Abstracts

"The Commercialization of Knowledge in Edo Period Japan - Publishers, Editors, Print Products, and Their Impact on Pre-modern Cultural Life"

(in alphabetical order)

Consumption Is Virtuous

Mary Elizabeth BERRY (University of California, Berkeley)

I examine the representation of things (such as inkstones, needles, cosmetics, books, incense, fabrics) in a variety of 17^th-century sources (kinmōzui, chōhōki, setsuyōshū, ōraimono). The emphasis falls repeatedly on the virtue of those things: the pedigrees of their makers, the dignity of their use, the imperative of sociable exchange, the performance of taste. The unsubtle sub-text of such representation is that consuming objects of virtue is itself virtuous. Although often marginalized in the economic history of the early Edo period, popular consumption was an indispensable motor of growth. How consumption was valorized in texts that nominally preached thrift (and a society riddled with sumptuary laws) is my subject.

Collecting setsuyōshū in Berlin

Christian DUNKEL (Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin)

The numbers of pre-modern Japanese manuscripts and printed materials in the East Asia Department of the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin (Berlin State Library) seem rather modest when compared with the large collection of East Asian materials currently held by the department, which now exceeds one million volumes, making it one of the largest collections in Europe.

Under a funding scheme by the German Research Foundation (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft or DFG) the department has been responsible for building and maintaining the collection as well as making it accessible to the larger Asian Studies research community nationwide since 1951.

Today the department maintains the Specialised Information Service Asia (Fachinformationsdienst Asien or FID Asien). Its online portal crossasia.org not only provides open access to printed materials but a wide array of electronic resources to registered users.   

After a brief introduction to the history of the pre-modern Japanese materials in the library, I will focus my presentation on the setsuyōshū in the department’s collection. I will touch upon questions relating to acquisition policies and the library’s preservation and digitization policies by introducing various examples from the collection. I will also demonstrate how we try to make these materials—and thereby the knowledge contained within—searchable and electronically accessible to the widest possible audience.

The Popularization and Circulation of Knowledge in koutaibon and Other Ephemera Related to Nō Theater

Eike GROSSMANN (University of Hamburg)

This presentation introduces an Edo-period woodblock-printed genre referred to as koutaibon, books with short nō chants. Koutaibon were part and parcel of an everyday culture in which nō was not restricted merely to the theater stage. They provided readers with expertise on nō theater and simultaneously offered insights into various other, unrelated areas of knowledge. Thus, they offer a glimpse on the living environment, general education, and dissemination of cultural knowledge during the second half of the Edo period.

A focus on the organization of knowledge with regards to content as well as visual representation will show how knowledge was generated, reassembled, and circulated. This will contribute to a better understanding of the relation of koutaibon to other popular genres such as setsuyōshū, chōhōki, or ōraimono by inviting the discussion of possible attributes, characteristics, and distinctive features. The second step of my analysis addresses specifically the popularization of knowledge by way of considering other ephemera related to nō theater, such as sugoroku and karuta, connecting knowledge on nō with secondary, separate types of knowledge.

On the Publication of Travel Information Magazines in Japan in the 17th and 18th Century

Kaori HAYAMI (Shinshū University)

In early modern Japan, it became much easier to travel to remote areas than in the previous era. Under the Edo Shogunate, which developed the nation's road network, had inns installed on major highways, and amplified police functions, travel became more common. This included visiting shrines and temples, visiting hot springs, and traveling to remote areas for sightseeing. This change led to a growing demand for detailed information about main roads, sights, distances, and the historic sites of famous cities. Due to this increased demand, publishers who were developing a commercial publishing culture at the time published many travel information magazines titled “meishoki”, “dōchūki” or “annaiki”.

Among these publications, we have selected and compared several information magazines on “Ise Sangū” (Pilgrimage to Ise Grand Shrine), the pilgrimage which was actively carried out throughout the early modern period, focusing on those published in the 17th and 18th centuries. Through this analysis, we will confirm the content of the information on Ise Sangū provided to the public at that time and how it changed. By analyzing these information magazines, we will consider how pilgrimage sites were transformed into tourist destinations and how social transformation brought about the commodification and penetration of knowledge.

