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Books in the service of politics: Tokugawa Ieyasu as custodian of the books of Japan

2007; Cambridge University Press; Volume: 18; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1017/s135618630700778x

2051-2066

Peter Kornicki,

Religion and Society Interactions

Since the founder of the Tokugawa shogunate underwent a form of apotheosis after his death, it is not surprising that a hagiographic tradition was quick to establish itself. This tradition attributed superhuman qualities to Tokugawa Ieyasu (1543–1616), and its lingering influence is still to be seen. His admirers paid particular attention to his supposed bookishness, the object being to demonstrate that his sinological learning rendered him fit to rule according to the Chinese construction of the desired attributes of a ruler. For those who came later, this bookishness served in retrospect to mark him out from his successors, but for his contemporaries it detached questions of legitimacy and fitness to rule from his recent successes on the battlefield and it defined fitness to rule in accordance with the sinological leanings of the new samurai élite.