True Victory is Victory Over Oneself in Japanese Calligraphy

正勝吾勝 (masakatsu agatsu)

正勝吾勝, read masakatsu agatsu: true victory is victory over oneself. The characters are far older than the saying. They open the name of a god in the 古事記, Japan's oldest chronicle: Susanoo swears an oath with his sister Amaterasu, wins it, and cries that he has won, and the eldest son born of that oath carries the cry in his name, 正勝吾勝, truly, I have won; in the next line, in the elation of winning, he breaks down the dikes of his sister's rice fields. Until aikido the four characters were that name and nothing else. Morihei Ueshiba, the founder of aikido, took them for his motto and read a teaching into them: 正勝, the right kind of victory, is 吾勝, victory over oneself, the defeat of the contending mind in one's own heart. He coined the reading, not the characters, and the reading is what this design says. The English title is John Stevens's literal rendering of 1995. The phrase is composed of the kanji 正 (read masa) meaning "correct; true", 勝 (read katsu) meaning "victory", 吾 (read a) meaning "self" and 勝 (read gatsu) meaning "victory".

True Victory is Victory Over Oneself (正勝吾勝) in Block style Japanese calligraphy by Eri Takase

True Victory is Victory Over Oneself 正勝吾勝 masakatsu agatsu Block Vertical VB6C

True Victory is Victory Over Oneself (正勝吾勝) in Cursive style Japanese calligraphy by Eri Takase

True Victory is Victory Over Oneself 正勝吾勝 masakatsu agatsu Cursive Vertical VC4B

True Victory is Victory Over Oneself 正勝吾勝 masakatsu agatsu Cursive Vertical VC4C

True Victory is Victory Over Oneself 正勝吾勝 masakatsu agatsu Cursive Vertical VC4D

True Victory is Victory Over Oneself 正勝吾勝 masakatsu agatsu Cursive Vertical VC5B

True Victory is Victory Over Oneself (正勝吾勝) in Design style Japanese calligraphy by Eri Takase

True Victory is Victory Over Oneself 正勝吾勝 masakatsu agatsu Design Vertical VD4B

True Victory is Victory Over Oneself 正勝吾勝 masakatsu agatsu Design Vertical VD5B

True Victory is Victory Over Oneself (正勝吾勝) in Semi-Cursive style Japanese calligraphy by Eri Takase

True Victory is Victory Over Oneself 正勝吾勝 masakatsu agatsu Semi-Cursive Vertical VS3C

True Victory is Victory Over Oneself 正勝吾勝 masakatsu agatsu Semi-Cursive Vertical VS4C

True Victory is Victory Over Oneself 正勝吾勝 masakatsu agatsu Block Horizontal HB5A

True Victory is Victory Over Oneself 正勝吾勝 masakatsu agatsu Cursive Horizontal HC3A

True Victory is Victory Over Oneself 正勝吾勝 masakatsu agatsu Cursive Horizontal HC3B

True Victory is Victory Over Oneself 正勝吾勝 masakatsu agatsu Design Horizontal HD5A

True Victory is Victory Over Oneself 正勝吾勝 masakatsu agatsu Design Horizontal HD5B

True Victory is Victory Over Oneself 正勝吾勝 masakatsu agatsu Semi-Cursive Horizontal HS4A

True Victory is Victory Over Oneself 正勝吾勝 masakatsu agatsu Semi-Cursive Horizontal HS4C

About the Designs

Each design is Master Japanese Calligrapher Eri Takase's hand-brushed calligraphy of the word or phrase on this page, delivered as a PDF you can print. Every PDF includes the line art, so a tattoo artist or a craftsperson can work from the outline as well as the brushed image.

Delivery

Your PDF is available for download the moment your order completes, and a copy is attached to your emailed receipt.

True Victory is Victory Over Oneself

正勝吾勝 (masakatsu agatsu)

About the Designs

Delivery

Also available as a hand-brushed Japanese scroll