Background
Baigan Ishida was born in the province of Tamba north of the city of Kyoto on 12 October 1685.
Baigan Ishida was born in the province of Tamba north of the city of Kyoto on 12 October 1685.
In 1695 at the age of seventeen he became an apprentice in Kyoto, and, after returning once to his home, in 1707 went to Kyoto a second time and took service with a merchant family named Kuroyanagi. In his spare time he applied himself to scholarship, studying for a time under Oguri Rydun.
In 1729 opened a lecture hall in Kyoto in order to expound his own teachings.
All instruction was free of charge, and although at first attendance was poor, in time he began to draw increasingly large crowds until he was obliged to set up lecture halls in a number of places throughout the city.
His teaching, which combines elements drawn from Confucianism, Buddhism, Taoism, and Shinto, stresses the key role of shin or kokoro, the heart or mind, and hence is known as shingaku. Designed to improve the nature of society and emphasizing such virtues as harmony, frugality, patience, and honesty, his doctrines were expounded with such clarity and enthusiasm that they won many followers among the common people and came to be referred to as chonin-gaku, or the creed of the townsmen. At the same time he also defined the ideals appropriate to the warrior class as well and attracted a number of samurai and monks to his school.