Toyo Bunko People

Inoue Junnosuke was born in Otsuru Village in the Hita District of Oita Prefecture as the fifth son of Inoue Kiyoshi. In 1875 he was adopted by his uncle Inoue Kenichi and used the courtesy name of Seikei (清渓).

Following his graduation from Tokyo Imperial University in 1896, he entered the Bank of Japan. In 1913 he became the President of the Yokohama Specie Bank. In 1917 Inoue, together with Odagiri Masunosuke, the head of the Beijing branch of the Yokohama Specie Bank, strongly urged Iwasaki Hisaya to purchase the Morrison Library, thus playing a central role in the transfer of the Morrison Library to Japan. In 1919 he was appointed as the Governor of the Bank of Japan, and in 1923 became the Minister of Finance in the Yamamoto Cabinet. When Toyo Bunko was officially established in 1924, he was appointed as the first Chairman of the Board.

In 1927 he was again appointed as the Governor of the Bank of Japan, tasked with dealing with the financial crisis, and in 1929 he made the decision to lift the gold embargo. In 1932, following the dissolution of parliament by the Inukai Cabinet, he became involved in dealing with the election as a leading member of the Minsei Party. He was one of two cabinet members assassinated by the Ketsumeidan in the League of Blood Incident.

In 1936 Inoue’s widow Chiyoko and her heir Shiro donated 1,610 titles (4,862 volumes) of books related to economic history to the Toyo Bunko. Among the western books were journals related to finance and the business community. The Inoue family donated other books appropriate for a general audience to a library in his hometown.
Inoue’s family donated his library to Toyo Bunko in 1936, and his heirs made an additional donation of 21 titles in 2003 and of 28 titles in 2005.

Kirishima was born as the eldest son of a retainer in the Kōchi Domain. After beginning study in a local school, he went on to study Chinese classics at two schools in Kōchi, the Nan’yōsha and the Gakuyosha. In 1880, following the closing of the Kainan School, which was associated with the reform movement in Kōchi, Kirishima was selected by the family of the former daimyo, Marquis Yamauchi, to study in Tokyo. Kirishima entered the Sūhō Juku founded by the Iwasaki family, where he became a classmate of Iwasaki Hisaya. Following his graduation from Tokyo Imperial University in 1889 he joined the Mitsubishi Goshi Kaisha. Following a career in which he worked in the banking division and real estate division, he became a senior advisor to the company. Kirishima entered politics and in 1920 became Chairman of the Tokyo Municipal Council.
He was directly involved in the establishment of Toyo Bunko from the time of the purchase of the Morrison Collection, serving as head of the Iwasaki Family Office, managing general affairs, accounting and personnel. When the Morrison Library arrived from China, he played a central role in arranging for the repair of books that had suffered from water damage during the transit. He was a member of the Toyo Bunko Board, and following the sudden death of the first Chairman of the Board, Inoue Junnosuke, he briefly took on that position. Following the selection of Hayashi Gonsuke as the new Chairman of the Board, he continued to serve as a board member and auditor until his death in 1937.

Hayashi was a Japanese diplomat, who was born in Aizu and studied in the domain school, Nisshinkan. During the Boshin War, he was confined in the Aizu Castle. In 1872 he moved to Tokyo, where he was raised by Army Major Kodama Sanefumi. He entered the preparatory school for the Imperial University (later the First Higher School) and went on to graduate from the Law and Politics faculty of Tokyo Imperial University. Following graduation he entered the Foreign Ministry where he was assigned to work in the translation and trade negotiation sections. He then began a diplomatic career in which he served in the consular service in a number of overseas appointments. In 1896 he was secretary in the Japanese consulate in Great Britain. In late 1897 he was transferred as secretary to the Japanese embassy in Beijing, where he was acting Consul. In 1898, at the time of the Chinese 1898 reform movement, Hayashi supported the request of Liang Qichao, one of the leaders of the reform movement, for asylum in Japan. In 1898 he became the Consul in Korea. During the Russo-Japanese war he took a strong stance toward Russia, and he played an important role in the annexation of Korea. From 1906 he was the Japanese Consul in China. In 1907 he was granted the title of Baron, after that he was appointed as Ambassador and concurrently Consul in Italy. In 1916 when he was in Korea, he played a role in facilitating the purchase of the Morrison Library and preparing it for shipment to Japan, and we are told that he asked the Republican government to provide police to protect the route during its shipment. In 1931 he became the Chairman of the Toyo Bunko Board.

