Ashikagashi Yakata - Domain School

Ashikaga-Hankō / Ashikaga-Gakkō (Ashikaga, Tochigi) 　足利藩校足利学校　［栃木県足利市］　 The Ashikaga Gakkō (Ashikaga Academy) is a complex of Japan's oldest academic buildings. It was converted into a hankō (domain school) of Ashikaga Domain when hankō began to be established throughout Japan in the first half of

Ashikagashi Yakata - Domain School

足利学校

Ashikaga-Hankō / Ashikaga-Gakkō (Ashikaga, Tochigi) 　足利藩校足利学校　［栃木県足利市］　

The Ashikaga Gakkō (Ashikaga Academy) is a complex of Japan's oldest academic buildings. It was converted into a hankō (domain school) of Ashikaga Domain when hankō began to be established throughout Japan in the first half of the 19th century. Hankō were established by feudal lords to educate the samurai youth of their domains. There were many hankō throughout Japan by the Bakumatsu period and they contributed to the nation’s rapid modernisation.

The Ashikaga-hankō is special in that it has a much older history than other hankō, but its origins are a matter of debate. It was in place by at least the mid' 12th century when the neighbouring Ashikaga-yakata was constructed. Technically, as a hankō, it was administered from the later Ashikaga-jin'ya rather than the yakata, which by the Edo period had long since become Bannaji temple. The jin'ya was southwest of the temple and the hankō was southeast of it.

Ashikaga-gakkō was restored in 1990, but its history is very long, and there is also a Confucian temple on site which was built in 1668, during the time of the jin'ya / hankō. This is Japan’s oldest surviving Confucian temple. The gakkōmon (school gate) was also built in 1668. The characters emblazoned on it are kyūjitai (old form kanji). The hankō possesses 17,000 classical books, many of them centuries old, others from Korea and China, as far back as the Song Dynasty (960-1279). These books, including 77 national treasures and 98 national level important cultural assets, are kept in the nearby modern library built in 1915.

All of the thatched roof structures we see are restored. All ceramic tile roof structures are extant, except the gate to the Confucian temple which had to be rebuilt in 1900 after a fire. The reconstructed portion of the school is surrounded by a mizubori (water moat) and dorui (piled earth) defensive perimeter. These fortifications were built to supplement the adjacent defences around the yakata (and later jin'ya), the fortified manor of the feudal lord, but also in peace time served as a fire-prevention embankment to insulate the school and its precious treasures when fires broke out in the surrounding town. The moat around the hankō ends just a few meters away from the corner of the yakata’s moat.

History:

The academy as it appears today was founded in the mid-15th century by Uesugi Norizane, a government official of high rank. There was already some sort of scholastic community here before Uesugi’s patronage began but he revived it, donating books to the library and starting the system of school headmasters, whose oval graves remain on the site today. It is thought that Ashikaga-gakkō was originally the Shimotsuke-kokugaku. Kokugaku were provincial schools (similarly to how Kokubunji were provincial head temples) established by provincial governments for the tuition of the elites under the Ritsuryō system of the late Asuka and early Nara periods (between 700-794) whereby the Yamato polity was organised into provinces and districts and plots of land called Shōen, owned by autonomous barons.

Ashikaga is named for the clan Shōen of the Ashikaga. They established a governmental branch here in their ancestral homeland when they came to rule Japan during the Muromachi period. They likely maintained some sort of scholarly tradition here before the Uesugi took over. By the end of the 15th century Ashikaga was one of Japan’s greatest centres of learning with thousands of students enrolling from across the country. It even appears on early western maps of Japan from this time period.

Ashikaga-hankō ceased its function as a university in 1872 when the Meiji established the modern Japanese education system, which schools like Ashikaga-hankō had already laid the foundations for. Whilst the Confucian temple (1668) was maintained, many of the school structures were lost and a modern school was built in their place; this in turn was demolished in 1982 and the hankō was restored in 1990 following excavations.

Edo period hankō and Japan’s high literacy rate were major contributors to the nation’s rapid modernisation during the Meiji period. In addition to hankō, there were also privately funded schools which educated the children of wealthy merchants as well as samurai, and there were even schools funded by the daimyate for common people. Most commoners were educated as children at temple-schools called terakoya. Well-known hankō like the one in Ashikaga also attracted pupils from other domains, not just Ashikaga Domain.

Article / gallery by ART.