A STUDY IN CROSS

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A STUDY IN CROSS

-

CULTURAL

TRANSMISSION OF NATURAL

PHILOSOPHY

:

THE

KENKON BENSETSU

José Miguel Duarte Leite Pinto dos Santos

___________________________________________________

Dissertação de Doutoramento em História dos

Descobrimentos

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Dissertação apresentada para cumprimento dos requisitos necessários à obtenção do grau de Doutor em História dos Descobrimentos e da Expansão Portuguesa, realizada

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DECLARAÇÕES

Declaro que esta tese é o resultado da minha investigação pessoal e independente. O seu conteúdo é original e todas as fontes consultadas estão devidamente mencionadas no texto, nas notas e na bibliografia.

O candidato,

José Miguel Duarte Leite Pinto dos Santos

Lisboa, 17 de Março de 2012

Declaro que esta Dissertação se encontra em condições de ser apresentada a provas públicas.

O orientador,

Professor Doutor João Paulo Oliveira e Costa

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Things have their root and their branches. Even if the root of a tree remains unseen it is not its least important part. It is the root that gives stability to the tree, keeps it connected to the earth and thus maintains it alive. To know the root of things, Zengzi tells us, it is to be near the Way, or the right path. At the root of this work, not seen but essential to its successful conclusion, are many people to whom I’m most grateful and to whom I owe in justice the following acknowledgements.

Two well known Portuguese historians are responsible for getting this work underway and nurturing it to completion. One is João Paulo Oliveira e Costa, who since we first met over one dozen years ago, has gently but constantly encouraged me to give the next step in the completion of this work. Under his careful guidance I have avoided many mistakes and have discovered not a few new perspectives about Japan and its history. The other is Henrique Leitão who, besides having given me a sense of urgency without which this thesis would never have been accomplished, has untiringly provided me with clues, ideas and bibliography concerning the history of natural philosophy and astronomy. To them I must add also Hiraoka Ryuji. His comments to the translation of the Kenkon Bensetsu have helped me to greatly improve it, and his challenging observations concerning the Nanban School of learning in Japan during the seventeenth century have helped me to better articulate the thesis here presented.

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and has leafed through multivolume dictionaries to find the definition for uncommon words of the Kenkon Bensetsu. My daughters Irene and Clara have helped with the digitalization of the figures and the transcription of some of the Chinese passages. To all of them I wish to express my heartfelt thanks.

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ABSTRACT

A STUDY IN CROSS-CULTURAL TRANSMISSION OF NATURAL PHILOSOPHY: THE KENKON BENSETSU

JOSÉ MIGUEL PINTO DOS SANTOS

KEYWORDS: Natural Philosophy, Aristotelianism, neo-Confucianism, Christianity in Japan, Heavens and Earth, Four Elements, Astronomy, Translation

This work shows that the transmission of European natural philosophy by Christian missionaries in Japan during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries was made in a systematic way, even if at an elementary level. The Kenkon Bensetsu is used as main evidence of this. This text was introduced into Japan by Antonio Rubino, on the orders of Inoue Masashige it was translated by Sawano Ch an, at the request of Kainosh Masanobu it was transliterated by Nishi Kichibei and Mukai Gensh , and this last one also wrote a commentary on its theories from a neo-Confucian perspective.

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RESUMO

A STUDY IN CROSS-CULTURAL TRANSMISSION OF NATURAL PHILOSOPHY: THE KENKON BENSETSU

JOSÉ MIGUEL PINTO DOS SANTOS

PALAVRAS-CHAVE: Filosofia natural, Aristotelanismo, neo-Confucionismo, Cristianismo, Céus e Terra, Quatro Elementos, Astronomia, Tradução

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物有本末、事有終始、知所先後、則近道矣。

『大學』

Things have their root and their branches. Affairs have their end and their beginning. To know what is first and what is last will lead near to the Way.

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LIST OF USED ABREVIATIONS

1

Bunmei Bunmei Genryu Sosho 『文明源流叢書』, Tokyo, Kokusho Kankokai

国書刊行会, 1914, Vol. 2, pp. 1-100.

Cartas Cartas qve os Padres e irmãos da Companhia de Iesus escreuerão dos Reynos de Iapão & China aos da mesma Companhia da India, & Europa, desdo anno de 1549. atè o de 1580. 2 vols., Euora, Manoel de Lyra, 1598.

De Sphaera GOMEZ S.J., Pedro, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Reginenses Latini, 426, fols. 1-38, De Sphaera, transcribed by Obara Augustino Satoru, S.J., “De Sphaera,” Kirishitan Kenkyu 『キリシタン研究』, vol. 10, Tokyo, Yoshikawa Kobunkan 吉川弘文館, 1965, pp. (1)-(78).

Dictionarivm Dictionarium Latino Lvsitanicum, ac Iaponicum ex Ambrosii Calepini volumine depromptum: in quo omissis nominibus propriis tam locorum, quam hominum, ac quibusdam aliis minùs usitatis, omnes vocabulorum significationes, elegantioresque dicendi modi apponuntur: in usum & gratiam Iaponicae iuventutis, quae Latino idiomati operam navat nec non Europaeorum, qui Iaponicum sermonem addiscunt. In Amacusa in Collegio Iaponico Societatis Iesu, 1595.

Documentos I RUIZ-DE-MEDINA S.J., Juan (ed.), “Documentos del Japon 1547— 1557”, Monumenta Historica Societatis Iesu, vol. 137, Roma, Instituto Histórico de la Compañia de Jesús, 1990.

Documentos II RUIZ-DE-MEDINA S.J., Juan (ed.), “Documentos del Japon 1558— 1562”, Monumenta Historica Societatis Iesu, vol. 148, Roma, Instituto Histórico de la Compañia de Jesús, 1995.

1_{Ordered alphabetically by the abbreviation; the abbreviation was made according to the most commonly}

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Historia FRÓIS, S.J., P. Luís, Historia de Japam, 4 vol., Edição anotada por José Wicki, S.J., Lisboa, Biblioteca Nacional de Lisboa, 1976-1983. In Sphaeram Christophori Clavii Bambergensis ex Societate Iesv, In Sphæram

Ioannis de Sacro Bosco. Commentarivs. Nunc quanto ab ipso Auctore recognitus, & pleríque in locis locupletatus. Lvgdvni, Svmptibvs Fratrvm de Gabiano, 1593.

Jap-Sin Japonica-Sinica Collection at the Roman Archive of the Society of Jesus, Rome

Kenkyusha MASUDA, Koh, Kenkyusha’s New Japanese-English Dictionary, 4th edition, Tokyo, Kenkyusha, 1974.

Kogo SUZUKI Kazuo 鈴木一雄, IT Hiroshi 伊藤博, TOYAMA Eiji 外山映次, KOIKE Seiji 小池清治 (ed.), Zenyaku Dokkai Kogo Jiten 『全訳読解古語辞典第二版』, Tokyo, Sanseido 三省堂, 2001.

