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David T Anderson
7th April 2002, 07:47
http://www.telusplanet.net/public/dtander/homework.jpg

John Lindsey
7th April 2002, 07:51
Might want to try a jpeg.

David T Anderson
7th April 2002, 07:54
You're right John...a JPG does work better. So does FTPing it to the right webserver file....

http://www.telusplanet.net/public/dtander/homework.jpg

Anyhow...the above JPG is the basis of a homework assignment my Aikido sensei gave us today. We are to translate the kanji and write a brief essay [he said anything over 10,000 words would be rejected...I plan to keep mine down to a few pages...].

He didn't say we couldn't seek help, so I'd appreciate very much some input from you folks. [one of the guys has a Japanese mother-in-law, the cheating SOB]

The best I can come up with is 'The bright [shining?] radiance of great [ultimate?] truth'. Am I at all warm here?

I'm kinda lost with the pronunciation... akira [hikari?] dai sei....? I'm probably dead wrong with this...I know you can't just string syllables together....

[sigh] one of the local colleges or the U must give courses in basic Japanese....I must look into that someday....

J. A. Crippen
7th April 2002, 09:49
For your pronounciation and all other kanji lookup needs, see WWWJDIC at

http://www.csse.monash.edu.au/~jwb/wwwjdic.html

or one of its mirrors near you, a list of which is

http://www.csse.monash.edu.au/~jwb/wwwjdicmirrors.html

Particularly you want to try "Find Kanji in the Database" to look up kanji based on one of a number of different techniques. A good way to do this quickly is to use the "Find Kanji (MultiRadical Method)" which allows you to check off all the radicals you can see in each kanji.

Sino-Japanese readings (onyomi) are given in katakana, Native-Japanese (kunyomi) readings are given in hiragana.

Of course, you're still left with having to figure out *which* of the many wonderful readings (yomi) you can choose from. But don't feel bad about this since Japanese people are usually faced with the same challenge when presented with new words. A good bet is to try the onyomi in any compounds, and the kunyomi when used alone.

David T Anderson
7th April 2002, 19:14
Thanks James -- But what I was really looking for was a Japanese speaker/reader to tell me if I got anywhere close on the translation. I've bookmarked the site you suggested tho'...maybe I'll find a month or two to figure it out...

J. A. Crippen
7th April 2002, 23:06
Yeah, I kinda figured that WWWJDIC wouldn't answer your question, but I thought of it as an important enough resource that you (and other readers) should know about it.

Also note that EDICT, the actual dictionary portion of WWWJDIC (in contrast to the lookup and browsing software), is available for public use. There are a number of different programs on different platforms that offer interfaces to using EDICT and its relations that cover specialized terminology in computing, the paper industry, life sciences, law, etc. There are a couple of Windows programs using EDICT, several Unix programs including one built into Emacs, and particularly one for PalmOS that can be carried with you wherever you go, supplanting the need for separate electronic dictionaries like the WordTank.

P Goldsbury
8th April 2002, 15:50
Are the characters meant to be read together to make a compound word, or are they to be read separately?

I ask because the combination 明光?Aread as 'meikou' is given by the kanji dictionary which comes with my computer's Japanese software, but there does not seem to be a meaning corresponding to this word in the Kojien dictionary and I would be curious to see whether a Japanese native speaker can give an explanation of this word.

An alternative is 光明, read as 'koumyou', which means light, hope, or good future prospects. This is often seen. For example there is a Buddhist temple named 光明寺 (koumyouji) just down the road from my house and it is also the name of the local kindergarten (光明学園 koumyou-gakuen). It is a concept found in Buddhism and in fact because of its pronounced Buddhist overtones, my old aikido teacher did not like to use this combination as a name for a dojo, on the grounds that the Founder always conceived aikido in shinto terms. The combination 大?ウ, read as 'taishou' is the name of a Japanese emperor.

Taken separately, in the order you have given them, they mean 'bright' 'light' 'great' 'right/correct'. Of course, a trawl through O Sensei's 'douka' (Songs of the Way) or his lectures might reveal them in just the combination, and with just the meanings, you are looking for. I think John Stevens has published a collection of these poems with the Japanese text and an English translation.

Your 'homework' sounds interesting. I wonder if my Japanese aikido students would be able to do it. I suppose there is one way to find out...

