Six Courses in Morals

• Compiled: 1652
• Chinese/Japanese: 六諭衍義 (luyu yanyi / rikuyu engi)

The Six Courses in Morals is a Chinese collection of six tracts on moral instruction, compiled in 1652 at the orders of the Shunzhi Emperor.

It was brought back to Ryûkyû by Tei Junsoku in 1707, who provided his own private funds to have it republished; members of the 1714 Ryukyuan mission to Edo then presented copies of the text to Shogun Tokugawa Yoshimune as a formal gift. The Shogun then commissioned Ogyû Sorai to write a new preface, and Muro Kyûsô to rewrite the text into a form that would be easier for Japanese readers to understand. This rewritten version, entitled Rikuyu engi taii (六諭衍義大意), was then published in 1722 and distributed to a number of domains, where it was reprinted yet again and circulated even more widely. The text continued to be circulated and read throughout the archipelago until the Meiji period.

References

• Minoji wo aruku Ryûkyû shisetsu 美濃路をゆく琉球使節, Bisai Museum of History and Folklore 尾西市歴史民俗資料館, Bisai, Aichi (2004), 8.