VOLUME 4: INTERACTION OF KNOWLEDGE
2021

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National Institute of Japanese Literature
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Editorial Board
Chief Editor
Didier Davin

ディディエ・ダヴァン

Associate Professor at the National Institute of Japanese
Literature

Editors
Saitō Maori

Professor at the National Institute of Japanese Literature

Unno Keisuke

Professor at the National Institute of Japanese Literature

Yamamoto Yoshitaka

Associate Professor at the National Institute of Japanese
Literature

Jeffrey Knott

Assistant Professor at the National Institute of Japanese
Literature

齋藤真麻理
海野圭介
山本嘉孝

ジェフリー・ノット

Advisory Board
Jean-Noël Robert

Professor at the Collège de France

X. Jie Yang

Professor at the University of Calgary

Shimazaki Satoko
嶋崎聡子

Associate Professor at the University of California, Los
AngelesMichael Watson

Professor at Meiji Gakuin University

Araki Hiroshi

Professor at the International Research Center forJapanese Studies

ジャン＝ノエル・ロベール
楊暁捷

マイケル・ワトソン
荒木浩

Contents
ArticleA Genealogy of Saikaku’s ukiyo-zōshi
Daniel Struve   1

ArticleKyokutei Bakin’s Philological Research and the Writingof Historical Narrative: Study of the Izu Islandsin the Marvelous Story of the Drawn-Bow Moon
Nicolas Mollard   19ArticleVariations on yatsushi in the ukiyo-zōshi genre: Expansionof the Classical World and Transworld Identification
Takahashi AkihikoTranslated by Jeffrey Knott  45

ArticleA Japanese Commentary History of Jianghu fengyue ji:
From Medieval to Early-Modern
Horikawa Takashi

Translated by Jeffrey Knott   79ArticleOn the Reception and Uses of Li Shizhen’s Classified
Materia Medica (Bencao gangmu) in 17th-century Japan: Text,
Categories, Pictures
Matthias Hayek   95ArticleNaturalizing Li Shizhen’s Bencao gangmu in Early-modern
Japan: The Cases of Honchō shokkan, Yamato honzō, and
Wakan sansai zue
Annick Horiuchi

123Column
Tsukumogami emaki and Urban Spaces
Saitō Maori
Translated by Kristopher Reeves

Contributors
Submission Guidelines147

Studies in Japanese Literature and Culture 4 (March 2021) 1–17
© 2021 National Institute of Japanese Literature

A Genealogy of Saikaku’s ukiyo-zōshi
Daniel Struve

Introduction
In an article published in 2014 in Bungaku 文学,1 Nakano Mitsutoshi 中野三敏
repeated his previous call for an extension of the term gesaku 戯作, or “comical
writings”—used to describe most vernacular prose from the middle of the 18th
century onward—to those prose works of Ihara Saikaku 井原西鶴 (1642–1693)
known collectively as ukiyo-zōshi 浮世草子, and even to the literary works of theearly 17th century known as kana-zōshi 仮名草子. This article, presented the same
year at the spring session of the Saikaku kenkyū kai 西鶴研究会 (Society for
Saikaku Studies), was the starting point of a heated debate, something which isseldom seen lately in the field of Edo-period literary studies. Nakano Mitsutoshi’sview was rejected by his colleagues in Saikaku studies, and the debate ended once
again inconclusively.2 Still, this episode is notable because it underlined the need toretell and reinvent the history of Edo-period prose literature, and to replace theexisting narrative based on traditional categories such as kana-zōshi, ukiyo-zōshi,yomihon 読本, and gesaku. These are probably still indispensable, but are also toovague and lack precise definitions, being in addition too local, something thatmakes it difficult to relate Edo-period literature to the global movement ofworld literature in modern times.3 Nakano Mitsutoshi is certainly right when heunderlines the continuity between Saikaku—or even Saikaku’s predecessors—and later prose writers (gesakusha 戯作者) such as Hiraga Gennai 平賀源内
“Saikaku gesakusha setsu saikō” 西鶴戯作者説再考, Bungaku 15:1 (2014), pp. 140–158. In thisarticle, Nakano Mitsutoshi argues that Saikaku’s ukiyo-zōshi should be included in the broad category of Edo-period comical prose gesaku, as defined by the following three characteristic features:(1) a positive affirmation of reality and the absence of any critical stance towards the existingorder and authorities, (2) a style of literature giving more importance to expression than to content and characterized by its playfulness and parodic spirit, and (3) a body of content mainly
consisting in a mixture of moralistic and comical discourse.
2
Reactions to Nakano’s article by Shinohara Susumu 篠原進, Udō Hiroshi 有働裕, Nakajima
Takashi 中嶋隆, Horikiri Minoru 堀切実, Someya Tomoyuki 染谷智幸 and others can be read on
the official site of Saikaku kenkyū kai. See: https://bungaku-report.com/saikaku/
3
In particular, Nakajima Takashi pointed out the importance of bringing in the viewpoint ofliterary history. Someya Tomoyuki’s objections stressed the necessity of a broader perspective
extending to other Asian countries, and proposed to categorize ukiyo-zōshi as shōsetsu 小説 (novels),a Chinese term familiar to all the national traditions influenced by China.
1

1

2

Struve(1728–1780) and Kyokutei Bakin 曲亭馬琴 (1767–1848). He is also right when
he criticizes the old tendency of presenting Saikaku as an exception in his time,of relating him to our modern age rather than to his own literary and historicalcontext. Yet paradoxically, Nakano’s call for a historical approach to Saikaku also
substantializes and de-historicizes the Edo period as a culture altogether different
and separate from the general movement of world literature in modern times.
Stressing continuity from the 17th through to the 19th century, he tends to overlook
or minimize the important historical, social, and cultural differences between theearly, middle, and late Edo periods. Finally, his insistence on the importance of
expression and on the lack of political consciousness among Edo-period townsmen
has the result of emptying Saikaku’s literature of any serious content, putting thewhole of Edo-period literature at risk of being reduced to a fancy or a hobby(shumi 趣味), unrelated to other fields in the human or social sciences. In otherwords, while he stresses the common comical inspiration of Edo prose from
Saikaku to Bakin, Nakano Mitsutoshi does not propose a theory of laughter,
limiting himself to the affirmation that Edo-period comical prose (gesaku) put
parody and laughter in first place.
As was objected to Nakano Mitsutoshi by Nakajima Takashi, such an extension
to Saikaku of the term gesaku, to be understood in a broad sense as encompassing all Edo-period literary production from kana-zōshi to late yomihon or ninjōbon
人情本, does not advance our understanding of the specific place occupied by
Saikaku in Japanese literature at the end of the 17th century. It simply blurs differences without solving the question of how Saikaku’s works relate to the cultural and literary history of his time, or to the later developments of the movement he initiated. At the same time, it is clear that the need for a common
designation for the popular prose of the Edo period is growing, as more andmore works from the period are published and studied. And in point of fact, inthe electronic version of Shinpen Nihon koten bungaku zenshū 新編日本古典文学全集,
Shōgakukan’s reference collection of classical Japanese literature, Saikaku’s ukiyo-zōshi
are found classified under the category of gesaku already, pre-vindicating Nakano
Mitsutoshi’s appeals despite the skepticism they have met within academic circles. Such a situation makes it all the more important to probe further the precise
nature and genealogy of the ukiyo-zōshi genre.
In the present study, I will limit myself to some aspects of the “genealogy” of
Saikaku’s ukiyo-zōshi works, without entering any further into the broader problem of their historical situation. While Saikaku’s works may have been a newphenomenon on the scene of 17th-century Japanese literature, they did not
spring out of nowhere, and the question of their origin cannot be avoided. Of
course, there are many possible approaches to this problem, one of which might
be to look into the relationship between Saikaku’s prose and his haikai poetry.
But the focus here will be on a different aspect, starting with the hints Saikaku
himself provides to the reader to help him understand the meaning of his writings.

A Genealogy of Saikaku’s ukiyo-zōshi

3

1. The Life of an Amorous Woman (Kōshoku ichidai onna 好色一代女)
The Life of an Amorous Woman, one of the most celebrated of Saikaku’s works,
is known for being the confession (zange monogatari 懺悔物語) of her life story byan old woman now retired to a hermitage called Kōshokuan 好色庵 (Hermitageof Passion) near Kyoto, as related to two young men who have come to visit her
and ask her about her past. At the beginning of the work’s first chapter, a manon his way from Osaka to Kyoto overhears the two men’s conversation andfollows them on a mountain path until they arrive at the Kōshokuan. Textual
allusions, and the scenery of the hermitage as represented in the illustration,
create an atmosphere reminiscent of Essays in Idleness (Tsurezuregusa 徒然草) by
Kenkō-hōshi 兼好法師, a text widely reprinted, annotated, and imitated from the
beginning of the 17th century, and one therefore well-known to Saikaku’s readers.
No further mention is made of this character who has followed the young men to
the Kōshokuan—and in whom we can recognize a representation of the author—
but his importance is strongly underlined by his presence in the image illustrating
this first chapter (Figure 1). In a setting reminiscent of Kenkō-hōshi’s retreat as
represented in illustrations of Essays in Idleness, a man is shown eavesdropping on
the conversation between the old woman and her visitors.
This character evocative of the author is not only represented in the first chapter of Volume 1, both in the text itself and in the illustration: he in fact reappears
at least two more times, at the beginning of the first and again the third chaptersof Volume 3. This reappearance at key moments in The Life of an Amorous Womanof a representation of the author is hardly mentioned at all by any commentatorof this work, yet it seems to bear heavily on the work’s overall interpretation. For
The Life of an Amorous Woman is not simplistically the monologue of a woman
confessing the story of her life, but is rather the overlapping of at least two different voices: the voice of the author, and the voice of the old woman acting
as proxy for the author while remembering her own life. The first chapter ofVolume 3, entitled “A Townsman’s Parlourmaid” (Chōnin koshimoto 町人腰元),4
starts with a long introduction where a male character, apparently from Osaka, talks
about the different experiences he had and the observations he made on a trip taken
to Kyoto. He had encountered a funeral procession in the streets of Kyoto in theheat of summer and, as he followed it, overheard various conversations aroundhim. Thus he learned that the man who was being buried was a merchant who
had died prematurely for having married a woman of remarkable beauty. Then
come some considerations on marriage. Among other things, the character
affirms that one gets tired even of the most beautiful things, recounting a visit
he once made to the bay of Matsushima, a place famous for its beautiful scenery,
and how he got tired of it very quickly for all its splendor. He then complains that
Here and below, English chapter titles reflect the translation of Ivan Morris, The Life of an
Amourous Woman and Other Writings (New York: New Directions, 1963).
4Struve

4

Figure 1. Illustration from The Life of an Amorous Woman (I.1). (Tokyo Metropolitan Library,
Kaga Collection).
https://doi.org/10.20730/100029312 (image no. 8)

women neglect themselves after they havegotten used to married life, so that one should
rather not get married if a wife is not necessary
to take care of the household. Then he again
contradicts himself, and quotes a peasant heonce met on another excursion in the Yoshino
mountains. This old peasant had told him thatthe only solace capable of relieving his loneliness was the company of his wife. The final
conclusion of this long essay-like development
is: “Nothing is more difficult to get rid of or tocontrol than this way of love!”5, which echoes
a famous remark from Essays in Idleness: “The

Figure 1a. Ibid. Detail.

捨てがたく、やめがたきは、この道ぞかし。Ihara Saikaku shū 井原西鶴集 1, Shinpen Nihon
koten bungaku zenshū 新編日本古典文学全集 66 (Tokyo: Shōgakukan, 1996), p. 461.
5

A Genealogy of Saikaku’s ukiyo-zōshi

5love of men and women is truly a deep-seated passion with distant roots. The
senses give rise to many desires, but it should be possible to shun them all. Only
one, infatuation, is impossible to control.”6 This particular literary allusion to
Essays in Idleness is in fact a central motif of The Life of an Amorous Woman, especially of the central chapters where the heroine experiences different positions
as a household servant and where these words recur as a leitmotiv in almost every
chapter. What is important to underline here is that this entire introduction to
the first chapter of Volume 3 can be read as a fragment from an essay (zuihitsu
随筆), or as a pastiche by Saikaku of the zuihitsu style in the form of a series offree-ranging considerations on different matters, thematically related to subjects
which are taken up in Essays in Idleness such as marriage, love, and funerals. A
characteristic example is the affirmation that “one should never marry,” anotherquasi-quotation from Essays in Idleness.7 If we admit that the heroine of The Lifeof an Amorous Woman acts as a proxy for the author, the whole work may be readas a modern version of Essays in Idleness, or as a “Vulgar Essays in Idleness,” to use
the title actually given to one posthumous collection of Saikaku’s stories (thework known as Saikaku zoku Tsurezure 西鶴俗つれづれ). Indeed, The Life of an
Amorous Woman can be seen as a series of considerations and observations on
the ways of the modern cities, from the point of view of love and pleasure. Yet
we know that in 1686 Saikaku was already working on merchant tales and exploring new approaches, whose influence can indeed already be traced in earlier
works like The Life of an Amorous Woman. That such a reading of Saikaku as a sortof contemporary Kenkō-hōshi was familiar to the readers of his time isdemonstrated by the way Saikaku’s portrait is placed by an editor at the beginning of theposthumous Saikaku zoku Tsurezure (Figure 2), a portrait that represents Saikaku
as a modern Kenkō-hōshi contemplating from his hermitage the bay of Naniwa.
I see further confirmation of this reading in two other key passages of The Lifeof an Amorous Woman. The first of these is the passage in praise of letters and ofletter-writing in the fifth chapter of Volume 2, entitled “A Woman Letter-writer
Expert in Love Matters” (Shorei onna yūhitsu 諸礼女祐筆), which immediately
precedes the first chapter of Volume 3 discussed above. This passage is famous
because it was singled out by Kōda Rohan 幸田露伴 (1867–1947) as the only example of bunshōron 文章論 (discussion on the art of writing) by Saikaku.8 In thischapter, the heroine gets serious, and tries her luck in the trade of being a public
letter-writer and teacher of calligraphy, but soon ends up writing infallible
love-letters for her clients until, at last, she becomes the victim of her own stylistic
6
ただ、かのまどひのひとつやめがたきのみぞ。Tsurezuregusa 徒然草, in Shinpen Nihon koten
bungaku zenshū 44 (Tokyo: Shōgakukan, 1995), p. 88. Essays in Idleness, trans. Donald Keene (Tokyo:
Tuttle, 1981), p. 9.
7
持つまじきは女なれども（後略）。Ihara Saikaku shū 1 (op. cit.), p. 461; see Essays in Idleness(op. cit.), p. 163.
8
“Saikaku” 西鶴, Kokumin no tomo 国民之友 (May 1890), p. 757.

Struve

6

Figure 2. Opening illustration for Saikaku’s Vulgar Essays in Idleness (Saikaku zoku Tsurezure).
(Main Library, Kyoto University).
https://rmda.kulib.kyoto-u.ac.jp/item/rb00013212 (image no. 3)

traps, when she falls in love with one of those clients who had asked her to write
letters for him. “There is no better way to learn people’s feelings than letters,”9
observes the narrator, and the voice we hear in this passage is indeed the voiceof the author rather than that of the Amorous Woman herself.
The second passage does not seem to have attracted much attention so far. It
is another long introduction, that of the third chapter of Volume 3, entitled“Singer Boats to Make Merry” (Tawabure no utabune 調謔歌船). The location is
Osaka. A group of townsmen set up a place in a boat for a night party, but theboat gets stuck in the mud obstructing the channel, and the company is forced
to wait for the rising tide in order to continue its journey and have dinner. No
indication is given about the character who tells the story, but again we can recognize in him the figure of the author, who has already appeared in the initialchapters of Volumes 1 and 3 and now appears here also, sitting in the boat
shown in the illustration (Figure 3). On this occasion he seems to be playing the
9 ふみ

なさけ

たより

文程、情しる便ほかにあらじ。Ihara Saikaku shū 1 (op. cit.), p. 449.

A Genealogy of Saikaku’s ukiyo-zōshi

7

Figure 3. Illustration from The Life of an Amorous Woman (III.3). (Tokyo Metropolitan
Library, Kaga Collection).
https://doi.org/10.20730/100029312 (image no. 68)

role of an entertainer for the rest of the company. To relieve the tedium of the
waiting, he observes with some curiosity the flat boats called akuta sutebune 芥捨舟(“garbage-disposal boats”) devised to take out the city waste at night. Then hepicks up a letter from one of these boats and reads it aloud. It happens to be abusiness-style letter from a man in Kyoto trapped in a love affair and begging
money from a friend in Osaka. The men assembled in the boat burst into laughter,but a city employee (chōdai 町代) well acquainted with their situations dampens
their spirits, murmuring that all of them have similar financial troubles, and yet
are still incapable of renouncing the pursuit of pleasure. Ashamed, the men
promise to themselves to renounce the Way of Love. But the passage concludes
skeptically with the same saying from Essays in Idleness: “Still it is impossible tocontrol this way of love!”10
Read together, all these different passages can be seen as delivering a consistentmessage, and functioning also as clues for the reading of The Life of an Amorous
10

なほやめがたきこの道ぞかし。Ibid., p. 475.

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8

Woman, playing thus a structural and global role in the organization of the novel,
on top of their more local role as introductions to separate chapters. The motifof the letter found in a heap of rubbish is a humorous variation on the canonicalassociation, one frequently alluded to already by Saikaku in his haikai 俳諧, between
the words fumi 文 and chiri 塵—an association that originates in Chapter 72 of
Essays in Idleness:Things which are not offensive, no matter how numerous: books in a book cart,
rubbish in a rubbish heap.11“Books” (fumi, which also means “letters”) and “dust” or “rubbish” (chiri, which
in waka poetry has also the Buddhist meaning of “things of this impure world,”
doubling as synonym for the ukiyo or “floating and sad world”) are thus set in relation.12 The third chapter of Volume 3 starts with a sentence humorously rejecting this affirmation of Chapter 72: “It has been written ‘it is not offensive no matter how numerous,’ but nothing is more annoying than the waste that piles up inpeople’s houses.”13 Saikaku’s genius is to have related the motif of old letterswith the modern problem of city waste, in which he sees an image of the hidden
life of townsmen. The thrown-away letter can be seen as an allegorical representation of Saikaku’s novel. Thrown away as a worthless piece of waste, it reveals its
value and interest when collected and read by an observer of the ways of society,such as Saikaku, who in turn conveys it to his readers. We know that during approximately this same period, Saikaku was working on a collection of short stories
in epistolary form called Ten Thousand Thrown-away Letters by Saikaku (Saikaku yorozu
no fumihōgu 西鶴万の文反古), which he never completed, but which originates fromthis same conception, a fact he states clearly in his preface to the same unfinishedcollection.
Read together, these various passages from The Life of an Amorous Woman provide us valuable hints not only for the reading of this work, but also for the understanding of Saikaku’s larger literary project. They stress the key role played by
the usually invisible author in mediating between the social and human reality on
the one hand and the reader on the other. This aspect of Saikaku’s work has notbeen sufficiently taken into account in the past. The scholar who came closest to
it was Taniwaki Masachika 谷脇理史, in an article where he connects Saikaku’s
conception of literature not to Essays in Idleness, but rather to the Tale of Genji andEssays in Idleness (op. cit.), p. 64.
These motifs resonate also with the following passage in Essays in Idleness, Chapter 19: “Mineis a foolish diversion, but these pages are meant to be torn up, and no one is likely to see them”(op. cit.), p. 20. In Saikaku’s times, this passage was often known in a slightly different version,
reading: “these pages are meant to be thrown out.” This latter text is quoted in the postscript to
The Life of an Amorous Man. See Ihara Saikaku shū 1 (op. cit.), p. 250.
11
12

13

すみ か

ちり

ご もく

たま

多くても見ぐるしからぬとは書きつれども、人の住家に塵、五木の溜る程、世にうるさき物なし。Ihara Saikaku shū 1 (op. cit.), p. 473.

A Genealogy of Saikaku’s ukiyo-zōshi

9

its famous discussion on novels known as monogatari-ron 物語論.14 In this article,
Taniwaki attempts to relate Saikaku’s view of ukiyo-zōshi to the views expressedby Hikaru Genji in his discussion of novels, but he does so by connecting
Saikaku to the Tale of Genji itself, ignoring the rich history of the reception in
17th-century Japan of Essays in Idleness, as well as the history of the essay genre(zuihitsu) that this persistent interest in Essays in Idleness helped to create.
2. The Life of Wankyū (Wankyū isse no monogatari 椀久一世の物語)
Thus a complete genealogy of Saikaku’s ukiyo-zōshi should take into accountmany different elements, but in this study I would like to place the emphasis on
his work’s links to the reception of Essays in Idleness during the 17th century,15 emphasizing also its links to the development of a style of writing known as zuihitsu
or zuisō 随想, a style influenced by Kenkō-hōshi’s own work as well as its associated commentaries, and one which benefited greatly from the development ofprinting. We also know that written commentaries were not the only way inwhich Essays in Idleness was diffused, and that it was also spread by means of public lectures, something which certainly helped it gain much popularity. In discussing the influence that Essays in Idleness exerted on Saikaku, we do not intend somuch to discuss Saikaku’s personal knowledge of or appreciation of the text, butrather the overall cultural phenomenon that Kenkō’s text represented. This includes such seminal works as Nozuchi 野槌, a commentary on Essays in Idleness by theConfucian scholar Hayashi Razan 林羅山 (1583–1657), and Tsurezuregusa mondanshō
徒然草文段抄, a compendium of various commentaries old and new by the
haikai master Kitamura Kigin 北村季吟 (1624–1705), as well as Kashōki 可笑記, acollection of moral considerations inspired by Essays in Idleness. This last work
was a bestseller of the time, one which was frequently reprinted and widely used asa textbook, and which Saikaku himself referred to when he published his own Shin
Kashōki 新可笑記. This link connecting Saikaku’s ukiyo-zōshi with the non-narrative
genre of zuihitsu or zuisō—as illustrated by the zuisō-like passage at the beginningof The Life of an Amorous Woman, or again in the first chapter of Volume 3—is
key to any understanding of Saikaku’s œuvre and its place in the movement of
Edo-period vernacular prose. The Life of an Amorous Woman is a landmark work
particularly rich in hints about Saikaku’s literary ideas, similar in importance toTaniwaki Masachika, “Genji monogatari no juyō to Saikaku: bungei ishiki no kitei wo nasu
mono” 「源氏物語」の受容と西鶴：文芸意識の基底をなすもの, Kokubungaku kenkyū 国文学研究
103 (1991), reprinted in Saikaku kenkyū to hihyō 西鶴研究と批評 (Tokyo: Wakakusa Shobō, 1996).
I translated this important article in French under the title “La réception du Roman du Genji et
Saikaku : les fondements de la conscience littéraire de Saikaku” in Autour de Saikaku : le roman en
Chine et au Japon aux XVII eet XVIII e siècles, Études japonaises 1 (Paris: Les Indes savantes, 2004),
pp. 53–68.
15
For further detail on this subject, see Kawahira Toshifumi 川平敏文, Tsurezuregusa no 17-seiki:
kinsei bungei shichō no keisei 徒然草の十七世紀：近世文芸思潮の形成 (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten,2015).
14

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The Life of an Amorous Man, of which it is a feminine replica as the similarity ofthe titles suggests. At the same time, The Life of an Amorous Woman, though categorized as a collection of amorous tales (kōshoku-mono 好色物), is closely related
to Saikaku’s later collections of merchant tales (chōnin-mono 町人物). Indeed,most of the tales in the former are in fact situated in the merchant quarters withthe merchant life as their background, as are also the essay-like passages mentioned and quoted above. This is an affinity that can be found already in earlier
works such as The Life of Wankyū (Wankyū isse no monogatari ), the story of a wealthy
merchant from Osaka known as Wankyū who exhausts his family fortune in the
pursuit of pleasure. The opening lines of this short novel, comprised of twovolumes and nine chapters, showcase a popular ritual at the shrine of Minoo 箕面
Benzaiten 弁財天 to the north of Osaka, where many townspeople come to pray
for wealth. Among them is Wankyū, carried by four men in a palanquin and extravagantly dressed in a garment decorated with scenes from the Tale of Genji.
つの くに みの を さんとみ つき

毎年正月七日に、津 国 箕 面山の弁財天の富突とて、諸人福徳を願ひまいる
あくしょ か ご事あり。是を思ふに、皆欲に目の見えぬよるの道、浮世しやうぢの悪 所 駕籠、四人そろへのひとへ物に染込の扇の丸、肩で風きらして行く人を見れば、大坂堺筋に名を聞きし椀久といへる男、しまぢりめんの浅黄に、白襦子の長羽織に、京の幽禅が墨絵の源氏、人の目だつ程なれども、其頃いまだ世に衣裳
はっ と

法 度もなき時ぞかし。

Every year on the 7th day of the First Month, Benzaiten’s lottery is organizedat Mount Minoo in the Province of Tsu and many people come to beg the divinity to make them wealthy. When you think about it, everybody’s eyes are obscured by greed; in the middle of the night here he goes on the Street of the
Floating World, sitting in a palanquin used to go to the pleasure quarters, carriedby four men dressed in the same unlined suits with an encircled-fan motif. They
cut their way through the wind with their shoulders, and when you see them you
know that they carry the famous Wankyū from Sakai Avenue in Osaka. Over a
pale-green striped robe, and a long white-twill haori coat, there is a decorationof scenes from the Tale of Genji painted with ink by Yūzen in Kyoto—a very
conspicuous sight indeed, but at that time edicts against luxurious dress had not
yet been issued!16

The Life of Wankyū starts abruptly in medias res: Wankyū appears on the movefrom the very first lines and will not stop moving until he exhausts all his fortune
and drowns in a canal in Osaka. In this sense, The Life of Wankyū is centeredon the story of its main character. Nevertheless, it also presents elements ofreflection that link it to zuisō literature. The underlined phrases kore wo omou ni
是を思ふに (“[w]hen you think about it”), hito wo mireba 人を見れば (“when you
see them”), and zo kashi (“indeed”) exemplify this commentary-like style—one
reminiscent of the style of Essays in Idleness—which here introduces into thebackground a narrator figure similar to the one who appears in the opening
16

Taiyaku Saikaku zenshū 対訳西鶴全集 4 (Tokyo: Meiji Shoin, 1978), p. 5.

A Genealogy of Saikaku’s ukiyo-zōshi

11

Figure 4. Illustration from The Life of Wankyū (I.1). From the image collection in Saikaku
ukiyo-zōshi zen sashi-e gazō 西鶴浮世草子全挿絵画像 CD, as included in Saikaku to ukiyo-zōshikenkyū 西鶴と浮世草子研究 1 (Tokyo: Kasama Shoin, 2006).

chapter, or in Volume 3, of The Life of an Amorous Woman. This narrator is observing and commenting on the scene at some distance from the crowd “[whose]eyes are obscured by greed,” as well as from Wankyū, who has also come to beg formoney, and whose mind is not set on getting wealthy but rather on spending andexhausting his parents’ fortune. His eyes too are obscured, though not by greed,
but by his obsession with the world of pleasure. By contrast with the world of
avarice represented by the townspeople, Wankyū stands for the extravagancy ofthe pleasure quarters which leads to ruin. The narrator stops short of criticizing
this behavior and limits himself to describing the provocative luxury of Wankyū’s
attire or hinting at the condemnation of extravagant spending by the shogunal
authorities. The figure of the narrator is also made manifest by the poetic play onwords found in mina yoku ni me no mienu yoru no michi 皆欲に目の見えぬよるの道,
where the phrase me no mienu (the eyes are obscured, i.e. one cannot see), marked
above by the wavy underline, is to be read not only with the words mina yoku nithat precede it—“everybody’s eyes are obscured by greed”—but also with thewords yoru no michi that follow, i.e., eyes cannot see because of the darkness of theroad at night. Such rhetorical figures, familiar in classical poetry as well as in nō
能 or jōruri 浄瑠璃 lyrical theater, occur from time to time in Saikaku’s prose.
Their function is to add a pathetic tonality to some passages, but they serve also

12Struveto remind the reader that the narrator is a poet, engaged in the pursuit of wit andelegance, and familiar with the poetic tradition.
The goddess Benzaiten appears to Wankyū in his dream, surrounded by acolytes, and gives him the key from the family storehouse so he can spend themoney therein for his pleasures (Figure 4). She warns him to act carefully andto restrict himself to the most affordable pleasures, but she is rebuked by an indignant Wankyū who rejects any such idea of compromise. This dispute between himself and Benzaiten, the goddess of Prosperity, occupies most of thechapter and sets the theme of the whole novel. Returning home, Wankyū finds
a key hanging from the branch of a tree in front of his family house and so begins upon a life of dissipation which will end with his ruin.
The Life of Wankyū is of course a piece of fiction, and not an essay, but thenarrative itself is about the conflict between two sets of values. This polyphonicnature of Saikaku’s fiction relates it to the ongoing discussions found in the
essay-like productions inspired by Essays in Idleness. Several essay-like passages
can be found in The Life of Wankyū, such as in Chapter 2 of Volume 1, where
Wankyū witnesses a conjugal quarrel at his friend’s home, or as in Chapter 1 ofVolume 2, with the episode of Wankyū’s bankruptcy, where we can find a longessay-like development on domestic economy, starting with these words: “Whenone thinks about it, people’s financial situations are always a matter of makebelieve.”17 In many ways, the world of merchant stories collections (chōnin-mono)is already present in The Life of Wankyū.
3. Some Final Words of Advice (Saikaku oridome 西鶴織留)
Another important source for studying the link that exists between Saikaku’s
ukiyo-zōshi and the genre of the essay are the posthumous works published after
Saikaku’s death, such as the collection of epistolary short stories I have alreadymentioned, as well as, among others, the work Some Final Words of Advice(Saikaku oridome), translated into English by Peter Nosco in 1980.18 We do notknow when Saikaku wrote these texts, nor the reasons for their remaining unfinished. But we can presume that some of these texts might have been written
during the period of Saikaku’s elaboration of those merchant tales which did see
publication in two collections of short stories—The Japanese Family Storehouse (Nippon
eitaigura 日本永代蔵, 1688) and This Scheming World (Seken munesan’yō 世間胸算用,
1695)19—only to ultimately be discarded and left unpublished for some reason.
As such, they provide precious insights into Saikaku’s working method as a prose
writer. Some Final Words of Advice is made up of several unfinished projects, and17

これを思ふに、人みな内証は張物ぞかし。Ibid., p. 39.

Some Final Words of Advice, trans. Peter Nosco (Tokyo: Tuttle, 1980).
The Japanese Family Storehouse, trans. G. W. Sargent (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1959); This Scheming World, trans. David C. Stubbs and Masanori Takatsuka (Tokyo: Tuttle, 1965).
18
19

A Genealogy of Saikaku’s ukiyo-zōshi

13

is particularly interesting from this point of view, since it is closely related to theworld of Essays in Idleness and contains many essay-like chapters or passages.
Here I will comment on three examples from this work to illustrate the link between Saikaku’s ukiyo-zōshi and essay literature.
The first example is from the second chapter of Volume 1, called “Secrets on
Turning Mushrooms into Money” (Shinadama toru tane no matsudake 品玉とる
種の松茸). It is a long chapter, in which short episodes from merchant life areintertwined with essay-like considerations on the difficulty of succeeding in yourbusiness if you have no money to begin with. This truth is illustrated by an evocation of the rapid change of seasons that leaves no time to breathe for the merchant who is always pressed by his debts:
かねない物は銀にて、さる程にせはしの世や。節季節季は六十日の立事夢のごとし。正月の掛鯛の山草すこしかるゝとおもへば、はや蓬売声、軒の花菖
蒲、今も所々に見ながら、灯籠出す暮に胸も躍て、蓮の葉の食ぬくもりもさ
めぬに、又菊の酒屋の書出し見れば、おもひもよらぬ酔の出るもおかし。（中略）九月を過て大暮までは百日にあまれば、すこし爰にて息をするとおもへば、常の物前と違ふて、大分の払ひかた、心当ほど商ひしてから、たらぬ所
見えて...we would still lack the money. It certainly is a hectic world in which we live.
The sixty days that lie between each of the five major festivals pass by asquickly as a dream. No sooner have the sprays of mountain shrubs with which
we decorated our sea-bream offerings of the New Year begun to wither than
we begin to hear the voice of the sagebrush hawker peddling his wares in
preparation for the Festival of the Third Month. Even now we can still see
stuck here and there among the eaves of the houses those irises left over fromthe Festival of the Fifth Month, and it is already time to hang out the lanternsof the Festival of All Souls. All this excitement is enough to make our hearts
leap, and if we pause to remember that it is on the eve of each of the holidays
that our bills fall due for payment, it really is enough to make our hearts skip abeat. It is funny the way our heads spin so unexpectedly upon seeing the billfrom the liquor store for holiday chrysanthemum sake after the Festival of theNinth Month when our rice balls wrapped in lotus for the Festival of All Souls
have not even had a chance to grow old. (...) Just when you stop and think you
can allow yourself a bit of a breather from paying all those holiday bills in thehundred or so days between the Festival of the Ninth Month and New Year’sDay, you realize that what makes the New Year celebration different from otherholidays is that you have to settle every last one of your outstanding debts.20

It is not difficult to see that the whole passage is a parody of the famous Chapter
19 of Essays in Idleness, beginning with the words “The changing of the seasons
is deeply moving in its every manifestation,” and describing month after month,from spring through to winter, the changing of the seasons from the viewpoint
Taiyaku Saikaku zenshū 14 (Tokyo: Meiji Shoin, 1976), p. 20; Some Final Words of Advice (op. cit.),pp. 47–48.
20

14Struveof poetical emotion.21 This elegant world of poetic emotion is humorouslytransposed by Saikaku into the cramped (sewashi) universe of the merchant city,with its very different kinds of emotions, among which the most notable is fear ofthe debt collectors. The superimposition of these two worlds, the poetic and theprosaic, is obviously a device that belongs to the technique of haikai, but here we
see it imported into prose, creating a kind of “zoku Tsurezure” (Vulgar Essays in
Idleness). Such a technique is also illustrated in the phrase underlined above by theuse of the adjective okashi, a word characteristic of Classical Japanese prose—found thrice in Chapter 19 of Essays in Idleness and very frequently used in the
Pillow Book (Makura no sōshi 枕草子) of Sei Shōnagon 清少納言—where it means“charming” or “interesting.” It is used here in its modern sense of “funny” andis humorously applied to the dizziness one feels when looking at the liquor-store
bill. Some Final Words of Advice thus clearly points to Essays in Idleness as its model,
or rather, as Gérard Genette would put it, as its “hypertext.”
The second example is to be found at the beginning of the third chapter ofVolume 2, entitled “A Modern-day Kusunoki Masashige [楠木正成]” (Ima ga yo
no Kusunoki bungen いまが世のくすの木分限).
吉田の兼好がひがし隣に、同じ北面の侍ひ、榎木原信道といへる人、屋形
ならべて住ける。いかに禁裏の役人なればとて、五十余歳まで銭に文字ある
裏表をも見しらず、然れば短尺の上下をも覚えず、公家にも俗にもならず
男、明暮碁に打入て、三百六十日の立事をわすれ、大年の晦日には借銭に乞たてられ、其時代も覚悟わるき人の迷惑、今の世に替る事なし。留守つかふて戸をたゝかれたるあり様、松など灯連て、夜の明るまで、「酒屋で御座る」といふ声、せはしき人の心を書残せり。

Next door to the great writer Yoshida Kenkō there lived a man named
Enokibara Nobumichi who served with Lord Yoshida in the palace guard of
the Emperor Go-uda. Perhaps it was due to his service in the Imperial Palace,but even into his fifties the gentleman remained ignorant of the fact that copper
coins had writings on both sides. Nor did he have any idea of how to hold apoem card right side up. This man, who could not properly be called either
courtier or commoner, spent his days and nights playing go so intently that helost all sense of time until the eve of the New Year, when he would find irate
bill collectors at his door. People who lack proper foresight encountered thesame troubles in that long-ago age that they do now. Lord Yoshida has left asplendid account of the agitated state of the man who pretends not to be athome when the bill collector, brandishing a pine torch through the long night,
raps at the door and announces: “It’s the liquor store, sir.”22

Here again Saikaku is humorously alluding to Chapter 19 of Essays in Idleness,particularly to its evocation of the winter season and the New Year rituals at theImperial capital:
21
22

100.

See Essays in Idleness (op. cit.), p. 20.
Taiyaku Saikaku zenshū 14 (op. cit.), pp. 68–69; Some Final Words of Advice (op. cit.), pp. 99–

A Genealogy of Saikaku’s ukiyo-zōshi
よ

15
かど

つごもりの夜、いたう暗きに、松どもともして、夜半過ぐるまで人の門たたき、走りありきて、何事にかあらん、ことことしくののしりて、足を空に惑ふが、暁がたより、さすがに音なくなりぬるこそ、年の名残も心ぼそけれ。23

On the last night of the year, when it is extremely dark, people light pine
torches and go rushing about, pounding on the gates of strangers until well after midnight. I wonder what it signifies. After they have done with their exaggerated shouting and running so furiously that their feet hardly touch theground, the noise at last fades away with the coming of the dawn, leaving alonely feeling of regret over the departing old year.24

This fanciful evocation of Kenkō-hōshi and his fictitious neighbor is, ofcourse, meant to be read as parody. Yet parody is not only a matter of form, as
Nakano Mitsutoshi seems to imply, but also of content. As in the previous example, the parodic style here highlights the presence of the author, and his role
as a modern-day Kenkō-hōshi. The description of Kenkō as “ha[ving] left asplendid account of the agitated state of the man” (sewashiki hito no kokoro wo
kakinokoseri) can be applied to Saikaku himself. Sewashi, translated above as “hectic,”
does not literally mean “agitated,” but rather something more like “cornered” or“hard-pressed.” It is a key notion in Saikaku’s representation of the life of thecontemporary city as seen in, e.g., This Scheming World, and a notion which itself
also originates in Essays in Idleness.
I will briefly introduce a third passage, from the fourth chapter of Volume 3,
entitled “The Traveling Salesman who Sold Advice” (Nani ni te mo chie no furi-uri
何にても智恵の振売), another fanciful story with references not only to Essays in
Idleness but also to the Zhuangzi 荘子. The chapter begins with a long and burlesque enumeration of all the possible means to earn one’s living in a large city,and then introduces the main character, a man who makes his living by selling
advice for any kind of problem “no matter what it may be.” His skills are thenrequested on the following occasion:は ぜ

すぎにし秋の比、三軒屋川口へ砂魚釣舟に出し人、酒に乱れて後、釣たるはぜを丸焼にして、数喰事を手がらに、おのおのあばれける中にも、殊更一疋一口にせし人、俄に咽をくるしめける。

In the autumn of last year some men hired a boat by the mouth of the Sangen’ya
river to take them to goby fishing. After getting rowdy with all the sake, theybarbecued the gobies they had caught and had a contest to see who could eat
the most of them. In the middle of their gluttonous game, one of them took afish and tried to swallow it whole, but immediately his throat began to hurt . . .25

The man’s friends try to draw out the fishing hook stuck in his throat, but tono avail (Figure 5). The scene is explicitly compared to the similar famous scene
Tsurezuregusa (op. cit.), pp. 97–98.
Essays in Idleness (op. cit.), p. 20.
25
Taiyaku Saikaku zenshū 14 (op. cit.), p. 109; Some Final Words of Advice (op. cit.), pp. 144–146.
23
24

16

StruveFigure 5. Illustration from Some Final Words ofAdvice (III.4). (National Diet Library).
https://doi.org/10.11501/2554437 (image no. 18)

in Chapter 53 of Essays in Idleness, in which a priest of Ninna-ji 仁和寺 temple
gets his head stuck in a pot that he had put on his head while dancing. As Saikaku
continues:
さまざましてもぬける事なく、此難義すべきやうなく、船中、鞁・三味線も鳴をやめて、つれづれに書残せし法師のあしかなへのごとく迷惑してNo matter what they did, the hook would not budge, and there seemed no
way to help their friend out of this misery. With the boat’s drum and shamisen
silenced, they felt as helpless as the priest whose head got stuck in the pot in
Yoshida Kenkō’s Tsurezuregusa.26

The man who sells advice is finally consulted, and he easily finds a way to remove
the hook. But when someone else from among the company, a merchant who issome twenty kanme of silver short at the end of the year, asks him to advise him
on how to straighten out his business, he is unable to propose any solution:「女房衆の親もと分限か。又は銀持の出家に弟はないか」といふ。「それはもちませぬ」といへば、「此談合は埒が明ぬ」と申て、帰りける。

26

Taiyaku Saikaku zenshū 14 (op. cit.), p. 110; Some Final Words of Advice (op. cit.), p. 146.

A Genealogy of Saikaku’s ukiyo-zōshi

17“Does your wife come from a rich family,” asked the miracle worker, “or doyou have any younger brothers who happen to be wealthy priests?”“I’m afraid the answer’s no on both accounts,” replied the man.
“Then I’m afraid I can’t help you.” And with these words he picked himself up
and went home.27

This chapter is notable for its essay-like character, common to many of thechapters found in Some Final Words of Advice. It explicitly transposes a situationfrom Essays in Idleness to modern-day Osaka. As in the third chapter of Volume
3 of The Life of an Amorous Woman, the setting is a boat party, where townsmen
indulge in pleasures unaware of the uncertainty of their condition. The “salesman who sold advice” has solutions for all kinds of problems, but he proves
unable to help a merchant whose business has gone wrong. We can read in thisstory a humorous warning addressed by Saikaku to his readers. The “salesman
who sold advice” would then appear as another figure of the author, as an example of self-derisive reflection on the meaning of ukiyo-zōshi.
Conclusion
Extending the term gesaku to 17th-century literature, to kana-zōshi and to ukiyo-zōshi
in accordance with Nakano Mitsutoshi’s suggestion, cannot be a solution because
all of these terms, convenient as they may be, are too vague, allowing neither aprecise categorization of the Edo period’s vast literary production, nor a clear
view of the various continuities and discontinuities in the long history of theevolution of Edo-period prose. The link between Saikaku’s ukiyo-zōshi and thereception of Essays in Idleness during the 17th century, as well as the role that thegenre of the essay (zuihitsu or zuisō) itself played in the development of ukiyo-zōshi,both offer important clues for understanding the nature of Saikaku’s comicalprose and the nature also of the influence it exerted over the narrative prose of
the later Edo period. To stress the continuity that exists between Saikaku’s fiction
and Essays in Idleness—as well as its continuity with numerous other works that
the Essays inspired—does not belittle in the least Saikaku’s originality, or his importance as a prose writer. Saikaku attained originality by combining in completely new ways, and with a new perspective, different elements which he foundin the literary production of his time. Most importantly, he himself provided
clues to help his readers understand the purpose of his writings. Essays in Idlenesswas the single most influential and most annotated classical work in 17th-century
Japan, and it is not surprising that Saikaku would choose it as a model for creating a new kind of prose literature himself.

27

Taiyaku Saikaku zenshū 14 (op. cit.), p. 111; Some Final Words of Advice (op. cit.), p. 147.

Studies in Japanese Literature and Culture 4 (March 2021) 19–44© 2021 National Institute of Japanese Literature

Kyokutei Bakin’s Philological Research andthe Writing of Historical Narrative:
Study of the Izu Islands in the Marvelous
Story of the Drawn-Bow Moon
Nicolas Mollard

Introduction
Chinsetsu yumiharizuki 椿説弓張月(The Marvelous Story of the Drawn-Bow
Moon, 1807–1811) enjoys a long-lasting popularity among Kyokutei Bakin’s
曲亭馬琴 (1767–1848) readership and has also been the subject of numerous
scholarly studies and commentaries. Among these, Gotō Tanji’s 後藤丹治 edition,
published in 1958 and 1962, laid the foundation for contemporary source criticism.1
Since then the identification of hypotexts has been considerably expanded andrefined, ranging from Cui Xianglan’s 崔香蘭 excavation of new Chinese sources
to Miyake Hiroyuki’s 三宅宏幸 focus on Edo-period editions of medieval
sources—to name only two recent examples.2
But as Glynne Walley has pointed out in his review of the scholarship on Nansō
Satomi hakkenden 南総里見八犬伝 (The Lives of the Eight Dogs of the Nansō
Satomi, 1814–1842), locating sources is an endless and sometimes sterile task, because it does not always answer the hows and whys.3 Why was a source selected in
the first place? How was it adapted, and for what purpose? This process of adaptation or transposition has often been understood within the framework of thesekai/shukō aesthetic derived from the dramatic arts.4 In kabuki 歌舞伎 or jōruri

Chinsetsu yumiharizuki 椿説弓張月, Nihon koten bungaku taikei 日本古典文学大系 (NKBT) 60–61,
ed. Goto Tanji 後藤丹治 (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 1958 and 1962).
2
Cui Xianglan [Jp. Sai Kōran] 崔香蘭, Bakin yomihon to Chūgoku kodai shōsetsu 馬琴読本と中国古代
小説 (Tokyo: Keisuisha, 2005), pp. 134–135; Miyake Hiroyuki 三宅宏幸, “Chinsetsu yumiharizuki
tenkyo shōkō” 『椿説弓張月』典拠小考, Dōshisha kokubungaku 同志社国文学 74 (2011), pp. 45–56.
3
Glynne Walley, Good Dogs: Edification, Entertainment and Kyokutei Bakin’s Nansō Satomi Hakkenden (Ithaca, New York: Cornell University East Asia Program, 2017), p. 105.
4
Nakamura Yukihiko 中村幸彦, Gesakuron 戯作論 (Tokyo: Kadokawa Shoten, 1966), pp. 170–
213. For a discussion in English, see Adam Kern, Manga from the Floating World: Comicbook Culture
and Kibyōshi of Edo Japan (Cambridge: Harvard University Asia Center, 2006), pp. 123–128.
1

19

20

Mollard

浄瑠璃 plays, for example, as well as in works of popular fiction, a certain selected“world” (sekai 世界) can automatically designate the historical and literary back-drop for the story (determining thereby the era, the place, and even the main characters of its action), in a phenomenon similar to what Western medievalists mean
when they talk about the “Matter” of Britain, or of France, or of Rome. His “world”
thus chosen, the author is then expected to bring new “variations” (shukō 趣向) tothis world by giving to it a particular twist (interweaving other different “worlds,”
updating an ancient story to a contemporary setting, transposing a Chinese “world”
to Japan, and so on). For authors of “reading books” (yomihon 読本), and especiallyof the type known as “historical narratives” (shiden-mono 史伝物), the whole challenge, as Takagi Gen 高木元 has argued, lies in knowing how to negotiate this fundamental determinism in historical framework.5 Working from such an understanding,recent scholarship on Bakin’s philological research has opened up new perspectives.
Generally speaking, the genre of so-called “philological essays” or “antiquarian
miscellanies” (kōshō zuihitsu 考証随筆) has long remained an understudied field in
scholarship on late Edo-period popular fiction (gesaku 戯作).6 Some researchers,
however, such as Miyake Hiroyuki 三宅宏幸 or Ōtaka Yōji 大高洋司, have attempted to understand Bakin’s fictional works in the light of the erudite approach seen in his essay productions.7 Both have emphasized the structuring rolethat philological research played in the development of yomihon. To summarize
their findings in a few words, Bakin harvests, from anecdotes and episodes retrieved over the course of his investigations into historical sources, a veritable
corpus of material which he uses to develop subplots and digressions, and tohelp structure the longer narratives that characterize his later yomihon.
While much emphasis has been placed on narrative structure, I would like toexplore here another form of transposition that defines Bakin’s relationship to
his sources: the use that he makes of “regional geographies” or “gazetteers” (chishi
地誌) to give substance to his descriptions of the customs and landscapes of distant and unfamiliar locales. A close comparative reading of the novel alongside
its hypotexts will provide a better understanding of how Bakin concretely uses
philological reasoning in the context of writing historical fiction.
1. The Rise of Historical yomihon and Bakin’s Philological Research
Yumiharizuki marks a turning point in Bakin’s career as a writer.8 At the dawn of
Takagi Gen 高木元, Edo yomihon no kenkyū 江戸読本の研究 (Tokyo: Perikansha, 1995), pp. 13–14.
Satō Satoru 佐藤悟, “Kōshō zuihitsu no imi suru mono: Ryūtei Tanehiko to Kyokutei Bakin”
考証随筆の意味するもの：柳亭種彦と曲亭馬琴, Kokugo to kokubungaku 国語と国文学 70:11 (1993),
pp. 118–127.
7
Miyake Hiroyuki, op. cit. (2011); Ōtaka Yōji 大高洋司, “Chinsetsu yumiharizuki ron: kōsō tokōshō” 『椿説弓張月』論：構想と考証, Yomihon kenkyū 読本研究 6:1 (1992).
8
Nakamura Yukihiko 中村幸彦, “Chinsetsu yumiharizuki no shiteki ichi” 椿説弓張月の史的位置,
Bungaku 文学 36:3 (1968), pp. 10–17; Ōtaka Yōji, op. cit. (1992).
5
6

Bakin’s Philological Research and Historical Narrative

21

the Bunka 文化 era (1804–1818), he had begun to reinvent himself as a yomihon
author, gradually giving up the writing of comical pieces that were strongly anchored in the world of the theatre. After a trip to Osaka in 1802, he had growncloser to the literary milieu of the Kamigata 上方 (the region centered on Kyoto
and Osaka), and had become much more influenced by Chinese vernacular fiction (hakuwa shōsetsu 白話小説) and by collections of Buddhist tales (setsuwashū 説話集). From then on, following in the footsteps of his rival and former masterSantō Kyōden 山東京伝 (1761–1816), he immersed himself in the scholarly research that led him to develop a new genre that would seal his reputation: thehistorical narrative (shiden-mono). In the field of philological essays (kōshō zuihitsu), Kyōden had made his reputation with studies on the customs of the cityof Edo during the golden age of the Genroku 元禄 era (1688–1704), e.g., in his
Kinsei kiseki-kō 近世奇跡考 (A Study of Marvels in Modern Times, 1804) and Kottōshū 骨董集 (A Collection of Curios, 1814–1815). But Bakin preferred to gather abroader range of more disparate material, with an eye to how he could later reuse it in the writing of his novels. Such material saw publication in a number ofdifferent works. One of these, Enseki zasshi 燕石雑志 (A Collection of Fake Gems,
1811), is a collection of 59 short essays—or even notes which he had jotted down
while conducting various researches—based on the reading of some 238 titles(thoroughly cited at the end). Publications akin to this include Nimaze no ki 烹雑の記
(A Stew of Notes, 1811), which gathers 20 further essays in the same mold, andGendō hōgen 玄同放言 (Ramblings of Primeval Chaos, 1818–1820), a miscellanea ofsimilar reading notes organized in encyclopedic fashion (partially published, it
refers already to 190 titles). Slightly preceding the publication of this material,
Yumiharizuki is Bakin’s first novel to bear clear traces of his philological frenzy.
Indeed, Bakin’s passion for philological research (kōshōgaku 考証学) can be said
to permeate every one of his historical novels from then on. But to what exactly
does the term kōshōgaku refer? And how was the term understood by Bakin?
Sometimes translated as “evidential learning,” kōshōgaku (Ch. kaozhengxue) refers
broadly to an intellectual trend in Qing China that consisted of close (re)readings of canonical texts, supported by various philological tools—historical phonology, comparative linguistics, etymology, etc.—whose overarching goal wasto retrieve said texts’ original meaning. It rejected unfounded speculation andassumed a scientific stance by laying importance on the principle that assertions
should be backed up by textual evidence. In Japan, this trend took a more eclectic
turn, never giving rise to a structured school of thought. Yet seen in the broader
perspective of Tokugawa intellectual history which, with Itō Jinsai 伊藤仁斎
(1627–1705) and Ogyū Sorai 荻生徂徠 (1666–1728), emerges from a critique ofSong Confucianism, kōshōgaku can be linked also to the development of national
learning (Motoori Norinaga 本居宣長, 1730–1801), to Buddhist studies (Jiun 慈雲,
1718–1805), and even to medicine (Taki Keizan 多紀桂山, 1755–1810).99

Rai Tsutomu 頼惟勤, Kokushi daijiten 国史大辞典 (Tokyo: Yoshikawa Kōbunkan, 1985).

