Conceptions of nature and feudal hierarchy in Tokugawa (1603-1868)

Conceptions of nature and feudal hierarchy in Tokugawa Japan (1603- 1868) Christie Thomson Christ Church, Oxford Introduction This essay considers conceptions of nature in Tokugawa Japan and the way in which they were used to either justify or challenge feudalism. Neo- was initially used to justify feudal hierarchy, but was then challenged by later Neo-Confucians and scholars from the Mitogaku and (National Learning) schools. These ideologies, which opposed traditional Neo-Confucianism, influenced popular thought to varying degrees, as seen in the 1855 earthquake, the Insurrection, and within peasant villages. However, scholars did not dispute the basis of Neo-Confucian thought. Despite differing interpretations, they continued to rely on ideas of nature to justify their theories. Thus, all scholars who opposed traditional Neo-Confucianism did not mount a thorough attack on its ideas and came to a similar conclusion of a natural hierarchy between the ruler and subjects.

Scholars in Tokugawa Japan considered social and political organisation within the framework of nature. Nature was understood to be broader than the environment, instead encompassing an overarching set of rules which provided the basis for the order of society and government.1 Confucianism was the source of these ideas, which were expanded through Neo-Confucianism, the accepted political doctrine of the bakufu (military government). It had the backing of the first shogun (military leader) (1542-1616) and later shoguns funded schools to teach Neo-Confucianism.2 Neo- Confucian ideas were used to justify Japan’s feudal hierarchy as it created a natural division between mental and manual labour, and between rulers and subjects. The lower classes were deemed only capable of manual labour and the higher classes of using intellect; hence the latter were naturally suited to rule.

Later Neo-Confucians scholars were the first to question this status quo. Using differing conceptions of nature, they challenged feudalism by arguing that all people had equal intellect. The proto-nationalist schools of Kokugaku and Mitogaku then put forward the idea of a natural, Japanese community under the emperor that transcended status distinctions. Although both lines of thought disputed the innate inferiority of commoners, they did not challenge the idea that there was a natural authority.

Haruo Shirane, a modern professor of Japanese culture and literature, describes the particular conception of nature in Japan as “secondary nature”.3 As opposed to “primary

1 Thomas, Reconfiguring Modernity, pp.5-6. 2 McNally, Like No Other, pp.141-170. 3 Shirane, Japan and the Culture of the Four Seasons.

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nature”, which refers to the natural environment, secondary nature is the cultural construction of nature through poetry, the arts or philosophy which results in the attribution of normative values or characteristics to nature. Two forms have been identified: secondary nature constructed around the capital, and the secondary nature of the satoyama (provincial farming village) which was an agricultural settlement comprising a rice field by a river and a mountain.4 The secondary nature constructed around the capital was directly linked to the imperial court as it originated with poetry commissioned by the emperor in the (794-1185). Similarly, although the satoyama focuses on rural areas, it is not a natural landscape, as the woodland had been destroyed to use as farmland. In addition, it is still an idealised construction created by aristocrats in the Heian period, who had never been to the countryside but wrote tales about the connection of the satoyama to the spiritual world.5 Mitogaku and Kokugaku scholars referred to these early texts and drew on ancient conceptions of secondary nature based around the imperial court to conclude that instead of the bakufu, the emperor had natural authority.

Although scholars reached out to urban and rural commoners by establishing schools and academic networks, these differing perceptions of nature and hierarchy did not influence the whole country equally. The 1855 earthquake saw an emergence of national identity and imperial ideology in popular thought. The later Tengu Insurrection (1864) then directly called for a return of political power to the emperor. In rural areas, village leaders utilised ideas of natural hierarchy to become independent of central government. However, rebellions by peasants of lower status were motivated not by ideology but by economic factors, which is likely due to conceptions of nature being urban constructions. Most peasants could not relate to this due to experiencing a different system of hierarchy based on traditional relationships of mutual economic benefit. Feudalism Feudalism began as a system in Japan in the Kamakura period (1185-1333), when the shogun displaced the emperor as the political leader, reducing the latter to a figurehead. The shogun distributed land to daimyo (regional lords) in return for military service. In the Sengoku period (1467-1568), a hierarchy was developed for the rest of society, who were divided into four hereditary classes: (warriors), peasants, artisans and merchants. However, the most significant distinction was between samurai and the three commoner classes. The samurai were the ruling class, demanded respect from the commoners, and had certain privileges, such as being allowed to bear swords. After centuries of civil war between the daimyo, the first shogun of the Tokugawa period, Tokugawa Ieyasu, brought in a period of stability which led to increased agricultural output, population increase and urbanisation. Peace meant that samurai were no longer fulfilling their role in the feudal system as warriors yet peasants were expected to work the land for them, and a justification was needed for their continued higher status.6