Recycling or Transforming Knowledge: “Augmented Editions” in 17th Century Japan

Matthias HAYEK (École Pratique des Hautes Études)

From the 1660s onwards, as the commercial printing market began to stabilize, we notice a rise in the production of “expanded” editions of books that were originally published a few decades earlier, during the first part of the century. This was particularly the case for technical manuals, as well as commentaries of classical texts. The titles of these new editions typically contain words such as zōho 増補 and kōeki 広益, while claiming to offer “head-notes” (tōsho 頭書), or to have compiled and collated multiple guides (taizen 大全), thus offering a combination of all these key-terms.

This cross-genre phenomenon may appear partly as a strategy of differentiation from the competition by the publishers, and to recycle contents while circumventing restrictions. It could also have been the result of attempts by other publishers to appropriate publication “rights” they did not previously have. In any case, it gave authors/compilers the opportunity to make profound changes, not only in terms of presentation, but also in the organization of the works themselves.

We can therefore question the relationship between these expanded editions and the original books from which they originate. What was the status of the originals in the new editorial context, and who were their authors? Conversely, who were the new authors of the augmented editions and what goals did they pursue? What kind of change occurred and to what extent can the “augmented” editions be considered “new” works?

Through three cases (a manual of divination, a manual on materia dietetica, and an illustrated lexicon), we will try to begin answering these questions and to reflect on the ways in which new texts are produced by addition, displacement, and reconfiguration.

How To Make an Attractive Guidebook? The Case of Nippon sankai meibutsu zue (1754)

Annick HORIUCHI (Université Paris Cité)

The Nippon sankai meibutsu zue (abbreviated hereafter as Meibutsu zue) or « Illustrated Collection of famous products from Mountains and Seas in Japan », printed in 1754 by Hirase Tessai, deserves attention for several reasons. It is probably one of the first works bearing the name of zue, a genre mainly known for its meisho zue (the illustrated collections of famous places) printed in great number from the 1780’s onward. The Meibutsu zue, for its part, focused on famous regional products. Each entry briefly described the production activity and the environment in which it took place. The author claimed to show things as he had seen them in the field. Another remarkable feature was that its author, a native of Osaka, was simultaneously responsible for the printing (hanmoto) and sale of his own book. Through examining the content and the underlying project of the book, this presentation aims to show how 18^th century Japanese booksellers managed to explore new territories of knowledge in order to expand their readership.

Publication and Reception of the Kinmō zui: From Early Modern Reading to the Database of Early Modern Illustrated Encyclopedias

Aki ISHIGAMI (Waseda University)

The Kinmō Zui was Japan’s first illustrated encyclopedia. It was compiled by a Confucian scholar in Kyōto named Nakamura Tekisai 中村惕斎 (1629-1702) and included a preface dated 1666 (Kanbun 6). The book contains about 1,400 items on all kinds of topics, including astronomy, geography, people, animals, tools, and plants. The encyclopedia quickly became a bestseller and was read throughout the Edo period, with two abridged editions and two enlarged and revised editions being published. In these various forms, the book not only influenced Japanese children and lay people, but also intellectuals and non-Japanese readers.

In this presentation, I first consider the background to the publication of the Kinmō Zui. How was Tekisai—a mere merchant—able to produce an illustrated encyclopedia such as Kinmō Zui, which compiled information from books from all ages and cultures? The relationship between Tekisai’s native Kyōto and the publishing industry is thoroughly examined.

Second, the issue of reception will be analyzed. Although Tekisai produced this book for his own children, the published Kinmō Zui was read not only by children but also: by Confucian scholars; feudal lords; foreigners who visited Japan such as Engelbert Kaempfer (1651－1716); and modern scholars such as Minakata Kumagusu (1867-1941). This paper clarifies the transfer of knowledge and information via publications. I will also introduce the 'Database of Early Modern Illustrated Encyclopedias (https://kutsukake.nichibun.ac.jp/EHJ/)’ that I have elaborated, highlighting in particular Kinmō Zui’s function as an introductory and enlightening book.

