My first book, The Sacred Science of Ancient Japan, has been published. If you have any questions or comments about the book please leave a comment on this blog post.
Posted: January 24th, 2014 | Parahistory 25 Comments »
Here’s a poem: 犬咬合 “A Dogfight” by 愚佛 (“Dumb Buddha”, an anonymous poet), c. 1800:
椀 椀 椀 椀 亦 椀 椀
亦 亦 椀 椀 又 椀 椀
夜 暗 何 疋 頓 不 分
終 始 只 聞 椀 椀 椀Woof! woof! woof! woof! and woof woof!
And! And woof woof! and woof woof!
The night is dark, don’t know how many there are
From dusk to dawn, I hear only woof woof woof!
Here’s another poem: 廻文 “Palindrome” by 加保茶元成 (Motonari Pumpkin), also c. 1800:
へゝゝゝゝ
へゝゝゝゝゝゝ
へゝゝゝゝ
へゝゝゝゝゝゝ
へゝゝゝゝゝゝFart fart fart fart fart
Fart fart fart fart fart fart fart
Fart fart fart fart fart
Fart fart fart fart fart fart fart
Fart fart fart fart fart fart fart
Adopted from David Pollack, “Kyoshi: Japanese ‘Wild Poetry'”, Journal of Asian Studies 38.3 (May 1979). Matt already posted about the second poem; I shouldn’t have expected less.
Posted: November 23rd, 2013 | Translations
“Why everyone should fear deceit, Part 5” 詐怖縁第五 from 諸經要集 (T2123, 0149b29), a non-canon collection of Buddhist admonitions and anecdotes from the Tang dynasty.
I translated this without punctuation because it’s funnier that way.
It is written in the Mahāprajñāpāramitā Sutra: all composite things, every one is deceit. Sentient beings are foolish, unaware of close and distant. Hate, harsh speech, harm, up to taking a life. It creates these great crimes. So falling into three hells, we create innumerable sufferings. For example, in the mountains there was a little stupa. In the stupa there was a monks’ quarters. In the quarters was an oni. It brought fear and vexed the monks. There were many monks, all abandoned monks’ quarters. A traveling monk came. Rector showed him to empty quarters. And said these words. Within these quarters is an oni, spirits rejoice, vexing men. If you can live within here, go ahead! The guest monk himself had become very strong by observing precepts. Said: Little oni, what of it? I can subdue him. Saying so, he entered the monks’ quarters. Another visitor monk came seeking an abode. Rector also sent him to the monks’ quarters. Again said there is an oni men fear. This man again said, Little oni, what of it? I should subdue him. The first monk had closed door and wait for oni. At nighttime the second monk hit door, seek to enter. The first monk said, here is the oni! Not allow open door. The one who came later hit door quite strong. The monk within using strength prevented this. The one outside succeeded to enter door. The first monk hit the second, the second hit the first. At last dawn came. Really they were old fellow students. Already knew each other; they bowed in shame. Many people gathered around laughing, what strange ones! All beings are like this. Five skandhas are all void. No self, no person. Arguing over external forms creates poison and harms. Free yourself from earthly things. We are only bones and meat. No person, no self. Therefore, bodhisattvas say to all beings. You will not reach heavens by arguing. Human body desires unobtainable. How much more so for Buddha.
Posted: November 20th, 2013 | Excerpts 10 Comments »
I learned about this not because I read Twitter a lot (I don’t!), but because of my preexisting interest in the historical kana usage, which I suppose proves that I am a pimply nerd, etc. The Twitter cluster now has an official website where they defend their odd hobby. I note that it is nowhere near as formidable-looking as its German equivalent.
At least they have a website now! The 歴史的假名遣派 has been going strong for some years, from Fukuda Tsuneari’s「私の國語敎室」 in 1960, to Hisashi Inoue’s delicious Tokyo Seven Roses in 1999, to a variety of introductions to writing in historical kana, that is, “how to lose friends and alienate people”, since then. Jinja Honcho’s newsletter Jinja Shinbo proclaims itself to be the only periodical published with historical kana usage, and has a long website post where they explain it to you. Looking around the cluster’s website, I see one of their members has had a personal page since 1999. But this is the first outright advocacy group I’ve seen, and they’ve only been publishing since 2012. I guess Japan doesn’t really do advocacy.