4 Ibid, pp.13-18. 5 Shirane, Japan and the Culture of the Four Seasons, p. 205. 6 Masao Maruyama, Studies in the Intellectual history of Tokugawa Japan, trans. by Mikiso Hane, pp. 8-9.

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Neo-Confucianism Using nature as the starting point for political organisation is not unique to Japanese political philosophy, or to the Tokugawa period. Social contract theorists such as Hobbes and Locke began by considering the state of nature and concluded that there were natural laws which existed prior to, and transcended, the laws in civil society. In the same way, Confucianism considered that there were natural laws which provide the basis for political organisation. Confucianism originated in China and was brought to Japan in the Kamakura period. Neo-Confucianism, based on the writings of the Chinese scholar (1130-1200), diverged from traditional Confucianism in that it considered nature in terms of the metaphysical concepts of li (“principle” or “pattern”) and qi (“generative force”) and emphasised the importance of the “Way”. Li is the nature of all things and qi is the form. Li is the natural laws which order heaven, earth, and the nature of man. Qi is the unique spirit of each being and object. While li is rational, good and unchanging, qi can be influenced by the surroundings. Hence man is born naturally good due to li and evil arises from his unique qi being corrupted. Li is therefore not only a natural law but also a moral law towards which all should strive. The purpose of the Way was to show how one could align their qi with the original, pure li, as had been done by ancient Chinese philosophers.7

Neo-Confucian emphasis on hierarchy based on natural principles provided ideological justification for feudal society. One of the main Japanese Neo-Confucians was Hayashi Razan (1583-1687), who closely followed the arguments of Zhu Xi and worked as an advisor to four shoguns. He used the Confucian principle of the “Five Relationships” to explain feudal hierarchy. The Five Relationships encompassed all social relations and was between: ruler and subject, man and wife, man and son, man and friend and older and younger brother. The existence of these relationships and the hierarchy within each of them are natural laws grounded in li; they exist in parallel with other natural laws, such as how the “sun rises in the east and sets in the west”8 and heaven being superior to the earth. Thus the ruler, in this case the shogun, daimyo and samurai, is superior to the ruled, the commoner classes. Adherence to the Five Relationships is in line with li, so will bring the proper familial, social and political stability. 9 This encompassed the view that the superiority of the ruling party is justified by their greater intelligence and understanding of natural laws, as articulated by the scholar and foreign diplomat Amenomori Hōshū (1668-1755): “the samurai use their minds, the peasants and those below them use their muscles. Those who use their minds are superior; those who use their muscles are inferior.”10 Mind and muscle There was a diversion in thought throughout the 18th century in response to economic and social changes. Population increase, urbanisation and greater literacy led to an increase in the wealth and cultural influence of merchants and peasants.11 Previously elite

7 Ibid, pp.19-31. 8 Ibid, p.98. 9 Ibid, p.202. 10 Ibid, p.9. 11 Totman, Japan before Perry: A Short History, pp. 174-176.

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pastimes, such as poetry, were taken up by many and new art forms were created, such as kabuki theatre and woodblock printing. In particular, haikai (linked haiku verses) became a popular form to express the lifestyle and vernacular of commoners. Philosophers therefore began to use conceptions of nature to break down the mind- muscle division. Firstly, scholars demonstrated that commoners were capable of using their minds. Secondly, manual labour was celebrated by showing that through agricultural work peasants gained knowledge of and influenced nature.

