A Study and Translation of Nihon No Katekizumo (A Catechism for Japan, c.1581)
- Format:
- Dissertation
- Year:
- 2008
- University:
- The Ohio State University
- Thesis type:
- Master's Thesis
- Place published:
- Columbus, OH
- Language:
- Abstract:
This thesis investigates the first serious intellectual encounter and interaction between Christian missionaries and the Japanese people in early modern Japan. It does this by translating portions of the earliest (c. 1581) surviving presentation of Christian teachings written in Japanese, Nihon no Katekizumo ("A Catechism for Japan"). The catechism and encounter are analyzed using Michel Foucault's concept of "episteme." The introduction of Christianity into Japan, beginning in 1549, was a profound experience for both the Japanese people and the western missionaries. The Jesuit mission represented not only the first significant encounter with "the West" for the Japanese people and the first encounter with "Japan" for the missionaries, but it was the first significant encounter between a Christian episteme and a Japanese episteme. Nihon no Katekizumo is thought to be the oldest existing explanation of Christian doctrine in Japanese. It includes an informed critique of Japanese Buddhism and appears to have been composed by Jesuit missionaries for training Japanese students to be priests and missionaries in Japan. Analysis of the form and content of Nihon no Katekizumo suggests that the text was intended to persuade Japanese novices of not only the truth of Christian teachings, but also their superiority to Buddhist teachings. It provides criticism of Japanese religious teachings and an explanation of Christian doctrine. The use of many classical Chinese characters and technical Buddhist terms clearly suggests that Nihon no Katekizumo was prepared with an elite, Buddhist audience in mind. By translating and examining extant sections of Nihon no Katekizumo (the preface and the first chapter), this thesis discusses the episteme held by the Jesuit missionaries and how it functioned in their Japanese mission. Further, this thesis investigates how the Jesuits' use of the Japanese language to argue and assert their own episteme necessarily resulted in an encounter with another, Japanese Buddhist episteme, a kind of interaction that Foucault himself did not discuss in his writings.
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