Keichu

• Born: 1640
• Died: 1701

Keichû was a Shingon Buddhist priest who is often regarded as one of the early pioneers of the kokugaku ("National Learning" or Nativism) movement in Edo period Japan.

Commissioned by Tokugawa Mitsukuni to write a commentary on the Man'yôshû, Keichû built upon the work of Shimokôbe Chôryû, and wrote on Japan as the "Land of the Gods," and on the great harmony that reigned when Japan followed the "way of the kami" (i.e. Shinto), prior to the introduction of Confucianism and Buddhism.

References

• William Theodore de Bary, Carol Gluck, and Arthur Tiedemann (eds.), Sources of Japanese Tradition, Second Edition, vol 2, Columbia University Press (2005), 482.