Uncharted Waters: Intellectual Life in the Edo Period Brill’s Japanese Studies Library Edited by Joshua Mostow (Managing Editor) Caroline Rose Kate Wildman Nakai VOLUME 38 The titles published in this series are listed at brill.nl/bjsl Uncharted Waters: Intellectual Life in the Edo Period Essays in Honour of W. J. Boot Edited by Anna Beerens and Mark Teeuwen LEIdEN • BOSTON 2012 Cover illustration: Minagawa Kien (1734–1807), Boat on a lake, ink on paper (private collection, The Netherlands). Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication data Uncharted waters : intellectual life in the Edo period : essays in honour of W. J. Boot / edited by Anna Beerens, Mark Teeuwen. p. cm. — (Brill’s Japanese studies library ; v. 38) Includes index. ISBN 978-90-04-21673-0 (hardback : alk. paper) 1. Japan—Intellectual life—1600–1868. 2. Japan—History—Tokugawa period, 1600–1868. I. Beerens, Anna, 1957– II. Teeuwen, Mark. III. Boot, W. J. dS822.2.U57 2012 952’.025—dc23 2012004674 This publication has been typeset in the multilingual “Brill” typeface. With over 5,100 characters covering Latin, IPA, Greek, and Cyrillic, this typeface is especially suitable for use in the humanities. For more information, please see www.brill.nl/brill-typeface. ISSN 0925-6512 ISBN 978 90 04 21673 0 (hardback) ISBN 978 90 04 22901 3 (e-book) Copyright 2012 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands. Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill, Global Oriental, Hotei Publishing, IdC Publishers and Martinus Nijhoff Publishers. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher. 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CONTENTS Preface  ................................................................................................................ vii “Met vriendschappelijke groet”  .................................................................. ix Harmen Beukers Introduction: Aspects of intellectual life in Edo Japan  ....................... 1 Anna Beerens and Mark Teeuwen INTELLECTUAL NETWORKS Entertainment and education: An antiquarian society in Edo, 1824–25  .......................................................................................................... 13 Margarita Winkel The prince who collected scholars: The network of Myōhō-in no miya Shinnin Hōshinnō (1768–1805) .................................................... 35 Anna Beerens LEGITIMISING TOKUGAWA RULE “Not perfectly good”: Some Edo responses to Confucius’s characterization of Kings Wen and Wu .............................................. 55 Kate Wildman Nakai Confucianism versus feudalism: The Shōheizaka academy and late Tokugawa reform ............................................................................... 75 Kiri Paramore Minding the gaps: An early Edo history of Sino-Japanese poetry  ... 93 Ivo Smits The Way of Heaven in 1816: Ideology or rhetoric?  ............................... 109 Mark Teeuwen vi contents The history and miraculous efficacy of the Black Amida: Its significance for Zōjōji and its role in the diffusion of Tokugawa myths  ........................................................................................ 129 Marc Buijnsters Insincere blessings? Court-Bakufu relations and the creation of engi scrolls in honour of Tokugawa Ieyasu  ....................................... 159 Lee Bruschke-Johnson WESTERN CONNECTIONS What’s in a name? Padre João Rodriguez’s discussion of naming practices in his Short grammar of the Japanese language  ............. 181 Jeroen Lamers The Dūfu Haruma: An explosive dictionary  ........................................... 197 Rudolf Effert The Kurisaki school of sword wound surgery: From Sengoku to Genroku; Nagasaki to Edo (via Manila)  .............................................. 221 Thomas Harper List of publications by Prof. dr. Willem Jan Boot  ................................ 241 Steven Hagers List of contributors  ......................................................................................... 251 Index  ................................................................................................................... 255 PREFACE The present collection of essays is a tribute to the scholarship and teach- ing of Willem Jan (Wim) Boot. It contains contributions written by former Phd students and close colleagues, who in this way seek to honour him and show their appreciation. The volume presents new work by scholars inspired by or in tune with Wim Boot’s work on aspects of intellectual life in the Edo period (1600–1868). The terms “intellectual” and “life” should be taken very literally; these essays not only explore the intellectual climate of the time as it manifested itself in the works of the individuals who were part of it, but also the on-the-ground interaction between scholars, artists and literary figures, as well as aspects of actual practice. The title of this volume has been chosen first of all for its watery conno- tations. For some of Wim Boot’s acquaintances it may come as a surprise that the dutch word boot refers to something one uses to travel across water, and not to something one wears on one’s feet. The use of the term “uncharted” should not be seen as a promise that this book will trans- port the reader to a stunning terra incognita. Rather, the image of the little boat, diligently making its way, appears particularly appropriate as a metaphor for a scholar’s life and labour. And every scholar who broaches a new subject, or attempts to look at an old one in a new way, enters into “uncharted waters.” That is what scholarship is all about. It is our sincere hope that these essays will contribute to the charting of the vast expanse of water that is the Edo period, and that Wim Boot himself will look with pride and pleasure upon this volume, which reflects so many of his own interests in this many-sided subject. The editors Leiden/Oslo, december 2011 “MET VRIENdSCHAPPELIJKE GROET”1 Harmen Beukers It must have been at the summer meeting of the Netherlands Association for Japanese Studies (NGJS) in 1981 that I met Wim Boot for the first time. I went to that meeting at the suggestion of my predecessor, professor Luyendijk-Elshout. As I had been invited to a unique workshop on medi- cal history in Japan, she had advised me to learn more about Japanese manners and customs. The NGJS meeting took place at the department of Japanese Studies in Leiden, located at the time at Rapenburg 129/131. It gave me a good opportunity to get to know the department’s staff: the famous professor Frits Vos, his assistants Erika de Poorter, Miao-Ling Tjoa, and Boudewijn Walraven, and the librarian Wim Boot. As I remem- ber it, the meeting was rather relaxed thanks to the friendly atmosphere and maybe to the spiritual support—a satchel with a variety of alcoholic beverages—supplied at the end of the meeting by Mr. Creemers of the Embassy of Japan. Professor Vos represented the classic man of learning, a philologist in heart and soul, but with a good sense of humor and every inch a gentle- man. I felt that the librarian had many points in common with the profes- sor, but even then it was clear to me that the former was by no means an imitation of the latter, on the contrary. Wim Boot has always been inde- pendent minded. He grew up in a family where at least two generations had been active in engineering and he inherited strong analytical facul- ties. It made him a critical, sometimes feared, participant in meetings, as well as an excellent teacher who presented his courses in a clear-cut and systematic way. Erudition was another family trait: the family spent their Sundays in silence, reading books. Often Wim and his mother—a widely- read woman—would be engaged in “reading competitions.” Wim’s strict protestant upbringing fostered many of the qualities I admire so much in him: fairness, sincerity, sense of justice, and above all loyalty. However, Wim has always been cautious concerning the interpretation of words; as early as 1978 he wrote a paper on the proper translation of the term chūkō 1 Literally “with amicable greetings.”