百千萬載一門春 hyakusen manzai ichimon no haru A Hundred, a Thousand, Ten Thousand Years: Spring for One House
百千萬載一門春 closes Banri Shūku's New Year inscription of 1496 for a layman's picture of the longevity god with two cranes. A painting carrying it is owned by 妙興寺, a temple in Ichinomiya, in the city museum's record.
Abstract
百千萬載一門春, hyakusen manzai ichimon no haru, a hundred, a thousand, ten thousand years: spring for one house, is the last line of a four-line inscription (賛) that the Gozan poet-monk Banri Shūku 萬里集九 wrote for a painting of the god 福禄寿, which the two manuscripts of his collected writings, the 梅花無盡藏, place in a sequence of New Year poems of 1496, by its place in the collection [1][2][3]. In the printed text the title carries two notes, there are a yin and a yang crane and a layman asked for it; and a painting with the quatrain, two cranes and the old man, owned by the temple 妙興寺 in Ichinomiya, has been a cultural property of the city since 1964 [4][5][6][7][8]. 一門 is the house and its line [9], and Banri closed other poems on the same wish for one house [10][4]; the line is not 萬歲 banzai, the cheer, for 載 is year, and the two rubies found on 萬載 read 萬 man [11][12]. The history reads it hyakusen manzai ichimon no haru, a New Year blessing for a household.
Overview
The words. 百千 hyakusen, a hundred and a thousand, many: the 精選版 日本国語大辞典 gives 数の多いこと, a great number, with a first example from about 900 [13]. 萬載 manzai, ten thousand years: the 字通 enters 万載 as 万年, ten thousand years [14], and 載 here is a year, as in 千載, not the 歳 of the cheer 萬歲. The dictionaries' near kin is 千秋万歳, a thousand autumns, ten thousand years, an old wish for long life, which the 日本国語大辞典 reads both senshū banzei and senshū manzai [15]. 一門 ichimon, one gate: the 日本国語大辞典 gives 親族関係にある人々の総称。一家族。同族, all the people of one kinship; one family; one clan, and the デジタル大辞泉 同じ家系、または、同じ家族の人々。一族。一家, the people of one line or one family; a clan; a household [9]. 春 haru, spring; the line stands in a sequence of New Year poems [1]. Word for word: hundred-thousand ten-thousand years, one-house spring.
Forms. 百千萬載一門春 in both manuscripts (the Imperial Household copy writes 門 in its short form) [1][2]; 百千萬載、一門の春, a hundred, a thousand, ten thousand years, the spring of one house, in the reading of 市木武雄's annotated edition of 1993 [16]. Two later books, as the index's machine reading gives them, read 百千萬億一門春 and 百千萬載一億春 (§ What is not a source). The design is brushed 百千萬載一門春.
The historical record
1496: an inscription among New Year poems
In both manuscripts the poem stands in the third book, second half (卷三下), after a sequence of ten poems for the first ten days of the New Year and before a poem dated 正月十又七, the seventeenth of the first month [1][2]. The book opens with 明應四年 (1495), and a 明應五年 (1496) heading follows the seventeenth-day poem, so the sequence belongs to the New Year of 1496; that is this library's dating from the order, as the history of 福禄寿 gives it, not a date written on the poem [3]. The Imperial Household Agency's copy reads [1]:
福禄寿賛
蓬莱仙録記星辰 南極定応斯老人
陽鶴献齡陰鶴福 百千萬載一門春
An inscription for Fukurokuju. The immortals' register of Penglai records the stars; the South Pole must be this old man. The yang crane offers years, the yin crane fortune: a hundred, a thousand, ten thousand years, spring for one house. The Seikadō copy has the same lines, with 室 for 星 in the first [2]. The English is the history of 福禄寿's, where the poem is read for who the god is: here Banri makes him the old man of the South Pole, the star of long life [3]. That history also gives Banri's other inscription for the god; this one is told here for its last line.