As a student in middle school in Chiba, Shiratori and one of his classmates, Kiuchi Jūshirō (who later married Iwasaki Hisaya’s sister Isoji and served as a member of the Toyo Bunko Board), began the study of Asian history, studying with Naka Michiyo, one of the pioneers of the study of Asian history in Japan. After completing the preparatory school for the Imperial University (ater the First Higher School) he entered the Faculty of Arts at Tokyo Imperial University where he specialized in western history. In 1890, upon graduation, he became a professor at Gakushuin and served as head of the history and geography department. He began to study Korean history, and moved on to the study of the Manchus, Mongols and the Turkish peoples of Central Asia, focusing on their histories and interactions. In 1910 he was appointed as a professor at Tokyo Imperial University, where he established the modern study of Asia and made contributions to the study of the various nomadic tribes and Central Asian history.

In 1922-23, during a study tour in Europe, he purchased several thousand volumes and sent them to the office dealing with the Morrison Library where Kirishima Shūichi was managing affairs. When Toyo Bunko was established in 1924, Shiratori was appointed as a member of the Board and took up the position as head of the research division. Under his leadership the research division published an English-language journal, organized research seminars, and planned research discussions, facilitating the sharing of academic knowlege and information. In 1939, following the death of Hayashi Gonsuke, Shiratori was appointed as the fourth Chairman of the Board,a position he held until his death in 1942. Among his works is a well-known volume on the History of Central Asia (西域史研究). 365 books on Asian history that were in his personal library were donated to the Narita Public Library.

Shimizu was the fifth Chairman of the Toyo Bunko Board. A native of Kanazawa in Ishikawa Prefecture, he was a scholar in constitutional law.

During his career Shimizu served as a professor at Gakushuin and later at Keio University before receiving an appointment as President of Administrative Court, Director of the Imperial Art Academy, President of the Privy Council, and member of the Japanese Academy. He was appointed as a member of the Board of Toyo Bunko in 1932, and became Chairman of the Board in 1939.

Shidehara was the sixth Chairman of the Toyo Bunko Board, who played a central role in the post-war revival of Toyo Bunko.

Shidehara was a diplomat and politician, born in Sakai Prefecture, contemporary Kadoma City in Osaka Prefecture. His older brother, Shidehara Taira, was the first president of Imperial Taihoku University (Taiwan).

Shidehara became the Deputy Foreign Minister in 1915, Foreign Minister in 1924, and in 1945 the 44th Prime Minister. In 1947 he became the Chairman of the Toyo Bunko Board. After the war Toyo Bunko lost its major source of support from the Iwasaki family as the Iwasaki house and Mitsubishi became a target of the American Occupation GHQ’s campaign to breakup the zaibatsu. At one point Toyo Bunko was in danger of being disbanded. At that point Shidehara negotiated with the National Diet Library and arranged for Toyo Bunko to become a branch of the Diet Library, opening a way for its continued existence.

Dedicated his efforts to the preservation of Cultural Heritage. Seventh Chairman of the Toyo Bunko Board; an official in the Imperial Household Ministry and politician.

Hosokawa was the 16th Head of the Hosokawa House that served as Daimyo of Higo Kumamoto Domain. He was born in Meijirodai, in Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo.
Hosokawa was very interested in the arts and was a well-known collector. He was one of the supporters involved in the creation of the literary magazine, Shirakaba(白樺). In 1948 he was the first president of the National Association to Preserve Japanese Swords. In 1950 he founded the Eisei Bunko (永青文庫) to preserve and display the books and art treasures held by the Hosokawa family. In 1951 he succeeded Shidehara as the seventh Chairman of the Toyo Bunko Board.