Kojien SHINMURA Izuru (ed.) 新村出編, K jien, 5th edition 『広辞苑第五版』, Tokyo, Iwanami Shoten 岩波書店, 1998.

Kokushi daijiten Kokushi Daijiten Hensh Iinkai (ed.) 国史大辞典編集委員会編, Kokushi Daijiten 『国史大辞典』, 14 vols. + vol. 15 (3 tomes), Tokyo, Yoshikawa Kobunkan 吉川弘文館, 1979-1997.

K kanwa MORIHASHI T. 諸橋, KAMATA 鎌田正, YONEYAMA 米山寅太郎, K kanwa jiten 『広漢和辞典』, Kyoto, Taish kan Sh ten 大修館書店, 1982.

Muromachi Muromachi Jidaigo Jiten Iinkai (ed.) 室町時代語辞典編修委員会編, Jidai Betsu Kokugo Daijiten: Muromachi Jidai-hen 『時代別国語

大辞典: 室町時代編』, 5 vols., Tokyo, Sanseido, 1985-2001

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Nikkoku KITAHARA Yasuo 北原保雄 et alia (ed.), Nihon Kokugo Daijiten

『日本国語大辞典』, second edition, 14 vols., Tokyo, Shogakkan 小学館, 2001.

Rekishi Daijiten Nihon Rekishi Daijiten 『日本歴史大辞典』, Tokyo, Kawade Shob Shinsha 河出書房新社, 1958.

Nippo H yaku Nippo Jisho 『邦訳日葡辞書』, edited and translated by Doi Tadao 土井忠生, Morita Takeshi 森田武,Ch nan Minoru 長南実, Tokyo, Iwanami Shoten 岩波書店_{, 1980, and Morita Takeshi}森田武

(ed.), H yaku Nipp Jisho Sakuin 『邦訳日葡辞書索引』, Tokyo, Iwanami Shoten 岩波書店_{, 1989.}

Shinwaei COLLICK, Martin, David P. Dutcher, Tanabe 田辺宗一, Kaneko 金子稔_(ed.),_{Shinwaei Ch -Jiten}『新和英中辞典第５版』_{, Tokyo,}

Kenkyusha 研究社, 2002.

Tenmon KODAIRA Koichi 小平桂一_{, Hieto Eijir}日江井栄二郎_{, Horihara}

Ichir 堀原一浪_(eds.),_{Tenmon no Jiten}『天文の事典』_{, Tokyo,}

Heibonsha 平凡社版, 1987.

Tenmongaku SUZUKI Keishin 鈴木敬信_, _{Tenmongaku Jiten (revised and}

expanded edition) 『天文学辞典』（改訂・増補）, Tokyo, Chijin Shokan 地人書館_{, 1991.}

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A STUDY IN CROSS-CULTURAL TRANSMISSION OF

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INTRODUCTION

The contribution of the Jesuit Mission in Japan1 and of the tradition of learning that arose from it, which might be called the Nanban School of Learning, to the culture of Japan in the pre-modern period has been appraised by historians in many ways and with innumerable nuances. Nevertheless, it is possible and it is useful to distinguish two opposite evaluations.

The second, and more recent, is mainly the product of historical research conducted in the twentieth century. Although recognizing the earnest efforts of the Christian missionaries in Japan to spread Christianity and several other aspects of their culture during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, it concludes that their influence was slim at best. One extreme example of this view is presented by George Elison in the conclusion to his Deus Destroyed: “The missionaries’ enterprise was of heroic proportions, and the news they sent of it to Europe as embellished with images of triumph and apotheosis as the church. But the perspective of history confines the view of their accomplishments within narrow limits. Seen in strict terms, the sum of their cultural contribution to Japan was nil”.2

The first, and more ancient appraisal, has been around for more than three centuries. While accepting the apparent failure of the missionaries’ main objective of Christianizing the country, it holds that they had an earth-shattering impact on the popular as well as on the erudite culture of the nation. One of the early proponents of this view wrote: “[The missionaries] put Southern Barbarian names to the people; to the customs pertaining seasons and times, to the courtesies concerning marriages and funerals, to the relationship with guests and friends, to the pure feelings related to morals and values, to the preparation of food and dress, to all of them they introduced

1_{The Christian missionary work in Japan during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries was not}

conducted only by the Jesuits. Other orders, the Franciscans, the Dominicans and the Augustinians also took part in the evangelization of the country. Laymen, merchants and sailors, also had their share in the inter-cultural transmission of religious and profane culture. Still, in what concerns the transmission of European natural philosophy the main role was played by the Jesuits, and it is the consequences of their activities on the Japanese view of the Universe that is the focus of this work. I will call their collective endeavour the Japanese Mission.

2_{George Elison,}_{Deus Destroyed: The Image of Christianity in Early Modern Japan}_{, Cambridge, Harvard}

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the ways of Southern Barbary; they promoted policies for the government of the Nation, they decided on the judgement and punishment of people, they even directed how peasants should go on their tillage! […] The Japanese who entered their law forgot ceremonial, abandoned the [right] path, neglected [the importance of] their country lord’s life, and as they valued the orders of the bateren Barbarian priests they propagated their religion at will.”3

The author of these lines was the neo-Confucian scholar Mukai Gensh 向井玄松 _{(Keich 14.2.2—Emp 5.11.1, 1609.3.7—1677.11.25), a prolific author of}

“seventeen books besides many poems and other writings,”4 on topics ranging from botany and surgery to the evil teachings of Zen Buddhism and the Christian global conspiration plot to take over the World. He will be a central personage in what follows for several reasons. On one hand he was the editor and commentator of the Kenkon Bensetsu, the treatise on European natural philosophy that is presented here. On the other hand he was one of the most important Japanese neo-Confucian philosophers of the middle seventeenth century and the one who had closest contact with western ideas and mores. It is likely that no non-Christian Japanese of his generation had a deeper knowledge of both eastern and western systems of thought than he did. His noteworthiness is due to the open attitude with which he approached new facts and ideas, and to the breath of modernity that he brought into his school of thought even if he remained conservative in outlook.

His views on western cosmology and religion are especially valuable to the modern scholar interested in the cultural interchange that occurred in early modern Japan. Gensh ’s views of Aristotelian philosophy and Christian theology are not those of the “undiscerning populace” that willingly accepted them “ignoring the teachings of the Sages of old”, as Gensh himself would put it. Nor were they those of learned neo-Confucian scholars, such as Hayashi D shun 林道春 (Tensh 11—Meireki 3.1.23, 1583 – 1657.3.7), better known as Razan 羅山_{, who had barely come into contact with}

the foreign ideas before dismissing them out of hand – therefore losing the opportunity

3_{This passage was translated from the modern edition, by Shinmura Idzuru}_{新村出}_{(1876.10.4—}

1967.8.17), of Chiji-hen『知恥篇』, authored by Mukai Gensh , which can be found in Kaihy S sho

『海表叢書』, vol. 1, Kyoto, Heirakuji Shoten 平楽寺書店, 1928, p. 21.

