Hayashi Nobuatsu

• Born: 1644
• Died: 1732
• Other Names: Hôkô, Daigaku-no-kami
• Japanese: 林信篤 (Hayashi Nobuatsu)

Hayashi Nobuatsu was a Confucian scholar and advisor to five shoguns, from Tokugawa Ietsuna to Tokugawa Yoshimune.

Also known as Hayashi Hôkô, Nobuatsu was the second son of Hayashi Shunsai (aka Gahô). He became head of the Hayashi clan in 1680, and was named head in 1690 of the Shoheizaka gakumonjo, the Confucian school established by his grandfather Hayashi Razan; the school was moved in that same year onto the site of the Yushima Seidô and was renamed Shôhei-kô ("School of Prosperous Peace"). Shogun Tokugawa Tsunayoshi also formally granted Hôkô a hereditary stipend of 150 hyô in 1691, and the title of Hayashi Daigaku-no-kami, which he would pass on to his successors.

His writings include Ka-i hentai, on which he collaborated with his father; among its arguments, the Ka-i hentai describes Qing Dynasty China as having fallen to barbarian rulers, and advocates that the Tokugawa shogunate should take some kind of action to free China from their control.

Nobuatsu's sons included his successor Hayashi Nobumitsu, and another son Hayashi Nobunori.

References

• Arai Hakuseki, Joyce Ackroyd (trans.), Told Round a Brushwood Fire, University of Tokyo Press (1979), 310n21.
• Wm. Theodore de Bary, Carol Gluck, and Arthur Tiedemann (eds.), Sources of Japanese Tradition, Second Edition, vol. 2, Columbia University Press (2005), 68.