A leading scholar of ancient India, he served as the eighth Chairman of the Toyo Bunko Board. He was a Sanskrit Expert. He was born in Nihonbashi, Tokyo.

In 1942 he became a professor at Tokyo University, in 1950 Dean of the Faculty of Literature, and in 1960 Dean of the Faculty of Liberal Arts. Following his retirement from the University of Tokyo in 1960 he became a professor at the Keio University Institute of Cultural and Linguistic Studies. In 1961 he became the director of the UNESCO East-Asian Cultural Center, which had its offices within Toyo Bunko, and a member of the Japanese UNESCO Committee.In 1965 he became the Director of Toyo Bunko and in 1974 Chairman of the Board of Toyo Bunko. He made major contributions to the study of ancient India, including authoring books on studies of the Vedas, Sanskrit grammar and Sanskrit literature. In 1979 Toyo Bunko purchased his library of some 2000 volumes which are now known as the Sanskrit Collection.

Played a major role in expanding the Toyo Bunko collection and creating the base for the study of Asia. Served as the ninth Chairman of the Toyo Bunko Board. He was born in Kobe.

Enoki Kazuo was appointed as a professor at the University of Tokyo in 1955. He had studied with Shiratori Kurakichi, specializing in the history of Central Asia, and was the author of a number of volumes on relations with China and Japan. He served as a board member of Japan’s oldest historical association, The Historical Society of Japan, as well as a board member of Toyo Bunko. In 1974 he was appointed as the Director of Toyo Bunko. Enoki worked dilligently to expand the collections of Toyo Bunko, adding on books on Dun Huang, books in various middle Eastern languages, Jesuit related materials about East Asia held in the Ajuda Palace Library in Portugal, and copies of materials related to G. E. Morrison held in the Sydney Library, in Morrison’s hometown in Australia. He played a role in the acquisition of most of the collections added in the postwar period that are today seen as special characteristics of the Toyo Bunko holdings. Enoki was well-known as a student of languages, able to converse in many different languages. He was the author of Lectures on Dun Huang (敦煌講座), and other books.

Enoki Kazuo became the Chairman of the Toyo Bunko Board in 1985, and in 1990 donated his library of 30,000 volumes to Toyo Bunko.

Created the infrastructure for use of Tibetan language materials. Tenth Chairman of the Toyo Bunko Board. Specialist in Tibetan Studies.

Kitamura Hajime was the pioneer in post-war Tibetan studies in Japan. He was Director of the Research Institute for the Languages and Cultures of Asia and Africa at the Tokyo University of Foreign Studies, and a Professor Emeritus of that university. He was President of the Japanese Association for Tibetan Studies, and also had been a professor at Reitaku University. Kitamura played a central role in the acquisition of the Buddhist Tripitaka that had been collected by the Buddhist scholar and explorer Kawaguchi Eikai. Kitamura was the editor of a Tibetan-Japanese dictionary, and established the research group on Tibetan studies and the Tibetan Studies Committee within Toyo Bunko.

Makihara Ben, a prominent businessman, served as the 12th head of the Toyo Bunko Board. He was born in England to a family that came from Tokyo, graduated from Harvard University in 1954, and joined the Mitsubishi Corporation in 1956. Following a long career in the United States, he became the president of Mitsubishi Corporation America in 1987, and in 1992 was appointed as the President of the Mitsubishi Corporation. In 2005 his contributions were recognized when he received the Grand Cordon of the Rising Sun. In 2007 he became the Chairman of the Toyo Bunko Board. He played an important role in the Mitusbishi Group companies and was a leader of the Mitsubishi Group’s Friday Club, an organization of the presidents of the various Mitsubishi companies that managed the group’s committments to social projects, and he also played an important role in facilitating the business community’s activities in promoting Japanese-US relations. He was the leader in the rebuilding of the Toyo Bunko building in 2011 and the creation of the Toyo Bunko Museum.