“The Great [Time and Effort]-Saving [Compilation] of Edo as a Storehouse for the Whole Realm” (Edo dai setsuyō kaidai kura, 1863) and its Compiler Takai Ranzan (1762–1839)

Michael KINSKI (Goethe University Frankfurt)

Although a prolific writer, Takai Ranzan (1762–1839) did not attract much scholarly attention. This is all the more astonishing, as his contributions to Edo-period literature extended over a broad variety of genres. Among the 123 works listed under his name in the Kokusho sōmokuroku, one finds: fiction; dictionaries used in the composition of poetry; books on such diverse subjects as astronomy, the calendar, Buddhism, topography, history, and military affairs. There are pedagogic works with moralistic content, household encyclopedias, and a considerable number of guidebooks for practical use on a variety of topics.

The lack of interest might be due to the seemingly conventional, if not conservative, world view and value consciousness to be found in his pedagogic works, or his approach to re-editing the Edo dai setsuyō kaidai kura (published in 1863), which has been described as unconventional and idiosyncratic by one scholar.

Since 1993, I have taken a special interest in the Edo setsuyō kaidai kura and am particularly fascinated by Ranzan’s exposition of table manners in this voluminous work. My talk will return to Ranzan as the author of prescriptive and practical guidebooks and pose the question of conventionality and idiosyncrasy anew.

Mines of Information, Sources of Profit—On the Commercialization of Collections for Timesaving Use (setsuyōshū) in Early 18th Century Japan

Stephan KÖHN (University of Cologne)

In the Edo period (1603–1868), setsuyōshū, a new genre of dictionary for looking up the correct writing of Japanese and Sino-Japanese vocabulary in Chinese characters, became a central pillar of the expanding premodern book publishing industry. In fact, until the beginning of the 20th century, hundreds of different kinds of setsuyōshū were published. Needless to say, as a reference work, setsuyōshū played a vital role for reading, writing, and even for general education in both premodern and modern Japanese society.

For publishers, printing a setsuyōshū was actually a serious challenge. Once the markets for printed setsuyōshū had become increasingly competitive by the end of the 17th century, a publisher had to be creative in order to draw attention to his new title. However, given that compiling a dictionary glossary was a very time-consuming endeavour, more often than not only new supplementary information (furoku) was added to the glossary (goishū), which was itself reused from an older setsuyōshū. As such, many setsuyōshū were consulted by contemporary readers more as an everyday encyclopedia than a dictionary.

In this context, one particular setsuyōshū originally published in 1709 constitutes an interesting case: The “Timesaving Collection for Women” (Onna setsuyōshū), compiled by Yamamoto Joshū, was not only a successful setsuyōshū published in nine editions between 1709 and 1762, it was also the first and only setsuyōshū that addressed a primarily female readership. My paper illustrates which strategies were adopted by editor and publisher to create this unique setsuyōshū. However, as I will show in my analysis, the strategies adopted were not restricted to the compilation of the Onna setsuyōshū. Quite the contrary, they seem to be paradigmatic for the production of many setsuyōshū titles that were produced in the rat race of the 18th century publishing industry.

Trends in Publishing Letter Writing Guides for Women in the Edo and Meiji Period

Yoshinaga KOIZUMI

If one wishes to reflect on the ‘impact’ that printed letter writing guides (ōraimono) had ‘on pre-modern cultural life’, one must first face the fundamental problem of considering the sheer volume of published titles and the publishing trends of that time. Based on the information currently available, I offer an overview of all the letter writing guides for women (joshiyō ōrai)—including so-called Hyakunin isshu—that were published according to their colophons in the Edo and Meiji periods. To this end, I divide the corpus of letter writing guides for women into five groups: 1) “Great learning for women” (Onna daigaku); 2) “Precepts for women” (Onna imagawa); 3) “One Hundred Poets, one poem each” (Hyakunin isshu); 4) “Copybooks for women’s letter writing” (nyohitsu tehon rui) (including collections with useful phrases); and 5) other kinds of letter writing guides for women. In my quantitative analysis, I illustrate how the publishing market for letter writing guides for women changed over the course of time—and with it the gender ratio of contributing authors.

The 2021 titles I have identified thus far cover roughly two thirds of all letter writing guides for women published in Japan. Looking at these titles, some striking facts quickly become evident:

1) Among these 2021 titles, 845 titles are Hyakunin isshu (42%), 453 are “other kinds” (22%), 451 are nyohitsu tehon rui (22%), 148 are Onna imagawa (7%), and 124 are Onna daigaku (6%). Information about the authors are available for 1676 titles: 1394 were written by men (83%), and 282 by women (17%);

2) The publication of the Onna daigaku reached its peak between 1826–50, whereby most titles were published during the nine years the publishers’ guild was dissolved. The other four types of letter writing guides show, of course, a similar trend. However, the increase in published titles of the Onna daigaku by three times is striking.

