oba osamu nagasaki importation chinese books edo period part 1

7/30/2019 Oba Osamu Nagasaki Importation Chinese Books Edo Period Part 1

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Nagasak i and the Importation of Chinese Books toJapan in the Edo PeriodOba Osamu ~ ~ {1 ' Kansai University

Par t OneWhile Japan ' s sakoku ~ ~ @ pol icy of seal ing off the countrywas in effect during the . Edo period (1603-1867), Nagasaki wasJapan's l a rgest "window" fo r the inflow of foreign i tems. Therewas t rade with Korea through the is land of Tsushima and with theRyukyu Islands through the domain of Satsuma, but the Nagasakit rade was the l a rges t , and it consis ted principal ly of t rade withChina. Of course, this trade fluctuated in vo l ume a t di f fe ren tt imes and canno t be completely summarized in a word. Yet, whenone sees the explanation given to high school students on the i rschool t r ips to Kyushu tha t the inflow of Western culture following the opening of the country can in fac t be t raced back ea r l i e r

and tha t the influence of the Dutch t rade and Dutch Learning werethe very essence of Nagasaki in the Edo period, one senses tha tthis i s pure his tor ica l fabricat ion.Among books tha t summarize the essent ia l features of the Chinat rade a t Nagasaki, we should f i r s t mention was Yamawaki Tei j i r e ' sL4 A ~ ~ : : . a ~ Nagasaki ~ T e j i n beeki ~ ~ CJ) ttJ.... 14i $[Chinese Trade in Nagasaki] (Tokyo: Y o s h ~ k a w a kebunkan, 1964),from which I learned a great deal . I happened to develop ain te res t in a sect ion of th i s book: "The Importa tion o f Books,Tasks fo r the Future." When I examined several actual cases ofthe make-up of the l ibra r ies in Edo-period domainal schools andprivate academies, I wanted to know when the books in them hadarr ived in Japan, what sor t s of books t hey were, and the volumet ransported. During th is period, th e la te 1950s and early 1960s,the public l ibra r ies which had taken over the col lect ions fromthe old domains had s t i l l not prepared l i s t ings of the i r Chinesebooks. In Kyushu the topic of the prevention of the ShimabaraMatsudaira ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ Collection from nearly being los t wass t i l l current a t th is t ime. I t was the era in which ProfessorNakamura Yukihiko *# '* ~ and Dr. Nagasawa Kikuya ~ ~ L~ ~ talked themselves hoarse cal l ing for the p re se rvation o fChinese tex ts .How would one go about locat ing mater ials concerning imported Chinese books? Had no scholars in the past studied th isbody of material? Beginning with questions l ike these, it becamec lear to me tha t the re lev an t sources had not been adequatelycollected, and t ha t I would have to undertake such a projectmyself. I should, however, note the work of one scholar who wasconcerned with and pursued research on th is topic, a lbe i t minimally: Mute Chehei ~ l ~ + ' Sainan bun 'un shiron .Cff7 ~ 3C-

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if. -i"& [His tor ical Analysis of Cultural Development in the Southwest] (Tokyo: Oka shoin, 1926). I t was f ~ o m th is book tha t Ilearned of the "Shoseki m o t o c h o " ~ ~ f"urf$. [Ledgers of books],from the bakumatsu period, held in the Nagasaki PrefecturalL ib rary. Unfortunately, B uto 's argument contains a f a i r numberof misunders tandings, a lthough he was without a doubt the pioneerin th i s area of research.Among the few pas t scholars who have touched on ~ h e i ssue ofbooks, I should next menti..on t?e la te I to Tasaburo 1f*?If .::..and Ebisawa Arimichi ~ ~ ~ i i j rii . These two men did researchon the su bject of "banned books." They examined 32 works wri t tenin Chinese concerning Chris t iani ty which were banned in conjunc

