Short Abstract

This session examines how Confucianism spread across urban and rural Tokugawa Japan and among diverse social groups in the eighteenth century, highlighting factors that paved the way for its nineteenth-century “popularization of Confucianism.”

Long Abstract

This session examines what intellectually prepared the ground for the nineteenth-century “popularization of Confucianism.” Miyagi Kimiko defines this late-Edo “popularization” as the popular-based reception of Confucianism among lower-ranking samurai and affluent farmers from the Kansei era onward, and treats the rapid increase in local domain schools and private academies as key quantitative indicators. Yet eighteenth-century intellectual and historical evidence suggests that broad Confucian reception—across regions and social strata—was already under way. Therefore, “popularization” cannot be inferred from institutional growth alone. The session clarifies the diverse facets of eighteenth-century Confucian reception that prepared the ground for Bakumatsu-era “popularization.”

The first presentation examines the so-called “Kazusa Dōgaku” (Kazusa School of Confucian Learning) that emerged in Kazusa Province (present-day Chiba Prefecture). It shows how a branch of Zhu Xi learning (Zhuxue) was received among peasants as a moral philosophy oriented toward the pursuit of “sainthood,” and how those peasants later became the main agents disseminating Zhu Xi learning by educating people around them.

The second presentation focuses on expository guides to the Confucian classics (kaidaisho) that circulated in the eighteenth century. For beginners without an overview of the Confucian canon, these works introduced available texts and suggested how study should proceed, thereby preparing practical means for Confucian learning at the level of texts and reading practices.

The third presentation highlights numerous Confucian texts in the book collections of physicians in Osaka and Yao, indicating that interest in Confucian learning was also gathering momentum in ordinary townhouses. It further shows how these individuals connected with Confucian scholars in Kyoto and Osaka, deepening scholarly activity in Yao.

To discuss these eighteenth-century intellectual activities, we invite a discussant specializing in Tokugawa-period studies of birth, aging, illness, and death, and explore how “popularization” progressed at the level of people’s everyday lives. By bringing to light the diversity of Confucian reception in the eighteenth century, the session adds new perspectives on the significance of Confucianism in the Tokugawa era.