3) The publication of the Onna imagawa reached its peak between 1826–50 as well. However, the dissolvement of the guild played no significant role (a change of only 15%). Finally, after 1876 the publication of the Onna imagawa sank dramatically. In contrast to 20 variants of the Onna daigaku, only 6 variants of the Onna imagawa were published during the Meiji period.

4) There were three phases in the publication of nyohitsu tehon rui. The first, which can be dated to the period from 1676 to 1750, was characterized by the activities of female calligraphers. The second occurred from 1751 to 1825 and brought about the end of the importance of female calligraphers. However, due to male authors dedicating themselves to writing so-called “sample letters for a woman’s daily correspondence” (onna yōbunshō), the total number of publications and their role in the overall market remained constant. The third phase, which lasted from 1876 to 1900, marked the peak of publishing activities and is defined by the dominance of male authors, who wrote approximately 90 percent of the works, which now invariably belonged to the genre of practical letter writing guides for women.

According to Ototake Iwazō’s survey of elementary schools (terakoya), the most frequent letter writing guides for women were as follows: among 738 teaching materials for boys’ and girls’ penmanship (shūji), the Onna daigaku had 31 titles (10%), the Hyakunin isshu 43 (5,6%), and the Onna imagawa 46 (5,1%). Among 652 teaching materials for reading (dokusho), the Onna daigaku had 13 titles (47,8%), the Hyakunin isshu 14 (47,3%), the Onna imagawa 15 (33.3%), and the Onna shōgaku 44 (6,2%). These figures show that for teaching common people in reading and writing the Onna daigaku was the most frequently used textbook. However, looking at the number of titles published during the lifetime of Ototake’s target subjects for his survey, the percentages are rather different: 1) Hyakunin isshu (28–41%), 2) Onna daigaku (8–11%), and 3) Onna imagawa (4–11). One reason for this discrepancy is the fact that the publication of the Onna daigaku led to many lawsuits given the publisher guild’s rigid surveillance of newly published titles. Another reason is that very few commoners had the opportunity to lay their hands on a printed book, with the majority of them influenced only indirectly by these print products. However, it seems that the extent to which a print product could actually have an impact on common people was largely dependent on the group of readers that were the focus of the research. My paper thus tackles very different kinds of problems regarding the publication of letter writing guides for women by shedding light on, for example, various lawsuits involving the Onna daigaku, and illustrating several cases where teachers for penmanship and calligraphers were involved in the publication of these letter writing guides.

Expertise on Sale: Natural History, Scholars’ Professionalization, and the Marketplace of Knowledge in Early Modern Japan

Federico MARCON (Princeton University)

The metaphor of the “marketplace of ideas,” the notion upon which is based traceable as far back as John Stuart Mill but which consolidated in this form only in 1919, in a Supreme Court deliberation authored by Justice William O. Douglas, has acquired in the last couple of decades a quite enthusiastic reception among intellectual and cultural historians as a convenient heuristic category to describe the intellectual history of early modern Europe and East Asia. The description whereby the confrontation of ideas, concepts, and knowledges assumes the characters of a “marketplace” indeed hypostatizes the notion that the market (or a market-like social environment) is the “natural” condition in which ideas are created, sprouts, and spreads. In fact, like any other form of naturalization, when reductively adopted the metaphor of the “marketplace of ideas” often falsifies the ways in which historically ideas and knowledges were valued and circulated, especially in the early modern period. In the case of Tokugawa Japan, in a sociological context where scholars professionalized and legitimated the authority of their cognitive claims without the support of a strong institutional framework (i.e., in comparison with the European university and the Chinese civil examination system), scholars without ties to domainal or shogunal support could indeed rely on market mechanisms to support their scholarly activities. This was the case of Matsuoka Gentatsu (Joan), whose expertise on medicinal herbs was supported by his capacity of advertise his school and notoriety based on market dynamics. Other scholars, like Ono Ranzan, student of Gentatsu, were active across scholarly networks, collaborating with cultural clubs or at the service of a domain lord as well as by selling their expertise on the book market. Economic agents, like for instance Kimura Kenkadō, mobilized their financial capital to support an exchange with scholars that gave them moral and social standing. My paper focuses on this three cases of Tokugawa naturalists (the professionals Matsuoka Gentatsu and Ono Ranzan, and the amateur Kimura Kenkadō) to uncover how their reliance on market dynamics for personal advantage affected their cognitive labor and, in the case of Gentatsu and Ranzan, their status as scholars (jusha).

