was a Japanese Confucian. He learned Yangmingism from Nakae Tōju and served Ikeda Mitsumasa, the lord of Bizen Province. In his later years, he was imprisoned for writing Daigaku Wakumon, which contained criticism of Tokugawa shogunate politics.

Name 
His childhood name (yōmei) was  , his imina was . His common name (azana) was , and he was commonly known by the personal names (tsūshō) as  or . His most common courtesy name (gō) was . His surname "Kumazawa" (熊沢) was changed to that of "Shigeyama" (蕃山) in 1660 and the latter, read in Sino-Japanese as "Banzan", became his posthumous courtesy title, by which even now he is commonly known.

Yōmeigaku 
Yōmeigaku is the Japanese term for a school of Neo-Confucianism associated with its founder, the Chinese philosopher Wang Yangming, characterised by introspection and activism, and which exercised a profound influence on Japanese revisions of Confucian political and moral theory in Japan during the Edo period.

Life

Early life
He was born in Kyoto Inari (now Shimogyō-ku, Kyoto), the eldest son of six children. His father, a rōnin, was called  and his mother was called . At the age of eight, he was adopted by his maternal grandfather, , a samurai serving under Tokugawa Yorifusa, the daimyō of Mito, and took from him the surname of Kumazawa.

Leaving to study under Nakae Tōju
In 1634, through the introduction of , a fudai vassal of the Tokugawa, he went to serve as a page under  , the daimyo of the Okayama Domain in Bizen Province.  He left the Ikeda household for a time, returning to his grandfather's home in Kirihara, Ōmi Province (now Ōmihachiman).

Time in the Okayama Domain
In 1645, again with the recommendation of the Kyōgoku family, he went to work in the Okayama Domain. As Mitsumasa's thinking leaned towards Yōmeigaku, he made much use of Banzan, valuing him for having studied under Tōju. Banzan worked mainly in the Han school called , whose name means "Flowerfield Teaching Place".  This school opened in 1641, making it one of the first in Japan. In 1647 Banzan became an aide, with an  of 300 koku. In 1649 he went with Mitsumasa to Edo.

In 1650, he was promoted to be the head of a . In 1651, he drafted the regulations for a , literally "flower garden club", a place for the education of common people. This was the initial incarnation of the first school in Japan for educating commoners,  which opened in 1670, after Banzan had left the service of his domain. In 1654, when the Bizen plains were assailed by floods and large-scale famine, he put all his energies into assisting Mitsumasa with relief efforts. Together with , he worked as an aide to Mitsumasa, helping to establish the start of a domain government in Okayama Domain. He worked to produce fully developed strategies on agriculture, including ways of providing relief to small-scale farmers and land engineering projects to manage mountains and rivers. However, his daring reforms of domain government brought him into opposition with the traditionalist . In addition, while Banzan was a follower of Yōmeigaku, the official philosophy of the Edo shogunate was a different form of Neo-Confucianism, .  Banzan was criticised by figures such as  and .  In fact, Banzan was the first in a series of notable neo-Confucianists who would find themselves confronting the evolving critical powers of the Hayashi clan of scholars.

For this reason, Banzan was left with no choice but to leave the service of Okayama Castle and live in hiding in , Wake District (now Shigeyama, Bizen, Okayama). The name "Banzan" derives from the word "Shigeyama". The location where his home was is , Okayama-shi.

Time out of power and later life
Eventually, in 1657, unable to withstand the pressure from the shogunate and the domain leaders, he left Okayama Domain.

In 1658, he moved to Kyoto and opened a private juku (school). In 1660, at the request of , he travelled to Tateda, Oita, and gave directions on land management. In 1661, his fame grew, and he again came to be under the surveillance of the shogunate, and was eventually driven out of Kyoto by , aide to the head of the .

In 1667, he escaped to Yoshinoyama, Yamato Province (now Yoshino, Nara). He then moved to live in hiding in , Yamashiro Province (now Kizugawa, Kyoto). In 1669, on orders from the shogunate, he was put under the control of , the head of the , Harima Province. In 1683, as Nobuyuki was transferred to Kōriyama Province, he moved to , Yamato Province (now Yamatokōriyama, Nara). In 1683, he received the invitation of the  , but refused it. After serving the Okayama District, in his days outside public service, he often wrote, and criticised the policies of the shogunate, particularly ,  (the policy forbidding those outside the samurai class to arm themselves), and the hereditary system. He was also critical of the government of Okayama Domain.

