The Worship of Confucius in Japan (Harvard East Asian Monographs)

How has Confucius, quintessentially and symbolically Chinese, been received throughout Japanese history? The Worship of Confucius in Japan provides the first overview of the richly documented and colorful Japanese version of the East Asian ritual to venerate Confucius, known in Japan as the sekiten . The original Chinese political liturgy embodied assumptions about sociopolitical order different from those of Japan. Over more than thirteen centuries, Japanese in power expressed a persistently ambivalent response to the ritual's challenges and often tended to interpret the ceremony in cultural rather than political terms. Like many rituals, the sekiten self-referentially reinterpreted earlier versions of itself. James McMullen adopts a diachronic and comparative perspective. Focusing on the relationship of the ritual to political authority in the premodern period, McMullen sheds fresh light on Sino-Japanese cultural relations and on the distinctive political, cultural, and social history of Confucianism in Japan. Successive sections of The Worship of Confucius in Japan trace the vicissitudes of the ceremony through two major cycles of adoption, modification, and decline, first in ancient and medieval Japan, then in the late feudal period culminating in its rejection at the Meiji Restoration. An epilogue sketches the history of the ceremony in the altered conditions of post-Restoration Japan and up to the present. Part I. The first encounter: the Sekiten from the eighth to the sixteenth century: Chinese origins: canonical Confucian rites and the Da Tang Kaiyuan li -- A foreign spirit in Japan: Fujiwara promotion, Kibi no Makibi, and the Kanmu Emperor -- The ninth century: oligarchy, ambivalence, and cultural display -- Two literati and the court's iconic ceremony: Sugawara no Michizane, Miyoshi Kiyoyuki, and the Engishiki -- Traditionalism and the long decline: the conflagration of 1177 -- The court ceremony's afterlife: mere ritual and its legacy -- Part II. The second encounter, first phase, 1598-1771: The challenge of revival: post-Tang chinese liturgy in Late Feudal Japan -- Confucian spectacle in Edo: Hayashi Razan and cultural display -- The rehearsal of a foreign rite: Zhu Shunshui and Tokugawa Mitsukuni -- The shogun's solo dance: Tokugawa Tsunayoshi -- Puppetry, derogation, and decline: Arai Hakuseki and Tokugawa Yoshimune -- Part III. The final century: Confucius in a restive world: New perspectives: nativism, Confucian views, and the palace and warrior cults -- Emperor and uncrowned king: the palace rite, the Kokaku Emperor, and the Gakushuin -- Back to the past: Matsudaira Sadanobu and the Engishiki revival -- The liturgists' discontents: Inuzuka Innan and Ogori Shinsai -- The shogun's rite: adapting to a warriors' world -- Traditionalism and enervation: mere ritual again -- Part IV. The final drama: Pluralism: provincial Sekiten, martial cults, Shinto, and Mito syncretism -- Confucius impugned: the Hirata Shinto canonical and Hasegawa Akimichi -- Denouement in Meiji: Iwakura Tomomi and the triumph of Shinto -- Conclusion -- Epilogue: The Sekiten in Modern Japan "Provides the first overview of the richly documented and colorful Japanese version of the East Asian ritual to venerate Confucius, known in Japan as the sekiten. Traces the evolution of the sekiten in Japan from pre-modern times up to the present"--Provided by publisher. "Provides the first overview of the richly documented and colorful Japanese version of the East Asian ritual to venerate Confucius, known in Japan as the sekiten. Traces the evolution of the sekiten in Japan from pre-modern times up to the present"-- Provided by publisher