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to refute them thoroughly. Much less did his views bear any resemblance with the ideas of those missionaries that came to have as good a grasp of Japanese cosmology and religion as João Rodrigues Tçuzu (ca. 1561/2 – 1633.8.1) did. Gensh ’s judgement was based on accurate, first hand expositions of western thought by knowledgeable people and informed by his deep knowledge of Chinese philosophy and Japanese religion. This makes his opinions particularly valuable as they are the first and, together with the views of Arai Hakuseki 新井白石 (Meireki 3.2.10 – Ky h 10.5.19; 1657 – 1725) presented in Seiyo Kibun 『西洋紀聞』_{, the most important testimony of how an}

erudite and discriminating Japanese reacted to the foreign world-view.

Gensh evaluation of western knowledge was nuanced. His denouncement of the padres’ plot of conquering Japan is almost everywhere in his works. His acceptance of European theories and methods of medicine is documented in his treaty K m -ry Geka Hiy 『紅毛流外科秘要』. His reasons for rejecting Christianity are made clear in his Chiji-hen. Here, however, we will concentrate on his reaction to western ideas on natural philosophy and cosmography. His views on these matters are presented in some detail in the commentaries he penned in the cosmological treatise named Kenkon Bensetsu 『乾坤弁説』, the loom around which this work is weaved.

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the country in 1639 and forbidden of ever returning back. This was the final if not the most dramatic and visible element of the rejection of Southern Barbarian culture.

It is thus natural that historians who studied the religious aspect of the sixteenth and seventeenth century interaction between Japanese and Portuguese have had the tendency to stress the successes of the Japanese Mission, while those that focused on the political aspect have for the greater part concluded for its failure. Flowing from these two opposed positions the reaction of sixteenth and seventeenth century Japanese to Nanban culture has come to be frequently presented as having been an unqualified acceptance by a minority that converted to Christianity or an absolute rejection by the others, who either became strongly opposed to everything European or just ignored it completely. I suspect, however, that the partial acceptance of some aspects of western ideas by Gensh , and his rejection of other elements, was typical of the Japanese of his age.5 Though individuals might differ in what they took and in what they rejected, wholesale acceptance and total rejection were the exception rather than the rule. Therefore I believe the study of Gensh ’s views is important to bring perspective and equilibrium to the discussion of the impact of one of the most notable experiments of cross-cultural communication that ever happened and which took place for one hundred years after the arrival of Portuguese merchants and Jesuit missionaries in Japan.

As it was noted above, there is a current in modern historiography that holds that for all the exoticism with which the Portuguese merchants and the Jesuits missionaries tinged the history of Japan during the Nanban Century6, “their cultural contribution to Japan was nil.”

Contribution is a two edged concept. In this case, it may mean the inputs provided by the Portuguese and by the Jesuits that would allow the Japanese to see the

5_{See José Miguel Pinto dos Santos, “Five Types of Reaction of a Neo-Confucian Scholar to Western}

Cosmology: The Case of Mukai Gensh (1609—1677)”, Empires Éloignés: L’Europe et le Japon (XVIe—XIXe Si cle), Dejanirah Couto and François Lachaud (ed.), Paris, École Française d’Extrême-Orient, 2010, pp. 51-71. More recently Kiri Paramore, Ideology and Christianity in Japan, Abingdon, Rutledge, 2009, p. 44, has also suggested that the frequently used “’either/or’ paradigm” may “potentially limit the scope of analysis” and artificially “push individual [Japanese] thinkers into overly limited categories”.

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world through new artistic, religious and scientific perspectives. On the other hand it may also mean the cultural output achieved by the Japanese from those inputs, which would be observable from the development of a novel sensibility in things artistic, religious and scientific.

Certainly no one would seriously argue that their cultural input to Japan was nil.7 Portuguese sailors and merchants brought the musket, the silk and the gold, the ultimate symbols of the culture of war, indulgence and commerce, the three incarnated deities of western imperialism, materialism and greed. Jesuit priests brought Aristotle, Hippocrates and Jesus together with the printing press, the hospital and the Bible. And, as it is widely held that their effort in publicising and spreading these inputs was of “heroic proportions”, there should be no question concerning the input side of the question. And this can be stated despite the fact that research concerning many of those cultural inputs has not been exhausted yet.

Therefore the above statement can only be read so as to mean that the cultural output resulting from their inputs was nil. And, indeed, it is not easy to find in modern historiography references and descriptions of what the Japanese made from those inputs and how they used them. It seems as if the Shimabara rebellion and the consequent expulsion of the Portuguese was the end of the story; that the Japanese forgot overnight their appreciation for the missionaries’ ideas on God and stars, and the Southern Barbarian introduced tastes of fried food and egg based sweets; and that in 1640 they started as a tabula rasa in what concerns European culture. There are two possible explanations for this lack of visibility of cultural output: either it is real, or it is apparent. Either the Japanese in the process of their cultural quality system rejected or ignored the offered inputs, and thus their seventeenth and eighteenth century cultural output does not bear the mark of the rejected Southern Barbarian inputs; or, if this was not the case, then modern historians have not worked hard enough to provide us with the evidence. 8

7_{Actually I could find one. Richard Storry,}_{A History of Modern Japan}_{, London, Penguin Books, 1972, p.}

66, wrote this racially tinged and misguided comment: “[…] it so happened that the European race, the Portuguese, with whom the Japanese had the longest contact up to 1639 was perhaps the one least likely to pass on to them the revolutionary discoveries in astronomy and natural science, and indeed the experimental method generally, that laid the foundations of modern western technology.”

8_{However, it should be said that, in the tradition of Gensh , many Japanese scholars have expressed the}

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It is my contention here that the second is probably the case. To start with we have the testimonial of Gensh presented above, as well as that of other knowledgeable Japanese of his time to the effect that many of their compatriots so “valued the orders of the bateren Barbarian priests” as to “neglect [the importance of] their country lord’s life”. Hardly could words be assembled in any other way by a seventeenth century Japanese to express the strength of the foreign influence with more vigour. The lord’s life was arguably the most important value for a Japanese of that age, the foremost duty that any honourable man had being the contribution to his preservation and well-being. This change of behaviour certainly cannot be attributed but to cultural change. It surely was not a permanent change, as the Tokugawa regime restored back the social order to its bushi ideal, except for a few thousand farmers scattered in the western fringes of the country that remained secretly attached to a different spiritual value. This brings us to the question: given that the foreign missionaries did not achieve their desired output of converting Japan to Christianity, were there not other more permanent changes? Is it possible that when making their sums, the historians who shouted “nil!”, just as the proverbial man looking for the lost key in the garden because that is the place where there is more sunlight, were not looking for evidence where it could be found?

