216 M. Shirai 



propagation of Christianity among the Japanese people. In 

 1569 the Shogun Oda Nohunaga held an interview with the 

 Jesuit priests of Portugal, and gave them permission to erect 

 a church in Kyoto and at the same time allowed them to establish a 

 botanic garden of medicinal plants five clio square in the Ibuki 

 mountain. For a while Christianity flourished in Japan. But as 

 Jusuit priests abused the religious power, the following Shoguns, 

 Hideyoshi and lyeyasu, determined to drive away the Jesuits from 

 Japan. 



Japan was shut up from all nations except China and Holland, 

 and as a consequence a pause in the introduction of western arts and 

 sciences obtained for a long time. At the time of the Korean expendi- 

 tion of Hideyoshi which was undertaken in 1592, Ukita Hideiye 

 brought back a great many Chinese and Korean books as booty. 

 Among which five volumes of the illustrations of the Shoho Kotei 

 KeisU Shurui Bikiu Honzo (|g J||^ ^ ^ ^ ^ H |i .ft :^ ^) compile I 

 in 1159 were found. The figures are generally very exact and faithfully 

 depicted, unlike those of later works and comparatively large. From 

 the preface of the work we know that, these figures are chiefly the 

 reproduction of former pents'ao, i.e., of the T'u king Penis' ao (lij,^;$l 

 ^) which was printed in 1061, and now not extant in China. The 

 book is not only in itself very important but also important in enabling 

 us to surmise or rather to restore the lost figures of the T'u king 

 Pents'ao. 



The Natural History Period. 



In 1601, peace was restored by Tokugawa lyeyasu after a battle 

 on Sekigahara (plain of Seki) and a new start in the progress of oriental 

 civilization was made. In 1607, Hayashi Doshun got a copy of the 

 Pents'ao Kaomnu from Nagasaki and presented it to the Shogun lyeyasu. 

 Doshun made a commentary on the preface of the same work and also 

 a translation of the Chinese names of materia medica mentioned in the 

 same work into Japanese in 1612, and this was printed in 1631. 



In 1637, a Japanese edition of the Pents'ao Kammu appeared, and 

 in 1652 a second edition with improved illustrations. In 1666, Naka- 

 mura Tekisai wrote a book entitled Kimmd zui in 21 volumes, and 

 illustrated all the visible objects, with Japanese and Chinese names 

 affixed, for the use of ignoi-ant boys to instruct them by intuition in 

 the names and Chinese ideographs denoting those objects. This book 

 was brought back by Kiimpfer and is often referred in his Amrenitates 