Neo-Confucian scholars such as Goi Ranju (1697-1762) and Ishida Baigan (1685-1744), while agreeing that nature was the source of all practical and moral knowledge, disagreed with the view that commoners could not gain this knowledge.12 Baigan taught ethics to commoners in and believed that everyone had the ability to understand and exercise moral judgement through daily activities such as trading and farming. For example, merchants and buyers enter a relationship of trust in exchanging money for genuine goods. 13 The scholar Nishikawa Joken (1648-1724) wrote books on general knowledge for merchants and peasants, who he asserted were capable of exercising natural reason. He considered economics to be a natural principle because it involved the flow of goods and price fluctuations, which parallels the continual change seen in nature. 14 The merchants’ knowledge of trading, as evidenced by their commercial success, shows their ability to apply their minds to natural principles. Similarly, Ninomiya Sontoku (1787-1856), a self-educated peasant, believed that agricultural work was the ultimate expression of the human capacity to gain knowledge from nature as farmers interact with nature to discern and improve on appropriate agricultural practice, such as crop rotation or using fertilisers. He aimed to help other peasants become successful by sharing practical farming knowledge and organising a system of co-operative banks which provided loans and economic guidance.15

Others used natural principles to show the importance of agricultural labour in maintaining a relationship with nature, most notably the Kokugaku scholar Hirata Atsutane (1776-1843), who argued that villages should become self-sufficient and independent of the central government. Basing his theories on the (Chronicles of Japan, 720), a collection of myths and poems, he believed that the world was divided into the “visible world” and the “invisible world”. The invisible world was the spiritual realm inhabited by kami (deities) and the souls of dead ancestors. These worlds overlapped and through work and worship in the visible world, one could influence the invisible world. He believed that peasant rebellions could be solved by showing that they were best suited to engage with the overlap between these worlds, firstly as they maintained traditional rituals and worshipped the spirits of their deceased ancestors.16 Secondly, he believed that the land had been entrusted by the gods to the people. In farming, the peasant carries out his divine duty of cultivating the land and

12 Najita, ‘History and Nature in Eighteenth-Century Tokugawa Thought’, in The Cambridge , ed. by , pp. 626–628. 13 Ibid, p.628. 14 Ibid, pp. 630 – 632. 15 Ibid, pp.651-653. 16 Thomas, Reconfiguring Modernity, p.51.

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makes it habitable, mimicking the initial act of creation.17 This elevated the position of the peasantry by showing that they had a unique relationship to nature.

There are overlaps between the arguments made by Neo-Confucian scholars to show that commoners were capable of using intellect and the celebration of manual labour by Sontoku and Atsutane. All of these scholars showed the common people that they could gain knowledge and exercise autonomy over their lives, undercutting the basis for a hierarchy between mental and manual labour. However, all lines of thought were argued within the same framework of nature and even the practical solutions put forward by Joken and Sontoku are based on the conviction that all humans have a relationship to nature and are governed by natural laws. The reliance on this traditional Neo-Confucian view of nature is likely why Baigan and Joken still believed that merchants should remain in their rightful position within the feudal hierarchy.18

Similarly, although Atsutane celebrated rural life, this did not break away from previous thought. Atsutane based his theories on old Japanese texts and thus his ideas use conceptions of secondary nature in the form of the satoyama, seen in his belief that the village was connected to the spiritual world. Thus he also absorbed Heian views that everyone was part of a natural hierarchy. He valued the imagined notion of the village as a fixed, hierarchical unit, not the power of the individual peasant to change existing relationships, and advocated worshipping the spirits of deceased ancestors. He therefore supported the deified shogun Tokugawa Ieyasu and, by extension, the feudal hierarchy.19 Overall, ideas founded on conceptions of nature were invariably connected to the notion of a natural order and could not fundamentally challenge the hierarchy between rulers and subjects. A national community The idea of a national community which cut across status distinctions emerged in the 1700s, as seen through the Mitogaku and Kokugaku schools. These schools based their thought in Neo-Confucian ideas but argued that there was a superior Japanese Way which had existed in ancient Japan before it had been obscured by foreign ideologies. Inspired by the Neo-Confucian Ogyū Sorai’s (1666-1725) method of reading ancient texts for moral guidance,20 they studied early Japanese works, such as the Man'yōshū (ca. 759), the (712) and the Nihon Shoki (720). These are collections of poetry, creation stories and history that explain how Japan was founded by the sun goddess , and how the Japanese imperial line are her descendants. These texts were commissioned by the imperial court, hence used conceptions of secondary nature to justify the emperor’s superiority.21 Mitogaku and Kokugaku scholars relied on these texts

17 Harootunian, Things Seen and Unseen: Discourse and Ideology in Tokugawa Nativism, 2nd ed., p.32. 18 Sheldon, "Merchants and Society in Tokugawa Japan", Modern Asian Studies, 17.3 (1983), 477- 488 . 19 Harootunian, “Late Tokugawa Culture and Thought”, p. 201. 20 Ichijo, “Kokugaku and an Alternative Account of the Emergence of Nationalism of Japan”. 21 Shirane, Japan and the Culture of the Four Seasons, pp.44-45.