22

Mollard

The extent to which the philological investigations of gesaku writers partake of
this philosophy is subject to debate. Their approach to knowledge can be understood as a further emanation of the generally antiquarian spirit pervading literary circles since the late 18th century. Margarita Winkel’s study on Bakin’s reportof the Tankikai 耽奇会, and Ibi Takashi’s 揖斐高 research on literati salons, including Bakin’s Tankikai and Toenkai 兎園会, both shed light on the intellectual
atmosphere of such circles.10 This trend involves a serious-minded taste forthings of the past, apprehended through classical, popular, or material culture,and can be seen as an extension into the collective sphere of Bakin’s earlier taste
for philological investigations as expressed in his individual essays. In any case,the quest for origins (whether of a material artefact, a custom, an anecdote, evenof a word or an expression) lay at the very core of contemporary interest in suchmatters. This is why etymologies, or more broadly speaking what are called “spurious origin stories” (kojitsuke 故事付け), are so prevalent in gesaku writers’ philological essays, and hence also permeate their fiction. So much so that Glynne
Walley sums up the whole Hakkenden as a “mammoth, thousands-of-pageslong” kojitsuke aimed at explaining why the eight warriors of the Satomi clan
have the character “dog” in their names.11 If I dare make the analogy, one could
say that Yumiharizuki is itself an extended commentary on (what was at least assumed to be) a simple “historical fact”: the crossing of Minamoto no Tametomo
源為朝 (1139–1170) to the Ryukyu Islands.
2. History and Fiction in Bakin’s Yumiharizuki
The Yumiharizuki recounts the adventures of an early medieval warrior, Minamotono Tametomo, and his involvement in the Ryukyu Islands’ royal line. To put thematter simply, the “historical” framework is provided by the Tale of Hōgen (Hōgenmonogatari 保元物語), and also by later developments in that text’s reception. Lateeditions of the Hōgen monogatari itself might mention Tametomo’s crossing to acertain “Isle of Devils,” but it was only around the 16th century that erudite
monks made the connection between this island and the Ryukyus, giving shape
to the legend according to which Tametomo married the daughter of a local lordand had his own son enthroned as the Ryukyus’ first king. This legend was included in the official history of the kingdom, first written in 1650, and later repeated and discussed in various Chinese and Japanese sources throughout theEdo period.12 Bakin’s novel further weaves into this basic layer a narrative motif
Margarita Winkel, “Entertainment and Education: An Antiquarian Society in Edo, 1824–25,” in Uncharted Waters: Intellectual Life in the Edo Period, eds. Anna Beerens and Mark Teeuwen(Leiden: Brill, 2012), pp. 13–34; Ibi Takashi 揖斐高, Edo no bunjin saron: chishikijin to geijutsuka-tachi
江戸の文人サロン：知識人と芸術家たち (Tokyo: Yoshikawa Kōbunkan, 2009), pp. 128–152.
11
Glynne Walley (op. cit.), p. 89.
12
See among recent scholarship: Watanabe Kyōichi 渡辺匡一, “Tametomo toryū-tan no
yukue: sogo suru rekishi-ninshiki to kokka, chiiki, soshite hito” 為朝渡琉譚のゆくえ：齟齬する10

Bakin’s Philological Research and Historical Narrative

23of restored sovereignty borrowed from the Chinese epic Water Margin: A Sequel(Shuihu houzhuan 水滸後伝) in particular, though the extented scope he gives itgoes beyond anything found in the original model.13 Finally, Bakin made extensive use of Chūzan denshin roku 中山伝信録 (1721), a full account of the Ryukyu
kingdom by Chinese vice-ambassador Xu Baoguang 徐葆光 (1671–1723), in
addition to regional geographies on the Izu Islands, such as Izu kaitō fudoki
伊豆海島風土記 (1782) and Hachijō hikki 八丈筆記 (1796), which he used to flesh
out his descriptions of remote island settings. Considered from its sources
alone, Yumiharizuki, like any yomihon, is truly a multilayered millefeuille: a confection of history, myths, contemporary accounts, and popular legends.
Referring to itself as a “popular history” (haishi 稗史) or “unofficial biography”(gaiden 外伝), the text raises thus from the outset the much-debated question of
the relationship between history and fiction. The nature of the relationship between the two in Bakin’s works is rooted in a vision shared in common by novelists in both Qing China and Edo Japan. According to the form’s defenders inthis tradition, the raison d’être of the novel is two-fold. On the one hand, it bridges
the gap between scholarly and popular culture, making the moral lessons of official histories accessible to whole sectors of society through its simple language
and entertaining character. On the other hand, the novel is worthy of interest
because it supplements the shortcomings of those official histories, filling in thespaces where the annals remain silent. Filling in the blanks involves thus a workof the imagination. This is why the term xiaoshuo 小説 (Jp. shōsetsu), though originally synonymous with haishi, has taken on over time a connotation ever closer
to that of “fiction.”14
The opening words of the oft-quoted preface to the first part of Yumiharizuki
clearly shows how deeply Bakin is indebted to this vision of literature:

歴史認識と国家、地域、そして人, Nihon bungaku 日本文学 50:1 (2001), pp. 19–27; Ōta Hideaki
大田英昭, “Kinsei Nihon no Ryūkyū ninshiki no keisei to hensen: Minamoto no Tametomo
toryū densetsu wo megutte” 近世日本の琉球認識の形成と変遷：源為朝渡琉伝説をめぐって,
Shisōshi kenkyū 思想史研究 1 (2001), pp. 11–22; Itō Yūshi 伊藤雄志, “Ryūkyū/Okinawa-shi to
Nihon-shi no setten: Minamoto no Tametomo toryū densetsu wo meguru ronsō” 琉球・沖縄史と日本史の接点：源為朝渡琉伝説をめぐる論争, Chiiki bunka kenkyū 地域文化研究 6 (2008),
pp. 1–26; Yano Misako 矢野美沙子, “Tametomo densetsu to Chūzan ōtō” 為朝伝説と中山王統,
Okinawa bunka kenkyū 沖縄文化研究 36 (2010), pp. 1–48.

The literary motif of restoring to a rightful sovereign the throne usurped from him by malefactors has been studied in comparative perspective between the cases of China, Korea, andJapan by Ellen Widmer, “Island Paradises: Travel and Utopia in Three East Asian Offshoots of
Shuihu zhuan,” Sino-Japanese Studies 13:1 (2000), pp. 20–33.
14See, among many other discussions of this shift, Komori Yōichi 小森陽一, “Kinsei shōsetsu
kara kindai shōsetsu e” 近世小説から近代小説へ, in Iwanami kōza: Nihon bungakushi 岩波講座：
日本文学史, eds. Kubota Jun 久保田淳 et al., vol. 11 (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 1996), pp. 57–82;
Kamei Hideo 亀井秀雄, ‘Shōsetsu’ ron: Shōsetsu shinzui to kindai 「小説」論：『小説神髄』と近代(Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 1999), pp. 53–88; or, in English, Glynne Walley (op. cit.), pp. 61–74.
13

Mollard

24

This book relates the past deeds of the valiant general Hachirō Tametomo

八郎為朝 during the Hōgen 保元 Era. As in Chinese vernacular historicalromances (engi shōsetsu 演義小説), this story relies greatly on imaginary con-structions, so the reader can wander off into mysterious and fantastic lands.15

Or similarly in his prefatory note to the second part:As I have said previously, my Yumiharizuki imitates Chinese romances (engi).
It is a completely invented story (tsukuri mōketaru monogatari 作り設たる物語).
The facts I have just mentioned, however [i.e. philological considerations
on Tametomo’s crossing to the Ryukyus], are not mere fables (gūgen 寓言).16

Clearly, historical sources appear to provide a mere pretext for unleashing theliterary imagination. Nonetheless, and this is Ōtaka Yōji’s main thesis, a change
seems to be taking place from this second part onward, as Bakin’s research into
the historical background of Tametomo’s whereabouts intensified. Creative
imagination seems rather to come under the control now of a philological approach.
3. A Shift in Bakin’s Attitude towards History and Fiction
In actuality, when he started writing the novel at the end of 1805, Bakin had
as of yet only a vague idea of the whole picture. Before getting to work on its
second part in the spring of 1807, he had probably had a chance to catch aglimpse of the Ryukyuan mission that reached Edo in late 1806. Each such visit
caused quite a stir in the city, stimulated by an ever-growing series of publications on the subject.17 His editor, Hirabayashi Shōgorō 平林庄五郎, might havesmelled a good opportunity in all of this and so urged him to produce morevolumes for the work. Owing to Hirabayashi’s editorial success, the novel
would eventually reach 68 episodes in 5 parts. Yet, as we can infer from thepreface to its first part, at the beginning Bakin still knew but little about
Tametomo’s crossing to the Ryukyu Islands, a subject he would develop at
length in Parts 3 to 5 at the cost of a long and impressive work of documentary
investigation. The scale of the effort can easily be gauged by this simple fact:
in the first part’s preface quoted above, he briefly mentions only two sourcesin addition to the Hōgen monogatari—Hayashi Razan’s 林羅山 Honchō jinjakō 本朝
神社考 (A Study of Shrines in Our Country, 17th c.) and Terajima Ryōan’s 寺島良安
Wakan sansai zue 和漢三才図会 (A Sino-Japanese Illustrated Compendium of the
Universe, 1712)—but by the beginning of the second part, he gives already a listof 27 references, including Chinese and Ryukyuan sources as well as the Izu Islands
Unless specified otherwise, all quotations from Chinsetsu yumiharizuki refer to the edition of
the Nihon koten bungaku taikei 60–61 (op. cit.), here NKBT 60, p. 73.
16
NKBT 60, p. 235.
17
See Yokoyama Manabu 横山学, Ryūkyū-koku shisetsu torai no kenkyū 琉球国使節渡来の研究(Tokyo: Yoshikawa Kōbunkan, 1987), pp. 279–285 in particular.
15

Bakin’s Philological Research and Historical Narrative25

geographies mentioned above. Ōtaka Yōji summarizes the shift in Bakin’s approach to the novel as follows: “from the second part on, [he] began including
thorough analysis of his materials in his prefaces and afterwords, and the story
came to be driven by ‘historical facts’ that he had discovered.”18
He further points to the change in tone in the Chinese preface to Part 4:19
An ancient saying goes: “Popular romances (haihen shōsetsu 稗編小説) elaborate
the words of official histories (seishi 正史) in order to make them clear to ordinary people. Unofficial and popular histories (bōkan yashi 坊間野史) capture airand shadows [i.e. are fanciful] and thereby confuse the senses of common people. Since both genres are groundless and faulty, do they not mislead people’s
judgment?” My Yumiharizuki is a romance (shōsetsu), yet it quotes true historicalfacts (kojitsu 故実) and conforms to official histories (seishi) in every way. If
sometimes it skillfully borrows a fact or superfluously adds a word, this hardly
deceives people. All the ins and outs are based on evidence and testimony.20

Bakin seems to have become indeed obsessed by the need to distinguish between historical facts and their literary and fictional elaborations. This obsession,Ōtaka argues, can also be traced in other texts written by Bakin around the timethat he published the last parts of Yumiharizuki (1810–1811). In Enseki zasshi(1811), for example, he examines the origins of popular legends (setsuwa 説話), a
genre he considers somehow futile and fictional though based on real sources.
Likewise in a short work of fiction, Mukashigatari shichiya no kura 昔語質屋庫(Old Tales from a Pawnbroker’s Storeroom, 1810), he seeks to distinguish ancient
anecdotes (koji 故事), which are historical facts, from popular stories (zokusetsu
俗説), which he understands as a way to introduce children to the reading of
history through the use of fictitious words and literary embellishments. Taking
up stories about the Soga brothers, Bakin seems to believe that certain facts
can be gleaned from true chronicles (jitsuroku 実録), for example Azuma kagami
吾妻鏡 (Mirror of the East, c. 1300), but that these were later embellished by
writers of “fictions” (tsukuri monogatari 小説, in Bakin’s gloss) such as Soga monogatari
曽我物語 (The Tale of the Soga Brothers, 14th c.). In his effort to draw a distinction within ancient sources between real facts and literary embellishments, heconsiders some texts to be more reliable (Azuma kagami, warrior genealogies,etc.) than others (the Taiheiki 太平記 [Chronicle of Great Peace, c. 1370] in particular). The key to assessing a source’s reliability is the critical approach of thephilologist.
Ōtaka Yōji, “Development of the late yomihon: Santō Kyōden and Kyokutei Bakin,” in The
Cambridge History of Japanese Literature, eds. Haruo Shirane and Tomi Suzuki (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016), p. 545.
19Ōtaka Yōji, “Bunka 7–8 nen no Bakin: kōshō to yomihon” 文化七、八年の馬琴：考証と読本, in Setsuwa ronshū 説話論集, ed. Setsuwa to setsuwa bungaku no kai 説話と説話文学の会,
vol. 4 (Tokyo: Seibundō, 1995), pp. 383–419.
20
NKBT 61, p. 129.
18

26

MollardŌtaka is right to point out Bakin’s desire to be more scrupulous than Chinesevernacular historical romances in distinguishing between fact and fiction. Yet, at thesame time, as Miyake Hiroyuki has shown in his analysis of Yumiharizuki ’s own
sources, Bakin can both reject the Zen Taiheiki 前太平記 (A Prequel to theChronicle of Great Peace, c.1681) as a reliable historical reference (as he does in
Enseki zasshi), and yet still adapt whole descriptions from it to shape his narrative.21 Furthermore, as Miyake has also demonstrated, in the case of another historical romance, Asahina shimameguri no ki 朝夷巡島記 (A Record of Asahina’s
Travels around the Isles, 1815–27), Bakin deliberately opted for fiction regarding
the ancestry of his hero, Asahina Yoshihide 朝比奈義秀, because it was a better
fit for his overall scheme, and because it allowed him to drag into the story
certain literary motifs taken from the Kojiki 古事記 (An Account of Ancient
Matters, 712) in particular.22 For Miyake, philological research is what links the different sources together, what enables Bakin to superimpose, for example, the figureof Asahina Yoshihide—son of “General Rising Sun” (Asahi shōgun 朝日将軍)
aka Kiso Yoshinaka 木曽義仲 (1154–1184)—upon that of the mythological
Hiruko 日子 (lit. “Son of the Sun”), thanks to a similarity in solar imagery. “Bymaking Yoshihide an offspring of Yoshinaka,” Ōtaka concludes, “[Bakin] designs
an original plot (shukō) that creates associations between a mixture of historicalfacts, myths, various legends, and philology.”
4. The Use of Regional Geographies and the Risk of Anachronism
However, no matter how rigorously Bakin may have intended to stick to what
he believed to be historical facts, the blanks in Tametomo’s life remain numerous
and open to speculation, especially when it comes to time spent on the geographical margins. It is well to remember that the Tale of Hōgen focuses on a rebellion whose epicenter is located in Kyoto. Two emperors struggle for power,and Sutoku’s 崇徳 (1119–1164, r. 1123–1141) forces, led by Minamoto no
Tameyoshi 源為義 (1096–1156) together with his youngest son Tametomo, aredefeated in the Capital’s suburbs. The story does include episodes of Tametomo’s
youth in Kyushu and his exile in the Izu Islands, but these remain secondary andquantitatively unimportant. The spatial coverage in Bakin’s novel is in contrast extremely wide and varied (Figure 1). It is precisely Tametomo’s adventures on theborders of Japan that captured the author’s imagination. Geographical margins
had been poorly documented in pre-Edo-period literature, but in Bakin’s time
were drawing more and more attention, in part owing to the political situation
but also out of sheer curiosity directed towards the outside world.
The possibility of imagining Tametomo’s activities in those margins was offered
Miyake Hiroyuki, op. cit. (2011).
Miyake Hiroyuki, “Bakin no kōshō to yomihon: Asahina shima meguri no ki zenden ron” 馬琴の考証と読本：『朝夷巡嶋記全傳』論, Kindai bungei 近代文藝 102 (2015), pp. 15–29.
21
22

Bakin’s Philological Research and Historical Narrative

27

Figure 1. Map of Chinsetsu yumiharizuki 椿説弓張月. Shifts in the story’s geographical setting are indicated by chapter numbers. (Preparedby author).

by regional geographies (chishi ), mainly on the Izu and the Ryukyu Islands. In
this sense too, Yumiharizuki is not a pure work of fiction: though the descriptionsof remote islands are not taken from Bakin’s first-hand experience, they arebased on highly-reliable contemporary reports. But yet another problem lurks
here behind the scenes—the spectre of anachronism. It is one that has been repeatedly pointed out by critics. Leon Zolbrod asserted early on that: “Bakin’s
novels, with few exceptions, are historical romances. Although they are set in
pre-Tokugawa Japan, however, they often describe the customs, institutions, andmaterial culture of his own day.”23 And more recently, Takagi Gen has very astutely identified the problem: “One stance assumed by Edo yomihon is that thehistorical setting is different from the depiction of manners in the story. This isprobably not unrelated to the fact that yomihon frequently incorporate philologicalconsiderations into the story. It is not possible to create a fictional narrative
without a thorough investigation of “historical facts.” This is because the device
that creates the illusion of reality is none other than philology itself, without the aidof which it would be impossible to create this illusion. Moreover, in supplementing
23

Leon Zolbrod, Takizawa Bakin (New York: Twayne Publishers, 1967), p. 66.

Mollard28

their own knowledge by means of these philological considerations, readers
were able to wander in a fantasy world, even if there were discrepancies between
the historical setting and the depiction of manners.”24
In order to further understand the role of philology in Bakin’s yomihon, how heconcretely draws upon a plethora of sources to give substance to his narrative
and thus reworks the Hōgen monogatari material, I will focus on the chapters in
Yumiharizuki dedicated to the Izu Islands. I will follow four main lines of investigation: (1) how whole sections of regional geographies about the Izu Islands
were lifted and inserted into the story; (2) how certain parts were subtly omitted
or rewritten in order to shape Tametomo into a civilizing hero bringing the geographical margins into Japan’s cultural sphere; (3) how philological, and more
precisely etymological reasoning was pivotal to articulating mythical and historical time; and (4) how these considerations circulated between different parts of
the novel itself and scholarly essays external to it.
5. The Izu Islands in the Hōgen monogatari Tradition
It might be necessary to present first the broad outlines of the relevant episode. After the civil war known as the Hōgen Rebellion, which resulted in thedefeat of Emperor Sutoku’s partisans, Tametomo is captured and banished tothe island of Ōshima 大島 in the Izu Archipelago. There he quickly regains influence, subjects the local administrator to his authority, and refuses to pay taxes
to the governor of Izu Province. In an episode recounted in texts of the manuscript line that gave birth to the so-called “reference” edition of the Tale (Sankō
Hōgen monogatari 参考保元物語, 1689), which circulated widely during the Edo
period and was probably used by Bakin himself,25 Tametomo also makes his way
to the Isle of Devils, where once again he subdues the local inhabitants. The
governor, worried about Tametomo’s rise to power, obtains permission from theemperor to lead a punitive expedition. After one last feat of arms (he sinks thelead ship with a single arrow), Tametomo is overwhelmed by these enemy forces
and commits suicide after beheading his own son. Here let us add that if the
Hōgen monogatari has Tametomo dying thus in Ōshima, in his own novel Bakin invents a substitute for the hero, in the guise of a faithful companion, allowing him
thereby to continue his adventures further into the Ryukyus.
This is a rough outline of the action. But what do these islands look like? Whoinhabits them? How do people make their living there? These questions are of
no interest to the Hōgen monogatari. It says nothing about Ōshima, nothing about
Hachijōjima, and gives hardly any details about the Isle of Devils, which is renamed Ashigashima 葦島 (Reed Island) after being subdued by Tametomo and24
25

Takagi Gen (op. cit.), p. 9.
NKBT 60, Kaisetsu 解説, pp. 11–12.

Bakin’s Philological Research and Historical Narrative29

becoming a dependency of Hachijō.26 Yet despite this clearly established geographical denomination, the depiction of the Isle of Devils does not refer to any
specific real place, but coincides rather with the usual tropes found in medieval
representations of the geographical margins.27 The isle is inhospitable in every
aspect: its inhabitants are physically monstrous (disproportionate in size, unconventional in hairstyle, with hirsute bodies, dark in pigmentation) as well as being
culturally backward (they do not wear the sword on the left, do not cultivate riceor fruits, and while they do catch animals for food they do not really fish or hunt
since they have no tools, and dress in coarse fabrics, being unable to produce silkor cotton). They are the very opposite of the Japanese.
6. Regional Geographies on the Izu Islands
Bakin fleshed out this frame-narrative using what was in his time the most detailed ethnographic information available on the Izu Islands, an archipelago little
known to Edo readership because it was still a land of exile, inaccessible to thecommon people. Bakin’s two primary sources belong to the genre commonlyreferred to as “regional geographies” or “gazetteers” (chishi), whose works arequite often in fact something in the way of administrative reports, written by officials after their inspection tours. Like other examples of the genre, Izu Islands
geographies describe daily life on the islands, the customs of their inhabitants,
their topography, climate, natural products, local dialects, etc. The earliest ofthese, Izu kaitō fudoki (1782) was written by a shogunate official, Satō Yukinobu
佐藤行信, who sent his attendant to inspect the archipelago. Its thorough description of the islands is accompanied by numerous annotated illustrations offlora and fauna, demonstrating the author’s particular interest in the study ofmateria medica (honzōgaku 本草学), a field of knowledge which at the end of the
19th century was strongly linked to the exploitation of natural resources.28 The
second of these geographies, Hachijō hikki (1796), was a report by Furukawa
Koshōken 古川古松軒 (1726–1807) based on the account given to him by theadministrator of Izu, Mikawaguchi Tachū 三河口太忠, regarding the latter’s
inspection tour of the archipelago. Furukawa was a geographer, the son of an
herbalist and physician from the province of Bitchū 備中, and is mainly known
for his travel diaries and regional geographies.29 It is worth noting that copies of
See the full description in Hōgen monogatari: Tale of the Disorder in Hōgen, trans. & annotat.
William R. Wilson (Ithaca, New York: Cornell University, 2001 [1971]), pp. 102–104.
27
Murai Shōsuke 村井章介, Nihon chūsei kyōkai-shi ron 日本中世境界史論 (Tokyo: Iwanami
Shoten, 2013), part 1 in particular.
28
Federico Marcon, The Knowledge of Nature and the Nature of Knowledge in Early Modern Japan(Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2015).
29
See for example Saiyū zakki 西遊雑記 (1783) and Tōyū zakki 東遊雑記 (1788), both partiallytranslated in Herbert Plutshchow, A Reader in Edo Period Travel (Folkestone: Global Oriental,
2006), pp. 89–123.
26

30

Mollardthese manuscripts in Bakin’s own hand have survived to the present day.30
As we will see in detail hereafter, Bakin relied heavily on regional geographies
to give substance to his descriptions of the Izu Islands, but his reuse of thesesources raises several questions. How could passages lifted wholesale fromscholarly sources respond to the reader’s horizon of expectations? How didthese fit into Bakin’s overall scheme, his intent to reshape Tametomo into a civilizing hero in particular? And how was he able to maintain chronological consistency, given that the story itself takes place at the end of the 12th century, but
his ethnographic and geographic knowledge was based mainly on writings ofthe late 18th?
7. Depictions of Nature and Plant Culture in Hachijō
As unorthodox as it may seem for a textual analysis, I would like to start with
an illustration (Figure 2). Yumiharizuki was illustrated by Katsushika Hokusai
葛飾北斎 (1760–1849), whose name greatly contributed to its success. Yet it
must be remembered that illustrators usually worked on the basis of sketches
provided by the authors. Bakin tended to treat images in his yomihon as a necessary evil, a concession made to editors in the name of commercial efficacy andgreater accessibility for his readership, but he was nonetheless very scrupulous
when it came to visual details.31 Numerous significant elements mentioned in the
body of the text were thus carefully integrated into Hokusai’s renderings. The
scene in question takes place on Hachijō Island, and is entitled “Female islanders
entertain Tametomo lavishly,” for the place was then known as the Isle of
Women (we will see why later). On the left Tametomo, accompanied by a retainer, is pointing at the three women who are picking some kind of “fruits”
from a tree and putting them in a basket. The tree is supposed to be an “eggplant
tree!” And these women are preparing a meal for their host.
[The women] spoke in the island dialect: “[ . . . ] The dadaka are now in fullbloom. Let’s simmer some eggplants in shiokubari 塩配32 for you.” Two or threeof them rushed for a ladder, climbed an eggplant tree and plucked several big
ones. They simmered them with mountain yams called tsukune-imo 薯蕷 andwith white radish, and served them, accompanied by rice flavored with angelica,
to Tametomo and his party. It is said that angelica, or “tomorrow’s leaf,” hasbranched stems which come out at ground level, roots and leaves that look likea carrot’s, and that they taste sweet and bitter. If the seeds are planted in winter,in spring by the equinox buds will appear, the stem will grow during that same
The autograph copy of Kaitō fudoki is owned by Okimori Naosaburō 沖森直三郎, and thatof Hachijō hikki is housed at Waseda University Library (and accessible there online; see Figure 4).
See NKBT 60, Kaisetsu, pp. 13–14.
31
Suzuki Jūzō 鈴木重三, “Bakin yomihon shohan shoshi nōto: sashi-e wo chūshin ni” 馬琴読本諸版書誌ノート：挿し絵を中心に, Bungaku 文学 36:3 (1968), pp. 48–57, with a sequel in thesame journal, 36:5 (1968), pp. 95–103.
32
A kind of miso paste made of salted fish, as explained earlier in the same text.
30

Bakin’s Philological Research and Historical Narrative

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Figure 2. Scene from Chinsetsu yumiharizuki (II.17). Entitled: “Female islanders entertain Tametomo lavishly.” (National Diet Library).
https://doi.org/10.11501/2557124 (image no. 28)

year up to seven or eight inches tall, and in the cold season the leaves will notwither and die. After three years, you can uproot the plant, and eat its roots andleaves. As for the turnip-shaped white radish, if you cut it just above the soil, it
will sprout leaves that grow again and again even after spring has come.
Tametomo asked Saori no Nyoko 三郎長女 [the female chief of the island]:“It is rare to find eggplants in late spring, but I have never seen a tree of thissize.” She replied: “The winter is so mild on this island that plants don’t wilt andtrees never lose their leaves. Eggplants bloom and bear fruit all year round.
Some trees are two or three years old. Those are the three-year eggplants. And
we call their flowers dadaka.” (I think “dadaka” is the Chinese name. The proof is in
Dupian xinshu 杜騙新書, which says that “Tuotuohua 陀々花 [Jp. dadaka] is the flowerof the three-year eggplant.”)33
33
NKBT 60, pp. 256–257. These last two sentences in parentheses are an example of what iscalled warichū 割注 (intralinear commentary), i.e., in-text commentary distinguished from thebase text by being written within the main line in its own doubled line of half-size characters. I
will come back to this later. Dupian xinshu 杜騙新書 (The New Book for Foiling Swindlers,c.1617) is a short-story collection about fraud.

32

Mollard

The text gives here the recipe for Tametomo’s meal, which is made up of a
mixture of eggplants, yams, and radishes, served with angelica rice. Also provided are some botanical details about the angelica (ashitagusa 鹹草), a plant endemic to Hachijō, as well as about the turnip-shaped white radish (kabu daikon蕪蘿蔔) and the so-called “three-year eggplant” (sannen nasu 三年茄子). All thisinformation is directly taken from the Kaitō fudoki, and the author wraps the passage up with an etymological comment.
In the same illustration, on the right, we can observe a woman weaving. Ethnographic descriptions of weaving are not uncommon in regional geographies.34
Comparing the Kaitō fudoki with the text of Yumiharizuki, it is quite obvious how
Bakin has reused the rather technical description of his model:
Izu kaitō fudoki
There are three main colors for dyeing: yellow, bark-brown, and black. The
yellow is made between the Seventh and the Ninth Month by dyeing threads
thirty-seven or thirty-eight times in a decoction of miscanthus, and fixing thecolor in a mordant made of camellia ashes. The brown is made in autumn andwinter by dyeing threads thirty times in a decoction made from the bark of atree called madami まだみ, and fixing the color in the same mordant of camellia
ashes. The black is made at any season of the year by dyeing threads twentyfour, twenty-five, or even more times in a decoction of chinquapin bark and,
when appropriate, fixing the color with mud from the fields.35
Yumiharizuki
As for the craft of weaving and spinning, it is said that, unlike on other islands, they get filaments from silkworms, and twist them into threads between
their fingers using a spinning wheel, while some attach the loom to a pillar, passing the other end behind their hips, and start weaving fabrics in a variety of twill
patterns, using a method that later generations will call gotangake 五反懸 orhattangake 八反懸. There are three main colors for dyeing: yellow, bark-brown,
and black. The yellow is made between the Seventh and the Ninth Month bydyeing threads thirty to forty times in a decoction of miscanthus, and fixing thecolor in a mordant made of camellia ashes. The brown is made in autumn andwinter by dyeing threads thirty times in a decoction made from the bark of a tree
called madami, and fixing the color in the same manner as above. The black is thenmade at any season of the year by dyeing threads twenty-four or twenty-fivetimes in a decoction of chinquapin bark and fixing the color with mud from thefields.36

See for example the numerous pages dedicated to the production and commerce of Echigo
chijimi fabric in Suzuki Bokushi’s 鈴木牧之 Hokuetsu seppu 北越雪譜 (1837), ed. Meicho kankōkai
名著刊行会 (Tokyo: Meicho Kankōkai, 1968), pp. 74–94.
35
Excerpts are translated from the text of the edition in Izu kaitō fudoki, Izu meguri 伊豆海島
風土記・伊豆めぐり, ed. Shizuoka kyōdo kenkyūkai 静岡郷土研究会, Tōkai bunko 東海文庫 12(Shizuoka: Shizuoka Kyōdo Kenkyūkai, 1929). Here pp. 5–6. Below as TB 12.
36
NKBT 60, pp. 259–260.
34

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Another detail can be seen in the illustration: the trees growing at the bottom
right-hand corner, which look like palm trees. These might refer to two species
described, with accompanying hand-drawn sketches, in both Kaitō fudoki and in
Hachijō nikki: the soro そろ (or shuro, a kind of windmill palm) and the shida しだ(or hegoshida, a kind of tree fern) (Figures 3 & 4). Skeptics might argue that it
could just as well be any other plant, but the trunks depicted in another illustrationfrom the same chapter quite clearly show a palm tree-like texture (Figure 5), a
clear sign of the author’s desire to furnish the scene with an exotic touch.
There was a plant, resembling the metal-blade tree [cassia tree], more than ten
feet tall and with a very fine grain. He asked its name. “It’s a tree called soro,” shesaid. There was another one, fifty to sixty feet tall, with leaves hanging in all directions, like ferns but as large as banana-tree leaves. Once again he asked its
name and she said, “It’s called shida.” There were also mulberry trees in abundance, upon which grew a kind of mistletoe. This place is truly a Wonderland.37

Bakin stages here the provision of botanical information in the form of a dialogue. The islander, not the narrator, gives explanations to Tametomo, whothereby discovers the natural landscape of the island.
The illustration contains yet further significant details: thatched-roof houses,
built on chinquapin pillars with woven bamboo walls, and high-raised floors toprevent dampness.38 Or even the peculiar rice granary in the background, although it does not correspond in all respects to the description in Kaitō fudoki. I
could go on with many other examples taken from other illustrations and passages, but we have enough to grasp the overall scheme. Bakin’s aim here is to givesome substance, some sense of reality and exoticness, to imaginary representations of the geographical margins in his readers’ minds, drawing on extensive
documentary research based for the most part on local geographies—but notsolely. Encyclopedias like Wakan sansai zue 和漢三才図会 (1712), or materia medica
books like Bencao gangmu 本草綱目 (1596), are also frequently used to give scholarly details about some particular aspect of the natural world. In this respect,
Bakin’s historical novels function effectively as a bridge between scholarly literature and a mass readership. But arousing the reader’s curiosity is only one aspectof the issue.
8. The General Outlook of Ōshima Island
The integration of very disparate elements (historical, mythological, folkloric,
ethnographic, etc.) into the story has the potential to create confusion at times.
Bakin had to struggle to hold all these pieces together. Although he could not
resolve all contradictions and inconsistencies, by cleverly articulating these elements between different chronological strata, he succeeds in bringing order to
37
38

NKBT 60, p. 259.
As explained in the story’s previous chapter. See NKBT 60, p. 250.

34

MollardFigure 3. The soro (right) and shida (left) trees in Izu kaitō fudoki 伊豆海嶋風土記, vol. 2 (right) &vol. 3 (left). (Fuji City Library).
https://library.fujishi.jp/c1/bib/fuji_11698850.pdf (image no. 20), [. . . _11698851.pdf] (image no. 31)

Figure 4. The soro (right) and shida (left) trees in Bakin’s autograph copy of Hachijō hikki 八丈筆記.
(Waseda University Library).
https://www.wul.waseda.ac.jp/kotenseki/html/i04/i04_00600_0148 (image no. 16)

Bakin’s Philological Research and Historical Narrative

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Figure 5. Scene from Chinsetsu yumiharizuki (II.17). Entitled: “Nyoko kills a monster in
her cousin’s hut.” Note the palm trees in the background. (National Diet Library).
https://doi.org/10.11501/2557124 (image no. 32)

the narrative and even in giving new meaning to Tametomo’s actions. Hereagain, confronting the Yumiharizuki text with its sources will shed light on thematter.
Ōshima Island is not, any more than Hachijō, actually described in the Hōgenmonogatari. Somewhat paradoxically, it is even characterized as less civilized, less“paradisiacal” than Hachijō itself. Here is a sketch of the general outlook of theisland, as presented in the original source and in Yumiharizuki’s novelistic adaptation thereof:Izu kaitō fudokiŌshima Island is located 18 ri 里 [a ri being roughly equivalent to 3.9 km] bysea east-southeast from Shimoda 下田 Harbor in the Kamo 賀茂 district of Izu
Province, and 7 ri away to the south from the very same province. From the cityof Edo, that would make 46 ri south-southwest. The island is regularly served
by boat, which facilitates trade. Its territory extends 2.5 ri wide from east to west
and some 5 ri long from north to south. There are high mountains but they are
generally not very steep. The coast is continually battered by waves, exposing

Mollard36

the rocks, and making it hard to access. Now, speaking of the history of its settlement, it is not clear at what point it became a place of exile. Within the islands,
it is said that they were colonized during the holy reign of Emperor Kōan 孝安.
But since Ōshima is only 7 or 8 ri distant from Izu, it must have been colonizedat the same time that the province’s many coves were occupied. As it has beena land of exile since high antiquity, there must have been many criminals banished to the island since those times. More precisely, En no Ozuno 役小角 [634–701] was sent there in the first year of Emperor Monmu’s 文武 reign [697]. The
cave where Ozuno lived is still visible at Senzu 泉津 village. It is now called theHermit’s Hall and it has become a place of worship among the islanders. [ . . . ]Concerning the island’s industry, the men from Niijima 新島 and Okada 岡田
villages mainly hunt and fish, using cargo boats to go trade their goods andmake a profit for their livelihood; meanwhile the women mainly cultivate fields,
weave some fabrics, gather seaweed, and exchange it for food to make their living. In the villages of Sakichi 差木地, Senzu, and Nomashi 野増, people called“open-pan commoners” (kama-byakushō 釜百姓) produce salt as a family business. That is why since the Kyōhō 享保 era [1716–1736] the men and womenalike have cut firewood. Some collect reeds to weave mats and sell these to buy
grain; some cultivate fields and grow fruit trees and vegetables to get food. It
appears that this is how they make a living.39
Yumiharizuki
Originally, Ōshima Island of Izu Province is located 18 ri by sea east-southeastof Shimoda Bay in Kamo District. Its territory is said to be 2.5 ri wide from east
to west and some 5 ri long from north to south, but at that time it might havebeen even smaller. The island has mountains, though not steep ones. The coast
is continually battered by waves, exposing the rocks, and making it hard to access. Elders say that this land was colonized at the time of Emperor Kōan, butsince it is only 18 ri distant from Izu, it must have been colonized at the sametime that the province’s many coves were occupied. As it has been a land of exile since ancient times, En no Ozuno was exiled there in the first year of Emperor Monmu’s reign [697], and this is said to have been the beginning of theisland’s settlement. Nothing is known before that. The cave where Ozuno lived
is still visible in a village called Senzu. Islanders call it the Hermit’s Hall and frequently go there to worship. As for the original customs of the island, men go
hunting and fishing, while women gather wood and seaweed, and exchange
them for food to make a living. The five grains had not been grown there until
recently. Even a man used to this life would grow weary, but how could the noble
son of the Genji 源氏 clan live there to his end? From the soft-hearted to theheartless, everybody felt the tragedy of his situation. But let us go back to themain story.40

Framed by an expression typical of yomihon and works of Chinese vernacular
fiction (somosomo . . . kore wa sate oki 抑 . . . 閑話休題), this piece of description
appears as a digression, as an opportunity for the narrator to provide some general
39
40

TB 12, pp. 29–30.
NKBT 60, p. 204.

Bakin’s Philological Research and Historical Narrative

37

information about the island’s characteristics. One can easily spot the parts thatare quoted from sources almost without change: the distances, the surface
dimensions, the general outlook of the island, its history (En no Ozuno’s exile
in particular), and even the descriptions of certain customs (men’s hunting andfishing, women’s wood- and seaweed-gathering). On the other hand, it is equallyclear that certain details have been intentionally omitted, especially the fact thatthe islanders practice agriculture and trade. Indeed, in Yumiharizuki, the islanders
know nothing about the five grains (gokoku 五穀), and there is no clear mentionof any commercial activity (harbors, boats, etc.). So why did Bakin want to makehis island appear to be such an uncivilized place? Was he simply aiming at historical consistency? A further example will help clarify his intentions.
9. The Taming of Wild Animals
A little later on in the story, there is an episode where Tametomo is shown
taming wild bulls and horses. This comes from the description of Ōshima’s
fauna in the Kaitō fudoki.
Izu kaitō fudoki
As for beasts, there are plenty of wild cows and wild horses. When the farms
face a shortage of livestock, the men of Nomashi, Sakichi, and Senzu go out fora hunt. One can see them riding horses bareback through the reed plains, valleys, and hills, flying as if they were on familiar ground, chasing after wild cows
and horses, catching their tails to immobilize them, throwing some of themdown, and when a fierce bull happens to face them, they get off their horses
with no fear of the horns ready to gore them, and wrestle the beast to theground. Thus do they capture the animals with great ease.41
Yumiharizuki[Islander speaking . . . ] “There have been plenty of wild cows and wild horseson this island since old times, but they get so fierce when people come closethat nobody ever dares to breed them or to make them carry a burden. Yet inearly summer, when the bonito fishing season comes, we use cow horns tomake bait. That’s why every year, when spring comes to an end, people living
near the seashore gather in bands and go through the hills and plains to collectcow horns. [ . . . ]”[ . . . ] The horse was galloping like an arrow, clattering his hoofs in a great
turmoil, when Tametomo spotted it. Grabbing the mane as it was passing by, hemounted the horse effortlessly, riding and galloping around the grasslands andhigh peaks, and then chasing after wild cows, chasing after wild horses, catchingsome by the tails to immobilize them, throwing others down with a bump, andwhen a fierce bull faced him, he got off his horse and, without fear of the horns
ready to gore him, wrestled the beast to the ground. Soon he had captured withgreat ease one hundred and fifty or sixty animals.42
41
42

TB 12, pp. 31–32.
NKBT 60, pp. 209–211.

38

MollardBoth excerpts share similarities: an island blessed with many wild cows andhorses, a detailed and vivid description of their capture. The difference is that in
Bakin’s work, it is not the islanders but rather Tametomo who distinguishes himself in an epic hunt. However, in reading the original closely, one realizes thatŌshima’s inhabitants (in the late 18th century) did in fact own domestic cows andhorses, and that only when their livestock became too few would they go out
hunting to capture animals in the wild. It is now very clear that Bakin, even while
integrating whole descriptions taken from the Kaitō fudoki, was trying nonethelessto present Ōshima as a primeval wilderness. Such a recasting of Ōshima allows
him to redefine Tametomo as a civilizing hero, one who brings culture (farming
and stockbreeding) to the islanders.
Bakin’s Tametomo is no more the ambivalent figure of the Hōgen monogatari,who, while undoubtedly portrayed as a paragon of courage and righteousness, is
yet at times also a brutal and cruel troublemaker, perceived by the inhabitants of
Kyushu or the Izu Islands more as a tyrant than as a liberator. Within the historical framework of the medieval chronicle, however, Bakin depicts an unambiguously positive hero, a conquering and civilizing adventurer. Moreover, by hismere presence and actions, he marks, as the next example will show, the eruptionof these remote islands, veiled before his arrival in the uncertain temporality ofmyth and popular legend, into the larger history of Japan as a whole.
10. Tametomo as a Means to Connect Myth and History
In addition to descriptions of the geography, flora, and fauna of the Izu
Islands, Bakin also borrows from his sources some insights on popular legends
and beliefs. Take for example the legend of Xu Fu 徐福 the alchemist, which
structures the entire episode devoted to Hachijō. The main outlines are mentioned in the Kaitō fudoki, with Bakin borrowing further details from Chinesesources, to which he then added various folkloristic motifs, such as the Cowherd
and the Weaver Girl, the Isle of Women and the Isle of Devils. The episode canbe summarized roughly as follows: having failed to discover the elixir of immortality, Xu Fu left the 500 girls and 500 boys of his expedition respectively on two
islands in the ocean off Kumano 熊野, namely the Isle of Women (Nyōgo no
shima 女護の島) and the Isle of Devils (Onigashima 鬼が嶋), since which time
the two groups have lived separately, for fear of angering the Sea God, meetingby custom only once a year. But Tametomo sees in all this nothing but a bunchof primitive superstitions. The Isle of Devils? Well, the name can be explainedby the fact that dark-skinned men are commonly referred to as “devils.” Thisepithet is also found in many popular terms, such as the reddish-orange “devil’slily” (oni yuri 鬼百合) or the red chili-based “devil’s miso paste” (oni miso 鬼味噌).
And the name Onigashima may well be a phonetic alteration of O-no-shima 男島,
the “Isle of Men.” According to the sailors, the women of the island are inseminatedby the spring breeze? “Absolute nonsense,” Tametomo retorts. And as for what heBakin’s Philological Research and Historical Narrative

39

sees as their “bad customs” (akushū 悪習)—which consist of keeping men andwomen from living together—he proposes to demonstrate their absurdity by
setting an example. He will marry Nyoko, the chief of the island, who will give
him two male twins, and the whole family will live together for an entire year
without being punished by any divine curse. This is how he finally convinces thewomen of the need to mix with the men. After having reunited the populationsof the two islands, Tametomo renames these territories in order to erase all
traces of the old superstitions that kept men and women separate. Thanks to thisonomastic tour de force, Hachijōjima (The Isle of Women) and Aogashima 青が嶋(The Isle of Devils) have received—so says the text—their current names:
Hachijōjima being an alteration of Hachirō (Tametomo’s common name), andAogashima stemming from Ashigashima.
Through the power of naming and rational discourse, Tametomo brings theuncivilized islands into the cultural sphere of Japan. He also functions as a bridge
between mythical time (the legend of Xu Fu, the Isle of Devils, etc.) and historicaltime (which begins with his arrival in the 12th century and flows continuously up to
Bakin’s own present day). In these popular legends and beliefs picked up fromregional geographies, Bakin not only finds the opportunity to develop new thrilling
subplots, but through philological research into their origins and various etymological considerations, he manages to skillfully navigate the risk of discrepancy
between the historical framework and descriptions of contemporary customs.
11. Congruency between the Discourse of Yumiharizuki and Philological
Essays
Before moving to conclusions, I would like to examine one last point and shedsome new light on the relationship between various scholarly discourses as developed within different parts of the novel (prefaces, authorial asides, the voicesof characters or the narrator) and Bakin’s own opinion as expressed in his philological essays.
Take for example Tametomo’s statement about the “devils” (oni). Here is thepassage quoted in full:
It is very doubtful that there could exist any island inhabited by devils (oni ).
That which does not completely disappear after death is called kami 神, and thatwhich has not been properly honored after death is called oni 鬼. These two elements do not have any material form. Ghosts and apparitions are commonly
called oni, but people nowadays mistakenly refer to violent and wild things as
oni. This is why a warrior could have boasted in front of his enemies that he wasa Demon God (onigami ), or that words like oni yuri or oni miso could have been
invented. At any rate, this remote island was not inhabited by real devils. Such aname was given rather because of the hardships involved in reaching the islandand the repulsive and mischievous looks of its inhabitants.43
43

NKBT 60, p. 246.

