Background
Koretari Yoshikawa was born in 1616 in Edo; he went by the literary names Sozan Inshi and Shigodo. His father, a samurai, died when Koretari was very young; the boy was adopted by a merchant family of the Nihonbashi section of Edo.
Koretari Yoshikawa was born in 1616 in Edo; he went by the literary names Sozan Inshi and Shigodo. His father, a samurai, died when Koretari was very young; the boy was adopted by a merchant family of the Nihonbashi section of Edo.
He showed no interest in business activities, however, and in 1651 moved to Kamakura, where he lived in retirement and devoted himself to reading and composing Japanese poetry. In 1653 he went to Kyoto and became a disciple of Hagiwara Kaneyori, an exponent of the branch of Shinto known as Yoshida Shinto. In 1656 he received the so- called Himorogi iwasaka no den from Hagiwara Kaneyori, thus being initiated into the inner secrets of the doctrine, and was recognized as the successor to the line of Yoshida Shinto. He later returned to Edo, where he set about working to rescue Shinto from the state of decline into which it had fallen.
In 1682 he was appointed Shintokata, or official Shinto representative in the shogunate, a post that passed down to his descendants in succeeding generations.
In matters of doctrine he follow'ed the traditional principles of Yoshida Shinto as laid down by Yoshida Kanetomo, which emphasized the primacy of Shinto over other teachings, and sought to systematize the traditions it handed down in secret. Though his intention was to reject the teachings of Buddhism and Confucianism, it is clear that he was strongly influenced by the latter, and his doctrines are noteworthy for the way in which they accord with the thinking of the feudal society of the time. Thus, while emphasizing the importance of the primal deity Kunitokotachi-no-mikoto, Koretari explains the creation of the world in terms of the Chinese theories of the yin and yang and the five elements and stresses the unity of gods and human beings. He also dwells upon the ethical relations of daily life, in particular the importance of the relationship between ruler and subject.