was a well-known resident of Osaka who was both a scholar and a merchant. He was the able head clerk of the money exchange merchant Masuya. He studied Confucianism from

Nakai Chikuzan was a leading academic in the Kaitokudō academy tradition of scholarship. He was the first son of Nakai Shuan (d. 1758), one of the Kaitokudō's two founders, and was influenced by his teacher and mentor Goi Ranju (五井蘭洲:1697-1762). He bec ...

and his brother Nakai Riken, and astronomy from

Asada Goryu was a Japanese physician and astronomer who helped integrate western and Japanese astronomy in the Edo period. He introduced several western astronomical instruments and methods into Japan and independently confirmed Kepler's third law. Asada w ...

at the

Kaitokudō The Kaitokudō (Japanese:懐徳堂) was a merchant academy located in Osaka, Japan, during the Tokugawa period. Although it opened its doors in 1724, it was founded officially in 1726 by Nakai Shūan. It remained a public institution until 1868, a ...

School during its golden age. Despite his poor eyesight, he devoted 18 years to writing the book titled "Yumenoshiro" or "Instead of Dreams" which had as many as 12 volumes. In this book he supported the heliocentric theory, criticized the age of gods and advocated

atheism Atheism, in the broadest sense, is an absence of belief in the existence of deities. Less broadly, atheism is a rejection of the belief that any deities exist. In an even narrower sense, atheism is specifically the position that there no d ...

. He played a pioneering role of bringing about modern thought in Japan and helped move it forward from its age old feudal system.

Osaka Prefecture is a Prefectures of Japan, prefecture of Japan located in the Kansai region of Honshu. Osaka Prefecture has a population of 8,778,035 () and has a geographic area of . Osaka Prefecture borders Hyōgo Prefecture to the northwest, Kyoto Prefecture ...

recently established a prize of international culture named the Yamagata Banto Prize.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Yamagata, Banto 1748 births 1821 deaths Japanese writers Japanese atheists 18th-century Japanese astronomers People from Takasago, Hyōgo 18th-century Japanese philosophers 19th-century Japanese philosophers