Following the circulation of books, cultural and academic communications started to grow and prosper among East Asian countries around the 13th century. From the medieval period, Japanese scholars inherited the knowledge and understanding of Chinese culture from the Heian period, and further acquired new academic accomplishments from China during Song, Yuan, Ming, and Qing, and from the Korean Peninsula during the same age. On the other hand, they were actively promoting localization of academic knowledge through reinterpretation, creation, and improvement in multiple areas including linguistics, literature, and even medical documentation, showing new characters in the new age.

The panel consists of five studies about the adoption and localization of Chinese culture by Japanese scholars. The articles will discuss the appearance and development of Chinese scholarships in medieval and early modern Japanese documents based on Wakan kensaku-shu, Wakan roei-shu commentary, Gozan Bungaku, Yuhap, and philological studies on medical texts, to reveal the special roles of Chinese culture in Japanese scholarships from the medieval period.

Collections of Japanese and Chinese Poems in the Kamakura Period - The Structure of Wakan kensaku-shu (和漢兼作集)

Yiding Huang (Kyoto University)

Wakan kensaku-shu is an anthology of Japanese waka and Chinese poetry compiled during the Kamakura Period. There are several examples of mixed Japanese and Chinese poetry collections that predate the Wakan kensaku-shu. These include Sugawa no Michizane’s Shinsen manyo-shu, Oe no Chisato’s Oe no chisato-shu, and the most famous example of the genre: the Wakan roei-shu by Fujiwara no Kinto.

The structure of Wakan roei-shu has been proved to be a mixture of Chokusen waka-shu, (imperially-commissioned Japanese anthologies of waka), and Chinese Leishu, a genre of reference books historically compiled in East Asia. The Waka poems in Chokusen waka-shu are arranged in a seasonal order, while Leishu is composed of a catalog of various themes. Therefore, the structural feature of Wakan roei-shu contains both features.

As an anthology of both Waka and Chinese poems, Wakan kensaku-shu was supposed to have similar structural features with Wakan roei-shu. However, in this presentation, new evidence will be shown that the structure of Wakan kensaku-shu is more relative to Shoku kokinwaka-shu, the 11th Chokusen waka-shu edited in the Kamakura period, than Wakan roei-shu or any other anthologies. This fact can not only be considered to be an unprecedented structural pattern in the history of anthology of Japanese waka and Chinese poetry, but also point to the potential identity of the compiler of Wakan kensaku-shuni.

A Study of the Influence of the Four Beauties of Ancient China on Medieval Japanese Literature: Focusing on Wakan roei-shu (和漢朗詠集) Commentary

Yu Huang (National Institute of Japanese Literature)

According to legend, Xi Shi, Wang Zhaojun, Diao Chan and Yang Guifei are known as the Four Beauties, the most beautiful women of ancient China. Needless to say, they have left lots of legends and inspired many great Chinese classical works, such as Bai Juyi’s famous poems Changhenge. These Chinese classical works were transmitted to Japan and have influenced Japanese classical literatures in many ways.

This study will focus on the legends of the Four Beauties in Wakan roei-shu commentary, a group of works established from the late Heian Dynasty to the Edo period, which are important materials of the commentary literature in medieval Japan, and compare the discourse of the original texts of the Chinese classical works and the citations in the Japanese classical works to explore the differences and the cultural backgrounds. For example, there is a story in Kenbunkei Wakan roei-shu commentary that Xi Shi had an adulterous affair with Pan Yue, which is impossible because they lived in different times. The background of this story is the influence of the images of Xi Shi and Pan Yue which have been developed in the medieval narrative and annotation.

Description of Fragrance in Medieval Japan’s Chinese Poems–Taking the Acceptance of Huang Tingjian(黃庭堅) by Japanese Zen Monk Ban-risyuku(萬里集九) as an Example

Huayu Li (University of Tokyo)

Since the introduction of a wide variety of fragrance from South China to Japan along with the Buddhism in the 6th century, incense has become a major presence on Japanese culture. During the Muromachi period, as the input of incense increased, the incense was gradually used not only by the aristocracy, but also by the civilian.

In the late Muromachi period , the number of poems in Gozan literature (五山文学) increased, and there were many poems use incense as title, such as the return of the soul incense(返魂香). The performance of the poems is also becoming more and more abundant, which draws a lot of words from Zen and Song poetry. Huang Tingjian’s Zen in fragrance consciousness has had an important influence on the performance of the fragrance in Gozan literature, and the expression paradigm of learning Zen through smelling the scent has gradually developed. This study sorts out the performance of fragrance in Gozan literature, focuses on the content and expressions of the poems, and discusses the influence of the poems in Gozan literature by Huang Tingjian of Song Dynasty. And further explore the influence of the spirit of poetry of fragrance on the formation of the Japanese fragrant culture (香道).

The Evolution of Native Reading of Chinese Characters as Observed through Early Korean Books in Japan: Centering on Yuhap (類合)

Huijing Yang (Kyoto University)

Chinese writing was probably known in Korea and Japan before Han times. Nowadays, The Korean modern writing system does not use Chinese characters, while on the contrary in Japanese, there is a tendency to increase the number of regularly-used Chinese characters. Given their long experience with Chinese writing, it is not surprising that the Koreans and Japanese have added specifically native readings and meaning to certain genuinely Chinese characters.

Bearing that in mind, this paper deciphers and explicates Wakun and Saegim through an old book Yuhap, which was found in Library of Graduate School of Letters, Kyoto University. As a result of large quantities of old Korean books have been preserved in Japan, there are various editions of Yuhap that still exist today.

Yuhap is known as a beginner-oriented textbook of Chinese characters in Korean from the 16th century onward. It contains 1512 characters, each used only once. The entries give both Sino-Korean borrowings and native Korean readings for Chinese characters. In this edition, both Sino-Japanese borrowing and native Japanese readings for Chinese characters are also noted. Thus, The Yuhap (Kyoto Univ. edition) remains a standard Korean and Japanese source of information regarding 16th centuries native readings.

This research surveys the evolution of native readings of Chinese characters - focusing on the development of writing systems that use borrowed Chinese characters, the adoption and adaptation of character shapes and handwriting styles in Korean and Japanese.

The Emergence of School of Evidential Studies of Medicine in 18th and 19th Century Japan: With Special Reference to Qing’s Evidential Scholarship

Gaoya Cheng (Kyoto University)

Evidential scholarship, or Kaojuxue, a philological study of classic references via evidential analysis and critique, which culminated in China during mid-Qing period, was imported to Japan via books. During late Edo period when its methods were commonly used by Japanese Confucianists, evidential scholarship emerged in the field of medicine, marked by the School of Evidential Studies of Medicine, or Kōshō igaku-ha. Those scholars applied methods from Qing’s evidential scholarship to the study of medical classics, making accomplishments which were later brought back to China and received high valuations. Such unique phenomenon made their works noticed and applied. Although researchers have realized the influence of Kaojuxue on the School, there has rarely been thorough study on such relation.

To reveal the connection, one would first focus on the Taki family whose members were considered as the representatives of the School. Consisting of leading figures of Kampo (traditional Chinese medicine), the Taki family had been managing the Igakukan – Bakufu’s official medical school, considered as the center of development of the evidential scholarship of medicine and the School – for generations. Meanwhile, the Taki family had close ties with Confucianists, hence was considered as a crossing point of evidential scholarship in Japan.

In this article, we will discuss the writings, book collections, and scholarly communication of the Taki family, from the perspectives of its reading, commenting, and utilizing of Qing’s evidential studies, to reveal the historical influence of Qing’s evidential studies on the School of Evidential Studies of Medicine and their connections.