Noël Péri (22 August 1865 - 25 June 1922) was a French Catholic priest. A missionary and author, he was responsible for translating the

Gospels Gospel originally meant the Christian message (" the gospel"), but in the second century AD the term (, from which the English word originated as a calque) came to be used also for the books in which the message was reported. In this sen ...

into Japanese and published the first research journal devoted to Japanese topics. He read and wrote broadly about Japanese culture, including studies of Buddhist history and

mythology Myth is a genre of folklore consisting primarily of narratives that play a fundamental role in a society. For scholars, this is very different from the vernacular usage of the term "myth" that refers to a belief that is not true. Instead, the ...

, and as a result came into conflict with some members of the Catholic missionary community. A trained musician, he also taught Western music in Japan and wrote early Western works on Japanese opera and music theory, and Noh drama.

Biography

Noël Péri was born on 22 August 1865 in Cruzy-le-Châtel.H. Cordier. “Noël Peri.” T'oung Pao, vol. 21, no. 4, 1922, pp. 366–366. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/4526664. He was ordained a priest in 1888 after being educated by the

Jesuits The Society of Jesus (; abbreviation: S.J. or SJ), also known as the Jesuit Order or the Jesuits ( ; ), is a religious order (Catholic), religious order of clerics regular of pontifical right for men in the Catholic Church headquartered in Rom ...

. He spent four years serving in the

Paris Foreign Missions Society The Society of Foreign Missions of Paris (, , MEP) is a Catholic Missionary order, missionary organization. It is not a religious institute, but an organization of secular clergy, secular priests and Laity, lay persons dedicated to missionary wo ...

, resigning from the Mission in 1902 but continuing to regularly return to Japan until shortly before his death in 1922. Péri spent most of his first six years in Japan in

Matsumoto, Nagano is a Cities of Japan, city located in Nagano Prefecture, Japan. Matsumoto is designated as a Core cities of Japan, core city since 1 April 2021. , the city had a population of 239,466 in 105,207 households and a population density of 240 perso ...

. During this period he translated two of the four

into Japanese, and was briefly recalled to Tokyo to manage an orphanage. Around 1894 he relocated to

Tokyo Tokyo, officially the Tokyo Metropolis, is the capital of Japan, capital and List of cities in Japan, most populous city in Japan. With a population of over 14 million in the city proper in 2023, it is List of largest cities, one of the most ...

, where he ran a French bookstore and founded a Japanese-language magazine called ''Tenchijin'' ('Sky, Earth, and Man') that began to appear in 1898. Péri wrote about broad philosophical, metaphysical and moral issues but his inclination to avoid a narrowly Catholic or sectarian perspective created conflicts with more conservative elements of the Mission. This conflict led to Péri's departure from the Mission in 1902. Péri briefly worked as a journalist in

Shanghai Shanghai, Shanghainese: , Standard Chinese pronunciation: is a direct-administered municipality and the most populous urban area in China. The city is located on the Chinese shoreline on the southern estuary of the Yangtze River, with the ...

and was a regular contributor to ''L'Écho de Chine'', a French language newspaper, and occasional correspondent for ''l'Avenir du Tonkin''. During his time working as a translator and missionary in Japan, Péri became interested in Asian philosophy and made extensive studies of the

Chinese Buddhist canon The Chinese Buddhist canon refers to a traditional collection of Chinese language Buddhist texts which are the central canonical works of East Asian Buddhism. The traditional term for the canon is Great Storage of Scriptures ().Jiang Wu, "The ...

. In 1904, he organized the publication of ''Mélanges'', (''Mélanges japonais'' after 1907), a

journal A journal, from the Old French ''journal'' (meaning "daily"), may refer to: *Bullet journal, a method of personal organization *Diary, a record of personal secretive thoughts and as open book to personal therapy or used to feel connected to onesel ...

aimed at missionaries but publishing widely on historical, philosophical, and literary aspects of Japanese culture. Péri contributed summaries of recently published Japanese works that surveyed Buddhist canonical literature and mythology, contributing significantly to knowledge of the Buddhist canon in the Francophone world. ''Mélanges'' was the first foreign journal devoted to Japanese topics, and remained so for the first several years of its publication. However, in 1910 Catholic authorities- possibly the same faction that had previously disagreed with Péri's approach to ''Tenchijin''- forced ''Mélanges japonais'' to suspend publication. Péri was a trained musician and taught Western music at the Tokyo Conservatory of Music between 1896 and 1906.Farmer, Henry George. Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland, no. 3, 1937, pp. 497–499. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/25201560. In addition to his teaching and other translation work, he published studies of Japanese opera and Noh in 1909 and 1912. Péri was appointed to a residence at the

École française d'Extrême-Orient The French School of the Far East (, ; also translated as The French School of Asian StudiesPreferred translation by EFEO staff. SeEFEO official website), abbreviated EFEO, is an associated college of PSL University dedicated to the study of ...

in Hanoi in 1907, and served as secretary-librarian from 1911 until his death.École française d'Extrême-Orient - Biography
/ref> He continued to write on topics in Asian history, Buddhist literature and myth, and Japanese culture. He wrote a comprehensive survey of various versions of the myth of the demonic/ogre goddess

Hariti Hārītī (Sanskrit), also known as , , is a female rākṣasī or yakṣinī (nature spirit) in Buddhism. She appears as a character in all Buddhist traditions and she is revered as a fierce Dharma Protector and a fertility goddess in Ma ...

and examined her relationship with

Guanyin Guanyin () is a common Chinese name of the bodhisattva associated with Karuṇā, compassion known as Avalokiteśvara (). Guanyin is short for Guanshiyin, which means " he One WhoPerceives the Sounds of the World". Originally regarded as m ...

, the East Asian form of Avalokitesvara.L. de la Vallée Poussin. Bulletin of the School of Oriental Studies, University of London, vol. 1, no. 2, 1918, pp. 132–132. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/606830. He also wrote about the deity

Weituo Skanda (), also known as Weituo () and Idaten (Japanese: 韋駄天), is a Mahayana bodhisattva regarded as a devoted guardian of Buddhist monasteries who protects the teachings of Buddhism. He is also sometimes called in the Chinese tradition " ...

, the historical dating of the commentator

Vasubandhu Vasubandhu (; Tibetan: དབྱིག་གཉེན་ ; floruit, fl. 4th to 5th century CE) was an influential Indian bhikkhu, Buddhist monk and scholar. He was a philosopher who wrote commentary on the Abhidharma, from the perspectives of th ...

, and the ambiguous identification of

Gotama Buddha Siddhartha Gautama, most commonly referred to as the Buddha (),* * * was a wandering ascetic and religious teacher who lived in South Asia during the 6th or 5th century BCE and founded Buddhism. According to Buddhist legends, he was ...

's wife, generally known as Yasodhara. His unfinished manuscript on Japanese music theory and structure, ''Essai sur les gammes japonaises'', was published posthumously.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Peri, Noel 1865 births 1922 deaths Road incident deaths in Vietnam French Japanologists French Roman Catholic missionaries Paris Foreign Missions Society missionaries French librarians