Uchiyama Gudō, postcard to Itō Shōshin
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⚠ Awaiting Peer Review ⚠ This English translation is complete but has not yet undergone review by a language specialist. |
Postcard sent by Uchiyama Gudō to Itō Shōshin (伊藤証信), 1 January 1908. (Original Japanese here.)
- To: Itō Shōshin (伊藤証信)
- Address: Tokuyama Girls' School, Tokuyama-chō, Yamaguchi Prefecture (山口県徳山町徳山女学校)
- Date: Written January 1, Meiji 41 [1908]
- From: Ōhiradai, Hakone (箱根大平台)
- [Marginal note affixed to the postcard:] Ise-inabe, Kume-mura (receiving post office stamp dated the 12th)[1]
How quickly the days and months pass — this very morning it has already become January 1st of Meiji 41. You, as ever, find the days insufficient for your spiritual cultivation, and it is splendid that you are especially under the guidance of good teachers and friends.[2]
I, on the contrary, have recently undergone a change in my thinking. The ways of religionists who claim to be allies of the weak now strike me as utterly foolish, unbearably so. At the end of last year, Oda (小田) sent me a work on Tolstoy's (ト翁)[3] humanitarianism, so I examined Tolstoy's approach carefully as well, but while I am in full agreement with boycotting an oppressive government, I am, somehow, not fully satisfied with his individualism.[4]
I have come, in any case, to want to build a society in which no one stands above another. At present I am wrestling with just how to bring this about; as a result, I have not yet decided whether the weapon will be a bomb or a pistol. Of all things, there is nothing so violent and evil as government.[5] Government holds weapons, oppressing the common people while extracting taxes from them. To restrain this violence and evil, the power of religionists is useless. If today's religionists were truly determined in their hearts to build the Kingdom of Heaven (天国), they would have no choice but to overthrow this government.[6] The very hand that tells the prayer beads must always be carrying a bomb as well.[7]
As for what I should take up in place of the sutras I am casting aside, that remains a question I am still studying, and I have not yet decided. Thank you very much for the [...].[8]
Notes
[edit]- ↑ "Ise-inabe" is shorthand for the Inabe (員弁) district in Ise (伊勢) province (present day Mie prefecture). "Kume-mura" is the name of the village where this post office was located.
- ↑ The original reads 「結好」 (kekkō), which is not a standard word. The intended word is almost certainly 「結構」 (kekkō, "splendid," "excellent"), which fits both the sound and the sense.
- ↑ 「ト翁」 (literally "Old Master Tō") is a period honorific abbreviation for Tolstoy (トルストイ), commonly used in Meiji-era Japanese writing.
- ↑ The original reads 「壓き足らぬ」, which is not a standard construction. The intended phrase is almost certainly the set expression 「飽き足らぬ」 ("not fully satisfied with"), which matches both the grammar and the sense of the passage.
- ↑ The original repeats 「政府」 (seifu, "government") back-to-back: 「いづれの政府も政府ほど暴悪な者はない」. It is likely intentional emphatic repetition for rhetorical effect, though the possibility of an unintentional slip by the writer cannot be ruled out.
- ↑ The original reads 「天国の作造に心がくるならば」. 「作造」 is not a standard word; 「創造」 ("creation") is almost certainly intended. 「心がくる」 is not grammatical; 「心がける」 ("to make it one's intent, to resolve to") is almost certainly intended, with け apparently misread or misremembered as く.
- ↑ The original reads 「珠数つまくる」. 「珠数」 is a character transposition of the standard 「数珠」 (juzu, Buddhist prayer beads); 「つまくる」 lacks the expected dakuten and is almost certainly meant as 「つまぐる」 ("to finger, to tell [beads]").
- ↑ The original reads 「時習どうもありがたう」. 「時習」 does not combine intelligibly with the closing expression of thanks that follows it. It may refer to a specific item, custom, or previous exchange between the correspondents that is not otherwise recoverable from context.
