Japanese Philosophy: A Sourcebook

Hirata Atsutane

509 Hirata Atsutane 平田篤胤 (1776–1843) Hirata Atsutane, one of the most influential religious and political figures of the first half of the nineteenth century, was active in establishing what would later come to be known as restoration Shinto. Born the fourth son of a samurai retainer, he later moved to Edo, where he was adopted by Hirata Tōbei, the head of a small academy that propagated the teachings of Yamaga Sokō*, an advocate of ancient Confucian learning. He styled himself a student of Motoori Norinaga*, whose academy he entered three years after the latter’s death. Thus began his involvement in the movement for Native Studies that had begun in the seventeenth century. The movement’s initial focus on Japanese poetry of the Nara and Heian periods was later widened to include ancient histories, religious literature , and fiction. The scholars of this movement extolled the emperor and court system as well as the ethical and aesthetic values of these early periods, contrasting an ideal vision of the past with a later culture they deemed inferior because of its contamination by foreign influences, in particular Chinese thought, Buddhism, and western culture. Not surprisingly, Atsutane and his disciples became increasingly political and nationalistic. He drew from ancient mythological sources and supernatural informants to add weight to his claims for the supreme political authority of the Japanese emperor both within and outside of the islands of Japan. He used similar sources and arguments to assert the racial superiority of the Japanese people over all other races, claiming that only the Japanese people possessed divine souls on par with those of the gods of Japan. Atsutane’s influence went beyond Native Studies and is still in evidence today. His work can be seen as a forerunner of Japanese folklore studies, often focusing on one of its topics, namely the description and explanation of the unique essence of the Japanese race. Orikuchi Shinobu*, the great folklorist and Shinto scholar from Kokugakuin University, proclaimed himself to be in search of a new Native Studies, and eagerly attested to admiring and being influenced by Atsutane. Orikuchi further claimed that although his predecessor, the renowned ethnologist Yanagita Kunio (1875–1962), did not recognize such close ties to Atsutane, Yanagita nonetheless was walking in the same footsteps as Atsutane. Atsutane is also known to have had an impact on the rise of new religions that took place in Japan during his lifetime. In particular, his insistence on retaining and attempting to reinvigorate native Japanese spirit beliefs and rituals in the face of pressure to modernize and rationalize religious thought and practice made him a hero and patriarchal figure to later Japanese spiritualists . Perhaps the most controversial of those figures who looked up to Atsutane 510 | s h i n t o a n d nat i v e s t u d i e s as a seminal fountain of modern spiritualism was Deguchi Onisaburō (1871–1948) founder of the Ōmotokyō religion at the end of the nineteenth century. The “true pillar” referred to in the passage excerpted here refers to an honorific classifier for Japanese deities or kami. In the passage Atsutane departs from the teachings of his teacher Motoori Norinaga by aiming to dispel the widespread notion that the ancient traditions of Japan condemn all the dead equally to an eternity of impurity and unhappiness. In response, Atsutane crystallizes a new theory of the soul for Shinto doctrine, one that recognizes it as separate from the body and by nature divine and immortal. Therefore, assuming one lives one’s life in accord with the way of the kami, life after death would be pleasant and pain-free. This interpretation led to a new phase of Shinto political ideology wherein serving or dying in service for the emperor, for example, would guarantee a kami status for one’s soul after death. A second aspect of the passage below is that it draws on imported eastern and western ideas, such as the Great Flood, in service of a Japanese nativist ideology. As Native Studies developed in the ensuing two centuries, the tendency to draw on modern western ideas in an attempt to universalize Shinto doctrine became increasingly visible. [wnh] The true pill ar of the soul Hirata Atsutane 1813, 93, 138–9, 155–7, 158–88 One who pursues ancient learning must first and foremost have a firm commitment to the true spirit of Japan. Without this firm commitment one can never understand the true Way. My venerable...