Daigaku-no-kami

Daigaku-no kami (大学頭) was a Japanese Imperial court position and the title of the chief education expert in the rigid court hierarchy. The Imperial Daigaku-no kami predates the Heian period; and the court position continued up through the early Meiji period. The title and position were conferred in the name of the Emperor of Japan.

In the Edo period, the head of the educational and bureaucrat training system for the Tokugawa shogunate was also known by the honorific title Daigaku-no kami, which effectively translates as "Head of the State University." The title and position were conferred in the name of the shogun.

Imperial court hierarchy

The Imperial court position of Daigaku-no kami identified the chief education expert in the Imperial retinue. The Daigaku-no kami was head of the Imperial University, the Daigaku-ryō. The title arose during evolution of governmental reorganizations beginning in 701. These pre-Heian period innovations are collectively known as the ritsuryō-sei (律令制).

The position and the title ultimately came about under the direction of Prince Osakabe, Fujiwara no Fuhito and Awata no Mahito at the request of Emperor Mommu. Like many other developments at the time, the title was an adaptation derived from the governmental system of China's Tang Dynasty.

The somewhat inflexible hierarchical nature of the court requires that the function of the Daigaku-no kami be understood both in terms of specific functions and in terms of those ranking above and below in the Ministry of Civil Services.

In the Asuka period, the Nara period and the Heian period, the Imperial court hierarchy encompassed a Ministry of the Civil Services (式部省, Shikibu-shō); also known as the "Ministry of Legislative Direction and Public Instruction".[1] This ministry collected and maintained biographical archives of meritorious subjects.[2] Within this ministry structure, the highest-ranking official was the Chief administrator of the ministry of civil services (式部卿, Shikibu-kyō);[3] also known as Chief minister of public instruction.

This office was typically filled by a son or close relative of the emperor. For example, in 773 (Hōki 4), the daigaku-no-kami was Yamabe-shinnō,[4] who was named Crown Prince and heir of Emperor Kōnin.[5]

There were seven judges who directly assisted this minister.[6]

Ranking just below these judges were educational authorities:

Tokugawa bakufu hierarchy

In the Edo period, this title identifies the head of the chief educational institution of the Tokugawa state. It was conferred by the shogun in 1691 when the Neo-Confucian academy moved to land provided by the shogunate. In the years which followed, this academic title became hereditary for the ten descendants of Hayashi Hōkō who were sequential heads of the Yushima Seidō.[8] The 10 rectors of the institution who were each identified by the title daigaku-no-kami were:

The rector of the Yushima Seidō stood at the apex of the country-wide educational and training system which was created and maintained with the personal involvement of successive shoguns. The position as rector of the Yushima Seidō became hereditary in the Hayashi family.[14] The rectors' scholarly reputation was burnished by publication in 1657 of the 7 volumes of Survey of the Sovereigns of Japan (日本王代一覧 Nihon Ōdai Ichiran)[15] and by the publication in 1670 of the 310 volumes of The Comprehensive History of Japan (本朝通鑑 Honchō-tsugan).[16]

Meiji constitutional hierarchy

In the course of the Meiji restoration, this Imperial title was abolished; but its position within the ambit of a reorganized government structure would be developed further in the Meiji period Daijō-kan.

See also

Notes

  1. Ministry of Civil Administration, Sheffield.
  2. Ury, Marian. (1999). "Chinese Learning and Intellectual Life," The Cambridge history of Japan: Heian Japan, p. 361.
  3. Varley, H. Paul , ed. (1980). Jinnō Shōtōki, p. 272.
  4. Ponsonby-Fane, Richard. (1959). The Imperial Family, pp. 60-61.
  5. Titsingh, Isaac. (1834). Annales des empereurs du japon, pp. 82-83., p. 82, at Google Books; Ponsonby-Fane, p. 317.
  6. Titsingh, pp. 427-428.
  7. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Titsingh, p. 428.
  8. Kelly, Boyd. (1999). Encyclopedia of Historians and Historical Writing, Vol. 1, p. 522; De Bary, William et al. (2005). Sources of Japanese Tradition, Vol. 2, p. 69.
  9. De Bary, William et al. (2005). Sources of Japanese Tradition, Vol. 2. p. 443.
  10. 1 2 Nussbaum, Louis Frédéric. (2005). Japan Encyclopedia, p. 300.
  11. Cullen, Louis M. (2003). A History of Japan, 1582-1941: Internal and External Worlds, pp. 117, 163.
  12. Asiatic Society of Japan. (1908). Transactions of the Asiatic Society of Japan, v36:1(1908), p. 151.
  13. Cullen, p. 178 n11.
  14. Ponsonby-Fane, Richard. (1956). Kyoto: the Old Capital, 794-1869. p. 418.
  15. Brownlee, John S. (1999). Japanese Historians and the National Myths, 1600-1945: The Age of the Gods and Emperor Jinmu, p. 218 n14; N.b., Brownlee misidentifies Nihon Ōdai Ichiran publication date as 1663 rather than 1657.
  16. Brownlee, John S. (1991). Political Thought in Japanese Historical Writing: From Kojiki (712) to Tokushi Yoron (1712), p. 120.

References

External links

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