was a Confucian

Confucianism

Confucianism is a Chinese ethical and philosophical system developed from the teachings of the Chinese philosopher Confucius . Confucianism originated as an "ethical-sociopolitical teaching" during the Spring and Autumn Period, but later developed metaphysical and cosmological elements in the Han...

 scholar and government official of the Ryūkyū Kingdom

Ryukyu Kingdom

The Ryūkyū Kingdom was an independent kingdom which ruled most of the Ryukyu Islands from the 15th century to the 19th century. The Kings of Ryūkyū unified Okinawa Island and extended the kingdom to the Amami Islands in modern-day Kagoshima Prefecture, and the Sakishima Islands near Taiwan...

. He has been described as being "in an unofficial sense... the 'minister of education'", and is particularly famous for his contributions to scholarship and education in Okinawa and Japan. Holding ueekata

Ueekata

' was the highest rank in the yukatchu aristocracy of Okinawa's Ryūkyū Kingdom though it was still below the aji nobility. Members of the , a very high-ranking governmental body, were chosen from among the ueekata....

rank in the Ryukyuan government, he served at times in his career as magistrate of both Nago and Kumemura

Kumemura

Kumemura , located on Okinawa, in the port city of Naha and near the royal capital of Shuri, was a community of scholars, bureaucrats, and diplomats, and a center of culture and learning during the time of the Ryūkyū Kingdom...

, and as a member of the Sanshikan

Sanshikan

The Sanshikan , or Council of Three, was a government body of the Ryūkyū Kingdom, which originally developed out of a council of regents.It emerged in 1556, when the young Shō Gen, who was mute, ascended to the throne of Ryūkyū...

, the elite council of three chief advisors to the king. He is sometimes known as the "Sage of Nago" (名護聖人).

It was standard at the time for members of Ryūkyū's aristocratic class to have two names

Okinawan family name

Okinawan names today have only two components, the family names first and the given names last. Okinawan family names represent the distinct historical and cultural background of the islands which now comprise Okinawa Prefecture in Japan...

. "Tei Junsoku" was his Chinese-style name, while , incorporating his domain and rank, was his Yamato or Japanese-style name.

Life and career

Tei Junsoku was born in Kumemura, the Okinawan center of classical Chinese learning, in 1663. He first journeyed to China in 1683 and stayed there for four years, studying the Confucian classics, among other subjects, just as many others raised and educated in the scholar-bureaucrat system in Kumemura did over the course of the kingdom's history. He would return to China several times during his career, serving as interpreter and in other roles as a member of official missions from the kingdom.

In 1714, he accompanied royal princes Yonagusuku and Kin in the , the seat of Japan's Tokugawa shogunate

Tokugawa shogunate

The Tokugawa shogunate, also known as the and the , was a feudal regime of Japan established by Tokugawa Ieyasu and ruled by the shoguns of the Tokugawa family. This period is known as the Edo period and gets its name from the capital city, Edo, which is now called Tokyo, after the name was...

. While there, he met with a number of the top Confucian scholars in Tokugawa Japan, including Arai Hakuseki

Arai Hakuseki

was a Confucianist, scholar-bureaucrat, academic, administrator, writer and politician in Japan during the middle of the Edo Period, who advised the Shogun Tokugawa Ienobu. His personal name was Kinmi or Kimiyoshi . Hakuseki was his pen name...

, chief advisor to the shogun, who is known to have had a particular interest in the exotic Ryūkyū Kingdom, Ogyū Sorai

Ogyu Sorai

, pen name Butsu Sorai, was a Japanese Confucian philosopher. He has been described as the most influential such scholar during the Tokugawa period. His primary area of study was in applying the teachings of Confucianism to government and social order...

, and Sōrai's student Dazai Shundai. As a result of this meeting, Hakuseki would go on to write a in 1719; Shundai would likewise include comments about the Ryūkyū Kingdom and its relationship to Satsuma han in his works.

As magistrate of Kumemura, Junsoku oversaw in 1718 the establishment of the Meirindō, a school for study of the Chinese classics, on the grounds of the village's Confucian temple

Shiseibyo

The ' is a Confucian temple in the Wakasa district of Naha, Okinawa. It served for centuries as a major center of Chinese learning for the Ryūkyū Kingdom, and contains within its precincts the Meirindō, first public school in Okinawa.-History:...

. The Meirindō quickly grew into the chief center for Chinese learning in the kingdom, and would later become the first public school in Okinawa prefecture

Okinawa Prefecture

is one of Japan's southern prefectures. It consists of hundreds of the Ryukyu Islands in a chain over long, which extends southwest from Kyūshū to Taiwan. Okinawa's capital, Naha, is located in the southern part of Okinawa Island...

. A stele dedicated to Junsoku stands in the rebuilt and relocated Confucian temple today.

Some time shortly thereafter, Junsoku presented to the shogun, Tokugawa Yoshimune

Tokugawa Yoshimune

was the eighth shogun of the Tokugawa shogunate of Japan, ruling from 1716 until his abdication in 1745. He was the son of Tokugawa Mitsusada, the grandson of Tokugawa Yorinobu, and the great-grandson of Tokugawa Ieyasu.-Lineage:...

, via Satsuma, a copy of , a volume of Confucian maxims he compiled himself. A version annotated by Ogyū Sōrai and translated from the Chinese by shogunal advisor Muro Kyūsō

Muro Kyūsō

or Muro Naokiyo , was a Neo-Confucian scholar and an official of the Tokugawa shogunate during the rule of Tokugawa Yoshimune. Muro was responsible for the reintroduction of orthodox neo-Confucianist thought into government and societal life, attempting to reverse the growth of unorthodox views...

 would be reproduced and distributed and used as an element of textbooks in terakoya

Terakoya

Terakoya were private educational institutions that taught writing and reading to the children of Japanese commoners during the Edo period.-History:...

(temple schools) and later in public schools in Japan into the early 20th century.