Much and excellent research has been done in the field of Japanese religious and political history during the time of interaction between Portuguese and Japanese in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. This work has lead to the publication of not a few books and theses of exceptional value to the understanding of what happened then, a situation that even leaves one embarrassed when faced with the need to choose from amongst such abundance.9 However, despite this valuable accumulated research, many popular and vulgarizing histories of Japan, either implicitly hold this remarkable

technology, lasted no more that 100 years.” Akihito, “Early Cultivators of Science in Japan”, Science, vol. 258, 1992, pp. 578-580.

9_{James McMullen, “Confucianism, Christianity, and Heterodoxy in Tokugawa Japan”,}_Monumenta Nipponica, Vol. 65(1), 2010, p. 149, makes the following appraisal: “Japan’s contact with Christianity in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries is among the fields of premodern Japanese history most intensively researched overseas. At its best, this subject has occasioned fine scholarship and bravura writing.” Nevertheless, when confronted with this abundance and forced to restrict the references to just one item per language I always recommend: Charles R. Boxer, The Christian Century in Japan: 1549-1659, Berkeley, University of California Press, 1951; Ebisawa Arimichi 海老沢有道, Nihon Kirishitan

Shi 『日本キリシタン史』, Tokyo, Hanawa Sensho 塙選書, 1966; and the already cited João Paulo

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cultural event in such low regard so as to dismiss it in a few lines, or explicitly state something to the effect that “the sum of their cultural contribution to Japan was nil”.10 In their evaluation of the consequences of the presence of the Portuguese and of the Jesuits in Japan the discussion almost always centres on the absolute rejection of Christianity and the total refusal to trade with the Portuguese, that is, they focus in the political and religious side of the question. The conclusion usually is that as Christianity was forbidden and the Portuguese were expelled the rejection was absolute, the failure was total, and he impact was nil. It is my conviction that there is much to say against this line of argument, and that the evidence actually shows that the Jesuits achieved a remarkable religious success and a stark political failure, but that is not my point here. My contention now is that, besides the religious dialogue between east and west and in addition to the political and commercial embassies going west and east, there were other dialogues going on in Japan during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. In what concerns me here, I intend to show that there was a meaningful and heated debate between different views of nature and explanations of natural phenomena. This debate was many sided, with several competing schools presenting their views and defending them against multiple opponents. There were the Aristotelians, the Buddhists, the Neo-Confucianists and others.11_{During this debate, especially that which took place between}

Aristotelians and Neo-Confucianists, which will take almost completely our attention in what follows, some ideas crossed a cultural border and were found acceptable, while others did not, and were not accepted. The ultimate objective of this work is then to attempt to broaden the analysis of this east-west encounter away from the political and religious history, and see what inputs where accepted for further processing by the seventeenth century Japanese and which were not.

Although I believe that there were many specific contributions to Japanese life made by the western priests and merchants whose individual value was not zero, here I

10_{For example see G. B. Sansom,}_{Japan: A Short Cultural History}_{, Tokyo, Charles E. Tuttle Co., 1973,}

where in p. 437 we can read: “On the whole it cannot be said that the intellectual influence of Europe upon Japan in the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries was either profound or lasting.” R. H. P. Mason and J. G. Caiger, A History of Japan, Tokyo, Charles E. Tuttle Co., 1973, p. 154, note that: “[t]he Iberian peoples transformed neither the economy nor the religious life of the country to which they came.” For an example, this time in Japanese, see Sh ei-sha Han Nihon no Rekishi『集英社版日本の歴史』, 22 vols., 1991-1993, where in over 7,500 pages of Japanese history we can just find a handful scattered references to the presence of the Portuguese and of the Jesuits.

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will concentrate in trying to establish what were the inputs and outputs in a well defined field that is alternatively designated as natural philosophy or science. This is a topic that is sometimes broached in western scholarly literature on the interaction between Japan and Portugal in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries but always in the most summary way. As the main evidence that there was an attempt of transmission of natural philosophy by the Jesuit fathers it is sometimes referred the existence of a scientific or astronomical treatise, the Kenkon Bensetsu, edited in Japanese by Sawano Ch an 澤野忠菴_{(ca. 1580—1650.11.1) who before being tortured and apostatizing had been a}

Jesuit missionary by the name of Cristovão Ferreira, and commentated upon by a Neo-Confucian scholar, Mukai Gensh , whom we already encountered. It is precisely from the insertion of this commentary written by a neo-Confucian scholar into a western style exposition on natural philosophy put in Japanese by an educated European that the Kenkon Bensetsu derives much of its value. From it we may learn first hand two important things. One is what an educated Jesuit chose to present to the Japanese from the vast range of topics covered by European science. This may allow us to make inferences about substance and form in the transmission of western science in Japan: which topics the Jesuits in general thought worth of transmitting and how they transmitted them. Another is what a knowledgeable Japanese thought of those topics and of their treatment. Although obvious, it may be worth to mention that the Kenkon Bensetsu is useless as evidence of what was European science in the seventeenth century or anytime before that. Besides the Kenkon Bensetsu other treatises about western science were produced in Japan and have survived to this day, such as the Genna Kokaisho and Nigi Ryakusetsu, which, like the Kenkon Bensetsu, are extant in multiple copies. These are worth of study because they also acknowledge that there was a non-religious polemic. They are less interesting to our purpose here because they lack the commentaries found in the Kenkon Bensetsu. However, because their authorship can be attributed, even if partially, to Japanese, they do document the acceptance of western cosmology and do this in a different way from that of the Kenkon Bensetsu.

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computation of eclipses or to estimate precession? Does it show how to estimate the latitude of one’s position on the Earth by observing the declination of the Sun or the Polar Star? Does it teach to calculate the opposition of Jupiter or the conjugation of Venus with Saturn? Nor is it clear what the influence it exerted on Japanese astronomers and philosophers of latter generations was. In Japanese we do encounter many detailed but partial studies of the Kenkon Bensetsu, authored by Imai Itaru 今井溙_{, and ya}

Shin-ichi 大矢眞一, and some others. Ebisawa Arimichi wrote Nanban Gakuto no Kenkyu which certainly is the most detailed description of the influence of western cosmology and natural philosophy on Japanese thought. More recently Hiraoka Ryuji has revived the field with several solid articles and a doctoral thesis. There he argues that natural philosophy was an instrument of Christian apologetics and presents a detailed analysis of the formation of a textual tradition around Kenkon Bensetsu. He also integrally transcribes one of the best extant manuscripts of the Kenkon Bensetsu and another of one of its variants, the Nanban Unkiron 『南蛮運気論』. This work of Hiraoka Ryuji appears almost one century after the first modern edition of the Kenkon Bensetsu was published, an edition which doubtlessly contributed to the awareness we have today of this textual tradition and to the appearance of the above mentioned research. But the fact is that while Japanese scholars, especially science historians specializing in the pre-modern and modern period, may have an idea of what the contents of the Kenkon Bensetsu may be, in the west just a handful of specialists have all but the slimmest idea of what this work might be about.

