林羅山と徳川幕府の思想的基盤

Hayashi Razan (林 羅山), also known as Hayashi Dōshun, was a Japanese historian, philosopher, political consultant, and writer, serving as a tutor and an advisor to the first four shōguns of the Tokugawa bakufu. He is also attributed with first listing the Three Views of Japan. Razan was the founder of the Hayashi clan of Confucian scholars. Razan was an influential scholar, teacher and administrator. Together with his sons and grandsons, he is credited with establishing the official neo Confucian doctrine of the Tokugawa shogunate. Razan's emphasis on the values inherent in a static conservative perspective provided the intellectual underpinnings for the Edo bakufu. Razan also reinterpreted Shinto, and thus created a foundation for the eventual development of Confucianised Shinto in the 20th century. The intellectual foundation of Razan's life's work was based on early studies with Fujiwara Seika (1561–1619), the first Japanese scholar who is known for a close study of Confucius and the Confucian commentators. This kuge noble had become a Buddhist priest; but Fujiwara's dissatisfaction with the philosophy and doctrines of Buddhism led him to a study of Confucianism. In due course, Fujiwara drew other similarly motivated scholars to join him in studies which were greatly influenced by the work of Chinese Neo Confucianist Zhu Xi, a philosopher of the Song Dynasty. Zhu Xi and Fujiwara emphasized the role of the individual as a functionary of a society which naturally settles into a certain hierarchical form. He separated people into four distinct classes: samurai (ruling class), farmers, artisans and merchants.

As a political theorist, Hayashi lived to witness his philosophical and pragmatic reasoning become a foundation for the dominant ideology of the bakufu. The political dominance of Hayashi's ideas lasted until the end of the 18th century. This evolution developed in part from Razan's equating samurai with the cultured governing class. Razan helped to legitimize the role of the militaristic bakufu at the beginning of its existence. His philosophy moreover encouraged the samurai class to cultivate themselves, a trend which became increasingly widespread over the course of his lifetime and after his death. Razan's aphorism encapsulates this view:
"No true learning without arms and no true arms without learning." Hayashi Razan and his family played a significant role is helping to crystallize the theoretical underpinnings of the Tokugawa regime. In January 1858, Hayashi Akira, the hereditary Daigaku no kami descendant of Hayashi Razan, headed the bakufu delegation that sought advice from the emperor in deciding how to deal with newly assertive foreign powers. This was the first time the Emperor's counsel was actively sought since the establishment of the Tokugawa shogunate. The most obvious consequence of this transitional overture was the increased numbers of messengers which were constantly streaming back and forth between Tokyo and Kyoto during the next decade. In the 19th century, this scholar bureaucrat found himself at a crucial nexus of managing political change, moving arguably "by the book" through uncharted waters with Razan's well settled theories as the only guide.

Razan's legacy has been memorialized and praised by some Japanese scholars for his relatively dispassionate attempt at understanding history for the time, leading some scholars to call him the "founder of modern historical research" in Japan. His work was influential on Arai Hakuseki, who is considered to have been even more dispassionate scholar.