Mollard40

In fact, the whole passage should be considered in the broader context of thecontroversy over “devils and gods” or more properly “souls and spirits” (kishin-ron
鬼神論) that arose among Edo-period scholars. It refers to a metaphysics of thesoul which addresses the question of the existence or non-existence of supernatural phenomena. The supernatural is constitutive of Bakin’s yomihon and, as
Asakura Rumiko 朝倉瑠嶺子 has pointed out, the whole Yumiharizuki can beread in the light of these theories.44 More specifically, Bakin dedicated two sections of Enseki zasshi (chap. 11, vol. 2, and chap. 1, vol. 3) to the question. A lookat this text clearly shows how he has taken up his arguments almost word-forword to place them in the mouth of Tametomo:
Gui 鬼 [Jp. ki/oni] is the essence of the sun. That is why people always see it
as red. According to Wang Chong’s 王充 Lunheng 論衡 (Discourses Weighed in
the Balance), gui and shen 神 [Jp. shin/kami] are names for yin and yang. And according to a commentary on the Annals of the Yellow Emperor in the Shiji 史記(Records of the Grand Historian), “That which does not completely disappear
after death is called shen, and that which has not been properly honored after
death is called gui.” I think that shin 神 stands for shin 心 (spirit), and ki 鬼 for ki
気 (vital energy). The spirit and vital energy of men do not have material form,
neither do kami and oni. They cannot be seen by human eyes, and that is also
why kami and oni are so difficult to perceive. [ . . . ]In ancient times, goblins and thieves were called oni, which is an alteration [ofthe word’s original meaning]. People mistakenly take them for real devils. They
refer to anything repulsive and powerful as oni. Is this an ancient custom of ourcountry? Among plants’ names, there are the “devil’s lily” (oni yuri) and the“devil’s thistle” (oni azami 鬼薊), and some rice-wines, tobaccos, and chilis have“devil-killer” (oni-goroshi 鬼ごろし) in their names. Some horses are said to havea “devil and deer coat” (onikage 鬼鹿毛); swords are called “devil-slayer” (oni-giri鬼切) or simply “devil” (onimaru 鬼丸). In a war chronicle, there is a scene wherea man boasts about himself in front of his enemies after having killed a certain
warrior called the Demon God (onigami). From this, we can infer that that Ki no
Tomoo 紀朝雄 and Minamoto no Yoritomo 源頼朝 did not exterminate real
devils. The same goes for the swords—their names do not come from havingslain real devils; and likewise for the plants. These are just forced analogies (fukai附会) invented by people afterwards.45

The second part of Yumiharizuki was published in 1808, and Bakin wrote Enseki
zasshi at the urging of his publisher in 1809 (it was printed the following year).
In addition, Bakin acquired in 1808 a set of works by Arai Hakuseki 新井白石
(1657–1725) in 30 volumes, which he began to study in depth. There he discovered not only primary sources for his novel, such as Nantōshi 南島志 (Record of
Asakura Rumiko 朝倉瑠嶺子, Bakin Chinsetsu yumiharizuki no sekai: hangetsu no kage wo ou
馬琴椿説弓張月の世界：半月の陰を追う (Tokyo: Yagi Shoten, 2010).
45
Nihon zuihitsu taisei 日本随筆大成 (2nd series), vol. 10 (Tokyo: Nihon Zuihitsu Taisei Kankōkai,441929), pp. 339–349.

Bakin’s Philological Research and Historical Narrative

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the Southern Islands, 1719), but probably also Hakuseki’s Kishin-ron 鬼神論(posthumously published in 1800). It seems to me that the anecdotes about Onigashima, the etymological considerations it inspires in Bakin, and the inscriptionof all these elements into a general theory of the soul that may originate in
Hakuseki’s thought—that all of this goes to form an organic whole which pervades both his novels and his essays. Yet the discourse of the novelist is not exactly that of the scholar, for it is obvious from the quotations above that explicit
references (to Lunheng and to the Shiji) are not found in Tametomo’s speech. A
sharper distinction is needed here.
12. Scholarly Insertion and Philological Commentary Based on Evidence
The distinction appears more clearly in the episode entitled “Female islanders
entertain Tametomo lavishly” quoted above. Recall that it ends with a shortin-text commentary by the author (warichū 割注). This is no longer a matter ofsimply borrowing information from scholarly sources, but of providing rather
a bibliographical reflection that stands as “proof ” or “evidence”46 (shō to su beshi
証とすべし) of the connection between the Chinese name of a flower (tuotuohua)
and the Japanese name of the plant that produces it (sannen nasu). It is rare to findinstances of this type of evidence-based reasoning inserted into the body of thetext, as they tend rather to be developed at length in prefaces or in afterwords.
The difference in nature between these two ways of integrating sources into a text
can be better understood by considering the example of the angelica (ashitagusa).
As mentioned earlier, angelica is here the subject of a description borrowed
from Kaitō fudoki, whose interest lies primarily in its botanical and culinary dimension, and this was enough to satisfy the average reader. But the plant musthave had some special significance to Bakin, for he discussed it in his prefatory
note to Part 2, entitled “Observations” (bikō 備考), and then again later in hiscollection of philological essays, Gendō hōgen (1818–1820). Furthermore, his autograph copy of Hachijō hikki bears a marginal note on the subject (Figure 6).
All this can be summed up as follows. Drawing upon (1) an ancient Chinesesource, Lunheng (late 1st century), which relates the payment in tribute of “aromatic herbs” (changcao 鬯草) by the Japanese in remote antiquity; (2) the great
Chinese pharmacopeia, Bencao gangmu (1596), which mentions the existence of a“pungent herb” (xiancao 鹹草) consumed on the Isle of Women located east ofJapan; (3) some local legends reported in the Hachijō hikki that identify Hachijōwith the Isle of Women; and (4) other Edo-period essays from Izawa Banryū
井沢蟠竜 (1668–1730) and Yuasa Jōzan 湯浅常山 (1708–1781) that recognize in
the Chinese herb the Japanese ashitagusa, Bakin concludes that “changcao, also
called xiancao, is known by the Japanese name of ashitagusa,” and that “it grows
The translation “evidential scholarship” sometimes used to render the term kōshōgaku 考証学(lit. “the study of examining evidence”) makes here a good deal of sense.
46

Mollard

42

Figure 6. The ashitagusa plant (angelica) in Bakin’s autograph copy ofHachijō hikki, with marginal notes (top). (Waseda University Library).
https://www.wul.waseda.ac.jp/kotenseki/html/i04/i04_00600_0148(image no. 9)

only in Hachijōjima,” this being another name for the “Isle of Women” mentioned
in the Bencao gangmu.47
The issue here is not to judge whether Bakin’s conclusion is itself correct or evenplausible (in fact it is not convincing), but rather to understand the way he approached his materials. Philological research and etymological reconstruction
enable him to formulate hypotheses, and to make new connections between disparate anecdotes that will eventually underlie the narrative structure of his story.
Tametomo arrives on an island populated by women only, who eat angelica,
and that island is none other than Hachijō, where the same plant is endemic.
Nonetheless—and this is my point—the narrative itself is not a legitimate place
for the author to display his philological know-how.
If I might venture here a hypothesis on the circulation of Bakin’s philologicalthought between these different types of texts, I would argue as follows: In his
preliminary research for his fiction, Bakin is confronted with all kinds ofsources. In a couple of gazetteers on the Izu Islands, for example, he finds not
only descriptions of nature and customs, but also descriptions of anecdotes
and popular beliefs from which he will derive new narrative possibilities. The
appropriation of the source is sometimes accomplished by copying out the47

NKBT 60, pp. 227–228.

Bakin’s Philological Research and Historical Narrative

43

original text or by taking marginal notes. These hastily-jotted-down ideas can inturn be taken a step further, through scholarly investigations, and gathered into
short entries that will ultimately integrate a collection of philological essays.
At the same time, these investigations find their way into the novel by taking
various forms: introductory remarks, which in themselves are short essays inevery respect; metadiegetic intratextual comments; or arguments put into themouths of the narrator or the characters. The main difference seems to lie in
the fact of providing—or not providing—textual evidence, which consists
chiefly of explicitly quoted sources.
Concluding Remarks
Bakin’s “philological mania,” as it appears in his novels, has often been negatively perceived by his readers. Gotō Tanji considers the “annoying philologicaland non-literary mentions” to be one of the major flaws of Yumiharizuki.48 He isparticularly harsh on the commentary found in prefaces and afterwords, which
in his view lacks literary refinement. Even if he concedes that the descriptionsof the Izu or Ryukyu Islands based on documentary sources substantially contribute to a realistic effect, he deplores the numerous scholarly digressions thatbreak the rhythm of the plot. I have tried in this paper to consider scholarly digressions and insertions not as something that spoils the pleasure of reading, butrather as an integral part of Bakin’s art of the novel; not as marginal considerations that he keeps at a distance in extratextual comments for the knowledgeable reader, or which he collects separately in his philological essays (and whichsometimes, unwillingly, reappear in the middle of the story), but rather as fundamental elements of the narrative, much in the same way as monsters and supernatural phenomena, which partake of a certain deliberate baroque aesthetic. In
this regard, I have rather followed in the footsteps of Ōtaka Yōji or Miyake
Hiroyuki, who have repeatedly argued that Bakin’s yomihon would benefit frombeing read in parallel with his scholarly essays.
Three main ideas should be retained from delving into Bakin’s art of writing
historical narratives based on philological research. First, it seems to me one getsa glimpse therein of the concrete way in which a premodern novelist actually
worked, getting closer to the nature of their “evidential learning,” which included reading books, copying them when acquisition was not possible, making
annotations in their margins, gathering reading notes into essays for publication,and eventually reusing these materials in one’s own novels. Secondly, despite theoft-repeated criticism of chronological inconsistencies, which comes from amodern view of historical novels, Bakin does seem to maintain an overall coherence of his own. To be certain, he makes no attempt to make his characters look likeactual people of the 12th century, either in their dress, their speech, their customs,
48

NKBT 60, Kaisetsu, p. 28.

44

Mollardor even in their way of thinking. But to make all the pieces hold together, he constantly relies on etymologies, no matter how hazardous they may sometimes be.
Through etymology, and more broadly through philological thinking, he reconstructs the origin of things and phenomena, and gives sense and coherence tothe articulation of different chronological strata. His reconstructions may not be
exact from a modern historical point of view, but they do remain true to a philological mode of thinking. Finally, the textual references used in Bakin’s historical novels are incredibly numerous and diverse: Chinese as well as Japanese,some belonged to an uncertain temporality, ancient or even mythological, others
were from more reliable historical writings; sometimes they included popularlegends or customs whose origins Edo scholars were eager to trace back, sometimes they gave detailed accounts of remote places unknown to an Edo-period
readership. From all these different sources, Bakin was able to cull various anecdotes that he used to develop subplots within the historical framework determined by his chosen subject matter. But he also lifts whole passages from contemporary gazetteers or encyclopedias in order to flesh out his depictions of
distant lands not covered by primary sources. Two different ways, in otherwords, of “filling in the blanks” of history.49

49
I would like to express here my gratitude to Didier Davin for giving me the opportunity toparticipate in the collaborative research project that ultimately led to this publication. I am also
deeply indebted to Jeffrey Knott for his editing of my English, as well as to the reviewers fortheir insightful comments.

Studies in Japanese Literature and Culture 4 (March 2021) 45–77© 2021 National Institute of Japanese Literature

Variations on yatsushi
in the ukiyo-zōshi genre:
Expansion of the Classical World andTransworld Identification1
Takahashi AkihikoTranslated by Jeffrey Knott

Introduction
The word yatsushi is a nominalization of the ren’yōkei 連用形 of the transitive
verb yatsusu (a separate nominalization yatsure exists for the intransitive counterpart in yatsuru). As the dictionaries indicate, the word’s original meaning is “being
reduced to a ragged state.” And in early modern-period novels (ukiyo-zōshi 浮世草子)
and theatrical works (jōruri 浄瑠璃, kabuki 歌舞伎), where we find many portrayals of the stylishly paper-suited hero, penniless from his overspending, perhaps
on some courtesan (tayū 太夫), the performance of such a role was indeed
termed yatsushi-gei やつし芸 (“the art of the yatsushi figure”). Beyond this, yatsushi
has been seen as connected to the exiled prince narrative passed down throughthe course of Japanese cultural history (Takahashi Noriko 高橋則子),2 or even as
the expression of a world-wide, and perhaps universal, human longing for metamorphosis (Shinohara Susumu 篠原進).3 Protagonists might lose their wealththrough excess frequentation of the pleasure quarters, come down in the world,present a wretched appearance, and wallow in the most abject behavior, yet precisely this pathetic end was the state that literature desired. The stylish hero wasalways destined to turn out that way.
Credit for the first notable yatsushi work among ukiyo-zōshi must go to Nishizawa
This paper is based on my Japanese article, “Ukiyo-zōshi ni okeru ‘yatsushi’ no hensō: koten
sekai no kakujū to sekai kōsa dōtei” 浮世草子における《やつし》の変奏：古典世界の拡充と世界
交差同定, Kanazawa bijutsu kōgei daigaku kiyō 金沢美術工芸大学紀要 62 (2018), pp. 178–165.
2
See Takahashi Noriko 高橋則子, “Mitate to yatsushi ‘shiron’”「見立」と「やつし」〈試論〉, in
Zusetsu mitate to yatsushi: Nihon bunka no hyōgen gihō 図説「見立」と「やつし」：日本文化の表現技法,
ed. Kokubungaku Kenkyū Shiryōkan 国文学研究資料館 (Tokyo: Yagi Shoten, 2008).
3
See Shinohara Susumu 篠原進, “Yatsushi-kō: Miyako no Nishiki no satetsu” 〈やつし〉攷：都の錦の蹉跌, Ryokkō shirin 緑岡詞林 1 (1974).
1

45

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Takahashi

Ippū 西沢一風 (1655–1731), whose Gozen Gikeiki 御前義経記 (8 books (kan 巻) in
8 vols. (satsu 冊), pub. Genroku 元禄 13 (1700)) presents a Minamoto no Yoshitsune
源義経 (here named 元九郎今義 Genkurō Imayoshi) who frequents the pleasurequarters. Yet how is such a setting connected to the yatsushi topos? In my view, theyatsushi of a contemporary stylish spendthrift down on his luck, wretchedly attired
and abject in his behavior, is far from the same thing as the yatsushi of a figure outof the classical world who, when placed into a contemporary social setting, proceeds to engage there in similar lowly behavior. It seems to me, in other words, that
under the single term yatsushi, two things originally quite distinct have tended to
become unified and confused, based on some sense that to make something contemporary is essentially equivalent to making it more vulgar. The reality, however,is that yatsushi encompasses a range of variations on a theme: from contemporary
protagonists’ ruination up to the classicization of such contemporary protagonists(or indeed the vulgarization of classical protagonists), extending even to the yatsushiof the story’s setting itself.
Yet it remains the case that yatsushi has, in fact, largely been seen as a single particular expressive technique. Much in the way that the phenomenon of mojiri
もじり (vocabulary-level parody) in kana-zōshi 仮名草子 and afterwards has been
seen as a single expressive technique, so too has all of yatsushi been considered asone, though indeed as a comparably more advanced kind of expressive technique.
For an illustrative example, in the recent collection of pioneering research Zusetsu
mitate to yatsushi: Nihon bunka no hyōgen gihō 図説「見立」と「やつし」：日本文化の表現技法, published by the National Institute of Japanese Literature (Kokubungaku
Kenkyū Shiryōkan 国文学研究資料館), the subtitle takes yatsushi, along with mitate,
to be “expressive techniques of Japanese culture.” Regarding the ukiyo-zōshi
genre, moreover, while the same collection does make some brief mention of
Ihara Saikaku’s 井原西鶴 (1642–1693) Kōshoku ichidai otoko 好色一代男 (8 books
in 8 vols., published in Tenna 天和 2 (1682)), neither Ejima Kiseki 江島其磧(1666–1735) nor Tada Nanrei 多田南嶺 (1698–1750) are addressed as subjectsof research, to say nothing of Ippū himself. In the field of ukiyo-zōshi studies, ofcourse, the problem of yatsushi is not one that can be avoided, but here, too, theway yatsushi is defined thus in advance as an “expressive technique” must invite
serious doubt. Technique and methods are things that, to some extent, have set
rules and procedures. It may well be the case that by the later Edo period, yatsushi
had indeed, along with mitate, already become something popularized, generalized. But this was surely not true of the earlier Edo period. If one views yatsushi
in such a delimited fashion, it becomes merely one among a number of easy, dependable methods for mass producing the commercial product that is the commercial novel, a thing no longer able to offer any possibility of uncovering
therein some hidden intent, of finding therein something of the dynamism
proper to literature. Earlier Edo was the period rather when yatsushi was itself discovered and created.
And after all, though from the very beginning of ukiyo-zōshi studies yatsushi has

Variations on yatsushi in the ukiyo-zōshi genre

47

always been a topic of research interest, in my view at least, it has certainly neverbeen considered the sort of method whose nature is self-evident.
Taking them as three works representative of yatsushi in the ukiyo-zōshi genre,
this article will examine and compare Nishizawa Ippū’s Gozen Gikeiki, Ejima
Kiseki’s Tsūzoku showake toko gundan 通俗諸分床軍談 (5 books in 5 vols., published in Shōtoku 正徳 3 (1713)), and Tada Nanrei’s Keisei Taiheiki 契情太平記 (5books in 5 vols., published in Kyōhō 寛保 4 (1744)). Through these three works,
it will be shown how in the early Edo period the yatsushi idea in particular took
shape and gradually developed variations, though the same development mightalso be seen as representing the evolution of the novel itself.
1. Hasegawa Tsuyoshi’s Understanding of yatsushi and ukiyo-zōshi
As with any other aspect of ukiyo-zōshi studies, so too in the case of yatsushi, it
is impossible to leave out of the discussion the work of Hasegawa Tsuyoshi
長谷川強. In his article “Ukiyo-zōshi to yatsushi” 浮世草子とやつし, Hasegawa
begins by stating, on the topic of Saikaku’s modelling Kōshoku ichidai otoko after
the Tale of Genji, that: “For bringing the air of the classics, their narrative world
into the realm of haikai 俳諧, there existed the method, or sensibility, known as
yatsushi.” (I want to underline the care Hasegawa takes here to qualify yatsushi ashōhō naishi ishiki 方法乃至意識. It is clear that he sees yatsushi as being not merely
a method (hōhō), but also a sensibility (ishiki), a way of perceiving). He continues:
Yet on Saikaku’s part, the glory of the sheer technical accomplishment was
not his chief reason for producing a yatsushi version of the Genji, and in fact helimits himself to expectant hints that invite the reader’s own astuteness. Indeed,
if Saikaku harbored any contemporary interest, above and beyond yatsushi it was
directed rather towards the skewering of his contemporaries. Ever since kana-zōshi
there had existed word-play-level mojiri of the classics, but likely it took thefoundation of a content-level contemporization and vulgarization of the classics—a transformation from mojiri into the mode of yatsushi—for kana-zōshi asa genre to effect its own transformation into ukiyo-zōshi. Certainly, even earlier
there had been adaptations of the classics by Asai Ryōi 浅井了意 [d. 1691], butworks like his Otogi bōko 伽婢子 remain in part unable yet to shake off a consciousness of the traditionally literary, of the waka-like. It was an era, after all,when traditional literature continued to be the only model available to writers fortheir literary endeavors—or at least, the only model they had for producing
works the era might recognize as possessing any merit. The purpose for
Saikaku, so it seems to me, of producing a yatsushi of the Tale of Genji, lay inhelping his work to achieve its own form as literature—in using the Genji as thefinest of tools through which he might create a new kind of literature.4

In the excerpted article, Hasegawa first takes time to demonstrate how Saikaku
used not only the Tale of Genji and the Tales of Ise but also collections of ChinaHasegawa Tsuyoshi 長谷川強, “Ukiyo-zōshi to yatsushi” 浮世草子とやつし, as contained in thesame author’s Ukiyo-zōshi shinkō 浮世草子新考 (Tokyo: Kyūko Shoin, 1991; originally 1971), p. 89.
4

Takahashi

48

themed tales (in the given example the Shin Goen 新語園) for his works of adaptation,in order to create various unique and uncanny stories. He then argues, as seen
above, that the goal of such adaptations (of yatsushi, essentially) was not theostentatious display of any technical prowess, but was motivated rather by
Saikaku’s desire to describe his own “floating world” (ukiyo 浮世)—to write ukiyozōshi. The original sources, moreover, that lay behind these adaptations were notindicated openly, but depended on the reader’s own astuteness to be noticed. In
contrast to this, his appraisal of the sort of yatsushi that “reflected the shadow[i.e. of the original classic]” (omokage wo utsusu 面影をうつす)—the mode that takes
off with Nishizawa Ippū’s Gozen Gikeiki—is a severe one, as can be seen below:
As a whole the ukiyo-zōshi genre, regrettably deceived by Saikaku’s example, imitated above all his use of the remarkable and the uncanny—in Saikaku’s own
works but one aspect among others—thereby losing the energy needed to clear
paths for novel developments within the world of actual reality; and when at
length it faced the danger of its own dissolution, the genre, being aware that
Saikaku too had in some sense made yatsushi versions of the classics, turned once
again to a borrowing of the classics, as a method to ensure some degree of integrity for individual texts as unified works of literature. In contrast to Saikaku,
however, instead of a yatsushi of the original shadow that would await the reader’sown astuteness, their attitude became one rather of deliberately pushing yatsushi
out to the surface. Their goal being above all to depict the sentiments and customs of the contemporary, such yatsushi was merely a sort of frame used to give
their works the proper shape. In other words, leaving behind its original supplementary role, yatsushi came to be in fact a work’s governing feature. On the one
hand, this was done in order to gain a greater number of readers for the genre,by lowering its level to meet the decline that accompanied expansion of the reading population, by aligning itself with the style of the theatre world mentioned
above; yet for ukiyo-zōshi this came at the price of abandoning any stance of facing
the reality of the world head-on. In the straitjacket of yatsushi, the psychology andactions of characters became unnatural, or even unrealistic. Nonetheless, to theextent that they followed yatsushi, however merely conceptual in nature it became,it remained despite all this still in connection with the “floating world.” And
more than that, through its connection with the world of the theatre, it remained
capable still of capturing the interest of readers in their modern-day focus.
Falsified as it might be, the “floating world” was yet retained. By pushing yatsushi
out to the surface, the genre had gained a framework for producing works which,while reliably connected to that “floating world,” were conveniently also ensured
the bare minimum of integrity they would need as works of literature.5

In contrast to Saikaku, for whom yatsushi had been a way to depict contemporary sentiments and customs—in other words, the “floating world”—for Ippū,
yatsushi itself had become the guiding principle. This led to the psychology andactions of the depicted characters becoming wholly forced, while leaving theworld of their setting something threadbare, unnatural, and unrealistic. For all
5

Ibid., p. 95.

Variations on yatsushi in the ukiyo-zōshi genre

49

that, this falsified version of the “floating world” was nonetheless received byreaders with welcome—such is Hasegawa’s argument about the essence of theukiyo-zōshi genre. As can be seen, in its development the argument of Hasegawa
is quite complex, also abstract, and indeed attractive. Yet the view the argument
presents is one that mostly failed to win the support of other researchers after
Hasegawa. Moreover, in the reception of Hasegawa’s ukiyo-zōshi research as awhole, its textualist, empiricist character has been emphasized almost exclusively,
despite the fact that Hasegawa himself, even in the midst of determining various
textual sources, sought always—as above—to discover the ukiyo-zōshi’s essence,and only with this goal in mind delved into problems of determining sources
and materials. Or in other words, today’s research, too, has seen the supplementary usurp the governing place, and finds itself given wholly to empiricist, indeed
even to literalist investigation of antecedent literary sources.
But let us set aside the topic of research itself. When Hasegawa speaks here of
the supplementary taking the governing role, or of the price paid in “abandoning any stance of facing the reality of the world head-on,” so that “[i]n the straitjacket of yatsushi, the psychology and actions of characters became unnatural, oreven unrealistic”—even beyond yatsushi, does this not have the ring of a familiar
argument? This is, of course, the example of katagi. What katagi came to designate
is an amalgamated concept. It combined the Japanese word katagi 型木—literally“a shaped block of wood,” but figuratively the stereotyped stock personality
expected of various classes and professions—with the Sinitic word 気質 (readkishitsu, but commonly used to write katagi), referring to, in Zhu Xi’s 朱熹 philosophy, the unique individual’s typical character—as contrasted with the reasoning faculty essential and common to all humanity. Featuring centrally in a bodyof ukiyo-zōshi works also thereby known as katagi-mono 気質物, the concept became an important literary motif. In the history of the ukiyo-zōshi genre, whilekatagi derived from discovery of characters’ inner aspects and personality, as well
as from description of their outer aspects and appearance, its expression lacked
realism, and through exaggeration, became a method for creating figures of
comedy extreme in their eccentricity. As a result, ukiyo-zōshi has been criticized
for becoming a form incapable of depicting reality as it is.
And those who have sought a reappraisal of katagi-mono pieces—including
myself—have tended to focus not on the issue of realistic depiction of reality,
but rather on the category’s formalist character (e.g., my own work arguing thatkatagi-mono should be seen as stories about idiocy,6 or Saeki Takahiro’s 佐伯孝弘
work arguing for their comedic nature7).
See Takahashi Akihiko 高橋明彦, “Gunin-tan wo meguru shōsetsu no keifu: katagi-mono noyōshiki to hōhō” 愚人譚をめぐる小説の系譜：気質物の様式と方法, Nihon bungaku 日本文学 8(1989), pp. 10–21.
7
See Saeki Takahiro 佐伯孝弘, “Kiseki katagi-mono to hanashi-bon” 其磧気質物と噺本, inEjima Kiseki to katagi-mono 江島其磧と気質物 (Tokyo: Wakakusa Shobō, 2004; originally 1996).
6

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Takahashi

Here, however, katagi is not our concern. Let us return to discussion of yatsushi.
After the above excerpt, Hasegawa continues with discussion of Kiseki’s Tsūzoku
showake toko gundan, about which work he has the following to say:Compared to the works of Ippū, the first thing to note is how [in Kiseki] theyatsushi is more refined and thorough-going. While in its reliance on the sourced
original, a yatsushi can on the one hand be accomplished with a certain degreeof ease, on the other, if only to cover its own forced unnaturalness, it also requires some refinement of technique. Indeed, because as mentioned above, thecontemporary as encountered in yatsushi made do with a conventionalized“floating world,” its execution ended up relying more on technique than on anything else.8

Elsewhere, Hasegawa also says of it: “In the tradition of yatsushi-style works
that starts with Ippū, this work can be called the most technically proficient.”9 In
particular, comparing it to earlier works whose yatsushi characters had been men of
the softer, more sensual type closely resembling their sources—such as Uki
Yonosuke 浮世之介 for Hikaru Genji 光源氏, or Genkurō Imayoshi for Minamoto
no Yoshitsune—he notes that Kiseki’s work stands out for the remarkable gap
with its sources, for example in its yatsushi transformation of the slaughter between the armies of Han 漢 and Chu 楚 on the battlefields of Ancient China
into, of all things, a dispute between characters on the topic of how best to
proposition prostitutes. As he notes: “The sheer scale of the gap, when the yatsushi
succeeds, contributes to the scale of its effectiveness. And on this point the work
is one that delivers success.”10 Thus, if indeed with the qualification that hespeaks here to the work’s technical execution, Hasegawa bestows upon Tsūzoku
showake toko gundan the highest degree of praise. On the same work his study
Ukiyo-zōshi no kenkyū 浮世草子の研究 is also very instructive, covering not only
the contents of its yatsushi in concrete detail, but also going into questions ofplagiarism from works by Saikaku, providing overall a great wealth of information.11
By contrast, in the case of Tada Nanrei’s Keisei Taiheiki, Hasegawa surprisingly
gives the work, without much ado, a thoroughly low appraisal. In the same study
he limits himself to the remarks: “The work is a yatsushi recasting of the Taiheiki
太平記 into a battle for supremacy over the Shinmachi 新町 pleasure quarters
between Fujiya Izaemon 藤屋伊左衛門 and Yorozuya Sukeroku 万屋助六, each ofwhom controls the half. A poor specimen with no evidence of Nanrei’s personal
touch. The year was a low one for him.”12 As argued below, in my view Nanrei’s
Keisei Taiheiki is the only yatsushi work in Nanrei’s œuvre, and forms together with
Ibid., p. 97.
Ibid.
10
Ibid.
11
See Hasegawa Tsuyoshi 長谷川強, Ukiyo-zōshi no kenkyū: Hachimonjiya-bon wo chūshin to suru
浮世草子の研究：八文字屋本を中心とする (Tokyo: Ōfūsha, 1969), from p. 334.
12
Ibid., p. 508.
8
9

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51

Tsūzoku showake toko gundan a pair of twin towering masterpieces of the yatsushi
genre. Before that, however, a short detour.
2. Expansion of the Classical World
If yatsushi is defined as nothing but a mere method, there is no hope for further
advances to be made in the reading of ukiyo-zōshi. And if, indeed, the genre ofukiyo-zōshi is nothing but a species of commercial novel to be merely massproduced and consumed, then yatsushi should, in fact, be seen as nothing morethan mere method, serviceable and easy-to-use. I myself, however, think that theukiyo-zōshi was something more than that. In the reading that I want to propose,it was the sense of a world—the “floating world” or ukiyo—and represented ina certain way the author’s deliberate act of participation in this world (the ukiyo).
This is my own view of the ukiyo-zōshi’s essence as a genre. It is moreover a viewthat prompts a question: why, in such a case, is it that in ukiyo-zōshi—literally “storiesof the (contemporary) floating world”—the chosen subject is so often jidai-mono
時代物, or stories set in the past? Any answer that sees in this the influence of thejidai-mono of jōruri or kabuki is to be rejected. It has the causal relationship backwards, being equivalent to a restatement of the question that yet remains: why
would ukiyo-zōshi be influenced by the jidai-mono of jōruri or kabuki? After all,given that originally the goal of ukiyo-zōshi was to depict the “floating world” (thepleasure quarters and the like) of the present, a repertoire limited to love-stories
and tales of townspeople should have been more appropriate. Maybe it was thecase that, compared to early yomihon 読本, ukiyo-zōshi works of the jidai-monogroup were—to cite the formulation of Tsuga Teishō 都賀庭鐘 (b. 1718) in his
preface to Hanabusa-zōshi 英草紙—merely “tales of kabuki theatre” (kabuki nosōshi 歌舞伎の草紙) and of very little value, depicting only the ukiyo (that is, contemporary society) and having in fact nothing to say about the past or about history.13 And perhaps that is indeed the case. Yet I persist in thinking that amongukiyo-zōshi works the jidai-mono, too, represent a form of participation, in the pastand in history, and in point of fact such an understanding is not unexampled inprevious research on ukiyo-zōshi.
About Nishizawa Ippū’s work Gozen Gikeiki, for example, already from
Yamaguchi Takeshi 山口剛 one finds statements like the following:
The special characteristic of the Gozen Gikeiki, is that it incorporated in an
unsystematic fashion all the various old and new trends swirling about contemporary works in the genre of love-stories. It is not a work in which a strict senseof integrated unity is necessarily a chief concern. One might even say that it put
to paper, as-is, the most short-term changes on the stage of Genroku-era kyōgen
theatre.
Hanabusa-zōshi 英草紙, in Nihon koten bungaku zenshū 日本古典文学全集 48, ed. Nakamura
Yukihiko 中村幸彦 (Tokyo: Shōgakukan, 1973), p. 74.
13

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Takahashi
In the case of Ichidai otoko, that work reflects the shadow of the Tale of Genji,
while also adding in the shadows of the Tales of Ise and the Noh theatre. Nonetheless it adopts an attitude of, in a sense, keeping these shadows on the edgeof perception, that the reader who knows the original text may recognize them,while the reader who does not may yet remain at the level of the surface text.
And if there be occasional direct reference to those original texts, with a nonchalant air, these are tossed off and let drop without much ado. With the Gozen
Gikeiki, however, not only does it start by directly advertising the Gikeiki 義経記
as its source-text, it takes pains to specify of each and every such passage that it“reflects the shadow of so-and-such.” For example, regarding Imayoshi’s childhood guardian preceptor, in the table of contents itself he is noted as being“the reflected shadow of the monk Tōkōbō 東光坊.” Nor is this limited to theGikeiki: drawing additionally on Yoshitsune-themed Noh pieces, one also finds
remarks such as “the reflected shadow of Benkei at the Bridge (Hashi Benkei 橋弁慶)”
or “the reflected shadow of Benkei in the Boat (Funa Benkei 舟弁慶).” Such an approach, of course, leaves no possibility for the sort of subtlety of relationshipwith the original text that we see in a work like Ichidai otoko. On the contrary,
there is a constant forcing of the story [to fit the original].
Even the adventures of Imayoshi and Isenojō 伊勢之丞 on their amorous sojourns are not necessarily of such a nature as to allow the reader some insight
into the characteristics of various provinces’ pleasure quarters. At the most it
amounts to a degree of variety added to scenes of sensual intercourse.14

There is a sense in which this analysis by Yamaguchi already anticipates the argument of Hasegawa as seen above. In addition, in Fujii Otoo’s 藤井乙男 work
Ukiyo-zōshi meisakushū 浮世草子名作集 (1937), too, we already find this being argued
in detail, but first let us reference his accessible synopsis, which runs as follows:
The protagonist Genkurō Imayoshi, resembling that of Ukiyo Ichidai otoko

浮世一代男, is born the heir of Tachibanaya Mitsuuji Gonnosuke Yoshikata 橘屋
三津氏権之助義方, his mother being one Tokiwa 常盤, in the past a courtesan at
the Ichimonjiya 一文字屋 brothel within the Shimabara 島原 pleasure quarters.

However, in the autumn of his third year, a dispute arises between his father
Yoshikata and one Namura Hachirōji 名村八郎次 over a gold mine in Tamba 丹波
Province, which his father loses, killing himself in grief. His mother Tokiwa,
meanwhile, shunning the unwanted affections of the same Namura Hachirōji,
flees with Imayoshi’s sister to hide near a place called Sumizome 墨染 in the village of Fushimi 伏見, entrusting Imayoshi himself to a wet-nurse. In the summer of Imayoshi’s fifth year, this wet-nurse in turn contracts a fever and dies.
Now an orphan, Imayoshi, relying on the pity of people in the country, takes up
residence at Aomezaka 青目坂 in the foothills of Mt. Kurama 鞍馬, making aliving there by cutting firewood and selling people flowers. Then at length hearrives at the spring of his fourteenth year. This is the point at which the actionof the story begins.
It goes without saying that Genkurō Imayoshi—Kurōjirō 九郎次郎 aftercoming of age—is a mojiri of the name Gen Kurō Yoshitsune 源九郎義経, with

14

Yamaguchi Takeshi 山口剛, Kinsei shōsetsu 近世小説 (Tokyo: Sōgensha, 1931), vol. 1, p. 142.

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53

the naming “Imayoshi” signifying a reflection that transfers Yoshitsune’s shadow
into the present day (ima 今). The question of why Yoshitsune and the various legends surrounding him were put into yatsushi in precisely this fashion is one I willconsider later separately. Yet in the manner of the rewriting, making Sama no
Kami Minamoto no Yoshitomo 左馬頭源義朝 into Tachibanaya Mitsuuji
Gonnosuke Yoshikata, making Tokiwa Gozen 常磐御前 into the courtesan
Tokiwa of the Shimabara, making Hei Shōkoku Nyūdō Kiyomori 平相国入道清盛
into Namura Hachirōji Nyūdō Hōzen 入道法善, and making the root of thetragedy, the Heiji Disturbance (Heiji no ran 平治の乱), into instead a public dispute over a gold mine in Tanba—in all of these, the tale’s readers no doubt immediately perceived the clear popularizing trend characteristic of the arts in theearly modern period.15

Moreover, regarding yatsushi, which is to say the vulgarization of the classical,
Fujii has the following to say:In the same way that the characters of Chikamatsu’s 近松 jidai-mono all belong
in language and custom to the Genroku period, in the field of novels, too, a vulgarization of the classics was being carried out. The chief motivation for thiswas no doubt a popularization and simplification for the sake of the masses, but
it also strikes one as the expression of an age full of life, much like the Genroku
era itself, when no one could be bothered to pay heed to the finer points of historical accuracy. With works like Nishizawa Ippū’s Gozen Gikeiki and Kankatsu
Soga monogatari 寛濶曽我物語 regrettably setting the standard, there then came
Fūryū jindai no maki 風流神代巻 and Fūryū Genji monogatari 風流源氏物語 by Miyako
no Nishiki 都の錦, and in the wake of these two, many others followed.16

In other words, pointing out first the lack in yatsushi works of anything like attention to historical accuracy, Fujii sees such an approach to writing as the expressionof a lively contemporary spirit that had little time for technicalities. This was the
pursuit of a basically haphazard sensibility, one focused only on the changes of theshort term, and one which, indeed, he views as a “bad precedent.” Yet his is not
the sort of argument to limit itself to appraisal at such a low level. Regarding theessence of the ukiyo-zōshi genre, Fujii offers characterizations such as the liberationof human nature, the destruction of tradition, the privileging of the present, andin moreover assigning the significance of yatsushi ’s own role to its expansion of
the classical world—classicism, romanticism—he is unsparing in his praise forthe potential of Gozen Gikeiki in this direction, as can be seen in the following:
Nonetheless, one is not to understand the success of this work as somethingstemming purely from Ippū’s own short-term-focused haphazard sensibility
alone. If that is all that it were, the work would never have been able to securesuch a massive response, nor been able to found on its own something like alineage within the ukiyo-zōshi genre that might be termed fūryū-zōshi 風流草子. At
the very least it must be granted that, to say nothing of contemporary novel-circles,
15
16

Fujii Otoo 藤井乙男, Ukiyo-zōshi meisakushū 浮世草子名作集 (Tokyo: Kōdansha, 1937), p. 23.
Ibid., p. 15.

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54

there existed more broadly also in society at large a certain something that lent it
support, and greeted it with welcome. This certain something, in turn, was noneother than the classicism and romanticism that, in this age, had permeateddeeply into society at all levels. Most likely what constituted the keynote for ourcountry’s period of early modern artistic revival was the empirical, quantitative
spirit of the townspeople. Yet the primary manifestation of this showed itself
in the free liberation of human nature, in the destruction of tradition, and in
the privileging of the present. Vivid reflection of this can be seen, for example,
in the Danrin 談林 School of haikai 俳諧, in the novels of Saikaku, and in theukiyo-e paintings of Moronobu 師宣—here for the first time was there an establishment of realism in the arts. The secondary manifestation of this showed
itself, in turn, in classicism and romanticism. That said, what these signified wasby no means a mere rebirth and resurrection of the classics. Rather it was a wayof conduct that—all while rooting itself in what was, after all, ultimately a quantitative and intensely empirical spirit of practicality—sought the expansion of
its own world into the world of the classics. The way in which Bashō’s 芭蕉
haikai poetry made an ideal of sabi, shiori, and hosomi, appearing on the surface
almost to constitute a step backwards from the Danrin haikai to something
more medieval, derives precisely from this foundation.
. . . As for yatsushi of the classical, such examples can be found already withkana-zōshi works of the gi-monogatari 擬物語 type, and in works by Saikaku suchas Ichidai otoko. In the case of the gi-monogatari kana-zōshi, however, a work tried
to maintain the interest of the reader though mojiri of the classical text, and beyond that, in fact concealed an intent to teach, to be practically useful. Also, too,with Saikaku’s Ichidai otoko, the core of the work’s interest was not necessarilylaid on its yatsushi of the Tale of Genji. Finally with this Gozen Gikeiki, for the firsttime, a work had succeeded at an expansion of townspeople’s own world within
the yatsushi of the classical. Even if, moreover, Ippū’s borrowing and use of thisas a method from jōruri and kabuki had arisen purely from coincidence alone,
one must admit that he proved able to grasp nimbly the trends of classicism andromanticism that at least in one corner of novel-circles were already at work.17

Fujii, remarking that his work “had succeeded at an expansion of townspeople’s own world within the yatsushi of the classical,” and again that he “proved
able to grasp nimbly the trends of classicism and romanticism,” awards here to
the yatsushi of Ippū his highest praise. Notwithstanding, it would be difficult toclaim that Fujii managed to say much concretely about the work’s actual content.
Does his failure to speak concretely therefore imply, however, that his praise itself is merely superficial? And more fundamentally, are the Genroku-era (1688–1704) “classicism and romanticism” he mentions here nothing but examples of
his outmoded modernist anthropology? No. To me, in fact, Fujii Otoo’s argumentation here seems worthy rather of being commended as an insight simply
brimming with potential. As for the portion of his argument making mention ofBashō, I lack myself the capacity to judge it on the merits. Yet when set alongside
Inui Hiroyuki 乾裕幸, as quoted below—from his Kotoba no uchi naru Bashō: aruiwa
17

Ibid., pp. 20–30.