t ion with the interdict ion on Chris t iani ty in the Edo period.Th e centerpiece of th is body of works was the Tianxue chuhan ~~ *,77 ~ [Early Writings on Chris t iani ty {in China}], a col lect ion [edited by Li Zhizao ~ L ; ~ ] primarily concerned with thewritings and t ranslat ions of Matteo Ricci . Although [unlike I]they studied Chinese books banned from importat ion, s ince imported books were not covered by the ban, thei r work was extremely useful to me as the rev erse s ide of those Chinese books tha twere imported. Furthermore, what should be noted with respect tothese banned books is tha t , among scholars o f Jap anese his tory ,there are those who are under the impression tha t a l l such workswere wri t ten in European languages (Dutch o r English or thel ike) . I was s ta r t led to see th i s wri t ten in the work of acer ta in celebrated scholar whose name i s known to everyone. I tcannot be passed. over as a s imple misapprehension .Important studies of these banned books, which we shouldnote promptly, was tha t of the Mukai f;i:J '* family, .I n s pe c t or s ofBooks a t Nagasaki; the i r work fe l l into the hands of two scholarsres ident in N a ~ a s a k i , Watanabe Kurasuke ;..m. ~ ~ . and MasudaRenkichi p;q 'Cf} [If.. a . In the process of c arry in g out my re search, the fac t tha t I gained acces s to the Watanabe Bunko(Archives), which supplied Watanabe#s former l ibrary to NagasakiPrefectural Library, and the fac t tha t over 3000 i tems in theSeido Monjo ~ 1 : ; c ~ (Documents in- the Confucian temple [founded by Hayashi Razan - ; f ~ ~ 1 Lll ]) col lect ion--namely, former re cords of members of the Mukai family--have been opened to thepUblic in the Nagasaki Municipal Museum made it p ossib le fo r meto corroborate the mater ia ls used by Watanabe and Mas ud a who hadnot clearly marked down the lo ca tio n o f the source mater ia ls theyconsulted. And, I had the good fortune to discover th is t reasuret rove of valuable documents.On re f lec t ion , the opening to the public of these documentswas par t of the t rend of the t imes, when nat ional pUblic ins t i tu t ions began publishing l i s t s of the books in the i r holdings. I twas an era in which the ut i l iza t ion of col lect ions by the generalpopulace was guaranteed and techniques of photodupl icat ion had

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improved, both of which, to our great joy, improved the ef f ic ien-cy o f re se arch . Although much depends on the nature of the itemsin a given col lec t ion, it seemed as though l ib ra r ies were a fewsteps ahead of museums with respect to services for the generaluser . As I wil l mention l a t e r , because the materia ls with whichI was dealing were books, I was able to inves t iga te a t wil l theformer holdings of the Momijiyama ~ L ~ ~ B ~ n k o of the Tokugawabakufu and the Shoheizaka gakumor;jo. '$:f i - & . ~ r C J ~ 'Jr which areheld in the Naikaku Bunko pg ~ 1 ~ ~ of the National Sta teArchives and the Archives and Mausolea Department of the ImperialHousehold Agency. Had the materia ls I wanted to see been held bymuseum agencies, I would probably s t i l l be in the middle of myresearch.

Part TwoI t i s impossible to know everything we would l ike about

impor ted Chinese books for the ent i re Edo per iod. Unfortunately,source materia ls are extremely f ragmentary , and there are manytemporal gaps in those mater ials . Yet, in the process of putt ingthe sources I have col lected in order , I would l ike to announcetha t we have advanced to a new stage of research with regard to reference mater ia l .As a whole, th e c olle cte d materia ls fa l l in to one of twosor t s . Firs t are compilations in which people from the Edoperiod with the same concerns as ours a rranged the imported worksaccording to the time of arr iva l and the nature of the work.These are, thus , secondary sor ts of sources. By contras t , theprimary materia ls were prepared in the process of the importationof the books. The l a t t e r are fragmentary, lack consistency, andmany remain in existence out of chance. In considering how togroup these primary mater ia ls , I decided not to do it by year orthe content of the books, but ra the r to l ine them up by the orderin which they emerged in the process of importation. Althoughthese books had hi ther to been t rea ted in the i r re la tio n sh ip t obibliography and in te l lec tual content , th is meant tha t I t rea tedthem simply as commodities. This also meant tha t I would subse-quently direct my at ten t ion to the people who car r ied the booksto Japan, Chinese merchants, and to the vessels tha t brought themover, Chinese ships; as well as to the col lec t ions of materia lsaboard Chinese ships tha t dri f ted to Japanese sho re s [f ollowingshipwreck or inclement weather].What sor t of m ateria ls are to be found among these primarysources? Firs t , we have the "Seira i shomoku" Jl\.. * ~ B [Lis tsof books imported]; these are catalog s o r l i s t ~ n g s ~ f the booksheld in the cargo of Chinese ships tha t entered the port of Naga-saki . Examples of th i s sor t of work are: "Kyoho shigainen

