Background
Scholar of Japanese classics. Born in Kozuke Province (Gumma Prefecture). Studied medicine in youth and later practiced medicine and operated as a money lender in Kawagoe (Saitama Prefecture). He became blind, went to Edo and studied Japanese and Chinese classics under Jutsusai Hayashi. Evolved a doctrine of harmony between Shintoism and Confucianism and opposed the anti-Confucian ideas of Mabuchi Kamo and Norinaga Moto-ori. He branded Kojiki, the oldest history of Japan, as a forgery and was tlespised by
Atsutane Hirata, Shintoist scholar, and his followers as a scholar in the pay of the Tokugawa Shogunate.
