Hirata Atsutane’s prominence within the Kokugaku tradition is well known, as is his status as the successor to the great scholar, Motoori Norinaga. Atsutane’s remarkable ascendance did not happen overnight; indeed, it was at times a controversial process that unfolded over many years. Atsutane’s Kokugaku leadership was challenged by Norinaga’s sons, Haruniwa and Ōhira, as well as Kido Chidate, a bookseller and financial supporter of Norinaga in Kyoto. The work of the late sociologist Pierre Bourdieu is especially helpful in coming to grips with these sociopolitical interactions. His theory of symbolic capital gives us a way of conceptualizing what dominance meant in the context of nineteenth-century Kokugaku. However, symbolic capital has its limitations when analyzing traditional Japanese cultural institutions. Specifically, the master-disciple practices associated with the iemoto system represented a significant impediment to Atsutane’s claims of Kokugaku leadership based on his succession of Norinaga. In order to overcome this, Atsutane invoked the discourse of the dōtō, and used key relics to substantiate his special status.
