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塵も積もれば山となる chiri mo tsumoreba yama to naru Even dust if piled can become a mountain

Japanese Scroll of Even dust if piled can become a mountain (chiri mo tsumoreba yama to naru) — Calligraphy by Eri Takase
塵も積もれば山となる Original Scroll by Master Calligrapher Eri Takase

Abstract

塵も積もれば山となる, even dust, piled up, becomes a mountain, is a Japanese proverb about many small things adding up to something great. Its image is Chinese: a philosopher of about the third century BC piling earth into a mountain, a Buddhist commentary's fine dust piled into a mountain of karma that can hardly be moved, and a Tang poet's couplet on the wall of his room, which a Muromachi commentary and a Meiji edition set behind Tsurayuki's kana preface to the Kokinshū of 905. The dictionary of record gives as its earliest cited example a line from the closing passage of a Noh play it dates about 1430, and the plain proverb follows in lectures of 1563 attributed to a Zen monk, the Jesuits' Japanese-Portuguese dictionary of 1603–04, a tract of 1627 on how to become rich, and the first books of sayings. English has kept the literal image since Hepburn's dictionary of 1867, the earliest English rendering among the books read; among them, an American proverb book of 1965 sets Great oaks from little acorns grow beside a Japanese proverb of a poppy seed holding a mountain, and a dictionary of idiomatic equivalents of 1968 is the first to set it beside the dust.

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Overview

The sense. One sense, from Xunzi 荀子 to the modern dictionaries: many small things, kept up, come to something great. What changes is what the small things are. For Xunzi and Dong Zhongshu 董仲舒 they are learning and virtue; for the sutra they are heavy deeds done in greed and anger, and the mountain is one that can hardly be moved; for a Zen lecturer of 1563 they are good deeds and evil ones alike; for Bai Juyi and Tsurayuki they are the steps of a way and the growth of poetry; for the Noh crone they are first the mountain itself and, in the play's closing passage, the delusions that have piled up into her; for a tract of 1627 on getting rich they are savings lent out at interest, growing on themselves; a puppet play of 1643 uses it in a drinking scene, without saying what piles up; for a tale of a Sakai merchant, reprinted in 1912, they are the steps of making one's way; for the savings slogans of modern Japan that a dictionary mentions, they are savings. The Japanese proverb kept the shape and let the content go, which is what a proverb does. No witness read for this history reads the dust as a seed. Japanese has its own proverb of one small thing holding something great, a poppy seed with Mount Sumeru inside it, and it is a different proverb.

The words. 塵, chiri, is dust, the least particle of anything; in Buddhist Chinese the word for the smallest unit of matter is 微塵, fine dust, and that is where the canon line below comes from. 積もれば, tsumoreba, is the verb to pile up, to accumulate in the conditional, if it piles up; the も before it is even: even dust, if it piles up. 山となる, yama to naru, becomes a mountain, with the classical となる that the proverb has kept. Three things vary across the witnesses and none of them touches the design. The verb: 積って, having piled up, is the form of the Noh line as a Meiji edition prints it, of the lectures of 1563 as copied in 1597, of that list as copied in 1790, of the Jesuits' dictionary, the tract of 1627 and a puppet play of 1643, and of Hepburn's dictionary of 1867 and a storyteller's tale issued in 1884–85; つもりて, in the older written form, is the form of the 1638 handbook's list, which is written in kana, and 積りて of the book of sayings of 1656; the conditional, written 積もれば, is the form the dictionaries and the catalogue head with, and an English magazine already romanizes it in 1871–72. The even: the も after 塵 is in no witness before 1700 read for this history (the lectures of 1563 have a も elsewhere, 一滴ノ水モ, even one drop of water), and it is present in that magazine, in a cross-reference headword of 藤井's dictionary of 1910, 【塵モツモレバ山トナル】 (below, 1910), and in the form the dictionaries and the catalogue head with today; Hepburn in 1867 and Chamberlain in 1889 print the spoken 積って without it. And the spelling of the verb's ending, 積れば against 積もれば, which is one word written two ways: in the National Diet Library's Lab full-text search of its public-domain books, which reach to about 1945, as saved for this history in 2026-09, 塵も積れば山 finds 617 books and 塵も積もれば山 56, and the catalogue writes 積もれば.

The proverb in English. The literal rendering is Hepburn's, in 1867, and every English book read keeps it except Corwin's dictionary of equivalents, which gives only the acorn [1]. A magazine's list of Japanese proverbs in 1871–72 has Even dust if gathered up becomes a mountain [2], a dictionary of 1908 even dust heaped up makes a hill [3], and 藤井's 1910 dictionary gives four European equivalents of accumulation, of which ことわざを知る辞典 still gives one, Many a little makes a mickle [4]. Of the American proverb books, Buchanan in 1965 keeps the literal with even and gives Great oaks from little acorns grow to a different Japanese proverb, of a poppy seed [5]; Corwin's dictionary of 1968 is the earliest of the books read to set the acorn beside this line, and Galef's list gives the same equivalent in 1987 [6][7]; Zona in 1996 and Trimnell in 2004 keep the literal image close [8][9]. The proverb is not in Galef's second book (2000).

