The ''Seikei Zusetsu'' (

Japanese Japanese may refer to: * Something from or related to Japan, an island country in East Asia * Japanese language, spoken mainly in Japan * Japanese people, the ethnic group that identifies with Japan through ancestry or culture ** Japanese diaspor ...

: 成形図説) is a Japanese agricultural

encyclopedia An encyclopedia is a reference work or compendium providing summaries of knowledge, either general or special, in a particular field or discipline. Encyclopedias are divided into article (publishing), articles or entries that are arranged Alp ...

compiled from 1793 to 1804 at the order of Shimazu Shigehide, the ruler of

Satsuma Province was an old province of Japan that is now the western half of Kagoshima Prefecture on the island of Kyūshū. Nussbaum, Louis-Frédéric. (2005). "Satsuma" in . Its abbreviation was . History Satsuma's provincial capital was Satsumasendai. Dur ...

(now approximately Kagoshima Prefecture). The aim was to improve agriculture in southern Japan. The authors were the scholars So Senshun, Shirao Kunihashira from the Japanese national

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 ...

school, the

Confucian 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, religion, theory of government, or way of life. Founded by Confucius ...

Mukai Tomoaki and Hori Monjuro, who studied Dutch and other Western knowledge in the context of

Rangaku ''Rangaku'' (Kyūjitai: , ), and by extension , is a body of knowledge developed by Japan through its contacts with the Dutch enclave of Dejima, which allowed Japan to keep abreast of Western technology and medicine in the period when the countr ...

. The encyclopedia originally consisted of one hundred richly illustrated volumes. However, because of two major fires, seventy wooden printing blocks were lost, so that in 1804 only thirty parts could be printed. These describe 109 Japanese agricultural crops from 29 plant families around 1800, sometimes with cultivars that no longer exist. The many chapters on farming methods are still current. https://digitalcollections.universiteitleiden.nl/Japanese_agriculture_19th_century A copy of the work was gifted to

Philipp Franz von Siebold Philipp Franz Balthasar von Siebold (17 February 1796 – 18 October 1866) was a German physician, botanist and traveller. He achieved prominence by his studies of Japanese flora (plants), flora and fauna (animals), fauna and the introduction of ...

. In 2016 research, current crop cultivars were compared to the ones in the Seikei Zusetsu. Matches were found for 50 of the 109 crop species with the other 59 not documented in contemporary databases. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/321026291_Crop_Diversity_in_19_th_Century_Japan_An_Analysis_of_the_Seikei_Zusetsu_agricultural_encyclopedia_gifted_to_Philipp_Franz_von_Siebold

History

The ''Seikei Zusetsu'' was commissioned by , lord of the

Satsuma Domain The , briefly known as the , was a Han system, domain (''han'') of the Tokugawa shogunate of Japan during the Edo period from 1600 to 1871. The Satsuma Domain was based at Kagoshima Castle in Satsuma Province, the core of the modern city of ...

, and compiled by his retainers and Shirao Kunihashira (白尾国柱). Shigehide also ordered the compilation of many other projects. His goal was to print and distribute the book within his

domain A domain is a geographic area controlled by a single person or organization. Domain may also refer to: Law and human geography * Demesne, in English common law and other Medieval European contexts, lands directly managed by their holder rather ...

, promote

agriculture Agriculture encompasses crop and livestock production, aquaculture, and forestry for food and non-food products. Agriculture was a key factor in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created ...

and

medicine Medicine is the science and Praxis (process), practice of caring for patients, managing the Medical diagnosis, diagnosis, prognosis, Preventive medicine, prevention, therapy, treatment, Palliative care, palliation of their injury or disease, ...

, and make the rulers aware of the needs of the people. Originally, the book was intended to be an encyclopedia of 100 volumes, rather than just an agricultural treatise. However, in 1806, the Satsuma domain’s residence in Shiba,

Edo Edo (), also romanized as Jedo, Yedo or Yeddo, is the former name of Tokyo. Edo, formerly a (castle town) centered on Edo Castle located in Musashi Province, became the '' de facto'' capital of Japan from 1603 as the seat of the Tokugawa shogu ...