Specialist in Asian history who devoted efforts to strengthening the Morrison collection of Toyo Bunko. He was a native of Chiba, and used the courtesy name Morison (杜村).

Ishida earned a doctorate in Literature, and was president of the Toho Gakkai (Institute of Eastern Culture). His research work covered a wide-range of subjects related to Asian history, but he is best known for his study of the cultural history of Tang China, with a particular stress on the history of East-West cultural exchange. From the arrival of the Morrison Library in Japan to 1934 he worked as administrator (主事) of the library. The Morrison Library was strongly focused on works on China, but thanks to Ishida’s efforts more books were added on Korea, Vietnam and other areas of Asia.
Among his works, perhaps best known are Spring in Changan (長安の春) and East Asian Cultural History Series (東亜文化史叢考). His own library of western-bound books were donated to the library of Gakushuin. Ishida was a close friend of the prominent writer Akutagawa Ryūnosuke.

He supported Toyo Bunko as it transsited in the postwar period as a branch of the National Diet Library. He was born in Shiba, Tokyo.

In 1924 he became an assistant administrator (副主事) at Toyo Bunko, and in 1945 became a professor in the Faculty of Arts at Komazawa University. In 1948 when Toyo Bunko was reorganized as a branch of the National Diet Library, Iwai personally requested that his affiliation be shifted to the National Diet Library and he assumed the position as head of the library (文庫長). When he retired in 1965 he donated 610 volumes from his personal library to Toyo Bunko. Other parts of his library, including 1,572 Japanese titles and 201 titles in western languages were donated to the library of Komazawa University.

A diplomat and banker, Odagiri Masunosuke was an important intermediary in the negotiations for the acquisition of the Morrison Library. He was born in Yokkaiichi, the son of a Confucian scholar who was a retainer of the Yonezawa Domain, Odagiri Morinori (?-1885).

In 1900 Odagiri as a young diplomat was working in Korea as an assistant to the Japanese Consul in Keijō (contemporary Seoul), Hayashi Gonsuke. Following an appointment to the Japanesse consulate in Hangzhou, he became the Consul General in Shanghai. In 1905 Odagiri became the Director of the Yokohama Species Bank, supervising the banks branches in China. In 1907, at the invitation of Hayashi Gonsuke who was the Japanese Consul dealing with the Qing government, he became the resident director of the Yokohama Species Bank in Beijing, responsible for supervising loans to China and playing a role in treaty negotiations. In 1917 he was one of the advisors, along with Inoue Junnosuke, in negotiating Iwasaki Hisaya’s purchase of the Morrison Collection. He was the first auditor for Toyo Bunko, continung that work until his death in 1934. He was himself also a collector of traditional Chinese books, and was skilled in writing poetry. Among his works are a volume on Korea, and a collection of poems written in Chinese Gindai Ikō (銀台遺稿).

Yamamoto Tatsurō made significant contributions to the strengthening the collection on Southeast Asia. A native of Tokyo, he specialized in Asian history.

Yamamoto Tatsurō was adopted as the heir of his maternal grandfather, the politician and Governor of the Bank of Japan, Yamamoto Tatsuo. He graduated from the department of Asian history at Tokyo Imperial University in 1933, and became a professor at Tokyo University in 1949. He was the founder of the Association for South Asian Studies (Nanpōshi Kenkyūkai), and also taught at International Christian University. In 1975 he became the Chair of the International Council for Philosophy and Human Sciences(国際哲学人文科学協議会). From 1953 he served as a Councilor and as a member of the Board of Toyo Bunko; during those years Toyo Bunko developed its research group on Modern China. While Yamamoto’s own book collection was destroyed in the bombing of Tokyo in 1945, in the post war period he continued to acquire books, bringing his collection to a total of 20,000 volumes. He also worked to catalogue the Velarde Bunko and the Morrison Junior Collections, and from 1989 was a main supporter of the project to acquire and organize Toyo Bunko’s collections on Southeast Asia.