Here is some of the wacky stuff the Twitter cluster has gotten up to:
I note with some disappointment that it’s actually rather hard to obtain editions of famous books in 正仮名遣, although not quite as hard as Fraktur. Here’s what I came up with for Soseki’s Kokoro:
Posted: October 11th, 2013 | Tradition 4 Comments »
Over two years ago Matt wrote an introduction to reading Edo literature. The books that he chose seem to be pretty haphazard and some can no longer be located. Since I’m trying to accomplish the same thing, here is a list of online resources that have helped me. I have no special talent for foreign languages, but if there’s premodern stuff you really want to read, it’s my experience that even if you are not a language genius, a few tools can help you get far.
Kanbun is classical Chinese, but it also refers to Sino-Japanese with diacritical marks. Think medieval Latin, but a bit more garbled. In Japan, kanbun is generally learned in the 2nd year of middle school (8th grade).
One option is to simply learn classical Chinese directly. My school is using a textbook by the late Prof. Archie Barnes which can teach you classical Chinese from scratch. If you already know Japanese this is a waste of time. Also, this textbook has some errors and omissions in it; there is no particularly good classical Chinese textbook for English speakers out there. Finally, this textbook is not a good preparation for reading medieval Japanese kanbun from scratch.
If you want to learn kanbun like a proper Japanese schoolboy, you will find it a lot easier than one might expect from looking at frightening walls of Chinese text. Japanese Wikibooks has a guide that can be mastered in a number of minutes. For more complex kanbun there is a high school guide that takes a couple of hours.
To look up Chinese characters you need a good kanji dictionary. If you are learning English->Chinese, Mathews’ dictionary is pretty standard. But it is not very fun, especially because you are more likely to induce errors into your translation from the outdated nature of the book than to make new discoveries. If you want real fun, get Kanjikai, which is up to date and will challenge your Japanese knowledge.
When reading original texts you will find that some variant characters that are not locatable in Kanjikai or any standard dictionaries at all. This is just a pain in the butt because there is no easy way to look these up. If you don’t have a knowledgeable specialist on hand, your best bet is to plug a guess into Hanzi Normative Glyphs and see if your character comes up.
A while ago a blog post about how to read kuzushiji floated through Reddit. I scanned through it, opened up the PDF file (mirror), and thought to myself, “is this guy a masochist?” That was the end of my thoughts about kuzushiji until this year, when I attempted to read an Edo period document myself, opened up the PDF file again, and thought, “am I a masochist?”
Understanding how kuzushiji works makes it no less insane. Digging in deep, I found a set of Waseda University OpenCourseWare lectures from 2004. Listen to these and you might begin to see an approach to deciphering the doctor’s prescription scribbles that are pre-Meiji literature. However, the course will by no means give you the ability to actually read the things.
The only online resource I know of for this is U Tokyo’s mysteriously named SHIPS, and it will not be very helpful because you have to know roughly what kanji you are looking for.
If you run into some medieval Japanese that doesn’t appear in a modern dictionary, you should really just get a high school prep book (they have anime versions!), but Googling it rarely fails me. You may run into a website called Gejirin proffering an attempt at definition. This is a website devoted to the parahistorical document Hotsuma Tsutaye and is basically amateur-run. Don’t rely on it like you would a full medieval dictionary, but it can help point you in the right direction.
Grammar is something I’m just starting to wrap my head around. There is stuff out there online, but this too probably requires a formal textbook.
