K. Buhrman
Culture in Traditional Japan (1978, reprinted 1989). Although it is more focused on the early
modern period, the volume remains a useful and (owing to the dearth of other works in English)
authoritative overview of the history of Japanese science before 1600, even as its descriptions of
social and political developments have gone out of date. The book’s main argument is that the
history of science (and by implication, technology) in Japan followed upon the history of Japan’s
engagement with the world. To this end, the authors divide Japanese history into five periods
representing “waves of cultural influx”: a Chinese cultural wave from 600 to 894, a “semi-
seclusion era” from 894 to 1401, and second Chinese cultural wave from 1401 to 1639, a period
of national isolation peaking of the second Chinese wave from 1639 to 1720, and a “challenge to
isolation” and “shift from traditional to modern science” from 1720 onward.^23
The authors trace periods of contact and resulting developments in Japanese practice for the
fields of astronomy, mathematics, and medicine as representative for the history of Japanese
science, in order to present a story of how engagement with the world drove Japanese progress
and innovation, even in the premodern era. A closer look at Sugimoto and Swain’s periodization,
however, shows the ways in which their explanatory model determines the periods; rather the
appearance of texts or techniques.
First, consider the end date for “Chinese Wave I: ca. 600–894.” The end date for this epoch
represents the year in which official missions to China were formally abandoned, but material in
Sugimoto and Swain’s own discussion undermines this periodization. The major developments
of this era were the establishment of official organs of learning and practice within the court for
all three fields by the ritsuryō legal and administrative codes. Nevertheless, with the exception of
some post- 894 developments to be discussed shortly, the last developments the authors discuss
for medicine and mathematics date to 808, and for astronomy in 862.^24 Both dates fall within the
period covered by the Six National Histories (Rikkokushi), and in fact the material cited by the
authors for all three fields comes from these sources—as does most of the information for this
early period of Chinese influence. In other words, the apparent end of a period of interest and
activity in Chinese fields of study may be as much an artifact of the historical record as a reflection
of actual changes in intellectual engagement.^25
Their explanatory model, emphasizing engagement with the continent, also means that
Sugimoto and Swain attribute later developments as “aftereffects” of the “Chinese Wave I.” A
case in point is the Ishinpō medical text, composed in the late tenth century, but shoehorned into
this earlier period of influence in Sugimoto’s and Swain’s treatment.^26 Horoscope astrology
(sukuyōdō) also gets incorporated into this earlier period, attributed to the transmission of Buddhist
texts from China by Kūkai (774–835) and Ennin (794–864). Scholarship subsequent to Sugimoto
and Swain has, however, emphasized that interest in astrology in Japan, and the techniques that
made it a feasible method of mathematical astronomical calculation were only implemented after
some of the relevant texts were re- imported in the tenth century.^27 The technological impetus
for the development of horoscope astrology, therefore, was not so much the texts first imported
in the ninth century, but instead the expertise transmitted by Buddhist monks who had traveled
to China in the tenth—within the period when Japan was, according to Sugimoto and Swain,
largely cut off from foreign contact. Although the emphasis on Japanese science and technology
as part of a Chinese tradition is largely correct, the periodization of Japanese science found in this
work needs revision.
Sugimoto and Swain’s focus on textually based elite investigations of nature and mathematics
also needs to be reevaluated, in light of more recent studies suggesting that technological
developments may have had a greater effect on more individuals in Japanese history.^28
Archeological discoveries continue, and techniques for analyzing material culture (such as the
alloys in swords, for example) in less destructive ways increase our knowledge of premodern