English
In 1757 he returned to Matsuzaka and set up in practice as a physician. Soon afterwards his attention was drawn to Mabuchi’s writings. In 1761 he had a personal meet- ing with that great scholar. This, their only interview, was followed by a long-continued and voluminous corre- spondence. Motoori’s life was from this time forward a very busy one. In addition to his medical practice, which was in a flourishing condition, he was engaged in collecting mate- rial for his great commentary on the Kojzki, and in giving instructions to hundreds of pupils whom the fame of his learning had attracted to him. Eventually he was taken into the service of the Daimio of Kishiu, who was a great admirer of his writings. Late in life Motoori resigned his official position and removed to Kioto, where he gave lectures which were attended by audiences drawn from the highest classes of society in that city. He died there in 1801, in the seventy-second year of his age. By his own desire he was buried at his native place on a hill over the temple of Miorakuji,a fir and cherry tree were MOTOORI eee oN planted by his grave, and a stone set up inscribed simply with his name. Motoori was a prolific writer. He brought out fifty- five distinct works in over one hundred and eighty volumes. His fame as a scholar and writer rests chiefly on his Kozkz-den, a commentary on the Kgikz, the sacred book of the Shinto religion.! Before his time the study of the Kozkz had been much neglected, the very language in which it is written being well-nigh unintelligible even to educated Japanese. In this monumental work, which fills no fewer than forty-four good-sized volumes, he brought to bear on the elucidation of a very difficult text a vast store of erudite knowledge, derived from a long study of the A7anyoshiu and other books of the old literature. It occupied him for many years. Begun in 1764, it was not completed until 1796, and the final volumes were not issued from the press till long after his death. The Kojtki-den is not only valuable for its prodigious learning; it was a vigorous blow aimed at the supre- macy of the Chinese school of ethics and philosophy. No opportunity is lost of girding at everything Chinese, and of exalting the old Japanese customs, religion, and language, in a spirit of ardent and undiscriminating patriotism. The Awjzkz-den had no small share in pro- ducing the reaction against Chinese ideas and institu- tions which has become so pronounced a characteristic of modern Japan. The Reki-cho Shoshi-kai-in is an edition, with notes, of the speeches and proclamations of some of the early Mikados which have been preserved to us in a historical work entitled Shoku Nzhongz. Other works of MotoGri’s are his edition of the Koksn- 1 See above, p. 18. 222 JAPANESE LITERATURE shiu already noticed; the /so no Kami Shishukugen, a treatise on poetry ; the Gzo-yzn Gai-gen, an attack on the Chinese philosophy; the Zama no Ogushi, a valuable critical and exegetical work on the Genjz Monogatart ; the Kenkiojin (“The Madman Fettered”’), a controversial work written in reply to hostile criticisms of the sacred Shinto books; the Kusuhana, composed in answer to a similar attack by a scholar named Ichikawa Tatsumaro ; the Uzyama bumi, a treatise on methods of study, and the Tama-arare (“Hail of Pearls”), a lively and amusing critique of common errors in writing Japanese. The Sakz-take no ben is a refutation of various erroneous notions current with regard to the gods of Ise and their worship. The “abominable heresy” of some Kangakusha ~who would euhemerise the Sun Goddess into an ordinary mortal empress, and make the Takama no Hara (or Plain of High Heaven) the name of the place where her capital stood, is duly anathematised. ‘What doubt can there be that Amaterasu no Ohomi Kami [the Sun Goddess] is the great ancestress of the Mikados, and that she is no other than the Sun of Heaven which illumines this world? These things are in their nature infinite, not to ‘be measured, and mysterious.” The Zamagatsuma (in fifteen volumes, published post- humously in 1812), may be called “ Motodri’s Note-book.” It is a collection of jottings of a very miscellaneous char- acter, comprising notes on Shinto ceremonial, on the old literature, on grammar and spelling, on poetry, on ancient customs, on the iniquity of Chinese principles and institutions, &c., &c. It is a mine of instruction to all students of Japanese antiquity, but has little except perhaps a few autobiographical memoranda which will interest others. MOTOORI ue) 323 Another miscellaneous work, the Suzunoya no Bunshiu, also contains some interesting personal reminiscences. I should like to transcribe from it a delicately drawn de- scription of how the author spent a very hot day in the society of some congenial friends. It is unfortunately too long for quotation.) Before Motoéri’s