The historical record

About the third century BC. Xunzi, the chapter 勸學, An Exhortation to Learning. 積土成山，風雨興焉；積水成淵，蛟龍生焉；積善成德，而神明自得，聖心備焉。故不積蹞步，無以致千里；不積小流，無以成江海, pile up earth and it becomes a mountain, and wind and rain rise from it; pile up water and it becomes a deep, and dragons are born in it; pile up good and it becomes virtue, and the spirit's clarity comes of itself. So without piling up half-steps there is no reaching a thousand miles; without piling up small streams there is no making a river or a sea [10]. The image of piled earth is here already, as a figure for learning, and it is an image later texts reuse. Liu Xiang 劉向's 説苑 in the first century BC says the same of piled earth, 土積成山，則豫樟生焉 [11], and Dong Zhongshu's memorial in the 漢書 says it of small things piled, 眾少成多，積小致鉅, the few become many, the small piled up reaches the great [12]; none of the lines quoted has the word dust.

Early fifth century. The 大智度論, the commentary on the Perfection of Wisdom attributed to Nāgārjuna, in Kumārajīva's Chinese, fascicle 94. ことわざを知る辞典 dates Nāgārjuna to the second or third century; the date here is the Chinese translation's, which the 日本国語大辞典 gives as 405 (弘始七年), saying Kumārajīva translated the first thirty-four fascicles in full and abridged the rest; fascicle 94 is in the abridged part. The line the modern dictionaries give as the proverb's origin: 譬如積微塵成山，難可得移動, it is like fine dust piled up into a mountain, which can hardly be moved. In its column the mountain is the weight of accumulated karma, the deeds a being piles up out of greed and anger until they can hardly be shifted, and the 故事成語を知る辞典 says so plainly: even a small anger or desire, repeated, makes the soul hard to save. It is a simile of the same shape as the proverb, with 微塵 and 成山 in one sentence, and its moral runs the other way [13].

Ninth century. 白居易, 續座右銘, A Continued Motto for the Right of the Seat. The poet kept Cui Ziyu 崔子玉's old motto on the wall of his room, judged it incomplete, and continued it: 千里始足下、高山起微塵、吾道亦如此、行之貴日新, a thousand miles begins under the foot; a high mountain rises from fine dust; my way is like this too, and in walking it what counts is to be new each day. The first line is 老子's, as the 1901 commentary on the Kokinshū preface names it [14]; the second recalls Xunzi's piled earth, in the Buddhist word for dust. This is the couplet Japan took [15].

905. Ki no Tsurayuki 紀貫之's kana preface to the 古今和歌集. Of how poetry grew from small beginnings: 遠き所も、出で立つ足もとよりはじまりて、年月をわたり、高き山も、麓の塵ひぢよりなりて、天雲たなびくまで生ひのぼれるが如くに、この歌も、かくの如くなるべし, as a far place begins from the foot that sets out, and crosses the years, and as a high mountain is made from the dust and mud at its base and grows up until the clouds of heaven trail across it, so must this poetry have been. As 金子元臣 read it in 1901, Tsurayuki has taken Bai Juyi's couplet and made it grander, adding the years to the thousand miles and the trailing clouds to the mountain, and he notes that the kana preface rewrites in other words the 真名序's 挑雲之樹、生自寸苗之烟、浮天之波起於一滴之露, the tree that reaches the clouds grows from the haze of an inch of sprout, the wave that floats the sky rises from a drop of dew. The Japanese trail of the proverb runs through this sentence [16][17].

Fifteenth century. The 榮雅抄, a commentary on the preface, as quoted in 1939. 榮雅抄曰、白居易云、千里始足下、高山起微塵。大戴禮曰、積土成山、風雨興焉. The 日本大百科全書 lists a 『古今栄雅抄』 among the works of 飛鳥井雅親, who took the name 栄雅 as a monk in 1473 and died in 1490 by it, 1491 by デジタル大辞泉; 国書データベース gives 栄雅抄 as another title of the 古今栄雅抄, a work in twenty volumes, catalogues it under his son 飛鳥井雅俊 with a query and dates it 明応七 (1498), also with a query, and the デジタル版 日本人名大辞典+Plus says that 雅俊 put his father's lectures together as the 古今栄雅抄 [18]. That the 榮雅抄 the 1939 collection quotes is this work is the reading taken here, from the name and the catalogue's other title. An annotated edition of 1901 makes the same identification: under 遠き所も……高き山も it sets the 白氏文集's 千里始足下、高山起微塵 and the Xunzi's piled earth, and under 遠き所も alone the 中庸, the 老子 (千里之行、始於足下), the 止觀 and the Xunzi again; it cites the 榮雅抄 on the same page for another gloss, so it is not an independent witness to the identification [19][14]. The identification is at least as old as the 榮雅抄, as the 1939 collection quotes it; it is not a modern finding.

Fifteenth century. The Noh play 山姥, the mountain crone. The crone opens her sermon with the same image: 夫れ山と謂つば、塵泥より起つて、天雲かゝる千丈の峯、海は苔の露よりしたゞりて、波濤を疊む萬水たり, what we call a mountain rises from dust and mud to a peak of a thousand fathoms that the clouds hang on; the sea drips from the dew on moss to the ten thousand waters that fold their waves. A 1908 commentary carries it over to living beings: mountain and sea are small things piled and piled, and in the bodies of living beings too small delusions pile and pile, until they cannot be free of the round of rebirth [20][21]. Its closing passage returns to the image: 輪廻を離れぬ妄執の雲の、塵つもつて山姥となれる、鬼女が有様, the dust of the clouds of deluded attachment, never free of the round of rebirth, piled up and become a mountain crone: the demon woman as she is; and the play ends a few phrases later, the crone gone, 山また山に山めぐりして、行方も知らずなりにけり, going the round of mountain after mountain, and where she went no one knew [20]. The same commentator notes 塵つもつて山となると云ふ諺によりて續けたり, it is phrased after the saying "dust piled up becomes a mountain", and the dictionary of record gives this line, which it dates about 1430, as the saying's earliest cited example (初出の実例) [20][22]. Whether the play follows a saying already current or the saying grew from the play, the line cannot show. The date is the dictionary's [22] and the reading 大和田's [20].

