colloquial dialect. They consist of lectures taken down by his students just as they were delivered. Two little works on Buddhism, named Godōben and Shutsujō Shōgo, belong to this class. In them Hirata has undertaken the easy task of ridiculing popular Buddhism in Japan. They are racy and entertaining diatribes, but, it must be added, are disgraced by scurrilous abuse quite unworthy of the would-be founder of a new form of religion.
Kangakusha
There is not much to be said of the Kangakusha who wrote in the Japanese language during the nineteenth century. Among them, Ōhashi Junzō (1816–1862) has left a certain reputation as one of the most determined opponents of the policy which led to the opening of Japan to foreign trade in 1859. His chief work, the Heki-ja-shō-ron, which is a violent and ignorant attack upon the moral and philosophical ideas of Europe, was written to promote this object. It was published in 1857. The character of its contents may be gathered from the headings, "Europe knows not philosophy," "Europe knows not heaven," "Europe knows not benevolence and righteousness," "Europe knows not versatile talent." He also wrote a history of the Tartar invasion of Japan, entitled Genkō Kiriaku (1853).
Junzō did not confine himself to attacking European learning in his writings. He took part in the anti-foreign agitation which culminated in the murder of Andō Tsushima no Kami in February 1862. He was arrested, thrown into prison, and examined under torture, but succeeded in satisfying his judges that he was not directly implicated in this crime. Exhausted by his sufferings, he died five days after his release from prison.