Posted: September 27th, 2013 | Japan
アメリカ人は独立戦争からずっと法律を使って立派な社会を作ってみていた。最近、日常生活は最高裁判所の判断によって変えた。これは、本当に幸せへの道かなと、沢山のアメリカ人が考えている。
「史記」からの話。商鞅（しょうおう）は、秦国の有名な宰相。秦国の政治家に自信が無かったから、新しい法律を作った。厳しい罰のせいで犯罪率が急に下がった。泥棒もスリもいなかった。商宰相は嬉しくて自慢してた。
結局、紀元前338年に敵の公子虔は宰相が売国奴だと讒言して、逮捕を命じた。逃げるしかなかった。次の出来事は「史記國字解」（大正８年）からの引用。
商君は早くも之を悟り、逃走して函谷關の下に至り旅店に宿を取られんとせしに、旅店の主人は此人が商君とは気付かずして言ふやう、『宰相商君の立て給ひたる法律にては、旅行券を所持せざる客人を宿すときは其人と同罪となす規定なればとて断りぬ』、商君は嗚呼と嘆息して自ら啣ちけるは、『さても法律を作りたる弊は吾が身に及び、自縄自縛に苦む迄に至りたるか』と
（現代訳）商氏はこれを知って、函谷關という関所の下に旅館に宿泊しようと思ったが、館長は商鞅だと気づかなくて、「商鞅様の法律によって、旅行券を持ってないお客様は宿泊できないとなっております」と。商君は嘆息して、「ああ、法律を作り徹底させた弊害が、こんな結果をもたらすとは・・・」と。
商氏はすぐ殺された。厳しい法律の影響で、国民も厳しくなった。いや、法律が広かったから、心を広がる大切さが分からなくなった。
全く、国の目的は何でしょう。立派な法律か、立派な人か。現代のアメリカの「同性結婚」等などは一部の意見で「立派な法律」みたいけど、新しい法律で一般人は立派になるか。罰に怖がるだけなのか。
この社会で商鞅のような人はどうなるでしょう。身分証なしで宿泊もらうか。人間の仁が出やすい社会と思わない。遠くの公務員が決めたルールに従ってる刑務所みたい。
大川周明氏は、『有治人無治法』と信じた。『儒教の政治思想』(昭和５年)で、こうおしゃった。
それ一切の制度は、疑ふべくもなき人間精神の所産である。故に制度の真個の意義は、その制度を創設したる人の精神に徹せずしては、つひに把握するよしも無い。従って其の有効なる運用もまた困難である。礼儀三千・威儀三百其人を待つて後に行はるといふのは、礼制の真意義を把握するに非ずば、つひに無用なる器械的形式に堕するが故である。而して礼制の真意義を把握するためには、実に正心、誠意を必要とする。故に陸象山は『曾て私意一関を過ぎ得ずんば、終に徳に入り難し。未だ能く徳に入らずんば、則ち典則法度、何を以て之を知らん』と言つた。
子曰く。導之以政、斉之以刑、民免而無恥、導之以徳、斉之以礼、有恥且格。「人民を導くのに法制をもってし、人民を統治するのに刑罰をもってすれば、人民は法律の網をくぐり抜けて恥じることがない。人民を導くのに道徳をもってし、人民を統治するのに礼節をもってすれば、人民は恥を知りその身を正すようになる。」
Posted: September 13th, 2013 | Kultur
In 221 BC the First Emperor renamed the Chinese common people to 黔首 “black-headed ones”. Why was this?
Chinese, Japanese, English, and French language sources were surveyed.
Posted: September 10th, 2013 | History 8 Comments »
I cannot claim to have made the first translation of the Hitsuki Shinji. It was made in March 1949 by unknown of Okamoto’s followers. Unfortunately I don’t have the whole thing. The top half of it was printed in 『岡本天明伝』 in 2012 and I would have to go to the National Diet Library to see the rest. I don’t have time to do that
[edit: April 2015 — Today I had the time to go to the National Diet Library and inspect the original document. I’ve added some of the remaining English text to the transcript below.]
SANZENSEKAI — APRTL 8, 99
What is Hikarikyokwai Society?
Jehova revealed Himself to those elects of old Judea in the times when He felt that it is necessary to do so. Books of Moses were written like that and those books of prophets the same. However, if we limit that such a revelation could be given only to them, St. John’s revelation as the last and never afterward, doesn’t it sound unreasonable? Why can’t Jehova have any elects among those nations which are not Jews? Isn’t hat also thinkable that God is willing to reveal Himself to the Asiatic nations sometimes?