Best regards,
______________
P A Goldsbury,
Graduate School of Social Sciences,
Hiroshima University?@

David T Anderson
8th April 2002, 17:07
Originally posted by P Goldsbury
Are the characters meant to be read together to make a compound word, or are they to be read separately?

Actually they were written on a hanging scroll that Father Skoyles Sensei put up over the kamiza at the beginning of last practice. I would guess that it is meant as an inspirational slogan of some kind. Given his Augustinian leanings, I might guess that it is a reference to Christ as 'Light of the World', or perhaps the 'great truth' of divine inspiration...but that might be over-thinking the matter.


[B]
Taken separately, in the order you have given them, they mean 'bright' 'light' 'great' 'right/correct'. Of course, a trawl through O Sensei's 'douka' (Songs of the Way) or his lectures might reveal them in just the combination, and with just the meanings, you are looking for. I think John Stevens has published a collection of these poems with the Japanese text and an English translation.


I appreciate your confirmation of my getting the bare kanji right, at least...I'm hoping that my stretch from 'right/correct' to 'truth' isn't too much. I seem to recall seeing a couple of translations of O Sensei's work at the local Chapters...maybe this is a good excuse to pick them up. Of course Father Skoyles is more than capable of coming up with his own slogans.... We have a scroll that holds the single character 'rei', which he translates as 'righteousness' [in that context], so my guess that he may be making a connection between Aikido and Christian belief isn't just something I dreamed up.


Your 'homework' sounds interesting. I wonder if my Japanese aikido students would be able to do it. I suppose there is one way to find out...



It would be most interesting to hear what your students make of it...and I'll post here the outcome of our 'homework assignment' after all is revealed to us. I've heard of essays being written as a requirement of dan-level promotions, but in the 16 months or so of my own study under Father Skoyles, this is a first. I suppose it could just be some kind of left-handed IQ test, but I doubt he'd ask us to do this without some deeper purpose. Well, ours is not to reason why....

David T Anderson
9th April 2002, 03:45
Here's a shot of the kamiza and scroll at my dojo, just for further reference....

http://www.agt.net/public/dtander/kamiza.jpg

P Goldsbury
10th April 2002, 02:34
Mr Andersen,

Your last post does explain the context of your 'homework' somewhat further. Yesterday I asked a few students in one of my classes and they said:
(1) The reading would be 'meikou taisho'. (To correct my last post, I found 'meikou' in two monolingual Japanese dictionaries and it means "bright light". It is used in a literal sense, but my students assured me they would never use such a phrase. They would prefer 輝か光?@('kagayaka hikari'). Of course, they understood that the phrase refers to a person, or even a budo like aikido, but still found the phrase odd, even as a metaphor.
(2) Taisho refers to the Japanese era (1912-26). Of course it means something like 'great uprightness'.
(3) They questioned the relevance to aikido.

Of course, this could all mean that modern Japanese students lack any imagination.

Best regards,
______________
P A Goldsbury,
Graduate School of Social Sciences,
Hiroshima University

P Goldsbury
10th April 2002, 06:07
Well, it seems that the last comment in my previous post is partly right. They lack not only imagination but the finer points of their own language. At a faculty meeting earlier today I passed your kanji around those colleagues in the immediate vicinity and the results were very interesting. They all preferred 'myoukou' as the reading of 明光, even though this reading is not im my computer's dictionary. They all thought it had Buddhist associations.

However, one colleague, who does Okinawan karate, suggested that the phrase was the perfect description of a mirror, depicting one's character in 'bright light' and with 'great honesty', or 'great accuracy'. Which is exactly what training in budo is meant to lead to: a kind of 'polishing the mirror'.

There, you almost have your essay.

Best regards,
_____________
P A Goldsbury,
Graduate School of Social Science,
Hiroshima University

john mark
11th April 2002, 14:57
Do you know the source of the phrase?

How was the scroll obtained? Who did the calligraphy?

From the photo, it appears that the calligraphy is not by a native speaker.

Earl Hartman
11th April 2002, 18:41
Echoing John Mark here, I think it is obvious that the calligraphy has not been done by a native Japanese, or if by a Japanese, then a Japanese with really poor penmanship.

