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Nihon Ōdai Ichiran (日本王代一覧,Nihon ōdai ichiran),The Table of the Rulers of Japan, is a 17th-century chronicle of the serial reigns of Japanese emperors with brief notes about some of the noteworthy events or other happenings.[1]
According to the 1871 edition of theAmerican Cyclopaedia, the 1834 French translation ofNihon Ōdai Ichiran was one of very few books about Japan available in theWestern world.[2]
The material selected for inclusion in the narrative reflects the perspective of its original Japanese author and hissamurai patron, thetairōSakai Tadakatsu, who wasdaimyō of theObama Domain ofWakasa Province. It was the first book of its type to be brought from Japan to Europe, and was translated into French as "Nipon o daï itsi ran".
Dutch Orientalist and scholarIsaac Titsingh brought the seven volumes ofNihon Ōdai Ichiran with him when he returned to Europe in 1797 after twenty years in the Far East. All these books were lost in the turmoil of theNapoleonic Wars, but Titsingh's French translation was posthumously published.
The manuscript languished after Titsingh's death in 1812; but the project was revived when theOriental Translation Fund of Great Britain and Ireland sponsored printing and publication in Paris with distribution to be handled from London. The Paris-based philologist and orientalistJulius Klaproth was engaged to shepherd the text into its final printed form in 1834, including aSupplément aux Annales desDaïri, which generally mirrors the pattern of Titsingh's initialAnnales des empereurs du Japon; and the reach of this additional material stretches thinly through the 18th century history of Japan.
This became the first Japanese-authored historical account of its sort to be published and circulated for scholarly study in the West. It is fitting that this rare book was selected as one of the first to be scanned and uploaded for online study as part of an ongoing international digitization project which has now been renamed theGoogle Books Library Project:
Work on this volume was substantially complete in 1783 when Titsingh sent a manuscript copy toKutsuki Masatsuna, daimyo of Tamba. Masatsuna's comments on this text were lost in a shipwreck as the edited manuscript was being forwarded from Japan to India in 1785 where Titsingh had become head of theDutch East Indies Company trade operations atHoogly inWest Bengal. The final version of Titsingh's dedication of the book to his friend Masatsuna was drafted in 1807, a little more than a quarter-century before the book was eventually published.[3]
The original multi-volume text was compiled in the early 1650s byHayashi Gahō. His father,Hayashi Razan, had developed a compelling, practical blending ofShinto andConfucian beliefs and practices. Razan's ideas lent themselves to a well-accepted program of samurai and bureaucrat educational, training and testing protocols. In 1607, Razan was accepted as a political advisor to the second shōgun,Tokugawa Hidetada. Sometime thereafter, he became the rector of Edo's Confucian Academy, theShōhei-kō. This institution stood at the apex of the country-wide educational and training system which was created and maintained by the Tokugawa shogunate.
In the elevated context his father engendered, Gahō himself was also accepted as a noteworthy scholar in that period. The Hayashi and the Shōheikō links to the work's circulation are part of the explanation for this work's 18th and 19th century popularity. Gahō was also the author of other works designed to help readers learn from Japan's history, including the 310 volumes ofThe Comprehensive History of Japan (本朝通鑑/ほんちょうつがん,Honchō-tsugan) which was published in 1670.
The narrative ofNihon 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.
InKeian 5, 5th month (1652),Nihon Ōdai Ichiran was first published inKyoto under the patronage of one of the three most powerful men in the Tokugawa bakufu, thetairō Sakai Tadakatsu.[4] In supporting this work, Sakai Todakatsu's motivations appear to spread across a range anticipated consequences; and it becomes likely that his several intentions in seeing that this specific work fell into the hands of an empathetic Western translator were similarly multi-faceted.[5]
Gahō's book was published in the mid-17th century and it was reissued in 1803, "perhaps because it was a necessary reference work for officials."[6] Contemporary readers must have found some degree of usefulness in this chronicle; and those who ensured that this particular manuscript made its way into the hands of Isaac Titsingh must have been persuaded that something of value could become accessible for readers in the West.
Post-Meiji scholars who have citedNihon Ōdai Ichiran as a useful source of information include, for example,Richard Ponsonby-Fane inKyoto: the Old Capital of Japan, 794-1869.[7] The American poetEzra Pound, writing to a contemporary Japanese poet in 1939, confirmed that his reference library included a copy ofNihon Ōdai Ichiran. At that time, Pound explained that "as far as [he had] time to read", the work seemed a "mere chronicle." However, modern literary critics have demonstrated by textual comparisons that Pound relied on Titsingh's French translation in crafting some sections of theCantos.[8]
Titsingh's translation was eventually published in Paris in 1834 under the titleAnnales des empereurs du Japon.[9] The 1834 printing incorporates a slim "supplement" with material which post-dates Titsingh's departure from Japan in 1784. This additional section of the book was not the product of translation, but must have been informed by oral accounts or correspondence with Japanese friends or European colleagues still in Japan.[6]
Titsingh worked on this translation for years before his death; and in those final years in Paris, he shared his progress with orientalistsJulius Klaproth andJean-Pierre Abel-Rémusat, who would edit his first published posthumous book:Mémoires et anecdotes sur la dynastie régnante des djogouns (Memoirs and anecdotes on the reigning dynasty of shōguns). Rémusat would later become the first professor of Chinese language at theCollège de France. Titsingh's correspondence withWilliam Marsden, aphilologist colleague in theRoyal Society in London, provides some insight into the translator's personal appreciation of the task at hand. In an 1809 letter, he explains:
Klaproth dedicated the book toGeorge Fitz-Clarence, theEarl of Munster, who was Vice President of theRoyal Asiatic Society and also a Vice Chairman and Treasurer of theOriental Translation Fund of Great Britain and Ireland.[11] The fund had sponsored Klaproth's work and was the principal underwriter of the publication costs
JapanologistJohn Whitney Hall, in his Harvard-Yenching monograph onTanuma Okitsugu assessed the utility of this translation and its context:
Isaac Titsingh himself considered theNihon odai ichiran fairly dry. He viewed the work of translation as "a most tedious task".[6]