Kada no Azumamaro

Kada no Azumamaro (荷田 春満, February 3, 1669 – August 8, 1736) was a poet and philologist of the early Edo period.

Azumamaro was born the second son of Hakura Nobuaki (1625-1696), father of a scholarly family that for generations had supplied Shinto priests to the Inari shrine in Fushimi.

After a short time, he returned to Edo for a year on a stipend, but then retired to pursue his work in his native Fushima, where he was frequently consulted by members of the Bakufu regarding antiquarian matters regarding ancient court ceremonies and customs.

[4] He developed an approach which drew a clear distinction between what was considered the native tradition of Japan from the prevalent socio-political orthodoxy of his day, Confucianism, but also sought to disentangle Japanese religion from the other major form of foreign thought, Buddhism.

[8] Kokugaku, together with the kogaku (古学: "Ancient Studies") school founded by Kamo no Mabuchi laid the foundations for both the renaissance of interest in Japanese classical poetry and culture, and for the nativist critique of Confucian ideology which was to prove of great ideological importance during and after the transformation of Tokugawa Japan into the modernizing nation of that country under Emperor Meiji .