Cashing in on Grappling: The Kokon Sumō Daizen and sumo wrestling literacy

Christoph REICHENBÄCHER (Aichi Prefectural University)

In mid-1700s Japan, popular entertainment had established itself prominently in major urban settlements. For example, kabuki theater had become a crowd puller with numerous box office hits, and bunraku puppet play followed the same path with reenactments of such plays. At the same time, sumo wrestling emerged as a self-sustaining business; by 1750, it had brought forth the first stables (heya) and an annual tournament calendar. Against this background, publications materialized that sought to exploit entertainment knowledge financially.

For sumo, the first work designed for a mass readership was probably the encyclopedic Kokon Sumō Daizen 古今相撲大全 (The Grand Compendium for Sumo of Now and Then). Compiled by Kimura Sekurō 木村清九郎 and first published in 1763 as five continuous volumes, it included descriptions of contemporary developments and an introduction to the techniques and wrestlers of the time, in addition to the origins. The compendium set standards and appeared in at least two reissues during the Edo period, in 1773 and 1800, before finding further use in the Meiji period (1868-1912).

This talk explores this epochal work’s socio-cultural context at the time of publication. It analyzes the origins and subsequent life of the knowledge contained in the Edo period (1600-1868) editions to trace the compiler’s achievement and show how financial considerations played into the creation process. Thus, the compendium’s contribution to the historiography of sumo wrestling becomes evident and clarifies its part in popularizing professional wrestling as an urban entertainment, allowing it to even gain traction in rural areas far away from traditional cultural centers and securing the culture’s survival amid economic hardships in the late Edo period.

Publishing Rights and setsuyōshū in the Edo Period

Takahiro SATŌ (Gifu University)

This presentation will introduce the measures taken by the Edo shogunate for published media, introducing specific examples that are characteristic for how these measures were actually implemented. One such example is the Setsuyoshū, a Japanese-Chinese character dictionary for the common people.

During the Genroku period (1688–1704), the shogunate announced a ban on overprinting (unauthorized reproduction) and similar editions (idea plagiarism). This occurred following pressure from the publishers’ guilds (hon’ya nakama 本屋仲間). By the Kyōhō period, the shogunate had entrusted the publishers’ guilds in Kyōto, Ōsaka, and Edo with eliminating publications that offended public order and morals. The review process allowed them to monitor their fellow publishers for infringements of their publishing rights. At this point, the Edo period copyright system (itakabu 板株) was fully functioning. Publishers could now sell original books on an exclusive basis.

Publishers developed original and, indeed, ingenious books for exclusive sale. As a result, a wide variety of books were published. In the first half of the 19th century, the copyright system—which had been part of the shogunate's publishing policy—had fallen into obscurity and became a problem when it intersected with temple power and medieval privileges. During the Tenpō Reforms, various trade associations including the publishers’ guilds were disbanded, after which it became impossible to manage copyrights. This led to the reproduction of many Hayabiki Setsuyoshū 早引節用集, which established the standard for Japanese-language dictionaries from this point forward.

The Revision of Knowledge: An Analysis of the Source Materials Used During the Compilation Process of the Otoko setsuyōshū

Paul SCHOPPE (University of Cologne)

When the Otoko setsuyōshū nyoi hōju taisei (The Timesaving Collection for Men: Completion of the Wish-fulfilling Jewel) was published in 1716, it stood out among contemporary setsuyōshū for its revision of the vocabulary that was commonly contained in similar works. In terms of its outward appearance and structure, the Otoko setsuyōshū does not initially strike one as being particularly different to other setsuyōshū of the time. The entries are arranged based on their initial syllable and the thematic category they belonged to, and the work contains multiple appendices (furoku), mostly in headnotes (kashiragaki) above the entries. Upon closer inspection, however, it becomes clear that its compiler Yamamoto Joshū revised and modernized the sources used during the compilation process. In this way, he attempted to make this setsuyōshū more relevant to his contemporaries in terms of both the vocabulary and commentaries he included, as well as the work’s usability.

