Encyclopedia of Shinto

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カテゴリー1： 8. Schools, Groups, and Personalities
カテゴリー2： Personalities
Title
Asami Keisai
Text (1652-1711)
Scholar of the Neo-Confucianist Zhu Xi school in the mid-Edo period. Formal name Yasumasa, common name Jūjirō. Born in Takashima District, Ōmi Province (present-day Shiga Prefecture), Asami first worked as a physician before beginning Zhu Xi studies under Yamazaki Ansai (1618-82) at the age of twenty-eight. Along with Satō Naokata (1650-1719) and Miyake Shōsai (1662-1741), Asami became known as one of the "Three Great Yamazaki Scholars" (Kimon sanketsu). He came to criticize the Shinto leanings of his mentor's later teachings, however, a conflict in part responsible for the fact that he and Naotaka were expelled from Yamazaki's circle. Despite this rift, after Yamazaki's death Asami corresponded with Shinto scholars such as Wakabayashi Kyōsai (1679-1732), Yoshimi Yoshikazu (1673-1761), Atobe Yoshiakira (1658-1729) and Tamaki Masahide (1670-1736), and he was not entirely unsympathetic to Shinto.
Asami recorded Yamazaki's lectures on the Books of the Divine Age (Kami-yo no maki; the mythological first parts of Nihon shoki), and it was stated in other works that "at the end of his life, he urged young people to appreciate the importance of Shinto" (Miyake Naosai, Shōsai zatsudanroku), and that "Asami Yasumasa came to respect Shinto in his twilight years" (Tani Shigetō, Hōken taiki uchigiki). These records reveal that Asami ultimately demonstrated a considerable degree of respect toward Shinto as the teaching of his former master Yamazaki. Other works authored by Asami include Seiken yuigen and Kōyūsōfuroku. He died on the first day of the twelfth month of 1711 at the age of sixty.

-Yazaki Hiroyuki

Pronunciation in Japanese/用語音声

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