Bunka Explained

was a after Kyōwa and before Bunsei. The period spanned the years from January 1804 to April 1818.^[1] The reigning emperors were and .

Change of era

• February 11, 1804 : The new era name of Bunka (meaning "Culture" or "Civilization") was created to mark the start of a new 60-year cycle of the Heavenly Stem and Earthly Branch system of the Chinese calendar which was on New Year's Day, the new moon day of 2 November 1804. The previous era ended and a new one commenced in Kyōwa 4.

Events of the Bunka era

• 1804 (Bunka 1): Daigaku-no-kami Hayashi Jussai (1768–1841) explained the shogunate foreign policy to Emperor Kōkaku in Kyoto.^[2]
• June 1805 (Bunka 2): Genpaku Sugita (1733–1817) is granted an audience with Shōgun Ienari to explain differences between traditional medical knowledge and Western medical knowledge.^[3]
• September 25, 1810 (Bunka 7, 27th day of the 8thmonth): Earthquake in northern Honshū (Latitude: 39.900/Longitude: 139.900), 6.6 magnitude on the Surface wave magnitude scale.^[4] ...Click link for NOAA/Japan: Significant Earthquake Database
• December 7, 1812 (Bunka 9, 4th day of the 11th month): Earthquake in Honshū (Latitude: 35.400/Longitude: 139.600), 6.6 magnitude.^[4]
• 1817 (Bunka 14): Emperor Kōkaku travelled in procession to Sento Imperial Palace, a palace of an abdicated emperor. The Sento Palace at that time was called Sakura Machi Palace. It had been built by the Tokugawa Shogunate for former-Emperor Go-Mizunoo.^[5]

References

• Cullen, Louis M. (2003). A History of Japan, 1582–1941: Internal and External Worlds. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ; ; OCLC 50694793
• Nussbaum, Louis Frédéric and Käthe Roth. (2005). Japan Encyclopedia. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. ; OCLC 48943301
• Sugita Genpaku. (1930). . Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten. OCLC 9424185

External links

• National Diet Library, "The Japanese Calendar" -- historical overview plus illustrative images from library's collection
• National Archives of Japan: Sakuramachiden Gyokozu, scroll depicting Emperor Kōkaku in formal procession, 1817 (Bunka 14).

Notes and References

1. Nussbaum, Louis-Frédéric. (2005). "Bunka" ; n.b., Louis-Frédéric is pseudonym of Louis-Frédéric Nussbaum, see Deutsche Nationalbibliothek Authority File.
2. Cullen, L.M. (2003). A History of Japan, 1582-1941: Internal and External Worlds, pp. 117, 163.
3. Sugita Genpaku. (1969). Dawn of Western Science in Japan: Rangaku Kotohajime, p. xvi.
4. Online "Significant Earthquake Database" -- U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), National Geophysical Data Center (NGDC)
5. National Digital Archives of Japan, ...see caption describing image of scroll