Uchiyama Gudō, "Postcard to Ishikawa Sanshirō"
Postcard sent by Uchiyama Gudō to Ishikawa Sanshirō 石川三四郎, 5 December 1907, while Ishikawa was imprisoned at Sugamo Prison in Tokyo. (Original Japanese here.)
- To: Ishikawa Sanshirō 石川三四郎
- Date: 5 December 1907, 11:30 p.m.
- From: Ōhiradai, Hakone
I keep thinking that I really ought to send you a postcard once a month, but things do not go as I intend, and I repeatedly fail to do so—please excuse me. During the autumn leaves in November, I sent you a picture postcard of the autumn foliage, but carelessly addressed it to “Tokyo Prison,” and it was returned to me together with one addressed to Yamaguchi.[1]
Today I received a postcard from my younger brother. He says that in Echigo it has been snowing for the past three or four days. Here on Mount Hakone there has been no snow, but for the past four or five days the whole garden has been covered with icicles. I have lately been writing a history of religion in the Kantō region, and because of this I study until after midnight. Even now I am sitting with pen in hand in my three-mat study, but the cold is unbearable—the thermometer reads thirty-eight degrees.[2]
When I think of how cold I am, I cannot help thinking of you and the others. In prison, where everything is constrained and uncomfortable, I imagine there can be no better means of consolation than the absolute gospel.[3] I look forward with joy to the time when you have endured this bitter winter and come out, for then you will truly have come to know the greatness of the power of human faith, which triumphs over everything. I too have come to want to experience life in prison in order to put my own convictions to the test. No—the time when I must do so is coming.
We have passed from an age in which religion and politics were one and have now reached an age in which politics makes use of religion. Yet can those who follow the way of God remain under a politics that is swayed by considerations of advantage and disadvantage?[4] I believe that in the near future a time will come when people will no longer see any need for politics, but will each live according to their own absolute faith.[5] Yes—to hasten the coming of that time by even a single day: this I believe to be my calling.[6] What do you think?
Notes
[edit]- ↑ The identity of “Yamaguchi” has not yet been securely established. He may be Yamaguchi Kōken, who, like Ishikawa Sanshirō, was imprisoned in connection with the 1907 Tokyo streetcar-fare protest.
- ↑ Gudō is using the Fahrenheit scale. Thirty-eight degrees Fahrenheit is approximately 3.3°C.
- ↑ Gudō writes zettai no fukuin 絶対の福音, literally “absolute gospel.” The Christian-derived term fukuin 福音 (“gospel,” “good tidings”) is striking in Gudō's Buddhist vocabulary and anticipates his use of “absolute faith” (zettai no shinkō 絶対の信仰) below.
- ↑ Gudō writes kami no michi o hōzuru mono 神の道を奉ずる者, literally “those who serve/follow the way of God.” In context, the expression should not necessarily be read as a declaration of Christian belief. Gudō's religious vocabulary in this postcard deliberately ranges beyond conventional sectarian Buddhist terminology.
- ↑ Zettai no shinkō 絶対の信仰 (“absolute faith”) is central to this passage. Gudō does not here identify it with a particular Buddhist school or doctrine, and the phrase should therefore not be reduced to either conventional Buddhist faith or a fully articulated anarchist program.
- ↑ Gudō uses tenshoku 天職, literally a “heaven-appointed vocation” or “calling.” The sentence gives his anticipated disappearance of politics an explicitly religious framing.
Source Note
[edit]Uchiyama Gudō 内山愚童, postcard to Ishikawa Sanshirō 石川三四郎, 5 December 1907. Reproduced as 「書翰十一 石川三四郎君〔はがき〕」 in Kashiwagi Ryūhō 柏木隆法, Taigyaku jiken to Uchiyama Gudō 大逆事件と内山愚童 [The High Treason Incident and Uchiyama Gudō] (Tokyo: JCA Shuppan, 1979), 236–37. Kashiwagi identifies Ishikawa as then imprisoned at Sugamo Prison in Tokyo and gives Gudō's place of writing as Hakone Ōhiradai. The reproduced postcard is identified as held by Waseda University.
How to Cite this Text
[edit]Uchiyama Gudō (1907). “Postcard to Ishikawa Sanshirō” (5 December). Translated and annotated by James Mark Shields. The Radical Buddhism Project. Version of 7 October 2026. http://radicalbuddhism.net/wiki/UG07ISS-T.
