Hanawa, Hoki'ichi

(1746-1821)

   A kokugaku scholar of the middle Edo period who lost his sight at the age of six and studied acupuncture in Edo. An ardent and eclectic scholar, he became in 1769 a student of Kamo no Mabuchi and began to study the Rikkoku-shi, the 'six histories of Japan' written in Chinese. He changed his family name from Ogino to Hanawa in 1775 when he was awarded the rank of koto, the second highest official rank open to a blind person, subsequently raised to the highest, kengyo. His literary name was Suiboshi. Moving to the Mito domain in 1785 he gained permission from the shogun to start a school for Japanese Studies (Wa-gaku) called the Wagaku Kodansho, attracting a number of distinguished students. His scholarly projects over forty years included a military encyclopaedia and, most significantly, compendia of over two thousand early texts which have remained down to the present day an invaluable source for the study of early Japan.