Between Monastic Institution and Literati Culture: Duli Xingyi and the Human Road of Cultural Exchange in Early Modern Japan

Duli Xingyi 獨立性易 (1596–1672) has often been variously interpreted as a Ming loyalist, a marginal Ōbaku monk, a physician, a calligrapher, or a cultural mediator. This article argues that such fragmented interpretations overlook the relatively coherent evaluative framework that connected Duli’s diverse activities. Rooted in the literati culture of Jiangnan, this evaluative framework developed in conjunction with an interconnected cultural repertoire comprising moral character, textual learning, literary accomplishment, artistic cultivation, and practical expertise. Together, they informed how Duli judged persons, texts, practices, and institutions. To explain how this framework informed judgments and choices across changing historical settings—and how those settings conditioned the mobilization and social efficacy of the repertoire—the article proposes the concept of the “Human Road.” Developed in dialogue with studies of Sino-Japanese exchange that have emphasized imported books, trade records, and reception, the Human Road does not simply refer to the movement of people, nor does it merely add human actors to the study of textual circulation. Rather, it examines how historically formed evaluative frameworks and cultural repertoires informed actors’ judgments and choices, and how changing institutional and local environments conditioned the expression and social efficacy of the resulting actions. In Duli’s case, the judgments and choices informed by his Jiangnan evaluative framework contributed to growing tensions within the institutional setting of the Ōbaku community, whereas in Iwakuni his positive evaluation of Yoshikawa Hiroyoshi was reciprocated by recognition and patronage, enabling the cultural repertoire organized by that framework to be mobilized through medicine, poetry, calligraphy, ritual expertise, and local affairs. Drawing on letters, poems, prefaces, local records, and personal writings, this article shows that texts were produced, interpreted, circulated, and preserved through human relationships, embodied knowledge, and changing social environments. Duli’s case demonstrates that the movement of persons did more than carry knowledge across regions: it set in motion processes of judgment, response, and relationship formation through which texts, practices, and cultural projects acquired significance in early modern Japan.