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to argue that the emperor was the natural authority and that all were part of a distinctive Japanese community under him.

Kokugaku Kokugaku became an influential literary, then philosophical and proto-nationalist movement in the 18th century. It has been translated as “National Learning” and defined as “nativism” by Harry Harootunian. 22 This is disputed by others such as Thomas McNally, 23 who writes that it is better described as “exceptionalism” because it emphasised the unique superiority of Japan over other nations, mainly China. It has been compared to German Romanticism,24 as both movements criticised rationalism, studied native literature and the distinctiveness of nature in their respective countries.

Mootori Norinaga (1730-1801), a major influence on Hirata Atsutane, became the most prominent of the Kokugaku scholars. After studying ancient texts, he concluded that the ancient Japanese had an unconscious understanding of the Way. Yet he asserted that this was not the Neo-Confucian Way but rather a superior, uniquely Japanese Way of social and political organisation based around the emperor, who derived his authority from being a direct descendent of Amaterasu. Under the emperor, there had been natural harmony between the gods and the people but this had been disrupted by the introduction of Buddhism and Confucianism, leading to social disorder.25 Despite the implicit statement that feudal hierarchy is foreign and unnatural, he still endorsed feudalism, saying that every political system exists only because the gods have willed it. Subjects therefore have a duty to obey, “regardless of whether these laws are good or bad”. 26 However, he does not advocate an egalitarian society, but rather the maintenance of a natural distinction between nobility and commoners, all of whom reverently worship the Shinto gods and obey the emperor.27

Norinaga may have supported feudal hierarchy because, although he rejected Neo- Confucianism, he did not denounce these interpretations of nature around a natural centre and the Way. Firstly, the prevailing Neo-Confucian view was that there was a natural geographic centre which was more important than the other regions because all moral and political authority originated from it, much like the view of medieval European Christians that Jerusalem was the centre of the world.28 Neo-Confucian scholars argued that the bakufu in was the natural centre. Maps produced by the bakufu provide evidence for this, as they often did not record small rural villages.29 In Edo, the bakufu occupied the centre and the commoners were confined to the downtown area (shitamachi). Norinaga and later Kokugaku scholars adapted this to say that the geographic centre was the imperial court in Kyoto; the emperor was the source of moral

22Harootunian, Things Seen and Unseen: Discourse and Ideology in Tokugawa Nativism. 23 McNally, Like No Other: Exceptionalism in Premodern Japan, pp.1-25. 24 Ichijo, “Kokugaku and an Alternative Account of the Emergence of Nationalism of Japan” 25 Ibid. 26 Maruyama, Studies in the Intellectual History of Tokugawa Japan, p.273. 27 Nishimura and Norinaga, “The Way of the Gods. Motoori Norinaga’s Naobi No Mitama”, Monumenta Nipponica, 46.1 (1991), pp.38-39. 28 Thomas, Reconfiguring Modernity, p.47. 29 Ibid, pp.36-37.

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authority and should therefore be the political ruler. 30 Secondly, although Norinaga rejected using li to justify the social order,31 his belief that the Way was naturally good and that people were born with an innate understanding of this before the corruption of Confucianism parallels the Neo-Confucian notion that all men are born good due to li and that they only become commit immoral actions due to their qi being corrupted.32 Thus overall, his theory mirrors the Neo-Confucian model, which may explain why he comes to a similar conclusion of a hierarchy grounded in nature.

