was a Japanese '' kokugakusha'' and historian. His ''kokugaku'' pen name was .

Biography

Suzuki Shigetane was the fifth son of , the hereditary head of a small village in

Awaji Province was an old provinces of Japan, old province of Japan covering Awaji Island, between Honshū and Shikoku.Louis-Frédéric, Nussbaum, Louis-Frédéric. (2005). "''Awaji''" in . Today it is part of Hyōgo Prefecture. It is sometimes called . Awaj ...

. He studied kokugaku with his father from an early age, and continued his studies even after he moved to

Osaka is a Cities designated by government ordinance of Japan, designated city in the Kansai region of Honshu in Japan. It is the capital of and most populous city in Osaka Prefecture, and the List of cities in Japan, third-most populous city in J ...

and later

Kobe Kobe ( ; , ), officially , is the capital city of Hyōgo Prefecture, Japan. With a population of around 1.5 million, Kobe is Japan's List of Japanese cities by population, seventh-largest city and the third-largest port city after Port of Toky ...

to work as an apprentice. Suzuki began kokugaku studies under Hirata Atsutane in 1832, and was associated with the Hirata school for most of the remainder of his life. He later moved to

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 he built a house. Suzuki traveled deep into Ōu in order to promote kokugaku studies there. With the patronage of the family of

Dewa Province was a province of Japan comprising modern-day Yamagata Prefecture and Akita Prefecture, except for the city of Kazuno and the town of Kosaka. Dewa bordered on Mutsu and Echigō Provinces. Its abbreviated form name was . History Early per ...

, Suzuki began work on his , a commentary on the Nihon Shoki. Suzuki gradually came to disagree with the Hirata school, and by 1857 he was in conflict with Atsutane's successor Hirata Kanetane. In 1858, Kanetane excommunicated Suzuki from the school for

heresy Heresy is any belief or theory that is strongly at variance with established beliefs or customs, particularly the accepted beliefs or religious law of a religious organization. A heretic is a proponent of heresy. Heresy in Heresy in Christian ...

. This came about after Suzuki had investigated mechanisms and precedents for removing unworthy

Emperor The word ''emperor'' (from , via ) can mean the male ruler of an empire. ''Empress'', the female equivalent, may indicate an emperor's wife (empress consort), mother/grandmother (empress dowager/grand empress dowager), or a woman who rules ...

s from the throne (廃帝), with special concern for the possibility that a future Emperor might

convert to Christianity Conversion to Christianity is the religious conversion of a previously non-Christian person that brings about changes in what sociologists refer to as the convert's "root reality" including their social behaviors, thinking and ethics. The sociol ...

or otherwise come to doubt the legendary origin of the

Imperial line The Imperial Line () was a flight route of the Italian national airline Ala Littoria between 1935 and 1941 during the Fascist era. It was the longest route in the Italian colonial empire in Africa and "the jewel in Ala Littoria's crown".Capro ...

. In 1863, several years later, Suzuki was murdered at his home in Edo. The assassin was alleged to have been either

Aoyama Kagemichi was a Japanese samurai, student of Hirata kokugaku, and low-ranking retainer of the Naegi Domain. He also used the name . His eldest and third sons were and Aoyama Tanemichi respectively. Biography In 1852, Aoyama enrolled in the Ibukino ...

, , or . At the time he was murdered, Suzuki had not finished the ''Nihonshoki-den'' and had only reached as far as the 15th volume, . Suzuki's

draft Draft, the draft, or draught may refer to: Watercraft dimensions * Draft (hull), the distance from waterline to keel of a vessel * Draft (sail), degree of curvature in a sail * Air draft, distance from waterline to the highest point on a v ...

of the manuscript was completed with remarkable speed and contains almost no errors or omissions. comments that if Suzuki had not been killed, his completed work would likely have compared favorably even with

Motoori Norinaga was a Japanese people, Japanese scholar of active during the Edo period. He is conventionally ranked as one of the Four Great Men of Kokugaku (nativist) studies. Life Norinaga was born in what is now Matsusaka, Mie, Matsusaka in Ise Province ...

's great

Kojiki-den The (古事記伝) is a 44-volume commentary on the written by the ''kokugaku'' scholar Motoori Norinaga. Overview The is a commentary on the , an eighth-century work of Shinto historiography and mythology, by the Edo period ''kokugaku'' sch ...

. The 15 completed volumes of the ''Nihonshoki-den'' show Suzuki's simple and straightforward interpretation of the text.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Suzuki, Shigetane 1812 births 1863 deaths Kokugaku scholars Japanese Shintoists Japanese nationalists Japanese palaeographers Japanese historians Japanese murder victims