Among his academic works is Research on Annam History (安南史研究). Following his wishes, his library was donated to Toyo Bunko, and in 2012 Toyo Bunko published a catalogue of the collection 山本達郎博士寄贈書目録.

He made vigorous efforts to preserve the research environment.

Wada, a native of Chigasaki in Kanagawa Prefecture, was a specialist in Asian history.

Wada was appointed as an Assistant Professor at Tokyo Imperial University in 1927 and was later promoted to Professor. His work focused on the history of the Manchus and the Mongols, and he devoted much effort to collecting Chinese local histories and geneologies. He authored a number of books including 内蒙古諸部落の起源 (Origins of several villages in Inner Mongolia and 東亜史研究 (Research in East Asian history). At Toyo Bunko he was at different times a researcher, a member of the Board, and the Research Director (研究部長). Wada devoted much energy to strengthening Toyo Bunko’s collections, and in the postwar period was a major force supporting the publication of the research journal Tōyō Gakuhō (東洋学報).

Kōno was a native of Hyogo Prefecture, and a linguist. He was an Emeritus Professor of Tokyo University of Education, and was designated as a Person of Cultural Merit (文化功労者). Kōno was an expert in Korean and Chinese languages, and was a leader in the development of the study of the Korean language in postwar Japan. As a student at Tokyo Imperial University, Kōno studied with the leading scholar in Korean linguistics, Ogura Shinpei. Following graduation he spent some time at Tokyo Imperial University as an Assistant Professor before moving to Keijō Imperial University (in Seoul). At the end of the war, he returned to Japan from Korea, and it is said that he was forced to leave most of his personal library in Korea.

After his return to Japan, he taught first as an Assistant Professor at Tokyo Bunrika University, and later at Tenri University and at the Tokyo University of Education. In addition to his work on Korean, he also researched and published work on literary theory, on dialects, and on phonology of Kanji.
As a member of the Toyo Bunko Board, Kōno devoted much effort to cataloguing the books donated by Enoki Kazuo.

Mori played a major role in developing academic exchange between Japan and Turkey

Mori was born in Nagahama, in Shiga Prefecture, and was a specialist in Asian History, with a focus on the history of the Turkish peoples and Inner Asian history. He was an Emeritus Professor at Tokyo University, and a Member of the Japanese Academy. He first taught at Hokkaido University, and moved to the University of Tokyo in 1968. He later taught at Nihon Univesity, and was Chairman of the Board of the Middle Eastern Cultural Center in Japan. Mori studied the history of Inner Asia, and in 1970 received the Japanese Academy Prize for his work 古代トルコ民族史研究 (Research on the history of Ancient Turkish People).

At Toyo Bunko Mori served at different times as the Director of General Affairs (総務部長), as Director of the Research Section, and as a Member of the Board. While he was studying in Turkey he acquired many books and materials, and made major contributions to academic exchange.

A native of Shinjuku Ward in Tokyo, and a leading social anthropolgist.

Nakane Chie was a specialist on India and Tibet, and is also well-known for her best-selling work on the organization of Japanese society. She was an Emerita Professor at the University of Tokyo, and a member of the Japanese Academy. She was named as an honorary member of the British Anthropology Association as well as of the International Union of Anthropological and Ethnological Sciences. Nakane Chie was the first woman to receive an imperial Order of Cultural Merit (文化勲章). At Toyo Bunko she actively promoted research on Tibetan society and served as a Member of the Board between 1992-2021, and as a member of the Oriental Studies Advisory Council from 2003-2021.

Ichiko Chūzō was a specialist in modern Chinese history. He was a Professor Emeritus at Ochanomizu Women’s University, where he taught for many years, and was awarded the Order of the Sacred Treasure, Second Class. From 1953 to 1995 he presided over the Committee on the Study of Modern China, which was established within Toyo Bunko. (That committee’s work has been continued by the Modern China Research Group). During the 1960s the Modern China Committee received financial support from the Asia Foundation to acquire and catalogue books and materials on modern China. That collection, like the Morrison Collection, is one of the major resources for the study of China.