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shomotsu kaibo" :r. {-!!: \ ! 9 ~ ~ : : & 1?7 et. ~ [Ledger of booksinspected in 1719] from the Seide MonJo collect ion (item 2103.1) ; and "Gaisen se i ra i shomoku" - r + ~ ~ t ~ :f 18 [Lis t ofbooks imported on foreign vessels] from the Watanabe Bunko. Thel a t t e r of these two i s a t ranscr ibed t ext from the Meiji periodof the pert inent p ortio ns of the "Kenbun shomoku" l.,. ~ ~ a[Lis t of books personally obs erv ed ], held in National D ie t Library.The next sor t of source ma te ria l a re the "Taiisho" j:z ~ ~[Summaries]. These are simple explanations writ ten by the I ~Inspector of Books, a subordinate of the Nagasaki Magistrate(bugye f t:r ), who invest igated the the content of books broughtin cargo. The object was to prove tha t the volumes has no re la t ionship whatsoever to Chris t iani ty and thus could be allowed tobe imported into Japan. As a r e su l t , these documents are also ofvalue as commentaries on the imported books. Several exampleswould include: "Kyehe sannen shichigatsu ta i i sho seke" ~ 1 ~ 3 !f-1 f.1 ik. ~ ~ Jf 1 - ~ [Draft summary for 1718, 7th month],item 370-73 in the Seide Monjo; "Kyehe j ~ n e n otsushi yonban

shoseki ta i isho" 1-1'4:' to ~ r , ~ ~ ~ g.A 1( ~ . ~ [Fourthsummary of books for 1725], item 210-3.8 in the same col lec t ion;"Bunka yonen t a i i sho danpen" ;t { t . 4-.5f- * - ? t ~ 13i'r)f [Fragment ofthe summary for 1807], item 370-67 in the same col lec t ion;"Man 'en gannen t a i i sho danpen" 17 ~ r ~ ; : t i . ~ ~ #- [Fragmentof the summary fo r 1860], item 370-67 in the same col lec t ion; and"In jUban sen mochiwatar isho kai mokuroku sha (Tenmei ninen)II~ * ~ ~ ~ ;,t.i ' C$..e ~ !ff ( ~ S A 1.. ~ ) [Copy 0 f th e in -spected l i s t of books t r a n s p o r t e ~ on ship no. 10 (1782)], held inthe Matsuura *'A ) ~ .. Documentary Library.Summaries were prepared separate ly for banned books, booksabout which doubts were ra ised , and books concerned with of f i c ia lgovernment business . An example of a summary of banned bookswould be: "Meiwa hachinen be k y ~ b a n sen mochiwatari shebaishomotsu no uchi Tengaku shokan ta i isho" 8f-f ~ S*t1P ~ - i ~ J t 4 f ~ J ttl7 ~ ~ ~ 7 J J ~ p(1 J Z ~ ~ . ~ i < . ~ , if [Summary of Tianxue chuhanamong the commercial books brdught on ship no. 9 in 1771], heldin Kyushu Unive rs ity Lib ra ry . The same item i s held "in the Kano~ ~ B u n k o of Tehoku University Library, although the t ex t heldin Kyushu i s a manuscript edi t ion from the period of origina lcomposition.Next are the "Shoseki motoche" [Ledgers of books], ' mentionedabove. These are the accounts books compiled by the Japanese ofthe names and quant i t ies of volumes unloaded. Ultimately, theybecame regis te rs fo r the basis o f t rans ac tion s in which wererecord the prices of books and whether or not a sa le was concluded. One can find these for the bakumatsu period in NagasakiPrefectural Library.