In the introductory remarks to the Otoko setsuyōshū, Yamamoto mentions that he decided to write all entries in semi-cursive script (gyōsho) rather than cursive script (sōsho), since the former retains the stroke count of the original characters, thus making it easier for the reader to discern the correct way of writing them. He also explains that he added information in commentaries to the entries regarding the correct and incorrect ways of writing certain characters. Of the roughly 9,800 word entries in the Otoko setsuyōshū, around 5,500 do in fact contain commentary of varying length. These commentaries include information regarding the meaning and origin of words, examples for alternative ways of writing or spelling certain words, and occasional references to the sources used during compilation.

Based on an analysis of the sources that are referenced in the Otoko setsuyōshū, it becomes apparent that Yamamoto reworked the corpus of source materials used for its compilation. The commentaries reference over 120 unique sources across more than 370 references in total. Apart from commonly referenced classical Japanese and Chinese texts, he also included information from newly published works, such as popular ways of writing certain characters listed in the Zokuji shōgo shō (1701) or regional names for plants contained in the Yamato honzō (1709).

The aim of this paper is to describe the various ways in which the compiler and publishers attempted to make this setsuyōshū more attractive to a contemporary audience, and thus make it more commercially successful.

Textbooks on Pilgrimages to Shrines and Temples in the Kantō Region: The Publishing of sankeigata ōraimono in Edo and Takai Ranzan’s Tsukuba mōde

Morgaine SETZER-MORI (Ruhr University Bochum)

This paper examines the distribution of knowledge in so-called sankeigata ōraimono 参詣型往来物, textbooks featuring the topic of visiting shrines and temples. This subset of the ōraimono-genre comprises sample texts with information about a region’s geography and sacred site(s). In Edo, the earliest prints date back to the 1770s/80s and the (re-)publishing of works until the middle of the nineteenth century shows the continuous demand for these texts as well as the publishers’ consideration of the target audience, presumably children or readers with little formal education.

Previous scholarship has referred to the publishing activities of the bookseller Hanaya Kyūjirō 花屋久次郎 as pioneering in early stages of the genre. Kyūjirō’s activities were supported by Takai Ranzan 高井蘭山 who was still starting out his own career as an author.¹ However, little attention has been given to modifications of content in new editions of titles they originally produced. Additions to the texts increased the amount of information and might hint at both a profitable commercial strategy as well as a shift in the demand for other kinds of information. By comparing different editions of Ranzan’s Tsukuba mōde 筑波詣, a printed version from 1813 published by Kyūjirō, a new edition published in 1832 by Moriya Jihee 森屋治兵衛, and a manuscript from 1847, this paper aims to present new insights into the dissemination of popular knowledge during the late Edo period by highlighting the conception, distribution, and reception of sankeigata ōraimono.

¹ Hara Jun’ichirō (2013): Edo no tabi to shuppanbunka. Jisha sankeishi no shinshikaku. Tōkyō: Miyai shoten, 68–70.

Grabbing the Reader’s Attention: New Developments in the Setsu­yōshū Dictionary Genre Towards the Late 18th and Early 19th Centuries as Seen in the Kokuhō setsuyōshū (1810)

Martin THOMAS (University of Cologne)

The dictionary genre of the setsuyōshū played an important role in Japanese publishing during the Edo period. Formed in the late 15th century, two types dominated the book market at the end of the 18th century: On the one hand, setsuyōshū that arranged their entries phoneti­cally according to the initial syllable, and semantically according to their belonging to a cer­tain thematic category. On the other hand, setsuyōshū that arranged their en­tries purely phonetically according to the initial syllable and the total number of syllables of the words in question. While the latter type became increasingly dominant, there were also numerous attempts to break with these established ordering schemes.

