Suiken Tachihara (1744-1823)
Confucian scholar. President of the Akitaka Hall under 6th Mito feudal Lord Harumori（治保）. Reinitiated the interrupted compilation of the Great History of Japan:「大日本史」or Dai-Nihon-Shi.
The fragile enterprise of the Great History's compilation
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The Great History of Japan consists of 4 main parts including imperial-related achievements and incidents (forming the main Chronicles), series of biographies (of vassals for example), purposes (such as politics) and graphs (chronologies.) These documents have a biographical shape, a format used in Chinese authentic history descriptions, (cf. Sen Shinba 145-86 B.C. Chronicles). Initiated by Mitsukuni Tokugawa in 1657, the Great History compilation was achieved in its manuscript form in 1715. The main Great History part had 73 volumes; the biographies consisted of 170 volumes. However, after the death of Mitsukuni, the Tokugawa Clan was facing urgent financial issues; time was not for historical compilation anymore. It seems that the enterprise was interrupted then. Nevertheless, 6th Mito feudal Lord Harumori Tokugawa（徳川治保in power between 1766 and 1805）sent Suiken Tachihara to the Akitaka Hall and made him its president in 1786.
Compilation restarts
Suiken showed great motivation in the production of the chronologies and the purposes of the Great History of Japan but, due to the financial situation of the fief, he gave up. He emended the biographies and gave himself the objective of printing them in 1799, 100th anniversary-year of Mitsukuni's death. As the revision work was progressing, the Akitaka Hall actively started its scholar activities again. But a conflict about the compilation policy caused great delay in the task and in 1803 Suiken had to resign from presidency.
The compilation of the Great History of Japan was taken over by Yukoku Fujita（藤田幽谷）and the chronologies were printed in 1849, for Mitsukuni's 150th death anniversary. However at this point of time both Suiken and Yukoku had already left this world. Moreover, the completion of the 4 main parts was not done until 1906 (39th year of Meiji-Era): a total of 397 volumes. This was a long-standing work that finished at a time when the Mito clan did not even exist anymore. The meritorious service rendered by Suiken when reviving the interrupted enterprise is seen as a really important one.
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in Japanese and picture of the manuscript version of the Dai-Nihon-Shi