The Chinese supercargo (an agent for the shipper) would meetwith a Japanese book connoiseur (shomotsu mekiki ~ 1W ~ ~ ' l ) in27


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[Lis ts of booksin the Archives andAgency. Sixteen

the Nagasaki Hall , an agreement concerning price would be concluded, and the price of books was th en r ecorded in accountsknown as "Negumi che" j ~ a ~ ~ [Ledgers of prices] . Prices for1829-1830 can be found in the . "Honbai negumi che" ;f1t ~ . ~ rPk.[Ledger of prices a t the present sa le ] , held in Nagasaki Prefec-tura l Library. ~ ,njl

We move next to works known as "Kenche" ~ ' I ~ [Inspectionledgers] . These contain memos concerning f re ight which merchantswrote up while "inpecting cargo" (nim ise -M ~ -t- ) and preparingto place the i r bids a t the Nagasaki Hall . Once bidding commenced, merchants would record prices through the th i rd bid;these account ledgers were then kept by merchan t houses forfuture commercial reference. Although none of th es e In sp ec tionLedgers kept by merchants fo r books remain in Nagasaki, 110vol urnes of them are held among the Murakami *:t J:. Documents inNagasaki Prefectural Library; and I believe there are some in thecollect ion of Nagasaki University as well . _There are also records known as "Rakus anauchS" >.i. ;fL l ~(Ledgers of successful bids] . These date from the bakumatsuperiod, one ent i t led "Gaisen se i ra i Tesho Ransho nyfisatsuche"9-1-"G: t ~ J i : & f i ~ t ;LifLrpl [Ledgers of bids on Chinese and Dutchbooks ~ m p o r t e d on foreign vessels] exis t s in the Motoyama ~ t4Bunko in the Ins t i tu te for the Cultural History of Kyushu ofKyushu Universi ty, which forms par t of the Murakami Documents.The books fo r which these various and sundry documents werecomposed came into the hands of bidding merchants. What happenedto them l a t e r , what route they followed in passing into the handsof readers--we have no sources on the process of circula t ion .This problem i s not l imited to books; it is a major research taskfor a l l i m p o ~ ~ e d cargo. In any event , I have now introduced theprimary sources, noting where in Kyushu they remain extant .The secondary mater ia ls need to be subdivided into two sor t sfor the purposes of explanation. Fi r s t i s the "She hakusai ra ishomoku" ~ ~ i i ~ ~ ~ @ [Lis ts of books imported on commercialvessels] in five extant volumes, compi led in the 8th month of1804' by the then In sp ec to r o f Books a t Nagasaki, Mukai Tomi f;7.;tf ~(or Mukai Motonaka ?q Jf 1L1


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volumes of the same content, t i t l ed "Hakurai s h o m o k U " ~ g ~ ~ g[Lists of books imported], are held in Tsurumai Central Libraryin the ci ty of Nagoya. Both are t ranscr ibed t ex t s . The formercol lect ion bears the imprint ".Tannei saisho" ; ~ ~ ~ ~ [TanneiLibrary] , thought to be t ha t of I ioka G i s a i ~ 1 ~ 1 " " ~ a. ' a Confucian scholar from Osaka. The l a t t e r col lect ion bears the imprints of "Shirokawa bunko" ~ ) ' ( ~ / f - [Shirokawa col lect ion]and "Kuwana bunko" ~ ~ : J z ~ [Kuwana col lec t ion] , ,and come fromthe former l ibrary of Matsudaira Sadanobu ; p ~ ~ ~ 1'1In addi t ion, there i s a work, ent i t led "Hakurai shomoku,"edited by Ozaki MasayoshiJL ~ ~ 1 t 1. . Although the location ofthe original i s unclear, i t s content i s re t r ievable from an in -complete eight-volume edi t ion found in the National Diet Libraryand a t ranscribed t ext in eigh t volumes held in Kyoto Universi tyLibrary. On top of copying out two previous t ex t s , it appearstha t Ozaki was t rying to compile a c a t a l o ~ of imported books byadding to them the ear l ie r "Niyude";:.f!J }I;c/ book l i s t as well ashis own personal knowledge.

