The ''Dai Nihonshi'' (大日本史), literally ''History of Great Japan'', is a book on the
history of Japan
The first human inhabitants of the Japanese archipelago have been traced to the Japanese Paleolithic, Paleolithic, around 38–39,000 years ago. The Jōmon period, named after its cord-marked pottery, was followed by the Yayoi period in the fi ...
written in
Classical Chinese
Classical Chinese is the language in which the classics of Chinese literature were written, from . For millennia thereafter, the written Chinese used in these works was imitated and iterated upon by scholars in a form now called Literary ...
. It was begun in the 17th century and was completed by 1715 by
Tokugawa Mitsukuni
, also known as , was a Japanese daimyō, daimyo who was known for his influence in the politics of the early Edo period. He was the third son of Tokugawa Yorifusa (who in turn was the eleventh son of Tokugawa Ieyasu) and succeeded him, becoming ...
Tokugawa family
The is a Japanese dynasty which produced the Tokugawa shoguns who ruled Japan from 1603 to 1868 during the Edo period. It was formerly a powerful ''daimyō'' family. They nominally descended from Emperor Seiwa (850–880) and were a branch of ...
. After his death, work on the book was continued by the Mito branch until its completion in the
Meiji era
The was an Japanese era name, era of History of Japan, Japanese history that extended from October 23, 1868, to July 30, 1912. The Meiji era was the first half of the Empire of Japan, when the Japanese people moved from being an isolated feu ...
. The format of the book closely resembles the Chinese literary histories in form and structure and is considered extremely accurate. ''Dai Nihonshi'' was given its name by the feudal lord Tokugawa Tsunaeda in 1715, after the death of Tokugawa Mitsukuni. Contemporaneously it was also known by the names ''Honchō-shiki'' (lit. Historical Record of the Imperial Court), ''Kokushi'' (lit. National History), and ''Washi'' (lit. History of Wa).
Content
The work starts with
Emperor Jimmu
was the legendary first emperor of Japan according to the and . His ascension is traditionally dated as 660 BC.Kelly, Charles F"Kofun Culture"Emperor Go-Komatsu (more precisely, it ends after the merging of the
Southern Court
The were a set of four emperors ( Emperor Go-Daigo and his line) whose claims to sovereignty during the Nanboku-chō period spanning from 1336 through 1392 were usurped by the Northern Court. This period ended with the Southern Court definitivel ...
and
Northern Court
The , also known as the Ashikaga Pretenders or Northern Pretenders, were a set of six pretenders to the throne of Japan during the Nanboku-chō period from 1336 through 1392. Even though the present Imperial House of Japan is descended from the ...
in 1392, before the end of Emperor Go-Komatsu's reign).
The primary contents of the book, that is, the narration of historical events, occupies the first 73 volumes, the rest consists of supplemental material, the first 170 volumes of which are biographies of other members of the royal family, and of retainers to the court, 126 descriptions and 28 tables, a total of 397. The whole work comprises 397 volumes and 5 volumes of index, total 402 volumes printed.
Context
The book is one of the major scholarly works of the Edo period, and laid the foundation of the Mito school (Mitogaku) and
Kokugaku
was an academic movement, a school of Japanese philology and philosophy originating during the Edo period. scholars worked to refocus Japanese scholarship away from the then-dominant study of Chinese, Confucian, and Buddhist texts in favor of ...
. Aizawa Seishisai a Japanese nationalist thinker from Mito school, also worked on the play. It is heavily influenced by
Confucianism
Confucianism, also known as Ruism or Ru classicism, is a system of thought and behavior originating in ancient China, and is variously described as a tradition, philosophy, Religious Confucianism, religion, theory of government, or way of li ...
, especially the later
Neo-Confucianism
Neo-Confucianism (, often shortened to ''lǐxué'' 理學, literally "School of Principle") is a moral, ethical, and metaphysical Chinese philosophy influenced by Confucianism, which originated with Han Yu (768–824) and Li Ao (772–841) i ...
under
Zhu Xi
Zhu Xi ( zh, c=朱熹; ; October 18, 1130April 23, 1200), formerly romanized Chu Hsi, was a Chinese philosopher, historian, politician, poet, and calligrapher of the Southern Song dynasty. As a leading figure in the development of Neo-Confuci ...
. Ming loyalist Zhu Zhiyu's disciples were directly associated with this project. However, instead of focusing on the Chinese classics like other Confucian schools, it centered on the Japanese classics and Japan as a land ruled by the ''tennō'' (尊王論 ''sonnōron'').
This school of thought led to the
Sonnō jōi
was a '' yojijukugo'' (four-character compound) phrase used as the rallying cry and slogan of a political movement in Japan in the 1850s and 1860s, during the Bakumatsu period. Based on Neo-Confucianism and Japanese nativism, the movement sou ...
Tokugawa shogunate
The Tokugawa shogunate, also known as the was the military government of Japan during the Edo period from 1603 to 1868.
The Tokugawa shogunate was established by Tokugawa Ieyasu after victory at the Battle of Sekigahara, ending the civil wars ...
during the
Bakumatsu
were the final years of the Edo period when the Tokugawa shogunate Meiji Restoration, ended. Between 1853 and 1867, under foreign diplomatic and military pressure, Japan ended its isolationist foreign policy known as and changed from a Feudali ...
period.
See also
* ''
Twenty-Four Histories
The ''Twenty-Four Histories'', also known as the ''Orthodox Histories'' (), are a collection of official histories detailing the dynasties of China, from the legendary Three Sovereigns and Five Emperors in the 4th millennium BC to the Ming ...