Mitogaku Mitogaku was a school of thought cultivated over several generations by the ruling household of the . They aimed to define the notion of Japan by writing the “Great History of Japan” (Dai Nihon Shi) and conceptualising the kokutai (“national historical essence”), which was the natural political and social organisation of the country.33 Aizawa Seishisai (1782-1863) was an influential Mitogaku scholar. He agreed with the Kokugaku view that the imperial court was the natural centre of all authority and in Shinron (A New Thesis, 1825) expanded this idea to place the imperial court as the centre of moral authority in the world.34 He also wrote that the kokutai of Japan was a sacred community based on shared reverence for the emperor and the gods, which was a natural principle that everyone could understand. He stressed the importance of the daijōsai, a grain offering ceremony to Amaterasu conducted by each new emperor and continued to this day, which symbolised the renewal of the eternal connection between Amaterasu and the people. Under this ceremony, class distinctions were momentarily suspended and all were in harmony under the emperor. 35 However, this was a conservative and paternalistic doctrine. The Mito house was a branch of the Tokugawa family so had a vested interest in the current regime, and although they advocated for the education of peasants, being from the samurai class they still expected the commoners to obey their social betters. 36 They were primarily concerned with the declining wealth and prestige of the samurai and fearful of peasant rebellion so found the idea of a natural imperial hierarchy an appealing ideology which would placate the peasantry while maintaining their aristocratic position.37

Both Kokugaku and Mitogaku used Neo-Confucian ideas of nature and melded them with secondary nature from ancient Japanese texts. Although they challenged the bakufu, they did not dispute the notion of natural authority, likely because they relied on ancient Japanese texts as a source of knowledge, and used Neo-Confucian ideas of nature, such as the Way and the idea of a natural centre. In arguing that the emperor had natural authority, this removed one source of hierarchy derived from nature and replaced it with another. However, both schools of thought eroded the moral justification for obedience

30 Ibid, pp.43-48. 31 Maruyama, Studies in the Intellectual History of Tokugawa Japan, pp.151-158. 32 Ibid, p.166. 33 Najita, “History and Nature in Eighteenth-Century Tokugawa Thought”, p. 640. 34 Thomas, Reconfiguring Modernity, p.47. 35 Harootunian, “Late Tokugawa Culture and Thought”, pp. 191-192. 36 Koschmann, “Action as Text: Ideology in the Tengu Insurrection” in Conflict in Modern Japanese History: The Neglected Tradition, p. 89. 37 Harootunian, “Late Tokugawa Culture and Thought”, pp. 183-186.

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to feudal hierarchy by placing moral authority with the emperor and Norinaga’s pragmatic basis for obedience provides the grounds for change as it implies that political systems can legitimately be changed if it is within the scope of natural principles. Popular thought These ideas reached both urban and rural commoners through schools set up by scholars. At the same time, informal associations, such as poetry groups and academic networks, were growing in popularity. These groups cut across status distinctions and were settings for the free exchange and discussion of ideas. 38 They also served as interconnected channels of information across the country and Kokugaku scholars in particular utilised these to distribute their ideas to a wider audience and mobilise grassroots support. 39 The extent to which conceptions of nature influenced the population can be considered through the 1855 Ansei earthquake, the Tengu Insurrection and peasant villages.

The Ansei Earthquake (1855) Throughout the 1850s, Japan faced growing pressure from America, Britain and Russia to end its policy of “national isolation” (sakoku) and open its borders to international trade. First arriving with gunships in 1853, Commodore Matthew Perry pressured the bakufu into signing the Treaty of Kanagawa in 1854. Subsequent “unequal treaties” were signed, to the economic benefit of foreign powers and gave legal exemption to foreigners in Japan, making them widely unpopular.40 At the same time, there had been significant earthquakes in 1853, and in 1854, when offshore earthquakes led to tsunamis. The most destructive earthquake was the Ansei Earthquake in the Edo area, which resulted in an estimated 7,000 to 10,000 deaths. 41 Interpretations of the earthquake damaged the authority of the bakufu and created a national unity which disturbed feudal hierarchy.

The earthquake suggested that the bakufu was no longer a legitimate source of authority. The low-lying areas where the samurai and bakufu officials lived suffered the most damage, whereas the upper areas where the commoners resided were comparatively safer. One official wrote that the disasters “definitely constitute a heavenly warning”. 42 The idea that natural disasters represented the moral corruption and imminent downfall of the political order are conceptions of secondary nature represented in the Kokinshū and The Tale of Genji, in which the harmony of the seasons reflects the stability of rightful rule, whereas natural disasters and violent weather signified social and political disorder. 43 Kokugaku scholars had worked to popularise these ideas while agitating for return to imperial rule. Natural disasters and concurrent political crises appeared to culminate in the 1855 earthquake and were thus perceived to be the gods’ disapproval with the political order, providing force and validation to the idea that the emperor was the natural ruler.

