Hayashi, Razan

(1583-1657)

   A Confucian government adviser, one of the Hayashi line who became in effect hereditary philosophers to the shogunate with the result that shushi-gaku remained overwhelmingly influential in Japanese intellectual thought, officially up to the nineteenth century and under the guise of state Shinto beyond the Meiji restoration. He was the tutor in shushi thought to Yamaga, Soko and engaged in a debate on the nature of the world with the Japanese Jesuit (and subsequent appstate) Fabian in 1606. He was the first Tokugawa Confucian to write on Shinto. His first major Shinto work (ca.1640) was a historical survey of major shrines and figures. In a later theoretical work, the Shinto denju of 1644-48 he developed the idea of 'Shinto where principle (ri) corresponds to mind', assimilating Shinto to shushi philosophy by equating the central Confucian notion of 'principle' with the divine power of the Japanese kami, in particular equating Kuni-toko-tachi with the Confucian 'great ultimate', taikyoku. Like Yamazaki, Ansai he sought to develop Shinto thought within a Neo-confucian political structure, emphasising the role of worship of the deities in supporting human society.