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Besides its literary value, the Kenkon Bensetsu is also a manual of basic natural philosophy. It would have been an unremarkable manual if it had been written in Lisbon, but the fact that it was composed in Japan on the behalf of the Japanese and at their request makes it a very interesting book. It is very interesting because it is a testimony to the conscientious, active and argued transmission of the Aristotelian cosmovision into the Confucian cultural world that was made possible by the geographic revolution operated by the Portuguese expansion into East Asia. Its importance also lies in allowing us to ascertain how the Aristotelian philosophical explanations look like when expressed in the seventeenth century Japanese language, and what arguments a Confucian scholar would use when confronted with it.

As was already mentioned, we may say that the history of non religious and non political influence of Jesuits in pre-modern Japan still needs to be written. This is especially true in what concerns natural philosophy. Western scholars, however, cannot participate in this work before the main texts that document the transmission of natural philosophy have been translated and edited into western languages.

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Japanese. Besides this it is also essential to make explicit the meaning that the Japanese would read out of the words, not that which we might assume was the intended by the editor.

A second objective is to investigate what can be known about the process that led to the writing of this treatise: by whom and on whose orders it was written, why was it ordered, and under what circumstances it came to light. This story involved many people in a span of over twenty years, is full of curious circumstances and serves to portray an age. Moreover it also serves the purpose of trying to understand western cosmology as a seventeenth century Japanese might perceive it after reading the Kenkon Bensetsu.

The history of the composition of the Kenkon Bensetsu which we will see in detail is extraordinary for a few reasons. One is the large number of people involved, of the most different walks of life, many of whom did not have the slightest idea that their actions were leading to the composition of a book. Had not Inunaga, against all hope, set in pursue of a running away mysterious vessel and caught it, there would be no book on astronomy to present Inoue, no translation by Ch an, and no commentary by Gensh . Another is the remarkable changes that groups and individuals underwent and were instrumental in the making of the Kenkon Bensetsu: the populace that from being easily swayed by Christian doctrine comes to abhor it, the Kurodas that from protectors turn into persecutors, Ferreira, the chief bateren who becomes Ch an the chief collaborationist, and Gensh who from staunch antagonist to Southern Barbarian theories becomes malgré lui their main publicist. Still another is how the history is so tightly woven that the most important personages keep reappearing and everyone is related in some way with almost everyone else. And despite its complexity the whole history can fit all in a dozen lines; paraphrasing Gensh in his preface, it can be told succinctly thus:

Ch an, a Christian priest with excellent astronomical learning, comes to preach in Japan. He is caught and has his religion rectified12, what makes Rubino decide to come to Japan to meet him and bring him back to his original faith. Rubino, an elder that excelled in astronomy, is caught by a retainer of Tadayuki, the grandson of J sui, one of the greatest benefactors the padres in Japan ever had. Tadayuki sends Rubino to

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Inoue, the grand overseer of religious rectification, and thus Inoue gets a book from Rubino. Inoue asks Ch an to translate it into Japanese. Later, Kainosh has a westernized Kichibei and an eastern textual fundamentalist Gensh transliterate Ch an’s translation and Gensh add a commentary. Upon finishing the commentary Gensh notices the book has no title. He remembers that the third generation, by building a worthless vessel named Kenkon Maru, almost lost everything J sui had conquered from nothing for the house of Kuroda and decides to name the book about a worthless science after the worthless vessel.

This work is organized into four parts. In the first part I attempt to outline the historical conditions that lead to the period when the Kenkon Bensetsu was edited. I start, in Chapter I, by framing a question that is the defining question of this work: if we pick up a seventeenth century Japanese scholar and look at his life and work, where can we notice the influence of the body of knowledge that the Portuguese and Jesuits supposedly introduced in Japan? Given that the main object of this work is a treaty on natural philosophy and astronomy it is fitting that I look, even if in the briefest of ways, into the adventures of a late seventeenth century Japanese astronomer. This will serve also as a pretext to outline some permanent characteristics of Japanese society that may help us understand the behaviour of some of the personages that appear later. This part may seem superfluous on a work on the history of science in early-modern Japan, but that redundancy is more apparent than real. Science in the context of any culture is the product of concrete people integrated in a social setting and its premises and conclusions in some way reflect how that society is organized. To understand the scientific product of an age and of a culture an understanding of the social organization and dynamics of that age and culture is not irrelevant. Even European science has undergone an evolution as European society as changed. Nowadays scientific results are achieved by large structured teams through the assemblage of highly specialised and partial work, very much as a Ford T was the end product of a large structured team organized around an assembly line. Not coincidently this form of organizing scientific work started not much later after Henry Ford started producing the Tim Lizzie in 1908.

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Portuguese merchants and Jesuit priests to Japan and the influence they exerted in Japanese life. I will deal, also very schematically, with the question: where is it in Japanese culture of the Seclusion Period the influence of the western elements introduced by the Nanbanjin and the bateren? It will be argued that this influence was broad and not restricted to natural philosophy, nor even to religion, spirituality and morals but reached many corners of Japanese material and intellectual life. I will deal also with the invisibility of these influences. The main point here is that, and using a reply similar to that given by Cosme de Torres to his Buddhist disputants about the existence of the soul, in the same way as air is not seen, there are invisible things that exist. This is performed in Chapter II.

Afterwards I close on the main issue dealt by this research: the cross-cultural transmission of natural philosophy in Japan in the Nanban period. I describe first the position that natural philosophy took in the missionary activity of the Jesuits in Japan: not a central but an important auxiliary one. Then I will argue that the Japanese, of all the sixteenth century peoples that were object of Christian mission, seemed to the Jesuits the most able to come into Christianity through rational argumentation. They also seemed to be the most curious about natural and spiritual things. Therefore the Jesuits used science as an evangelization tool, starting their catechesis with elementary presentations of the workings of the material universe. They also taught it in their schools and wrote books to expound it. With this I try to answer the question: How did the Jesuits sow in Japanese culture western astronomical learning? This is attempted in Chapter III.

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writings, I assume were Gensh ’s literary tastes: the choice to the title for the treatise. This narrative is built in one chapter and attempts to answer the question: how did one of the most important outputs of the cross-cultural transmission of western natural philosophy come to life? This is Chapter IV.

In the third part I present the Japanese text and an English translation of the Kenkon Bensetsu. The Japanese text is a reproduction of the first modern edition published in 1914. However I have added in notes some of the more important variant readings of other manuscripts not considered in that edition.

