23 Facts About Motoori Norinaga

Motoori Norinaga was a Japanese scholar of active during the Edo period.

Motoori Norinaga is conventionally ranked as one of the Four Great Men of Kokugaku studies.

Motoori Norinaga's ancestors were vassals of the Kitabatake clan in Ise Province for many generations.

In 1763, Motoori Norinaga met Mabuchi in person when the latter visited Matsusaka, a meeting that has come down in history as 'the night in Matsusaka'.

Motoori Norinaga took the occasion to ask Mabuchi to supervise his annotations of the.

Motoori Norinaga used the supposed antiquity of the to develop an idea of indigenous Japanese religion and laws which were later used in the development of an idea of State Shinto.

Motoori Norinaga took the view that the heritage of ancient Japan was one of natural spontaneity in feelings and spirit, and that imported Confucianism ran counter to such natural feelings.

Motoori Norinaga criticized Ogyu Sorai for his over-valuing of Chinese civilization and thought, although it has been pointed out that his philological methodology was heavily influenced by Sorai's.

Motoori Norinaga's ideas were influenced by the Chinese intellectual Wang Yangming, who had argued for innate knowing, that mankind had a naturally intuitive ability to distinguish good and evil.

Motoori Norinaga resurrected the position of the Tale of Genji, which he regarded as an expression of the uniquely Japanese mono no aware, a particular Japanese sensibility of "sorrow at evanescence" that Motoori Norinaga claimed forms the essence of Japanese literature.

Each man, according to Motoori Norinaga, has at his birth a "true heart" a "magokoro" whose ancient Japanese literature is the most faithful expression.

In undertaking his textual analysis of ancient Japanese, Motoori Norinaga made vital contributions to establishing a native Japanese grammatical tradition, in particular the analysis of clitics, particles and auxiliary verbs.

The former residence of Motoori Norinaga Motoori Norinaga kyu-taku was constructed in 1691 as a retirement retreat by his grandfather, Ozu Sanshiemon Sadaharu.

Motoori Norinaga lived from age 12 to his death at age 72.

When Motoori Norinaga was 11 years old, his father, Ozu Sadatoshi Sanshiemon, died.

Motoori Norinaga then lived in this house until his death at the age of 72, except for seven years when he studied medicine in Kyoto when he was young.

Motoori Norinaga worked as a town doctor using this house as a clinic, while he worked on the study of Japanese classical literature, and wrote the "Kojikiden," and other works.

When Motoori Norinaga was 53 years old, he remodeled the storeroom on the second floor to create a new study.

Motoori Norinaga hung a bell on a pillar between the floors of his study and named this study "Suzunoya".

Motoori Norinaga's descendants continued to live in this house until the Meiji period; however, as the new Meiji government gave increasing prominence to his works as the basis of State Shinto and studies, a movement arose to preserve the structure.

Motoori Norinaga's writing studio on the second floor contains some examples of original manuscripts.

The site was designated per detailed instructions left in his will, and Motoori Norinaga had visited the site before his death to plant flowering mountain sakura trees and to design the layout of his tomb; however, the scenery around it has been drastically altered since that time with the construction of the Yamamuroyama Jinja Shinto shrine in 1875.

Motoori Norinaga has a second tomb at the Motoori clan cemetery in the temple of Jukyo-ji in downtown Matsusaka.