Swedenbrog had to explain exactly the same sort of thing while he was woking hard to write down what the Lord has shown him in 18th century. Zeal of these notes is to introduce that we have the same sort of case which has taken place here in Japan since June of 1944.
It was in the suite of Shinto shrine Mahgata, in Kohzu-mura, Chiba prefecture, when a Japanese painter Mr. Okamoto was there. He got a kind of shock and painful impulses to write. He wrote down what he himself could not read at all at the beginning. But it was much afterward that those writings were found to be quite valuable.
They can be said a revelation of Ameno Hitsukunokami dictated by Hitsukunokami, that is a kind of divine revelation that was given to Japanese nation at the close of the war. However, we are convinced that this revelation is not addressed only to Japanese alone but to whole nation of the world, and that’s the reason the Hikarikyokwai Society started to publish this tabloid both in English and Japanese.
Concerning the reasons why it can be said divine revelation addressed to the whole nation of the world, shall be understood with the study of the said revelation itself, which would be introduced here afterwards. However, some characteristic points of the said revelation is that it shows very intimate relationship between so called divine scriptures of the world.
There are many who found very deep truth in it and who are convinced that things shown through the revelation are true and the commandments written in it must be fulfilled. Hikarikyokwai Society is the name to the group of such people.
Following is the English translation of another part from the revelation. [This is from Book 1, Chapter 1. –AHM]
Behold! Fuji has driven off clouds of chaos, and all heavens are cleared.
The time has come at last when true God of kingdom of
will show His mighty power. Buddhism, Christianity, and even Islamism shall be united for this sacred mission.
There shall be no need of difficult theories nor logics, neither any hardship of livelihood. God will provide you such a happy and merry world, therefore, seek after the truth with earnestness, purifying your spirit in cessantly. Hoewver, there lies a tribulation before the Kingdom of God comes. Unless you are purified and cleansed, you shall not be able to preserve yourself through this tribulation. Becauss this is the tribulation, such as was not since the very beginning of the world to this time, nor shall ever be. And the end of this tribulation shall never be brought unles God’s power is revealed.
Everything that shall happen from now on is absolutely beyond the capacity of human conception.
Kingdom consisted of purified souls shall gain real power, however, kingdom of dirty spirit shall not be able domminant any more.
Cities must be purified and the rustic place must be purifies as well, but the most significant of all is the purification of man.
Example of original writing. 一んねんTけ二〇か
English translation from the original writing, illustrated. “This revelation can be understood in the measure of the depth of each soul destined to understand. The time has come the divine truth shall be preached. If not even stones shall take the role of human souls. Let us hear that the nature, mountain river and else, is revealing the divine truth day and night.”
[Bibliography removed for revisions]
Posted: July 24th, 2013 | Kokoro, Secular-Religious
A recent discussion on Gornahoor, which was scrubbed from the site’s comments section, makes this quite relevant:
SAHIH BUKHARI, Volume 9, Book 88, Number 237. Narrated by Abu Huraira.
The traditions of Bukhari are considered the most authentic hadith and were compiled in the 9th century.
Allah’s Apostle said, “The Hour will not be established
[Signs of the Hour]
(1) till two big groups fight each other whereupon there will be a great number of casualties on both sides and they will be following one and the same religious doctrine,
(2) till about thirty Dajjals (liars) appear, and each one of them will claim that he is Allah’s Apostle,
(3) till the religious knowledge is taken away (by the death of Religious scholars)
(4) earthquakes will increase in number
(5) time will pass quickly,
(6) afflictions will appear,
(7) Al-Harj, (i.e., killing) will increase,
(8) till wealth will be in abundance… so abundant that a wealthy person will worry lest nobody should accept his Zakat, and whenever he will present it to someone, that person (to whom it will be offered) will say, ‘I am not in need of it’,
(9) till the people compete with one another in constructing high buildings,
(10) till a man when passing by a grave of someone will say, ‘Would that I were in his place!’