1563. 玉塵抄, lectures on the Chinese rhyme dictionary 韻府群玉 that studies attribute to the Zen monk 惟高妙安, in a manuscript copy of 1597. The dictionary of record dates the work 1563 in its citations, and the national catalogue of Japanese books gives it as 永禄六 (1563), in fifty-five volumes, with no author named [23]; the National Diet Library dates its copy 1597. Studies of 1964 and 1973 describe it as 惟高妙安's lectures on the 韻府群玉, glossing it in kana; a study of 1969 says it cannot be told whether he was the lecturer or the one who wrote the lectures down [23]. Explaining the Chinese in spoken Japanese, the lecturer uses the saying twice in the two volumes read and attributes it to no one. Under a line of 荀子 on piling up until a thing is manifest: アナドラヌ事ソ。チリツモツテ山トナルモノソ。ヨイ事モ小ナレドモツモレハスクレテ大ナヨイ事ニナルソ。悪モ小ナレトモツモレハ大ナワルイ事ニナルソ, it is not to be despised: dust piles up and becomes a mountain. A good thing, small as it is, piled up becomes a surpassingly great good; an evil, small as it is, piled up becomes a great evil [24]. Under 荀子's 積水成淵, pile up water and it becomes a deep: 一滴ノ水モツモレハ淵ヤ渕トナルソ。塵ツモツテ山トナル道理ソ, even one drop of water, piled up, becomes a deep pool: it is the principle of "dust piled up becomes a mountain"; then the preface of the 梵網経, 水滴雖微漸盈大器, a drop of water is slight, yet little by little it fills a great vessel, and sins piled up likened to the guilt of the deeds that lead to the deepest hell [25]. The form is the spoken つもつて, without the even, and both readings are already here: the encouragement and the sutra's warning.

The 1580s, as its heading says; written down later. 北條氏直時代諺留, a list of sayings. A short manuscript headed 北條氏直ノ時分ノ諺思合する事ども多キ故ニ書留之, sayings of the time of Hōjō Ujinao; since many come to mind, I write them down. Ujinao, by the dictionaries' dates, headed his house from 1580 until its fall in 1590 and died in 1591 [26]. Among its sayings, on p. 233 of the print, is ちりつもつて山となる; the list runs on to p. 238 and ends うしろぐらひは鬼のゑじき before the colophons. The manuscript, a six-leaf copy in the library of Tokyo University, is known now from 藤井乙男's transcription, which he printed in 1929 because he believed the copy had burned in the earthquake of 1923; the 1929 print sets さ where the 1938 reprint of the same page reads と [26]. Two colophons are printed with it. In the first, of 1773, 多賀氏常政 calls the list the sayings current in Ujinao's time, reports, as something heard, that the original was in the hand of 蓬庵主人, the father of 物茂卿 (元本物茂卿先生の父蓬庵主人自筆のよしにて), and says he copied it as it stood (本の儘に) from the copy 堀口氏率貞 owned; the second, of 1790, says it was copied from 多賀翁's copy [26]. 物茂卿 is a name Ogyū Sorai 荻生徂徠 signed with, and the dictionaries name his father 方庵 and give his birth as 1626; the colophon writes the first character of the father's name 蓬, not 方 [26][27]. If the report is right, the list was written down in the seventeenth century by a hand recalling the sayings of an earlier time, perhaps after the Jesuits' dictionary and the tract of 1627 below; its date rests on its heading [26].

1603–04. Vocabulario da Lingoa de Iapam, the Jesuits' Japanese-Portuguese dictionary printed at Nagasaki. Under Tçumori, Acrecentarse, ou acumularse, to increase, or to accumulate, at folio 248, second column, in the copy of the Bibliothèque nationale de France: Chiri tçumotte yamato naru. De pequenas cousas acumuladas se fazem grandes, of small things accumulated great ones are made. J. L. Álvarez-Taladriz numbers it 48 in his article on the dictionary's proverbs, Cacería de refranes en el "Vocabulario da Lingoa de Japam", citing it as 248b; Léon Pagès's French translation of 1868, made, as his notice says, sur l'exemplaire, pour ainsi dire unique, appartenant à la Bibliothèque impériale, from the copy, unique so to speak, belonging to the Imperial Library, has it under Tsoumori: Avec de petites choses accumulées il s'en fait de grandes. The dictionaries date the main volume 1603 and the supplement 1604, both printed by the Jesuit college at Nagasaki [28].

1614, by its colophon. 三浦浄心's 慶長見聞集, Things Seen and Heard in Keichō, read in typesets of 1906 and 1912. The dictionaries date it 1614, by its colophon; one adds that it also holds matters of the Kan'ei years (1624–44) and that some take the attribution to 浄心 for a later one, so the date is not proven [29]. In its ninth book Tsurayuki's sentence is put to work as a lesson in getting on: 遠き所もいで立つ足もとよりはじまると古人の申置きしも立身の肝要 … 山もふもとのちりひぢより起つて天雲のたな引く迄おひのぼるがごとし。されば堺にもずや宗安といひてうとくなる人有り, the ancients said that a far place begins under the foot that sets out, and that is the heart of making one's way; a mountain rises from the dust and mud at its base until the clouds trail across it. Now in Sakai there was a wealthy man, もずや Sōan. On the facing page come 五ヶ條の金言, five golden maxims, for gain in the ways of the present day, and the fourth is the saying: 第四みぢんつもつて山となる事, the fourth: that fine dust, piled up, becomes a mountain. The eighth book has it in a verse of counsel: 一錢をかろく思はでたくはへよちりつもりては山とならずや, do not think a single coin light, but save it: does dust, piled up, not become a mountain? [29]

