Born in Horikawa, Kyoto, the eldest son of a timber merchant's family. They were townspeople through and through, and his family hoped he would take over the business or become a doctor to support the household.
Around this time, it is said, he was deeply moved by reading the Confucian classic the Great Learning and resolved to devote himself to study. His family and relatives objected that scholarship would not put food on the table, but Jinsai kept studying Confucianism, largely on his own.
In his youth he threw himself into Neo-Confucianism, the leading school of the day, reading the works of the Song scholars again and again. But brooding too hard broke his health in mind and body, and around this time he withdrew to live quietly at home for a long while.
He opened a school in his home at Horikawa, Kyoto. Later known as the Kogidō, it drew many people regardless of rank, and his pupils are said to have numbered 3,000. Jinsai spent his whole life as a townsman scholar.
Around this time he came to doubt Zhu Xi's readings and called for Kogigaku, the study of the original meaning, reading the Analects and the Mencius directly to grasp what Confucius and Mencius first taught. He put humaneness, the care between people, above all and valued morality in everyday life.
His eldest son Tōgai was born. Tōgai would later inherit his father's learning, keep the Kogidō going and edit and publish the many writings his father left.
Around this time he kept revising, over decades, works such as Rongo Kogi, Mōshi Kogi and Gomō Jigi. Jinsai is known for praising the Analects as the greatest book in the world.
He kept lecturing in his later years and, it is said, never entered service even when daimyō invited him. Nobles, samurai and merchants alike came to hear him, and he was revered as Kyoto's leading scholar.
A letter seeking instruction arrived from a young Edo scholar, Ogyū Sorai. Often ill, Jinsai died the next year without answering, and Sorai is said to have later turned to criticizing Jinsai's ideas.
He died in Kyoto. Most of his works were published after his death by his son Tōgai and others. The Kogidō was carried on by the Itō family for generations, and its site still survives as a historic site in Horikawa, Kyoto.
Ogyū SoraiŌishi Kuranosuke (Yoshio)
Amakusa ShirōMitsui TakatoshiYamaga SokoSakai TadakiyoTokugawa MitsukuniKaibara EkikenShibukawa HarumiKeichū
People of the Edo period ・ People by period
Based on facts found in textbooks and biographies. Uncertain points are marked as such.