Hayashi Razan - Academician

Academician

Razan developed a practical blending of Shinto and Confucian beliefs and practices. This coherent construct of inter-related ideas lent themselves to a well-accepted program of samurai and bureaucrat educational, training and testing protocols. In 1607, Hayashi was accepted as a political adviser to the second shogun, Tokugawa Hidetada.

Razan became the rector of Edo’s Confucian Academy, the Shōhei-kō (afterwards known at the Yushima Seidō) which was built on land provided by the shogun. This institution stood at the apex of the country-wide educational and training system which was created and maintained by the Tokugawa shogunate. Razan had the honorific title Daigaku-no kami, which became hereditary in his family. It also happened that the position as head of the Seidō became hereditary in the Hayashi family. Daigaku-no-kami, in the context of the Tokugawa shogunate hierarchy, effectively translates as "Head of the State University.

In the elevated context his father engendered, Hayashi Gahō (formerly Harukatsu), worked on editing a chronicle of Japanese emperors compiled in conformance with his father's principles. Nihon Ōdai Ichiran grew into a seven-volume text which was completed in 1650. Gahō himself was accepted as a noteworthy scholar in that period; but the Hayashi and the Shōhei-kō links to the work’s circulation are part of the explanation for this work's 18th and 19th century popularity. Contemporary readers must have found some degree of usefulness in this summary drawn from historical records.

The narrative of Nihon Ōdai Ichiran stops around 1600, most likely in deference to the sensibilities of the Tokugawa regime. Gahō's text did not continue up through his present day; but rather, he terminated the chronicles just before the last pre-Tokugawa ruler. This book was published in the mid-17th century and it was reissued in 1803, "perhaps because it was a necessary reference work for officials."

Razan's successor as the Tokugawa's chief scholar was his third son, Gahō. After Razan's death, Gahō finished work his father had begun, including a number of other works designed to help readers learn from Japan's history. In 1670, the Hayashi family's scholarly reputation was burnished when Gahō published the 310 volumes of The Comprehensive History of Japan (本朝通鑑/ほんちょうつがん,Honchō-tsugan).

Razan's writings were compiled, edited and posthumously published by Hayashi Gahō and his younger brother, Hayashi Dokkōsai (formerly Morikatsu):

• Hayashi Razan bunshū (The Collected Works fo Hayashi Razan), reissued in 1918
• Razan sensei isshū (Master Razan's Poems), reissued in 1921

Razan's grandson, Hayashi Hōkō (formerly Nobuatsu) would head the Yushima Seidō and he would bear the inherited title Daigaku-no kami. Hōkō's progeny would continue the work begun in the 18th century by the scholarly Hayashi patriarch.