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55

Bashō no gengo to haikaisei ことばの内なる芭蕉：あるいは芭蕉の言語と俳諧性—
on the issue of Bashō’s own way of approaching the classical world, comparedto Fujii’s theories those of Inui seem, if only in the consciously concrete detailthe latter scholar employs, much closer to some kind of method. And method,as I mentioned already above, is a state where rules and procedures are to someextent already defined. Such a situation, to be concrete about the given case, would
imply that, first of all, the nature of the classical world being aimed at was in factsomething already grasped, and with the proper manner of handling it being thus
well-understood, all that remained was to simply carry this out. In contrast tothis, however inadroitly, Bashō as Fujii envisions him comes across as one trying
to enter into the classical world without knowing beforehand the way back out.
Against this, Bashō in Inui’s view is as one who, faced with the classical world,
knows himself what to do precisely.
But first let us look at Inui’s theory in his own words. Here he considers oneof Bashō’s famous hokku 発句, contained in his Sarashina kikō 更科紀行 (1 vol.,written in Genroku 1 (1688)):
身にしみて大根からし秋の風

mi ni shimite daikon karashi aki no kaze
It stings a body deep, the radish’s own sharp bite, the winds in autumn.18

What follows is a passage where, choosing Bashō’s everyday kotoba (words, language) as used in this verse for his example, Inui discusses the nature of the effectthey work against the classical context of traditional waka, their quality of “fluid
permanence” (fueki ryūkō 不易流行):
When in waka literature the expressions aki no kaze 秋の風 (“autumn winds”)
and mi ni shimu 身にしむ (“stings a body deep”) first made their appearances inpoetic contexts such as “love” or “travel,” probably enough it did produce a certain
fresh surprise. This, however, over the course of a history of extreme overuse,as evidenced eloquently by the presence of the countless variations thereof in
the Eight or the Twenty-One Imperial Anthologies, was at length utterly effaced, reduced ultimately to a state of “degree zero.” Such is the accumulation—
the history—of language that existed before Bashō. No doubt the paradoxical
success had by haikai poetry of the Danrin School, in using their scramblingand swapping between different strata of language to recapture that original
surprise, provided Bashō with powerful hints for his own linguistic revolution.
The plebian dimension of the expression daikon karashi 大根からし (“the radish’s
own sharp bite”) neatly helps revive the surprise of aki no kaze and mi ni shimu.
The very method of effecting revival, moreover, needed to be itself anothersurprise. And the surprise was none other than this: the ability of haikai to establish axioms even out of absurdities.
It was, in a word, a duet of surprise, a duet to which we can put the name
Sarashina kikō 更科紀行, in Nihon koten bungaku taikei 日本古典文学大系 46, eds. Sugiura Seiichi
杉浦正一 and Miyamoto Saburō 宮本三郎 (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 1959), p. 68.
18

56

Takahashi“fluid permanence” (fueki ryūkō). Standing in the fluid linguistic field of everyday
language, catching the words that spoil and erode as soon as they get discarded, theendeavor to root these words into a more permanent linguistic space on the one
hand, and on the other hand the endeavor to hurl the half-dead language of classical literature into the vibrant language-field of reality—and through that passage
to thereby quicken it—these are the dual endeavors of making poetry haikai,
and it seems not incorrect to see the unification of this fluidification and thispermanentization as the fundamental origin of the “fluid permanence” ideal.19

By methodization is meant, a situation in which the object of action is somethingalready completely grasped and understood. And indeed, it is not impossiblethat Bashō was, in fact, already in possession of such an understanding. Wanting
to bring innovation to the tired linguistic world of the classics, he may have engaged with the classical world from a posture of extreme self-awareness.
But of course Ippū’s case is different. Ippū, diving headlong into a classicalworld he only presumed to understand, only ended up finding himself lost in, andstruggling with, that classical world. Yet even this struggle can be seen as itself akind of literary act. Forced as each step might be judged in retrospect, to knead thesinews of a work one by one into a connected whole, is clearly a literary act.
It is true that Ippū’s method, in a trend criticized ever since Yamaguchi Takeshi,
was one that indicated clearly its “reflection of the shadow” of the classicalworld being treated. And as a method it may well be both blunt and artless. But
it was still a method of Ippū’s own making. Like with the egg of Columbus, criticism after-the-fact that anyone else could have done it the same way—if they
had only tried—is mistaken. And after all, commercially-published commercial
literature that it was, repetition of doing the same thing, in the same way, was fora genre like ukiyo-zōshi only the time-honored stance. In which case, the questionis rather how Kiseki and Nanrei in their own turn chose to handle such a modeof yatsushi—but for the present, our detour continues.
3. On Transworld Identification
The term “transworld identification” refers to the disputed possibility, given
the multiple potential versions of a certain thing that might well exist across various worlds, of discovering, between those fundamentally different versions,some form of identity. In this formulation the word “world” refers to any worldthat could possibly exist. This “possible world,” moreover, is meant in the senseof a world differing from the world that exists in actuality, as in for example aworld—the concept is one already familiar from science fiction—where Nazi
Germany was the victor in World War II, or a world in which Oda Nobunaga
織田信長 (1534–1582) had not been killed in the incident at Honnō-ji 本能寺
temple. The core of the dispute around “transworld identification,” in other
Inui Hiroyuki 乾裕幸, Kotoba no uchi naru Bashō: aruiwa Bashō no gengo to haikaisei ことばの内なる芭蕉：あるいは芭蕉の言語と俳諧性 (Tokyo: Miraisha, 1981), pp. 28–29.
19

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57

words, lies in this: given one Nobunaga who was killed in the Honnō-ji incident
and another Nobunaga who never experienced the Honnō-ji incident and instead lived a long life, whether these two Nobunagas are the same person or different people. For the sake of argument, let us consider that if, as a result of
Nobunaga’s death at Honnō-ji, Hashiba Hideyoshi 羽柴秀吉 (1537–1598) was
the one to become supreme hegemon, then in the case of Nobunaga not dying,
it would have been Nobunaga himself who went on to become hegemon—let
us assume that there exists a world where such is in fact the case. Comparing theworld where the hegemon is Hideyoshi with the world where the hegemon isNobunaga, though both worlds each have their own hegemon, usually, in such acase, Hegemon Hideyoshi of World A and Hegemon Nobunaga of World B
would still be considered different people.
Yet undoubtedly there also existed the possibility of Hideyoshi living out his
entire life as a peasant in the Province of Owari 尾張. In which case the question
arises: given World A in which Hideyoshi becomes hegemon, and World C inwhich he lives out his life as a peasant, are the two Hideyoshis in fact both thesame person Hideyoshi? It stands to reason, of course, that in the case of thepeasant Hideyoshi of World C, he would probably neither possess the surname
Hashiba, nor indeed even have the name Hideyoshi. Yet would that make him adifferent person? It is a question about which one cannot avoid being made tofeel ill-at-ease when pressed to judge definitively.
Let us consider, then, another slightly clearer (or at least more clearer-seeming)
example. Let us say that there exists a university student, Adam, studying at Alpha
University. Adam is enrolled at Alpha University, but conceivably, he might also
have enrolled at Beta University. And had he in fact chosen to enroll at Beta University, undoubtedly his university life there would be different from his current
life in a number of respects. Yet however undoubtedly different, surely it seems
right to say that Adam of Alpha University and Adam of Beta University would
both still be Adam, one and the same person. We might even set things further
in the past: Adam moved to Tokyo while still a student in elementary school, but
he might also have not moved, and remained thus instead back in Alpha Prefecture. The Adam who remained back in Alpha Prefecture, and the Adam who
ended up moving to Tokyo, would of course be living very different lives, yetwould one not still in general consider that the two were nonetheless bothAdam, nonetheless both one and the same? Let us set things back yet further still.
Adam’s father is a certain Bob and his mother, one Carol. Yet what if, in a different
world, Adam’s parents were instead the neighbors, Doug and Elizabeth? What if
we said that Adam’s parents were actually the neighboring couple, or rather, thatAdam was the child of the family next door? At this point, would there not besome who objected, declaring this an impossibility? Adam was born as such,they might say, because he inherited the DNA of his parents Bob and Carol, andcould not possibly have been born from Doug and Elizabeth. Of if he had beenborn from Doug and Elizabeth, surely he would have been born as David, a58Takahashicompletely different child! This is the same, in other words, as saying that,though they might become the same one hegemon, Hideyoshi the hegemon andNobunaga the hegemon would still be the same different people.
Regarding this question of “transworld identity,” the one who both raised the
problem and thoroughly investigated it was the philosopher S. A. Kripke.20
There exists a certain theory that what makes “transworld identification” possible is, generally, the fact of proper names. This is the idea that, in other words,
what proves the Hideyoshi who spent his whole life as a peasant to be the sameas the Hideyoshi who became Chancellor of State, what proves the Adam bornto this family to be the same as the Adam born to the family next door, is theirrespective proper names. Criticizing this theory, Kripke also criticized the way of
thinking about proper names that underlies it, arguing that “proper names cannot be reduced to a set of definitive predicates.” By “definitive predicates” ismeant a set of predicates whose common subject is by definition unique. For
example, “was born in the Province of Owari,” “was a vassal of Nobunaga,”“killed Akechi Mitsuhide 明智光秀 (1528–1582) at the Battle of Yamazaki 山崎,”
“became Chancellor of State,” etc., constitute just such a set of definite predicates,
one whose common subject can accordingly be reasonably determined to be
Hideyoshi, and no other person.
These theories of classical linguistic philosophy and logic that Kripke was criticizing were, to be specific, those of Russell and Frege. Whereas Russell andFrege had understood proper names as equivalent to sets of definite predicates,
Kripke, by introducing the idea of the possible world, rejected this earlier theory.
In other words, the Hideyoshi of another possible world spent his whole life asa peasant, and neither became Nobunaga’s vassal nor ever became Chancellor ofState. The proper name Hideyoshi, therefore, cannot be reduced to any particular set of definite predicates—this in its essence is Kripke’s claim.
If we simply accept Kripke’s argument in this form, however, then all predicates are always of indeterminate truth, or to put it more strongly, it seems
to become impossible to determine anything at all. Yet such a skepticism ofpredication—the idea that no predicate can ever definitively mean anything—
was not what Kripke intended. Rather, he opened the way to a more soundlyreasoned modal logic, that is, to a discipline of logic (the theory of determining
truth) built on a more soundly-reasoned grasp of the modal conceptions (coincidence, necessity, possibility, impossibility). This is why he himself declared thatarguments about whether in transworld comparison a given person is the sameor is different are in and of themselves pure nonsense, that the very question
was, indeed, a pseudo-problem.
No doubt it was smart of him to take such an attitude. Nonetheless, I think
one might also judge it an attitude too smart by half.
The argument is made in S. A. Kripke, Naming and Necessity (Cambridge: Harvard University
Press, 1972).
20

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When one considers the problem of literature in which particular (historical)
individuals appear as characters, and—all the more so—when one considers the
problem of freedom, philosophically and ethically, it seems to me that the issue
is one that cannot be simply dismissed as a mere pseudo-problem.
Among others, the issue was tackled by Kuki Shūzō 九鬼周造 (1888–1941), in
his Gūzensei no mondai 偶然性の問題, where he examines problems of freedom andcoincidence.21 The attitude taken there by Kuki is very much worth pondering.
In one of the examples he takes up in the course of that volume, we find thestatement “Suppose I were an Indian . . .” When I first came across this phrasing,I experienced an extremely strong feeling of incongruity, or perhaps a clear senseof a logical error. Supposing I were in fact an Indian (i.e. someone born in India,
or at least to Indian parents), then obviously, I thought, one could definitively saythat I would no longer be who I am! The reasoning is the same as concluding
that, were I the son of the neighbors, then what I was would no longer be me.
But this is not what Kuki was trying to say. The given phrase is simply Kuki’s wayof saying, in an abbreviated manner, that there exists the possibility of even myself
being born, and living out my life as, an Indian. From a transworld perspective, theJapanese me and the Indian me can be one and the same. Or conversely, there
exists the possibility of me myself being an Indian (by this is meant in no way thesense of me at some point nationalizing to become a citizen of the country India). The idea that there exists the possibility of an Indian me entirely different
both in substance and appearance from the present me, is essentially to say that
there exists the possibility of a me different from the present me in substance,
in appearance, in name, in social position. If this be denied, then conversely it
would imply that for me there is no longer any other possibility but the present one.
Between accepting on the one hand that there exists the possibility of me beingborn an Indian, or anything else at all, a cow even, and on the other hand that I
might have gone to either Alpha University or to Beta University, or indeed that I
possess freedom—between these two there is in fact no essential difference. What
Kuki is trying to say is essentially this. If, like Kripke, we take the problem of trans­
world identity between such possibilities to be a meaningless one, then the concept
itself of the possible world can no longer serve as a logical tool for recognizing thefreedom of a different state of affairs to have potentially existed. In Kripke’s
case—that of modal logic—it was no doubt sufficient to take up in argument the
problems of truth with respect to the modal concepts (coincidence, necessity,
possibility, impossibility), whereas the problem of freedom was simply not a matterof concern. From the outset, the world he aimed for was simply a different one.
The problem is that our issue of concern here—yatsushi—presupposes boththe concept of the possible world and that of “transworld identification.” What
For further detail on the following, see Kuki Shūzō 九鬼周造, Gūzensei no mondai 偶然性の問題(Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 1935), p. 260; later collected in Kuki Shūzō zenshū 九鬼周造全集, vol. 2(Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 2011), p. 205.
21

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Takahashi

this means is that there exists the possibility of a world in which Minamoto no
Yoshitsune buys the favors of a courtesan—or more precisely put, both theworld in which Minamoto no Yoshitsune buys the favors of a courtesan, as well as
the world in which he never does so, can be said to simultaneously, potentially exist.
There exist worlds in which Minamoto no Yoshitsune, or indeed the Great
Ancestor of the Han Dynasty Liu Bang 劉邦 (256–195 BC), led very different
lives from those described as historical fact. And even in those so very different
worlds, they nonetheless both lived out their lives being always the same Minamoto
no Yoshitsune or Great Ancestor Liu Bang. Another way of putting it is that
there exists a possible world in which even the human who in the here and now
lives as me, might himself be living his life out as Minamoto no Yoshitsune.
Likewise with the present world and the classical world: one might well describe
the nature of the relationship obtaining between them as, from their respective
standpoints, that of precisely such mutually alternative possible worlds.
If we interpret such “worlds” to be nothing but mere methods for massproducing commercial novels for consumption, then what is the study of literature itself but a toy puzzle, a marketing analysis with pre-set conclusions, something with little of dreams and even less need for thought? Indeed, under suchan interpretation, ukiyo-zōshi itself would—in my view—no longer be a research
topic of very much value.
Needless to say, that is not my view.
4. On the Keisei Taiheiki
But here let us end our detour and return to the main argument.
An explanation of the Keisei Taiheiki, by Kikuchi Yōsuke 菊池庸介, can befound in the Ukiyo-zōshi daijiten 浮世草子大事典. There Kikuchi notes that thework portrays, in yatsushi from, a number of famous episodes—the “chronicleof the future” (miraiki 未来記), the “gathering without distinctions” (bureikō
無礼講), the “crying man” (naki-otoko 泣き男), the “parting at Sakurai” (Sakurai
no wakare 桜井の別れ), etc.—from the Taiheiki (15th-century medieval war chronicle (gunki monogatari 軍記物語) depicting the wars of the Nanbokuchō 南北朝
period (1336–1392), 40 vols.; enjoyed a broad reception in the early-modern period, not only itself as reading material in printed form, but also as source ofmaterial for works in a variety of genres: theatre, storytelling, novels, etc.).22 Yet
Note on the texts:(1) For the text of the Taiheiki, I have used: Taiheiki 太平記, 3 vols., Nihon koten bungaku taikei
34–36, eds. Gotō Tanji 後藤丹治 and Kamada Kisaburō 釜田喜三郎 (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten,
1960–1962).
(2) For the text of the Keisei Taiheiki, I have used: Musume Kusunoki Keisei Taiheiki 娘楠契情太平記,
in Hachimonjiya-bon zenshū 八文字屋本全集 17, ed. Hachimonjiya-bon kenkyūkai 八文字屋本研究会(Tokyo: Kyūko Shoin, 1998).
In some cases, for ease of reading, furigana have been omitted or kanji written out in kana,among other minor changes.
22

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61

following, perhaps, Hasegawa Tsuyoshi’s own assessment, Kikuchi also writes
that “[f]or a work by Nanrei, it cannot be called skillfully done,” stating that “the[final] fifth book alone is only eight and a half page-sheets long, lacking a senseof balance when compared to the other four books, and the development of theplot towards its conclusion can be said to be rushed.”23
As a work, then, let us consider the Keisei Taiheiki once again. The setting it depicts is that of the pleasure quarters. That is to say, the story takes as its setting thecontemporary red-light district, a choice in which it follows the oldest traditions of
the yatsushi mode. Moreover, while the classical world is present in the background throughout, the manner of that classical world’s incorporation—into
what is essentially a contemporary story—remains ever diffuse, dispersed.
Though the Taiheiki’s hero, Kusunoki Masashige 楠木正成 (d. 1336), has a clear
yatsushi version in Kusuriya Kihei 薬屋喜兵衛—in abbreviation Kusu-Ki 薬喜—
the rest of the source-work’s characters are not given such one-to-one yatsushi
counterparts. Likewise, while a certain mojiri of transposition can be observed, inrecastings, for example, of men as women (e.g., the “crying man” figure now a“crying woman” naki-onna 泣き女, Kusunoki’s son Kusunoki Masatsura 楠木正行
(1326–1348) now a granddaughter O-yuki お行), such methods never strive for awholesale transfer into modern settings of as much of the classical work as possible. In other words, the depicted present-day, the core-forming story, is in thecase of this work more than a mere mirage fully subject to its classical source,
but rather stands on its own as a thing independent. The classical itself functions
here instead like something raining down into the contemporary—almost as if
by chance—from outside and above.
Let us now examine this work, reviewing here below its story chapter-by-chapter,in order, from the beginning, with supplemental explanations given at need.
Book 1, Chapter 1
In Osaka two big-spending playboys (daijin 大尽), Fujiya Izaemon 藤屋伊左衛
門 (abbreviated to Fuji-I 藤伊) and Yorozuya Bunroku 万屋文六, are in a contest
to outdo one another, setting at odds the whole Northern and Southern halvesof the pleasure quarters in their competition. On the North Side (Hokuchō北町)—a play on the Northern Imperial Dynasty (hokuchō 北朝) of the Nanbokuchō wars—Fuji-I holds sway, where he pays to monopolize the services(agezume 揚げ詰め) of the courtesan Yūgiri 夕霧 from the Ōgiya 扇屋 brothel,keeping her at the assignation house (ageya 挙屋) of Yoshidaya Kizaemon 吉田屋
喜左衛門, located in Kuken-machi 九軒町. For his part, Bunroku on the SouthSide (Nanchō 南町)—again with the pun on the historical Southern Dynasty(nanchō 南朝)—pursues a similar arrangement with the courtesan Agemaki 揚巻of the Goishiya 碁石屋 brothel, maintaining her at an assignation house run by
See Kikuchi Yōsuke 菊池庸介, entry for “Keisei Taiheiki” 契情太平記, in Ukiyo-zōshi daijiten
浮世草子大事典 (Tokyo: Kasama Shoin, 2018), p. 270.
23

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62

one Ibarakiya Jirōsan 茨城屋次郎三, located in Echigochō 越後町. Yet while Fuji-I
is the well-heeled child of old wealth, Yorozuya Bunroku, dependent on a living
father whose head clerk Heikurō 平九郎 is always trimming his wings, suffersfrom a lack of funds. One day, a famous warrior of old, Soga Jūrō Sukenari 曽我十郎祐成 (1172–1193), appears to Bunroku in a dream. There he bestows upon
Bunroku the character 助 (suke), which the latter promptly adopts as his own under
the new name Sukeroku 助六. He also follows Soga’s instructions to seek out the
taiko-mochi 太鼓持 (a sort of hanger-on) Kusuriya Kihei (“Kusu-ki,” in allusion to
the Taiheiki’s Kusunoki Masashige) at the quarters’ West Gate, where indeed hefinds him. This Kusu-Ki argues eloquently that Sukeroku’s luck is about to turnagain, but though this gives Sukeroku the courage to visit the Shinmachi 新町 pleasure quarters, the sheer size of his unpaid bills there also gives him pause, and at
length he decides instead to first send in for reconnaissance—dressed up as himself—one of his taiko-mochi, a pillbox (inrō 印籠) craftsman by the name of Taisuke 大助. The keeper of the Ibarakiya assignation house, however, laments theapparent lack of trust shown by Sukeroku in not coming himself. Here one of
the taiko-mochi on the scene, an Oyama-doll (Oyama-ningyō おやま人形) craftsman
named Tarohachi 太郎八, mocks Sukeroku, calling him a has-been on the vergeof being formally disowned by his family.
In Volume 3 of the Taiheiki, emperor Godaigo 後醍醐 (1288–1339; r. 1318–1339) gains the services of Kusunoki Masashige though a dream telling him toseek the latter west of Mount Kongō (Kongō-zan 金剛山) in Kawachi 河内 Province. The answer given there by Masashige on the occasion to Godaigo’s representative, the nobleman Madenokōji Fujifusa 万里小路藤房 (b. 1295), is alluded to inthis chapter. The original:With their recent rebellion the Eastern Barbarians have only invited the anger
of Heaven, and bringing Heaven’s chastisement down upon them in the wastingof their decline should prove no great trouble. Nonetheless, the work of renewing the world stands upon two things: strategy and cunning.24

The Keisei Taiheiki’s rewriting of this is a thoroughgoing work of mojiri:With the recent prosperity of Fuji-I [in onyomi reading—Tōi 藤伊—a perfecthomonym for the Tōi 東夷 of “Eastern Barbarians”], he has only invited his
own dissolution: to outspend him in the wasting of his extravagance should
prove no great trouble. Nonetheless, the task of succeeding as a playboy stands
upon two things: money and how it is spent.25

A similar transformation is applied to the conclusion of Masashige’s speech.
What in the original reads:
24

とう い

セメ

ツヒ

東夷近日ノ大逆、只天ノ譴ヲ招候上ハ、衰乱ノ弊へニ乗テ天誅ヲ被レ致ニ、何ノ子細カ候ベ
キ。但天下草創ノ功ハ、武略ト智謀トノ二ニテ候。 See: Taiheiki (op. cit.), vol. 1, p. 98.
25

とう ゐ

おごり つゐへ

かい かち

藤伊近日の全盛。只分散をまねき候うへは。かれが奢の費にのりて。買 勝 給ふに何の子細さばきか候べき。但大尽立派の捌は。金銀と。遣ひ所の二にて候。 See: Keisei Taiheiki (op. cit.), p. 240.

Variations on yatsushi in the ukiyo-zōshi genre

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For know this: the very fact that word of this Masashige still being alive has
found its way to his Majsety’s ears betokens, in itself, that the imperial fortunes
are on the verge of an upswing.26

becomes in the Keisei Taiheiki the following:
For know this: having this Kusu-Ki as henchman in your service means, byitself alone, that your fortunes as a playboy are on the verge of an upswing.27

Also in this chapter is an allusion to the episode in Volume 2 of the Taiheiki
where the shogunal forces, believing they have chased down Emperor Godaigo,
discover themselves to have been duped by an imperial doppelgänger. In theoriginal, a sudden gust of wind reveals to them that behind the curtains of statesits only the nobleman Kazan’in Morokata 花山院師賢 (1301–1332), dressed in
the exclusive clothing of the emperor:
At that moment there came a violent gale off the mountains that blew back thecurtains of state. Yet when they made to take in the august countenance, it
was not the sovereign himself, but rather Justice and State Counsellor Morokata
sitting there, attired in the emperor’s personal robes (kon’e 袞衣).28

The mojiri of this passage in the Keisei Taiheki runs:
At that moment there came a violent wind from the direction of Horie thatblew back the curtains of the carriage. Yet when they looked to the face of theplayboy they expected, it was not Sukeroku himself, but the pillbox craftsman
Taisuke sitting there, wearing the playboy’s haori 羽織 and wakizashi 脇指.29

Book 1, Chapter 2
Hoping for a resurrection of Sukeroku’s fortunes, Kusu-Ki goes to the Ibarakiya,
where he explains that while indeed Sukeroku could expect to get disowned byhis father any day now and has not a penny of his own, nothing, in fact, could
be better for Sukeroku than this. It turns out that when his mother had died, sheleft for her then 11-year-old son an inheritance of 5,000 ryō as insurance against
the chance of someday being disinherited, entrusting the sum to Sanpō-ji 山宝寺
temple. If being disowned gave him access to these funds, the event would be
more than welcome. This inheritance, Kusu-Ki says, was his mother’s own“Chronicle of the Future,” her preparation against the disinheritance that she
26

正成一人未ダ生テ有ト被聞召候ハヾ、聖運遂ニ可被開ト被思食候ヘ。Taiheiki (op. cit.), vol. 1,

p. 98.
27

薬喜壱人御牽頭をだに持こたへば。遊運つゐにひらかるべしとおぼしめし候へ。Keisei Taiheiki(op. cit.), p. 240.

折節深山ヲロシ烈シテ、御廉ヲ吹上タルヨリ、龍顔ヲ拝シ奉タレバ、主上ニテハヲワシマサ
ズ、尹大納言師賢ノ、天子ノ袞衣ヲ着シ給ヘルニテゾ有ケル。 Taiheiki (op. cit.), vol. 1, p. 91.
28

29

ふく

折ふし堀江より呼風はげしくして。駕のすだれを吹あげたる御顔を。大尽かとみれば助六さまにてはましまさず。印籠師の大助。大尽の羽織脇指をさしたるにてぞ有ける。Keisei Taiheiki(op. cit.), p. 240.

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Takahashi

had foreseen awaited him. Inquires made, the monks at Sanpō-ji confirm thatthe original deposit has now grown with interest to 7,127 ryō, and that the principal 5,000 ryō could be provided at any time (in reality, however, this is all only
an act put on by the temple at Kusu-Ki’s connivance). Rumors spread quickly, andsoon moneylenders are approaching Sukeroku hoping to lend even more money,
with the result that soon he has a full 3,300 ryō on hand for available funds. Onceagain surrounded by the taiko-mochi, Sukeroku makes plans to disgrace and driveout the Oyama-doll craftsman Tarohachi who had mocked him earlier, but the
courtesan Agemaki defends the man, telling Sukeroku that he should take Tarohachi’s contempt in the spirit of a lesson, as a warning against pride now that hehas found himself again at the height of prosperity.
Book 1, Chapter 3
Fuji-I, now sour over Sukeroku’s comeback, conceives a scheme to makeKusu-Ki promise in writing never to set foot in the Shinmachi quarters again:
taking advantage of Kusu-Ki’s rural upbringing, he plans a painfully formal banquet where he can force sake on the taiko-mochi and get him drunk into a stupor,
so that he can then be bullied into submission. Dubbing this scheme the inginkō慇懃講 (“gathering of strict ceremony”), Fuji-I sends his henchmen Gotō Suian
後藤酔庵 and Sendai Okuemon 仙台奥右衛門 to Kusu-Ki. Meanwhile at Fuji-I’s
Yoshidaya there arises a quarrel involving the courtesans Kaoru かおる andWakanoura わか浦, along with others. On Kusu-Ki’s end, however, calling it alocal custom, he himself forces sake on Suian and Okuemon, succeeding in getting these into a drunken stupor instead.
Book 2, Chapter 1
Back at the Yoshidaya, Fuji-I and Yūgiri are in low spirits after learning of the
failure of the plan to bring Kusu-Ki down. At this point, there comes runningin a woman about thirty years of age, crying, announcing herself as Kusu-Ki’swife and informing them that Kusu-Ki is now racked with severe stomach pain
after getting so drunk. Moreover, she tells them that she had found her way thereby following Kusu-Ki’s drinking partners, whom she saw entering the establishment. Realizing now that the author of the plan to get her husband drunk had
been none other than Fuji-I himself, the wife threatens to make a complaint to
the magistrate, but Fuji-I pays her 300 ryō to settle the matter. Receiving Fuji-I’s
own haori to boot in her revenge, the wife at last leaves for home. All of this, ofcourse, has been Kusu-Ki’s own scheme against Fuji-I.
In these few chapters alone, the deceased mother’s “Chronicle of the Future”
is a mojiri of the “Tennō-ji Temple Chronicle of the Future” episode in Volume
6 of the Taiheiki,30 while Fuji-I’s “gathering of strict ceremony” (inginkō) scheme
is a mojiri play upon the famous “gathering without distinctions” (bureikō) where30

天王寺未来記. Taiheiki (op. cit.), vol. 1, pp. 193–195.

Variations on yatsushi in the ukiyo-zōshi genre

65

plans were made to overthrow the Kamakura shogunate, as seen in Volume 1 of
the Taiheiki, in the episode “The Gathering Without Distinctions and Gen’e’s
Literary Talk.”31 The “crying woman” in Kusu-Ki’s scheme, however, is a mojiri
not of anything in the Taiheiki itself, but rather of an episode found in the commentary Taiheiki hyōban hiden rijinshō 太平記評判秘伝理尽抄, whose story of the“crying man” (naki-otoko) came to be widely known.32
Book 2, Chapter 2
Deeply frustrated, Yūgiri seeks advice from the keeper of the Yoshidaya,
Kizaemon. They decide to have it bruited about that Agemaki’s friend, the courtesan Takahashi 高橋, had only joined her at the Goishiya brothel after quarrelingwith her patron, none other than Ōgiya Hachiemon, the proprietor of Yūgiri’s
own brothel. Back with Sukeroku, Agemaki feigns illness, and with the idea offinding out the truth from Takahashi herself, writes Sukeroku to have the lattersummoned in Agemaki’s place. Sukeroku accordingly does so, calling Takahashi
to entertain at the establishment. Kusu-Ki also comes. Sukeroku confides in
Takahashi that he has had a temporary bridge (karibashi 仮橋) built, and engaged
the prayer services of a yamabushi 山伏 mystic, with the hope of making Fuji-I
unable to frequent the Shinmachi quarters any more—but that he is having it
done in utmost secrecy, since anyone not ritually pure crossing the bridge first
before the spell can take effect will keep it from working. Immediately Takahashi
writes a letter to the acupuncturist Suda Un’an 須田雲安, telling him she has heard
something useful. Suda, then—“to help Fuji-I”—takes O-sen おせん, a maidservant from the Yoshidaya, and together they go to this temporary bridge in the
Shinmachi Bridge’s vicinity. As they make their way across, however, precisely
according to Kusu-Ki’s plan, the deliberately shoddily-built bridge buckles underneath them, and the two are saved downriver by party-boats belonging to
Sukeroku’s entourage. Takahashi herself, realizing how she has been manipulated for the scheme, quits the Goishiya brothel in shame. After all this, a satiricalpoem slip (rakushu 落首) shows up on the Shinmachi Bridge, causing Fuji-I’s reputation to deteriorate yet further.
Volume 3 of the Taiheiki features the characters Takahashi no Matashirō 高橋
又四郎 and Suda no Jirozaemon 隅田次郎左衛門.33 At the battle of Watanabe
Bridge 渡部橋 in Volume 6, the victory there achieved by Kusunoki Masashige
puts an end to their service, as expressed in this satirical poem, which appears in thebattle’s aftermath:31

無礼講事付玄恵文談事. Ibid., vol. 1, pp. 44–47.

Original text in 40 vols., bearing a postscript (shikigo 識語) dated to Bunmei 文明 2 (1470).
Published in Shōhō 正保 2 (1645) and frequently reissued. Text available in Taiheiki hiden rijinshō
太平記秘伝理尽鈔, 10 vols. (planned), eds. Imai Shōnosuke 今井正之助 et al., Tōyō Bunko 東洋文庫
(Tokyo: Heibonsha, 5 vols. published since 2002). The episode of the “crying man Sugimoto
Sahei” 歎き男杉本左兵衛 is found in vol. 15 (in the Tōyō bunko edition, vol. 4, pp. 245–249).
33
Taiheiki (op. cit.), vol. 1, p. 99.
32

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Takahashi
Watanabe no mizu ika bakari hayakereba Takahashi ochite Suda nagaru ran34
How swift it must be, the water at Watanabe—to have led to both
Takahashi’s own downfall, and Suda’s getting washed out!

For this, the Keisei Taiheiki gives the mojiri:
Yokobori no mizu ika bakari hayakereba Takahashi ochite Suda nagaru ran35
How swift it must be, the water of Yokobori—to have led to both
Takahashi’s own downfall, and Suda’s getting washed out!

Book 2, Chapter 3
Saburobei 三郎兵衛 of the Bingoya 備後屋 joins Fuji-I’s side as a financial factotum. Not only a money-handler in his own right, Saburobei is also one of the city
elders (machi-doshiyori 町年寄) of the Shinmachi quarters’ South Side—Sukeroku’sarea. Easily perceiving, therefore, that Sukeroku’s sudden maternal inheritance is anutter fraud, he makes plans to tell everything to the father, Bun’emon 文右衛門, toget him to disown Sukeroku, thereby cutting off all monetary support. Bingoya
makes a speech here about the art of buying courtesans, arguing that the principal thing is to make unsparing use of all one’s financial wherewithal, which forthe cause of buying courtesans should be exhausted.
In the course of his speech we find the thought: “It is said that even Heaven
does not abandon profits to disuse: put this money to work and see Sukeroku’s
dismay.”36 This makes use of the episode involving Kojima Saburō Takanori
児嶋三郎高徳 of Bingo 備後 Province, found in Volume 4 of the Taiheiki.37 Stylistically, Saburobei’s speech on the art of buying courtesans, a sort of maniac
twist on the katagi-mono discourse, is skillfully executed and interesting. Citing thedictum of the Analects that states “he who performs virtue will not have wealth”38(actually from the “Duke Wen of Teng I” 滕文公上 chapter in the Mencius),
Saburobei argues for pouring one’s wealth into the pursuit of revelry, even it ifmeans the liquidation of treasured ancient household heirlooms. Further citing
the Analects (a quotation from the “Yong ye” 雍也 chapter) to the effect that
“The wise man prefers water,”39 he urges Fuji-I not let worries trouble him—noteven items pawned going forfeit—and doggedly pursues the theme, exhorting
him to prioritize courtesan-buying, to be a man of style above all.

渡部ノ水イカバカリ早ケレバ高橋落テ隅田流ルラン。 Taiheiki (op. cit.), vol. 1, p. 188.
横堀の水いかばかりはやければ高橋をちて須田ながるらん。 Keisei Taiheiki (op. cit.), p. 258.
36
天口銭をむなしうせず共申す。此金をもつて助六がよはめをみて。Keisei Taiheiki (op. cit.),34
35

pp. 259–260.
37
Discussed below in the article’s conclusion. Taiheiki (op. cit.), vol. 1, p. 140.
38
為仁不富矣。 See Mōshi 孟子, ed. Uchino Kumaichirō 内野熊一郎, Shinshaku kanbun taikei
新釈漢文大系 4 (Tokyo: Meiji shoin, 1962), p. 168. Keisei Taiheiki (op. cit.), p. 260.
39
智者楽水。 See Rongo 論語, ed. Yoshida Kenkō 吉田賢抗, Shinshaku kanbun taikei 新釈漢文大系
1 (Tokyo: Meiji shoin, 1960), p. 142. Keisei Taiheiki (op. cit.), p. 260.

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Book 3, Chapter 1
Following the advice of Bingoya Saburobei, Fuji-I decides to sell off 18 of thehouses he owns and use the profits to support his continued lifestyle at the assignation house. Meanwhile Sukeroku finds that the sum of 3,300 ryō he had
previously had on hand has now dwindled to but 40–50 ryō. The same Bingoya
contacts Sukeroku’s father Bun’emon, asking him to make good the borrowed
3,300 ryō. For his part, surprised as he is at the size of the debt, Bun’emon is unable to merely leave his son a criminal, and so orders his head clerk, Heikurō, totake care of the matter. This Heikurō is on the surface a “white rat”—that is, afaithful and trustworthy servant—but in truth is a villain who dreams of lining
his own pockets after the headship falls to Sukeroku. When Bun’emon tells him
to pay back the 3,300 ryō and make Sukeroku give up his revelry, Heikurō suggests that because his master has nothing to do with these sums, it would be betterto simply give the money to Sukeroku himself and have him stop on his own.
Thus it is that he heads over to meet Sukeroku with a bundle of promissory
notes in hand. At the Ibarakiya, however, the message given to Sukeroku is that he,
Heikurō, has the master wrapped around his fingers and got this money fromhim with ease. Take it, he says, and use it as you please. Handing Sukeroku themoney, he heads home. Sukeroku is overjoyed, barely able to believe this behavior
from the normally stingy Heikurō, from whom he had been expecting, if anything, a declaration of disinheritance. When Kusu-Ki arrives, however, knowing
already about Bingoya’s movements, he infers from the amount that the money
had been prepared by Sukeroku’s father for the purpose of paying back the loans
taken out against the promise of his mother’s inheritance. As such, he advises
Sukeroku to use the money—for the present—to pay back those debts, putting
his revelry on hold while they try to determine Heikurō’s true intent. As it turns
out, however, already around 200 ryō worth has been passed out here and there in
the quarters, and even after efforts are made to re-collect this, the total falls 67 ryō
short. This is the amount one of the taiko-mochi, a man known as Saizō 才蔵 theMosquito, has collected and hidden away. But Saizō was a playboy once himself,
though now fallen on hard times, and he points out that things like collecting
money already given out can only hurt one’s reputation as a playboy. More thanthat, he argues, Sukeroku’s good fortune, no less than his bad fortune, comes notfrom any stratagems or any efforts he might have made, but from the will of
Heaven’s destiny alone. Everyone present is touched.
In this chapter, when Kusu-Ki sizes up Sukeroku’s current predicament, hestates: “All in all, when it comes to the competition of play, victory at the end is
the only important thing.”40 This is a mojiri of Kusunoki Masashige’s words tothe emperor about the flight to Hyōgo 兵庫, in Volume 16 of the Taiheiki: “Inbattles, whatever anyone may say, victory at the end is what really counts.”41
40
41

惣じて遊びのはり合と申ス物は。始終の勝こそ専要なれ。 Keisei Taiheiki (op. cit.), p. 267.
合戦ハ兎テモ角テモ、始終ノ勝コソ肝要ニテ候ヘ。 Taiheiki (op. cit.), vol. 2, p. 150.

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68

Saizō the Mosquito, in turn, is the yatsushi of Prime Minister Bōmon Kiyotada
坊門清忠 (d. 1338), when he disagrees here with Kusu-Ki in these terms:
What Kusu-Ki says has its merit, but for these funds, apportioned to support
revelry, to be not even put to use, and for you to shut yourself up a second timein a single year—not only does it treat your playboy’s dignity too lightly, it robs
your taiko-mochi and companions of their own esteem. Even if Fuji-I does sell
18 of his houses now, their strength would not approach that of your current
3,300 ryō. That everybody took you at your word about your mother’s inheritance is not because your skill at getting money was itself superior—it is merely
because your fortunes as a playboy aligned with the heavens.42

This is based on Prime Minister Bōmon Kiyotada’s similar speech in the Taiheiki:
What Masashige says has its merit, but for the imperial general commissioned
to chastise the foes of the throne to thus abandon the Capital without a fight,
and to head for Mt. Hiei a second time in a single year—not only does it treat
the imperial dignity too lightly, it robs the imperial army of its purpose. Even if
Takauji does approach the Capital now, leading his forces from Kyushu, theirstrength will not approach that of the time when, last year, he led the Eight
Provinces of the East to the Capital. And after all, from the beginning of thewar up to the defeat of the enemy’s army, even when our forces have beensmall, it has not always been the case that we failed to defeat a great enemy. Nor
is this at all because our military strategy was itself superior—it is merely because the fortunes of our sovereign aligned with the heavens.”43

Book 3, Chapter 2
Kusu-Ki encloses the remainder of the money in an envelope and entrusts itto the proprietor of the Ibarakiya, and leaving it up to Sukeroku to decide what
to do next, he returns to his lodgings. But then he changes his mind. Decidingthat it would be wrong for Sukeroku not to pay his debt just because of a shortage of 67 ryō, he takes his granddaughter O-yuki to the broker Tanbaya Nihei
丹波屋仁兵衛. Glad to hear that the owner of the Koichimonjiya 古一文字屋
brothel in Kyoto is apparently in town just then, with the idea of sending her towork there, like the proverbial lion casting its cub into the depths of the valley42
薬喜申所も其いはれ有といへ共。遊金の為にあてがはれし此金子。くはつとしたる事もなく。一年の中に二度まで御逼塞あらん事は。且は大尽の威勢かろきに似たり。又は牽頭仲間の面目をうしなふ所なり。たとへ藤伊十八ヶ所の家を売てあそぶ共。三千三百両見在の勢にはよもすぎじ。お袋様のかたみといふ事を諸人の一はいくふたるも。工面のすぐれたるにはあらず。たゞ遊運の天にかなへるゆへなり。 Keisei Taiheiki (op. cit.), p. 268.
43
正成ガ申所モ其謂有トイヘドモ、征罰ノ為ニ差下サレタル節度使、未戦ヲ成ザル前ニ、帝都ヲ捨テ、一年ノ内ニ二度マデ山門ヘ臨幸ナラン事、且ハ帝位ヲ軽ズルニ似タリ、又ハ官軍ノ道ヲ失処也。タトヒ尊氏筑紫勢ヲ率シテ上洛ストモ、去年東八カ国ヲ順ヘテ上シ時ノ勢ニハヨ
モ過ジ。オヨソ戦ノ始ヨリ敵軍敗北ノ時ニ至迄、御方小勢也トイヘドモ、毎度大敵ヲ責靡ケズ
ト云フ事ナシ。是全ク武略ノ勝レタル所ニハ非ズ、只聖運ノ天ニ叶ヘル故也。Taiheiki (op. cit.),vol. 2, p. 150.

Variations on yatsushi in the ukiyo-zōshi genre69

to survive on its own, after one stern parental lecture on how to be a propercourtesan he sells her off for 70 ryō. This O-yuki is the child of his daughter
O-sei, born after the latter became pregnant by an unknown man in the courseof a boat journey made on pilgrimage to Rokujō 六条 in Kyoto. Born at the early
Hour of the Rabbit on the 3rd of the Third Month, at the time she is 11 years
old, and also motherless, O-sei having died immediately after giving birth. Now
Kusu-Ki heads to the Ibarakiya, but finds that today Sukeroku is not there. A
group of taiko-mochi there drinking on the sly make the argument that egging his
playboy on is the job of a taiko-mochi, no matter how many times one dies andfinds rebirth. Against this, however, Kusu-Ki argues that it is also the task of ataiko-mochi to keep his playboy from ruining himself, citing the adage that without playboys the pleasure quarters themselves cannot stand. Expressing his conviction that if Sukeroku can only pay off his current debts, then his reputation
will improve and funds will be easier to come by, he announces that he has now
sold off his own granddaughter, and produces the 70 ryō. At this point, however,
the madam there informs him that Koichimonjiya is actually away in Edo, andtells him that she saw Tanbaya Nihei handing an 11-year-old girl over to Yorozuya’s Heikurō. Kusu-Ki then goes to Tanbaya, but Nihei is no longer there, andhe sets out to look for his grandchild. Meanwhile, the father Bun’emon, having
heard from various quarters that Sukeroku failed to pay his debts, and gave no
ear to Heikurō’s remonstrances, decides at last to disown Sukeroku, even throwing him off the family register. Sukeroku himself is at Echigochō, spending his
money with Saizō and the others and having a grand time. Heikurō comes to
him there, carrying a box bearing the words “10,000 ryō.” The recently-given
3,300 ryō are taken back from him, and the box itself is found to contain a paper
suit. Heikurō informs him of the disowning and deregistration. Sukeroku dons
the paper suit and leaves.
Continuing from the last chapter, this is a yatsushi of an episode from Volume
16 of the Taiheiki, the parting at the post-station of Sakurai 桜井駅 between
Masashige and his 11-year-old son Masatsura, and the final parental lecture given
then.44 It also includes a yatsushi on the “Vow of Seven Lives” (shichishō no chikai
七生の誓い)45 made by Masashige and Masasue 正季 at their suicide.
Book 3, Chapter 3
Heikurō had asked the Prelate Shinkoku 神谷僧都 of Tenma 天満 to pray that
he himself might be adopted into the Yorozuya family. Told that for such a
prayer there would be needed a virgin child, and moreover one born at the Hourof the Rabbit on the 3rd of the Third Month, Heikurō had then had various brokers make a search, with the result that he ended up buying Kusu-Ki’s own
granddaughter. Today is now the third and final day of the given prayer period.
44
45

Taiheiki (op. cit.), vol. 2, p. 151.
Ibid., p. 159.

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Takahashi

From the 3,300 ryō he has taken from Sukeroku, he makes a gift offering of 100
ryō. Kusu-Ki, however, discovers this on the gift-offering platform. He tries
talking to one of the servants, but only ends up rousing suspicion, and decides
to try again later. Going to Prelate Shinkoku, he announces himself as Heikurō’s
brother and is able to have a talk with him. After explaining things, he goes to thewell, where he finds a girl hanging upside down. He pulls her out. The prelatetakes the 100 ryō and flees. O-yuki herself is at death’s door. Here Heikurō appears on the scene, and overhears their conversation by the well-side. Kusu-Ki
tells O-yuki that when her mother was 17, she got pregnant by a stranger during
a nighttime boat ride to the capital on the 23rd of the Eleventh Month, leaving
her a fatherless child. The grandchild dies. Heikurō, who has heard all of this,commits suicide, telling Kusu-Ki that the man in question was him. Realizingthat his suffering is the punishment of Heaven for trying to take over the family
he serves, seemingly having become now the murderer of his own child, he repents of his evil heart, and taking 200 ryō from his breast-pocket, he begs Kusu-Ki to go find Sukeroku. Kuku-Ki accepts Heikurō as his son-in-law. Kusu-Ki
then goes and makes a plea for aid at the magistrate’s office (daikansho 代官所),
but the inspector (kenshi 検使) tells him that the entire affair is only the fault ofSukeroku’s own dissolution. Though now in the midst of personal tragedy himself, still Kusu-Ki worries about Sukeroku’s fate, thinking there must yet be someplan or solution to be tried, even as he buries his grandchild and his son-in-law.
Book 4, Chapter 1
It is bruited about that anyone who joins Fuji-I’s group will have his finances
made good. The retired tenant of a temple called Jūyoku-in 重欲院 at Obase小長谷 enters the Fuji-I entourage almost as a taiko-mochi, leading people to callthe temple itself Fujii-dera 藤伊寺. Fuji-I has the idea to make said temple thesetting for a drinking battle with Sukeroku and his gang, but with Sukeroku now
in a paper-suit and declining the invitation, the whole plan is cancelled. Without
Sukeroku, Fuji-I feels a lack of spirit in the revelry. Entrusting himself to theteachings of Bingoya Saburobei, he takes Sukeroku’s own group of taiko-mochi
under his wing as hangers-on, and has three large-sized “1,000-koku” boats(sengoku-bune 千石船) sumptuously decked for an amusement. Loading them with
17–18 prostitutes and piles of silver and gold cash, he has the taiko-mochi put
dragon-king (ryūō 龍王) decorations and the like on their heads. One of these,
dressed up as the dragon god (ryūjin 龍神) himself, pretends to watch the spectacle with surprise from the Sangenya 三軒屋 shore, and now comes forth toaward Fuji-I with a gem to celebrate his victory-in-revelry over Sukeroku, butwith too many people on the boat it sinks, and even the dragon god has to be
rescued by the boatmen and others. At this point Fuji-I’s uncle from the Capital,
Fujiya no Inyū 藤屋の伊入 appears on the scene, having heard about his nephew
selling off 18 of his houses, and come to talk him out of the idea. Thus it is thatthe fun is spoiled. But no: in reality this is not his uncle, only a masseur by theVariations on yatsushi in the ukiyo-zōshi genre

71

name of Zennyū 善入, engaged as part of a stunt by Fuji-I himself. With the
failure of the dragon-king stunt, however, the scheme has lost all interest.
This chapter is likely playing upon the “Battle at Fujii-dera Temple” episode inVolume 24 of the Taiheiki,46 as well as on the “Kanegasaki Boat Party” episodein Volume 17,47 but no examples of mojiri word-play on the original text can befound.
Book 4, Chapter 2
Sukeroku is back in Osaka, having travelled in secret. Agemaki has been called
for by a samurai from Iyo 伊予 Province. Her kamuro 禿, Mojino 文字野, tells
Sukeroku that the samurai from Iyo is trying to buy her mistress free from thebrothel, and hands him a silk wallet with a letter in it from Agemaki. Meanwhile,back at the Sumiyoshiya 住吉屋, everything is in an uproar with the loss of thewallet containing the 200-ryō down-payment on Agemaki’s ransom. But themoney has in fact been taken by Agemaki herself, refusing to be bought, andentrusted to Mojino for handing over to Sukeroku. One of the manservants,
Shirobei 四郎兵衛, claims to have witnessed this, but Mojino herself refuses tosay to whom she then gave it, enduring even physical punishment. Unable tobear this sight, one of the courtesans volunteers to take her place, but at thispoint one of the taiko-mochi, the Oyama-doll craftsman Tarohachi, declares himself to have been the messenger tasked by Mojino with giving the money to her
friend, saying moreover that he is very sorry, because in fact after a gambling loss
he had stolen the money. Tarohachi is then himself physically beaten and turned
out of doors. Sukeroku, listening the whole time from the veranda, recalls theformer bond of duty involving Tarohachi, and is deeply moved, thinking to himself that it must have been just like this when Oyamada Tarō 小山田太郎 returned to Nitta Yoshisada 新田義貞 (1301–1338) the favor he owed for having
once been forgiven by the latter for the “crime of the green barley” (aomugi notsumi 青麦の罪). The playboy from Iyo then returns home for the present, whichallows Sukeroku to come out from under the veranda and meet Agemaki.
The mention here of the green barley, etc., is based on the passage “Where
Oyamada Tarō Takaie Harvests Green Barley” in Volume 16 of the Taiheiki.48
The Oyama-doll craftsman Tarohachi is modelled after Oyamada Tarō Takaie,
and in the text of the Keisei Taiheiki, Sukeroku is shown to be moved in the following terms:“For his earlier crime, because he spoke ill of someone behind their back, it
would only have been natural for him to be thoroughly shamed, but the courtesan asked for forgiveness for him, remembering herself how he had given her

藤井寺合戦. Taiheiki (op. cit.), vol. 2, pp. 451–452.
金崎船遊. Taiheiki (op. cit.), vol. 2, pp. 222–223.
48
小山田太郎高家刈青麦事. Taiheiki (op. cit.), vol. 2, p. 163.
46
47

Takahashi

72

money in the past. And today, he suffered in her stead. That famous Oyamada
Tarō was also pardoned by Yoshisada for the crime of the green barley. So thisis what it means to return a debt of thanks!” he thought, moved.49

As a case of an episode from the Taiheiki appearing here directly in the main
text, this is an example of mojiri and yatsushi. Formally speaking, it is also an example of the classical world being discovered behind the actions of a person in
the present.
Book 4, Chapter 3
Fuji-I appears at the Yoshidaya, wearing a paper suit. The clerk and Bingoya
Saburobei, becoming wise to the dissolution of his behavior, have secretly soldoff a scroll belonging to Rokujō Goyū 六帖吾由 with which they had been entrusted. After a claim to the magistrates from the owner, all Fuji-I’s property has
been seized, and he himself has been ordered to cut off contact with his friends
and acquaintances. He explains that he had considered committing suicide, but
in the end came here instead because he had something to return to one of thecourtesans. Yoshidaya Kizaemon raises his spirits, and allows him to enter inside.
Yūgiri comes. Fuji-I explains the situation. Yūgiri indicates she is willing to either
die or to escape with him. Because of all that he owes to Fuji-I for services in
the past, says Kizaemon, he offers to hide him away at a secluded residence in
Ueshiochō 上塩町. Just at this moment, Sukeroku and Agemaki are walking
along the roof above, having escaped in fear of their lives. And just when Fuji-I
is musing, if only he knew where the said Rokujō Goyū’s scroll were now, up on
the roof he hears Sukeroku’s voice saying that the scroll is actually right here.
The two then meet face-to-face, now both of them wearing paper suits. By
Sukeroku’s account, this past spring, hearing rumors (from Bingoya Saburobei, noless) that the item was something valuable, he had bought the scroll—a forfeit
pawn item—for 500 ryō. Indeed, he had come this way with the thought of selling it for 300 ryō, which would give him enough, when added to the 200 ryō from
Agemaki, to fully purchase the latter’s freedom. But because, he says, buying thefreedom of a courtesan is a problem they both share, he will make Fuji-I a giftof the scroll. When Fuji-I then says that in that case, he himself will pay Agemaki’s ransom instead, Sukeroku responds that if he did that then all their competition in the past would be in vain, to which in turn Fuji-I retorts that otherwise
he will refuse to accept the scroll. The two prostitutes sigh, wishing there weresome good plan to be tried.

49
前かど身共をかげにて悪しくいひたるゆへ。丸はだかにして恥かゝすべき処を。太夫が情にてわびことせし故。かへつて金子などをとらせし恩を思ひて。今日の太夫が難に代し事。

かの

あをむぎ

つみ

彼 小山田太郎が義貞に。青麦の罪をゆるされし。恩がへしもかくやと感心しながら。Keisei Taiheiki(op. cit.), p. 283.

Variations on yatsushi in the ukiyo-zōshi genre

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Book 5, Chapter 1
Through the joint scheme of the proprietors of the Ibarakiya and the Yoshidaya,
it is decided that the money returned by Sukeroku had the whole time actually
been lost somewhere in the house, and thanks to a report from Kusu-Ki, Sukeroku
himself manages to secure a meeting with Bun’emon, father-to-son. It turns out,
moreover, that the samurai from Iyo, too, had actually been only a scheme of
Bun’emon’s. Kusu-Ki now becomes a clerk for the Yorozuya. Also, with Kusu-Ki
as messenger, the scroll is again brought to Fuji-I, still staying at the Yoshidaya,
to be returned. As Kusu-Ki explains to Fuji-I, because refusing to accept thescroll would lead to Sukeroku being accused of the crime of buying stolen
goods, he begs him to simply accept the thing without further ado, a request Fuji-Ifinds it impossible to refuse.
Book 5, Chapter 2
The Prelate Shinkoku, while publicly working as a dentist in Kawachi, hasbeen, in secret, engaged in all kinds of villainy. Yet he worries about Kusu-Ki.
He decides to follow an evilly clever plan suggested by his younger brother
Zōbana no Tokubei 象鼻の徳兵衛. Making it seem as if Kusu-Ki has a secret
wife, he pens a letter in women’s handwriting spelling out a plot to kill Yorozuya
with poison. With this letter in pocket, the Prelate Shinkoku goes to Osaka. At
the shrine of Tokuan-zutsumi 徳安堤, six waitresses—one of Osaka’s famoussights, a group known as the Six “Too-Muches” (roppon sugi 六本過)—are having a
discussion. In the past, they had been among those urging on Fuji-I and Sukeroku
to compete with each other, but with friendship now between the two, the pleasure quarters are finding it more difficult to make money. More than this, they
are now trying to get a new rookie playboy (aodaijin 青大尽) come up from Awa
阿波 Province to complete with Yamazaki Yojibei 山崎与次兵衛. Shinkoku,
intrigued, addresses them, offering the six of them a banquet to buy their silence.
In the course of this, he ends up alone with Kaya “Too-much-fashion” (share-sugi
しやれ過), but after a night together, this Kaya turns into a fox and disappears
up into the sky. Shinkoku awakes to find left in his hand a “tap-out hammer”(uchide no kozuchi 打ち出の小槌).
The “six cedars” (roppon sugi 六本杉) found in Volume 25 of the Taiheiki 50 havehere in the Keisei Taiheiki become the waitresses known as the Six “Too-Muches.”
Respectively they are: Rin “Too-much-cheek” (namesugi 無礼過), Matsu “Toomuch-nonchalance” (nodo-sugi 喉過), San “Too-much-drinking” (nomi-sugi 飲過),Kaya “Too-much-fashion,” Kuma “Too-much-grasping” (tori-sugi 取過), andHan “Too-much-pluck” (kuchi-sugi 口過).

