Kamo no Mabuchi

Kamo no Mabuchi, or Mabuchi of Kamo (賀茂 真淵, 24 April 1697 – 27 November 1769) was a kokugaku scholar, poet and philologist during mid-Edo period Japan. Along with Kada no Azumamaro, Motoori Norinaga, and Hirata Atsutane, he was regarded as one of the Four Great Men of Kokugaku, and through his research into the spirit of ancient Japan (through his studies of the Man'yōshū and other works of ancient literature) he expounded on the theory of magokoro, which he held to be fundamental to the history of Japan. Independently of and alongside his contemporary Motoori Norinaga, Mabuchi is accredited with the initial discovery of Lyman's Law, governing rendaku in the Japanese language, though which would later be named after Benjamin Smith Lyman.