The note on the title. The printed text of the 梅花無盡藏 in the 続群書類従 adds two notes after the title, in the same order of poems: 福祿壽賛有陰陽兩鶴。俗漢需之。, an inscription for Fukurokuju; there are a yin and a yang crane; a layman asked for it [4]. The historian 喜田貞吉 printed the poem with the same notes at the close of his essay on 福祿壽 and 壽老人, dated 大正八、十二、五 (5 December 1919) and collected in his 『福神研究』 of 1935 [5]. 俗漢 is a layman, one outside the order: the 日本国語大辞典 gives it as 俗人, with an example from Ikkyū's 狂雲集 [17]. Neither manuscript writes the notes beside the title [1][2]; which copy the printed text was set from was not read. With the notes, the occasion is a picture of the longevity god with two cranes, asked for by a layman; the house the last line wishes well is, on this reading, his.
The anthology: 翰林五鳳集
The poem was taken into the 翰林五鳳集, the great collection of Gozan monks' verse compiled by 崇伝 and others on the order of Emperor Go-Mizunoo and finished about 1623 [18]. In its printing of 1916 the poem is followed by its title, 福祿壽賛 有陰陽兩鶴, and the name 萬里; the character for fortune in the third line is a printed blank, 陽鶴獻齡陰鶴□ [19].
The painting at 妙興寺
The city of Ichinomiya lists among its designated cultural properties 万里集九賛蓬莱寿老人図, the old man of long life of Penglai, with an inscription by Banri Shūku, one hanging scroll, designated on 5 December 1964 [6]. The Ichinomiya City Museum's record of it names the temple 妙興寺 as its owner (所有者) and describes 巨岩と数本の竹と松の枝を背景とし、2羽の鶴と座した痩身の寿老人を描いた図, a picture of two cranes and a lean, seated old man of long life, against a great rock, a few stalks of bamboo and a pine branch, painter unknown, with Banri's inscription, which it finds in the 梅花無盡藏 under 明応4年 (1495), and dates the picture to about that time [7]. The city's survey of 1966 says that one crane flies and one stands on the ground seeking food, calls the figure 福禄寿, and transcribes the inscription, ending 百千万載一門春梅花無尽蔵万里 [8]; the temple's history of 1965 transcribes it the same way [20]. These are read in their search windows, and no image of the painting was found in the museum's record, the city's list or the index's windows, so its inscription is reported here, not read: whether it is in Banri's own hand is not said in any of them.
One house: Banri's wish
Banri closes other poems on the one house. In a poem for a pavilion, 養花亭, read at the manuscript, he writes 一門共有諸孫富 不老春應億万年, the one house shares the wealth of many grandsons; an unaging spring should run for countless years (億万年, a hundred million and ten thousand) [10]. In the printed text, in the index's windows, he closes a poem of good wishes for a great future (祝遠大) with 傳至子孫千萬歲。一門春色得其人, handed down to children and grandchildren for a thousand, ten thousand years, the spring color of the one house has found its man, and an inscription for 鐘馗, the demon-queller (鐘馗賛), with 添花護得一門春, adding flowers, he keeps the spring of the one house [4]. The wish is the same in each: that a family and its line flourish for years beyond counting.
Man or ban
照's question was whether 萬載 reads manzai or banzai. The line writes 載, year, and the cheer 萬歲 is a different word. 萬 has two readings, man and ban, and the dictionaries keep both for the wish 千秋万歳 [15]; the 字通 reads 万載 standing alone bansai [14]. In the National Diet Library's full-text index, every ruby found after 百千 reads 萬 as まん, man, and none as ばん, mostly on the Buddhist count 百千萬歲 (the record's I3). On 萬載 itself two rubies were found. A preface of 1831 to the story book 歌枕偽物語 opens 古来今往幾億萬載, with the ruby いくおくまんざい, voiced, read at the leaf [11]. A handbook of Chinese New Year couplets of 1933 has the couplet line 百千萬載此鴻圖 with the ruby ひやくせんまんさい, unvoiced, in the index's window only [12]. The comic verse collection 万載狂歌集 (1783) is read manzai kyōkashū: its title puns on the New Year 万歳 performers and the imperial anthology 千載和歌集 [21]. The museum's record reads its poet's own 萬 both ways, ばんり in the title's ruby and まんり in the text [7].
