To find the Japanese heart, scholars first had to purge a millennium of Chinese influence

Ideas & Philosophy · Published 18 October 2026 Swipe more like this →

In short: During the Edo period, a radical intellectual movement sought to strip away 1,000 years of foreign philosophy to uncover a 'pure' national essence. They believed that by excavating ancient poetry and Shinto roots, they could reveal a hidden cultural splendor buried beneath layers of Confucian and Buddhist learning.

Kokugaku, or 'National Learning,' emerged in the 17th and 18th centuries as a reactionary movement against the dominance of Chinese, Confucian, and Buddhist texts. While the Neo-Confucianists emphasized Chinese classical literature, Kokugaku scholars sought a return to 'antiquity studies' (inishie manabi). They championed a 'golden age' of Japanese culture that predated the feudal orders of the mid-twelfth century, focusing on early Japanese poetry and the emotional concept of 'mono no aware' to define the national spirit. The movement was driven by the belief that the Japanese national character was naturally pure, but had been obscured by 'Chinese heart.' Scholars like Motoori Norinaga and Hirata Atsutane aimed to reveal the 'true heart' (magokoro) by philologically identifying indigenous meanings in ancient texts.

This intellectual project was not merely academic; it was a cultural purge. It sought to remove the 'repressive moralizing' of Confucianism and the 'superstitions' of Buddhism and folk religions, synthesizing these views with early Shinto and astronomy. By 1868, the sonnō jōi movement, driven by Kokugaku ideology, helped topple the Tokugawa shogunate and initiate the Meiji Restoration. By the late 19th century, these ideas helped consolidate State Shinto, creating a unified, politically powerful vision of Japanese identity. This transition from a philological study of old poems to a state-sponsored cult demonstrates how the pursuit of 'national essence' can transform from a scholarly niche into a powerful tool for state-building.

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