1627. 長者教, The Rich Men's Teaching, printed in kana. The first of three rich men tells how he ate half his daily rice as a temple carpenter's apprentice, lent out the rest at ten per cent and then thirty, and kept it working until it multiplied itself: 二をうけ。二三をうく。みじんつもつて。山となり。一おくの長者となる, which G. W. Sargent translated in 1959 One leads to Two, Two leads to Three. Dust piles up and grows into a mountain. In this way I became a chōja worth a hundred thousand koku [30][31]. The saying is already about money, and about money that grows on itself. The second rich man, on the same lesson, sets a ladder climbed one step at a time beside plum trees that grow fast and are never large and camphors that grow slowly into great trees: the tract's figure for patience, and the nearest any witness read here comes to a growing tree [31].

1638. 毛吹草, 松江重頼's handbook of haikai, dated by its preface and printed in 1645, as the dictionaries date it. Its list of sayings has 塵つもりて山となる, followed by いさご重じて岩となる, sand grown heavy becomes a rock, as 藤井 printed the list in 1929; he says the 毛吹草 writes its sayings almost all in kana and that he supplied the kanji [26].

1643. 待賢門平氏合戦, a puppet play printed in that year. In a drinking scene, as the cups are offered and drunk: …さしうけ／＼のむ程に、みぢんつもつて山と也, with the に as the typeset of 1939 reads it, as they offered and took and drank, fine dust piled up and became a mountain [32]. The same drinking line is in the 幸若舞 鎌田, in the scene of 鎌田正清 and 長田, as 笹野堅's edition of 1943 prints it: さしうけ／＼呑ほとに。微塵積て山となり。砂長して岩となる, as they offered and took and drank, fine dust piled up and became a mountain, sand grew and became a rock, with the sand-and-rock pair of the 1638 list after it; the date of the text that edition follows was not read [33]. みぢん is 微塵, fine dust, in kana, as みじん is in the tract of 1627; the line does not say what piles up.

1656. 世話尽, a book of sayings in kana. 塵積りて山と成, dust, having piled up, becomes a mountain, at the head of a column that runs on to the judgments of hell too depend on money and a rich man has no second generation. The verb form of the 1638 list, without the even the modern form carries [34].

Edo, in prints of 1830 and 1899. The dictionaries. 谷川士清's 倭訓栞, under やま, in a volume printed in 1830: 塵積りて山となるといふ諺は古今集の序に高き山も麓のちりひぢよりなりてと見え … 説苑に土積成山と見えたり, the saying "dust piled up becomes a mountain" is seen in the Kokinshū preface, "a high mountain is made from the dust and mud at its base", and in the 説苑's "earth piled up becomes a mountain" [35]. 俚言集覧, in its Meiji typeset, files 塵積て山となる and 微塵て山となる, as its text layer reads the second (a character may be lost, and the leaf does not settle it at its resolution), under four Edo collections of sayings, 和漢古諺, 世話盡, 毛吹草 and 野語述說, and sets the preface and the 説苑 beside them [36]. The 倭訓栞 had put the proverb beside the preface by its print of 1830, and the 俚言集覧 does so as printed in 1899.

1867. James Curtis Hepburn, A Japanese and English Dictionary, first edition, page 496. Under the verb: TSZMORI … Chiri tszmotte yama to naru, (prov.) dust heaped up becomes a mountain. The earliest English rendering among the books read for this history and in the Internet Archive's full-text index, marked as a proverb, in the spoken form without even [1]. The second edition, 和英語林集成 of 1872, prints it again at page 567 under TSUMORI [37].

1871–72. The Phœnix, a monthly magazine for India, Burma, Siam, China, Japan and Eastern Asia, volume 2, page 191. In a numbered series of Japanese proverbs: (43) Chiri mo tsumoreba yama to naru. Even dust if gathered up becomes a mountain. The modern conditional and the even together, the earliest English with even in the same two searches [2].

1884–85 and 1908. 三遊亭円朝's 塩原多助一代記, his tale as performed and taken down in shorthand, issued in parts in 1884–85 by the library's record, has, in a speech on savings that have grown over ten years, 微塵積つて山となるの譬の通り, just as the saying goes, fine dust piled up becomes a mountain, with the Buddhist word for fine dust, 微塵, and beside it the printed reading ちり, the proverb's own word, where the other books read here that write 微塵 spell it みじん [38][30][32]; a Japanese-English dictionary of 1908 has Chiri mo tsumotte yamato naru, 塵も積つて山となる, Even dust heaped up makes a hill [3].

1910. 藤井乙男, 諺語大辞典. Four headwords, one of them 【塵モツモレバ山トナル】, which sends the reader to 塵ツモリテ. Under 【塵ツモリテ山トナル】 he gives two other forms it is said in (又…ともいふ), 微塵積ツテ山トナル and 砂長ジテ巖トナル, sand grows into a boulder; then his sources in order: the list of the sayings of Ujinao's time first, then the Kokinshū preface, the 説苑, Bai Juyi's couplet, the 大智度論, the Zen record 普燈錄 with 積塵成嶽, piled dust becomes a peak, and Dong Zhongshu by way of the 陔餘叢考; then four European proverbs, Drop by drop fills the tub, French; Many a little makes a mickle; Little and often makes a heap in time, German; Little brooks make great rivers, French. Under 【微塵積ツテ山トナル】 the preface and the 説苑 again, and under the headword that begins 【山ハモト山、水ハモト水】, the crone's line with Xunzi beside it. He puts the Japanese preface before the Chinese sutra, which is the right order for the Japanese proverb [4].