Banzan's goal was to reform the Japanese government by advocating the adoption of a political system based on merit rather than heredity and the employment of political principles to reinforce the merit system.

In 1687, he was put under the control of , head of , , and heir to Matsudaira Nobuyuki, and ordered to remain inside  Koga Castle. In 1691 the rebellious Confucian became ill and died within Koga Castle at the age of 74.

After his death
Banzan's remains were buried by Tadayuki with much ceremony at , in , Koga, Ibaraki. The initial inscription on the tombstone was , using his posthumous name, but this was later changed to .

In the Bakumatsu period, Banzan's philosophy came back into the spotlight, greatly influencing the structure of government. It was favoured by, among others,  and , becoming a motivating force in the toppling of the shogunate government. Katsu Kaishū praised Banzan as "a hero in Confucian robes".

Outside the realm of politics, Banzan would in time become something of a cultural hero because, while attending to actions and words which demonstrated an enduring concern for commoners and the poor.  He was praised for resistance to the imposition of corrupt politics and bureaucratic burdens on ordinary people.

In 1910, the Meiji government honoured Banzan with the title of , in recognition of his contribution to the development of learning in the Edo period.

Writings

Lineage 

 —  —  — Banzan

 —  —   —   —  — Banzan

See also
 Kobe temple -- 
 List of Confucianists

References

 Collins, Randall. (1998). The Sociology of Philosophies: A Global Theory of Intellectual Change. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.   (cloth)  (paper)
 McMullen, James. (1999). Idealism, Protest and the Tale of Genji: The Confucianism of Kumazawa Banzan (1619-91). Oxford: Oxford University Press.  (cloth)
 Najita, Tetsuo. (1980). Japan: The Intellectual Foundations of Modern Japanese Politics. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.  
 Much of this article was translated from the equivalent article in the Japanese Wikipedia, as retrieved on November 25, 2006.

External links
 Samurai Archives
 East Asia Institute, University of Cambridge: Further reading/bibliography

Okayama Prefecture
Japanese Confucianists
17th-century Japanese philosophers
1619 births
1691 deaths
People from Kyoto
Japanese writers of the Edo period
Japanese scholars of Yangming
구마자와 반잔(, 겐나 5년(1619년) ~ 겐로쿠 4년 음력 8월 17일(1691년 9월 9일))은 에도 시대 초기의 양명학자 중 대표적인 인물이다. 휘는 시게쓰구(伯継). 그의 학문적 탐구와 정치적 실천에 의해 일본에서 양명학이 크게 확산되었다.

생애 
그는 23세에 나카에 도주의 문하에 들어가 수학하였으며, 도주 문하의 가장 뛰어난 제자로 인정받았다. 27세 이후에는 오카야마번주 이케다 미쓰마사(池田光政)의 두터운 신임을 받아 번정(蕃政)에 참여하였다. 그는 가난한 자를 구휼하고 음란한 사원을 폐지시켰으며, 사회 기강을 바로 잡는 등 정치적 업적도 쌓았다. 후에 그는 막부와 정치적 견해를 달리한 탓으로 미움을 사 관직에서 쫓겨났으며, 만년에는 궁벽한 지역에 연금되어 있다가 쓸쓸하게 세상을 떠났다.

사상

인간 존재의 긍정 
구마자와 반잔의 철학적 세계관은 도주의 주관적 관념론을 이어받아 ‘심(心)’과 ‘성(性)’을 ‘태허(太虛)’와 동등한 위치에 놓았으며, ‘마음’으로 만사만물을 포용하였다. 우주 자연의 생성과 그 존재적 근거를 ‘심’의 작용이라고 결론지은 반잔의 말은 도주의 ‘천지만물은 모두 내 명덕 가운데 있다’는 심본체론과 일맥상통한다. 그러나 엄밀히 따진다면 반잔의 심본체론에 대한 이론적 전개는 참신한 맛이 적을 뿐만 아니라, 이론 체계도 허술하여 왕수인이나 도주에 못 미친다. 그럼에도 반잔은 마음의 절대성과 인간이 선천적으로 지니고 있는 도덕적 사명 의식에 입각하여 인간 존재의 긍정적 의의와 그 가치를 부각시키고 있는데, 바로 이곳에서 반잔 철학의 참정신을 엿볼 수 있다.