Read since
喜田 printed the poem in 1919 among the inscriptions that, he argued, show 福祿壽 and 壽老人 as two pictures of one star of long life [5]. 玉村竹二's 五山文学新集 (1972) prints the collection [22]. 市木武雄's annotated edition (1993) reads the third and fourth lines 陽鶴は齢を献じ、陰鶴は福を。百千萬載、一門の春, the yang crane offers years, the yin crane fortune; a hundred, a thousand, ten thousand years, the spring of one house [16]. A 1976 edition of 喜田's book on the gods of fortune reads it 百千万載（歳に同じ）一門の春, glossing 載 the same as 歳, year [23]. These later readings are read in the index's windows.
Today, and in English
No use of the line as a 禅語, a tea-room scroll or a greeting apart from Banri's poem was found in the National Diet Library's index read newest first or on the open web (the record's I8); that is a statement about those instruments. The only English rendering found on the library's shelf, in the Internet Archive's full text and in Google Books is the history of 福禄寿's [3].
What is not a source, and what is not claimed
- Not from the canon. In the Chinese Buddhist canon at CBETA, 百千萬載 occurs once, in a Qing master's eulogy of the scriptures, and 一門春 not at all [24]. The line is Banri's.
- Not the painting's text. The inscription on the 妙興寺 painting is reported from the city's and the museum's books in their windows. The museum's catalogue of 1994 is read there as 百千萬億一門春 [25], and a 1930 lecture on Shinto quoting the poem as 陰陽福 … 一億春 (record, I3); whether the painting writes 萬億 or the machine reading mistakes 萬載 cannot be told without the page or the painting.
- Not dated on the poem. 1496 is a dating from the poem's place in the collection [3]; the museum's 1495 is the year that opens the book [7].
A reading
I read the line hyakusen manzai ichimon no haru. 萬 after 百千 reads man in every ruby found [11][12]; of the two rubies on 萬載, the one read at the leaf is voiced, manzai [11], and the unvoiced mansai is in an index window on a page I could not see [12]. I sign manzai, and the voiced reading also matches 万歳 manzai (the New Year performers) and the 万載狂歌集 [21]. It is not banzai: no ruby in the index and no edition read gives the line ban, though the 字通 reads 万載 standing alone bansai [14]; the cheer is a different word.
It is a household blessing, and the text says so of itself. Banri wrote it for a picture of the longevity god with two cranes, placed among his New Year poems, asked for by a layman [1][4][5]; 一門 is a family and its line [9], and in his other poems the spring of one house goes with children, grandchildren and years past counting [10][4]. The cranes give the house its years and its fortune, and the last line asks that its spring last a hundred, a thousand, ten thousand years. As a scroll it is that wish alone, for one house, at the New Year.
Notes
- The two cranes. 陽鶴 and 陰鶴, the yang crane and the yin crane, are the poem's pair; the printed title says the picture had both [4][19], and the 1966 survey describes one crane in the air and one on the ground [8].
- The blank for 福. The 1916 print of the 翰林五鳳集 leaves the character for fortune blank [19]; both manuscripts, the 続群書類従 and 喜田 read 福 [1][2][4][5].
- 1495 or 1496. The book of the collection opens with 明應四年 (1495); the New Year sequence the poem closes falls after that year's autumn, in 明應五年 (1496) [1][3][7].
- 福禄寿 or 寿老人. The city and the museum name the figure 寿老人, the 1966 survey and the inscription 福禄寿 [6][7][8]; who the god is, and Banri's two answers, are the history of 福禄寿's [3].
Japanese Scrolls by Master Calligrapher Eri Takase
Sources not seen
- The 妙興寺 painting, or any image of it; the museum's catalogue and the 1965 and 1966 books at their pages: readable only in Japan (search windows only).