The dictionaries today. デジタル大辞泉: 《「大智度論」九四から》ごくわずかのものでも、数多く積もり重なれば高大なものとなることのたとえ, from the 大智度論, fascicle 94: a figure for how even the slightest things, piled up in numbers, become something high and great. ことわざを知る辞典 gives the same sense and a second, hortatory one, 小さな努力でもたゆまず続けていくと、いつか大きな成果が得られる, small efforts kept up without slackening bring a great result one day; it names the sutra as origin, the Kokinshū preface as the old Japanese form, the Edo period as when the present form came into common use, and the Edo いろは karuta as carrying it, and it gives Many a little makes a mickle as the English. The 故事成語を知る辞典 quotes the sutra in Japanese and says what it meant there [22].

What is not a source. The 大智度論 is the origin the modern dictionaries name, and it is a real parallel in the canon, the one text that has fine dust and becomes a mountain in a single line; but its mountain is the weight of bad karma, and the Japanese trail runs through the Kokinshū preface, whose source the commentators named as Bai Juyi five hundred years ago. The honest order is the preface as the Japanese source and the sutra as the canon parallel. 砂長じて巌となる, sand growing into a boulder, is a form 藤井's headword gives as another way of saying it (又…ともいふ); 積少成多 is the Chinese four-character form that ことわざを知る辞典 prints beside it, and 티끌 모아 태산 the Korean. Great oaks from little acorns grow, an English proverb about one small thing growing by its nature, is not a rendering of this line; the next section shows where it entered the English tradition.

The proverb in English

1889. Basil Hall Chamberlain, A Handbook of Colloquial Japanese, second edition, page 82. The first edition, of 1888, does not have it among its proverbs (¶ 449), and its text layer has none of the line's phrases (tsumotte, yama to naru, inculcate); the line enters the book in this edition [39]. In his grammar, among the uses of the particle と, as an example of と where, he says, it is not susceptible of any English rendering: Chiri tsumotte, yama to naru. "Dust accumulating becomes a mountain." (A proverb used to inculcate the importance of little things.) The spoken 積って, as in Hepburn, and no even; the line occurs once in its text layer [40].

1940. Huzii Otoo (藤井乙男), Japanese Proverbs, Tourist Library 33, page 32. "Tiri tumorite yama to naru." "Dust may pile to form a hill.", with Many and often make a heap in time and Little and often fill the purse as the English equivalents [41]. The author is the compiler of the 諺語大辞典 of 1910, and the verb is the form of his headword there, つもりて, not the conditional of the house's line [4]. The romanization is the book's own.

1958. Okada Rokuo, Japanese Proverbs and Proverbial Phrases, second edition (the first, of 1955, not read), page 34. Chiri mo tsumoreba yama to naru. Even dust, when piled up, may form a hill. This is the Japanese way of saying, "Many a mickle makes a muckle." [42]

1965. Daniel Crump Buchanan, Japanese Proverbs and Sayings, University of Oklahoma Press, page 158. Chiri mo tsumoreba yama to naru: "Even dust when accumulated makes a mountain." English parallel: Little and often makes a heap in time. The literal, with even for も, and 藤井's German proverb as the parallel [5]. Ninety pages earlier, under Detail, he gives Keshi no naka ni Shumisan ari, "The small beginning of great things." (Lit., "In a poppy seed is Mount Sumeru.") English parallels: A forest in an acorn. Great oaks from little acorns grow. The acorn is already in the English tradition of Japanese proverbs, set beside the proverb of one small thing [5].

1968. Charles Corwin, A Dictionary of Japanese and English Idiomatic Equivalents. Chiri mo tsumoreba yama to naru ちりも積もれば山となる Great oaks from little acorns grow, filed in the dictionary's section on money, 112 Kinsen 金銭 [6]. The earliest of the books read to set the acorn beside the dust, three years after Buchanan set it beside the poppy seed; Galef's 1987 equation is already here.

1987. David Galef, Even Monkeys Fall from Trees, Tuttle, number 32, page 78. Chiri mo tsumoreba yama to naru. Even dust amassed will grow into a mountain., and in his list of English equivalents, Great oaks from little acorns grow. It gives the same equivalent as Corwin in 1968 [6], in a list of equivalents that Galef's preface traces to a weekly column for a Japanese-English newspaper, where finding the English equivalent became a kind of game; among the books read, no other equivalent given this proverb is about one thing growing rather than many things piling [7].

1996. Guy Zona, Even Withered Trees Give Prosperity to the Mountain, Simon and Schuster, page 14. Even dust, when accumulated, makes a mountain. No Japanese, no source [8].

2004. Edward Trimnell, Tigers, Devils, and Fools, Beechmont Crest, page 21. Dust, when accumulated, makes a mountain, then This proverb encourages people to be patient when accumulating savings or combining many small efforts. Zona's wording without the even, and the savings reading the Japanese dictionaries also record. The proverb is not in Galef's second book, Even a Stone Buddha Can Talk (2000) [9].

Today. The house translation, Even dust if piled can become a mountain, stands in Hepburn's and Buchanan's line: literal, even for も, piled for the verb, can become softening となる. What a rendering must keep: the dust as many, and the piling as the act; even is worth keeping, and can is a courtesy the Japanese does not need.