(11) and till the sun rises from the West. So when the sun will rise and the people will see it (rising from the West) they will all believe (embrace Islam) but that will be the time when: (As Allah said,) ‘No good will it do to a soul to believe then, if it believed not before, nor earned good (by deeds of righteousness) through its Faith.’ (6.158)[Swiftness of the Hour]
(12) And the Hour will be established while two men are spreading a garment in front of them but they will not be able to sell it, nor fold it up;
(13) and the Hour will be established when a man has milked his she-camel and has taken away the milk but he will not be able to drink it;
(14) and the Hour will be established before a man repairing a tank (for his livestock) is able to water (his animals) in it;
(16) and the Hour will be established when a person has raised a morsel (of food) to his mouth but will not be able to eat it.”
Posted: July 11th, 2013 | Signs of the Times 1 Comment »
In the sixth ward of Asakusa’s theater district, there is a little storefront where the crowds never thin. It’s not an aquarium, nor is it a sideshow. It is, of course, the “haunted house”. Long-necked hags, knife-handed beasts, mermaids, and snake-women beckon spectators from the signboards.
Of course, we can’t forget the Ryōunkaku, the nation’s first skyscraper. Ascend to the twelfth story of that great tower, and all the splendor of His Majesty the Meiji Emperor’s Imperial Capital stretches out before your eyes. To speak of the fruits of civilization and development, we must be reminded of that twelve-story “Ele-Vator”. Thanks to the power of this device all of us may ascend to the very top.
But today, the curtains have been raised on one program that will catch the eyes of all Asakusa. The title: “The Exorcism of Rashōmon!”
The rabble assembling below the Ryōunkaku, the women of ignoble trades, the honky-tonk(?) Salvation Army band trying to save their souls, maids and apprentices with a half-day’s freedom, clerks of the big storefronts, everyone, everyone lines up for the peep-hole show.
Right in front of the doorman, an unasked-for barker drums up the crowd in a high-pitched voice. From inside the room we hear an accompaniment of well-kept bells ringing, twinkle, twinkle…
Step right up, step right up, His Majesty’s Realm is full of civilization and development, and our peep-hole show is like never before!
Step right up, step right up, ladies and gentlemen, and feast your eyes upon the Oni of Rashōmon! We’ve got an Oni! The Oni is here!
Observe, if you will, within the peep-hole, the arm of the oni itself. Shock as you watch it claw towards heaven, writhing in agony!
Ladies and gentlemen, it’s an educational experience, a once-in-a-lifetime experience you can tell your grandchildren about, the arm of a living oni, something you’ll never see again, so have a look today!
Before you’ve even time to be surprised, look again within the peep-hole, and there she is, the snake-woman. Observe this sorry girl, born in the northern wilderness, where her woodsman father one day struck the trunk of a viper with his hoe. His children were punished by the viper’s curse, and this is the sad result!
Eighteen years of age this year, no legs, her trunk all wrapped up. Hanako’s her name, Hana-chan to her friends! Ten cents an adult, five cents a child. Half price for one eye, but women with child pay double!
Step right up, step right up. It’s an Oni, an Oni, the Oni is here! In the midst of civilized, developed, Tokyo, it’s a real, live Oni.
Look while you still can. It’s an Oni! The Oni is here!
It’s an Oni!
It’s an Oni!
Heeere’s the Oni!
The people of Tokyo, being invited by the Oni of Rashōmon, were taken up by the eerie sights and sounds of the little storefront. Oni, long-necked hags, snake-women, all the monsters of the pre-civilized past had come together in Asakusa. But these monsters were pathetic, captured creatures. None of them would ever take a single step outside the confines of the little storefront.
So, the safe, content people could get hooked on the spectacle of the monsters. They scowled at the snake-women and mermaids. But at the same time, none of them knew that one quite uncaptured, raging, and real Oni had begun swaggering its way towards His Majesty’s Capital Tokyo.
So it was, that in the 40th year of Emperor Meiji, that oni was revealing the famous 2000-year grudge of the oni as, unaided, he slipped into the Emperor’s capital…
Posted: June 29th, 2013 | Translations 3 Comments »