I also thought the phrase extremely odd. "Meikou" or "myoukou" (bright light) is a common enough word, as is "Taisho" (Great Righteousness). However, the combination is extremely odd, and at first I thought that "meikou" was a mistake and that it was supposed to read "Meiji" (Enlightened Government), since the next part of the phrase was "Taisho", the name of the era which succeeded Meiji. I didn't see what it had to do with aikido, however.

If this scroll was indeed put together by a Christian aikido teacher who has tried to make religious/spiritual associatons between aikido and Christianity, or, alternatively, is promulgating a kind of Christian aikido, then the strangeness makes a lot of sense. Syncretism of this type always results in unfamiliar things, such as the Japanese Hidden Christian iconography, showing a Japanese and kimono-clad Madonna and Child. You paint what you know. Still, at the risk of raising a few hackles, trying to shoehorn Japanese budo into a foreign religious ideology is, in my opinion, ridiculous and dishonest and does violence to the integrity of budo. I might as well try to create Jewish kyudo.

In any case, I think that Professor Goldbury's explanation about the bright mirror reflecting the truth is a good one. At the same time, I can understand the confusion of most Japanese when presented with a set of characters used in such an unfamiliar way. A lot of people may practice budo in Japan but very few of them know anything, in a real scholarly way, about specific religious connctions or, more importantly, the way in which the budo traditions have borrowed religious terminology to explain budo concepts which are not necessarily religious. After all, Eugen Herrigel wrote an entire book based on this fundamental misunderstanding which has done nothing but hopelessly confuse Western kyudo practitioners for the last 50 years.

David T Anderson
11th April 2002, 18:59
Originally posted by P Goldsbury

However, one colleague, who does Okinawan karate, suggested that the phrase was the perfect description of a mirror, depicting one's character in 'bright light' and with 'great honesty', or 'great accuracy'. Which is exactly what training in budo is meant to lead to: a kind of 'polishing the mirror'.

There, you almost have your essay.

Professor Goldsbury:

Thanks very much for your help in all this. I managed to wheedle a little more information from Sensei at our Monday practice...apparently the proper reading is something like 'the bright light of great righteousness', and is a quote from Christ in the New Testament. I have yet to find my Bible and look up the exact wording and context, but as I suspected, this is another exercise by Father Skoyles to connect Christian belief and ethics with Aikido. Given my own [ahem] secular viewpoint, this is looking like a challenge, to say the least....

Again, thank you for your help.

David T Anderson
11th April 2002, 19:08
Originally posted by john mark
Do you know the source of the phrase?

How was the scroll obtained? Who did the calligraphy?

From the photo, it appears that the calligraphy is not by a native speaker.

Hi John: As mentioned above, the phrase is translated from the New Testament. My sensei, Father Douglas Skoyles, did up the scroll himself. You are correct in thinking that he's not a native Japanese speaker, tho' he has some degree of facility with the language [I have none, and am no judge]. I'm bound to say that this scroll isn't as nice as a few other things of his I've seen, esp. fine-brush writing. Actually, Father Skoyles wrote a foreword to Dave Lowry's Sword And Brush book that gives a few of his thoughts about calligraphy in general...I don't think he'd claim to be more than an earnest amateur in the art.

Earl Hartman
11th April 2002, 19:27
Aha. All now is clear, as though illuminated with a bright light.

So much for Professor Goldbury's theory. No wonder the Japanese with whom he spoke had no idea how to read what was written. It was all Christianity to begin with, so of course it doesn't make sense in Japanese. Translation of this type is nothing more than trying to square the circle. It never works.

David T Anderson
11th April 2002, 20:50
Originally posted by Earl Hartman

If this scroll was indeed put together by a Christian aikido teacher who has tried to make religious/spiritual associatons between aikido and Christianity, or, alternatively, is promulgating a kind of Christian aikido, then the strangeness makes a lot of sense. Syncretism of this type always results in unfamiliar things, such as the Japanese Hidden Christian iconography, showing a Japanese and kimono-clad Madonna and Child. You paint what you know. Still, at the risk of raising a few hackles, trying to shoehorn Japanese budo into a foreign religious ideology is, in my opinion, ridiculous and dishonest and does violence to the integrity of budo. I might as well try to create Jewish kyudo.

