the book "Sitting in hidden talks" 坐隠談叢

[mccccc]

Hello!
While reading the chinese edition of The japanese castle games (御城碁, oshirogo) with the help of Google translate and DeepL, I sometimes come across this book - "Sitting in hidden talks" jap: 坐隠談叢, chinese: 坐隐谈丛. I failed to get much info about it. As I know, it includes smth. about japanese Go history, but maybe one has more info about it, the contents...
https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/坐隠談叢

The book is also mentioned here
https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/本因坊算砂
織田信長、豊臣秀吉、徳川家康ともに算砂に対し五子のであったと『坐隠談叢』にある

[John Fairbairn]

It is a famous book, the title (Zain Danso) of which can be rendered as Comprehensive Discourses on Go. The writer was a go journalist and his first edition was published in 1904 and a revised edition in 1910.

It was a prejudiced view of go history because Ando was based in the Kansai, where the Inoue family lived. They were still at daggers drawn with the Honinbos and so gave a rather one-sided view of things when interviewed by Ando. Watanabe Hideo updated and "corrected" it in 1955 and 1973.

If you are intending to get a copy, be aware it is a thick book, mostly solid text, and is written in classical Japanese (and some classical Chinese).

[mccccc]

Very appreciated!
One more question, please, concerning Honinbo Doetsu:
1658年万治元年）に死去し、22歳で本因坊家を継ぎ、翌1659年に御城碁初出仕する。この次の御城碁が行われた1664年以降、御城碁は年中行事となった。1666年上手（七段）、その後準名人に進む。
What does 上手 mean (in bold)?

[John Fairbairn]

It was the rank (jozu) at which a player became eligible to receive a stipend and play in the Castle Games. In return he had to shave his head and wear Buddhist apparel. It is conventionally equated nowadays to 7-dan because the top three grades for Castle Game players were Meijin, vice-Meijin and jozu. There could only be one Meijin (9-dan) and usually one vice-Meijin (8-dan) but several jozus. Family heirs and a few others were given special permission to received stipends and play before the Shogun below that rank, but only upon application to the Commissioner of Shrines and Temples.

Ota Yuzo famously refused to shave off his fine head of hair and so forfeited the government stipend, but was allowed to call himself jozu by special dispensation.

The quote you gave shows Honinbo III Doetsu progressed to vice-Meijin. He was the longest-lived historical player, incidentally (1636 ~ 1727).

坐隠 was a phrase coined by Wang Zhonglang (330 ~ 375), a high official of the Eastern Jin in China. He was famous as a practitioner of "pure conversation" (qing dan) and according to the ancient tome New Account of Tales of the World he was the originator of this phrase "sitting in reclusion" (zuo yin) to denote go - one of many such nicknames, of course.