Seiyō Kibun

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The Seiyō Kibun (西洋紀聞) is a 3-volume study of the Occident by Japanese politician and scholar Arai Hakuseki based on conversations with Italian missionary Giovanni Battista Sidotti. The first volume is a collection of conversations with Sidotti. The second volume is a study of "the five continents" (Africa, Asia, Australia, Europe and the Americas). The third volume contains an overview of Roman Catholicism which includes some of Hakuseki's critical notes on Christianity, as well as a few comparisons he makes of Christianity and Buddhism. It was written in or around 1715, and published in 1882.

An English translation by S.R. Brown, a missionary, can be found in the Journal of the North-China Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, New Series II and III, 1865-66.

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