I can understand the confusion of most Japanese when presented with a set of characters used in such an unfamiliar way. A lot of people may practice budo in Japan but very few of them know anything, in a real scholarly way, about specific religious connctions or, more importantly, the way in which the budo traditions have borrowed religious terminology to explain budo concepts which are not necessarily religious.

Hi Earl -- I think it would be more accurate to say that Father Skoyles Sensei is pleased to explore and find correlations and parallels between Aikido principles and Christian beliefs, but he doesn't force either one to fit the other [nor does he insist that his Aikido students adopt any particular religious viewpoint...a happy situation, in my own case].

In the same way I find that Aikido is particularly agreeable to my Libertarian principles, which forbid the _initiation_ of force against others. Of course, many of my libertarian friends carry serious sidearms and regard my practice of a non-violent martial way with bemusement, but 'it's a free galaxy, pilgrim...'.

Joseph Svinth
11th April 2002, 21:49
If I were you, I wouldn't spend much time perusing the New Testament, as a pass through the concordance at http://bible.crosswalk.com/ does not reveal any coincidences of "great righteousness" or "light." Indeed, "great righteousness" does not appear in any version of the Vulgate, which presumably a Catholic would be using.

That said, this may be an allusion to Saul on the road to Damascus, which appears in Acts 22.

P Goldsbury
12th April 2002, 00:43
Well, as usual with E-budo, this thread has become more interesting the more it has strayed from the original point of simply trying to find a translation for a phrase or set of characters.

1. It was clear that the characters on the scroll had not been written by a native Japanese speaker, or, shall we say, someone who has been exposed for many years to the joys and hardships of learning to write as the Japanese do.

2. Please find the reference to the NT and post it. I teach a course here on the Bible and Literature and use Japanese texts. I would ike to check the reference and, as Joseph Svinth states, a concordance is not much use here.

3. My students immediately tried to relate the phrase to modern Japanese, with little success. My colleagues, of a different generation, immediately looked for Buddhist overtones. My karate colleague also knew of my training in aikido and immediately sought a 'budo-esque' interpretation of the phrase.

4. Of course, your teacher is not the first person to 'mix' Christian and non-Christian concepts. I have read somewhere that Francis Xavier did something similar when he first came to Japan. Due to poor translation, he presented Christianity in Buddhist terms and the question later arose of what exactly his converts were believing. This is still a valid question, in my opinion.

Best regards,
______________
P A Goldsbury,
Graduate School of Social Sciences,
Hiroshima University

Earl Hartman
12th April 2002, 01:11
Well, YOU try explaining to the Japanese about a god/man whose mother was human and whose father was, well, G-d, who had to die as a sacrifice so that man could be free from sin, and with whom one communes by eating his body and drinking his blood in the form of a senbei and sake that have been magically and literally transformed by the kannushi, and that if you don't G-d will hate you forever and see how far YOU get. The skill of the interpreter is only one part of the problem.

P Goldsbury
12th April 2002, 04:41
Originally posted by Earl Hartman
Well, YOU try explaining to the Japanese about a god/man whose mother was human and whose father was, well, G-d, who had to die as a sacrifice so that man could be free from sin, and with whom one communes by eating his body and drinking his blood in the form of a senbei and sake that have been magically and literally transformed by the kannushi, and that if you don't G-d will hate you forever and see how far YOU get. The skill of the interpreter is only one part of the problem.

Oh, absolutely. On the other hand, a glance through the 'Kojiki' or 'Reikai Monogatari' will show that Christianity does not have a monopoly on stories which seem to defy translation, shall we say. And, well, I was brought up as a Catholic and over the years have had many intelligent conversations with Japanese Jesuits down in this part of Japan, who clearly have a firm grasp on Shinto, Buddhism and Christian theology, all in their native Japanese. I am not so sure about the novels of Shusaku Endo, however.

Best regards,
______________
P A Goldsbury,
Graduate School of Social Sciences,
Hiroshima University

Mark Tankosich
12th April 2002, 05:12
Peter,

Kind of silly to be communicating with someone across town in this way, perhaps, but can you tell me more about this karate practioner colleage of yours? What style of Okinawan karate does he do? Where does he practice?

See you at meeting on the 14th?

