Bulletin of Portuguese - Japanese Studies ISSN: 0874-8438 [email protected] Universidade Nova de Lisboa Portugal

López-Gay, Jesús Saint and the Shimazu family Bulletin of Portuguese - Japanese Studies, núm. 6, june, 2003, pp. 93-106 Universidade Nova de Lisboa Lisboa, Portugal

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Abstract The Shimazu family ruled over southern Kyúshú. Shimazu Tadayoshi was an extraordinary man: his humanist and religious education. His association with the Zen sect (Sótó - Zen). His bushidó traits. He composed some moral norms, whose spirit (and perhaps, who knows, even the text) was known to Xavier. In this article we shall, specifically, comment upon the Code of a . One of his last masters was Ninjitsu, a Zen monk who, later, was acquainted with Francisco Xavier. The dialogues between Ninjitsu and Xavier. During the administration of his adoptive son, (1515-1571), the Portuguese arrived in his lands and Xavier entered his dominions (1549). His mother held both Xavier and Christianity in great esteem. Takahisa was a good warrior. Religiously speaking, he was not a follower of Zen but rather of the esoteric Shingon sect. He did not get along well with Xavier and Christianity. His son (d. 1611) initially favoured the missionaries and received Luís de Almeida. His son adopted the same attitude. Xaviers contact with the world of the Shimazu family, more concretely with Takahisa and the monk Ninjitsu, is reflected in Xaviers letters and those of Brother Fernández as well as in Japanese documents of the time.

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