Semi-Cursive · gyōsho 行書 · VS4C
Semi-Cursive or gyōsho (行書) styles are a simplified and softer form of the kaisho styles. Gyōsho styles can be read by most Japanese.
異体同心
itaidōshin
Different Bodies One Mind
Different bodies, one mind: two people who remain two and think as one, said of comrades and, in modern Japanese, of a couple.
by Master Eri Takase
Born and raised in Osaka, Japan, Eri Takase received the rank of Shihan, master, from two calligraphy societies, the Bokuteki-kai and Bunka-shodō, and won best-of-category awards in all-Japan national competitions. She has created calligraphy for people around the world for more than thirty years, and with your order she will be creating calligraphy for you.
In a ritual as old as calligraphy itself, Master Takase prepares the ink, meditatively rubbing the ink stick against the stone until it reaches the perfect consistency for the paper. Then, properly loading the brush with ink, she brushes your scroll. And only when the scroll is just right and meets her approval, she signs it and affixes her seal, completing your original scroll.
12 1/4" × 43" (31 × 109 cm) Japanese Scrolls
The scrolls have woven damask borders and special layered Japanese paper (washi), designed to last generations by a scroll maker in Gifu, Japan, with whom we have worked for over two decades.
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Explanation
異体同心 (itaidōshin): two people who remain two and think as one.
The phrase is built on a contrast, and it says the two stay two: 異体 is different bodies, separate persons, and 同心 is one mind. Its mirror image, 同体異心, one body and different minds, is the state in which nothing gets done, and the two were set against each other by Nichiren, in a letter about his persecuted followers at Atsuhara: a few people of one mind accomplish what a multitude of divided minds cannot.
Before him the four characters were Chinese, said of two cruel emperors, of two guardian figures beside the sun, of a prefecture's officials and of friends mourned by poets; and in Japan of a nun's two daughters and the deities of a Buddhist rite. Said of a couple, its modern sense, which the dictionaries carry, it wishes them alignment rather than fusion: 一心同体 and 偕老同穴 make a couple one, and this phrase keeps both people in it.
English-speaking practitioners know it as many in body, one in mind; different bodies, one mind keeps the different the phrase is built on.
異体同心 is composed of the kanji 異 (read i) meaning "uncommon; different; queerness", 体 (read tai) meaning "body; substance; object", 同 (read dō) meaning "same; agree; equal", and 心 (read shin) meaning "heart; mind; spirit".
The phrase is Chinese: the oldest use found in zh.wikisource's texts with a datable writer is 虞世南's (558–638) verdict on two cruel emperors, and Tang writers use it of two guardian figures and of a prefecture's officials; in Japan it is written from the twelfth century in Buddhist books, and Nichiren's letter on it, about his followers at Atsuhara and put by its English editions between 1275 and 1280, gave it the life it has had since.
Learn More About These Words
We want you to be as happy with the meaning as you are with Master Takase's art. To learn more, visit Philology of 異体同心.