Mark

P Goldsbury
12th April 2002, 11:18
Originally posted by Mark Tankosich
Peter,

Kind of silly to be communicating with someone across town in this way, perhaps, but can you tell me more about this karate practioner colleage of yours? What style of Okinawan karate does he do? Where does he practice?

See you at meeting on the 14th?

Mark

Hello Mark,

My colleague's name is Sosei Aniya 案?m屋?@?ウ and he appears largely to train alone at the moment. He does not participate in any university club activity, as far as I know. I'll talk to him and let you know at the meeting. The meeting is on the 19th, starting at 4 pm, and there is to be a 飲み放題 party afterwards.

Best,

Peter
______________
P A Goldsbury,
Graduate School of Social Sciences,
Hiroshima University

Earl Hartman
12th April 2002, 18:21
Well, as we say, "every man has his own mishegoss"; that is, everybody has their crazy, mixed-up stuff. When that stuff is rooted in the culture, it is usually all but incomprehensible to outsiders. I have never read the Kojiki or the Nihon Shoki, but I am sure it is rich in all sorts of "Say what?" type of things.

However, I have always wondered how the Christian concept of original sin, and the resulting theological need in Christianity for G-d himself (in one of his manifestations anyway) to sacrifice himself in order to make things right, ever made sense to the Japanese. It seems so far from their conception of things that it doesn't seem so strange to me that there are, to this day, so few Christians in Japan. Or was that due to the Tokugawa oppression, do you think? Anyway, the Japanese concept of "kegare", which, AFAIK, is taken care of by a ritual purification such as "O-harai" has always seemed closer to the Jewish idea of sin as something that pollutes but is correctable. I have never closely studied this, but I have often wondered about it. Perhaps you can shed some "bright light" on the subject.

Also, I have heard that when a new Emperor is invested he undergoes some extremely strange (to outsiders, anyway) religious ceremonies that no one but the innermost of the inner circle is allowed to witness. From what very little I have heard about them, they seem to bear a passing resemblance to things I have heard about ancient "Aryan" religious ceremonies that made their way into Hindu culture. Of course, my information, such as it is, is all in little bits and scraps and is, I am sure, totally unreliable. Do you know anything about these ceremonies or where there is any information about them and their origins?

Ben Bartlett
12th April 2002, 22:29
A couple of things in response to Earl:

1) What you've been describing is actually Catholicism, not Christianity as a whole. Not that it changes what you are saying, but as a Baptist, I just felt like I had to make that point. :D

2) Actually, Christianity was fairly popular in Japan pre-Tokugawa (relatively speaking). The Jesuit version of Christianity sat well with the samurai. A couple of things then happened: a) other Christian denominations started showing up, confusing the Japanese to no end, and b) the Tokugawa began cracking down on Christians.

3) The main reasons Christianity isn't popular today (or so I've read/learned/what-have-you), are that a) religion in general isn't very popular in Japan today (while they follow the ceremonies, most Japanese people don't believe in either Buddhist or Shinto doctrine), and b) Christianity (or at least the type missionaries in Japan tend to preach) doesn't allow Japanese people to participate in Shinto or Buddhist ceremonies; this doesn't sit well with the Japanese, who consider these ceremonies part of their culture, and thus part of being Japanese. That being said, the Japanese Christians that do exist are very, very Christian. ;)

4) The Japanese actually don't have any trouble understanding the story of Christ. They love to use Christian imagery- just look at the huge amount of anime based on Christian themes. The story is, frankly, not all that complex; and as someone pointed out, there are much stranger stories found in their own traditions. It's just that for a variety of reasons (some of which I mentioned above), they simply don't care to be Christians. Similarly, I understand the basic concepts behind Hinduism, Buddhism, and Shinto (and to a lesser extent, Judaism and Islam), but I don't choose to belong to any of those religions.

At any rate, I'm not going to pretend that I'm an expert, but I've taken a few classes on the subject and that's what I've learned. If someone here who is an expert wants to add or contradict something, they can feel free. :)

(Actually, while I'm at it, I just thought I'd point out that the idea of Christ is not all that different from a Bodhishattva [sp?], and the Christian version of God is a lot like Amida Butsu. If I remember correctly, some Buddhist groups (or possibly it was a New Religion; I don't remember for certain- either way it was Japanese ;) ) actually do consider him a Bodhishattva.)