日本漢文の世界：本の紹介

　　It was precisely during this period that she was fully occupied with Korea, and this no doubt contributed to delay in the spread of writing. The government was intent upon schemes of conquest, the materialbenefits of literature were not so obvious as those of warfare, and the nobles perhaps felt that, as they could purchase the service of specialists, there was no reason why they should suffer the drudgery of learning to read and write Chinese. So long as writing appeared as a mere mechanical accomplishment, a craft not much different from, say, weaving or painting, it might be left to clerks. It was when it was seen to be the vehicle for a new religion and a new political philosophy that it first became essential to the ruling classes. A desire to go to the sources of Confucian doctrine was an important motive, but it is probable that it was the emotional stimulus of Buddhism that gave the strongest and most widespread impulse to learning in Japan.(Chapter IV THE INTRODUCTION OF CHINESE LEARNING p.64)

　　The anthologies of the early Heian period, of which the chief is the Ryoun-shu or Cloud Topping Collection, show that they had studied early T'ang models, and there are signs that they knew and admired the work of Po Chi-i. But they were after all composing in a foreign language. They could never, so fettered, emerge beyond a facile mimicry. Far less could they achieve the spontaneous and pregnant simplicity of genius expressing itself in its natural medium. Perhaps in this failure we have a more striking example of the misfortunes of their early cultural history than in the distortion or collapse of so many of their borrowed social institutions. Predisposed to learning, alive to impressions, sensitive to beauty, restless and ambitious, strive as they would they could not overcome an insuperable difficulty, they could not naturalise a stubbornly alien speech.(Chapter XII RELIGION AND THE ARTS p.236-p.237)

　　If many of the activities of this age were artificial to the point of silliness, they did, we must remember, express a culture remarkable, probably unique, in that it was almost entirely aesthetic.(Chapter XII RELIGION AND THE ARTS p.240)

　　The military class were in general unlearned and few of them could write either correct Chinese or, what probably required greater skill if less knowledge, good, fluent Japanese. Yet they depended a great deal upon writing for their laws and regulations and the recording of transactions in land. It is a peculiar feature of early feudal institutions in Japan that they were based upon a profusion of documents, such as charters, oaths, registers and the notes of judicial proceedings. To meet this need there was evolved a peculiar linguistic compromise, in which a somewhat stilted Japanese colloquial masqueraded in Chinese dress. It would have pained the classical scholars of former generations, being analogous to dog-Latin; but it was on the whole fairly concise and intelligible and seems to have served its purpose well enough. In time it became the common form for official despatches, chronicles and laws. It was a mating of incompatibles, but it grew out of necessity, and from it there arose in course of time and after strange vicissitudes the written language of the nineteenth century.(Chapter XVI RELIGION, ART AND LETTERS p.347)

　　Though Buddhism, once the nurse of scholarship in Japan, was now eclipsed, there was on the other hand a strong revival of Chinese studies, particularly in the philosophical field, which in the Far East usually means the field of political and social ethics. As peace followed centuries of war, the leaders of thought in Japan turned their attention to questions of government, endeavouring to discover right principles of conduct for rulers and subjects.(Chapter XXII GENROKU p.481)

　　The official philosophy in Japan in the early Tokugawa period was that of Chu Hsi (1130-1200), a leading figure of the important philosophical renaissance which took place in China under the Sung dynasty. The canon of this school was Chu Hsi's commentary on the works of the Chinese sages, entitled in Japanese Shisho Shinchu, or a New Commentary on the Four Classics. The teaching of Chu Hsi, it will be remembered, had been studied in the Muromachi period by a small number of learned monks of the Five Monasteries, but it was not until the late sixteenth century that his philosophy became more widely known, through the efforts of a scholar named Fujiwara Seigwa (1561-1619), who, it is interesting to note, was a Buddhist priest. Under the Tokugawa regime the Chu Hsi philosophy was virtually adopted as the official school of thought, and Hayashi Razan, its chief exponent, was appointed adviser to the government. From his time, it is said, Confucian scholars let their hair grow long. This curious item of history is highly significant.(Chapter XXIII THE BREAKDOWN OF FEUDALISM p.505)

　　Fujiwara, the first great exponent of Chu Hsi, said: "Shinto and Confucianism are the same truth under different names." Hayashi Razan said: "Shinto is Odo (Loyalty to the Sovereign) and Odo is Confucianism"; and as scholars all over Japan continued their researches into the history and literature of their own country, it became evident that the Tokugawa Shoguns, by usurping the Imperial power, had committed an offence against all those codes. It may therefore fairly be said that by attempting to found its rule upon Confucian ethics the Bakufu contributed to its own destruction.(Chapter XXIII THE BREAKDOWN OF FEUDALISM p.512)