The Kokuhō setsuyōshū of 1810 from the Kichimonjiya publishing house is one such example. First, it differs from the phonetic order typical of setsuyōshū—which is based on the classical iroha poem—by listing words beginning with certain digraphs and trigraphs in 22 separate sections in addition to the 47 sections corresponding to the iroha poem’s 47 syllables. Secondly, it also takes the articulation of the word’s ending into account when organizing it. For this, four additional phonetical categories are implemented, based on whether a word ends with a voiced or semi-voiced sound, the nasal consonant n, a long vowel, or none of the above. Finally, the Kokuhō setsuyōshū uses a comparatively small number of only six thematic categories for grouping its lemmas where other setsuyōshū of that period tended to have more than ten.

This paper seeks to explore what motivated editors and publishers of setsuyōshū like those of the Kokuhō setsuyōshū to undertake such a re-systematization of the established ordering schemes. Was it merely to satisfy readers’ hunger for innovation and to stand out from the mass of other publications? Or were they genuinely hoping to simplify the search system for word entries, as stated in the prefaces, user guidelines and advertisements of that time? To answer these questions, I introduce not only the Kokuhō setsuyōshū, but also its predecessors such as the Taisei seijitsū (1782) and the Mantoku setsuyōshū (1782), which also originated from the Kichimonjiya publishing house—one of the main driving forces behind these attempts for innovation.

Ekiken and Ryūshiken: Mapping Early Modern Japanese Geography

Nobuko TOYOSAWA (Czech Academy of Sciences)

This paper examines the scholarly activities of Kaibara Ekiken (1630–1714) whose works were produced primarily by a Kyōto bookseller (shoshi), Ryūshiken. Ekiken was a Confucian lecturer from the Kuroda domain in Chikuzen Province (present-day Fukuoka) and had lively contacts with scholars in Kyōto, Edo, Nagasaki and other regions. He served the third lord of the domain, Kuroda Mitsuyuki (1628–1707), and contributed to the domain’s valuable historical and topographic compilation projects, such as Fudoki of Chikuzen Province Continued (Chikuzen no kuni zoku fudoki) and Kuroda Family Genealogy (Kuroda kafu), which followed the authoritative style of scholarship of Chinese historiography. In addition to these compilations, Ekiken’s ten books of precepts known as “Ekiken books” (Ekiken-bon) were popularly used as textbooks in temple schools.

This paper introduces the variety in Ekiken’s writings, and underscores the ways in which his scholarly works were “made easy” for target audiences due to an editorial decision made and implemented by the producers of the books. Within the vibrant publishing business, the market for practical books forced scholarly authors such as Ekiken to make compromises with the editorial team. Through an analysis of Ekiken’s travel guidebooks, I demonstrate that his narrative map of Japan as the country of deities (shinkoku)—paradigmatic for his historiography of Japan—remained unchanged and uncompromised throughout the guides, despite the commercial incentives alluded to above.

Considering the Historical Significance of Chronological Tables

Masaki WAKAO (Hitotsubashi University)

When history is studied today, chronological tables (nenpyō) are usually close at hand. As such, most of us will surely agree that reading a chronological table is a perfect way to understand a certain epoch. However, in the first half of the 19^th century, chronological tables were more or less reprinted in a rather simplified form in setsuyōshū and other kinds of reference works. For this reason, this  paper will focus on a more typical chronological table that was published at the beginning of the 17th century, the Wakan kōtō hennen gōun zu. This work written by Enchiin Nisshō, chief priest of the Yōbōji temple, was printed by way of wooden movable types in Keichō 5 (1600), 8 (1603), 10 (1605), and 16 (1611). Additionally, this work was published in a woodblock print edition in Keichō 16, subsequently undergoing reprints during the Kan’ei period (1624–44). After Yoshida Mitsuyoshi, author of the arithmetic book Jinkōki, had published an enlarged edition of the Wakan kōtō hennen gōun zu in Shōhō 2 (1645), it became common practice in later editions to mention both names: Enchiin as the main compiler and Yoshida as his assistant. Over the course of time, the latest information was added to this chronological table, which was revised and enlarged by chronological listings such as Dai Nihon teiō ryakki or Dai Nihon chūkō bushō ryakki and continually published every few years, not to speak of all the variant and pirated editions of this work. In the paper presented, I reflect upon the historical significance of chronological tables by shedding light on how this work was actually read and utilized in pre-modern society.