholars in the Edo period, see Kate Wildman Nakai, “Chinese Ritual and native Japanese Identity in Tokugawa Confucianism,” in Rethinking Confucianism: Past and Present in China, Japan, Korea, and Vietnam, ed. Elman, Benjamin A., John B. Duncan, and Herman Ooms (Los Angeles: UCLA Asian Pacific Monograph Series, 2002), 259. Priests and nuns are another ambiguous group. Ideally they would affiliate with temples and shrines and hence be registered by the Magistrate of Temples and Shrines, but often, to the dismay of the authorities, they practiced without affiliation and would thus be registered as commoners.
- 7.
For instance, Umihara Tōru offers the general number of estimates that there were 1500 private schools countrywide in Japan throughout during the Edo period. Umihara Tōru 海原徹, Kinsei shijuku no kenkyū 近世私塾の研究 (Kyoto: Shibunkaku, 1983), 18.
- 8.
Although women teachers could gain cultural capital and income, a change in status could be achieved only through marriage or adoption into respective households.
- 9.
Most of the biographical information about Shunsui used here is drawn from Rai Kiichi 1986, 21–29, and Rai Tsutomu 賴惟勤, Nihon kangaku ronshū: reishōryo sōroku 日本漢學論集: 嶺松廬叢録 (Kyūko Shoin, 2003), 253–6.
- 10.
Ochiai Kō 落合功, Kinsei Setouchi engyōshi no kenkyū 近世瀬戸内塩業史の研究 (Azekura shōbo, 2010), 65–99.
- 11.
In strictly administrative terms, Takehara was a village, but its size makes the term “town” more appropriate. Village officials carried titles such as town elder.
- 12.
Besides the Shintō priest and a priest from the Shōrenji temple 照蓮寺 most of the members of these groups were involved in the salt industry. See also Rai Tsutomu, Nihon kangaku ronshū, for Takehara culture. See Hiroshima kenshi 広島県史, “Kinsei shiryōhen” 近世資料編, vol. 1, ed. Hiroshima-ken 広島県 (Hiroshima: Hiroshima, 1981), 1185, for reading habits in the domain.
- 13.
When it was engaged in the shipping trade, the family went under the name of Yorikaneya 頼兼屋; as dyers they were known as the Seishi 青氏 or Kōya.
- 14.
Like other members of the Takehara elite, Shiotani Dōseki was sent away to be educated. Dōseki was a student of the Hiroshima domain scholar Ueda Gonpai 植田艮背 (1651–1735), who had himself studied under the famous Yamazaki Ansai 山崎闇斎 (1616–1682).
- 15.
Ikegami 2005.
- 16.
Ages are given by traditional Japanese reckoning, thus adding 1 or 2 years to the Western count.
- 17.
Rai Kiichi 1986, p. 22.
- 18.
Rai Momosaburō 頼桃三郎, Shijin no tegami: kinsei bundan shiwa 詩人乃手紙: 近世文壇史話 (Bunka Hyōron Shuppan, 1974), 14.
- 19.
Hiraga Chūnan was famous for his theory of tōin 唐音, the phonology of Chinese, in particular his emphasis on Chinese pronunciation when composing kanshi 漢詩. See Yuzawa Tadayuki 湯沢質幸, “Kinsei chūko ni okeru jusho tōin indokuron: Hiraga Chūnan o chūshin toshite” 近世中期における儒書唐音音読論: 平賀中南を中心として, Joshidai kokubun 女子大国文 142 (2008), 1. Although largely self-taught, Chūnan also studied with the priest Ōshio 大潮 (1676–1768), a disciple of Ogyū Sorai 荻生徂徠 (1666–1728).
- 20.
See the exhibition catalogue published by Rai San’yō Shiseki Shiryōkan 賴山陽史跡資料館, ‘Shigo’ Rai Shunsui: Sono shogai to sho 「詩豪」: 頼春水その生涯と書 (Hiroshima 2009), 4–5.
- 21.
On the Korean embassy of 1764, see Ronald P. Toby, “Carnival of the Aliens. Korean Embassies in Edo-Period Art and Popular Culture,” Monumenta Nipponica 41:4 (Winter 1986), 422. The incident was recorded by Shunsui in Tadanoumi ni asobu ki 游忠海紀, as well as by Korean sources. Tadanoumi ni asobu ki is reproduced in Rai Momosaburō 1974.
- 22.
Rai Kiichi 1986, 23.
- 23.
A reproduction of the manuscript of Tōyūzakki can be found in Hiroshima kenshi 広島県史, “Kinsei shiryōhen” 近世資料編, vol. 6, ed. Hiroshima-ken 広島県 (Hiroshima, 1987), 1209–18, and Rai Momosaburō 1974, 12–34.
- 24.
