 Overall, Japanese Confucianism from the seventeenth through the early-nineteenth centuries reasserts the integrity of language, meaning, and discursive truth. This reassertion was made in opposition to the Buddhist view of language which was, despite myriad sutras in the Tripitaka, or the Buddhist canon, rather negative. Or at least this was how many early-modern Japanese Confucians understood it. According to these Confucian critics, the Buddhists held that ordinary language lacked ultimate meaning and the ability to convey absolute truth. Rather than packed with significant meaning, Buddhists insisted that words were to be viewed as inherently empty. If wrongly understood as conveyors of substantial meaning, they became the source of profound error. Perhaps the unifying feature of Confucian philosophizing in the early modern period was the view that words were crucially important as vehicles for substantial meaning. Moreover, words and their correct usage were deemed by Confucians as absolutely essential to self-understanding, self-cultivation, and at the grandest level, to governing the realm and bringing peace and prosperity to the world. In this regard, Japanese Confucian philosophy can be viewed as an East Asian philosophy of language engaged in a search for right meaning. This “right meaning” was considered fundamental to any attempt to resolve philosophical problems.