50

六本杉事. Taiheiki (op. cit.), vol. 2, pp. 447–449.

74

TakahashiBook 5, Chapter 3
The “tap-out hammer” has the power to produce money, treasures—anything
desired when tapped against something. Wishing for something he can use tobring about Kusu-Ki’s downfall, Shinkoku taps the hammer, and out comes aletter with writing on it. The message reads: “Disguise yourself as a woman, andapply this medicine to your throat.” So Shinkoku, disguised as a woman, heads to
the Yorozuya. Attempting to mimic a woman’s manner, he seeks to be admitted,
but Kyūsa 久三, the one who receives him, informs Kusu-Ki simply that a monkusing women’s language has come. When Kusu-Ki sees the visitor, it is Shinkoku.
After rushing him and tying him up with rope, out of nowhere there appears
a ghost, telling Shinkoku that she is the girl he murdered, and that all of this—everything happening since the Six “Too-Muches”—has been her doing, all inorder to have him handed over to her father, Kizaemon (i.e. Kusu-Ki). Now that
her anger has been appeased, she can blissfully pass on to Buddhahood. The
work ends with Yūgiri becoming Fujiya’s wife, and Agemaki becoming the wife of
Yorozuya, after which both families go on to prosperity.
This episode of Shinkoku dressing as a woman bears a resemblance both insetting and story to that of Izuna’s 飯綱 messenger in Book 4, Chapter 3, of
Tada Nanrei’s Ōkeizu Ezo no hanashi 大系図蝦夷噺 (5 books in 5 vols., publishedin Kanpō 寛保 4 (1744)), a work published in the same year. There too, the story
is one about a monk who imagines he can successfully use magic.
Above, we have gone through the entirety of the work. The ghost of Kusu-Ki’sgranddaughter O-yuki appears, but in this chapter she has now become hisdaughter, making the logic of the plot fail—probably the result of author error.
In this respect, perhaps as a work it is indeed “a poor specimen with no evidenceof Nanrei’s personal touch” (Hasegawa). But surely what we should be looking
at in Keisei Taiheiki is not trivial mistakes like this one. Whether a yatsushi work’s
original source is made explicit or left implicit; whether its characters largely become fully the antecedent figures of the classical world, being merely disguised
as contemporaries as they abandon themselves to amusement (the explicit type),
or whether a work’s characters are, in word and deed, controlled as it were frombehind, themselves all unawares, by the classical world’s own ways of being (theimplicit type)—in the case of either type the yatsushi is of an already conventionalized mode. Not so with the Keisei Taiheiki: here we have a yatsushi characterized
by the merest contact with the classics, and by a cast of characters otherwise
completely different, who even when they make such contact maintain it for but
a moment. Such a style may invite criticism for the ineptness of its neither thorough nor consistent mojiri, but conversely, by the same token it avoids falling into
methodization, and to my mind, the characters thus depicted are for that very
reason in fact truer to life. If we compare this to Kiseki’s own manner of depiction, precisely because the mojiri and yatsushi are so very thoroughly executed,
however textually realized his works might be as a result, the world and characters

Variations on yatsushi in the ukiyo-zōshi genre

75

realized therein have only an extremely generalized, non-individuated quality. By
contrast, at Saikaku and Ippū’s stage of things, rather than the world of the work
being a world brought about by its own language, it is a matter of two target
worlds, both of them pre-existing a priori, being set in apposition the one against
the other. The difference between the two earlier authors derives rather from themore explicit or implicit manner of this apposition. To summarize, then, thesevariations on yatsushi as explained above, we might divide them into: (1) pre-existing yet implicit classical world—Saikaku, (2) pre-existing and explicit classicalworld—Ippū, (3) textually-realized yet generalized modernity—Kiseki, and (4)textually-realized and individuated modernity—Nanrei.
For the present, however, these four types only suggest the possibility of such
patterns, and the unit of contrast is rather the individual work, or even the distinct individual motifs within a work, with the authors not necessarily corresponding one-on-one respectively to the four types given above. Indeed, I thinka breakdown in any such correspondences is likely. In the future, it will be necessary to broaden the investigation to Ippū’s work Tsūzoku Sangokushi 通俗三国志,or to the works of Ippū’s contemporary Miyako no Nishiki. The direction ofdevelopment that I myself envision, however, is rather that of the following.
Put simply, it lies in drawing a contrast, on the scale of world literature, between modernity and the classical world. For example, it lies in the fact that
James Joyce’s Ulysses is written to follow the Odyssey of Homer. Itō Sei 伊藤整
analyzes this situation in the following terms:
This novel, Ulysses, borrows the structure of Homer’s Odyssey, and for its main
characters, it uses the personalities and circumstances of various figures in the
Odyssey, putting them into the personalities and circumstances of people livingin the modern world. Written with such a method, using the correspondences it
creates between modern people and figures from the classics, the novel seeks tograsp what constitutes the essence of humanity.51

The state of living at once in the actual world of the present, while at the sametime overlaying upon it the world of the classics, in other words, is a state of being that I take to be in some way a universal one. On Ulysses and the Odyssey inparticular, and on the relationship between the two, one of the earliest to offer auseful reading was none other than T. S. Eliot, in the following terms:
It is here that Mr. Joyce’s parallel use of the Odyssey has a great importance. It
has the importance of a scientific discovery. No one else has built a novel uponsuch a foundation before . . .
In using the myth, in manipulating a continuous parallel between contemporaneity and antiquity, Mr. Joyce is pursuing a method which others must pursue
From Itō Sei 伊藤整, “Jeimusu Joisu: hito to sakuhin” ジェイムス・ジョイス：人と作品, in
Yurishīzu ユリシーズ, trans. Itō Sei, vol. 21 of the collection Sekai bungaku zenshū 世界文学全集(Tokyo: Shinchōsha, 1963), p. 465.
51

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76

after him. They will not be imitators, any more than the scientist who uses thediscoveries of an Einstein in pursuing his own, independent, further investigations. It is simply a way of controlling, of ordering, of giving a shape and a significance to the immense panorama of futility and anarchy which is contemporary
history. . . . Instead of narrative method, we may now use the mythical method.
It is, I seriously believe, a step toward making the modern world possible for art,
toward that order and form which Mr. Aldington so earnestly desires.52

This feature of a “continuous parallel between contemporaneity and antiquity” that Eliot notes in Joyce, when set alongside the forcedness (kojitsuke, written
付会 or こじつけ) of yatsushi, seems to achieve something one might well callshinwa-zuke 神話付け (“myth-buttressing”). With this, in other words, he has advanced to a further stage beyond the yatsushi of Kiseki and Nanrei. Yet vaulting
across the gap between eras, surely there is something at work here in common on
both sides. “No one else,” claims Eliot, “has built a novel upon such a foundation
before”—yet was Joyce not in truth not so lonely a figure as thus imagined?
It might be noted here in passing that Yamamoto Hajime 山本一, regarding thesearch within classical Japanese literature for examples of the meta-quality andself-criticism that those like Albert Thibaudet and Mishima Yukio 三島由紀夫
have seen as being characteristic of the true novel (the modern novel), has said
the following, in what surely represents an endeavor akin to Eliot’s own:
A work that describes a protagonist who identifies himself with the world ofbooks, who in fact tries to live out that world of books in reality—a work that,
moreover, in describing such a man thereby in itself criticizes the world ofbooks, if not indeed also its own author’s very act of writing—where in the history of Japanese literature is a work of that nature to be found?53

The conceit, in other words, is that the essence of the novel is for the novel toitself possess self-awareness. Such a possession, however, is in no way a privilegeof modernity alone.
Conclusion
Returning to the main thread, let us here present a conclusion.
The feeling of actually living the classical world is not, as I see it, some general
sense of being always under that world’s dominion, or of living one’s own lifein accordance with it. It is rather a flash of self-discovery, born when one
experiences—despite a previous confidence of independence from it, despite
indeed a previous feeling of almost complete alienation from it, and for a space,a moment, despite any number of differences with it bridged in that flash—the
Taken from his contemporary book review: T. S. Eliot, “Ulysses, Order, and Myth,” The Dial
75 (1923).
53
See Yamamoto Hajime 山本一, “Bungakusei no mondai” 文学性の問題, Hokuriku koten kenkyū
北陸古典研究 22 (2007), p. 78.
52

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77

sudden realization that a strong affinity with that classical world permeates one’s
very being. Bingoya Saburobei in Book 2, Chapter 3 of Keisei Taiheiki was theyatsushi of Kojima Saburō Takanori of Bingo Province as he appears in Volume
4 of the Taiheiki.54 After trying—and failing—to save Emperor Godaigo, that
Kojima Saburō Takanori left behind for his sovereign the following verse, theafterwards famous “ten character poem” ( jūji shi 十字詩):
天莫空勾践
時非無范蠡

Never shall Heaven abandon Goujian:With time shall arise another Fan Li.55

No more than it could abandon, captive in Gusu 姑蘇 Castle, the original Goujian
勾践 of Yue 越, surely Heaven would not leave this king to his death; for how
could time fail to bring forth another minister like Fan Li 范蠡, who saved Goujian
and avenged all his humiliations? Here Kojima Takanori, by thus bringing forthfrom the world of the past a model for himself like Fan Li, in effect wrote thescenario of his own future, as one who would go on to live the life of a Fan Li.
This represents a moment—the briefest of moments—where a man’s own will
(future) and the world of the classics (past) can be seen—in transworldly
terms—to coincide. And though only a moment it be, surely within it we find,rising up at once to meet both the future and the past, growing, luxuriating, thelife of the present. Thus do the classics rain down upon, flow into, our own lives
as well.
In a similar sense, far from a yatsushi seeking in extremely deliberate fashion to
pun its own sources underfoot, Nanrei’s own more recombinatory, more sporadic quality seems to me directed rather at describing something closer to amore realistic feeling of how the classical is experienced.
For it is in this sort of experience, rather than in the play of words, that a true
connection to the world of the classical consists.
In his Keisei Taiheiki, it is still only without self-consciousness that the various
characters live such a life. Though history repeat itself, it is without selfconsciousness that it lives that repetition. When, however, self-consciousness of
this is at last born, at that point, I sincerely believe, a way of being in searchof freedom—but not by Kuki Shūzō’s method—as well as a way for the novel
itself to be in possession of self-awareness—but not by the methods of themodern Western novel—will be found waiting to be found within the genre ofukiyo-zōshi.

54
55

See description of the cited chapter above.
Taiheiki (op. cit.), vol. 1, p. 140.

Studies in Japanese Literature and Culture 4 (March 2021) 79–93© 2021 National Institute of Japanese Literature

A Japanese Commentary History of
Jianghu fengyue ji :From Medieval to Early-Modern
Horikawa Takashi
Translated by Jeffrey Knott

Introduction: Jianghu fengyue ji 江湖風月集 and Gōko fūgetsu shū ryakuchū
江湖風月集略註The poetic anthology Jianghu fengyue ji 江湖風月集 (Jp. Gōko fūgetsu shū) is a collection of jisong 偈頌 (Jp. geju) verses—a genre of Sinophone Buddhist lyric—by Chanmonks of the Southern Song period. Credited to the compilation of Songpo Zongqi
松坡宗憩, also of the Southern Song, in its current form the text contains a total of
270 verses, all of them conforming to the heptasyllabic jueju 絶句 (Jp. zekku) meter.
The title is intended symbolically. Thus the word jianghu 江湖 (Jp. gōko), beyond
its literal meaning of “river” and “lake,” betokens the physical world as a whole,particularly in its function as setting for the practices of Chan monasticism. Likewise fengyue 風月 (Jp. fūgetsu) signifies not merely “wind” and “moon,” but rather
in its fullness the larger world sketched by poetic conception. As such, the anthology’s name might be rendered alternatively as “Collection of [ jisong] verses
in which Chan monks express the heights of Chan thought by using the borrowed forms of poetry.”
This anthology belongs to that category of works which, lost in China itself,
survived only in Japan. First printed in Japan in Karyaku 嘉暦 3 (1328) by theemigrant Chinese monk Qingzhuo Zhengcheng 清拙正澄 (1274–1339; Jp.
Seisetsu Shōchō), no copy of this earlier edition survives, the oldest extant text
being a printing of the Nanbokuchō period (1336–1392).1 Later in the Muromachi
period the text came to be widely read, not only in the Gozan temples as before,
but also outside the Gozan system in Rinzai-school 臨済宗 temples attached to
the Daitoku-ji 大徳寺 and Myōshin-ji 妙心寺 lines, indeed even in temples of therival Sōtō School 曹洞宗. Such an environment led Japanese Zen monks to produce a number of commentaries on the work.
The facsimile of a copy housed at Tenri Central Library can be found in Gozan-ban Chūgoku
Zenseki sōkan 五山版中国禅籍叢刊, vol. 11 (Kyōto: Rinsen Shoten, 2014).
1

79

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Horikawa

Among these is the (Shinpen) Gōko fūgetsu shū ryakuchū (新編) 江湖風月集略註, akanbun-medium commentary originally by the otherwise unknown Nanbokuchōera Zen monk Tenshū 天秀, whose current form is the product of later revisionand expansion by Tōyō Eichō 東陽英朝 (1428–1504) of the Myōshin-ji Branch.
Yoshizawa Katsuhiro 芳澤勝弘, in his modern commentary on and translationof Jianghu fengyue ji,2 has argued that the extant manuscript of the Ryakuchū said
to be a Tōyō autograph copy—a text surviving in Shōtaku-in 聖沢院, a Myōshin-ji
tatchū 塔頭 (“sub-temple”) founded by one of Tōyō’s disciples—is not only definitively not by his own hand, but moreover that the work it represents is not of
his own composition. Judging from the Ryakuchū’s content, in other words,
Yoshizawa argues that no Tōyō-authored commentary on the anthology can besaid to have survived, and that the form of the work current today is thus noneother than Tenshū’s commentary itself.
However, as editions of the text circulating from the early modern period onward include an afterword credited to Tōyō, the work was certainly believed tobe his commentary. Indeed, his own fame as a monk in the Myōshin-ji Branch
was no doubt one of the factors contributing to the text’s broad circulation. Setting aside for the present, therefore, any conclusions about Tōyō’s own involvement, this study examines rather the details of the early-modern circulation ofcommentaries on Jianghu fengyue ji, the Ryakuchū foremost among them, considering also the ultimate origins of the commentary material they contain.3
The Ryakuchū in Print and its Development in the Early Modern Period
All told, seven distinct print editions of this Ryakuchū commentary are currently
known to have been published, a number including both old moveable-type editions (kokatsuji-ban 古活字版) and editions printed by woodblock (整版 seihan).
Here follow detailed descriptions of the publication date, publisher, and publication format of each of these.
[1] (Shinpen) Gōko fūgetsu shū ryakuchū (新編) 江湖風月集略註 (2 volumes)4
Old moveable-type (kokatsuji-ban 古活字版) editions(a) Date: 	No colophon (mukanki 無刊記). Likely at some point during
the Keichō 慶長 (1596–1615) or Genna 元和 (1615–1624) eras.
Publisher: No colophon, unknown.
Gōko fūgetsu shū yakuchū 江湖風月集訳注 (Kyoto: Zen Bunka Kenkyūjo, 2003).
For a discussion of commentaries on the Jianghu fengyue ji in general, see Horikawa Takashi
堀川貴司, “Gōko fūgetsu shū no chūshakusho”『江湖風月集』の注釈書, in Chūshakusho no kokon tōzai
注釈書の古今東西, ed. Satō Michio 佐藤道生 (Tokyo: Keiō Gijuku Daigaku Shuppankai, 2011).
4
Facsimile in Zengaku tenseki sōkan 禅学典籍叢刊, eds. Yanagida Seizan 柳田聖山 and Shiina
Kōyū 椎名宏雄, vol. 11 (Kyoto: Rinsen Shoten, 2000). However, this is a composite text, the first
volume representing edition (h), the second volume representing edition (e).
23

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81

Format: 	Four-sided (shishū 四周) double border (sōhen 双辺), with vertical rules ( yūkai 有界). 9 columns of 16 characters each.
(b) Date:
Published (kan 刊) in Kan’ei 寛永 3 (1626).
Publisher: Nakajima Kyūbei 中島久兵衛
Format: 	Four-sided double border, with no vertical rules (mukai 無界).
11 columns of 21 characters each.
(c) Date:
Publisher:Format:Published in Kan’ei 6 (1629).
Same as edition (b).
Same as edition (b).

Woodblock-printed (seihan 整版) editions
Published in Kan’ei 7 (1630).
(d) Date:
Publisher: [Nakano] Ichiemonnojō〔中野〕市右衛門尉
Format: 	Four-sided double border, with no vertical rules. 9 columns,
16 characters each.

A reproduction ( fukkoku 覆刻) of edition (a) in woodblock form, with glossing
points (kunten 訓点) added.
(e) Date:
Publisher:Format:Published in Kan’ei 9 (1632).
No publisher given.
Same as edition (d).

A reproduction of edition (d), with the following two modifications. First, thesecond volume’s volume-end title (kanbidai 巻尾題), which in edition (d) was
found on the verso of the final page of main text (honbun 本文), has in edition(e) been moved up to that same page’s recto side. This allowed the verso to begin
immediately with the work’s supplement (furoku 付録), ultimately saving one sideof a page (Figures 1 & 2). In addition, the second volume’s colophon (kanki
刊記), which in edition (d) was the only printed content on the verso of thatvolume’s ultimate page, has been relocated to formerly free space on that page’s
recto, saving one additional page-side (Figures 3 & 4). Together these twochanges permitted a full page’s worth of savings.

Digitized images are available on the Database of Pre-Modern Japanese Works (Shin Nihon kotensekisōgō dētabēsu 新日本古典籍総合データベース) for edition (a) [https://doi.org/10.20730/100016120],
edition (d) [https://doi.org/10.20730/200006143], and edition (g) [https://doi.org/10.20730/
100025309]. See: [http://kotenseki.nijl.ac.jp].
In the digital archives of Shimane 島根 University Library, digital images are available for edition (e) [http://da.lib.shimane-u.ac.jp/content/2064], edition (f) [ . . ./2066], and also (thoughwith the year of publication removed from its colophon) edition (d) [ . . ./2067].
Digitized images of edition (h) can also be viewed at Waseda 早稲田 University Library’s Japanese and Chinese Classics database (Kotenseki sōgō dētabēsu 古典籍総合データベース). See:
[http://www.wul.waseda.ac.jp/kotenseki/html/bunko31/bunko31_e1108/index.html].

Horikawa

82

Figure 1a.

Figure 1b.
Figure 1. Shinpen Gōko fūgetsu shū ryakuchū 新編江湖風月集略註. Edition(d), vol. 2. (NIJL).
In this earlier edition (d), after the main text of Volume 2 concludes
on p. 66r. (Figure 1a, left), the volume-end title (kanbidai 巻尾題) follows
on the subsequent page-face 66v. (Figure 1b, right).
https://doi.org/10.20730/200006143 (images no. 146–147)

A Japanese Commentary History of Jianghu fengyue ji

Figure 2a.

Figure 2b.
Figure 2. Shinpen Gōko fūgetsu shū ryakuchū. Edition (e) vol. 2. (Shimane
University Library).
In edition (e), the volume-end title has been moved up a page-face,
fitted in directly after the end of the main text on p. 66r. (Figure 2a, left),allowing the supplement to begin immediately on 66v. (Figure 2b, right), a
page-face earlier than in edition (d), where it began on 67r. (Figure 1b, left).
https://da.lib.shimane-u.ac.jp/content/ja/2065 (images no. 71–72)

83

Horikawa

84

Figure 3a.

Figure 3b.
Figure 3. Shinpen Gōko fūgetsu shū ryakuchū. Edition (d), vol. 2. (NIJL).
In this earlier edition (d), the second volume’s colophon (kanki 刊記)
is printed separately from the rest of the text, and allotted its own
page-face at the volume’s end, p. 71v. (Figure 3b, right).
https://doi.org/10.20730/200006143 (images no. 151–152)

A Japanese Commentary History of Jianghu fengyue ji

85

Figure 4. Shinpen Gōko fūgetsu shū ryakuchū. Edition (e), vol. 2, pp. 70v.–
back inside cover. (Shimane University Library).
In edition (e), the colophon, too, has been moved up a page-face,
fitted into what in edition (d) had been free space on the page-facepreceding. In this photograph, the inside flap of the back cover has
peeled away to overlay the volume’s last page, making its details difficult
to discern. Nonetheless it can be distinguished above that in edition(e), the colophon found in edition (d) on p. 71v. (Figure 3b, right), andthe text preceding it on p. 71r. (Figure 3a, left), have here been combined
into a single page-face.
https://da.lib.shimane-u.ac.jp/content/ja/2065 (image no. 76)(f) Date:
Publisher:Format:Printed (in 印) in Kanbun 寛文 3 (1663).
Yamamoto Goheinojō 山本五兵衛尉
Same as edition (e).

A reprinting of edition (e), differing only in modifications made to the colophonby means of inserted wooden plugs (ireki 入木).
(g) Date:
Publisher:Format:Printed in Enpō 延宝 5 (1677).
Nagao Heibei 長尾平兵衛
Same as edition (e).

A reprinting of edition (e), differing only in modifications made to the colophonby means of inserted wooden plugs.
(h) Date:
Publisher:Format:Unknown, but datable to the early Edo period.
Unknown.
Same as edition (e).

86

Horikawa

A republication of (e), but with the full text recarved using the Minchō 明朝
typeface. In the latter half of the 17th century, under the influence of Ōbaku-ban
黄檗版 editions (e.g., the Testugen-ban issaikyō 鉄眼版一切経), it became more common, when issuing new editions of older Buddhist and Sinographic publications,to change the typeface of their kanji to Minchō. Edition (h) is one example ofthis trend.
With the advance of commercial publishing, texts which in the past had beentransmitted only by manuscript were able, through publication, to circulate
widely for the first time—a development that manifests in typical fashion certain
sharp differences between the medieval and early modern periods in the way
books themselves functioned.
The Ryakuchū itself saw publication on three different occasions in old
moveable-type editions alone. The earliest of these, edition (a), used larger
type-pieces (katsuji 活字), resulting in a page with both fewer columns of text
in total and fewer characters of text within each column. By the time of editions (b) and (c), however, columns have increased both in number and capacity.
This shift is illustrative of the changes that took place in such old moveabletype editions between the period embracing the Keichō 慶長 (1596–1615) andGenna 元和 (1615–1624) eras, when non-commercial publishing was still therule, and the subsequent Kan’ei 寛永 era (1624–1645), over the course ofwhich commercial publication became more general. (Under the market conditions of the latter period, pressure to lower publication costs led to theadoption of smaller type-pieces, whose use permitted an increase in columns
per page and characters per column that ultimately saved both paper and ink).
In the case of moveable-type, however, once printed, each individually typeset
page had to be decomposed to make room for the next. Under such a system,
printing additional copies at a later date implied a page-by-page re-compositionof the full text. Edition (c) is a good example of such a situation. By the same
publisher as edition (b), rather than any intention to produce a new editionon the publisher’s part, the existence of edition (c) most likely represents
merely the need for more copies of the earlier one. When stocks of edition (b)proved insufficient, the publisher would have had no choice but to typeset theentire work again from the beginning, effectively producing a new edition in theprocess.
With woodblock printing, on the other hand, once the master printing blocks
had been produced, they could be used again and again to print further copiesof the text at will. In cases where lasting demand for a work could be expected,
in other words, from a commercial standpoint the technology of woodblockprinting was clearly superior. It was precisely for this reason that during the
Kan’ei era, we find texts which had appeared previously in old moveable-type
editions being republished in new editions printed by woodblock. The Ryakuchū
is no exception to this trend, and indeed edition (d), the first edition of that work

A Japanese Commentary History of Jianghu fengyue ji

87

produced using woodblock, was in fact a re-production (i.e., a traced re-carving)of old moveable-type edition (a). It is likely, moreover, that the choice of (a) as
the basis for this new edition, rather than a more recent edition like (b) or (c),proceeded from the judgment that the former’s less-packed page composition
was ultimately preferrable for purposes of annotation, allowing more space forthe various kunten 訓点 glossing points to be added. It is conceivable that a desire
to avoid using publications from other more contemporary publishers also
played some role in the decision.
At the same time, because it preceded the establishment of a system for protecting copyright, this period of transition also saw the frequent republication bycompetitor publishers of works from one’s own catalogue particularly in demand,brazenly reissued in unauthorized editions with no change in content. And insuch cases, rather than reproducing that same content in a new layout of one’s
own conception, it was of course far more efficient to simply reproduce (essentially, to retrace) the preexisting layout already to hand. A good example of sucha case is edition (e), likely to be the reproduction, anonymously issued, of edition(d) by a different publisher. In contrast, editions (f) and (g), though also by different publishers, are in effect reprintings, made possible through serial acquisitions of edition (e)’s own printing blocks. With regard to edition (h), nothing
definitive can be said about either when it was published, or by whom, but its
production can probably be dated to some point after the spread of the Minchō
明朝 typeface, in the latter half of the 17th century.
Other considerations aside, at the least this history of the Ryakuchū’s repeatedrepublication demonstrates eloquently the degree of demand that the work succeeded in commanding.
Another feature of this history is the appearance of several works representing
various degrees of alteration made to the original commentary:[2] Shinpen Gōko fūgetsu shū ryakuchū shō 新編江湖風月集略註鈔 (4 volumes)5
Date:
Publisher:

Published in Kan’ei 10 (1633).
Nakano Ichiemon 中野市右衛門This text is a rewriting of the Ryakuchū’s kanbun-medium commentary in amixed-vernacular style (kana-majiri-bun カナ交じり文) with katakana. Where theinterpretation of the Ryakuchū proved insufficient, however, it also supplements theearlier work, from time to time even questioning its analysis. Some publication
catalogues (shojaku mokuroku 書籍目録) printed during the Edo period list as the

See the two texts available in the digital archives of Shimane University Library, found respectively at [http://da.lib.shimane-u.ac.jp/content/1885] and [http://da.lib.shimane-u.ac.jp/
content/1889].
5

Horikawa88

text’s author the Sōtō-school monk Bannan Eishu 万安英種.6 It is worth note ineither case that it shares an issuing publisher with edition (d) of the Ryakuchū itself. On the publisher’s side, likely this reflects a form of response to pirate editions
like (e) from competitors, an attempt to differentiate his offering by providing thisfurther commentary alongside the Ryakuchū, almost as a companion work.
[3] Shusho Gōko fūgetsu shū 首書江湖風月集 (4 volumes)7
Date:
Publisher:

Unknown.
Unknown.

A work that adds, to either side of and also above the entries of the Ryakuchū, afurther layer of even more detailed kanbun-medium commentary (mostly concerned with determining textual sources). First appearing in a publication catalogue of Kanbun 10 (1670), later catalogues give as its author one Gekkai 月海.
One catalogue from Genroku 元禄 9 (1696) lists as its publisher a certain Nagao
長尾, perhaps indicating Nagao Heibei 長尾平兵衛. Should this in fact be thecase, it might well indicate an attempt to respond to widespread demand in thelate 17th century, implying as it would that alongside his acquisition of the printing
blocks (hangi 版木) for edition (e) of the Ryakuchū itself, the same publisher had
also sought to add to his inventory a yet more detailed commentary like this work.
[4] Gōko fūgetsu shū ryakuchū shusha 江湖風月集略註取捨 (2 volumes)8
Date:
Publisher:

Published in Kyōhō 享保 17 (1732).
Fūgetsudō Shōzaemon 風月堂荘左衛門

While basing itself on the Ryakuchū, this work is selective in what it preserves andwhat it discards, bringing in additional commentary from outside, and even expounding its own novel theories. By Yōshun Shudaku 陽春主諾 (Seiken-ji 清見寺
temple, Shizuoka Prefecture), a Rinzai-school monk of the Myōshin-ji Branch,from the mid-early modern period onward, this text came to circulate more
widely than the Ryakuchū itself.
For commentaries on the original anthology from alternative lineages, the following works were also published:

A list of products of the commercial press current at that point in time. All such catalogues
up to the mid-Edo period that survive are collected in the volume Edo jidai shorin shuppan shojaku
mokuroku shūsei 江戸時代書林出版書籍目録集成, ed. Keiō Gijuku Daigaku Fuzoku Kenkyūjo
Shidō Bunko 慶應義塾大学附属研究所斯道文庫 (Tokyo: Inoue Shobō, 1962–1964).
7
Facsimile in Zengaku tenseki sōkan, vol. 11 (op. cit.).
8
No facsimile volume available. Digitized images, however, are available on the Database of
Pre-Modern Japanese Works. [https://doi.org/10.20730/100224648]. See: [http://kotenseki.nijl.ac.jp].
6

A Japanese Commentary History of Jianghu fengyue ji

89[5] Shusho Gōko shū Kassan shō 首書江湖集夾山鈔 (8 volumes)9
Date:
Publisher:

Published in Manji 万治 2 (1659).
Akitaya Heizaemon 秋田屋平左衛門

Main text in kanbun, with headnotes (shusho 首書) in a mixed-vernacular style using
katakana. Explains how the content of the work bears upon Buddhist enlightenment, using a two-tier analysis that examines separately both a “verse’s surface[meaning]” (kumen 句面) as well as the true, more hidden “verse’s inner [meaning]”(kuchū 句中). The titular Kassan 夾山 is a figure otherwise unknown.
[6] Shinpen Gōko shū keimōshō 新編江湖集啓蒙鈔 (5 volumes)10
Date:
Publisher:

Published in Kanbun 8 (1668).
Tsutsumi Rokuzaemon 堤六左衛門

Written in a mixed-vernacular style with katakana. By the early Edo-period Sōtōschool monk Manshitsu Sokai 卍室祖价 (Banshō-ji 万松寺 temple, Nagoya, 11th
generation).
[7] Shinchū shōwa Gōko fūgetsu shū 新註唱和江湖風月集 (8 volumes)11
Date:
Publisher:

Published (according to afterword date) in Kyōhō 3 (1718).
Unknown.

A work of commentary and also original poetry by the Sōtō-school monk
Geppa Dōin 月坡道印.
The Medieval Within Commentaries of the Early Modern Period
Here let us examine the respective content of [1] the Ryakuchū and [2] the
Ryakuchū shō, taking by way of example a single verse (#140) found near the
beginning of the Chinese anthology’s second volume, a composition by thecompiler Songpo Zongqi himself.12 Portions marked out by a straight underline
represent content shared by both texts [1] and [2], which is to say, portions that[2] the Ryakuchū shō has taken from [1] the Ryakuchū and rendered, more or lessfaithfully, into Japanese.

Facsimile in Zengaku tenseki sōkan, vol. 11 (op. cit.).
No facsimile volume available. Based on the Komazawa University Library text. (Call number:
永久 1022).
11
No facsimile volume available. Based on the Komazawa University Library text. (Call number: H151/5).
12
For a more detailed discussion (from the present author) on poem #140, see Iizuka
Hironobu 飯塚大展, et al., “Gōko fūgetsu shū ryakuchū kenkyū (11)” 『江湖風月集略註』研究（十一）,Komazawa daigaku Zen kenkyūjo nenpō 駒澤大学禅研究所年報 30 (2019.1).
910

Horikawa

90[1] Ryakuchū 略註13
Title: 帰 江陵奔講師喪1
2
3
4

講罷残経去不回
石床花雨翠成堆
天荒地老重相見
眼在髑髏眉底開江陵に帰つて講師の喪に奔る〈或本帰字上有送人之二字〉
残経を講じ罷めて去つて回らず
石床の花雨 翠 堆を成す
天荒れ地老いて重ねて相見
眼は髑髏眉底に在つて開く

去不回者、講師死也。講得経論称仏意、則雨花動地。須菩提宴坐岩中、諸天雨花。梁武帝講放光般若時、天雨四花等事。又西山亮座主講経時、有雨花之瑞云々。天荒地老者、久義也。

Title: H eaded home to Jiangling in haste for his master’s mourning(Another version of the text has before “Headed home . . .” the words “Uponsending off one”)
1
2
3
4

Finished teaching the scriptures left, gone is he with no return;
On his stony seat, flowers rain to make heaps of piled jade.
Beyond sky’s ruin and earth’s end shall you next each other see,
When eyes there are in hollow skull, beneath the brow wide-open.

Here “gone is he with no return” refers to the master’s death. It rains flowers and shakes
the earth because he was one who taught and grasped the scriptures and thus pleased
the Buddha’s mind. When Subhūti was sitting at rest among the rocks, the various devasrained flowers down upon him. Also the story about how when Emperor Wu of Liang
was teaching the Light-emitting Wisdom [Sutra] (Fangguang bore 放光般若), heaven showered
him with four types of flower, etc. And it is said that when Abbot Liang 亮 of Xishan 西山
was teaching the scriptures, there was a miracle of flowers raining. The phrase “beyond
sky’s ruin and earth’s end” signifies a long span of time.

[2] Ryakuchū shō 略註鈔 14
Title: 帰江陵奔講師喪Headed home to Jiangling in haste for his master’s mourning

帰ノ上ニ送ルト云字在テヨイゾ。唐土テハ、ドノ禅僧モ初メハ教者ニ依テ教学ヲスル
ソ。是ヲ受業ノ師ト云ソ。サウシテ後ニ参禅ゾ。夫レニ依テ経意ヲモ能ク窮ルニ依

Notes on [1] the Ryakuchū 略註 text:(1) Line numbers, etc., are added here for ease of comparison between the two commentaries.
(2) Conversely, all kunten 訓点 glossing points found in the base text have been omitted.
(3) The yomi-kudashi 読み下し rendering of the poem is my own.
14
Notes on [2] the Ryakuchū shō 略註鈔 text:(1) As above in text [1], line numbers, etc., are added here for ease of comparison.
(2) Here, too, all kunten glossing points found in the base text have been omitted.
(3) In some cases, for ease of reading, the text as given here represents a rearrangement of thebase text in accordance with the omitted kunten, with okurigana supplied at need. Examples:Line 1: 残スレ経ヲ → 経ヲ残ス
Line 2: 雨レ花ヲ
→ 花ヲ雨ス（ふら・す）13

A Japanese Commentary History of Jianghu fengyue ji

91

テ、禅学モ広イソ。日本テモ上代ニハ如此アツタニ依テ、ヨカツタソ。今時ハサヤウ
ニ無イニ依テ、錯リカ多イソ。是ハ江陵ト云処ヘ帰テ講師ノ喪ニ逢フゾ。

It is appropriate to have the words “Upon sending off one” before “Headed home . . .”In China, all Zen monks begin with a period of [doctrinal] study under an instructor.
They call this the “master of teaching.” Only after this do they engage in Zen practice.
As a result of the deep understanding of scripture they achieve because of this, Zenerudition there is wide-ranging. Such was once the case in Japan, too, in older times, andthings were the better for it. Because nowadays that is no longer the case, error has become common. This [title] means that [the poem’s addressee] is traveling home to theplace called Jiangling to be there in time for his master’s mourning.

1 講罷残経去不回
Finished teaching the scriptures left, gone is he with no return;
講師ノナリゾ。此間講シ残シタ経ヲ講シ罷テ死ナレタソ。去不回トハ、死シテ一度去
テハ不回ソ。[A] 或ハ講シ罷テ経ヲ残ストヨマフトイヘトモ、二重三重テ何ントヤラ
ウシタソ。

This is a description of his master. Having finished teaching those scriptures which,
only recently, he had left still untaught, he then died. The meaning of “gone is he withno return” is that once someone has died and gone, there is no returning for him. [A]
One might also read [the verse] as signifying that when he finished teaching, there werestill scriptures he had left untaught, but that would need [the verse] to be in something
like two or three different pieces.

2 石床花雨翠成堆
On his stony seat, flowers rain to make heaps of piled jade.
此間講経ノ時キ花カ雨タカ、今ニ堆ヲ成シテアルソ。雨花ノコトハ、梁ノ武帝放光般若ヲ講セシトキモ花ヲ雨シ、西山ノ亮座主講経ノトキモ花ヲ雨シ、須菩提般若ヲ説ク
時モ花ヲ雨ス。[B] 日本ニテモ、聖徳太子講経ノトキモ天花乱墜シタソ。爰テモ講師
チヤホトニ、花ハ雨ラストモ花カ雨タト云カ作法ゾ。

Recently while he was teaching the scriptures it rained flowers, and now they have piled
up in heaps. Regarding the expression “raining flowers,” it also rained flowers when
Emperor Wu of Liang taught the Light-emitting Wisdom [Sutra], as it rained flowers when
Abbot Liang of Xishan was teaching the scriptures, and as again it rained flowers when
Subhūti was expounding upon the Wisdom [Sutra]. [B] Also in Japan, when Shōtoku Taishi
聖徳太子 was teaching the scriptures, then too flowers poured from the skies in profusion.
So too here, even if there is no rain of flowers, one says that it rained flowers out of
convention—[the deceased] was after all [the addressee’s] own master.

3 天荒地老重相見
Beyond sky’s ruin and earth’s end shall you next each other see,
講師ハ死シ去タホトニ、天モ荒レ地モ老タソ。此ノ如ク云タトテ、百年二百年ニ成テ年シ久イデハ無ケレトモ、死去テ何ンニモ無イ処ヲ云ソ。爰ノ相見シ難イ処テ相見シタソ。何ニト相見シタソナレハ、

92Horikawa

When his master died and passed away, it blighted the sky and aged the earth itself. What
this manner of speaking intends is not the long span of after a hundred or two hundredyears, but rather his sense of nothing at all remaining after [his master’s] death and departure.
And yet here they see each other again, despite how impossible seeing one another has
become at this point. Now, as to how it is possible to see each another thus . . .

4 眼在髑髏眉底開When eyes there are in hollow skull, beneath the brow wide-open.
喜識尽タ髑髏ノ上ニ活眼睛カアルソ。爰テ相見シタソ。前ニ「髑髏那畔重相見、立尽
空山又夕陽」ト同意ソ。

On the hollow skull of one who is done with the knowledge of joy, there is an enlivened[i.e., enlightened] eye. It is with this that they see one another. The meaning is the sameas in the earlier poem: “Yonder beside the hollow skull shall you next each other see /Standing to end the mountain void, again with the evening sun.”15

Of the two passages in [2] the Ryakuchū shō marked out above in wavy underline, the first [A] is almost identical to this passage found in the Kintaishū 襟帯集,
a work credited to—though likely merely copied out or owned by—Bunshi
Genshō 文之玄昌 (1555–1620), a Rinzai-school monk active in Kagoshima:“Given the difficulty of determining the significance here of “left,” one mightalso read [the verse] as signifying that when he finished teaching, there were still
scriptures he had left untaught, but that would need [the verse] to be in something like two or three different pieces” (残字難解程ニ、講シ罷テ残経トヨマウ
トイヘトモ、二重三重テ何トヤラウシタソ).16
Furthermore, the second such passage [B] also finds its content mirrored inanother text, this time the Gōko fūgetsu shū shō 江湖風月集抄, a work by Hōshuku
Shusen 彭叔守仙 (1490–1555), a monk of the Kyoto Gozan temple Tōfuku-ji
東福寺 famous for his scholarship (an autograph copy of this text survives, containing Shusen’s record of lectures by his teacher Hōkyō Kōrin 芳郷光隣, towhich he has appended further theories of his own). There, after citing the same
precedent examples of Subhūti and Emperor Wu of Liang (though no reference
to Abbot Liang is made), Shusen goes on to write: “In Japan, it is said that when
Shōtoku Taishi was teaching Queen Śrīmālā’s Sutra (Shōmangyō 勝鬘経) at Tachibanadera 橘寺, there occurred a prodigy of flowers raining, etc.” (日本ニテハ、聖徳太子
講勝鬘経於橘寺時、有雨花瑞云々).17
In other words, the Ryakuchū shō has not only recast the commentary of the
Ryakuchū into more accessible language, but in places where the Ryakuchū itself wassilent, has also supplied detailed analyses on its own initiative, drawing upon lectures and theories of the medieval period from the Gozan system and beyond.
This references vv. 3–4 of poem #62 in the first volume of Jianghu fengyue ji.
Facsimile (of a Seikidō sōsho 成簣堂叢書 reproduction of the original text) found in Zengaku
tenseki sōkan, vol. 11 (op. cit.).
17
Facsimile in Ryūmon bunko zenpon sōkan 龍門文庫善本叢刊, vol. 4 (Tokyo: Benseisha, 1985).
15
16

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93

Similar cases may be observed elsewhere. Omitting here any particular examples, the kanbun commentary of [5] the Kassan shō 夾山鈔 commentary draws
frequently upon the theories of Kōzei Ryūha 江西龍派 (1375–1446, also called
Zokusui 続翠), a monk of the Muromachi period whose activities centered on
the Kyoto Gozan temple Kennin-ji 建仁寺. Also the author of, for example, acommentary on the poetry of Du Fu 杜甫 (the Toshi Zokusui shō 杜詩続翠抄), in
his wide-ranging scholarship Kōzei frequently employs the technical termshitagokoro 下心 (“deeper meaning”)18—essentially the same as Kassan’s conceptof the “verse’s inner [meaning]” (kuchū 句中)—as an interpretive tool for discussing the true meaning intended by a given poet.
And it is worth noting that this method of analysis employed by Kōzei had oncommentaries produced by later generations of Zen monks a widespread andlasting influence. For example, Sesshin Jisen 説心慈宣 (d. 1626, also called Soin素隠), a late-Muromachi monk of the Myōshin-ji Branch, in his commentary on
the famous anthology of Tang-era poetry Santishi 三体詩, the Santaishi Soin shō
三体詩素隠抄—another commentary that circulated in both old moveabletype and woodblock-printed editions—likewise analyzed many of that anthology’s
works using a similar framework, finding on the poem’s surface a “[meaning]above” (kami 上) which contrasted with the “[meaning] underneath” (soko 底)that reflected the poet’s true intention. This constitutes yet another case of
medieval-era “knowledge” coming to circulate in the early modern period
through the vehicle of print.
Conclusion: The Circulation of “Knowledge” and Publication Activity
In the dynamic world of early-modern period commercial publishing, competition between rival publishers sometimes took the form of reproducing rival
editions containing the same in-demand text, but also often took the form of
producing novel variations on such a text, developing it in the direction ofgreater detail—or greater accessibility. In the course of these activities, a wide
range of diverse commentaries came to be published. Yet if contemporarymonks frequently featured as central participants in such efforts, as editors andalso as authors in their own right, the content of the commentaries they produced was not necessarily itself as contemporary, and indeed often hearkened
back to medieval commentaries from a variety of monastic schools which—as
least up to that point—had depended for their transmission on hand-copied
manuscripts. As a result, a body of “knowledge” that throughout the medieval
period has remained largely hidden, came at length through such publications tocirculate more widely through society as a whole.

For further discussion of this technical term, see Horikawa Takashi, “‘Shitagokoro’ no
setsu” 「下心」の説, Nihon koten bungakukai kaihō 日本古典文学会々報 130 (1998.7).
18

Studies in Japanese Literature and Culture 4 (March 2021) 95–122© 2021 National Institute of Japanese Literature

On the Reception and Uses of Li Shizhen’sClassified Materia Medica (Bencao gangmu)
in 17th-century Japan:
Text, Categories, Pictures1
Matthias Hayek

Introduction
The Bencao gangmu 本草綱目 (Classified Materia Medica, Jp. Honzō kōmoku), asumma on pharmacology (bencao 本草, Jp. honzō) published in 1596 in Nanjing,has been praised as a truly epoch-making book. The richness of the work alone
could justify its fame: it lists, describes, and discusses the medicinal properties of
1,895 different kinds of plants, herbs, minerals, and animals. Nor did its compiler, Li Shizhen 季時珍 (1518–1593), stop at merely collecting the more traditional sort of bencao material: fully endorsing the Neo-Confucian epistemologicalparadigm of “investigation of things” (gewu zhizhi 格物致知, Jp. kakubutsu chichi),2
he extended the purview of his compilation to the basic components of thesurrounding world, as well as to the realm of man. If, as Georges Métailié has
meticulously shown, Li cannot really be considered a “precursor” to modern zoology, he nevertheless devised a system that, while retaining most of the subjective
categories of “folk taxonomy,” still strove after a renewed form of coherency.3
This research would not have been possible without the digital resources made available by
the National Institute of Japanese Literature, both through the renewed Database of Pre-modern
Japanese Works, and through the Center for Open Data in the Humanities (CODH). I would also liketo thank the anonymous reviewers for their useful remarks and advice, as well as Jeffrey Knottfor his careful editing. For any remaining mistakes, the fault is mine alone.
2
Elmann, Benjamin, On Their Own Terms: Science in China 1550–1900 (Cambridge: Harvard
University Press, 2005).
3
See the following series of studies by George Métailié: (1) “Des mots et des plantes (dans le
Bencao gangmu de Li Shizhen)”, Extrême-Orient/Extrême-Occident 10 (1988), pp. 27–43; (2) “TheBencao gangmu (Classified Materia Medica) of Li Shizhen—An innovation in Natural History?”, inInnovation in Chinese Medicine, ed. Elisabeth Hsu (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001);(3) “Le Bencao gangmu de Li Shizhen et l’histoire naturelle au Japon durant la période d’Edo(1600–1868)”, Études chinoises 25 (2006), pp. 41–68 and pp. 221–261; and (4) “Some Reflections
on the History of Botanical Knowledge in China”, Circumscribere 3 (2007), pp. 66–84.
1

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Hayek

The broad scope of Li’s work may explain why it enjoyed a wide reception not
only in China but also in other parts of East Asia. In the Japanese case, the introduction of the Bencao gangmu in the first years of the 17th century has been
defined as the key event that laid the foundations for further developments, notonly in the pragmatic realm of pharmacology proper (honzōgaku 本草学 or yakubutsugaku 薬物学), but also in what might be called the “study of nature” in its
broader sense (hakubutsugaku 博物学). According to Ueno Masuzō 上野益三
(1900–1989), one of the chief specialists on the history of the natural sciencesin Japan, the broader, naturalistic scope of Li’s book stimulated several successive generations of Japanese scholars, leading to the formation of a local tradition of natural history.4 This tradition is seen as clearly distinct from the Chinese
one, insofar as for these scholars, the main interest lay in listing and in reflecting
upon local specimens, and additionally because, independently as a local tradition, it proved able to coexist with—and at some point even to converge with—those Western “scientific” views that were gradually being introduced to Japanthrough the so-called field of “Dutch studies” (rangaku 蘭学). Within this narrative,
which had already become established by the time of Shirai Mitsutarō 白井光太郎(1863–1932) and Watanabe Kōzō 渡辺幸三 (1905–1966)—Ueno’s forerunners
in the field of the history of honzō and hakubutsugaku in China and Japan—Li’s
Bencao gangmu played an ambiguous role. On the one hand, it was seen as having
been a welcome catalyst for the development of a local scholarship. On theother, it was cast as a “limitation” partly responsible for preventing the earlier
appearance of a properly scientific mode of thought, whether in spontaneous
generation domestically or through the external stimulus of Western knowledge.5 In the words of Watanabe and Ueno, the Bencao ended up “dominating”(shihai 支配)6 the mind of Japanese naturalists, who tended to “blindly follow”7
Li’s system, and were consequently as stubbornly impervious to change as Aristotelians had been in the face of Copernicus, Galileo, and the Kepler findings.
In these scholars’ “progressivist” view—reminiscent of what Lucien Febvre
called in European context the “old myth of the Renaissance”8—Kaibara Ekiken’s
貝原益軒 (1630–1714) work Yamato honzō 大和本草 (Japanese Materia Medica,
1708) represents, at long last, a form of “critical emancipation” from the Bencao
gangmu. Having thus been launched, moreover, this movement was in turn nourished and sustained, so the narrative goes, by an empiricist stance that emphasized
4
Ueno Masuzō 上野益三, “Honzō kōmoku to Nihon no hakubutsugaku” 本草綱目と日本の博物学, Kōnan joshi daigaku kenkyū kiyō 甲南女子大学研究紀要 7 (1971), pp. 153–163.
5
Watanabe Kōzō 渡辺幸三, “Tokugawa jidai ni okeru honzōgaku gairon” 徳川時代に於ける本草学概論, Yakuyō shokubutsu to shōyaku 薬用植物と生薬 3 (1950), pp. 33–39.

