Deciphering the Hashihara Castle Town Map

Summary

MOTOORI Norinaga was an Edo-period intellectual giant known for his meticulous study of the classics. The Hashihara Castle Town Map (Hashiharashi Joka Ezu) is a map of a fictitious ideal town that he drew along with the Genealogical Table of the HASHIHARA Family (Hashiharashi Keizu) at the age of nineteen. The map depicts the entirety of a castle town surrounded by natural terrain, and it contains the names of people in the genealogical table. The map also shows many shrines and temples in the surrounding mountains, with rivers and bridges having names derived from the classics, suggesting a culturally vibrant town. What was the significance of this map for Norinaga? This project closely examines the Hashihara Castle Town Map and visualizes the process of deciphering the map. Its goal is to create a three-dimensional reconstruction of the town envisioned by the young Norinaga and give physical form to his ideas. Prologue: Discovery of the mysterious map and genealogical table Born in 1730 in Matsusaka, Ise Province, MOTOORI Norinaga later became one of Japan's leading Kokugaku scholars. The main subject of this project is an old map he drew at the age of nineteen, when he was still going by the name OZU Yoshisada. The Hashihara Castle Town Map (Hashiharashi Joka Ezu) 517×720mm Museum of Motoori Norinaga collection This map known as the Hashihara Castle Town Map has long been part of the collection at the Museum of Motoori Norinaga in Matsusaka City, but its origins are shrouded in mystery. While some people had pointed out its resemblance to the townscape of Kyoto, the town on the map is inconsistent with any known town or city, and no one had been able to find a definite answer to the question of what Norinaga intended to draw. However, the key to solving this mystery emerged in an unexpected way. In 1978, an ancient document was discovered during a survey of the museum's collection by the Agency for Cultural Affairs. It was the Genealogical Table of the HASHIHARA ...