In the fourth part I revisit the Kenkon Bensetsu. First I present in Chapter VII the basic theories that are referred to in the text as well as in the commentaries. This I do following closely the short essay named “A Comparison Between the Learning in Four Countries” that Gensh placed just before the main text of the Kenkon Bensetsu. This hopefully will be of some help to the reader in extracting some more meaning out of the names and designations employed in the translated treatise. In this chapter I also briefly describe the main works that testify the presentation of western natural philosophy in Japan, and take a look at the number and variants of the extant copies of the Kenkon Bensetsu.

Then, in the Chapter VIII, I take a bird’s eye’s view at the contents of the exposition about western philosophy in the Kenkon Bensetsu. This is made in four sections: I review in sections 2 and 3 the exposition about the sphere of the Earth, and in sections 5 and 6 I highlight the main ideas of the paragraphs concerning the spheres of the Heavens. This has the objective of establishing the character of the Kenkon Bensetsu. In the other sections I make some brief comments concerning the choice of terminology. Finally, in Chapter IX, I classify and analyse the comments penned by Gensh . This classification is important because although Gensh considered Southern Barbarian scholarship basically flawed, it is clear that there were certain areas of knowledge he considered eastern scholars should learn from the Nanbanjin.

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It is usual to documental evidence to be put in appendixes at the end of a work. Here I have made the unusual choice of putting the Kenkon Bensetsu in the very middle of it. The reason is that the core of this thesis is the book itself and to signify that the Kenkon Bensetsu should be put literally at the very centre and not relegated to the last pages, after the conclusions and everything else, as if it was of minor interest. I have therefore chosen to envelop it, as already mentioned, with four chapters presenting the historical setting and formation process in front, and with three chapters explaining its contents in the back.

Another unusual choice is the volume of linguistic notes in the translation. Their objective is not to show my ignorance of the language, though in fact I had to look many of those words in the dictionary before deciding which one would be more appropriate, but to empower the reader to understand my choices and to help him to criticize and to make better choices if he thinks they are warranted.

Finally there are some comments throughout this work, framing a historical event with an economical or behavioural theory. Being a professional economist by vocation and by training, they arouse spontaneously from my joy to find that these modern economic and behavioural theories may help in the understanding of past events.

One last word concerning style. I generally follow The Chicago Manual of Style13 which advises the “down” style: the parsimonious use of capitals. Although proper names are capitalized, in general words derived from or associated with proper names are lowercased. These are capitalized: titles of sovereigns and other rulers; civil, military, academic and religious titles; names of places and in general of any entity that appears on maps. Capitalized are also: religious names and terms in general; calendar and time designations; names of stars, constellations and planets as well of the lines on the sphere. Japanese philosophical concepts which are so rich in meaning that they are usually left un-translated by most authors are italicised both when transliterated into the Latin alphabet and when translated.

European names are spelled according to their modern form except in two cases: when they appear in a cited text or when the flavour of the passages so requires. The same rule applies to toponyms. Dates of birth and death are given after the first reference. As a rule, dates are presented in the traditional BC/AD system. For events

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concerning Japan and the Japanese, the Japanese dating system is presented before the BC/AD date. Whenever possible precision is sought and month and day are also presented together with the year. Japanese names are given following Japanese usage: the family name precedes the given name. After the first reference the name is also written in Japanese characters. This is followed when possible by the usual duplet of dates indicating birth and death both in the Japanese and Julian/Gregorian Calendars. For Chinese names the family name also precedes given names. This being a study on Japanese history, they are given first in the way a Japanese would pronounce them, followed by their writing in Chinese characters and then by their Chinese pronunciations.

Japanese is Romanized according to the Hepburn system, and Chinese according to Pinyin, except inside quotes.

[Square brackets] are used to enclose words or sentences not in the original work and inserted by me. In citations from English they are used to indicate that the text is truncated. In translations they are used to include words not in the original language but that make the English translation clearer.

{Curly brackets} are used to indicate explanatory notes introduced into the text by its author or editor: in Japanese manuscripts in general, and in the Kenkon Bensetsu in particular, these are usually two lines of smaller letters, with varying length, which are introduced so as to fit in the space of one line of the main text.

(Parentheses) in Chapter VI, inside the translated text of the Kenkon Bensetsu, show the variant reading of manuscript (i). These are included only when the difference is material and affects the meaning of the sentence.

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PART 1 — THE JAPANESE AND THE

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CHAPTER I — YASUI SANTETSU, OR THE JAPANESE WAY

1. Yasui Santetsu

Yasui Santetsu 安井算哲 (Kan’ei 16.lap 11.3—Sh toku 5.10.6; 1639.12.27— 1715.11.1) was an igo 囲碁 player. Not a gambler but a master. No ordinary player, but the government igokata 囲碁方, the official igo player of the shogunate. Like most of all other artistic, scientific, government, military and religious offices in Japan, his post was hereditary and thus he was duly trained to properly discharge his duties by his predecessor and father, Yasui Santetsu 安井算哲 (fl. first half of the seventeenth century). Very young he had developed a high awareness of the importance of timing and spatial positioning for success. He was able to transfer his experience in dealing with complex situations in the 361 positions on the Euclidian plane of an igo board to the no less intricate power games of scientific policy played by court nobles and shogunal samurai bureaucrats.

Born as Rokuz 六蔵 in Miyako, the imperial city, he had innate ability for mathematics. He was schooled in wasan, or Japanese mathematics, by Ikeda Masaoki

池田昌意_{(fl. middle seventeenth century)}14_{, and in calendar making by Okanoi Gentei}

岡野井玄貞 (fl. middle seventeenth century)15 and Matsuda Junsh 松田順承 (fl.

middle seventeenth century)16. Seldom had a name change been more appropriate than

14_{A seventeenth century}_wasanka_{, or a mathematician on the Japanese tradition, who lived and taught in}

Edo where he had a juku, or school, in front of Sai ji 西応寺. Published in the Second Year of Emp Sugaku J jo rai『数学乗除往来』, a treatise solving 49 problems. For details see Asahi Shinbunsha

朝日新聞社 (ed.), Asahi Nihon Rekishi Jinbutsu Jiten 『朝日日本歴史人物事典』, Tokyo, Asahi

Shinbunsha 朝日新聞社, 1994.

15_{A Medical School practitioner with strong interest in mathematics and calendar making. When of the}

Korean embassy visit of 1643, he asked to met Ra Zan 螺山, a minor Korean scholar, and inquired him about the thirteenth century Chinese Juji Calendar 授時暦. For details about Gentei see Asahi Shinbunsha

朝日新聞社 (ed.), Asahi Nihon Rekishi Jinbutsu Jiten 『朝日日本歴史人物事典』, Tokyo, Asahi

Shinbunsha 朝日新聞社, 1994.