Ibid., p. 36.
Ueno (op. cit.), p. 154.
8
Febvre, Lucien, Le problème de l’incroyance au 16ème siècle: la religion de Rabelais (Paris: Albin-Michel,1942), p. 353.
6
7

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working with actual samples as being more important than any search for overarching, arbitrary theories—an approach that would indeed be followed by later
naturalists such as Ono Ranzan 小野蘭山 (1729–1810). Recent studies on this
topic have helped bring both depth and nuance to this narrative,9 in which one
might even perceive an attempt to justify a form of “Japanese cultural exception”
within the East Asian sphere, one that not only explains Japan’s success in rapid
modernization (Japanese early-modern scholarship ostensibly being already almost on par with Western science), but also accounts for its failures (hindered,ostensibly, from “reaching” the level of the West earlier by virtue of its age-old
reliance on Chinese paradigms). In the end, however, the idea that the Bencao
ruled the field from its “official” introduction in 1607 up until 1709 appears toremain unchallenged. One of the main reasons, as I see it, for the persistence of
this view, is that the original observations leading to its formulation still stand on
strong ground. The fact remains that Li’s Bencao was reprinted 14 times in Japanover the course of the Edo period (1603–1868), and its influence was indeed
very palpable, on subsequent publications treating materia medica and on encyclopedic works alike. Yet the question of the exact nature of this influence, especially beyond the boundaries of pharmacology proper, has so far gathered little
attention, at least outside of studies dedicated to the particular textual landmarksof the aforementioned narrative. In this paper, I hope to give a closer look at
how the Bencao was actually used, in a selection of works published before 1700.
After first briefly reviewing the details of the Bencao’s own composition and theearliest traces of its introduction in Japan, I will move on to consider its direct
influence on Japanese materia medica texts, as well as on materia dietetica texts, agenre closely related to the field of honzō. Finally, I will turn to the illustrated
dictionaries and commentaries that made use of the Bencao.
The “details” of the Bencao gangmu can be narrowed down to two main aspects:(1) its formal structure, e.g., the general organization of the text, the structure ofeach entry, etc., and (2) the knowledge it contains—that is, the choices, selections, and quotations produced by Li himself, as well as all the pictures added inby the work’s various publishers. My goal here is to shed light on which of these
aspects has been influential, depending on the genre of publication. Contrary
to what a situation of epistemic “domination” might lead one to expect, it
seems to me that Li’s theoretical framework, and the worldview he tried to construct in his magnum opus, were not necessarily received in their fullness before
the time of the so-called “critical” scholars such as Inō Jakusui 稲生若水 (1655–1715) and Kaibara Ekiken. Rather, the work functioned mostly as a collection of
textual and pictorial elements that were used to supplement a preexisting framework,
Isono Naohide 磯野直秀, “Nihon hakubutsugaku-shi oboegaki 14” 日本博物学史覚書 XIV,
Keiō gijuku daigaku Hiyoshi kiyō 慶應義塾大学日吉紀要 44 (2008), pp. 99–124. See also Métailié, op.
cit. (2006), as well as Federico Marcon, The Knowledge of Nature and the Nature of Knowledge
in Early Modern Japan (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2015).
9

Hayek98

one being rediscovered from local classics amidst the boom in commercial publishing. In other words, reception of the Bencao as a coherent whole, receptionthat could serve as a basis for further development along the same lines as Li’s
work and following a similar methodology, may have occurred much later than
the traditional narrative would have us believe.
1. The Bencao gangmu: Publication History, Structure, and Contents
Li Shizhen finished his compilation in 52 juan 巻 (volumes), after 30 years ofwork, in 1578. It was printed eighteen years later, in 1596, in Jinling 金陵 (modern Nanjing), after Li’s death. This “Jinling” edition, the first of three that were
produced before the end of the 17th century, adds two separate fascicles containing illustrations for the sections on minerals, plants, and animals.10 Li Shizhen
probably had no part in these pictures, which were devised by his two sons, Li
Jianzhong 李建中 and Li Jianyuan 李建元, and which are famous for their lack ofboth quality and naturalistic accuracy. A new edition, known as the Jiangxi 江西
edition, was made in Nanchang 南昌 in 1603, with again the same illustrations,printed either as a separate fascicle, or, in subsequent copies, placed as appropriate at the beginning of each volume. It was only in 1640—with the new printing
by Qian Weiqi 銭蔚起 in Wulin 武林 (Hangzhou 杭州), known as the Wulin or
Qianya 銭衛 edition—that the illustrations were redrawn and, in some cases,
amended. This last edition became the basis for all later reprintings, until awholly new edition was produced in 1885.
The 52 juan are organized by category as follows:
Water section
Fire section
Earth section
Metals and minerals section
Herbs section
Grains section
Vegetables section
Fruits section
Trees section
Clothes and utensils section
Insects and vermin section
Scaly creatures section
Shelled creatures section
Birds section
Beasts section
Man section

1
1
1
5
10
4
10
4
6
6
4
4
2
4
4
1

10
On the various editions of the Bencao, see Watanabe Kōzō, “Ri Jichin no Honzō kōmoku tosono hanpon” 李時珍の本草綱目とその版本, Tōyō-shi kenkyū 東洋史研究 12–4 (1953), pp. 333–
357.

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99

Through this general structure, we can see that Li tried to innovate in a numberof ways.11 Division of the materia medica into natural categories was not new initself: this had been the standard model in the field since Tao Hongjing’s 陶弘景
Shennong bencao jing jizhu 神農本草経集註 (Collected Commentaries on Shennong’s
Materia Medica), compiled at the end of the 6th century CE. However, the numberof such sections did not show much change until the 15th century, and works
published in Li Shizhen’s own time did not have more than 10 categories.12 Li
had thus greatly augmented the number of categories, deriving some of them bydivision—he separated scaly and shelled things—while others, such as the initial
ones dealing with natural elements, or the later one on clothes, he simply added,
taking his inspiration from encyclopedic works (leishu 類書). What is more, hemade notable changes to the order of the sections, which he justifies as follows
in his fanli 凡例 (preliminary remarks):
旧本玉石水土混同、諸虫鱗介不別、或虫入木部、或木入草部。今各列為部、
首以水火、次之以土、水火為万物之先、土為万物母也。次之以金石、従土也。次之以草穀菜果木、従微至巨也。次之以服器、従草木也。次之以虫鱗介
禽獸、終之以人、従賎至貴也。13

Old books mix up jades, minerals, waters, and earths, they do not distinguishbetween insects, scaly creatures, and shelled creatures; some “insects” have anentry in the tree section and some trees in the herb section… I have now ordered everything into sections (bu) beginning with waters and fires, followed byearths. [That is because] Water and Fire come before the myriad things, andEarth is their mother. Then [follow] the metals and minerals, [because] theycome from the Earth; then the herbs, grains, vegetables, fruits, and trees, fromthe smallest to the biggest; then the clothes and utensils, [made] from herbs andtrees; then the “insects,” the scaly creatures, the shelled creatures, the birds, thebeasts, to finish with man: from the vile to the precious.14

In other words, what Li had created was a wholly new “ladder of things,” witha hierarchy more coherent and more clearly-formulated than anything found inprevious encyclopedias.15 He also abandoned the traditional ranking in order by
For an extensive presentation of the contents and structure of the Bencao gangmu, see Paul
Unschuld, Medicine in China: A History of Pharmaceutics (Berkeley: University of California Press,
1986), pp. 145–163. See also Marcon (op. cit.), pp. 35–37.
12
Métailié, op. cit. (2001), p. 225.
13
Li Shizhen 李時珍, Bencao gangmu 本草綱目 (pub. 万暦 Wanli 18/1590), vol. 3. Available at:https://dl.ndl.go.jp/info:ndljp/pid/1287084/3
14
Métailié, op. cit. (2001), p. 227.
15
On the conceptual framework behind Li’s design, see Carla Nappi, The Monkey and the Inkpot:
Natural History and its Transformations in Early Modern China (Cambridge: Harvard University Press,
2010). On the role of order in encyclopedias, see Matthias Hayek, “Encyclopaedia and Dictionaries in Premodern and Early Modern Japan: Chinese Heritage and the Local Reordering ofKnowledge,” to be published in a forthcoming volume on cultural encyclopedias edited by Anna
Boroffka.
11

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Hayek

the so-called “three grades” (Ch. sanpin 三品), which grouped drug materials according to their level of toxicity (superior = non-toxic, intermediate = moderately
toxic, low = toxic), replacing this instead with a new hierarchy that reflected therelative subordination of each classificatory level to another. According to Li’s
fanli, “Sections” (bu 部), such as “herbs” or “fish,” represent thus a higher tier ofmore encompassing gang 綱 (Jp. kō), while “Categories” (lei 類, Jp. rui ) such as“fragrant tree” or “scaly fish” or “mountain birds” constitute, relative to the gang,a lower tier of more narrowly-drawn mu 目 (Jp. moku). And these “Categories”(lei ), in their own turn, become themselves gang with respect to the yet narrower
mu of more specific “kinds” (zhong 種, Jp. shu). This same hierarchy is also applied within the individual entries, where the first section, devoted to the principle of “rectification of names” (zhengming 正名), is a gang when compared to thealternative names given in following sections. Finally, although the preliminary
remarks never state this explicitly, there are what Georges Métailié calls “covert
categories” that delineate series of what might seem to be considered “families”
of entries,16 with their own hierarchies divided between one particular generic
entry and others which, in a few cases, are explicitly introduced as its “subordinates” (shu 属, Jp. zoku).17 For example, the prunus mume (mei 梅) is a sort of “subkind” of prunus salicinia (li 李). These families, as well as this notion of “shu” itself,
Li Shizhen seems to have found in the Erya 爾雅, one of the oldest leishu (dating
to the Han dynasty), as well as in that work’s commentaries, such as those by
Guo Pu 郭璞 (276–324) or Luo Yuan 羅願 (1136–1184). The criteria behindthese ancient “families” are not always clear. However, in many cases, they proceed from similarities in forms and habits, affinities which are sometimes also
underlined by a semantic proximity, e.g., the use of the same character in a compound name.18
As for the entries themselves, they follow a fixed pattern, with up to elevensections, but in most cases usually only four: (1) the shiming 釈名 (explanation ofnames), that is, the determination of the “correct name,” usually by looking at
ancient sources such as the Erya, then (2) the jijie 集解 (collected commentaries),(3) the qiwei 気味 (quality and flavor), and (4) the zhuzhi 主治 (main therapeutic
indications). And if these last two are indeed quite common in bencao literature,
Li also devised new headings of his own, adding the faming 発明 (explication)section, where he gives details on how and why various drugs are effective, providing either his own interpretation or quoting those of other authors, and also
adding the fulu 附録 (appendix) section, where one can find new additions of
Métailié, op. cit.. (2007), p. 71.
The term shu 属 is also used to specify the grouping under which a given material is “subordinated” within various larger organizational schemata, such as the five phases, the yin and yang,or, in the case of body parts, the set of governing organs, in order to indicate the particularbroader category with which the “subordinate” shares correlative properties.
18
For a detailed presentation of the general structure of the Bencao gangmu, see Nappi (op. cit.),pp. 50–68.
16
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materials or kinds that are in some manner related to the main entry, without being
singled out yet as sub-species in their own right, or whose therapeutic usages had
yet to become widely recognized and known.19
All these innovations indicate a theoretical and systematic intent on Li’s part.
Even though his groupings, whose criteria alternate between philological, morphological, and ecological proximity, are quite different from those of modern“scientific” taxonomy, his work has a strong internal coherency, deeply rooted in
Neo-Confucian natural philosophy and its gewu 格物 worldview. This novelty inits structure and in its aims, in other words, thus characterizes the Bencao gangmu
no less than any of its extended pharmacological content.
The question is: to what extent was Li’s intent actually received in 17th-century
Japan?
2. Early Reception in Japan
Turning now to the introduction of the Bencao gangmu in Japan, we can see that
it followed two main lines, which together would end up defining the subsequentdevelopment of its influence: (1) the medicinal and the dietetical line, and (2) the
so-called “encyclopedic” line. The latter begins with Hayashi Dōshun 林道春(1583–1657), better known as Razan 羅山, who recorded Li’s work in his Kiken
shomoku 既見書目 (Catalogue of Books Already Seen) as early as 1604. Three
years later, in 1607, Razan obtained an exemplar of the Jianxi edition in Nagasaki,
which he presented to Tokugawa Ieyasu 徳川家康 (1543–1616). Meanwhile,
there is evidence attesting to the fact that the Bencao was also known within the
Manase 曲直瀬 school of medicine. Manase Gensaku 曲直瀬玄朔 (1549–1632),
adopted son of the school’s founder, Manase Dōsan 曲直瀬道三 (1507–1594),
and heir also to the school’s headship, published in 1608 a pharmacology manual, Yakushō nōdoku 薬性能毒 (On the Potential Effects of Drugs), based largelyon Dōsan’s own Nōdoku 能毒 (Potential Effects) but also expanded with contents from the Bencao.20
Razan was the first to give an overview of the work’s general content andstructure, with his Tashikihen 多識編 (Book of Extensive Knowledge). This is
On the structure of these entries, see Métailié, op. cit. (2001), and Nappi (op. cit.).
Other students of the same school mention the Bencao in their writings as early as the early
1600’s. See Marcon (op. cit.), pp. 57–58. On the Manase school, see Machi Senjurō 町泉寿郎,“The Evolution of ‘Learning’ in Early Modern Japanese Medicine,” in Listen, Copy, Read: Popular
Learning in Early Modern Japan, eds. Matthias Hayek and Annick Horiuchi (Leiden: Brill, 2014),
pp. 163–204. On the relationship between Dōsan’s original Nōdoku, which circulated among his
disciples in manuscript form, and later printed manuals, see Noguchi Daisuke 野口大輔, Endō Jirō
遠藤次郎, Nakamurua Teruko 中村輝子, Aoyagi Makoto 青柳誠, “Manase Dōsan Yakushō nōdoku
no kenkyū” 曲直瀬道三『薬性能毒』の研究, Nihon ishigaku zasshi 日本医史学雑誌 53:1 (2007),
pp. 150–51.
19
20

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not a pharmacology treatise, but rather a glossary covering the entries of both the
Bencao gangmu and Wang Zhen’s 王禎 (1271–1333) agronomical encyclopedia, theNongshu 農書 (1313). Thus, although it follows the order and structure of Li’s workthroughout its first four kan 巻 and at the beginning of the fifth, it then continues
with words from the Nongshu. Razan’s book was completed in 1612, and circulated
in manuscript form before being printed in 1630 in movable type, with a subsequent woodblock edition in 1631. Its 2,315 entries share the same, uniform organization: the excerpted Chinese name is given a possible equivalent in Japanese(with the phrase ima an[zuru ni] 今案, lit. “I now suggest”), most of which are takenfrom Minamoto no Shitagō’s 源順 (911–983) Wamyō ruijushō 和名類聚抄 (Classified
Compilation of Japanese Names [i.e. equivalents to Chinese characters]), or
Wamyōshō, compiled between 931 and 938, and first printed in 1610 in moveable
type. Razan, an early advocate of Neo-Confucianism and polymath scholar, wasprobably sensitive to Li’s gewu-oriented project. His glossary, however, limited itself to a “study of the names” (meibutsugaku 名物学), and thus exploited only the
first part of each entry, the shiming, working from a lexicographical perspective. In
fact, Tashikihen was mostly used in the context of Chinese poetry composition, afield quite remote from Li’s own encyclopedic project.21
Conversely, the Manase school did not necessarily embrace the gewu worldview,or indeed Li’s personal innovations, in its usage of the Bencao. In Shokushō nōdoku
食性能毒 (On the Potential Effects of Foods), a section on the toxicity of ingredients included in the work Nichiyō shokushō 日用食性, a materia dietetica in Japanesepublished in 1631, Manase Gensaku, while indeed following the order of theentries of the Bencao in his selection of substances, nonetheless based his text
almost exclusively on the qiwei and zhuzhi sections of the entries, or in other words
on the most “classical” and least unique parts of Li’s work, and with no explicit
reference to it as source.22 The “categories” (lei ), too, are not made apparent, andas such, the gang/mu hierarchy is not clearly visible. As we will see, materia dietetica(shokumotsu honzō 食物本草) constituted an important category of honzō-related
books. In their prefaces, the authors and compilers of such works position theseas practical guides for “people’s day-to-day lives” (tami no nichiyō 民の日用), leaving
little place for medical theory.
Subsequently, Li’s book was itself printed in Japan for the first time in 1637 byNoda Yajiemon 野田弥次右衛門. This first edition is based on the Jiangxi version. The text has glossing points (kunten 訓点) to help Japanese readers understand the text, as well as Japanese names for the entries, which are taken from
Razan’s Tashikihen. A new version, based on the same Jiangxi version but with
21

Marcon (op. cit.), pp. 67 and 71, quoting from Nishimura Saburō 西村三郎 and Kameda Jirō

亀田次郎.

Katō Itsuko 加藤伊都子 and Mayanagi Makoto 真柳誠, “Manase Gensaku Shokushō nōdoku
ni okeru Honzō kōmoku no shusha” 曲直瀬玄朔『食性能毒』における『本草綱目』の取捨, Nihon ishigaku zasshi 日本医史学雑誌 38:2 (1992), pp. 213–215.
22

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pictures from the 1640 Qianya edition, was printed in 1653. Finally, two editions
based completely on the Qianya version were produced, one in 1659 (with arevised reprint in 1669 and many later undated editions), and one in 1672.23
Thus, by 1640, Li’s work had been made more easily available to a scholarly
audience, with its updated picture set and with Razan’s Japanese readings. How
did this new situation influence the reception of the work, and the intellectual
project underlying it as a whole?
The period between the Kan’ei 寛永 (1624–1645) and Kanbun 寛文 (1661–
1673) eras represents a turning point in the history of publishing in Japan. The
1630’s saw the rise of commercial publishers in Kyoto, such as the aforementioned Noda, who gradually shifted from moveable-type to woodblock printing,a technique that allowed the inclusion of illustrations with relative ease. Andeven though their numbers paled in comparison to those of Buddhist texts,
which still accounted for the majority of publications, various practical manuals,
too—on medicine, divination, or poetry, together with commentaries or illustrated versions of classical texts—began to occupy a significant part of the market. According to Mayanagi Makoto 真柳誠, some 58 books related to honzō were
published between 1608 and 1699, almost 77% (45) of them after 1630.24
The Bencao comes to figure more and more prominently in a greater share ofthese publications, at least from the 1650’s onwards. In Honzō kanben 本草簡便
(A Simplified Materia Medica), published in 1652, Jūansai Gen’yū 就安斎玄幽,
supposedly a disciple of the Manase school, lists 204 substances in all. Each ofthese entries starts with Gen’yū’s own commentary, followed by a section discussing the name of the given material and a further section on its therapeutic
properties. In both of these latter sections, Li is quoted first. The order of theentries, however, does not follow the Bencao at all.
We can also see quotations from Li making a new appearance in re-editions ofolder manuals on materia dietetica. For instance, Yamaoka Genrin’s 山岡元隣 (1631–
1672) Shokumotsu waka honzō zōho 食物和歌本草増補 (Augmented Materia Dietetica
in Poetic Form), published in 1667, is for the most part merely a reissue of thecontents of the Waka shokumotsu honzō 和歌食物本草 (A Poetic Materia Dietetica)—
an anonymous work published in 1630—but its additional material is commentary
derived from the Bencao. The original work, in two or three kan, introduced its
23
This last one, titled Kōsei honzō kōmoku 校正本草綱目 (Classified Materia Medica, Edited andCorrected), is known as the “Ekiken version,” in reference to Kaibara Ekiken. This edition contains an additional table listing the entries with their Japanese names, which for the most part are
identical with those given by Ekiken in his Yamato honzō (1708). However, the entries in the main
text still follow Tashikihen, and the kunten glossing is of a level considered by some specialists to
be incongruent with Ekiken’s other scholarship. See Isono (op. cit.).
24
Source: http://square.umin.ac.jp/mayanagi/materials/EdoBencaobook.html (accessed 1/1/2021).
Note: working from the list provided on this page, in my calculation of the figures given above
I have excluded encyclopedias and dictionaries (texts such as the Wamyō ruijushō 和名類聚抄).

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honzō-related knowledge on each of some 240 materials in the form of a dedicatedsequence of Japanese waka 和歌 (31-syllable poems of a 5/7/5/7/7-syllable line
structure). For example, the first verse of the sequence for the “boar” (inoshishi猪) entry reads:
猪はひえにて手おひ百びやうのどくとしるべし血をうかす也25

The boar, being cold, should be known to be toxic for a hundred diseases andwounds. It makes the blood float.

Such use of waka as a means for transmitting medical knowledge was alreadyvisible in Manase Dōsan’s writings. Chinese poems were used by Dōsan for his
students as mnemonic devices—a technique known as gejue 哥訣 in Chinese
medical primers of the Ming period26—but he also used waka. The Manase
school, which had been using the Bencao since the beginning of the 17th century,
has been offered as one possible origin for the waka honzō genre.27 Yet it should
be noted that, unlike the aforementioned Shokushō nōdoku, the original Wakashokumotsu honzō did not make any reference to the Bencao.
In Yamaoka’s work, before each poem sequence we find the name of the entry
in Chinese as given in the Bencao, and a short extract from the Bencao’s qiwei section. In the case of the boar entry, this extract simply previews the contents ofthe poem quoted above, stating that [the fierce boar’s flesh] is “sweet, extremely
cold, and has toxicity” (甘大寒有毒). Yamaoka then gives his own commentary on
the Bencao’s entry, explaining that Li distinguished between two kinds of boar, the“wild boar” 猪 and the “mountain boar” 山猪 (or rather “fierce boar” 豪猪, the“correct name” of the entry), but that the original Waka honzō’s entry for “boar”
had only referred to the mountain variety. At this point he accordingly added anentry on “wild boar,” with two additional verses translating this new entry’s Bencao
extract into Japanese (waka) (Figure 1).
While integrating the contents of the Bencao, Yamaoka, who was a disciple ofthe poet and specialist in Japanese classics Kitamura Kigin 北村季吟 (1625–1705),
Waka shokumotsu honzō 和歌食物本草 (pub. 寛永 Kan’ei 7/1630), vol. 1. Available at: https://dl.ndl.go.jp/info:ndljp/pid/1287084/3
26
For more on this topic, see Angela Ki Che Leung, “Medical Instruction and Popularizationin Ming-Qing China,” Late Imperial China 24:1 (2003), pp. 130–152. See also Marta Hanson,“From under the Elbow to Pointing to the Palm: Chinese Metaphors for Learning Medicine by
the Book (Fourth–Fourteenth Centuries),” The British Journal for the History of Science (BJHS)
Themes 5 (2020), pp. 75–92.
27
Regarding materia dietetica texts with explanations in the form of poems, see Hata Yuki 畑有紀,
“Waka-keishiki de shirusareta shokumotsu honzō-sho no seiritsu ni tsuite” 和歌形式で記された食物本草書の成立について, Kotoba to bunka 言葉と文化 14 (2013), pp. 37–56. Hata based herstudy on papers published by Ehara Ayako 江原絢子 and Sakurai Miyoko 桜井美代子 in Tōkyōkasei gakuin daigaku kiyō 東京家政学院大学紀要 32–34 (1992–1994), to which at time of publication I was unable to obtain access. Most of the texts discussed here have been collected as (annotated) facsimile editions in the series Shokumotsu honzō-bon taisei 食物本草本大成, 12 vols., gen.
ed. Ueno Masuzō, ed. Yoshii Motoko 吉井始子 (Kyoto: Rinsen Shoten, 1980).
25

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Figure 1. Shokumotsu waka honzō zōho 食物和歌本草増補. (NIJL).
https://doi.org/10.20730/200005521 (image no. 7)

gave priority to the original order of the Waka honzō, which had been organized
in a fashion reminiscent of Japanese dictionary genres like the setsuyōshū 節用集,
in that its poems were first indexed by initial syllable following the order of theiroha syllabary, then divided up among thematic categories: grains, plants, trees,
fruits, beasts, birds, fish, insects. Thus, he deliberately ignored Li’s organizational principles and the hierarchies Li had established between the entries ofa group of species, allowing as a result the above inversion in the ordering of
the two types of boars—in deference to a preexisting Japanese framework.
Similarly, Nagoya Gen’i 名古屋玄医 (1628–1696), founder of the “ancient recipes” (kohō 古方) school, in his Etsuho shokumotsu honzō 閲甫食物本草 (Etsuho’s
Materia Dietetica, 1669, printed in 1671),28 quotes heavily from the Bencao. This
book in two volumes is written in Sino-Japanese (kanbun 漢文), and presents information on the properties of plants and animals. The Bencao and Li are regularly quoted on the topic of qiwei (quality and flavor) and on the applications andeffects of various materials, but excerpts from Li’s work do not always comefirst. The ten categories chosen by Gen’i are: grains (koku 穀), vegetables (sai 菜),

28

Etsuho being one of Gen’i’s names. The work was published in Kyoto by Murakami Kanbei

村上勘兵衛, along with the aforementioned Noda one of the main publishers of the time.

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fungi (take 茸 and kin 菌, two categories), water herbs (suisō 水草, e.g. seaweeds),
fruits (ka 菓), herbs (sō 草), fish (gyo 魚), shells (kai 介), and birds (kin 禽). The
order of the entries does not follow Li’s general plan, though there are groupingsof entries that share similarities with the Bencao’s implicit “families,” such as for“beans” (tō or mame 豆) and for “chives and onions” (nira 韮 and negi 葱, respectively). This, however, may merely hearken back to other honzō works, or even to
the Wamyōshō, a source Gen’i has a marked tendency to cite, along with Razan’s
Tashikihen. Gen’i’s commentaries deal mostly with the properties of the ingredients, and if he shows no hesitation in raising questions about what he reads
in the Bencao, the critiques he voices are not trenchant. For example, in thework’s first entry, which deals with uruchi 粳, or non-glutinous rice—as opposedto the glutinous variety, mochi 糯—Gen’i first quotes Li in stating that this rice isboth sweet and bitter (kanku 甘苦), then goes on to make a brief note where heremarks that other texts speak only of its sweetness, adding that the rice one
can taste today in Japan is not bitter. Rather than rejecting Li’s statement, hewonders if the difference may “come from the quality of the soil”(是因二地気一然乎).
The Hōchū biyō wamyō honzō 庖厨備用和名本草 (Materia Medica with JapaneseNames to be Used in the Kitchen, 1684) of Mukai Genshō 向井元升 (or 玄松,
1609–1677) adopts quite a different stance. Mukai, a famous Confucian scholar
and physician from Nagasaki, is well-known for his Kenkon bensetsu 乾坤弁説 (Explanation of the Universe), a Japanese presentation with commentary of Sawano
Chūan’s 沢野忠庵 (i.e. Christóvão Ferreira’s, 1580–1650) European astronomical
and cosmological knowledge.29 He is also known as an early receiver and transmitter of Western medicine and pharmacopeia, through his contacts with Dutch
doctors in Nagasaki.30 In later life, Mukai established himself in Kyoto and interacted with other scholars, such as Kinoshita Jun’an 木下順庵 (1621–1699), a renowned master who penned one of the prefaces to this work, and Kaibara Ekiken.
This Wamyō honzō, written entirely in Japanese with katakana, was probably completed around 1671 (the date of Mukai’s own preface), but was printed only in
1684. In his preliminary remarks, Mukai clearly positions the Bencao gangmu as themost up-to-date of Bencao works, and then announces that he will use it to discussand correct (ben 弁) the names of the entries. In the first section out of thirteen,

Hiraoka Ryūji 平岡隆二, “Kenkon bensetsu shoshahon no kenkyū” 『乾坤弁説』諸写本の研究,
Nagasaki rekishi bunka hakubutsukan kenkyū kiyō 長崎歴史文化博物館研究紀要 1 (2006), pp. 51–
63; Idem, Nanban-kei uchūron no gententeki kenkyū 南蛮系宇宙論の原典的研究 (Fukuoka: Hana
Shoin, 2013).
30
On Mukai Genshō and his reception of Western knowledge, see Wolfgang Michel, “Shokikōmō-ryū geka to jui Mukai Genshō ni tsuite” 初期紅毛流外科と儒医向井元升について, Nihon
ishigaku zasshi 56:3 (2010), pp. 367–385; Idem, “On the emancipation of materia medica studies(honzōgaku) in early modern Japan”, Proceedings of the 5th International Symposium on the History ofIndigenous Knowledge (2015), pp. 93–106.
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titled “investigating doubts” (shitsugi 質疑), Mukai reflects upon the degree ofcorrespondence between the Japanese names given by Razan’s Tashikihen or
Shitagō’s Wamyōshō and their paired Chinese characters. In doing so, he acknowledges the Bencao’s innovations, noting for instance that, contrary to what had
been current in the “old/former materia medica” (moto no honzō 旧本草) Li had
moved the ki 葵 (Ch. kui ) plant from the “vegetable” section to that of “dampherbs.”31 In the 490 entries of his work, Mukai first gives the Japanese names
from Wamyōshō and Tashikihen, when they exist, after which he introduces a“consideration of the Bencao” (honzō wo kangauru ni 考本草), a section whose“Bencao” may refer to the honzō literature in general, but which fairly frequently
displays important similarities with Li’s Bencao gangmu in particular. What is more,in other sections of the entries, Mukai sometimes quotes more explicitly from
“Li Shizhen’s Bencao gangmu,” giving extensive translations into Japanese. He thenadds his own observations, as well as additional advice (and warnings) about theconsumption of the given ingredient. Regarding his selection and ordering of
entries, despite his claim to use mainly “Dongyuan’s Shiwu bencao” (東垣食物本草)—
a work attributed to the Song-dynasty physician Li Gao 李杲 (Li Dongyuan 李東垣,
1180–1251)—what Mukai actually did was follow the structure of the Bencao
gangmu, even keeping its narrower “Categories” (lei ), such as “plains birds” (genkin原禽), “water birds” (suikin 水禽), and “forest birds” (rinkin 林禽). In the specificcase of birds, he had made changes to the order of the categories, moving theplains birds thus to the front, and omitting the group of “mountain birds” (sankin山禽). For the remaining categories, however, he included all birds from the Bencao
that he deemed edible, referring only to their Chinese names without trying to findJapanese equivalents, all while reintroducing entries from the Shiwu bencao among
these. On a few occasions, such as with the “snake and insect” section, Mukai didprefer the division used in Dongyuan’s work, but in the particular case, thisamounts only to a list of entries without any content. Mukai explains that, if
these materials are included in Bencao books, it is because “of all that grows between
Heaven and Earth, there is nothing foreigners do not eat, making no distinction between the toxic and the safe” (外国の人は天地の間に生ずるもの良毒をわかたず
一つとして食せざるはなし), which may, he says, make them ill and eventuallylead them to their death. Japanese people, however, never eat insects or snakes,
being blessed with “a naturally noble character” (天生の自然貴品にして) and an
unrivalled diversity of products.
In other words, Mukai shows a rather clear understanding of Li’s innovationsin terms of structure and categories, and chose not only to follow them (ornot), but to make them explicitly apparent. This may not come as a much ofa surprise, given his systematic references to Tashikihen, but it is still a striking
In fact, Mukai is here criticizing the identification of this plant with the aoi (afuhi in traditional orthography), a Japanese plant written with the same 葵 character. He judges that the ki 葵
should rather be identified with a wholly different plant, the fuki 蕗.
31

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difference compared to many of the previous shokumotsu honzō works introduced here above. At the least, it was certainly not a systematic feature in works
published around the same time. Shimotsu Genchi’s 下津元知 (dates unknown)
Zukai honzō 図解本草 (Illustrated Explications of the Materia Medica, in 10 kan,completed in 1681, published in 1685), for example, opens with a portrait of Li
Shizhen, which indicates the deference shown by the author to his predecessor.
Yet the book itself follows the iroha order, and collates Li Shizhen’s own findings with two other Chinese sources: Li Zhongli’s 李中立 Bencao yuanshi 本草原始(1612),32 and the fairly recent Bencao dongquan 本草洞詮 by Shen Mu 沈穆 (1661).33
One of Shimotsu’s goals was to distinguish between Chinese and Japaneseplants, surmising that their therapeutic properties should be different. He makes
clear reference to the Bencao gangmu, giving even the pages where one can find thecorresponding entry, but he also relies on Japanese sources. He moreover makes
important changes to the pictures, choosing not to use even the “new” Qianya
version. Meanwhile, Arai Genkei’s 新井玄圭 Shokumotsu tekiyō 食物摘要 (Chosen
Extracts on Materia Dietetica, 1678, republished many times up to the end of the
century with minor changes in title, e.g. Shokumotsu tekiyō taizen 大全, taisei 大成,etc.) shares as a work many traits in common with the Bencao gangmu. Written in
kanbun with glossing points, it begins with a section on “waters,” although witha slightly different order of entries, before moving on to grains, plants, and animals. In some sections, Arai chose to follow the order and subsections of the
Bencao, but he did not do so systematically. He does distinguish between “scaly”
and “scaleless” fish, for example. But in the bird section, plains birds and forest
birds appear to be mixed up, and mountain birds are omitted, as they had beenin Mukai’s book. This new organization does not, however, seem to be arbitrary,
but follows rather the lines of “covert families,” which in this case are groupings
based on the proximity of the birds’ Japanese names. For instance, three different kinds of shigi, or sandpiper, are grouped together—the shigi 鷸, the botoshigi
秧鶏, and the ubashigi 竹雞—as are the tsuchigurebato 斑鳩 (oriental turtle dove),the aobato 青䳡 (green pigeon), and the iebato 鴿 (domestic pigeon). Moreover,
Arai made an interesting choice regarding the identification of species: in thecase of birds, after discussing 35 entries taken from the Bencao, he created awhole appendix where he listed in katakana the Japanese names of 32 species forOn the reception of this work in Japan, see Mayanagi Makoto, “Chūgoku honzō to Nihonno juyō” 中国本草と日本の受容, in Nihonban Chūgoku honzō zuroku 日本版中国本草図録 9 (Chūō
Kōronsha, 1993), pp. 218–229.
33
On the Japanese reception of this work, see Mayanagi Makoto, “Honzō igen to tabako”『本草彙言』と烟草, Tabako-shi kenkyū たばこ史研究 36 (1991), pp. 1480–1488. Mayanagi, in reflecting upon the manner in which the Chinese name for the tobacco plant was introduced, estimates the arrival of this Qing-period work in Japan at no earlier than 1680. According to
Métailié, op. cit. (2006), pp. 47–48, its illustrations complement nicely those of the Bencao because of the former’s focus on the various parts of the plants.
32

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which he considered there existed as yet no “correct name.” Among these, notably,
we find entries such as hibari or mozu, to which previous works had, in fact,
assigned various Chinese characters, some of them even taken from the Bencao.
In other words, rather than supplying a wrong identification for any of these
Japanese entries, and thereby assigning it to the wrong place, Arai preferred instead to set these entries aside as matters for later elucidation. Although he may
have used the term “appendix” ( furoku 附録), reminiscent of Li’s own fulu, Arai
did not attempt to redistribute these entries under those of other species withcertain identifiable traits in common. In other words, while Arai did integrate
Li’s method in part, the Bencao gangmu was not used here as an absolute model.
Regarding the content of Arai’s entries, it is subdivided into different parts, eachclearly identified by a boxed header: kimi 気味 (quality and flavor), shokkin 食禁(restrictions), shuji 主治 (main applications and effects), and, in some cases alsosogi 䟽義 (commentary) and hōhō 方法 (recipes). Here also Arai departs from Li’smodel, as he favored the tradition already established by previous shokumotsuhonzō texts.
A work that goes further in its integration of Li’s categories is Hitomi Hitsudai’s
人見必大 Honchō shokkan 本朝食鑑 (Catalogue of the Food of Our Country,1697). Hitsudai followed in the steps of Mukai and Arai, and reused a great partof the structure of Li’s book. He included not only a section on waters, as Arai
had, but also sections on fires and “earths,” albeit with only a handful of entries
each, though he did eventually expand them in order to incorporate further Japanese materials. After these sections, he followed Li’s plan rather closely, keeping
all the categories for the vegetables, three out of six for the fruits, and all thecategories for the birds. He did also make some changes. For the grains, heplaced the rices first and preferred, like Mukai, to group snakes and insects together in one volume-end category. He also merged the beasts and cattle into asingle group, while leaving out the “wanderers and strange bipeds” (yuguai 寓怪,
Jp. gūkai ). Finally, he doubled the number of categories for fish, by making aclearer distinction between freshwater and seawater fish, while also maintaining
the presence or “absence” of scales as a discriminating criterion.34 Given that his
aim was to compile a materia dietetica, Hitsudai logically left out sections onclothes, man, and even medicinal herbs. Nonetheless, by including fires andearths, and by expanding the fish categories—particularly in a way that capitalizes
For a comparison between the Honchō shokkan and the Bencao gangmu in terms of contents
and structure, see Li Li 李利 and Ehara Junko 江原絢子, “Honzō kōmoku to Honchō shokkan nobunrui ni miru shokubunka-teki na tokuchō” 『本草綱目』と『本朝食鑑』の分類にみる食文化的な特徴, Nihon chōri kagakukai-shi 日本調理科学会誌 40:3 (2007), pp. 193–201. See also Une Satsuki
畦五月, “Shokumotsu honzō to Honchō shokkan no hikaku wo tōshita shokubunka no sōi to sore-zore
no tokuchō ni tsuite shokuhin no seishitsu (kimi, kōnō) no chigai ni shiten wo atete” 『食物本草』
34と『本朝食鑑』の比較を通した食文化の相違とそれぞれの特徴について食品の性質（気味、効能）の違いに視点をあてて, Nihon chōri kagakukai-shi 44:3 (2011), pp. 238–245.

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on Li’s own design—he clearly demonstrates his intent to use the Bencao as a general model, and not merely as a source of information.
Thus, we can see that, although the Bencao came to be effectively the main
source used by Japanese scholars for naming and describing plants and animals
in the context of materia medica and dietetica, it was not until the late 17th century
that there appeared works explicitly embracing Li’s categorization of the entries,
along with his hierarchical scheme.
3. The Bencao gangmu as an Inspiration for Illustrated Books
Let us now turn to the other “line of reception” of the Bencao gangmu, i.e. theso-called “encyclopedic” works. Starting with the Tashikihen, these are works
concerned for the most part with lexical issues—finding the correct names forthings—and not with the pragmatic effects of medical or alimentary substances.
The first and most well-known of such works that one reliably finds in lists ofpublications related to honzō and natural history is probably the Kinmō zui 訓蒙図彙(Illustrated Vocabulary for Educating Children) complied by Nakamura Tekisai
中村惕斎 (1629–1702) and published in 1666.35 Tekisai, a Neo-Confucian moralist
who helped vulgarize Chinese classics into Japanese, wanted to give “children”
new material for learning Chinese characters and their Japanese meanings, while
also helping them associate each character with a single picture. Although thepreface explains that he had in fact designed this vocabulary for one of his
young relatives, actual “children” were not necessarily the only expected readers of
the work. Indeed, lists of leishu 類書 (Jp. ruisho, books arranged by categories) as far
back as the Heian period, such as Shitagō’s Wamyōshō, or his pupil Minamoto no
Tamenori’s 源為憲 (?–1011) Kuchizusami 口遊, had often presented themselves as
guides for noble children. Tekisai can be said to have followed this topos, with a
new twist: the “children” he had in mind, like many other contemporary authorsof “educational” works in the vernacular, were those people not skilled enoughin classical Chinese (or even in classical Japanese) to have direct access to sourcesof “higher” status.
In his preliminary remarks, Tekisai states that, for the Chinese characters, heused mainly Wang Qi’s 王圻 Sancai tuhui 三才図会 (Illustrated Collection of theThree Powers, 1607–9) and Xu Guangqi’s 徐光啓 Nongzheng quanshu 農政全集
(Complete Treatise on Agriculture, 1639), as well as “the illustrated explanations
This work had many different editions over the years—in 1668, 1693, 1695, and in 1789.
Each quite different from the others in terms of the contents, layouts, and illustrations it featured, these editions proved nonetheless able to coexist without replacing one another. See
Christophe Marquet, “Instruire par l’image: encyclopédies et manuels illustrés pour enfants àl’époque d’Edo,” in La pédagogie par l'image en France et au Japon, eds. M. Simon-Oikawa and A.
Renonciat (Rennes: Presses universitaires de Rennes, 2009), pp. 84–90. See also Sugimoto
Tsutomu 杉本つとむ, Jisho/jiten no kenkyū 辞書・事典の研究 II, Sugimoto Tsutomu chosaku-shū 杉本
つとむ著作集 7 (Tokyo: Yasaka Shoten, 1999), pp. 233–276.
35

On the Reception and Uses of Li Shizhen’s Classified Materia Medica

111of the specialists in materia medica” (shoke honzō no zusetsu 諸家本草の図説). He
also tells the reader that for the names of each of the entries, he had used the“correct name” (seimei 正名), and that, as sources for the Japanese names, among
Japanese books he had used the Wamyōshō and the Tashikihen, as well as many
dictionaries such as the Kagakushū 下学集 and the Setsuyōshū 節用集 (both of the
15th century).36 Given the time of publication, there is no doubt that Tekisai hadaccess to the latest version of the Bencao gangmu, although Li’s work is not cited
per se. And indeed, many of Tekisai’s illustrations for metals, minerals, plants, andanimals had been taken directly from the Qianya edition of the Bencao. In somecases, such as for the “crocodile” (wani 鰐) or, even more strikingly, for the “horseshoe crab” (kabutogani 鱟), the “realistic” quality of his illustrations greatly exceedsthat of the original. This may be partly explained by the shift in focus this “illustrated vocabulary” represents when compared to traditional honzō books. As
stressed by Roel Sterckx, bencao illustrations had mostly been conventional
tools—“a commentarial extension of the text, or as yet another type of ‘nomenclature’ that serves to circumscribe its properties”—rather than a means of clearly
identifying the described materials as they were actually encountered in the field.37
In the case of Tekisai’s illustrated vocabulary, the images are indeed “anothertype of nomenclature,” except that the only texts associated with them are theChinese characters and their Japanese names. In contrast to honzō texts, where
pictures might have been seen as secondary for readers with experience in thefield—that is, for readers like the target audience of most of the works I havereviewed so far—the pictures in Tekisai’s primers were no less important than
the text itself, since they were required to create an equivalence between a vernacular word, a Chinese glyph, and an element of the surrounding world that, inmany cases, already had its own standardized representation in visual materials
such as paintings and picture books.
The illustrations in Tekisai’s “Vocabulary” can thus be said to expand upon
those in the Bencao, but as far as its organizational principles are concerned, therelationship between the Kinmō zui and the Bencao gangmu is not always clear. In
the general structure of his work, Tekisai clearly follows the leishu tradition,
which also influenced Li Shizhen himself. The Kinmō zui thus distinguishes a firstsection on “heaven,” followed by another on “Earth” (including geography andtopography, as well as habitations), with the biggest part of the book being devoted to living things, starting with Man and his culture, before moving on to
cattle and to beasts, to birds, to dragons and fish, to insects and shells, to rices
36

On setsuyōshū in general, see Satō Takahiro 佐藤貴裕, Setsuyōshū to kinsei shuppan 節用集と近世出版 (Osaka: Izumi Shoin, 2017).

37
Sterckx, Roel, “The Limits of Illustration: Animalia and Pharmacopeia from Guo Pu to
Bencao gangmu,” Asian Medicine 4 (2008), pp. 357–394. On illustrations in bencao texts, see also by
André-Georges Haudricourt and Georges Métailié, “De l'illustration botanique en Chine,”
Études chinoises 13:1–2 (1994), pp. 381–416.

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and grains, to vegetables, fruits, trees, and finally to flowers and herbs. In this regard, the Kinmō zui appears to be closer to Shitagō’s Wamyōshō than to any other
Chinese or Japanese leishu. This also accords well with the fact that Tekisai chose
to “focus on Japanese names” (wamyō wo shu to su 和名を主とす), which madehim favor a local tradition in terms of organization, e.g., by placing rice, and not
hemp, at the beginning of the “grains” section.
Regarding the order of the entries within each section, we can detect competing
logics at work, the “families” of the Bencao being only one among them. To take,for example, the case of birds, the Kinmō zui lists 77 separate entries, comparedto the Bencao gangmu’s 72. But in fact, 6 of the 77 deal with various “parts” ofbirds and other “secondary” generic items, such as eggs, wings, or hatchlings,
so there is not really much of a difference in number. Among the remaining 71
entries of the Kinmō zui, only 8 were absent from the Bencao, and Tekisai had
found these in the Wamyōshō, e.g. the mozu 鵙 (bull-headed shrike). For their illustrations, he could turn to the Sancai tuhui, but in many cases the “famous artists”
he employed made their own drawings. This leaves 63 entries in common with the
Bencao. The general order does not follow the four categories of birds devised by
Li. Rather, it seems that Tekisai first listed birds with names in two characters,
starting with the numinous and rare ones such as the hōō 鳳凰 (phoenix) and thekōsui 孔翠 (or kujaku 孔雀, peacock), followed by ōmu/inko 鸚鵡 (parrot), token/
hototogisu 杜鵑 (cuckoo), sekirei/ishitataki 鶺鴒 (wagtail), takuboku/teratsutsuki 啄木(woodpecker), shōryō/sazaki 鷦鷯 (wren), and henfuku/kawabori 蝙蝠 (bat), as wellas roji/u 鸕鷀 (cormorant), sōkatsu/manazuru 鶬鴰 (white-naped crane), en’ō/oshidori鴛鴦 (mandarin duck), and hekitei/nio 鸊鷉 (little grebe). If, however, we consider
this group as a single section, we can say that, among its members, the fourgroups stipulated by Li are more or less preserved, albeit in reverse order: mountain, forest, plains, water.
Following this, we find birds named by one unique character, beginning withkaku/tsuru 鶴 (crane) and kan/ōtori 鸛 (stork), which were the first pair of “water
birds” in the Bencao. Then comes a cohesive group of birds of prey (hawks andeagles, etc.), in an order very close to the Bencao’s. Tekisai has even given entriesof their own to birds that in the Bencao had only been “appended” under the entries of others, such as en/tobi 鳶 (kite) and shun/hayabusa 隼 (falcon). These birdsof prey are then followed in turn by what Li had categorized as “water birds”(ducks, etc.), “forest birds” (crows, etc.), and “plains birds.” As before, in mostcases the order preserves the Bencao’s “families.” Even when—as in the cases ofkyō/fukurō 梟 (owl) or ro/sagi 鷺 (egret)—an “intruder” seems to break the line, it isusually a matter of visual presentation on the page, in order to, e.g., put bu/kamo 鳬(wild duck) together with gaku/ahiro 鶩 (house duck), allowing the two ducks toface each other. The birds section as a whole ends with a furoku 附録 (appendix),
in which the Bencao’s order is not really preserved, with groupings there thatseem to rely more on the characters themselves (it begins, for instance, witha whole series of roosters whose names contain the character kei 鶏). Thus,

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although Li’s work clearly influenced Tekisai, and while the general idea of a“family” of species is, if anything, made here even more visible through the useof pictures, the systematic preservation of Li’s design per se was not one of thecompiler’s priorities.
Tekisai’s Kinmō zui was published amidst a first, timid growth in the publicationof such illustrated texts, probably stimulated by the same group of Ming works,
as well as by other commentaries of classical texts with pictures. For instance,
in 1667, the publisher Ōwada Kyūzaemon 大和田九左衛門 produced a new,annotated version of the Sangoku sōden on’yō kankatsu Hoki naiden kin’u gyokuto shū
三国相伝陰陽輨轄簠簋内伝金烏玉兎集 (Book of the Golden Crow and the Jade
Hare, Secret and Exposed, of the Round Vessel and the Square Vessel, theWheel and the Wedge, the Yin and the Yang, Transmitted Through the ThreeCountries).38 Often simply abbreviated as the Hoki, this was an apocryphal treatiseon hemerology and calendar divination attributed to Abe no Seimei 安倍晴明
(921–1005), to which Ōwada had added a further volume containing pictures andexplanations. Considered at the time to be one of the founding classics in the fieldof divination, the work itself had been in print already from the very beginning of
the 17th century, with editions published both in moveable type (1612, 1627) andin woodblock (1628). This new text by Ōwada, however, was the first annotatedand illustrated edition of the work. The publisher was very much conscious of
this uniqueness, stating, in an afterword, that he had “added a separate volume
at the end with pictures,” this being “a direct means of making [the text] clearer”(附巻尾於図説。釈其事、解其義。夫能直而明之。). And indeed, in this additional
volume, Ōwada included pictures and tables corresponding to many of the text’s
keywords. More than this, for most of the hundred illustrations the book contains,
he clearly specifies even the original sources of the pictures. Among them, 17
had been taken from the Qianya edition of the Bencao gangmu, 13 from the Sancai
tuhui, 12 from the Wujingtu 五経図 (Pictures of the Five Classics, 1614)—another
Ming work, 32 from Mao Yuanyi’s 茅元儀 Wubeizhi 武備志 (Treatise on MilitaryPreparations, 1621),39 10 from “a certain book” (aru sho 或書), and the remaining
16 from various other Chinese texts. Illustrations from the Bencao are concentrated in two main entries, both of which deal with a particular series of items
that appears in the main text: the “five grains” (gokoku 五穀) and the “seven rarities” or “seven treasures” (shitchin 七珍/shippō 七宝). The first group is a ubiquitous series, with many variants differing in both contents and ordering. In thisspecific case, the “grains” are: kibi 黍 (proso millet), mame 菽 (soy), asa 麻 (hemp),
38
On divination texts in Edo Japan, see Matthias Hayek, “From Esoteric Tools to Handbooks‘For Beginners’: Printed Divination Manuals from the Seventeenth Century to the Beginning of
the Eighteenth Century,” in Listen, Copy, Read (op. cit.), pp. 46, 288–318; Idem, “Edo jidai no ‘ura’
うらwo kaimamiru” 江戸時代の『占』を垣間見る, Shomotsugaku 書物学 12 (2018), pp. 2–8.
39
A domestic edition, with glossing points by the Confucian scholar Ukai Sekisai 鵜飼石斎
(1615–1664), was published in 1664.

