Fujiwara no Yorinaga, an aristocrat in the late Heian period of Japan, was a keen student of learning, and is known to have placed particular emphasis on Confucian studies, even in an age when literature was heavily emphasized, and to have studied Confucian texts as a practical science. So far, research on Yorinaga's scholarship has focused on his study history of the Chinese classics he actually read and on the Chinese classics cited in his diary. In addition to this, a clue to Yorinaga's scholarly interests can be found in his Wanted Book List, an order list of Chinese books that he requested Chinese traders to import.
This list lists 130 Chinese books, but what kind of books they are has not been fully clarified until now.
Traditionally, it has been vaguely assumed that most of them are Confucian commentaries on Confucian studies of Han,Wei ,Six Dynasties, Sui , and Tang Dynasty. However, several Song dynasty Chinese books are included among them. This paper clarifies what kind of Chinese books the Wanted Book List contains. It will then confirm the position of the 10 Song dynasty Chinese books identified in the process in the development of Neo-Confucianism in the Song dynasty. By doing so, we will reveal some of the ways in which Fujiwara no Yorinaga and his surrounding reading group were interested in Song dynasty scholarship.
The Song dynasty Chinese classics on the Wanted Book List reflect the academic situation of Chinese society at the time. We also find the interest of Fujiwara no Yorinaga, who dreamed of restorative political reforms based on Confucian studies. However, this interest was unique in the
aristocratic society of the time, and was limited to Fujiwara no Yorinaga and a few aristocratic officials around him, who were burning for political reform, and was not succeeded by the rest of the aristocracy.
From the Wanted Book List, we can learn about the unique interest in Chinese studies of the people around Yorinaga.