A reading

Great oaks from little acorns grow is a proverb about one small thing becoming great by its nature. This proverb is about many small things becoming great by number. The Japanese witnesses read here say so, from Xunzi's piled earth to the tract of 1627, whose dust is savings lent out and multiplying; so do the English equivalents 藤井, Buchanan, Okada and ことわざを知る辞典 give: drop by drop, little and often, many a little, many a mickle. The dust is not a seed. Japanese has a seed proverb, the poppy seed with Mount Sumeru inside it, and the earliest English book read that reaches for the acorn sets it there, not here; the tract of 1627 has its slow camphor, and it stands for patience, beside the piling, not for the dust. What can be said instead is the chain, which is true: an image of piled earth in a Chinese philosopher of about the third century BC; a Tang poet's couplet on the wall of his room; the preface to Japan's first imperial anthology, using it for how poetry itself grew; a Noh crone using it for the mountain she haunts and for what she has become; and the proverb in a tract on getting rich in 1627, and in the books of sayings after it, on a karuta card since, and in the savings slogans of modern Japan. On the sutra: it is named, as the dictionaries do, for what it meant there, which is a mountain of heavy deeds done in greed and anger, not a mountain of savings.

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Japanese Scrolls by Master Calligrapher Eri Takase

Japanese Scroll of Even dust if piled can become a mountain (chiri mo tsumoreba yama to naru) in a block font by Master Japanese Calligrapher Eri Takase
塵も積もれば山となるVB6CBlock
Japanese Scroll of Even dust if piled can become a mountain (chiri mo tsumoreba yama to naru) in a cursive font by Master Japanese Calligrapher Eri Takase
塵も積もれば山となるVC6BCursive
Japanese Scroll of Even dust if piled can become a mountain (chiri mo tsumoreba yama to naru) in Master Japanese Calligrapher Eri Takase's own style (Eri's Choice)
塵も積もれば山となるVD5BEri's Choice
Japanese Scroll of Even dust if piled can become a mountain (chiri mo tsumoreba yama to naru) in a semi-cursive font by Master Japanese Calligrapher Eri Takase
塵も積もれば山となるVS6CSemi-Cursive