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Figure 2. The five grains (gokoku 五穀). Sangoku sōden on'yō kankatsu Hoki naiden kin'u
gyokuto shū zukai 三国相伝陰陽輨轄簠簋内伝金烏玉兔集図解. (NIJL).
https://doi.org/10.20730/200005702 (image no. 6)

mugi 麦 (wheat), and ine 稲 (rice). For each of these, the text gives a picture and ashort quotation (Figure 2).
Although the pictures all come from the Bencao gangmu, the quotations themselves do not. In most cases, they were taken from Li Zhongli’s Bencao yuanshi.
What is more, the order of the five grains here is different from that put forthby Li Shizhen who, quoting the Suwen 素問 (ancient medical text of the Qin-Han
period), put hemp first, followed by wheat, then two sorts of millet ( ji 稷 and shu
黍), and finally soy. In fact, the order in Ōwada’s work comes from a particular
Buddhist treatise, one actually quoted in one of the pictures: the Zhucheng fashu
諸乗法数 (Ritual Numbers of the Different Vehicles), compiled by the monk
Xingshen 行深.40 The seven treasures, too, form a Buddhist group—the saptarana—composed of kin 金 (gold), gin 銀 (silver), ruri 瑠璃 (“lapis lazuli”), hari 玻璃(quartz or crystal), shako 硨磲 (giant clam), menō 瑪瑙 (agate), and shinju 真珠(pearl). All of these are included in the Bencao, but not as group, since they belong
to a number of different categories, ranging from “shells” (shako) to “minerals”(gold). In this case, the quotations given in the pictures are from the Fanyi mingyi ji
翻訳名義集 (Collection of Translated Names), a Song-period Buddhist text40

A domestic re-edition of this early Ming work was published in 1500.

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Figure 3. The seven treasures (shitchin 七珍). Sangoku sōden on'yō kankatsu Hoki naiden
kin'u gyokuto shū zukai 三国相伝隂陽輨轄簠簋内伝金烏玉兔集図解. (NIJL).
https://doi.org/10.20730/200005702 (image no. 7)

reprinted in Japan in 1628. In other words, the editor of this new version of the
Hoki used the 1640 edition of Li’s Bencao above all as a practical source for pictures needed to represent Buddhist notions, an approach that can clearly belinked to both the “lexicographic” and the “encyclopedic” perspectives we seein the Kinmō zui, though Ōwada’s work itself displays no similar regard for Li’s
design or his findings (Figure 3).41
From 1684 onwards, this trend of illustrated commentaries accelerated, withthe last part of the 17th century seeing the publication of ever greater numbersof illustrated catalogues specializing in different topics, from clothes, to people,
to weapons and armor, etc., many of them bearing the phrase kinmō zui in theirtitles.42 Being “topic-oriented,” however, most of them lack the broader, “encyclopedic” view of the original.
One notable exception would be the Nanji kunmō zui 難字訓蒙図彙 (Illustrated
Vocabulary for the Education of Children, with Characters Difficult [to Read]).
Incidentally, a similar text, with the new title Hoki genkai taizen 簠簋諺解大全 (Complete
Compilation of the Hoki, Explained in the Vernacular), was published in 1682 by Nakano Sōzaemon
中野宗左衛門, but uses the same pictures without even mentioning their origin.
42
Most of these have been collected in the series Kinmō zui shūsei 訓蒙図彙集成, 8 vols., ed.
Asakura Haruhiko 朝倉治彦 (Tokyo: Ōzora-sha, 1998).
41

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This book, in five kan, published in 1687, is based on an earlier dictionary by
Nagai Johei 永井如瓶 (1661–1731), a poet from Osaka. This source text, Jigen
benmōshō 邇言便蒙抄 (Collection with Easy Words to Help Children), publishedin 1682, had three volumes: one for the “head” 首, one for the “navel” 臍, andone for the “feet” 足. Entries in the Jigen benmōshō were distributed over 12 categories: kenkon 乾坤 (Heaven and Earth), jikō 時候 (time and weather), jingi 神祇(spirits and gods), jinrin 人倫 (people), kikei 気形 (“forms of the qi” = animals),shitai 支体 (body parts), sōmoku 草木 (herbs and trees), ishoku 衣食 (clothes andfood), kizai 器財 (vessels and tools), kyotaku 居宅 (habitations), saishiki 彩色 (colors),
and gengo 言語 (language). As the author Nagai himself explains in his preliminarynote, this is a variation on the “three powers” system, projected on a human
body, with these thematic categories representing the twelve months of the year.
The categories are not original, and closely resemble those of the Setsuyōshū.
what makes Nagai’s work unique is the way he supplies different contents for thesame topics across the different volumes. The first volume “gathers charactersand words commonly used in the world,” while the second focuses on explaining the meaning and origins of “difficult characters” (nanji 難字). The last volume then deals with “alternative names” (imyō 異名) and reflects on “precedents”(koji 故事). Such, at least, is the theory behind the organization, though it is notapplied equally to all the various sections.
The 1687 reedition as the Nanji kunmō zui, however, while keeping this general
structure, transformed Nagai’s opening remarks into a full preface, and added aline indicating that new pictures had been introduced throughout. Nor are thesepictures—by the famous artist Hishikawa Moronobu 菱川師宣 (d. 1694)—the
only changes made to the contents of the original. The editor has indeed moved
whole sections of text around between the volumes, making the original differences between the “head,” “navel,” and “feet” volumes almost indistinguishable.
He has also added numerous entries in the animal sections, with 34 new entries forbirds alone. Many of these new entries, moreover, are absent from the Kinmō zui,
but can be found in either the Bencao gangmu or the Sancai tuhui. More than half ofthem correspond to what Li called mountain birds, though they are not listed in
the same order, and among them, several “fabulous” birds which had lacked independent entries in the Bencao, such as the ran 鸞 (Ch. luan), or entirely new ones,
such as the ishikuidori 石食鳥 (cassowary), are featured prominently—though
without any explicative text (Figure 4).
These “new” entries were then finally themselves included in the Zōho tōsho
Kinmō zui 増補頭書訓蒙図彙 (Augmented Version, with Head-notes, of theKinmō zui ) published in 1695, as a sort of extension of the work’s earlier “appendix” to the birds section—although by this time, mention of the “appendix” itself had disappeared.

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Figure 4. Nanji kinmō zui 難字訓蒙圖彙. (NIJL, Ukai Bunko 鵜飼文庫).
https://doi.org/10.20730/200019308 (image no. 57)

Conclusion
Through this brief and partial survey of 17th-century honzō and encyclopedic
literature, my goal was to reflect upon the idea, still frequently put forth whenpresenting the developments of naturalistic knowledge in Japan, that Li
Shizhen’s Bencao gangmu was widely perceived already at the time as an authoritative work, one from which only 18th-century scholars such as Kaibara Ekiken
finally “broke free.” At the end of our journey here, the situation appears morenuanced. Li’s Classified Materia Medica was indeed a ubiquitous reference in Japanesehonzō works published after its introduction in the country. It was regularly
quoted in books in Chinese, and translated or paraphrased in books in Japanese.
However, for almost seventy years, these quotations and references were limitedin their purpose to mere identification of the names of materials and their effects.
This is not in itself surprising, for at least two reasons. Firstly, Razan’s Tashikihen,
which provided a point of connection between Li’s work and the oldest available
local authority, the Wamyōshō, was, as Marcon puts it, a “book of names,”43 and43

Marcon (op. cit.), p. 67.

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it may have led to an emphasis on the zhengming aspect of the Bencao. Secondly,
both materia medica and materia dietetica were mainly concerned with the toxicity
and potency of the various materials, and in this regard, proper identification
was of course especially crucial. Yet the originality of Li’s work resides not onlyin its lexicographical aspects, but also in its broad rethinking of the categories
themselves—and of the hierarchy between entries—as an expression of the
Neo-Confucian “investigation of things.” As far as can be gleaned from printed
books, this aspect seems to have eluded Japanese honzō specialists, and “encyclopedists,” for the major part of a century, Razan being an early exception. Instead,they tended to keep to older classifications, whether from other, older bencao
books or from older local encyclopedias and dictionaries. Again, there are reasonsfor such a situation, as above all books in the vernacular were designed precisely
not to be exhaustive summa, but to serve rather as pragmatic tools for learning,or for quickly looking up the properties of a given ingredient. What is more,at the time of its introduction, the relative novelty of the Bencao may have been
itself a disadvantage, in a context where older texts were generally regarded ashaving the greater authority. Even authors like Mukai, who showed a deeper
interest in the classificatory innovations of the Bencao gangmu, did not follow
them “blindly,” and indeed preferred to put forth a (supposedly) older work, theShiwu bencao. Mukai often relied on the knowledge he gathered from foreigners in
Nagasaki to offer different points of view, and in some cases, he did not hesitate
to do so even thirty years before Ekiken’s Yamato honzō. Meanwhile, though illustrated books did make use of Li’s work, this was mostly for its pictures, and notfor its text or for its general structure, although we can sometimes see Li’s logic
nonetheless partially piercing through in Tekisai’s Kinmō zui. All in all, it seems tome that the 17th century was a period rather of the Bencao being “digested bit bybit,” leading eventually to a more general integration of Li’s worldview at thevery end of the 1690’s with works like the Honchō shokkan. These works, which
finally established the Bencao gangmu as a “classic” to be followed, paved the way
for what may have been the true juncture point of the “medicinal” (naturalistic)
and “encyclopedic” lines of Japanese scholarship: Terajima Ryōan’s 寺島良安
Wakan sansai zue 和漢三才図会 (Illustrated Compendium of the Three Powersof China and Japan), published around 1715. Further research should thus focus
on the reception of the Bencao gangmu in the first part of the 18th century, seeing
the period not so much as one of emancipation from the Bencao model, butrather as one in which the work’s more theoretical and organizational aspects
were discussed, reused, or discarded—and to what ends.

On the Reception and Uses of Li Shizhen’s Classified Materia Medica

119Comparison between the Bird Sections of the Bencao gangmu,
the Kinmō zui, and the Nanji kinmō zui(1) Background Colors: blue = water birds, pink = plains birds, green = forest birds,
gray = mountain birds, white = birds not found in the Bencao gangmu. (2) Script: redtype = changes in the order of entries. (3) Signs: # = entries annexed to the fulu section in the
Bencao gangmu, $ = names mentioned in the shiming or jijie sections as alternative names or related
kinds. Note: English translations of the Bencao gangmu follow Paul U. Unschuld, trans., Ben Cao
Gang Mu, Volume IX: Fowls, Domestic and Wild Animals, Human Substances (Oakland: University ofCalifornia Press, 2021).
Bencao ganmuKinmō zui

Nanji kinmō zui

本草綱目

訓蒙図彙

難字訓蒙図彙

Water Birds
鶴 he, red crowned crane

鳳凰 hōō, phoenix

First volume ( jōkan 上巻)

孔翠 kōsui (kujaku 孔雀),

鶴 tsuru

鸛 guan, white stork鶬雞 cang ji, gray crane
陽烏 yang niao, yang bird𪁮鶖 tu qiu, lesser adjudant䴌𪆏 meng tong, meng tong鵜鶘 ti hu, pelican鵞 e, oriental swan goose鴈 yan, wild goose鵠 hu, whooper swan
鴇 bao, great bustard鶩 mu, domestic duck
鳧 fu, wild duck鸊鷉 pi ti, grebe鴛鴦 yuan yang, mandarin duck鸂鶒 xi chi, xi chi
鵁鶄 jiao jing, Chinese squacco
heron
鷺 lu, little egret鷗 ou, common gull鸀鳿 zhu yu, zhu yu
鸕鷀 lu ci, common cormorantpeacock鸚鵡 ōmu/eibu, parrot
杜鵑 token (hototogisu), cuckoo鶺鴒 sekirei (ishitataki ), wagtail
啄木 takuboku (teratsutsuki ),woodpecker鷦鷯 shōryō (sazaki ), wren$蝙蝠 henfuku (kawabori ), bat

鳫・陽鳥 kan, yōchō鶯 uguisu
鶏 niwatori
燕 tsubame鵤 hototogisu

Third volume (maki no san

巻之三)鸕鷀 roji (u/shimatsudori ),cormorant鶬鴰 sōkatsu (manazuru),
white-napped crane鴛鴦 en’ō (oshidori ), mandarin
duck鸊鷉 hekitei (nio), little grebe
鶴 kaku (tsuru), crane鸛 kan (ōtori ), stork
鷹 yō/ō (taka), hawk
鷲 shū (washi ), eagle$鳶 en (tobi ), kite$梟 kyō ( fukurō), owl

比翼鳥 hiyokudori,
single-winged bird
鳳凰 hōō

$鷂 yō (hashitaka),
sparrowhawk$隼 shun (hayabusa), falcon
鴻 kō (hishikui ), bean goose鵠 kō (kugui ), swan

鷂 hashitaka 隼 hayabusa$鸞 ran孔雀 kujaku鸚鵡 ōmu鷓鴣 shako
鶺鴒 sekirei
鷲 washi
鴛鴦 en’ō (oshidori )鵰 kumataka

鵠 kugui 鵜 u鴎 kamome 鵆 chidori
白鷴 hakkan

Hayek120
魚狗 yu gou, common
kingfisher＃翡翠 fei cui, halcyon
蚊母鳥 wen mu niao,
mosquito-mother bird
Plains Birds
雞 ji, chicken鵞 ga (tōgan), domestic goose鳲鳩 toshiyorikoi

鴈 gan (kari ), goose鴆 chin鷗 ō (kamome), seagull

梟 fukurō鳬 bu (kamo), duck鵤 karuga, Japanese grosbeak
矮鶏 chabo雉 zhi, common pheasant

鷺 ro (sagi ), egret

黄雞 Kashiwa

鸐雉 di zhi, Reeve’s pheasantor mountain chicken鶩 boku/bu (ahiru), domestic

雀鶏 tsu鶯 ō (uguisu), Japanese bush

兄鶏 konori, Eurasiansparrowhawk
雀𪀚 essai, male Japanese
sparrowhawk 鸇 sashiba,
grey-faced buzzard

鶡鶏 he ji, brown-bird chicken

燕 en (tsubakurame), swallow

木菟 mimizuku

白鷴 bai xian, silver pheasant鵯 hi/ga (hiedori ), brown鷩雉 bi zhi, golden pheasantor brocade chicken

duck

warbler＃吐緩鶏 tu shou ji, turkey

bulbul鵺 nue
鷓鴣 zhe gu, Chinese francolin鵲 shaku (kasasagi ), magpie

姑獲鳥 ubume竹雞 zhu ji, Chinese bamboo鴉 a (karasu), large-billed crow

水札 keri, grey-headed
lapwing 鶇 tsugumi, thrush鸜鵒 hiyodori
鶬 hibari
鴷 keratsutsuki
鶸 hiwa, siskin

partridge＃杉鶏 shan ji, fir chicken
英雞 ying ji, water rail

秧雞 yang ji, sprout chicken

烏 u (karasu), crow
鳩 kyū/ku (hato), pigeon
鴿 kō (iebato), domestic pigeon

鸒 uso, bullfinch鶉 chun, common quail鷸 itsu (shigi ), sandpiper or鷃 yan, yellow-legged button

鶉 jun (uzura), quailsnipe

山雀 yamakara, varied tit; 鵙mozu, bull-headed shrike,
百舌鳥 mozu
鴡 kuina 杜鵑 hototogisu

quail鷸 yu, redshank鶇 tō (tsugumi ), thrush

四十柄 shijūkara, Japanese tit;
喚子鳥 yobukodori鴿 ge, rock pigeon

鵙 keki (mozu), butcher bird

突厥雀 tu jue que, Pallas’ sandgrouse雀 que, house sparrow蒿雀 hao que, wormwood
sparrow

雀 jaku (suzume), sparrow剥啄鳥 teratsutsuki 鵊 hōjiro
meadow bunting
翠雀 ruri 鴰 higara, coal tit

鵐 fu (shitoku), bunting

卵 tamago 毈 sueri鴗 ryū (soi ), kingfisher

石食鳥 ishikuidori (cassowary )On the Reception and Uses of Li Shizhen’s Classified Materia Medica
巧婦鳥 qiao fu niao, Eurasianwren, or 鷦鷯 jiao liao, jiao liao
燕 yan, swallow
石燕 shiyan, stone swallow
伏翼 fu yi, bat
䴎鼠 lei shu, complex-toothedflying squirrel
寒號蟲 han hao chong,complex-toothed flying
squirrel
Forest Birds
斑鳩 banjiu, pigeon
青䳡 qing zhui, greenish
pigeon鳲鳩 shi jiu, common cuckoo桑鳫 sang hu, Chinese
grosbeak伯勞 bo lao, shrike
鸜鵒 qu yu, crested mynah
百舌 bai she, one hundred
tongues練鵲 lian que, paradise
fly-catcher鶯 ying, oriole
啄木鳥 zhou mu niao, greatspotted woodpecker
慈烏ci wu, jackdaw
烏鴉 wu ya, large-beaked crow鶚 kaku (misago), osprey
雞 kei (niwatori ), chicken雉 chi (kiji ), pheasant
卵 ran (tamago), egg
雛 sū (hina), chick
羽 u (ha), feather

翼 yoku (tsubasa), wing
嘴 shi (kuchibashi ), beak
尾 bi (o), tailAppendix ( furoku 附録)$鶤雞 konkei (tōmaru),
gamecock矮雞 waikei (chabo), Japanesebantam錦雞 kinkei, golden pheasant綬雞 jukei, tragopan; horned
pheasant$山雞 (鸐雉) sankei (yamadori ),long-tailed pheasant$火雞 (駝鳥) kakei, cassowary竹雞 chikukei (yamashigi ),woodcock秧雞 ōkei/yōkei (kuina), waterrail
青鳩 seikyū (yamabato), green
pigeon鵲 que, Eurasian magpie
山鵲 shan que, red-beaked blue

magpie鶻嘲 hu chao, hoopoe

杜鵑 du juan, lesser cuckoo鳲鳩 shikyū (kakkōdōri ),common cuckoo$角鴟 kakushi (tsuku), eagleowl$怪鴟 kaishi (yotaka), greynightjar鸚鵡 ying wu, parrot$皂鵰 sōshū (kumataka), black
butcherbird＃𥘿吉子 qin ji liao
＃鳥鳳 niao feng

121

122

Hayek

Mountain Birds$紅鶴 kōkaku (tsuki ), flamingo

鳳凰 feng huang, phoenix

白鷴 hakkan, silver pheasant

孔雀 kong que, green peafowl

烏鳳 uhō (onagatori ), Japanese駝鳥 tuo niao, ostrich

雲雀 unjaku (hibari ), skylark

鷹 ying, goshawk

翠雀 suishaku (ruri ), bluebird

雕 diao, golden eagle

画眉 gabi (hohojiro), Chinese鶚 e, osprey or fish hawk鴟 chi, black kite鴟鵂 chi xiu, Eurasianscops-owl
鴞 xiao, Asian barred owlet
鴆 chen, chen bird
姑獲鳥 gu huo niao, wench bird
治鳥 zhi niao, zhi bird
＃木客鳥 mu ke niao, tree

visitor bird＃獨足鳥 du zu niao, single leg

bird

鬼車鳥 gui che niao, demon

chariot bird
諸鳥有毒 zhu niao you du, allpoisonous birds

paradise flycatcher

huamei$蝋嘴 rōshi (mamedori ),hawfinch
山鵲 sanshaku, red-billed blue
magpie練鵲 renjaku, Japanesewaxwing (*not to be mistakenwith the 連鵲 renjaku)鵁鶄 kōsei (goisagi ),black-crowned night heron鸜鵒 kuyoku, mynah bird

Studies in Japanese Literature and Culture 4 (March 2021) 123–146© 2021 National Institute of Japanese Literature

Naturalizing Li Shizhen’s Bencao gangmu
in Early-modern Japan:
The Cases of Honchō shokkan, Yamato honzō,
and Wakan sansai zue
Annick Horiuchi

Introduction
It is widely recognized by historians of natural history that Li Shizhen’s 李時珍(1518–1593) Bencao gangmu 本草綱目(Classified Materia Medica) played a majorrole in the development of honzō studies (or honzōgaku) in early modern Japan.
This landmark opus in the history of the Chinese bencao tradition was printed forthe first time in 1596 in China and was frequently reissued up until the early 20th
century.1 In Japan, Li Shizhen’s work was imported shortly after its publicationin China, and as early as the 1630s, Japanese reprints of the book appeared withdiacritic signs assisting its reading.2
The book aroused the curiosity of a wide range of intellectuals, especially physicians and Confucian scholars. It was first and foremost regarded as a reference
book for identifying natural substances and assigning correct names because of
the vast erudition on which it was based. Its systematic and orderly character appeared also as a model to be followed. The book was also highly valued for the
information it provided on the various uses—especially therapeutic—of the1
See for example Georges Métailié, “The Bencao gangmu of Li Shizhen: An Innovation in Natural
History?” in Innovation in Chinese Medicine, ed. Elisabeth Hsu (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 2001), pp. 221–261.
2
See Mayanagi Makoto 真柳誠, “Honzō kōmoku no Nihon hatsu torai kiroku to Kinryō-bon no
shozai”『本草綱目』の日本初渡来記録と金陵本の所在 [Record of the first importation of the
Bencao gangmu into Japan and the location of the Kinryō edition], Kanpō no rinshō 漢方の臨床 45:11(1998), pp. 1431–1439 (with additions dated 2010, 2014, and 2018), available at: http://square.
umin.ac.jp/mayanagi/paper01/kinryou.htm; also the digital exhibition of the National Diet Library titled “Egakareta dōbutsu, shokubutsu: Edo jidai no hakubutsushi” 描かれた動物・植物：
江戸時代の博物誌 [Animals and Plants Described: Natural Histories of Edo period], available at:https://www.ndl.go.jp/nature/cha1/index.html.

123

124

Horiuchiproducts it covered, or for its drug formulation recipes.3 As a consequence, honzō
studies blossomed in Japan during the 17th century, producing a wide range ofbooks reflecting one or several aspects of the Chinese model. A series of encyclopedic books were published at the turn of the 18th century such as Honchō
shokkan 本朝食鑑 (Mirror of Our Country’s Foodstuffs, 1697), Kōeki honzō taisei
広益本草大成 (Comprehensive Materia Medica for a Large Benefit, 1698), Yamato
honzō 大和本草 (Materia Medica of Japan, 1709), and Wakan sansai zue 和漢三才図会 (Illustrated Sino-Japanese Encyclopedia of the Three Realms, 1712). Theyshow the strong commitment of Japanese scholars to deepening their knowledgeof the natural world and to bringing it closer to the general public.
Among these books, historians generally emphasize the role of the Yamato
honzō in the emergence of a “native” science of honzō in Japan. According tothem, the book went further than its Chinese model in exploring natural substances by dissociating them from medical concerns. For example, Yabe Ichirō
矢部一郎 states that the Yamato honzō is the first example of a Japanese contribution to the field of “natural history” (hakubutsugaku).4 Ueno Masuzō 上野益三,
for his part, praises Kaibara Ekiken’s 貝原益軒 (1630–1714) scientific spirit,
which led him to introduce into his work the fruits of his personal observations
and investigations, thus taking the first steps on the road to “natural history.”5
Both researchers stress the importance of having broken with the medical dimension of the Bencao gangmu, and of having paved the way to “natural history,”a field of study they seem to highly value because of its proximity to Westernscience. This narrative is so widely accepted nowadays that the originality or modernity of the Yamato honzō’s approach to natural substances is seldom questioned. However, the same historians often point out that the Bencao gangmu wasread and used by specialists of honzō until the late 18th century, as shown by Ono
Ranzan’s 小野蘭山 (1729–1810) famous Honzō kōmoku keimō 本草綱目啓蒙(1803–1806), a thorough commentary on Li Shizhen’s classic based on the author’s lifelong observations of nature and his outstanding scholarship. Ueno
states that long after the Yamato honzō’s publication, the Bencao gangmu remained amust-read book difficult to replace.6
It is however somewhat contradictory to assert simultaneously that Kaibara
Ekiken opened up a new field of research which made the Bencao gangmu obsolete, and that the Bencao gangmu itself continued to be read until the end of the
Métailié says: “The compilation of these recipes should not be under-estimated, for it makes
the Bencao gangmu a precious reservoir of practical medical knowledge accessible to physicians in
the late Ming.” Op. cit., p. 252.
4
Yabe Ichirō 矢部一郎, Edo no honzō: yakubutsugaku to hakubutsugaku 江戸の本草：薬物学と博物学 (Tokyo: Saiensu-sha, 1984), pp. 64–66.
5
Ueno Masuzō 上野益三, Nihon hakubutsugakushi 日本博物学史, Kōdansha gakujutsu bunko 講談社
学術文庫 (Tokyo: Kōdansha, first printed in 1973, reprinted in 1989), p. 67.
6
Ueno (op. cit.), p. 96.
3

Naturalizing Li Shizhen’s Bencao gangmu in Early-modern Japan125

18th century. To get a clearer picture, we need to take a closer look at the way
Japanese scholars read and used the Bencao gangmu and the extent to which they
departed from mere book-knowledge. It is also important not to focus solely on
Kaibara Ekiken, but to also take into account his contemporaries, who werethemselves very active and who may have taken different approaches.
The purpose of the present paper will be to shed light on the transformations
that took place at the turn of the 18th century in the perception and descriptionof natural things, by examining the content and the structure of entries in a selection of encyclopedic works. Because of the extensive nature of these works,
this study will restrict itself to the field of animals, and more particularly to fish.
Why fish? As a major component of Japanese diet at the time, it is to be expected that the subject caught scholars’ attention. As a matter of fact, while entries dedicated to “fish”7 in the Bencao gangmu are split into groups of 31 (scalyfish), 28 (scaleless fish) and 9 (addendum) entries, this number increases bygroups of 39 (river fish) and 83 (sea fish) entries in the Yamato honzō, showing
Kaibara’s interest in the subject. To put Kaibara’s approach in perspective, twoother treatises will be considered: the Honchō shokkan and the Wakan sansai zue,
published respectively shortly before and shortly after the Yamato honzō itself.
After a brief presentation of the three books, a selection of entries will be
examined in order to highlight each author’s approach to the topic and general
purpose, and also in order to evaluate the respective weight given to Chinese
scholarship and to personal observations. My aim is to demonstrate that eachwork has its own reasoned method, and that Kaibara Ekiken’s approach is not as
innovative as it has been claimed.
The Bencao gangmu
Before examining the aforementioned books, it might be useful to recall themain features of the Bencao gangmu which will play an important role in our analysis. As a Confucian scholar, Li Shizhen was eager to propose an organized andsystematized vision of the “natural world,” in line with the rationalistic approachpromoted by Neo-Confucian scholarship.8“Natural world” in this context has a broader meaning than it does today. Entries in the Bencao gangmu not only covered living beings, minerals, and plants, but
Fish has to be understood here in the popular meaning, that is, as “any animal living exclusively in the water; primarily denoting vertebrate animals provided with fins and destitute oflimbs; but extended to include various cetaceans, crustaceans, mollusks, etc.” (Oxford English
Dictionary).
8
For an analysis of Li Shizhen’s classification, see Joseph Needham, with the collaboration of
Lu Gwei-Djen et al., Science and Civilisation in China, Vol. 6, Biology and Biological Technology, Part 1(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986), pp. 308–320. For a general reflection on
Neo-Confucian thinking on knowledge, see Joseph Needham, Science and Civilisation in China,
Vol. 2, History of Scientific Thought (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), 1985, pp. 472–489.
7

126

Horiuchialso included, albeit marginally, a range of products that were manufactured,
such as rice wine (shu9 酒) in the cereals section. To take this diversity into account, we will thus refer to the objects discussed in the entries as “substances.”
The term used by Li Shizhen is “kind” (shu 種), but the term found in Japanesebooks is more often “thing” (mono 物). According to Georges Métailié, Li
Shizhen introduced a new rationale in classifying substances. He distinguished
two levels: a more encompassing level called “section” (bu 部) and a more restricted level called “category” (rui 類). Li Shizhen explains his classification in
the prefatory notes to his book as follows:
The old books treat in a undifferentiated manner jades, minerals, waters, andearths; they do not distinguish between “insects,” scaly creatures, and creatureswith shells; some “insects” have an entry in the tree section, some trees in the
herb section, . . . I have now ordered everything into sections, beginning withwaters and fires, followed by earths, [because] Water and Fire precede the myriad things and the Earth is the mother of the myriad things. Then [follow] themetals and minerals, [because] they come from the Earth; then the herbs,
grains, vegetables, fruits, and trees, from the smallest to the biggest; then theclothes and utensils, [made] from herbs and trees; then the “insects,” the scaly
creatures, the shelled creatures, the birds, and the four-legged animals, ending
with man: from the vile to the precious.10

Although most entries were about plants, 430 entries were devoted to animals.
These entries were divided into five sections (bu 部): “insects” (chū 虫), scaly[creatures] (rin 鱗), shelled [creatures] (kai 介), birds (kin 禽) and four-legged[animals] (jū 獣). Scaly [creatures] were further divided into four categories (rui 類):
dragons (ryū 龍), snakes (ja 蛇), fish (gyo 魚), and scaleless fish (muringyo 無鱗魚).
Fish were thus divided into scaly ones (31) and scaleless ones (28). The numberof substances considered in each category was rather modest, showing Li
Shizhen’s limited knowledge of marine animals. The fact that “scaleless fish”
were classified among “scaly animals” appears quite strange to modern eyes but
no contemporary scholar found it odd. “Scaleless fish” was a very heterogeneous category, including marine mammals such as whales, dolphins, and sharks,
as well as cuttlefish, octopus, eels, jellyfish, and lobsters. Under the heading“supplements,” Li Shizhen addressed the different ways of processing and eating fish (raw, vinegared, salted) and fish by-products such as oil.11
Li Shizhen’s work relied on a wide variety of sources, including not only
ancient and recent books of the bencao tradition, but also a vast collection of
medical or historical books, travel diaries, and official documents of many
Pronunciation of Chinese characters will be given in Japanese, for the sake of simplicity.
Métailié (op. cit.), p. 227.
11
There are many editions of the Bencao gangmu. For this study, I will use the Japanese edition
published in 1714. See for example the copy housed at the National Diet Library (DOI:
10.11501/2556533). The fascicles dealing with “Scaly [creatures]” are fascicle 43 and fascicle 44.
910Naturalizing Li Shizhen’s Bencao gangmu in Early-modern Japan

127

sorts.12 On the basis of this immense erudition, and by pointing out the errors of
his predecessors, he selected the most relevant and reliable information related to
the given substance, such as its correct name, its morphology, and its positive or
negative effects on the human body. Entries were organized according to fixedheadings, the most important ones being: “Explaining the Names” (shakumyō 釈名),
“Collected Commentaries” (shūge 集解),13 “Flavor and Thermo-influence” (kimi気味), “Main Therapeutic Indications” (shuji 主治), and “Appended Recipes”(fuhō 附方),14 showing the methodical and systematic nature of his approach.
The Japanese honzō Treatises
The importation of the Bencao gangmu into Japan was immediately followed by the
publication of a number of Japanese treatises that were primarily concerned withgiving the “correct” vernacular names to the Bencao gangmu’s entries. Hayashi
Razan’s 林羅山 (1583–1657) Tashikihen 多識編 (Collection of Wide Knowledge)
printed in 1630 was the first to tackle the task and to draw attention to this encyclopedic work. It contained a list of the Chinese entries of the Bencao gangmu,
with the corresponding vernacular names, using Chinese characters as phonograms. Such an undertaking was not totally new in Japan. Since the Heian period,
it had been a major concern for Japanese physicians to identify medicinal substances that could be found on Japanese soil in order to replace imported products.15 Edo scientists could rely on Minamoto no Shitagō’s 源順 (911–983)
Wamyō ruijushō 倭名類聚抄 (Categorized Notes on Yamato Names, 931–938), also
known as Wamyōshō, which, interestingly enough, went through many re-editions
during the 17th century.
Because of the thoroughness of Li Shizhen’s investigation, Japanese scholars
were strongly encouraged to give a new impetus to this task of identification andto correct past errors. The task was complicated for two reasons. Many substances known in China had no counterpart in Japan, and conversely, many substances widely known in Japan seemed to be unknown to Chinese scholars. Thisissue of identification would keep Japanese scholars busy for a very long time as
we will see later.
It is also important to note that works on materia medica such as the Bencao
gangmu provided in addition a variety of nutritional information. Food was considered to be part of the materia medica. Knowing which plant could be consumed—
and how—was part of the knowledge expected from a physician. Specialized
See Métailié (op. cit.), p. 222.
“An assembly of important quotations concerned with the habitat and nature of the thing”
according to Needham et al., Science and Civilization in China, Vol. 6, Part 1 (op. cit.), p. 316.
14
See Métailié (op. cit.), p. 250, for other translations. Needham et al., Science and Civilization in
China, Vol. 6, Part 1 (op. cit.), refer to these sub-headings respectively as “essential properties”(kimi ), “principal uses” (shuji ), and “collection of prescriptions” (fuhō).
15
For example, a 20-fascicle edition of the book was published as early as 1617.
12
13

128

Horiuchiworks in this field did exist in China and they attracted as much attention as the
bencao works themselves. For example, the Shiwu bencao 食物本草 (Nutritional
Natural History) was, in parallel with the Bencao gangmu, widely read in Japan
during the 17th century,16 giving rise to a local literature focused on food. The
three books which we propose to discuss were published at a time when the success of this kind of encyclopedia was at its highest.17
The Honchō shokkan (Mirror of Our Country’s Foodstuffs)
The Honchō shokkan 本朝食鑑 is the work of an Edo physician called Hitomi
Hitsudai 人見必大 (d. 1701).18 His twelve-fascicle encyclopedia, printed in 1697,
is fairly representative of the high level of scholarship Japanese scholars had
achieved in the field of materia medica by the late seventeenth century. The bookwas written in classical Chinese (kanbun 漢文) and its 442 entries were exclusively
devoted to edible products.19 Entries were patterned on the Bencao gangmu’s
model and adopted similar headings. The book did not, however, blindly follow
its model. As suggested by the name, the Honchō shokkan focused exclusively on
substances that were known in Japan. The author put a special emphasis on substances of animal origin, to which eight out of twelve fascicles were devoted.
The classification in the Honchō shokkan broadly followed that of the Bencao
gangmu. Animals were split into “Birds,” “Scaly [creatures],” “Shelled [creatures],”“Four-legged and farm [animals]” (jūchikubu 獣畜部), and “Snakes and ‘insects.’”
In other words, snakes and dragons were no longer classified as “scaly [creatures],”the latter category being exclusively composed of fish.
Fish was definitely a major topic for the author of the Honchō shokkan, as canbe seen by the number of entries (91) and the number of fascicles (3) devoted
to the subject (Tables 1 and 2). The “scaly [creatures]” section was split into
four subsections (rui ) according to the creatures’ living environment (rivers andlakes vs. great rivers and the sea) and their scaly or scaleless nature. A numberof species unknown to Li Shizhen, but widely consumed in Japan, such as saba,katsuo, buri, sahara, ankō, or mebaru (Table 2), were introduced with a wealth of
information on their morphology, their fishing areas, and methods for consuming
and processing them.
16
According to Needham, it is difficult not to get lost in the maze of editions of this book,some of which attribute false paternity to reputed scholars of ancient times. See Science and Civilisation in China, Vol. 6, Part 1 (op. cit.), pp. 353–354. The most important of these works is theone supposedly based on a compilation of Li Gao 李杲 (1180–1251), completed by Li Shizhen(22 juan 巻) and printed in 1638. In Japan, the book was reprinted at Kyoto, in 1651.
17
Yabe (op. cit.), pp. 54–55; Ueno (op. cit.), pp. 141–142.
18
Hitsudai’s father was a native of Kyoto, but he moved to Edo when he joined the shogun’s
staff as a physician. See Hitomi Hitsudai, Honchō shokkan, trans. & ed. Shimada Isao 島田勇雄,
vol. 1, Tōyō bunko 東洋文庫 (Tokyo: Heibonsha, 1980), pp. 283–284. For the original edition, see
the copy housed in the National Diet Library (DOI: 10.11501/2557332).
19
Yabe (op. cit.), pp. 55–56.

Naturalizing Li Shizhen’s Bencao gangmu in Early-modern Japan129

The Yamato honzō (Materia medica of Japan)
As regards Kaibara Ekiken’s Yamato honzō (Materia Medica of Japan, 1709), it
was a 16-fascicle encyclopedia20 claiming a direct filiation with the tradition ofhonzō (materia medica), and more particularly with the Bencao gangmu. Like its Chinese model, it covered the three realms of plants, minerals, and animals, withthree fascicles devoted to animals, among which one was devoted to fish. Historians generally emphasize Kaibara’s focus on Japanese substances, but we haveseen that the earlier Honchō shokkan was already focused on Japanese products. If
the Yamato honzō with its 1,366 entries was of greater scope, it is to be noted that
Kaibara cites the Honchō shokkan as a reference for edible products and makes
abundant use of it.21
Contrary to what the title suggests, not all the 1,366 entries of the Yamato honzō
dealt with Japanese substances. 772 of them, that is, more than half, were substances that had been listed and named in the Bencao gangmu. As regards the remaining
substances, a number were labeled “Japanese items” (wahin 倭品) because they were
only observed in Japan and had no Chinese names. Some of them were labeled“foreign” (gai 外) or “barbarian substances” (banshu 蛮種) because they weremainly known from Chinese books or were imported products.
Kaibara also deviated from his model when it came to classification. He did
not adopt Li Shizhen’s two-level classification. He used the term rui 類 for all categories, regardless of the level of classification. Moreover, he did not hesitate toremove ancient categories, such as that of scaly [creatures], which he replacedwith “fish.” Following the Honchō shokkan, a distinction between “river fish” and“sea fish” was introduced. For each category, the number of entries was significantly higher than in the Bencao gangmu (Table 1)22: 39 river fish (18 “Japanese,” 1“foreign”) and 83 sea fish (37 “Japanese,” 11 “foreign,” 1 “barbarian”).
Another important feature of Kaibara’s encyclopedia was his use of the vernacular. Among the three authors, he was the only one to adopt this mode ofwriting, even though his terminology consisted mainly of Chinese terms. It nevertheless showed Kaibara’s willingness to broaden the audience of honzō studies.
In the preliminary notes of the fascicle devoted to fish, Kaibara stressed thediversity of fish in Japan and the impossibility of knowing them all:In general, there are a large number of fish varieties. Each province has its
specific products (hin 品) and they cannot be thoroughly investigated. There aredifferences from one place to another in the provinces. Some products exist in one
place and do not exist in others. Morphology, nature, and flavor may be different.
To be precise, the printed edition was composed of 16 fascicles, 2 fascicles of supplements,and 3 fascicles of illustrations.
21
Yamato honzō, in Ekiken zenshū 益軒全集 (Ekiken’s Complete Works), vol. 6 (Tokyo: KokushoKankōkai, 1973), p. 13.
22
It must be noted that entries on processed products deriving from fish such as kamaboko 蒲鉾
or shiokara 塩辛 are also included among these. This was already the case in the Honchō shokkan.
In the Bencao gangmu, by comparison, they were listed separately in an addendum.
20

130

HoriuchiIn our country, characters used to name substances (hinbutsu 品物) are commonly mistaken. This is particularly true with fish names. Many Chinese characters used in ancient times have been mistakenly transmitted, so that there aremany incorrect names. It is fair to say that “one has repeated without clarifying.”23

He also complained about the fact that as regards fish, the Bencao gangmu was notreliable:
Fish in the Bencao gangmu are few in number compared to other substances.
Notes on sea fish are particularly sketchy. Evidence is often lacking. Moreover,fish are listed in no particular order, without distinguishing between river fishand sea fish.24

Now, when we look at Kaibara Ekiken’s fish entries in the Yamato honzō, we
note that they are generally short and are not very detailed. He says in his introduction that he did not consider it necessary to elaborate on the issue of food,because the Honchō shokkan had already provided so much information.25 His
commentaries are far less organized than those of the earlier work, and the content varies greatly from one fish to another with no predefined format. This suggests a rather different approach to the subject.
The Wakan sansai zue (Illustrated Sino-Japanese Encyclopedia of the ThreeRealms)The Wakan sansai zue, which is our last example, is a 105-fascicle encyclopedia inclassical Chinese (kanbun), published in 1712 by an Osaka physician, Terajima
Ryōan 寺島良安 (dates unknown). Terajima is not generally considered to be a
specialist in honzō studies, though his book demonstrates a high level of scholarship in this field. Animals, plants, and minerals make up a large part of his encyclopedia. Four fascicles (48 to 51) are devoted to fish, for which he uses the sameclassification as the Honchō shokkan (Table 1) with the difference that processing
methods are kept separate from the fish themselves in a section called “uses offish” (uo no yō 魚之用). The number of fish entries has grown to 145, including
processed products (Table 1).
Fish entries in the Wakan sansai zue, like all other entries in the book, begin with anillustration of the fish, complete with information about its Chinese and Japanesenames, alternative names, and readings (Figure 1). The text itself is composed ofa quotation from the Bencao gangmu, when the fish is known in China, and a generaldescription given under the heading “My comment” (an[zuru ni ] 按). If Japaneseclassics such as the Nihon shoki 日本書紀 (Chronicle of Japan) are explicitly
quoted,26 Terajima never mentions his contemporaries or immediate predecessors,
Yamato honzō (op. cit.), p. 318.
Ibid.
25
Yamato honzō (op. cit.), p. 13.
26
Only ancient sources (historical or not) are explicitly mentioned. The Wamyōshō, because of its
antiquity, is mentioned as a source, suggesting the high status of this book at the time.
23
24Naturalizing Li Shizhen’s Bencao gangmu in Early-modern Japan

131

Figure 1. Entry for hamo 海鰻 in the Wakan
sansai zue 和漢三才図会. (Waseda University Library).27
Table 1. Fish Classifications in the Bencao gangmu and in the Three Japanese Encyclopedias
Bencao gangmu
Scaly fish (31)
Scaleless fish (28)Addendum (9)Total: 68 (59+9)

Honchō shokkan
River and lake scaly
fish (11)River and lakescaleless fish (8)Great river and sea
scaly fish (35)Great river and sea
scaleless fish (37)

Yamato honzōRiver fish (39)

Total: 91

Total: 122

Sea fish (83)

Wakan sansai zue
River and lake scaly
fish (26)Great river and sea
scaly fish (48)River and lakescaleless fish (9)Great river and sea
scaleless fish (40)
Uses of fish (22)Total: 145

Year of publication unknown. Call number: 文庫31/e0860. Fascicle 51. Available at:https://archive.wul.waseda.ac.jp/kosho/bunko31/bunko31_e0860/bunko31_e0860_0034/
bunko31_e0860_0034_p0025.jpg
27

132

Horiuchisuch as the Yamato honzō or the Honchō shokkan, even though he draws heavily onthem.
It is a distinctive feature of the Wakan sansai zue that it includes an illustrationin each entry. The Honchō shokkan has none. The Yamato honzō has been supplemented with two separate volumes specifically dedicated to illustrations, entitled:
Yamato honzō shohin zu 大和本草諸品図 (Substances of the Yamato honzō, Illustrated). But these only deal with a selection of substances.
Particular Fish Entries in the Three Encyclopedias
We will now look at a few examples of entries, in order to capture the particularities of each work. Three fish have been selected because of their place within
the honzō tradition in China and Japan (Table 2).
[1] 鱧魚 (reigyo)
The first example, reigyo 鱧魚, is a fish well-known to specialists of materia medica
since ancient times. In the Bencao gangmu, its name appears in the “scaleless” category, within the “scaly [creatures]” section. In addition to the alternative names
and a morphological description of the fish, significant space is assigned to therapeutic indications and appended recipes. Quoting ancient authors, Li Shizhen
introduces the reigyo as a fish that can be caught in all seasons in ponds andmarshlands. Let us examine Li Shizhen’s specific note on this fish:
時珍曰、形長体円、頭尾相等、細鱗玄色、有斑点花紋、頗類蝮蛇、有舌有歯
有肚、背腹有鬣連尾、尾無歧。形状可憎、気息腥悪、食品所卑。南人有珍之者、北人尤絶之。28

Shizhen says: It is a fish with an elongated shape, and a round body. Head andtail are equal [in size]. It has fine scales, a dark color, with spotted floral patterns,
quite similar to vipers, with a tongue, teeth, and a belly; it has spines on the backand on the belly, up to the tail; the tail has no fork. It has a repulsive look, anasty smell. As food, it is disregarded. Some southerners appreciate it. Northerners have definitively rejected it. . . .

Let us keep in mind simply that it is a fish which has a serpentine shape and a
repulsive aspect, and which is not consumed as food. As a drug, Li Shizhen
stresses its effectiveness against hemorrhoids and tumors.
The reigyo is a fish that has long raised a major problem of identification in
Japan. In Minamoto no Shitagō’s Wamyōshō, which Edo scholars regarded withmuch respect, the reigyo had been identified with the hamo (dagger-tooth pike conger), a kind of eel found in Japan and consumed in the Kansai region. But a

28
Li Shizhen, Kinryōbon Honzō kōmoku, 金陵本本草綱目, vol. 6, ed. Miyashita Saburō 宮下三郎
(Tokyo: Oriento shuppansha, 1992), p. 477. See Bencao gangmu, fascicle 44, section 鱗之四.

