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all virtues. No one who discharges his duty to them will ever be disrespectful to the gods, or to his living parents. Such a man will also be faithful to his prince, loyal to his friends, and kind and gentle with his wife and children. For the essence of this devotion is in truth filial piety. These truths are confirmed also by the books of the Chinese, who say that “the loyal subject issues from the gate of the pious son, and again, filial piety is the basis of all actions.”
Hirata began to attract the notice of influential personages in 1822, when he was requested by the Abbot of Uyeno, who was a Prince of the Blood, to present him with copies of his chief works on Shintô. In the following year he quitted the service of the daimiô Itakura, and made a journey to Kiôto, where he obtained introductions to nobles of the Court, who brought his writings to the notice of the retired mikado Kôkaku. On returning to Yedo he devoted himself again to his studies, and during the next fifteen years produced a considerable number of works on Shintô and various other subjects. In 1836 he printed a book called the Dai-Fusô-koku kô, which drew forth warm praises from the mikado and the Kuambaku[1], and gave great offence to the Shôgun’s government, who ordered it to be suppressed on the ground, it is said, that it contained detailed information about Japan, and might perhaps get into the hands of foreigners. In 1838 he entered the service of the daimiô of Akita. From the time when he quitted the Itakura family in 1823 he had received many favours from the princes of Mito, Tayasu and Owari, the latter of whom granted him an allowance of rice.
In 1840 he had a dispute with the government almanac makers about one of his works named Tenchô-mukiu Reki upon the native chronology, and his opponents had sufficient influence to get him banished to Akita, with an order to publish nothing more. He left Yedo ten days after the issue of the decree, and died at Kubota in 1843, being over sixty-seven years of age.
- ↑ The Mikado’s prince minister, then merely a nominal office.