References

  1. James Curtis Hepburn, A Japanese and English Dictionary, first edition, 1867, p. 496, s.v. TSZMORI. Internet Archive japaneseenglishd00hepb, leaf n513. https://archive.org/details/japaneseenglishd00hepb/page/n513/mode/1up
  2. The Phœnix: A Monthly Magazine for India, Burma, Siam, China, Japan and Eastern Asia, vol. 2, 1871–72, p. 191, "Japanese Proverbs", no. 43. Internet Archive, leaf n202. https://archive.org/details/the-phoenix-a-monthly-magazine-for-india-burma-siam-china-japan-eastern-asia-vol-ii-1871-1872/page/n202/mode/1up
  3. 『和英新辞典』(会話作文), 1908. National Diet Library pid 903158, scan 300. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/903158/1/300
  4. 藤井乙男『諺語大辞典』, 有朋堂, 1910, 【塵ツモリテ山トナル】, 【塵モツモレバ山トナル】 (塵ツモリテの條を見よ), 【微塵積ツテ山トナル】 and the headword that begins 【山ハモト山、水ハモト水】, under which he quotes the 山姥. National Diet Library pid 862766, scans 337, 494 and 533. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/862766/1/337
  5. Daniel Crump Buchanan, Japanese Proverbs and Sayings, University of Oklahoma Press, Norman, 1965, p. 158, and p. 68 for Keshi no naka ni Shumisan ari.
  6. Charles Corwin, ed., A Dictionary of Japanese and English Idiomatic Equivalents, Kodansha International, 1968, p. 135, section 112, Kinsen 金銭 (money).
  7. David Galef, Even Monkeys Fall from Trees: The Wit and Wisdom of Japanese Proverbs, Charles E. Tuttle, Rutland and Tokyo, 1987, no. 32, p. 78 (the page as the EPUB names the entry's illustration, 78a; nos. 30 and 31 at 74a and 76a), the List of Proverbs with English Equivalents, and the preface.
  8. Guy Zona, Even Withered Trees Give Prosperity to the Mountain, Simon and Schuster, New York, 1996, p. 14.
  9. Edward E. Trimnell, Tigers, Devils, and Fools: A Guide to Japanese Proverbs, Beechmont Crest Publishing, 2004, p. 21.
  10. 荀子『勸學』, 3rd century BC, at ctext.org. https://ctext.org/xunzi/quan-xue/zh · The century from 「荀子」, 日本大百科全書, at kotobank (紀元前3世紀ごろ). https://kotobank.jp/word/荀子-78605
  11. 劉向『説苑』建本, 1st century BC, at ctext.org. https://ctext.org/shuo-yuan/jian-ben/zh
  12. 『漢書』董仲舒傳, at ctext.org. https://ctext.org/han-shu/dong-zhong-shu-zhuan/zh
  13. Kumārajīva tr., 『大智度論』卷九十四, early 5th century, at CBETA (T25n1509, p. 720b09–11; the fascicle's header 龍樹菩薩造, 後秦龜茲國三藏鳩摩羅什譯). https://cbdata.dila.edu.tw/stable/juans?work=T1509&juan=94 · The translation's date from 「大智度論」, 精選版 日本国語大辞典, at kotobank (鳩摩羅什が後秦の弘始七年（四〇五）に一〇万頌に及ぶ原典のうち初めの三四巻を全訳し、残りは適宜抄訳したという). https://kotobank.jp/word/大智度論-91614
  14. 『古今和歌集序析義』, 1901, pp. 17–18: 〔參照〕 at 遠き所も……高き山も (〔白氏文集〕, 〔荀子〕) and the notes at 遠き所も. National Diet Library pid 873291, scans 17–18. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/873291/1/17
  15. 白居易, 續座右銘 并序, 『白氏長慶集』卷39, at Chinese Wikisource. https://zh.wikisource.org/wiki/白氏長慶集/卷039
  16. 窪田空穂 校註『古今和歌集』, 1938. National Diet Library pid 1031921, scans 6–7. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1031921/1/6 · The anthology's date, 905, from 「古今和歌集」, デジタル大辞泉, at kotobank (延喜5年（905）). https://kotobank.jp/word/古今和歌集-63702
  17. 金子元臣『古今和歌集評釈』第1, 明治書院, 1901 (issued 1 January 1901, by its colophon). National Diet Library pid 873304, scan 16. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/873304/1/16
  18. 「飛鳥井雅親」, デジタル大辞泉 (1417～1491), 日本大百科全書 (1417―1490; 『古今栄雅抄』 among his works) and デジタル版 日本人名大辞典+Plus, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/飛鳥井雅親-14319 · 「飛鳥井雅俊」, デジタル版 日本人名大辞典+Plus, at kotobank (1462－1523; 父の講釈を「古今栄雅抄」としてまとめた). https://kotobank.jp/word/飛鳥井雅俊-14324 · 国書データベース, work 26915, 古今栄雅抄: 二〇巻一六冊, 飛鳥井／雅俊／？, 明応七？（1498）, 別書名 栄雅抄. https://kokusho.nijl.ac.jp/work/26915
  19. 榮雅抄, quoted in 『紀要別冊文献蒐載』, 1939. National Diet Library pid 1186341, scan 7. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1186341/1/7
  20. 大和田建樹『謡曲評釈』, 1908, 山姥. National Diet Library pid 876568, scans 74–75 and 77. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/876568/1/74
  21. 『謡曲狂言』, 1921. National Diet Library pid 942796, scan 75. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/942796/1/75
  22. 「塵も積もれば山となる」, デジタル大辞泉・精選版 日本国語大辞典・ことわざを知る辞典・故事成語を知る辞典, at kotobank, and 精選版 日本国語大辞典 at 「塵積もりて山となる」. https://kotobank.jp/word/塵も積もれば山となる · https://kotobank.jp/word/塵積もりて山となる
  23. 「大胆不敵」, 精選版 日本国語大辞典, at kotobank, whose 初出 is cited 玉塵抄（1563）, the date the dictionary gives the work. https://kotobank.jp/word/大胆不敵-557761 · 国書データベース, work 884662, 玉塵抄: 永禄六（1563）, 五五巻五五冊, no author named. https://kokusho.nijl.ac.jp/work/884662 · The studies, in the National Diet Library's full-text snippets (not opened at the page): 『日本語の歴史』, 1964, pid 2503178 (《韻府群玉》に、惟高妙安が片はしから講釈して仮名注を付したもの); 『国語と国文学』, February 1973, pid 13778398 (惟高妙安の、『韻府群玉』の講義筆録『玉塵抄』(国会図書館蔵慶長二年写); 『国語学論集』, 1969, pid 12446950 (惟高妙安が講者か抄者かはわからない; the snippet text reads 講者が).
  24. 惟高妙安『玉塵抄』, manuscript copy, 慶長2 (1597), volume 7. National Diet Library pid 2545086, scan 5, right page. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/2545086/1/5
  25. 惟高妙安『玉塵抄』, manuscript copy, 慶長2 (1597), volume 24. National Diet Library pid 2545103, scan 94, left page. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/2545103/1/94
  26. 藤井乙男『諺の研究』, 1929, pp. 229–238 (北條氏直時代諺留; ちりつもつて on p. 233), pp. 238–239 (the colophons: 安永二 1773 on p. 238, signed 多賀氏常政, with 元本物茂卿先生の父蓬庵主人自筆のよしにて and 堀口氏率貞の藏本; 寛政二 1790 on p. 239, 多賀翁之藏本を以て寫之), p. 240 (毛吹草と世話盡, his note that he supplied the 毛吹草's kanji) and p. 281 (the 毛吹草 list). National Diet Library pid 1452761, scans 121–127 and 147; the 1938 reprint, pid 1453442, scan 125. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1452761/1/123 · The 毛吹草's dates, 寛永一五年（一六三八）序、正保二年（一六四五）刊, from 「毛吹草」, 精選版 日本国語大辞典, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/毛吹草-490969 · Ujinao's dates from 「北条氏直」, デジタル大辞泉 and 日本大百科全書, at kotobank (1562～1591; 1580年（天正8）家督を継ぐ; 1590 降伏). https://kotobank.jp/word/北条氏直-14948