38 Ikegami, Bonds of Civility, pp.174-177. 39 Ibid, pp. 211-214. 40 Michael Auslin, Negotiating With Imperialism, pp. 1-10. 41 Smits, “Shaking Up Japan: Edo Society and the 1855 Catfish Picture Prints”, p. 1045. 42 Ibid, p.1050. 43 Shirane, Japan and the Culture of the Four Seasons pp.54-55.

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This was seen through the emergence of Amaterasu as a national symbol in woodblock prints following the earthquake. The prints depicted the earthquake as a catfish (namazu) as one cause of earthquakes was thought to be a giant catfish moving under the earth and the god of thunder, Kashima, was responsible for keeping this creature in check. Some prints showed Kashima’s incompetence in allowing an earthquake to take place, instead portraying Amaterasu as the guardian figure of Japan.44 The association of Amaterasu with a sacred community under the emperor may have helped to propel thoughts of political reform and implied that the emperor, supported by the gods, would solve political crises and restore natural order.

Furthermore, a sense of national unity was created across status division as both samurai and commoners found themselves in similar situations. Economic divides had also been reduced: workers were in high demand for rebuilding the city and the wealthy provided charity to those in poverty. This ideology also connected the earthquakes across the country, making people consider their relation to others as citizens of Japan as a unified entity. However, as people interpreted the earthquake along conceptions of secondary nature put forward in ancient texts, power resided with the god of the imperial household and not the people. Consequently, Kokugaku views of nature created national unity but also the expectation for imperial rule under divine direction, which may be why it did not lead to calls for political equality.

The Tengu Insurrection Ideas of transferring political authority to the emperor found greater force in the later Tengu Insurrection (1864) in the Mito domain, in which samurai and commoners joined in an armed rebellion against the bakufu.45 This was part of the national sonnō jōi (revere the emperor; expel the barbarians) movement. Many daimyo were angered by the bakufu signing treaties with foreign countries and were hit by economic problems. So, they called for the restoration of political power to the emperor to solve domestic and foreign political problems. Mitogaku scholar Seishisai’s ideas are thought to have been a motivating factor in this rebellion. As well as posing a significant military threat to the bakufu, feudal hierarchy was challenged by samurai mobilising the peasantry and allowed them to wear swords. They fought alongside one another then went on a pilgrimage to Nikkō, a place of spiritual significance, where Tokugawa Ieyasu had been buried and deified. It is possible that this was a symbolic gesture imitating the renewing effect of the daijōsai and representing their hope for a new beginning and a feeling of natural community under the emperor.46 Although feudal hierarchy was disrupted, the rebellion did not seem to have been a call for an overhaul of the political order as they showed their support for the regime in paying their respects to the first shogun and the ideas of emperor worship implied that the hierarchy between the ruler and subjects remained firmly in place.

44 Smits, ‘Shaking Up Japan’, p.1055. 45 Koschmann, ‘Action as Text: Ideology in the Tengu Insurrection’, p.89. 46 Ibid, pp. 95-106.

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The Peasantry Amongst the peasantry, economic changes, famine and rebellions left village leaders struggling to maintain control as their authority was questioned by the peasants below them and they received little aid from regional lords. The idea of the self-sufficient and sacred village community put forward by the Kokugaku scholar Atsutane and his followers therefore provided the ideological means to make the village independent while maintaining traditional hierarchy.

Peasant villages were organised around a head house and branch houses, creating a hierarchy which existed alongside feudalism. The head house was the spokesperson for the village. Branch houses provided extra labour and were dependent on the main house for manure and irrigation. The practical impact of Atsutane’s ideas was that the head house took a more active role in village organisation, encouraged self-reliance during times of famine and reduced dependence on feudal lords.47 Ideologically, the importance of ancestral gods in Atsutane’s thought could be used to support their authority. The head house was traditionally thought to derive their authority from the house god, which branch families were expected to worship as the guardian deity of the village.48 The emphasis on agricultural work was used to prevent lower peasants from branching out to trading by saying that continuing their farming role would please the gods. However, the rise of educated and wealthy peasant traders and new economic relationships, such as in co-operative banks, had already broken down the dependence of the branch houses on the head house. Although peasant leaders were able to increase the autonomy of the village vis-à-vis regional lords, they could not overturn economic changes or extinguish peasant rebellions.

