Yoshikawa Shinto

Shinto was founded by Yoshikawa Koretari, a Shintoist who served the shogunate in the early modern period. Koretari received the secret teachings of Yoshida Shinto in Kyoto, and took great pride in "transmitting Japanese Shinto to one person" (Shinjuku Densho-ki), adding his own Neo-Confucian ideals to it to form his own theory. Kami is an unpredictable divine principle from which all kinds of things arise, and the principle is that gods and humans are one, and that heaven and man are one. However, in reality, there is a clear difference between gods and humans, it is important that Japanese people are descendants of gods and have a reverent attitude toward gods and ancestors, and all laws in our country should be understood as Shinto. He emphasized the principle and called it "Shinto of reason" and distinguished it from the "Shinto of shrines (practices)" of public rituals and ceremonies. It can be said to be a typical example of Shinto-Confucian syncretism, but it was accepted without resistance and spread by intellectuals of the time, from the lord of the Aizu domain, Hoshina Masayuki, and others. The Yoshikawa family continued to serve as the shogunate's Shinto official until the end of the Edo period, but this Shinto theory remained in place for only Koretari's generation and saw no particular progress thereafter.

[Haruo Ogasawara]

"A Basic Study of Yoshikawa Shinto" by Hira Shigemichi (1966, Yoshikawa Kobunkan)

Source: Shogakukan Encyclopedia Nipponica About Encyclopedia Nipponica Information | Legend

近世初期幕府に仕えた神道家吉川惟足(これたり)の創唱した神道。惟足は京都の吉田神道の奥義を受け、「日本の神道を一人に相伝」（『神学伝承記』）と強い自負をもってこれに朱子学的理念を独自に加えて所説を形成した。神は不測の神理でこの一理から万種が生起する、神人一体、天人合一の理であるが、現実には神と人との差は厳然とある、日本人は神の子孫で敬神崇祖の念をもつことがだいじであり、わが国の法はみな神道と心得よなど、理を強調して自ら「理学の神道」と称し、世間の祭法行事の「社人（行法）の神道」と区別した。神儒習合神道の一典型といえるが、会津藩主保科正之(ほしなまさゆき)らをはじめ、当時の上下の知識層から抵抗なく受け入れられ普及した。吉川家は幕府神道方として幕末まで継承されたが、この神道説は惟足一代のまま、その後の進展はとくにみられなかった。

［小笠原春夫］

『平重道著『吉川神道の基礎的研究』（1966・吉川弘文館）』

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