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'Kokugaku' (: 國學/: 国学; lit. National study or Japanology) was an ethnocentric school of Japanese philology and philosophy originating during the Tokugawa period. Kokugaku scholars tended to reject the study of Chinese and Buddhist texts and favoured philological research into the early Japanese classics.
The word 'Kokugaku', coined to distinguish this school from kangaku (Chinese studies), was popularized by Hirata Atsutane who preferred it to earlier terms like kogaku, wagaku and ''inishie manabi'' favoured by Motoori Norinaga and his school. It has been translated as 'Native Studies' and was a response to Sinocentric Neo-Confucian theories. Kokugaku scholars rebelled against the repressive moralizing of Confucian thinkers, and evoked as an alternative model what they took to be the pristine values of Japanese culture before the influx of foreign modes of thought and behaviour, especially those identified with Chinese influence.
Drawing heavily from Shinto and Japan's ancient literature, the kokugaku advocates sought a return to a perceived golden age of Japanese culture and society. They drew upon ancient Japanese poetry, predating the rise of the feudal orders (in the mid 12th century) and other cultural achievements to show the 'emotion' of Japan. One famous 'emotion' appealed to by the ''kokugakusha'' is 'mono no aware'.
These philosophers were mostly anti-Sinocentric and many saw Japan as a divine nation superior to other nations. Many referred to Japan as Chūgoku, or the Middle Country - the traditional name given to China. Interestingly, the anti-Sinocentric kokugaku theory itself, however, is implicitly based upon logics of the Sinocentric one: Neo-Confucianism.
Eventually kokugaku thinkers succeeded in gaining power and influence in terms of the Sonnō jōi philosophy and movement. It was this philosophy, amongst other things that led to the eventual collapse of the Tokugawa in 1868 and the subsequent Meiji Restoration. In addition state Shinto and state socialism (which contrary to its name was actually much more akin to fascism than Marxism) developed from Mitogaku thought and thus indirectly led to Japan's imperialist expansion throughout the late nineteenth and early to mid twentieth centuries.

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See also

See also

★ Japanese nationalism

★ Keichū

★ Kada no Azumamaro

★ Kamo no Mabuchi

★ Motoori Norinaga

★ Hirata Atsutane

★ Ueda Akinari