The list includes names such as Shio-ya しほ屋 (salt, Number 5), Nishiki-ya 錦屋 (brocade, 30, 31), Ito-ya 糸屋 (silk thread, 32), Nuno-ya 布屋 (cloth, 24), Wata-ya 綿屋 (cotton, 42), Sumi-ya 炭屋 (charcoal, 55), and Goma-ya 胡麻屋 (sesame, 34). Tōyūzakki in Rai Momosaburō 1974, 12–34.
- 25.
Rai Momosaburō 1974, 30.
- 26.
See Beerens 2006, and her online database: http://www.denki-etcetera.nl/ (accessed August 28, 2013).
- 27.
As there were no common factors linking those on the list he did not meet, there is no evidence that he may have avoided them as a group.
- 28.
Rai Kiichi 1986, 23.
- 29.
Reproduced in Rai Momosaburō 1974, 226–28.
- 30.
See Minakawa Mieko 皆川美恵子, “Hiroshima hanju Rai-ke ni miru katei seikatsu: Rai Shunsui nikki Baishi nikki no kōsatsu kara” 広島藩儒頼家に見る家庭生活:『頼春水日記』と『梅颸日記』の考察から, in Rai Baishi nikki no kenkyū 梅颸日記の研究, ed. Ōguchi Yūjirō 大口勇次郎 (Ochanomizu Joshi daigaku jendā kenkyū sentā, 2001), 29, for the expenses incurred by the Rai household. 1 monme is usually equated with 1,000 yen in today’s currency. In this case, Shunsui would have spent around 184.000 yen, or roughly 1800 US$, in 120 days.
- 31.
According to Shunsui, 1 monme was worth around 63 mon (copper coins), at a time when a bowl of noodles cost around 16 copper coins.
- 32.
Also known as Suitaya Rokubē 吹田屋六兵衛.
- 33.
Rai Momosaburō 1974, 5, and Rai Kiichi 1986, 24, 30.
- 34.
The poetry group had many members, ranging in age from Toriyama Sūgaku, the oldest (60), to Shunsui (21).
- 35.
This document dates from 1767. Rai Momosaburō 1974, 12.
- 36.
See Shunsui’s letter dated 1778.11.15. Rai Kiichi 1986, 41–42.
- 37.
On inaka, see for instance the letter dated 1778.i.7.5, in Rai Kiichi 1986, 436.
- 38.
For the waka compositions of Matajūrō’s Kyoto group, see Rai Tsutomu 2003, 10–13. In his father’s absence, Shunpū returned to Takehara to take care of the business and his younger brother Kyōhei.
- 39.
See, for instance, the letters in Rai Kiichi 1986, 308–9, 312.
- 40.
Koga Seiri was the son of a domain retainer and Takayama Hikokurō came from a family of country samurai (gōshi 郷士); the others noted here were all commoners.
- 41.
Shunsui expressed an interest in Neo-Confucianism as early as 1773. See the letter dated 1773.i. 3.16, reproduced in Rai Kiichi 1986, 33–34, in which Shunsui asserts that Zhu Xi’s School (shushigaku) is superior to the Sorai School (kogaku 古学). Shunsui’s network’s connections with the senior councilor Matsudaira Sadanobu 松平定信 (1758–1829), who implemented the Kansei reforms, is well known. For further discussion, see Robert L. Backus, “The Motivation of Confucian Orthodoxy in Tokugawa Japan,” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 39:2 (1979), 275–338.
- 42.
Rai Tsutomu 2003, 13.
- 43.
See Rai Kiichi 1986, 35.
- 44.
The five holidays (gosekku 五節句) fell in the first, third, fifth, seventh, and ninth months. Although ryō was the standard unit for gold, in Osaka it was paid out in silver, meaning that Shunsui received silver worth 2 ryō in gold, i.e. around 140 monme.
- 45.
His pupils included Bito Jishū’s younger brother Kōshō 孝章, and Hosoai Hansai’s son Gentatsu 元達. Rai Kiichi 1986, 35.
- 46.
The Kaitokudō copy of the Dainihonshi was made under the leadership of Nakai Chikuzan in 1771–72. It was this copy that Shunsui borrowed in 1776. Kaitokudō no rekishi o yomu 懐徳堂の歴史を読む, ed. Yūasa Kunihiro 湯浅邦弘, Takeda Kenji 竹田健二 (Osaka: Osaka University Press, 2005), 16.
- 47.
See Rai Kiichi 1986, 58–59, for a list of his expenses.
- 48.
The letter is reproduced in Rai Kiichi 1986, 455–58; this excerpt is on 458.
- 49.
For the exchange of letters and other details, see Rai Kiichi 1986, 40–66.
- 50.
See my article “A Father’s Advice: Confucian Cultivation for Women in the Late Eighteenth Century,” In The Female as Subject: Reading and Writing in Early Modern Japan, ed. P. F. Kornicki, Mara Patessio, and G. G. Rowley (Michigan University Press, 2010), 123–40.