Th e compilers of the "Hakusai shomoku" remain unknown to us,and these works are extremely d i f f i cu l t to use. The compilerscol lected and copied out the records of the Inspectors of Books,the Mukai family, more or less along chronological l ines , reple tewith the disuni ty in s ty le and content of the origina l records.Nonetheless, because the "She hakusai ra i shomoku" and the"Hakusai shomoku" both made use of the Mukai family records, theyare based on the very best source materia ls . There i s no doubttha t the item en t i t l ed "Setsu re i" ~ ~ , the f i r s t l i s ted involume 29 of the volumes held in the Imperial Household Agency isbased on item 930-34 of the Seide Monjo held in the NagasakiMunicipal Museum. By the same token, for a study of the SeideMonjo col lec t ion, the "Hakusai shomoku" a re ind ispensab le . Needless to say, every s ingle item in the Seido Monjo collect ion i s abasic source for research on imported Chinese books.

Pa r t ThreeEven i f we were to col lec t together a l l the sor t s of sourcematerials described above, one would s t i l l be unable to capture acomplete picture of the Chinese books imported to Japan duringthe Edo period. There are , however, several points to be ra isedtha t can c lar i fy matters a b i t .On the question of the sor t s of books brought as maritimecargo to Japan, one would have to respond tha t every varie ty wasrepresented. Books arrived without any order to them in everyf ield--works of philosophy and thought (Confucian as well asother schools), law, medicine, mil i ta ry stra tegy, a r t , andnovels. The reason for th is was tha t books were loaded for

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t ransportat ion a t the discret ion of the supercargo, and th is wasthe basis upon which books were ordered. Shogun TokugawaYoshimune ~ 1! and Maeda Tsunanori ~ J W , ~ } i j . ~ ~ ordered throughthe Nagasaki Magistrate. The supercargo who received the orderwould bring the requested books on the next t ransport two yearsl a te r . A number o f sh ip pers, however, responded more rapidly toorders such as tha t of Yoshimune for the t ransport of Chineselocal gazet teers , and in a shor t time a large number of gazetteers were col lected . These materials were deposi ted in theMomijiyama Bunko, and today they are kept in the Naikaku Bunko asa world renown col lect ion of Chinese lo ca l g az et te er s primari lyof the K a n g x i ~ ~ p e ~ i o d . This was made possible becauseYoshimune #s love of learning carr ied with it the highest authori ty in the land. I t was not a general phenomenon.Because shipments of books were a t the discret ion of thesupercargo, i f there were many newly pUblished books a t the warehouse, the point of departure [in China], many copies of the samebook might be t ransported to Japan o For example,.from 1837 on,one i s struck by the import of Chunhua ~ fa t ie ) ~ i ~ p ~ q ~ ~ &[Model f or Ca ll ig raph ic Pract ice from the Chunhua Pavi l l ion] ,probably because th is book was printed in China in 1835. Simila r ly , in 1846 one vessel brought to Japan twenty-four copies ofthe poetry col lect ion Zhapu j iyong t 1i U


