DEGUCHI (OR WATARAI), NOBUYOSHI

(1615-1690)

   A hereditary priest, lecturer and writer of the Geku shrine of the Ise Jingu and the most important spokesman of the revived Watarai Shinto of the Tokugawa period. At the age of six he was assistant to the gon-negi. He is referred to also as Watarai, Nobuyoshi since he was originally from the Watarai family. His works include the yofukki (Return to yang) which reorganised Ise or Watarai shinto along the lines of shushi Confucianism, the Daijingu shinto wakumon (questions on the Shinto of the great shrine of Ise) of 1666 by which he sought to rescue Ise or Watarai Shinto from its current obscurity within the geku priesthood, and various commentaries on the Shinto gobusho. Unusually for Shinto theorists he developed an idea of salvation—that on death a good man would go to sit between Amaterasu and Ame-no-minaka-nushi. He became the Watarai Shinto tutor of Yamazaki Ansai. Deguchi's lectures and writings moved Ise Shinto away from Buddhism towards popular Confucian morality linked to religious observances. His concept of 'natural' Shinto may have influenced Motoori, Norinaga's early thinking.