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his, which took place when he replaced his father as igokata.17 He worked in his office in autumn and winter, and spent spring and summer in the Miyako. There he followed Yamazaki Ansai 山崎闇斎 (Genna 4.12.9—Tenna 2.9.16; 1619.1.24—1682.10.16), who introduced him to Suika Shint 垂加神道, and Abe Yasutomi 安倍泰福 (1655— 1717), a descendent of Abe no Seimei 安倍晴明 (Engi 21.1.11—Kank 2.9.26; 921.2.21—1005.10.31), who taught him his new religious and cosmological system, Tsuchimikado Shint 土御門神道_{. In his early twenties he went to the western regions}

of Japan where he measured the latitudes of many of their landmarks. He also started to measure the movements of celestial bodies, an activity that had seldom been performed in his country up to then, and noticed what up until that moment nobody seemed to have paid much attention to: a two day gap between the calendar and the actual Sun position.

The calendar then in use had been adopted in A.D. 862. Early Japanese calendars were simply borrowed from China, without any adjustment for the slightly more eastern position of Japan, and so was the Senmy Calendar 宣明暦, Xu n Ming in Chinese.18 Now, the fact that a calendar adopted in A.D. 862 was still in use in the seventeenth century in Japan may appear quite an ordinary and natural situation. After all, Sosigenes’s work19, the Julian calendar, adopted in B.C. 46 was still in use in

Yamamoto Takeo山本武夫, Tokyo, Yagi Shoten 八木書店, 1999, p. 79. Yasui Santetsu makes also a brief reference to him in his 1683 memorandum (see below).

17_{Santetsu is composed of two Chinese characters, the first,}_san_算_{, means number and calculation, the}

second, tetsu 哲, means clear (cf. Nelson). Therefore a possible rendition of his name might be Clear Calculation.

18_{Concerning the process of adoption of Chinese calendars by the Japanese see: Shigeru Nakayama,}_A History of Japanese Astronomy: Chinese Background and Western Impact, Cambridge, Harvard University Press, 1969, pp. 65-71. The Xuan Ming Li was the official calendar in China between A.D. 822 and 893. Nathan Sivin, Granting the Seasons: The Chinese Astronomical Reform of 1280, With a Study of Its Many Dimensions and an Annotated Translation of Its records, New York, Springer, 2009, p. 48, translates Xuan Ming as “Extending Enlightenment.”

19_{According to Pliny it was to Sosigenes of Alexandria (fl. first century BC) that Julius Caesar turned to}

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England and Wales in the eighteenth century. Even more long lived was the Egyptian civil calendar which was in current use for almost three millennia after its formulation around 2900 B.C., and still was the calendar of choice of some astronomers as late as the sixteenth century, such as Nicholas Copernicus (1473.2.19—1543.5.24). 20 Calendars, to the mind of the modern man, are one of those few things that should be passed unalterable from generation to generation, and remain unchanged for centuries, if not longer. However, this was not so with Chinese calendars: they were revised on average once in a generation. From the earlier times on, following a strategy replicated millennia later by American marketers, model changes were engineered every so often by the Office of the Grand Astrologer, the Taishi-rei 太史令, Taishi-ling in Chinese, which incorporated small specification changes in a basically unchanged product that was advertised as the new definite thing built to last forever.21 In the two thousand years up to the end of the seventeenth century more than one hundred new calendars were officially adopted in China.22 Two factors induced this kaleidoscopic change in the standard of time. One was the idea that the Emperor received his mandate from Heaven. Accordingly, after important changes in reign, and always when dynastic change

Natural History of Pliny, vol. IV, John Bostock and H. T. Riley (trans.), London, Henry G. Bohn, 1856, pp. 75-76.

20_{See Edward Grant,}_{A History of Natural Philosophy: From the Ancient World to the Nineteenth} Century, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2007, pp. 4-5.

21_{The character}_reki_暦_,_li_{in Chinese, is usually translated as}_calendar_{. However, following Sivin,}_{op. cit}_.,

pp. 38-39, we can distinguish the following four meanings for this word. The first “is the art of computing the times and locations of certain future or past phenomena in the sky.” The second “is a step-by-step sequence of computations that generates such forecasts and assembles them to make a complete ephemeris.” The third “is the embodiment of the system, namely the computational treatise”. The fourth is the result of the application of the above mentioned sequence of computations to determine future ephemeris such as solstices, new moons and eclipses, which were published in almanacs and are what usually the common man calls calendars. To each of these meanings Sivin attributes an English designation, but most historians of science make do with just the word calendar. The history of Chinese calendar making is the description of the efforts to increase the accuracy of the estimates for the length of the tropical and sidereal years, of the lunation and of the periods of revolution of the planets, what lead to calendar revisions, that is, changes in all four above mentioned aspects. Although Chinese astronomers dedicated the best of their lives to the first three operations, ordinary people were only aware of the fourth, the published almanac. This topic is discussed in more detail by Sivin, op. cit., pp. 38-60; and by Colin A. Ronan, The Shorter Science & Civilisation in China, vol. 2, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1981, p. 79, and pp. 182-183. As will become apparent in what follows, astronomers in Japan seem to have neglected for centuries the first three operations.

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occurred, the new Emperor was prompted to reform the calendar so that through the enactment of a new calendar the establishment of a new order was clear to all. Another motivation for calendar reform was simply to correct disagreements of the calendar then in use with observed heavenly occurrences after these differences were detected. Hence reforms were also carried out whenever small discrepancies were found in celestial ephemeredes.23 This close relationship between the civil calendar and heavenly occurrences that existed in the east had long been broken in the west. The Egyptians were the first to establish a solar calendar for civil purposes that had exactly 365 days, made up of twelve months of thirty days plus five festival days, that had no relation to astronomical events nor served any astronomical function.

Many explanations are given for this permanence in the Japanese calendar when transience would have been expected on these affairs in this part of the world: the Imperial line remained unbroken since its inception, so there was never a new order in need to be confirmed, as was the case in China; an opposite view holds that a new order was actually imposed after the disturbances caused by the fights between the Taira and the Minamoto, power shifting from courtiers to warriors, but the new powers left calendrical matters with the representatives of the old order, though these now held only

23_{On this matter see Yabuuchi Kiyoshi, “T s Rekih shi”}_{「唐宋暦法史」}_,_{T h Gakut} _『東方學

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nominal power24; the political situation became unstable and degenerated into the permanent state of warfare properly named by later historians as sengoku jidai 戦国時代, or the period of the country at war, a situation not propitious to such peaceful endeavours as astronomy and calendar reform; Japanese specialists were few, lacked the essential skills, did not have the necessary instruments, and had lost contact with Chinese court astronomy; as a matter of fact, practical convenience in the Office of Calendar Making was more important than technical merits; the errors in the calendar caused no inconvenience or confusion whatsoever in daily life, as it did not affect agriculture or hinder commerce.25