, where the encyclopedia was being compiled, caught fire, and although the woodblocks were safe, the project came to a standstill. This, combined with the domain's financial difficulties and political strife, led to the project’s dissolution with only the first 30 volumes completed. Sō Senshun continued the compilation in Edo alone, but in 1829, another fire destroyed the woodblocks and manuscripts of volumes 31 to 40. In 1831, he lamented that the work was still incomplete despite his advanced age. He died three years later.

Content

A total of 30 volumes pertaining to agriculture were published, and multiple editions have survived. Volumes 1 to 14 pertain to agriculture in general, 15 to 20 pertain to

grains A grain is a small, hard, dry fruit ( caryopsis) – with or without an attached hull layer – harvested for human or animal consumption. A grain crop is a grain-producing plant. The two main types of commercial grain crops are cereals and le ...

, and 21 to 30 pertain to

vegetables Vegetables are edible parts of plants that are consumed by humans or other animals as food. This original meaning is still commonly used, and is applied to plants collectively to refer to all edible plant matter, including flowers, fruits, ...

. The same woodblocks were used from the first edition in 1804 until 1868, but it is unknown what happened to them afterwards. In addition, volumes 31 to 45, which have not been published, have survived in fragments in the form of manuscripts. The manuscripts stored at the Seikadō Bunko contain the contents of the "Fungi Section" (菌部), "Medicinal Herbs Section" (薬草部), "Grass Section" (草部), "Trees Section" (木部), and "Fruit Section" (果部), and the manuscripts stored at the

Tokyo National Museum The or TNM is an art museum in Ueno Park in the Taitō wards of Tokyo, ward of Tokyo, Japan. It is one of the four museums operated by the , is considered the oldest national museum and the largest art museum in Japan. The museum collects, prese ...

contain the "Birds Section" (鳥部). It is believed that those manuscripts were copied from Sō Senshun’s manuscripts by Shigehide’s retainers for his personal collection, as he had an interest in bird keeping. The entries are written primarily in Japanese, and in addition to research and explanations based on Japanese and Chinese classics, as well as other works such as ' and ', they also contain many illustrations and comparisons of

Chinese Chinese may refer to: * Something related to China * Chinese people, people identified with China, through nationality, citizenship, and/or ethnicity **Han Chinese, East Asian ethnic group native to China. **'' Zhonghua minzu'', the supra-ethnic ...

, and

Dutch Dutch or Nederlands commonly refers to: * Something of, from, or related to the Netherlands ** Dutch people as an ethnic group () ** Dutch nationality law, history and regulations of Dutch citizenship () ** Dutch language () * In specific terms, i ...

names. The illustrations are printed in black and white in general editions, but are printed in color in some special editions. It is presumed that those were presented to the families of powerful

feudal lords Feudalism, also known as the feudal system, was a combination of legal, economic, military, cultural, and political customs that flourished in medieval Europe from the 9th to 15th centuries. Broadly defined, it was a way of structuring societ ...

or the

shogunate , officially , was the title of the military rulers of Japan during most of the period spanning from 1185 to 1868. Nominally appointed by the Emperor, shoguns were usually the de facto rulers of the country, except during parts of the Kamak ...

Leiden University Leiden University (abbreviated as ''LEI''; ) is a Public university, public research university in Leiden, Netherlands. Established in 1575 by William the Silent, William, Prince of Orange as a Protestantism, Protestant institution, it holds the d ...

has a colored copy given to

by Katsuragawa Hoken (桂川甫賢). Volume 2 records the ' script, purportedly used during the

Age of the Gods In Shinto chronology, the is the period preceding the accession of Jimmu, the first Emperor of Japan. The kamiyo myths are chronicled in the "upper roll" (''Kamitsumaki'') of the ''Kojiki'' and in the first and second chapters of the ''Nihon Sh ...

. Volume 21 contains an entry for the

Sakurajima daikon The Sakurajima radish or Sakurajima daikon (, ''Sakurajima daikon'') is a special cultivar of the Japanese radish named for its original place of cultivation, the former island of Sakurajima in Japan's Kagoshima Prefecture. It is the largest radi ...

, but, for unclear reason, its appearance differs from that of the modern Sakurajima radish. Volume 21 also contains an entry for the Shinagawa turnip, an Edo-Tokyo vegetable, which contributed to the revival of the variety in Shinagawa in the 2000s.

Notes

References

* * Japanese encyclopedias {{Improve categories, date=January 2024