Naturalizing Li Shizhen’s Bencao gangmu in Early-modern Japan

133

Table 2. Three Examples of Fish
Bencao gangmu
1. 鱧魚 (reigyo) 鱧魚

Yamato honzō

Wakan sansai zue

鱧 はも鱧魚 うみうなぎ鱧 やつめうなぎ(海鰻 はも)(海鰻 はむ、はも)

2. 鮪 (shibi )しびしび鮪 しび、はつ幾須子魚 きすご

きすご（和品）幾須吾 きすご鱘魚 しんぎょHonchō shokkan

別名：鮪3. kisugo(absent)

book published in 1684 by a Nagasaki scholar29 reported that the reigyo’s description in the Bencao gangmu did not correspond to the hamo’s appearance. The samescholar suggested identifying the reigyo with another fish, known in Nagasaki as
kitago.30 The Honchō shokkan ignores this remark and goes back to the old identification with the hamo. The author merges the Bencao gangmu’s description of the
fish with what he knows about the fish called hamo, appreciated for its taste. After having quoted the morphological description from the Chinese treatise, hecomments on its taste, on how it is consumed, and on where it can be fished:
It has an ugly aspect but it has a very good taste. The flesh is white and pure.
They are three to four feet long for the larger ones, one to two feet for thesmaller ones. Lately, the flesh of the fresh fish is grinded into a paste (kamaboko
蒲鉾). It is one of the most delicious sake accompaniments. It is also consumed
dried (shiraboshi 白干し) [ . . . ] It is abundantly fished in the seas of Naniwa31 in
Settsu Province, in Sakai, Sumiyoshi, and Kishiwada in Izumi province,32 andalso in the provinces of Kii, Harima, Tango, and Tajima33.34

He then mentions the practice which had spread recently in Kii province ofbathing newborns in the broth of this fish to protect them from smallpox. He
seems not to be fully convinced of the effectiveness of such a practice, but saysthat it is mentioned in Li Shizhen’s book. Other therapeutic indications (forhemorrhoids and tumors) are also mentioned. The author seems not to pay attention to the discrepancies between his own knowledge of the hamo and the Bencao
gangmu’s description. Nor is it a problem for him to quote passages from the Bencao
gangmu that he regards as dubious.35 In other words, the Bencao gangmu is too
29
The book in question is Mukai Genshō’s 向井元升 Hōchū biyō wamyō honzō 庖厨備用倭名本草(pub. Jōkyō 貞享 1/1684).
30
Ibid., fasc. 8.
31
Naniwa is the ancient name for Osaka and its region.
32
Izumi is a former province located south of modern Osaka Prefecture.
33
Kii, Harima, Tango, and Tajima are all located around Osaka, Kyoto, and Hyōgo Prefecturesin the Kansai region.
34
Honchō shokkan (op. cit.), vol. 4, pp. 253–254.
35
Hitomi Hitsudai discusses at length Li Shizhen’s recommendation about bathing newborns
in the broth of this fish and expresses his doubts as to the effectiveness of such a method. Ibid.

134

Horiuchiprestigious a reference to be questioned overtly. He makes the choice to allot
plenty of space to recent practices observed in Japan.
The Yamato honzō, for its part, conceives two separate entries for the reigyo andthe hamo.36 Both entries are relatively short. In the former (reigyo 鱧魚), Kaibara
explains that the Wamyōshō’s reading of the name as hamu is improper, and that hamo
derives from the Chinese pronunciation (tōon 唐音) of the word 海鰻 (Ch. haiman).
Kaibara states that the reigyo is the sea fish known as umi-unagi 海鰻 (sea eel) in
Kyushu.37 Its morphology matches exactly the description given in the Bencao
gangmu. The fish has an ugly appearance and Japanese people do not eat it. He also
rejects his contemporaries’ identification of it with the kitago or the tsunoji.38 Lastly,
he points out that there is another species also called umi-unagi (literally “seaeel”), very similar to the contemporary eel, which may in fact be consumed.39
The entry for hamo in the Yamato honzō is equally very short. Hamo is writtenwith the Chinese characters 海鰻, which reminds us of the kaimanrei 海鰻鱺mentioned in the Bencao gangmu, though Kaibara does not make any explicit connection between the two.40 Kaibara reminds us once again of the mistake madein the past of confusing it with the reigyo. Concerning the fish itself, he does notprovide any description, and only mentions that it is consumed dried, or processed as kamaboko.
From this particular example, one grasps that Kaibara’s main concern is toname the fish by its correct name and clear up the old confusion between thereigyo and the hamo. The descriptive elements he gives are meant to support his
claim about whether it is or is not the fish mentioned by Li Shizhen, rather thanto inform the reader about the ways he might eat or use it.
Let us now consider the Wakan sansai zue. Its author, Terajima Ryōan, introduces the Japanese reading of yatsume unagi 八つ目鰻 (“eight-eyed eel”) for the36
37

See Yamato honzō (op. cit.), vol. 16, pp. 336–337.
The entry begins as follows:

順和名ニハムト訓ス。アヤマレリ。ハモハ海鰻ナリ。唐音ナリ。鱧ハ筑紫ノ方言ウミウナギ
ト云。本草ニイヘルゴトク形長ク体円ク頭ト尾ト同大サニテ相等シク細鱗玄色ニシテ星アリ。
形少蝮蛇ニ似タリ。尾マタナク其形ミクルシク可レ悪。[ . . . ][Minamoto no] Shitagō’s Wamyōshō gives the reading hamu. This is an error. Hamo corresponds
to 海鰻. It is the Chinese pronunciation. 鱧 is read umi unagi in the Tsukushi dialect. As it says in
the Bencao gangmu, [this fish] has an elongated shape, a round body, and the head and tail are equal[in size]. It has fine scales and a dark color, with spots. Its shape looks like that of a small snake(viper?). Its tail has no fork. It has a repulsive look and must not be touched. . . .
The reading umi unagi has been given here in katakana to avoid confusion, because if written
in Chinese characters, it would have been exactly the same: 海鰻.
38
Yamato honzō (op. cit.), vol. 16, pp. 336–337.
39This last umi-unagi is possibly the one mentioned in the Bencao gangmu under the name of
kaimanrei 海鰻鱺, but Kaibara remains silent about it. See note 40 below.
40
The Bencao gangmu mentions two different fish named manreigyo 鰻鱺魚 and kaimanrei 海鰻鱺(Table 3), which can be translated respectively as “eel” and “sea eel.” The transcription hamo 海鰻
only keeps the first two characters of the second fish.

Naturalizing Li Shizhen’s Bencao gangmu in Early-modern Japan

135

fish called rei 鱧. The entry begins with a quotation from the Bencao gangmu,
giving that work’s description of the fish and its therapeutic indications. This isfollowed by a detailed description of the local specimen, mentioning the sevenor eight small star-shaped slots near each eye, as well as some information about
its habitat. According to Terajima’s explanation, the fish is found in the rivers
and ponds of northern regions (of Japan); in winter, it is fished by breaking thesurface of the ice. Local people consume it, and it tastes better than [ordinary]eel. It is also sold dried, as himono 干物, in Kyoto. The author complains about thefact that many wrong readings of the name of this fish are still in circulation.41
The Wakan sansai zue also contains an entry dedicated to the hamo/hamu, which
he writes with the same Chinese characters (海鰻) as Kaibara.42 The description
is partly quoted from the Bencao gangmu, which is explicitly mentioned. He also
quotes from the Honchō shokkan and from another source, but these contemporary sources are not explicitly mentioned. He furthermore warns about the confusion often made between the reigyo—that is, the yatsume unagi—and the hamo.
Thus do we see that Terajima closely follows the example of Kaibara in conceiving two separate entries for the hamo and the reigyo, with the difference that he
identifies the reigyo with the yatsume unagi. For his two predecessors, the yatsume
unagi is a distinct fish.
From this first short examination, we can conclude that Li Shizhen’s Bencao
gangmu remained an essential reference for the three Japanese scholars. Li’s description of the fish is systematically quoted and constitutes the starting point of
their investigations. The three authors have different interpretations regarding
the name given to this fish in Japan. For Hitomi Hitsudai, the reigyo has to be
identified with the hamo. For Kaibara, it has no strict equivalent in Japan, but isclose to a fish found in the Kyushu area. For Terajima, it is the yatsume unagi.
Among the three scholars, Kaibara is the closest to the “truth” since the reigyo is
not found in Japan and is only known through imported specimens.43 One mightfind it strange that, while the fish was barely known in Japan, Kaibara kept mentioning it in his Yamato honzō, supposedly centered on Japanese substances. This can be
explained by the fact that his priority was to shed light on the true nature of this fish,
and to categorically reject the hasty identifications of his contemporaries.
[2] 鮪 (shibi )Let us now turn to the second example: tuna 鮪 (shibi ).
Tuna has been widely fished and consumed in Japan since ancient times. The
name shibi was used to designate tuna, especially in western Japan. This name
Terajima Ryōan, Wakan sansai zue 和漢三才図会, vol. 1 (Tokyo: Tōkyō Bijutsu, 1970), p. 553.
Terajima (op. cit.), p. 562.
43
Nowadays, the “true” reigyo is called “Blotched snakehead.” But it is interesting to note thatthe fish called hamo is sometimes written with the same characters as reigyo. See Ono Ranzan
小野蘭山, Honzō kōmoku keimō 本草綱目啓蒙, vol. 3, Tōyō bunko (Tokyo: Heibonsha, 1991), p. 230.
41
42

136

Horiuchi

was mentioned in the Wamyōshō and it was used in ancient poetry as well. Edoscholars were nevertheless faced with a delicate problem. There was no entry in
the Bencao gangmu under the name i 鮪, but the word i 鮪 did appear under the
shingyo 鱘魚 entry, as an alternative name used in ancient books.44 The problem
was, firstly, that the description of the shingyo 鱘魚 or the i 鮪 in the Bencao
gangmu—nowadays identified with the marlin—did not fit the fish known asshibi, that is, tuna45; and secondly, that there was no fish in Japan corresponding
exactly to the shingyo’s description.
The description given in the Bencao gangmu could be summarized as follows:
The shingyo is a shark-like fish, living in deep water. It has white flesh and has no
scales on its back. It is blue-green in color. Its belly is white. In the springtime, it
moves up to the warm waters of the surface and is dazzled by the sun’s rays. It
has a very long nose, as long as its body. Its mouth is under its jaw. It eats but
does not drink. It has blue, plum blossom-like spots under its cheeks. The colorof its flesh is pure white. Its flavor is inferior to that of the fish called ten 鱣, thesturgeon, etc.46 The Bencao gangmu entry also included short comments regarding
the fish’s edibility (its taste is considered good) and various minor therapeutic
indications or effects on the body.
When examining how this fish is discussed in the three Japanese books, onenotes that both the Honchō shokkan and the Yamato honzō have an entry under shibi
鮪, but have no entry under the name shingyo 鱘魚. In the Yamato honzō, the nameshibi is given only phonetically, using the hiragana syllabary. The Honchō shokkan
provides a range of first-hand information the author seems to have collected
directly from fishermen. This is a remarkable feature of the work that can also
be seen in other entries, such as those for “mackerel,” “bonito,” or “whale.” As
the text is long, I will give here only an outline of the description.
– Habitat: places where it is fished (on the coast of the northwestern regions)– History: known since ancient times and mentioned in ancient poetry (theMan’yōshū 万葉集)Li Shizhen says that “the big ones are called ō-i 王鮪 [“king-i”], the small ones shuku-i 叔鮪[“cadet-i”], and the smallest ones rakushi 鮥子.”45
From the description Li Shizhen gives of the shingyo, the identification is difficult. Ono Ranzan,
in his Honzō kōmoku keimō, begins the entry for this fish by saying that “it is not clear” (tsumabiraka
narazu 詳ナラズ), and adds that it has wrongly been identified with the kajikitōshi. But he says alsothat the shingyo is the fish called kigyo 旗魚 in the Taiwan fuzhi 台湾府志 (Description of Taiwan
Prefecture). See Ono Ranzan, Honzō kōmoku keimō, vol. 3 (op. cit.), p. 236. Today, the kigyo is
identified as the marlin, that is, as the kajiki of Japan, another name for the kajikitōshi, one thatrefers to its spear-like snout. We will see below that the Wakan sansai zue identifies the shingyo as
the kajikitōshi.
44

時珍曰、出江淮、黄河、遼海深水処、亦鱣属也。岬居、長者丈余。至春始出而浮陽、見日則目眩。其状如鱣、而背上無甲。其色青碧、腹下色白。其鼻長与身等、口在頷下、食而不飲。
頰下有青斑、紋如梅花状、尾歧如丙。肉色純白、味亜於鱣、鬐骨不脆。羅願云、鱘状如鬻鼎、
上大下小、大頭哆口、似鉄兜鍪、其鰾亦可作膠、如鱘鮧也、亦能化龍。See the entry for 鱣 in
Bencao gangmu, chapter 鱗之四, section 無鱗魚. See Li Shizhen (op. cit.), p. 486.
46

Naturalizing Li Shizhen’s Bencao gangmu in Early-modern Japan137– Morphology: size of the fish, big head, sharp mouth, long nose; a mouth under the jaw; the two opercula are like a steel helmet; green spots under the
cheek; blood spurting out of the eyes after its death; no scales on its back but
a dark blue color; white belly; a hard and forked tail; etc.
– Taste: mentions the chiai 血合, a part of the flesh, dark-colored, which has tobe removed when cooking because of its bad taste.
– Fishing: tools and techniques used by fishermen.
– Strength and weakness of the fish: strength concentrated in its head.
– Fish processing and culinary preparations (eaten raw or passed quickly overthe flame). Trade.
– Different names of the fish, according to its age. Names of young fish (mejika
目鹿).
– Places where it is consumed.
– Flavor.47

The author does not explicitly mention the relationship of the fish with theone called shingyo in the Bencao gangmu. Comments, however, regarding its flavor
and its therapeutic indications are reproduced from the corresponding headingsof the shingyo entry in the Bencao gangmu. For this author, therapeutic indications are
an important part of an entry, and should be included regardless of their degreeof appropriateness.
We note once again this remarkable feature of the Honchō shokkan of being on
the one hand open to observation, and to including first-hand information
about food consumption, while on the other hand being excessively respectfulof tradition, reproducing even rubrics that have lost their meaning, and about
which the author himself does not hide his suspicion.
The Yamato honzō, for its part, explains where the problem lies for its author.
He says:
The character i 鮪 has been read as shibi in Japan since ancient times. This i 鮪 isanother name for the shin 鱘. In the Bencao gangmu, Li Shizhen says: “the shin has
a blue-green color, the color of the belly is white.” This is close to the fish calledshibi. Shizhen also says: “[I]ts nose is long, as long as its body. Its mouth is under
its jaw. The color of its flesh is pure white.” All of this is different from the shibi.48

He then goes on to describe the shibi found in Japan and stresses the fact that it
is a scaly fish, that its morphology is similar to the bonito’s (katsuo 鰹). Its flesh
is red and toxic and occasionally causes ailments. It is fished in great numbers in
the Gotō islands and Hirado island in Kyushu. The problem was that there wasno fish in the Bencao gangmu that corresponded to the shibi’s description. He concludes that the shibi and the shingyo are probably of the same category (rui ).
Thus can we see that, for the Yamato honzō’s author, the main issue is to designate each fish by its correct name. He is using the Bencao gangmu as a sort of bible
47
48

Honchō shokkan (op. cit.), pp. 223–224.
Yamato honzō (op. cit.), pp. 343–344.

138

Horiuchithat will provide the correct name and an accurate morphological description foreach fish. Its content can neither be questioned nor discussed. And inasmuch as
the description of the i 鮪 did not correspond to the morphology of the fish
called shibi in Japan, he does not feel authorized to use the character 鮪, even if
it had been used in Japan from ancient times.
Concerning the fish itself, Kaibara does not say much about the way it isconsumed. He stresses its toxicity and considers it as a fish less tasty than the
katsuo.49 We can therefore conclude that Kaibara’s objective lies much more in
the identification of the correct name than in giving complete information on
the fish itself. But we also note that identifying the correct name cannot be done
without observing the physical features of each fish with great detail. Therefore,
the observation of fish is more a consequence in his case than an objective in
itself.
The Wakan sansai zue, for its part, keeps the two entries: shin 鱘 (Japanese name:kajitōshi 梶通し)50 and i 鮪 (shibi ). For the former, the description of the Bencao
gangmu is quoted. For the latter, he quotes the Yamato honzō and the Honchō shokkan
without mentioning his sources. He says that the two fish are considered to be
the same fish in the Bencao gangmu, but that the issue has not been resolved.
[3] kisugo
Let us examine lastly the example of the kisugo, a fish mentioned in the three
Japanese books and known only through its vernacular name (zokushō 俗称).
Both the Honchō shokkan and the Wakan sansai zue make reference to the name’sphonetical transcription in ki-su-go 幾須子 (or 幾須吾) but the Yamato honzō gives
only a hiragana transcription.
The Honchō shokkan offers by far the most detailed description, one which ispartially taken up by the other two books. The fish is found almost everywherein the seas of Japan. It is a small fish that can reach at most 7 or 8 sun 寸 (20–25 cm), with large and thin scales, a non-forked tail, and very white flesh with asweet flavor. It can be consumed as namasu 魚膾 (served raw in vinegar) or in
grilled fish cakes (gyohei 魚餅). Although they belong to the same category, the author mentions the morphological differences between those that swim upriver(kawakisu) and those that are fished in the open sea (umikisu). The popular fishing for it organized in various areas (Shiba, Shinagawa, Nakagawa) within thecity of Edo, during the seventh and eighth lunar months, is mentioned as a distinguished entertainment. The Honchō shokkan takes a close interest in the kisugo’s
not-so-common particularity of having two “white stones” in its head. He explains
49
Here we note a discrepancy between the appreciation of the fish in the Honchō shokkan andthe Yamato honzō. Tuna was not very popular in western Japan where it was considered toxic. In
eastern Japan, especially in Edo, the fish was widely consumed and appreciated.
50
The Japanese name given to the shingyo seems to be correct, according to Ono Ranzan,
though Ranzan states that the identity of this fish is unclear. See note 45 above.

Naturalizing Li Shizhen’s Bencao gangmu in Early-modern Japan

139

Figure 2. Entry for kisugo in the Yamato honzō. (Waseda University Library).
https://archive.wul.waseda.ac.jp/kosho/ni01/ni01_00413/ni01_00413_0013/
ni01_00413_0013_p0039.jpg

that these are only head bones, but that by their color and shape they look likestones. For the author, the kisugo is not only a tasty fish that will not harm evensick people, but it also has therapeutic effects against urinary lithiasis.51
As already mentioned, entries in the Yamato honzō do not follow a fixed pattern.
In this case, the morphological description is summed up in two lines:
Its length can reach 7 to 8 sun. There are large ones and small ones. Its flesh is
an immaculate white, its nature light and good.52

We have already mentioned that Kaibara did not make use of the transliterationof the name using Chinese characters. Kaibara also briefly comments that the
kisugo has wrongly been mistaken in the past for the fish called kaisangyo 鱠残魚
in the Bencao gangmu. He gives evidence of this being a mistake (the former has
no scales while the latter has them), then adds: “The kaisangyo is what is currently
named shiro’uo in Japan.” Kaibara ends by mentioning two varieties of fish that51
52

Honchō shokkan (op. cit.), pp. 60–61.
Yamato honzō (op. cit.), p. 343.

140

Horiuchilook like the kisugo.53 Thus we see that, once again, Kaibara never loses sight of
Li Shizhen's teaching and is particularly careful not to use mistaken Chinese
names to designate Japanese varieties (Figure 2).
The entry in the Wakan sansai zue is also very short, providing a very generaldescription of the fish and also of its culinary quality. There are no new observations
reported by the author. It contains no new elements, with the exception of a regional name and details on the morphology of the two varieties called kawakisu(“kisu[go] of the river”) and torakisu (“tiger kisu[go]”).
Conclusion
Our study of entries on fish in three encyclopedias published at the turn of the
18th century has shown that, as far as fish are concerned, the current assessmentof the Yamato honzō is not necessarily an apt one.
More precisely, it was made clear that:– The Bencao gangmu played a key role in the design of these three books, especially with the morphological descriptions and the names that it provided foreach substance. Regarding fish, therapeutic indications were often quoted but
rarely investigated. These may have been considered of little use, given the
primary purpose for which fish were caught.
– The Honchō shokkan stands out for the place it gives to first-hand information
about morphology, toxicity, gustative quality of the fish, fishing grounds, fishing techniques, and culinary preparations. It is likely that observations anddata were collected from those involved in catching fish or processing them.
The substances examined are only those that can be found in Japan, and theaccuracy of their naming is not a priority. Hitomi Hitsudai’s approach corresponds best to that of “natural history,” even if his investigations are essentially driven by pragmatic and utilitarian considerations.
– The Yamato honzō allows only limited space for the description of the fish. Priority is given instead to its identification—i.e., to the assignment of a correct
Chinese name. When no Chinese name can be assigned to the substance (i.e.,
when the substance is only known in Japan), the Japanese name is written in
hiragana. This does not prevent Kaibara from being an excellent observer, if
only because of his strong motivation not to deviate from the Bencao gangmu’s
teaching.
– As for the Wakan sansai zue, its approach is original in that it does not follow
any of the paths taken by its predecessors, even though it draws heavily on
their work. The author’s veneration for the Bencao gangmu leads him to include
almost systematically all the substances mentioned in the Chinese book54 and to

53
54

The tora-kisugo 虎きすご, already mentioned by Hitomi Hitsudai, and the ana-kisugo 穴きすご.
See Table 3, listing the fish entries in the three books.

Naturalizing Li Shizhen’s Bencao gangmu in Early-modern Japan

141

quote from it abundantly. The Wakan sansai zue lists a large number of Chinese
substances that, being barely found in Japan, had been eliminated by its two
predecessors. This is consistent with the author’s definition of his own encyclopedia as “Sino-Japanese” (wa-kan 和漢), in contrast to predecessors whose
works had put the emphasis on Japan. Although his sources are not made explicit,
and we do not know whether he himself made his own observations, theknowledge he collected is considerable, making him a true encyclopedist.
Our investigation has shown that, on the threshold of the 18th century, scholars were not really engaged in the observation of nature for its own sake, but
driven rather by utilitarian considerations, or by the desire to remove, once andfor all, the uncertainties that existed regarding the names of the substances.
Their knowledge of natural substances had nevertheless been enriched withmany new elements. As far as edible products are concerned, attention was now
focused on the living environment and on consumption processes, rather thanon medical applications. In this respect, it can safely be stated that the scope ofhonzō studies in Japan had come to extend far beyond the materia medica.

Horiuchi

142

Table 3
List of Fish Entries in the Bencao gangmu and the Three Japanese Encyclopedias
本草綱目 (1596)

本朝食鑑 (1697)

大和本草 (1709)

和漢三才図会 (1712自序)

鱗類魚 31

河湖有鱗類 11

河魚 39

河湖有鱗魚類 26

鯉魚

鯉

鯉

鯉こひ

鱮魚

鮒ふな

鯽 (一名鮒)

鮒ふな

鱅魚

鮏さけ

鱖魚さけ

波長魚はちやう鱒魚

鱒ます鰧魚あめのうを

𩼚たひらこ

鯇魚

鯇あめ

鰷魚あゆ

鰠みごい

青魚

鰣はそ

鰒はえ (和品)

嘉魚まるたいを竹魚

鮎あゆ

をいかは (和品)

鮏さけ

鯔魚

鮠はえ

もろこ

鱒ます

白魚

佐比魚さひ

かまつか (和品)鯇あめのいを鯼魚鰠み (或みごひ)ごり (和品)

波須魚はすうを鱤魚

金魚 (きんぎょ)

をもと

鰷あゆ

石首魚

河湖無鱗類 8

鯇みごい

黄鯝魚わたこ勒魚鯰なます

あゆもどき (和品)石鮅魚をいかば鱭魚䱱 (さんしょううお)泥鰌どぢやう鯎うぐひ鰣魚鰻鱺魚うなぎ

杜父魚

𫙰はえ

嘉魚

鯲どぢゃう

ひび

鯊かなびしや鯧魚

加志加魚かじか鰪絲魚きぎ

石斑魚いしぶし鯽魚魮ぎぎはす (和品)

渡父魚どんぽ、どんこ

魴魚

䱌いしぶし

わたか (和品)

番代魚ばんだい鱸魚

泳沙魚すなくぐり

鱊魚いさざ

彈塗魚はぜ

鱖魚

江海有鱗類 35鱠殘魚しろうを

牟豆むつ

鯊魚

鯛たい

麵條魚しろうを金魚きんぎょ杜父魚

鱈たらうぐひ (和品)

鱤かん

石斑魚

阿羅魚あら

水くり (和品)

鯼そう

石鮅魚

鯼いしもち

䱱魚にんぎょ鰧おこぜ黃鯝魚

幾須子魚きすご鯢魚さんせううを

鱖あさち

鰷魚

鯔なよし

鱒ます

江海有鱗魚類 48

鱠殘魚

鱸すずき

河鱸

鯛たひ

鱵魚

鰤ぶり

しくち (和品)はなおれたひ鱊魚

鯖さば

河鯔かわぼら鳥頬魚すみやきたひ

金魚

鰯いわし

鰻鱺う (む) なぎ海鯽くろたひ、ちぬたひわかさぎ (和品)

鷹羽魚たかのは

無鱗魚 28，附錄 9 鯯このしろ
鱧魚

鯟かど

こもつつき (和品)

方頭魚くずな、あまたひ

鰻鱺魚

魳かます

岸睨きしにらみ (和品)

金線魚いとより

海鰻鱺

細魚さより

目高 (和品)

錦鯛くそくいを、にし
きいをNaturalizing Li Shizhen’s Bencao gangmu in Early-modern Japan
本草綱目 (1596)

143

本朝食鑑 (1697)

大和本草 (1709)

和漢三才図会 (1712自序)

鱓 (善) 魚簳魚やがらいお金魚

緋魚あかを、あか

鰌魚

鯒こち

鮧魚なまつ

血引魚ちひき鱣魚学鰹まながつお鯊はぜ

眼張魚めばる鱘魚鰈かれい

いだ (和品)

藻魚もいを

牛馬

赤魚あかお

海魚 83

銅頭魚かなかしら鮠魚

眼張魚めばる

棘鬣魚たひ

保宇婆宇ほうぼう

鮧魚

藻魚もうお

鰤ぶり (和品)

古伊知こいち䱱魚

鮎魚女あひなめ

えつ

藻伏魚もふし鯢魚

旗代魚はたしろふか (和品)

栄螺破魚さしいわり

黃顙魚

波世魚はぜ

鮫魚

鰭白魚はたしろ、せう

河豚

鱖あさち

大口魚たら (外)鰷身魚あいなめ

海豚魚

鱭たちうを

松魚かつを (外)油身魚あぶらめ、いた
ちいを

比目魚

鉄頭魚かなかしら

鬼鯛 (和品)梭子魚かます鮹魚

伊左幾魚いさき鮹魚やから鱵さより、はりを鮫魚

鱁むつ

鰺あぢ (和品)

啄長魚たす

烏賊魚

棚子魚たなご海鰌くじら、いさなどり 簳魚やがら

章魚

恵曾魚えそ

龍涎

鯒こち

海鷂魚

藻臥魚もふし華臍魚あんかう (外)

恵曾魚えそ

文鰩魚

志比羅魚しひら青魚かど (和品)

幾須吾きすご魚虎乃宇羅幾魚のうらぎ

鯖さば

鮸にべ、くち魚師

鼬魚いたちうを

鱮魚たなこ

墨頭魚

海蛇

江海無鱗類 37

馬鮫魚さはら佐伊羅さいら、のうらぎ

鰕

鯨くじら

鰛いはし

鱰しいら、ひいを、く
まひき

海鰕

鱶ふか

鱧魚うみうなぎ

鰣ひら

海馬

鮫さめ

海鰻はも

鯔ほら、なよし鮑魚鰐わに

あなご (和品)鱸すずき、はね、せいこ鱁鮧䱐䰽魚いるか鴟魚しゃちほこ (外)

鯖さば

鰾

鮪しび

緋魚

鰶このしろ、つなし、
こはだ

鰾膠

鰹かつを

鱸すずき

鱮たなこ

魚鱠

鰆さはら

鱅このしろ

伊佐木いさき魚鮓鰺あじ

いさき (和品)

大口魚たら

魚脂

疣背魚いぼせ藻魚もうを (和品)

阿羅あら

魚魫

鱧はも

目ばる (和品)

鰤ぶり、はまち魚子

八目鰻やつめうなぎ

滑魚なめり (和品)

鰤王しわう

諸魚有毒

鯸䱌ふぐ

しいら (和品)鰯いわし鮟鱇あんこうあら閏眼鰯うるうめいわしHoriuchi

144
本草綱目 (1596)

本朝食鑑 (1697)

大和本草 (1709)

和漢三才図会 (1712自序)

鱓えい

比目魚かれい鯡にしん、かず楂魚うきぎ

靴底魚くつそこかれい

魚虎しゃちほこ

鰩とびを

章魚たこ

人魚にんぎょ

鰧をこし

水母くらげ

勒魚ろくぎょ鮊しろを䱾鯘魚あいのうを (和品) 河湖無鱗類 9

氷魚ひを

鱵魚さより

鮎なまづ

蛸魚たこ

石首魚くち

黃顙魚ごり、かじか

烏賊魚いか

梭魚かます (外)

鰪絲魚ぎぎ

海月くらげ

文鰩魚とびうを鯢さんせういを

海鼠なまこ

海鰩ゑい

鰻鱺うなぎ

老海鼠ほや

鯔魚なよし

鱧やつめうなぎ海馬

きすご (和品)鱓きたご、あぶらこ

雀魚すずめを太刀魚たち (和品)泥鰌どじょう鰕えび

ひだか (和品)

𩵖ひを鮩あみ、あみざこ

むつ (和品)江海無鱗類 40石楠花鰕しゃくなげ

しび

鯨くじら

乾魚 (ほしうお)

海豚いるか

鱣ふか

鹽魚

つかや (和品)鱘かぢとをし魚醤 (しおから)

きだこ (和品)

鮪しび、はつ

魚鮓すし

鳥賊いか

堅魚かつを

魚膾なます

魴魚まなかつを鮠なめいを

蒲鉾かまぼこまんぼう (和品)

海豚魚いるか魚脂

白魚

河豚ふぐ、ふぐへ、ふぐと

むかでくじら (和品)

鰐わに

河豚ふぐ

鮫さめ

繃魚すずめふぐ、すず 皮剥魚かははぎ
めうを (外)うき木 (和品)

馬鮫さはら、さごしをこぜ (和品)

文鰩魚とびいを、ひいご

金頭かな (がしら)品)(和 華臍魚あんかう

有足魚 (和品)海鰩魚ゑい、こめ

はたはた (和品)鯧まながつを

こち (和品)魴かがみいを、まとうを八目鰻鱺 (やつめ) うな 嫗背魚うぼせぎ (和品)和尚魚 (外)仁良岐にらぎ彈塗めくらはぜ (外)鰈かれい、からゑひNaturalizing Li Shizhen’s Bencao gangmu in Early-modern Japan
本草綱目 (1596)

本朝食鑑 (1697)

145

大和本草 (1709)

和漢三才図会 (1712自序)

とくひれ (和品)

牛舌魚うしのした

奥目張をきめばる (和品) 鰺あぢ
がうざ (和品)楂魚うきく、まんぼう海鰪絲魚 (和品)海鰻はむ、はもゑそ (和品)

阿名呉魚あなご

なきり (和品)

鱭たちいを

きこり魚 (和品)

玉筋魚いかなご、かますこ

たがへ (和品)鱠殘魚しろいを魚膾

鱊ちりめんこあい魚鮓

章魚たこ鱁鮧ちくい、なしもの、 石距てながたこ
しほから鮑魚ほしうを

望潮魚いひたこ肉糕かまぼこ (和品)

烏賊魚いか

糟魚麹魚

柔魚たちいか、するめ
いか

糟しおうを

海鼠とらご

びりり (蛮種)

海蛇くらげ
繃魚すずめいを、うみすずめ
鰕えび紅鰕いせえび、かまくらえび
海糠魚あみ、あめじゃこ鰕姑しゃこ、しゃくなげ
海馬かいば
船留魚ふなとめ
魚の用
鱗いろこ
鰓あぎと
魚干かしらほし鰭はた、ひれ腴つちすり鯝いをのわた鯁いをのほし
䱊いをのこ
炙やきもの
𦞦あつもの

Horiuchi

146
本草綱目 (1596)

本朝食鑑 (1697)

大和本草 (1709)

和漢三才図会 (1712自序)
臇いりもの
膾なます
魚軒さしみ
鮓すし
蒲鉾かまぼこ魚醢ししひしを鱁鮧しほから
鰾ふへ
𩸆しをもの
鮿ひもの
魥めさし
肴さかな

Studies in Japanese Literature and Culture 4 (March 2021) 147–151© 2021 National Institute of Japanese Literature

Tsukumogami emaki and Urban Spaces
Saitō Maori
Translated by Kristopher ReevesTsukumogami emaki 付喪神絵巻 (Illustrated Scroll of Animated Utensils,
16th century) is a short tale featuring as its protagonists a band of used
utensils who have turned into monsters ( yōkai 妖怪). This work belongs
to a genre of such tales composed between the 14th and 16th centuries, known
as otogi-zōshi 御伽草子, or Muromachi tales. More than four hundred of these
Muromachi tales exist, a great number of which are accompanied by vivid illustrations. Some have been preserved in the form of books, others in the form ofscrolls. In most cases, the author and illustrator, along with the exact date ofcomposition remain uncertain. The author of Tsukumogami emaki, likewise, is yet
unknown. In previous research, however, it has been argued that the work showsconnections with the illustrated scroll Hyakki yagyō emaki 百鬼夜行絵巻 (Illustrated Scroll of the Parade of Ghouls and Ghosts by Night), as well as with religious ceremonies, such as the Gion Festival 祇園祭, conducted in Kyoto. Oneof the illustrations in this work contains a quote from another illustrated scroll,
namely, Kōbō daishi gyōjō emaki 弘法大師行状絵巻 (Illustrated Scroll of the Deedsof Master Kōbō, late 14th century), which points perhaps to the author’s interest
in Master Kōbō, that is, Kūkai 空海 (774–835), a prominent monk and founderof Shingon 真言, a school of Esoteric Buddhism. Aside from its possible affinity with Buddhism, this illustrated scroll provides important insights into details
relating to the convergence and transmission of knowledge, as well as ways inwhich urban spaces, especially city borders, were once conceived.
The oldest extant manuscript of this scroll, dating back to the Muromachi period, was previously stored in Tō-ji 東寺 temple, Kyoto, and is currently storedin Sōfuku-ji 崇福寺 temple, Gifu. There exist also a number of Edo-period imitations which, despite minor differences in the illustrations, contain more-or-lessthe same content as the Muromachi manuscript.
Regarding content, a summary of this tale is naturally in order: Sometime in
the Kōhō 康保 era (964–968), during the year-end spring cleaning, a number ofold utensils are ungratefully discarded. In virtue of their intense sense of indignation, these disgruntled utensils become animated, bent on getting revenge on
their human owners. An animated rosary by the name of Ichiren 一連 (literally,“one string,” in reference to the string of beads that makes up a rosary) pleads
147

148

Saitō

with his fellows to renounce their vengeful schemes. This proposal the old utensils promptly refuse, knocking down the rosary without further ado. Thus free to
do as they please, the utensils take on their new lively forms, eager to wreak
havoc. They set up camp in an area known as Nagasaka 長坂, deep within Mount
Funaoka 船岡山, Kyoto, from whence they perpetrate all manner of mischief. In
springtime they hold a lavish banquet, in which they conduct religious ceremonies in honor of “the Great God of Shape-shifters” (Henge daimyōjin 変化大明神)
and give themselves over completely to revelry (Figure 1). In the midst of theirraucous celebrating, the utensils chance to bump into a procession of the chancellor and his retinue. Alarmed at the report of these animated utensils, the court
decides to conduct prayers aimed at exorcising the malicious creatures. As their
only means of escape, the utensils, reconsidering the advice of Ichiren the rosary, decide to take up the life of Buddhist monks. After entering Tō-ji temple,
where they dedicate themselves severally to various religious practices, the utensils are at last able to attain enlightenment.
This story begins in the spring and ends in the winter, comprising exactly one
full year. The spring and summer scenes are full of life, while the autumn andwinter scenes put one in mind of decay, just as one would expect from a workof traditional Japanese literature. Not only this, but the poetry attributed to eachof the utensils is also of a fine quality, conforming to traditional literary conventions. The author of this tale was no doubt among the intellectual class. Support
for this supposition is to be found in the fact that the Sinitic poems presented by
the creatures at the aforementioned banquet all conform to the strict rules ofrhyme prescribed of old by Chinese tradition. Our author could not have provided his characters with such verses unless he had himself attained a high degree of erudition in the art.
Of special note here is the presence of an allusion to a tale regarding theTang-period emperor Xuanzong 玄宗 (Jp. Gensō, 685–762, r. 712–756). Japanesevernacular tales (setsuwa) produced throughout the medieval and early-modern
period contain numerous references to this romantic story of Emperor Xuanzong
and his most beloved concubine Yang Guifei 楊貴妃 (Jp. Yō Kihi). Tsukumogami
emaki was one of many works that utilized this particular tale. Likewise, Japanesemonks of the Five Mountains (Gozan 五山) school produced a number of poetry
anthologies, such as Shinsenshū 新選集 (Newly Selected Poems) and Kinshūdan
錦繍段 (Brocade of Embroidered Verses), both of which include various examples of Song- and Yuan-period poetry, and both of which contain many allusions to this same tale of Emperor Xuanzong. That these poems bear a close
resemblance to those found in Tsukumogami emaki is concrete evidence that theauthor of the latter work was familiar with Five Mountains poetry. Furthermore,
it should be noted that, at the time of our author, the tale of Emperor Xuanzong had become a common subject for painters, such that scenes from thisstory could be seen on the painted folding screens decorating aristocratic homes.
In short, then, the author of Tsukumogami emaki has succeeded in interweaving

Tsukumogami emaki and Urban Spaces

149

Figure 1. Tsukumogami ki 付喪神記. National Diet Library Manuscript (the original by
Tosa Mitsunobu 土佐光信, c.1434–c.1525).
The old utensils are imbued with life. Note the resemblance between the utensils depicted here and the supernatural creatures depicted in the versions of Hyakki yagyō emaki
百鬼夜行絵巻 (Illustrated Scroll of the Parade of Ghouls and Ghosts by Night) housedin the Okura Museum of Art.
https://doi.org/10.11501/2541764

elements of high culture, both from the world of visual art as well as that of Five
Mountains poetry, into a work that represents an intersection between various
strains of cultural understanding.
Of equal interest in terms of actual geographical setting, are the locales depicted in this tale: the utensils set up camp at Nagasaka, deep within Mount
Funaoka; they achieved enlightenment in virtue of their association with Tō-ji
temple. In the urban world of Kyoto, both of these locales were seen as significant liminal spaces. Mount Funaoka, located in the north of Kyoto, was usedthroughout the Heian period by the nobility as a scenic place wherein to pickfresh herbs come New Year. On the first Day of the Mouse (according to theChinese astronomical system), nobles would set out for the foothills about Funaoka with the set purpose of plucking up young pine sprouts. This auspicious
event was seen as a means of ensuring longevity, one referenced in many wakaverses—as seen, for example, in Tsunenobu shū 経信集 (Collected Poetry of
Minamoto no Tsunenobu [1016–1097]) and Fuboku wakashū 夫木和歌抄 (The
Fuboku Anthology, c.1310). Despite its vibrant history, however, Mount Funaoka
was soon transformed, first, into a cremation ground, as attested by Norinaga shū
教長集 (Collected Poems of Fujiwara no Norinaga, completed sometime after
1178), and then into a ceremonial site wherein solemn rituals for the quelling of
epidemics were conducted, as documented in Ryōjin hishō kudenshū 梁塵秘抄口伝集(Oral Transmissions Pertaining to Ryōjin hishō, 1180). In a sense, Mount Funaoka
came to embrace both the holy as well as the mundane, both the light as well as
the dark aspects of human life.
It must be noted, moreover, that Nagasaka, located as it is behind Mount
Funaoka, lies in a more-or-less straight line with Tō-ji temple, which is itself

150

Saitō

Figure 2. Map of Kyoto. Adapted from Kyōto no rekishi 京都の歴史, vol. 4 (Kyoto:
Gakugei Shorin, 1969), p. 296.
Reconstruction of Kyoto in the years Tenshō 天正 18–19 (1590–1591), showing theembankment (odoi お土居) that once circumscribed the city. Nagasaka, Mount Funaoka,
and Tō-ji temple lie along a nearly straight line north to south.

located near the southern extremity of Kyoto. At the beginning of the earlymodern period, it was customary to speak of the so-called seven doors of Kyoto,gateways leading in and out of the central urban space and the surrounding
countryside. Significantly, two of these gateways were known as the Nagasaka
Gate (Nagasaka guchi 長坂口), in the north, and the Tō-ji temple Gate (Tō-ji guchi東寺口), in the south (Figure 2). That these animated utensils are depicted ashaving dwelt in Nagasaka, on the one hand, and having reached their enlightened end in Tō-ji temple, on the other, speaks to a strong sense of liminality inboth of these locales. The utensils move from one liminal space to another,from Nagasaka straight down to Tō-ji temple. Incidentally, the imaginary straightTsukumogami emaki and Urban Spaces

151

line connecting these two locales passes very close to Shinsen’en 神泉苑, a garden
just to the south of the imperial compound, where, according to such works as
Hōbutsushū 宝物集 (Collected Treasures, 1177–1181), apparent nightly sightingsof ghouls and ghosts (hyakki yagyō 百鬼夜行) were most frequent. This same line
corresponds with what was once, in the very beginning of the Heian period, themain street of the capital, Suzaku Avenue 朱雀大路. This avenue began at Rajōmon
Gate 羅城門, the main entrance to the capital, and extended in a straight line to
Suzaku Gate 朱雀門, the entrance to the imperial compound. Tō-ji temple wasoriginally erected close by Rajōmon Gate as a means of ensuring the spiritual
protection and continual tranquility of the capital. This same Rajōmon Gateis described in various sources, such as Jikkinshō 十訓抄 (A Miscellany of Ten
Maxims, preface dated to 1252), as being the haunt of ghouls and ghosts—
a truly liminal site.
The capital of Kyoto developed in an uneven manner, such that the east sideof the city prospered while the west side fell into general disuse. Consequently,
Suzaku Avenue very early on ceased to serve as the central thoroughfare, andcame, instead, to mark the western boundary of the city. Once one realizes that
Suzaku Avenue, at the time Tsukumogami emaki was composed, represented not abustling avenue, such as, say, Aburakōji 油小路 and others depicted in Gikeiki
義経記 (The Chronicles of Yoshitsune, early 14th century) and Yahyōe nezumi
弥兵衛鼠 (The Adventures of Yahyōe the Mouse, 15–16th century), but rather alittle-traveled relic of bygone days, its role in the tale as an eerie footpath for animated utensils at last becomes clear. These utensils wend their way throughplaces formerly, but no longer, frequented by men, places where, depending on
the time of day, not a soul is to be found. Such locales, representing as they do a
two-fold sort of liminality, both in terms of time as well as space, form the perfect dwelling place, or the perfect road for supernatural creatures, including therollicking utensils. Tsukumogami emaki is a Muromachi tale which not only displays a rich interweaving of contemporaneous knowledge, but also makes ample
use of the liminality of certain urban spaces.1

For more detailed studies of the issues mentioned in this column, see Saitō Maori 齋藤真麻理,“Yōkai tachi no himitsu kichi: tsukumogami no emaki kara,” 妖怪たちの秘密基地：付喪神の絵巻から, in Ningen bunka 人間文化 27 (2017), pp. 13-18, available online at https://www.nihu.jp/ja/
publication/ningen/27; Saitō Maori, “Muromachi monogatari to Gensō kōtei-e: Tsukumogami
emaki wo kiten to shite,” 室町物語と玄宗皇帝絵：付喪神絵巻を起点として, in Wakan no kōdo toshizen hyōshō: jūroku-nana seiki no Nihon wo chūshin ni 和漢のコードと自然表象：十六、七世紀の日本を中心に (Tokyo: Bensei Shuppan, 2020), pp. 240–251.
1

Contributors
Daniel Struve ダニエル・ストリューヴ
Professor at the Université de Paris
Areas of Research: Ihara Saikaku, Early-modern Japanese literature, Japanesenarrative literature
Major Publications:◆ “Stolen Glimpses: Convention and Variations”, Cipango: French Journal ofJapanese Studies [English selection] 3 (Paris: Inalco, 2014). https://journals.
openedition.org/cjs/697◆ Roman du Genji et société aristocratique au Japon: Médiévales 72, co-edited with
Terada Sumie (Paris: Open Edition Journals, 2017). https://journals.
openedition.org/medievales/8021
Nicolas Mollard ニコラ・モラール
Associate Professor at University Lyon 3
Areas of Research: Late Edo and Meiji literature
Major Publications:◆ Kōda Rohan, La Pagode à cinq étages et autres récits, translated by Nicolas Mollard(Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 2009).
◆ “Kindai zengo no shajitsu shōsetsu to jiko genkyūsei” 近代前後の写実小説と自己言及性, Tōkyō daigaku kokubungaku ronshū 東京大学国文学論集 11(2016).
Takahashi Akihiko 高橋明彦
Professor at Kanazawa College of Art
Areas of Research: Early-modern Japanese literature
Major Publications:◆ “Ukiyo-zōshi ni okeru shiten no mondai: Ejima Kiseki Keisei denju gamiko,
engeki-teki, haikai-teki, setsuwa-teki” 浮世草子における視点の問題: 江島其磧『けいせい伝受紙子』、演劇的・俳諧的・説話的 [Problems of a Viewpoint in ukiyo-zōshi: Keisei denju gamiko, as Stage-Dramatic, Haikai-Descriptive,
Tell-Narrative], The Bulletin of Kanazawa College of Art 金沢美術工芸大学紀要
64 (2020).
◆ “Tsuga Teishō Hitsuji-gusa no kadokusei” 都賀庭鐘『莠句冊』の可読性[The Readability of Tsuga Teishō’s Hitsuji-gusa], Nihon bungaku 日本文学
60–1 (2011).

Horikawa Takashi 堀川貴司
Professor at Keiō University
Areas of Research: Sino-Japanese literature
Major Publications:◆ Gozan bungaku kenkyū: shiryō to ronkō 五山文学研究：資料と論考 (Tokyo:
Kasama Shoin, 2011).
◆ Zoku Gozan bungaku kenkyū: shiryō to ronkō 続五山文学研究：資料と論考(Tokyo: Kasama Shoin, 2015).
Matthias Hayek マティアス・ハイエク
Professor at the École Pratique des Hautes Études-PSL
Areas of Research: Knowledge and beliefs in Early-modern Japan
Major Publications:◆ Listen, Copy, Read: Popular Learning in Early Modern Japan, co-edited with Annick
Horiuchi (Leiden: Brill, 2014).
◆ “Correlating Time within One’s Hand: The Use of Temporal Parameters in
Early Modern Japanese ‘Chronomancy’ Techniques”, in Coping with the Future:
Theories and Practices of Divination in East Asia (Leiden: Brill, 2017).
Annick Horiuchi アニック・堀内
Professor at the Université de Paris
Areas of Research: Early-modern history of science and culture in Japan
Major Publications:◆ Japanese Mathematics in the Edo Period (1600-1868): A Study of the Works of Seki
Takakazu (?-1708) and Takebe Katahiro (1664-1739), translated from the
French by Silke Wimmer-Zagier (Basel: Birkhäuser, 2010).
◆ Guide illustré des produits renommés des monts et mers du Japon: Nippon sankai meisanzue, translated from the Japanese and annotated by Annick Horiuchi, Daniel
Struve, and Charlotte Von Verschuer (Paris: Collège de France, 2020).
https://doi.org/10.4000/books.cdf.8306
Saitō Maori 齋藤真麻理
Professor at the National Institute of Japanese Literature
Areas of Research: Medieval Japanese literature
Major Publications:◆ Irui no utaawase: Muromachi no kichi to gakugei 異類の歌合：室町の機智と学芸(Tokyo: Yoshikawa Kōbunkan, 2014).
◆ “Koji wo asobu: Giga zukan to iu bungei” 故事を遊ぶ：「戯画図巻」という文芸, in Koten no miraigaku 古典の未来学 (Tokyo: Bungaku Tsūshin, 2020).

Translators
Kristopher Reeves クリストファー・リーブズ
Assistant Professor at Waseda University
Jeffrey Knott ジェフリー・ノット
Assistant Professor at the National Institute of Japanese Literature

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