Peasants of lower status, bolstered by their education and economic independence and angered by the incompetence of authorities to solve famine and economic problems, challenged the village hierarchy. Instead of relying on the village head as their spokesperson, they organised petitions to local authorities themselves. When opposed by village leaders, they overthrew them.49 This was particularly the case in the north of Japan, where the village leader was not elected but a hereditary title passed from father to son.50 Rebellions were also not chaotic acts of destruction but instead planned and organised. Groups of peasants targeted specific warehouses or objects of wealth but had internal rules, such as forbidding thievery or destruction of pawned goods.51 They then formed temporary political assemblies to write up economic demands and elect new leaders.52 These rebellions show increasing organisation at the local level, suggesting the influence of scholars such as Joken.

47 Harootunian, ‘Late Tokugawa Culture and Thought’, p.211. 48 Mitsuru, “The Social Background of Peasant Uprisings in Tokugawa Japan”, in Conflict in Modern Japanese History: The Neglected Tradition, pp. 146-148. 49 Totman, Japan before Perry, pp.200-201. 50 Vlastos, “Yonaoshi in Aizu”, in Conflict in Modern Japanese History: The Neglected Tradition ed. by and J. Victor Koschmann, p.171. 51 Davis, “Pilgrimage and World Renewal: A Study of Religion and Social Values in Tokugawa Japan, Part I”, History of Religions, pp.112-113. 52 Vlastos, “Yonaoshi in Aizu”, pp.169-170.

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However, while there was variation in peasant rebellions, their aims were mostly economic and not a call for political change. This may be because all conceptions of nature were linked to hierarchy. However, this could also be because the peasant hierarchy was originally justified not by ideology, but by mutual economic benefit. In addition, conceptions of nature, both in ideas of the imperial court and the satoyama, were urban constructions that bore little semblance to the past or present condition of the peasantry. Thus, although peasants may have been inspired by scholars who showed that they had a level of autonomy, they could not relate to concepts of nature. Unlike the urban citizens of Edo, they did not interpret famines or natural disasters as a message that the emperor was the natural authority. Conclusion Scholars across different schools mounted a challenge to the Neo-Confucian view of the distinction between mental and manual labour, which put cracks in the hierarchy between samurai and commoners and worked to empower previously disdained groups. Joken, Sontoku and Atsutane used natural principles to argue that peasants and merchants were not only of equal intellect to the upper classes, but capable of discerning natural principles and interacting with nature through work. Autonomy was fostered at the local level, seen in peasant rebellions and the Tengu insurrection. Kokugaku and Mitogaku scholars challenged the moral foundation of the feudal regime by coming up with the idea of a natural Japanese community united under the emperor and the sun goddess Amaterasu. Cultural and economic changes also meant that ideas could easily be disseminated, contributing to a growing sense of national unity which transcended status distinctions, which was seen in the 1855 earthquake. However, nature was an urban construction which was inevitably charged with ideas of natural authority. All schools of thought that challenged the ruling ideology traced their lineage back to the same framework of nature, evidenced by the Kokugaku and Mitogaku scholars’ reliance on the Way and natural authority. By failing to question the idea that nature provided justification for all forms of social and political organisation, none of these alternative ideologies were a systematic break from Neo-Confucianism. In addition, supporters of rural autonomy and urban-based scholars such as Norinaga used ideas of secondary nature constructed around the imperial court. Thus, although everyone was deemed equal relative to nature in their intellectual abilities, this did not entail political equality as everyone remains subordinated to a different natural authority—the emperor. By looking to an imagined imperial past, they remained distant from actual political problems, particularly in rural areas, and in ceding authority to a metaphysical concept of nature, they kept the source of sovereignty away from the people. Consequently, radical political reform towards the removal of hierarchy between ruler and subjects could not be conceptualised within this framework.

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