  27. 「荻生方庵」, デジタル版 日本人名大辞典+Plus, at kotobank (1626－1706, 荻生徂徠の父). https://kotobank.jp/word/荻生方庵-1062703 · 「荻生徂徠」, 日本大百科全書, at kotobank (物(ぶつ)茂卿とも署名した; 父方庵). https://kotobank.jp/word/荻生徂徠-17726
  28. Vocabulario da Lingoa de Iapam, Nagasaki, 1603, the copy of the Bibliothèque nationale de France, fol. 248, second column, s.v. Tçumori; Gallica's frame 487 of ark bpt6k852354j, as served on Wikimedia Commons. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Gallica%E2%80%99s_Nippo_Jisho_487.jpg · J. L. Álvarez-Taladriz, "Cacería de refranes en el 'Vocabulario da Lingoa de Japam'", Monumenta Nipponica 10, no. 48 of the list, citing leaf 248b. Internet Archive, a lending copy, read in its full-text highlights, which carry the author's name and the title as the article's running heads print them, with the Spanish accents, which the text layer drops, restored. https://archive.org/details/monumentanipponi0010unse · The Vocabulario's dates and place from 「日葡辞書」, デジタル大辞泉, at kotobank (本篇は慶長8年（1603）長崎学林刊。補遺は慶長9年（1604）刊). https://kotobank.jp/word/日葡辞書-109926 · Léon Pagès, tr., Dictionnaire japonais-français, traduit du Dictionnaire japonais-portugais composé par les missionnaires de la Compagnie de Jésus et imprimé en 1603, à Nangasaki, Firmin Didot frères, Paris, 1868, p. 836, s.v. Tsoumori; the Avis préliminaire for the copy translated and the asterisk. National Diet Library pid 1871589, scan 435 (the notice at scan 11). https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1871589/1/435
  29. 三浦浄心『慶長見聞集』 卷之九, pp. 702–703, in 国民文庫刊行会 編『雑史集』, 1912. National Diet Library pid 925907, scan 361. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/925907/1/361 · 卷之八, p. 696, in another copy of the same edition, pid 1906666, scan 360. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1906666/1/360 · The verse in the other typeset, 近藤瓶城 編『史籍集覧』, 1906, 見聞集 卷八, p. 233. National Diet Library pid 1920299, scan 354. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1920299/1/354 · The date: 「慶長見聞集」, 精選版 日本国語大辞典 (慶長一九年（一六一四）成立), 日本歴史地名大系 (成立 慶長一九年奥書) and 日本大百科全書 (後人の仮託とする説もあり、寛永(かんえい)期（1624～44）の内容も含むので、確証は得られない), at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/慶長見聞集-1162895
  30. 『長者教』, 寛永4 (1627). National Diet Library pid 2541843, scan 5. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/2541843/1/5
  31. G. W. Sargent, tr., The Japanese Family Storehouse, or, The Millionaires' Gospel Modernised, Cambridge University Press, 1959, appendix 2, pp. 239–240, the translation of 『長者教』 from the 1627 text as reproduced, his note says, in Saikaku Shinkō (Noma Kōshin, 1948).
  32. 『待賢門平氏合戦』, 寛永20 (1643). National Diet Library pid 1288427, scan 13, left page. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1288427/1/13 · The typeset, 横山重 等編『古浄瑠璃正本集』第1, 大岡山書店, 昭和14 (1939), in a National Diet Library full-text snippet, not opened at the page.
  33. 笹野堅 編『幸若舞曲集』, 1943, p. 123, 鎌田. National Diet Library pid 1125482, scan 64, left page. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1125482/1/64
  34. 『世話尽』, 1656. National Diet Library pid 2554768, scan 8. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/2554768/1/8
  35. 谷川士清『倭訓栞』, the volume printed 文政13 (1830), s.v. やま. National Diet Library pid 2562810, scan 25. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/2562810/1/25
  36. 『俚言集覧』 中巻, 1899, s.v. ちり. National Diet Library pid 991570, scan 320. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/991570/1/320
  37. James Curtis Hepburn, 『和英語林集成』, 2nd ed., 1872, p. 567, s.v. TSUMORI. National Diet Library pid 993689, scan 301. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/993689/1/301
  38. 三遊亭円朝 演述, 若林玵蔵 筆記『塩原多助一代記』第12編, 1884–85 (the set's dates in the library's record). National Diet Library pid 891318, scan 9. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/891318/1/9
  39. Basil Hall Chamberlain, A Handbook of Colloquial Japanese, first edition, London, Trübner; Tokyo, Hakubunsha, 1888, ¶ 449, A Few Proverbs, pp. 298–299. Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/handbookofcolloq00chamrich
  40. Basil Hall Chamberlain, A Handbook of Colloquial Japanese, second edition, Trübner, 1889, p. 82, ¶ 121 (the title page reads 1889; the preface calls the first edition published seven months ago).
  41. Huzii Otoo (藤井乙男), Japanese Proverbs, Tourist Library 33, Board of Tourist Industry, Japanese Government Railways, 1940, p. 32, read on the house's shelf; the house's copy at the page: https://takase.com/library/books/tourist-library/33-japanese-proverbs/chapter-3#p32
  42. Rokuo Okada, Japanese Proverbs and Proverbial Phrases, Japan Travel Bureau, Tokyo, second edition, 1958 (first edition 1955, by the copyright page), p. 34 (the shelved copy).

Authors

Tim Jackowski (Systems Architect, Takase Studios, LLC) · 典 Ten (Anthropic Claude Fable 5.1, Sonnet 5 and Opus 5.5, Takase Studios, LLC)

AI written · Ten wrote the history. Tim Jackowski commissioned it and answers for it.

Checked · Grok 4.6 (xAI), 2026-09-05, citations (the history as it stood on that date; later corrections have not been through an outside check) · GPT-6 Astra (OpenAI), 2026-09-05, citations (the history as it stood on that date; later corrections have not been through an outside check)

Research depth: step 3 of our 10-step ladder, foundation complete · October 2026

Cite as: Tim Jackowski and Ten, "Philology of 塵も積もれば山となる (chiri mo tsumoreba yama to naru)," Takase Studios, 2026, https://takase.com/library/philology/chiri-mo-tsumoreba-yama-to-naru.