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the United States from the Haiguo tuzhi were promptly prepared inJapanese edi t ions . This would indicate tha t news of world af-fa i rs carne to Japan via China and t ha t Japanese of tha t timegained the i r knowledge of it through writ ings in Chinese. Add toth i s the fact tha t even knowledge of in terna t ional law in theear ly Meiji period was learned through the work Elements ofInternat ional Law in a Chinese t ra n sl at ion ( en t it le d Wanguogongfa 1 1 l ~ /;;.. >=t ) by W. A. P. Martin, and I think one can seean aspect of the r ec ep ti9 n o f Chinese cu lture in the Edo period.Books were imported from China and they fe l l into the handsof readers , but it is hard to say i f readers understood them 9rto assess what inf luence such works may have asser ted . For onel ike myself who often buys books and lays them aside withoutreading them, inf luence is an extremely d i f f i cu l t matter to corroborate; with a l l the many kinds of works imported, th eir in flu -ence goes beyond the l imits of what anyone individual can ascert a in . I thus aimed a t publishing the documents I had col lectedand leaving it fo r other in teres ted scholars to pursue researchin th i s area. The documentary col lec t ion in my Edo j ida i nioke ru Karafune mochiwatarisho no kenkyu ;J: f ';f Jtk' to: \j' ~ Jt~ ;;f ,,t-::c ~ ~ ~ [A Study of Books Brought on Chinese Vesselsin the Edo Period] and Hakusai shomoku, mentioned above , werepublished by the Tozai gakujutsu kenkyii jo ~ .... f ' t ~ 1;\if t&f ~ f 5 r(East -West academic ins t i tu te ) of Kansai University. My study ofthe former, as well as subsequent research, was published byDohosha ~ AR -t under the t i t l e Edo j ida i ni okeru Chugokubunka ukeire !!2 kenkyu ~ . r . f S ~ 1 t ' ~ #)a Lt:i."f l$1 J(1t ~ ~ 0) .ulf r:l.[A Study of the Reception of Chinese Culture in the Edo Period].As for books on law, I have done some research focusing onTokugawa Yoshimune and Maeda Tsunanori. The reason is tha tYoshimune was responsible fo r enriching the bakufu's MomijiyamaBunko col lec t ion, as was Tsunanori responsible for the Sonkeikakut ~ ~ ~ Bunko in Kaga. These two collect ions had the i r ups anddowns, but the Momijiyama Bunko has been preserved by theArchives and Mausolea Department of the Imperial Household Agencythrough the Naikaku Bunko, and the Sonkeikaku Bunko is kept up inname by the Maeda Ikutoku ~ l \1l ~ fflg, Association. Their re -spective catalogs have been organized, and one can now determinethe books tha t appear in the sources on imported materials fromthe c lass i f ica t ion number in the cata log. In par t i cu la r , theMomijiyama Bunko has an account of books held by the bakufu tha twas kept by t ha t c o ll ec tio n 's supervisor , th e Magistra te forBooks, and it contains a complete record of cash d isbursementsand al loca t ions . Verifying the actual mater ia ls i s now easy.Because of the exceptional quali ty of th is col lec t ion, a study ofimported Chinese books would in par t be a study of the MomijiyamaBunko.

As I touched on br ie f ly above, my in te res ts have expanded31


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from bibliography to the history of trade. I have become in ter -ested as well in "Export Porcelain," including exported Imari~ ~ ] l . Thus, when I see the wake behind a sai l ing Chineseship, I have come to give Nagasaki a world his tor ica l posi t ion astha t por t in the northern corner of the coastal t rade of the EastChina Sea and the South China Sea. Now, when you think aboutJapanese history from the Satsuma-Choshu perspective, whicheveryone does, I feel a kind of support for Okubo Toshimichi #s*-./..... ~ ~ 1 ~ argument in support of the bakufu ,--Translated by JoshuaA. Fogel. This ar t ic le appeared or ig ina l -ly in Bunmei rr kurosurodo, Museum Kyushu 21 (October 1986), 3-8.

An example of a shinpai f ! ~ or l icense given by the NagasakiMagistrate to Chinese merchant vessels to engage in t rade a t thepor t of Nagasaki. These l icenses or permits were f i r s t issued aspart of the New Shotoku Regulations Lf. ~ ; t . 1 i " l ' of the early1710s. The example above comes from the col lect ion of theNagasaki Prefectural Library.

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