Though all of these factors may hold part of the responsibility for the absence of the introduction of a new calendar, the main reason probably lies in the development of a peculiar intellectual climate that surrounded the subject in Japan. Several elements contributed to the formation of this ambience. One was the royal character of the sciences related to the Heaven, the reservation of their study to properly appointed officials, and the secrecy that surrounded their techniques. This was not peculiar to Japan, its astronomical institutions and regulations having been patterned from the Chinese model, but it assumed a specially closed bent here. In Japan all relevant positions of the Onmy no Tsukasa 陰陽寮, or Divination Board, included not only divination but also astronomy, calendar making and time keeping. These positions were filled by the members of two families, the Kamo 賀茂 and the Abe 安倍, not through the selection of able candidates chosen through public examinations as in China. In both families knowledge transfer was restricted to direct descendents. Systematic observation by laymen was forbidden and possession of observational instruments, such as the gnomon, was punished.26 But most critically, divination was considered the most

24_{The Imperial House remained always the ultimate source of legitimization of power in all history of}

Japan. This was also true during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries: “The emperor exercised no direct political power, but he was the acknowledged fountain of honour and the symbol of national unity.” George Sansom, A History of Japan: 1334-1615, Tokyo, Charles E. Tuttle, 1974, p. 140. See also William Theodore De Bary, Sources of East Asian Tradition: The Modern Period, New York, Columbia University Press, 2008, pp. 950-951; Juan Clemente Zamora, O Processo Histórico, Lisboa, Livraria Renascença, 1946, p. 191.

25_{See Nakayama,}_{op. cit}_{., pp. 119-120.}

26_{“H gibu”}_{「方技部」}_,_{Koji Ruien}_{『古事類苑』}_{, 1909, p. 284. However, this seems to have not been}

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important of the four sciences the Divination Board managed, the interest of astronomical observations laying more in their being a source of information to fortune telling than as a means toward the establishment or the correction of a calendar, even less as a necessary endeavour for an accurate knowledge of Heaven.

Santetsu, having become aware of the two-day error of the Senmy Calendar started looking for alternatives. The one that caught is attention, through the guidance of Matsuda Junsh , his friend and sensei, or Master, was the venerable Juji Calendar 授時暦_{, or the Shoushi Calendar used in China for a full century between 1281 and 1384.}27

He approached both imperial courtiers and shogunate officials with a proposal for its adoption. To the court members he pointed that the onmy fate prediction based on day-series, or hemerology, could not be accurate as it was then practiced, as the series bore no relation with observed celestial phenomena. To the shogunate bureaucrats he pointed the convenience of having a calendar conforming to heavenly order in a country properly and orderly governed according to Tend 天道, the Heaven Mandate. Then, in 1675, in the Fifth Month of the Third Year of the Emp Period, the unexpected happened. A solar eclipse occurred as predicted by the Senmy Calendar, not because of its technical accuracy but by pure chance, as when a broken clock gives the right time twice a day, but which was not to be expected according to the Juji Calendar. Although upset by this happening, that reinforced the position of the conservative party that saw no need for change, Santetsu laboured on. He got the collaboration of Nakamura Tekisai

中村惕斎 (Kan’ei 6.6.9— Genroku 15.7.26; 1629—1702)28, a neo-Confucian scholar with interests in the geography, astronomy and the calendrical sciences and together they revised the computations adjusting them to the Japanese latitude with the values obtained earlier by Santetsu’s measurements. In 1683 he sent another memorandum to the shogunate proposing the Yamato Calendar 大和暦, his own revision of the Juji Calendar, the first calendar revision ever attempted by a Japanese.29 Luckily, in that

27_Sivin,_{op. cit}_{., p. 5, translates Shoushi as “Season-Granting”.}

28_{For details on this scholar see Dainihon Jinmei Jisho Kank kai}_{大日本人名辭書刊行會}_(ed.), Dainihon Jinmei Jisho 『大日本人名辭書』, 5 vols., Tokyo, Kodansha 講談社, 1980.

29_{There he wrote: “To know right, it is widely known that in the Senmy Calendar the Sun is two days}

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same year, the lunar eclipse expected for the Eleventh Month according to the Senmy Calendar, but not forecasted by both the Juji and the Yamato Calendars, did not occur. However the shogunate was not willing to force the subject on the imperial court and referred the matter to the Onmy no Kami 陰陽頭, the highest authority in the Divination Board.

The Onmy no Kami was then Tsuchimikado Yasutomi 土御門泰福, Santetsu’s “old” master from the capital, who had been appointed to his father post in 1682.30 Yasutomi’s office had no interest whatsoever in the official adoption of Santetsu’s calendar. It would raise doubts about their predecessors’ competence, a fault against ko and against giri31; it would dent the prestige of his office; it would enhance the reputation of an outsider; it would go against the opinion and will of powerful counsellors as Inaba Masamichi 稲葉正往 (Kan’ei 17.11.10—Ky h 1.10.9, 1640.12.22—1716.11.22); and it was the symbol of the new order brought by the Mongol conquerors to the Middle Kingdom, whose introduction into Japan would be most inauspicious for the court and the nation, presignifying the return of the invaders vanquished by divine will with the kamikaze 神風, the gods’ winds, four centuries before. In 1684 the Divination Board, making a pre-emptive move announced the adoption of the Dait Calendar 大統暦, the Dai Tong calendar that had been in use in China between 1384 and 1644. The choice of the Ming Dynasty’s calendar brought more political significance than technical improvement to the issue.

This prompted Santetsu into a more intense campaign for the adoption of the Yamato Calendar. He sent a third memorandum to the shogunate, and began a careful lobbying through Tokugawa Mitsukuni 徳川光圀 (Kan’ei 5.6.10—Genroku 13.12.6; 1628.7.11—1701.1.14), to whom he was introduced by Ansai. Mitsukuni was then one of the most important powers behind Tokugawa Tsunayoshi 徳川綱吉 (Shoh 3.1.8— H ei 6.1.10; 1646.2.23—1709.2.19), the fifth generation shogun. Mitsukuni had grown interested in calendrical matters through his studies of Shint , which he had made with

calendar computations.” 「正に知る、頒行する所の宣明暦、天に後る二日なるを。今天文に精し

きは則ち陰陽頭安倍泰福、千古に踰ゆ。松田順承という者あり。暦数に審なり。」.

A STUDY IN CROSS

A STUDY IN CROSS

-

CULTURAL

TRANSMISSION OF NATURAL

PHILOSOPHY

:

THE

KENKON BENSETSU

José Miguel Duarte Leite Pinto dos Santos

Dissertação de Doutoramento em História dos

Descobrimentos

DECLARAÇÕES

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

ABSTRACT

RESUMO

CONTENTS

LIST OF USED ABREVIATIONS

A STUDY IN CROSS-CULTURAL TRANSMISSION OF

PART 1 — THE JAPANESE AND THE