time there was no Japanese grammar, one or two dictionaries of the Teniwoha or particles being hardly an exception. Although he did not pro- duce a systematic grammar of the Japanese language, Motoori did much to throw light upon its structure. The Zama-arare, already referred to, contains many useful grammatical hints. In the Mojt-goye no Kana- adzukat (1771) he enunciated the principles of the correct spelling of Japanese words, and in the Kanji Sanonko (1785) he dealt with the various modes of spelling and pronouncing words of Chinese origin. His principal grammatical work, however, is the Kotoba no Tama no wo (1779), in which he set forth and illustrated at great length certain rules of Japanese syntax. Conciseness was not one of Motoori’s merits. The seven volumes of which this work consists have been compressed without material loss into seven pages of English. His gramma- tical researches were continued by his son, Haruniwa, in whose well-known work, the Kotoba no Yachimata, the inflexional system of the Japanese verb and adjective was for the first time formulated, and by his adopted son, Ohira, who was the author of a treatise on causative and passive verbs. European writers on Japanese grammar owe much to the researches of Motoori and his followers. Carlyle’s idea that the qualities which go to make a man of literary genius fit the same person for being a 324 JAPANESE LITERATURE statesman is a favourite one with the Japanese. We have seen that Hakuseki and Kiuso were constantly con- sulted upon official matters by the Shogun’s Government. Motoori was invited by the Daimio of Kishiu to place on record his views on the government of a Daimio’s domain, and did so in a little work in two volumes entitled Zama Kushige (“The Precious Casket”). In this treatise he unbends from the severe purism of his other works, and sets an example of a simple, practical style well suited to the subjects discussed, and level to the meanest understanding. His position is that of a cautious reformer. He saw that one of the greatest abuses of the day was the excessive number of officials and retainers of all kinds, and urged earnestly that it should be diminished ; gradually, however, so as to avoid injury to vested interests. The oppressed condition of the peasantry had his warmest sympathy. He thought that the z#kz or agrarian risings, which had become common, were a disgrace to the Daimios in whose jurisdiction they occurred, rather than to the ignorant men who took part in them. The hara-kirt is another subject on which he had a strong opinion. In his view this form of suicide _ had become far too common. It was not for the public advantage, he considered, that honest and capable men should do away with themselves because they were responsible for some trifling official miscarriage, as was too often the case. He was in favour of prohibiting all hara-kirt without a formal order from the culprit’s superior. It is not by writing of this kind, however, that Motodri’s political influence is to be measured. His works helped materially to enfranchise the Japanese nation from their moral and intellectual servitude to China, and to produce MOTOORI 325 a spirit of self-reliance and patriotism which at a sub- sequent period became translated into political action. Though he was himself loyal to the Shogunate, he contri- buted indirectly, but most effectively, to the national movement which in 1867 brought about its downfall, and restored the descendant of the Sun Goddess to the sovereign position which was the logical result of the principles advocated in his works. ~ Motoori’s efforts on behalf of the Shinto religion pro- duced little tangible result. It was too late to call back the deities of the old pantheon from the Hades to which the neglect of the nation had consigned them. In his own lifetime nothing was done, and although a half- hearted, perfunctory attempt to re-establish the ancient faith was made in 1868, the efforts of its supporters were soon relaxed. The Buddhist priests ceased to be the guardians of the Shinto shrines, and a so-called Shinto form of burial was introduced, but little more was effected that was not soon afterwards allowed to fall into abeyance. At the present day this religion ts practically extinct. All the Wagakusha considered themselves bound to compose poetry in the old style. Motodri acquitted him- self of this obligation more creditably than most of his fellows. The following Tanka is much admired :— “ Tf one should ask you What ts the heart . Of Island Yamato— It ts the mountain cherry blossom Which exhales its perfume in the morning sun.” In other words, ‘The Japanese are instinctively and naturally noble and virtuous—not like the Chinese, who 22 326 JAPANESE LITERATURE require a clumsy and artificial system of ethical philo- sophy for the cultivation of their moral natures.