 Because the preeminent Motoori Norinaga located a genesis for his own studies in the scholarship of Keichū, most students of Kokugaku today accept Keichū as at least its forerunner. Keichū had a solidly samurai pedigree, though his father and grandfather fared poorly after 1600 under the new Tokugawa regime. He had a rigorous early education supervised by his mother, and at the age of 12 to fulfill a parental vow began the ten-year path to ordination in the Shingon Buddhist priesthood, becoming a high priest (Ajari) in 1663. 