德川後期 朝廷의 浮上과 ‘學問’의 역할

The Rise of Imperial Court and the Role of ‘Learning’ in the Late Tokugawa Period

The political re-rise of Japanese imperial court(朝廷), is not simply the result of ‘opening the country’(開國) in the 1850s; instead, the conditions of the re-rise can be found from before the 1850s. One of the reasons for the re-rise of the court was the increasing awareness toward national issues among the members of the court, and ‘learning’(學問) played a crucial role in inducing those changes. In the matters of relationship between learning and politics, the focus should be set on the study of Confucianism and history. From the late 18th century, with the increasing longing for the imperial ‘restoration’(復古), imperial court’s interest with learning was also enhanced. This tendency was pronounced most avidly during the reign of emperor Ninko(1817-46). After the 1820s, the imperial palace held regular reading seminars(會讀) of Chinese standard histories(正史), and the seminar was extended to the reading of ancient Japanese national histories(六國史) after the 1830s. The series of history seminars held during Ninko’s reign was significant in that it was held regularly throughout almost all of his emperorship. Starting in 1839, Tongjian Gangmu(通鑑綱目), the historic writing of Neo-Confucian scholar Zhu Xi(朱熹), was also studied in the palace. This suggests that Neo-Confucian view on history, based on the moral law of hierarchy(朱子學的 名分論), grew increasingly influential in the court. Emperors’ interests in learning were not to remain in the domain of personal enthusiasm; it induced the changes among the entire court members. The learning which centered on Confucianism and history played an important role in stimulating and entrenching the ‘identity as ruler’(治者意識) among the members of the court during the late Tokugawa period. The significance of ‘learning’ in the late Tokugawa imperial court will become clear when its relationship with the contemporary emergence of Sonnō ideology(尊王思想) is discussed. This will be discussed in another study.