- 市木武雄, 『梅花無尽蔵注釈』 (1993) at its page, for whether it gives a ruby on 萬載: readable only in Japan.
- The 続群書類従 printed text at its page, and the copy it was set from.
- The 1933 handbook's ruby at its page; and the 1930 lecture on Shinto (『神道講座』) at its page: readable only in Japan.
A reader with access to any of these is invited to write to Takase Studios at Tim@Takase.com.
References
- 萬里集九, 『梅花無盡藏』 卷三下, 福禄寿賛, manuscript, 宮内庁書陵部 copy, canvas 53, at the 国書データベース. https://kokusho.nijl.ac.jp/biblio/100044627/53
- 萬里集九, 『梅花無盡藏』, 福禄壽賛, manuscript, 静嘉堂文庫 copy, canvas 57, at the 国書データベース. https://kokusho.nijl.ac.jp/biblio/300082891/57
- Takase Studios, Philology library, 福禄寿 fukurokuju. https://takase.com/library/philology/fukurokuju
- 萬里集九, 『梅花無盡藏』 第三下 (with 第一 and 第二), in 『續群書類從』 卷三百卅八, 続群書類従完成会, 1932 printing (search window only, scan 195), National Diet Library pid 1078310. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1078310
- 喜田貞吉, 「福祿壽・壽老人考」 (dated 大正八、十二、五), in 『福神研究』, 1935, p. 241, National Diet Library pid 1452499, scan 125. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1452499/1/125
- 一宮市, 市内の文化財 (the city's list of designated cultural properties), 万里集九賛蓬莱寿老人図. https://www.city.ichinomiya.aichi.jp/shisei/shiryo/1009803/1010480.html
- 一宮市博物館, データ検索システム, 管理番号 31084, 万里集九賛蓬莱寿老人図. https://www2.icm-jp.com/list/index.cgi?mode=view&no=31084&cat=7&keyword=&st=79
- 一宮市文化財専門委員会, editor, 『一宮市の文化財』, 1966 (search window only), National Diet Library pid 2508729. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/2508729
- 「一門」, 精選版 日本国語大辞典 and デジタル大辞泉, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/%E4%B8%80%E9%96%80-31388
- 萬里集九, 『梅花無盡藏』, 養花亭, manuscript, 宮内庁書陵部 copy, canvas 22, at the 国書データベース. https://kokusho.nijl.ac.jp/biblio/100044627/22
- 尾上梅幸 (author) and 松亭金水 (editor), 『歌枕偽物語』, 天保2 (1831), the preface, National Diet Library pid 10303427, scan 3. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/10303427/1/3
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- 『翰林五鳳集』 卷五十七, in 『大日本仏教全書』 第146冊, 仏書刊行会, 1916 (colophon 大正五年四月廿五日發行, scan 222), p. 一一一二, the collection's own folio (the volume's p. 194), National Diet Library pid 952850, scan 102. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/952850/1/102
- 河野宗寛, editor, 『妙興寺誌』, 1965 (search window only, scan 92), National Diet Library pid 2968860. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/2968860
- 「万載狂歌集」, デジタル大辞泉, 精選版 日本国語大辞典, 改訂新版 世界大百科事典 and 日本大百科全書 (ニッポニカ), at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/%E4%B8%87%E8%BC%89%E7%8B%82%E6%AD%8C%E9%9B%86-137923
- 玉村竹二, editor, 『五山文学新集』, 1972 (search window only), National Diet Library pid 1674641. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1674641
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- CBETA, full-text search of the canon for 百千萬載 and 一門春 (JB357 秀野林禪師語錄 卷2). https://cbdata.dila.edu.tw/stable/search?q=%E7%99%BE%E5%8D%83%E8%90%AC%E8%BC%89
- 一宮市博物館, editor, 『一宮の名宝』, 1994 (search window only, scan 5), National Diet Library pid 13291883. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/13291883