- 51.
See Nao’s letter of 1786.1.6 to Shizu, cited by Minakawa Mieko 皆川美恵子, Rai Shizuko no shufu seikatsu: Baishi nikki ni miru jukyō katei 頼静子の主婦生活―梅颸日記に見る儒教家庭 (Kirara shobō 雲母書房, 1997), 66.
- 52.
See my article “Neo-Confucianism Reconsidered: Family Rituals in the Rai Household,” U.S.-Japan Women’s Journal 39 (2010), 7–37.
- 53.
See the letters from 1778, i.7.5, and 1778. 8.4, in Rai Kiichi 1986, 436 and 442 respectively.
- 54.
Shunsui’s new wife also helped with the copying. The manuscript is today kept in the Hiroshima Municipal Library.
- 55.
Rai Kiichi 1986, 67–74.
- 56.
See Shunsui’s description of the meeting in a letter, Rai Kiichi 1986, 554–59.
- 57.
On earlier forms of education for samurai in Hiroshima, see Hiroshima kenshi, “Kinsei shiryōhen,” vol. 1 (1981), 1153–66.
- 58.
See the exchange of letters between family members in Rai Kiichi 1986, 552–59. Domain officials formed the communication link between Rai Shunsui and the lord of Hiroshima prior to his appointment as domain scholar.
- 59.
See Rai Kiichi 1986, 70–71.
- 60.
See the letter in Rai Kiichi 1986, 562–63.
- 61.
Cited in Rai Kiichi 1986, 73.
- 62.
1 fuchi was equivalent to the daily ration of 5 gō 合 (1 gō = 0.18 l) of unpolished rice for one person. After deductions had been made, the 30-men allocation would shrink from the nominal 54 koku (1 koku = 180 l) to about 30 koku according to Shunsui’s calculations. See Shunsui’s letter to Kyōhei dated 1781.12.17, in Rai Kiichi 1986, 569.
- 63.
For the establishment of the domain school, see Hiroshima kenshi, “Kinsei,” vol. 2 (1984), 1031–52.
- 64.
See the short chapter on Shunsui’s onerous task of teaching the heir apparent in Rai Kiichi 1986, 170–198.
- 65.
See Shunsui’s chronology in Rai San’yō Shiseki Shiryōkan, ‘Shigo’: Rai Shunsui, 64–68. See also Hiroshima kenshi, “Kinsei shiryōhen,” vol. 6, 81–2, where the steps in Shunsui’s career as a domain scholar are set out. His eventual income of 300 koku was only a nominal sum—he would have received around 70 % of this figure at most. See Hiroshima kenshi, “Kinsei,” vol. 2, 24–40 for the various categories of samurai in Hiroshima.
- 66.
On Shunsui’s efforts to control the ideological direction of the domain school, see Hiroshima kenshi, “Kinsei,” vol. 2, 1040–42.
- 67.
For the family’s performances of household rituals, see my article “Neo-Confucianism Reconsidered: Family Rituals in the Rai Household,” U.S.-Japan-Women’s Journal 39 (2010), 7–37.
- 68.
The diary is reproduced as Shunsui nikki, in Rai San’yō Zensho 頼山陽全書, vol. 6, ed. Kizaki Aikichi 木崎愛吉, Rai Seiichi 頼成一 (Kokusho Kankōkai, 1983). Shunsui’s diary, which spans almost 35 years, begins in 1781.12.16, one day before he took up his new duties (tōyō 登用) as a domain scholar (at age 36 in the Japanese counting system) and ends 2 months before his death in early 1816.
- 69.
“Zaishinkiji,” in Shunsui ikō betsu roku 春水遺稿別録, vols. 1–2, available online at http://www.wul.waseda.ac.jp/kotenseki/html/bunko01/bunko01_01830/index.html (accessed 4/7/2009). His son Rai San’yō edited the extant version; San’yō and his uncle Kyōhei published it in 1828 as part of Shunsui ikō 春水遺稿.
- 70.
“Shiyūshi,” in Shunsui ikō betsu roku, vol. 3. See http://www.wul.waseda.ac.jp/kotenseki/html/bunko01/bunko01_01830/index.html (accessed 4/7/2009).
- 71.
Shunsui compiled these volumes between 1802 and 1815.
- 72.
See James I. McMullen, “Non-agnatic adoption: A Confucian controversy in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Japan,” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 35 (1975), 133.
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Gramlich-Oka, B. (2017). “Knowing the [Confucian] Way” and the Political Sphere. In: Welter, A., Newmark, J. (eds) Religion, Culture, and the Public Sphere in China and Japan. Religion and Society in Asia Pacific. Palgrave Macmillan, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-2437-5_5
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