因果応報 inga ōhō Karma

因果応報 (inga ōhō): good and bad deeds bring their due, good fortune from good and ill from bad. Today it is mostly said of bad deeds bearing bad fruit.

In the デジタル大辞泉, good or bad deeds in a former life or in the past are the cause. Their recompense is a good or bad result now. 因果 is cause and fruit, and 応報 is recompense. Whether you take it as a law with two halves or as a deterrent is yours.

In 1884 a manual for primary-school teachers said to avoid teaching 因果応報, except for such things as diligence. A child taught that the good are rewarded and the wicked punished would do good for praise, it said, and shun evil from fear.

A Shingon primer for lay believers, catalogued in 1881, asks who made the law of cause and recompense. No creator or lord makes it, the primer answers. It is what beings bring about by the power of their deeds.

A Buddhist phrase from China, where it is written 因果報應, as in 道宣's 廣弘明集 (664) and the life of 玄奘; the order 因果應報 stands in the Chinese canon once, in 義淨's translation (700). In Japan it is first found in a book of tales of 1696, the 玉箒子, and by the 1880s it is the common order.

We want you to be as happy with the meaning as you are with Master Takase's art. To learn more, visit Philology of 因果応報.

Your scroll is brushed when you order it and completed within 1 to 3 business days. It ships by USPS Priority Mail from Master Takase's studio in Washington State, boxed and ready to hang, with a printed page giving the art's English, romaji and Japanese.

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Master Japanese Calligrapher Eri Takase brushes your scroll by hand when you order it. Each scroll bears her red seal, 英利, and her signature.

The scrolls are 12 1/4" W × 43" H (31 × 109 cm) with woven damask borders and Japanese paper that are layered so the scroll hangs straight and will not warp over time. The scrolls themselves are made by a scroll maker in Gifu, Japan, and we have worked with them for over two decades.

Eri Takase was born and raised in Osaka, Japan, and holds the rank of Shihan, the highest rank in Japanese calligraphy, from the Bokuteki-kai and the Bunka-shodo. About Master Takase