Seika Fujiwara

A Confucian scholar from the Azuchi-Momoyama period. His name was Shuku and his pen name was Renpu. Born into a powerful family in Harima Province (Hyogo Prefecture), he lost his father in battle and became a monk at Shokoku-ji Temple in Kyoto, where he rose to the position of chief priest. Since the Muromachi period, Zen followers of the Rinzai school of Zen have studied Neo-Confucianism, and have come to believe that (1) Confucianism is a means to lead to Zen, (2) Confucianism is enveloped in Zen, and (3) Zen and Confucianism are one and the same, and that (4) Zen is a shortcut to the state of true Confucianism (the Doctrine of the Mean). Seika followed in the footsteps of Zen Confucianism and went to China to study Ming Neo-Confucianism, but was unsuccessful. Instead, he read the works of Lin Zhaoen (1517-1598), a practitioner of Yangmingism who combined Buddhism and the Elders, and came to understand the concept of "investigating the world and attaining knowledge" in the Great Learning as "putting aside material desires and realizing the highest good (the mind) and manifesting it in the outside world as bright virtue." He preached that moral order should be established in a world "free from rebellion and rebellion" through criminal governance, and gained the patronage of Akamatsu Hiromichi (1562-1600) as an ideologue of the Sengoku period daimyo. Upon Hiromichi's death, he returned to secular life, denouncing Buddhism as "annihilating benevolence and destroying righteousness," but when invited by Tokugawa Ieyasu, he recommended his disciple Hayashi Razan and retired to Rakuhoku. His learning was within the realm of Zen and Confucianism, and as Kang Kyōkō (1567-1618), a prisoner of war during the Keichō Invasion and a close friend of his, said, "He was a man of stubborn character, and would not be accepted in Wa." Seika is usually considered the founder of Tokugawa Neo-Confucianism, and had as his disciples Matsunaga Sekigo and Nawa Kassho, the first Neo-Confucian scholars of the Tokugawa period, but he also combined the teachings of Wang Yangming and Lu Xiangshan, and even when criticized by Razan, who was completely devoted to Neo-Confucianism, he countered by saying, "Look at the commonality (same principles and same mind) in the differences." Seika's writings include "Suntetsuroku" (1606) and "Daigakuyoraku" (1630), as well as "Wansheng Datokuroku" and "Wanshu." It is said that "Chiyomotogusa" was written by him, but this is not certain.

[Kazura Ishida July 19, 2016]

"Ishida Ichiro and Kanaya Osamu (eds.), Japanese Thought Series 28: Fujiwara Seika and Hayashi Razan (1975, Iwanami Shoten)"

Source: Shogakukan Encyclopedia Nipponica About Encyclopedia Nipponica Information | Legend

安土(あづち)桃山時代の儒学者。名は粛(しゅく)、字(あざな)は斂夫(れんぷ)。播磨(はりま)国（兵庫県）の豪族に生まれ、父を戦(いくさ)で失い、京都相国寺(しょうこくじ)の僧となって首座(しゅそ)に上った。室町時代以降臨済(りんざい)禅徒の間では朱子学が学ばれ、〔1〕儒は禅に導く手段、〔2〕儒は禅に蘊(つつま)れている、〔3〕禅と儒は体用不二であるという考えを経て、〔4〕禅は真儒の境地（中庸）に至る捷径(はやみち)と考えられるに至っていた。惺窩はこうした禅儒の流れを承(う)け、中国に渡って明(みん)の新儒教を学ぼうとしたが果たさず、陽明学流で仏老を折衷する林兆恩(りんちょうおん)（1517―1598）の書を読んで、『大学』にいう格物致知を「非心（物欲）を去って自証し得た至善（心）を外界に明徳として顕現する」ことと解し、刑政をもって「乱逆無紀」の世に道徳的秩序を建立すべしと説いて、戦国大名のイデオローグとして赤松広通(あかまつひろみち)（1562―1600）の庇護(ひご)を得た。広通の死と同時に彼は仏教は「仁種を絶ち義理を滅す」と難じて還俗(げんぞく)したが、徳川家康の招きには門人林羅山(はやしらざん)を推薦し、洛北(らくほく)に隠棲(いんせい)した。彼の学は禅儒の域を離れず、彼の親しく交わった慶長(けいちょう)の役の捕虜、朝鮮の朱子学者姜沆(きょうこう)（1567―1618）のいうように「性は剛峭(ごうしょう)で倭(わ)において容(い)れらるるなき」人物であった。惺窩は通常、徳川朱子学の祖とされ、幕初の朱子学者松永尺五(まつながせきご)、那波活所(なわかっしょ)らを門人にもつが、自身は王陽明(おうようめい)、陸象山(りくしょうざん)の学をも折衷し、朱子学一辺倒の羅山から批判されても「異中の同（同理・同心）を見よ」と反論した。惺窩の書には『寸鉄録』（1606）『大学要略』（1630）のほかに『文章達徳録』『文集』がある。『千代もと草(ぐさ)』は彼の作と伝えるがさだかでない。

［石田一良　2016年7月19日］

『石田一良・金谷治編『日本思想大系28　藤原惺窩・林羅山』（1975・岩波書店）』

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