이것은 천지의 마음이 인간만이 아름다운 도덕 성품과 우주 자연의 조화를 도울 수 있는 창의력을 갖추고 있으므로, 만물의 영장이 되고 천지의 주인이 된다는 말이다. 인간에 대한 반잔의 이와 같은 찬사는 인간의 아름다운 도덕적 본성과 인간만이 갖추고 있는 창조력에 대한 자신감, 그리고 인간으로서의 자부감이 넘쳐난 것이라 하겠다.

현실 개혁 사상 
도주의 철학이 현실의 고통과 번뇌에서 벗어나 인간 내면 세계의 평온을 추구하기 위한 하나의 방편으로 개인의 도덕적 수양을 중시한 것임에 반해, 반잔은 사회 현실과 민생에 관한 문제에 관심을 가지고 있다. 반잔은 불합리한 사회 현실과 정치적 제도를 개혁하자고 호소함으로써 일본 양명학을 실천 지향주의의 새로운 방향으로 전환시켰다. 그러므로 그의 학설은 사변적 논리에 대한 철학 이론의 정립보다는, 사회 현실 문제와 결부시켜 변화와 발전을 강조한 사상적 요소가 많이 담겨 있다. 이것은 그의 〈시처위론(時處位論)〉과 〈역간론(易簡論)〉에서 집중적으로 조명된다. 변화와 발전에 대해서도 왕수인 자신도 《전습록》에서 많이 다루었다. 왕수인은 양지의 가장 중요한 특징을 ‘변화(易)’라고 규정하였다. 그는 양자의 끊임없는 변화와 활동을 설명하였으며, 고정불변하는 법칙이나 진리에 얽매여 있는 종래의 사상과 관습을 극력 반대하였다. 물론 반잔이 말한 변화와 발전에 대한 견해는 양명이 말한 변화와 발전과는 거리가 있다. 다만 그가 변화와 발전이라는 양명학의 사상적 요소를 사회 현실에 대한 적극적인 개혁으로 수용했다는 것은, 일본 양명학 발전사에서 커다란 의의를 지니고 있다. 반잔은 사물의 가장 근본적인 본질은 변역(變易)에 있다고 생각하여, “사물이 지극한 데 이르러 반드시 다른 방향으로 되돌아가는 것은 사물의 이치이다”라고 말하였다. 이에 그는 일체의 사상과 이론 및 정책은 모두 시간(時)·장소(處)·상황(位)에 따라 변통돼야 한다고 보았으며, 각 나라들은 자국의 실제적 상황과 시대의 특징에 상응하는 정치를 해야 한다고 주장하였다. 즉 시간·장소·상황에 따라 백성들과 함께 하는 정치를 하는 것이 '성인이 행하는 근본 이치(聖人之大道)'이다.

이러한 사상적 견지에서 그는 정치적 개혁을 기대하고 일본의 풍토에 적합하지 않은 문물과 제도는 폐지시켜야 하며, 간소한 정치를 펴야 한다고 주장하였다. 그 요체는 번거롭고 형식에 얽매여 있는 예의범절과 제도를 폐지하고 소박하고 간단한 정치를 행해야 한다는 것이다. 그는 이에 대한 구체적인 방법으로 무사와 낭인들을 농촌에 이주시켜 정착시키자는 ‘무사 토착제도’를 제시하였다.

저서 
주요 저작으로 《집의화서(集義和書)》, 《집의외서(集義外書)》, 《대학소해(大學小解)》, 《효경소해(孝敬小解)》 등이 있는데 모두 《반잔전집(蕃山全集)》에 수록되어 있다.

같이 보기 

 다이산지

1619년 출생
1691년 사망
에도 시대의 유학자
일본의 양명학자
시즈타니 학교 사람
야마시로국 사람
오카야마현의 역사
고가시 (이바라키현)
고가시 (이바라키현)의 역사