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一陽来復 ichiyō raifuku Favorable Turn Of Fortune

一陽来復 (ichiyō raifuku) is the winter solstice, and a turn of fortune after a run of bad. It names the I Ching's hexagram of Return, one bright line arriving beneath five dark ones. This study follows it from the Song court's solstice congratulations through the Zen sermons and the war tales to the Edo almanacs.

Japanese Scroll of Favorable Turn Of Fortune (ichiyō raifuku) — Calligraphy by Eri Takase
Favorable Turn Of Fortune一陽来復ichiyō raifuku

Original art by Master Calligrapher Eri Takase

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Abstract

一陽来復, ichiyō raifuku, names a picture before it names anything else: the hexagram 復 of the I Ching, five broken yin lines above one unbroken yang line just arrived at the bottom, the shape of the winter solstice in the old calendar of twelve hexagrams. The four characters appear as a unit in the language of the Song court's solstice congratulations by the turn of the eleventh century, and reached Japan with the Zen masters, who opened their solstice sermons with them in the thirteenth century; in the Japanese war tales a defeated man's wait for his fortune to turn was likened to a dragon lying low through three winters. In the Edo period it became the plain name of the eleventh month and its solstice festival. The modern dictionaries keep all three senses, the solstice, the new year, and a turn of fortune after a run of bad.

Overview

The sense. The winter solstice, when the light starts back; the eleventh month; the new year; and a turn for the better after a run of bad — one image read at three distances, not three unrelated senses.

The words. 一陽 is one yang, one unbroken line. 来復 is comes back, the I Ching's own words for the hexagram 復: on the seventh day it comes back. The hexagram is drawn as six lines, and in 復 the top five are broken, yin, and the bottom one is whole, yang, just arrived. The old calendar hung a hexagram on each month: from the fifth month the yang lines are stripped away one a month until the tenth, which is all yin, and in the eleventh month, the month of the winter solstice, the first yang line comes back at the bottom. That is 復, and 一陽来復 is its name. 陽 is yang, the bright half of 陰陽; the four characters name a hexagram, not weather.

The text in English. The English the I Ching translators use for the hexagram, one yang returns, covers all three senses; the phrase's own life in English, through sword fittings and the Japanese-English dictionaries, has settled on return of spring.

The historical record

Before the Han, the I Ching, the hexagram 復. The text: Return. Success. Going out and coming in without harm; friends come, no blame. Back and forth along its way, on the seventh day it comes back; it is good to have somewhere to go. And the image: thunder within the earth: Return. The former kings closed the passes on the day of the solstice; merchants and travelers did not move, and the ruler did not tour the provinces [1]. The four characters are not there. The picture is, and the two that carry it, 来復.

The Han, why the solstice was congratulated. A sentence the Tang and Song encyclopedias quote from a lost Han book, some giving it to Cai Yong 蔡邕: at the winter solstice the yang breath rises and the way of the ruler grows, so it is congratulated; at the summer solstice the yin breath rises and the way of the ruler wanes, so it is not [2]. That is the custom the phrase would later name. A sixth-century book of the year's customs has for the solstice only red-bean gruel against the plague and the measuring of the sun's shadow with a red thread; it does not have the phrase, whatever a 1942 handbook says [3].

Around 1000, the Song court. The four characters appear as a unit in the language of the solstice congratulation. Tian Xi 田錫 (940–1004), congratulating the emperor on an amnesty, writes that it followed the rite at the southern altar held because one yang returns [4]. Su Shi 蘇軾, writing to the emperor on a solstice: today, the fifth, is the southern extreme; the civil and military officials have come in to congratulate, and what they congratulate is 一陽来復; he then cites the hexagram's image by name and lays out the year, when yin reaches its extreme yang is born, and when yang is born it is the winter solstice [5]. Su Song 蘇頌 opens a congratulation to the empress dowager with the same four characters, as does an anonymous court text for the solstice rite at the tomb of the emperor Shenzong [6]. This is the phrase as the court used it: a formal, glad, calendrical thing said on the shortest day.

The twelfth and thirteenth centuries, the commentators. Cheng Yi 程頤, in his commentary on the I Ching, reads the returning line as the heart of heaven and earth that gives things life, against the older view, which located that heart in stillness: the heart is the first stirring [7]. Zhu Xi 朱熹, in 1177, writes the four characters into the standard gloss of the hexagram, from the fifth month, when one yin is born, to here is seven lines, and one yang comes back: the course of heaven itself, and in his recorded talk gives the phrase the image it has carried since: one yang returns, its beginning very faint, as if still; but in truth it is the spring of motion, its force grows by the day, and nothing fails to take its beginning from it — a single point of light in the great dark [8].

The thirteenth century, the Zen solstice sermon. Mujun Shihan 無準師範 (Wuzhun Shifan, 1178–1249), the master under whom the Japanese monk Enni 円爾 studied, opened his solstice sermons with it: one yang returns, the ten thousand things come to life, the cold valley turns to spring, the frozen river thaws — now say, is that the Buddha's law or the world's? His sermons were printed in Japan in 1370 [9]. Enni himself opened a solstice sermon at Tōfuku-ji in Kyoto, before his death in 1280, with the same words: cold and heat change places, one yang returns, the hundred growing things stir [10]. So did Kōhō Kennichi 高峰顕日 (1241–1316), a Japanese master who had taken his vows under Enni, at Ungan-ji in Shimotsuke, in the residence his record opens in 1281: mid-winter, bitter cold, the sun's course moves on; one yang returns, and the ten thousand things stand thick [11]. The phrase came to Japan with Zen, as a thing said on the solstice.

The fourteenth century, the war tales. The Taiheiki has a counselor of Yue warn his king that the time to strike has not come: the unicorn has flesh on its horn and shows no fierce shape; the hidden dragon lies through the three winter months and waits for the sky of 一陽来復 [12]. The Meitokuki, probably written within two years of the rising of 1391, applies the image to a defeated lord: a dragon lying low through the three winters, waiting for the sky of 一陽来復; repenting his past fault, he lamented [13]. This is the phrase as a figure for a person's fortunes rather than the sun's, and the dictionaries date their third sense from it. A Gozan monk's collection of about 1409, the dictionary's earliest citation for the solstice sense, uses it the Song way, like the yin all stripped away and the one yang returning [1].

The Muromachi lecture-hall. Two transcripts of lectures on the I Ching, one from the end of the Muromachi period and one dated 1573, gloss the phrase in the spoken Japanese of the hall: in our understanding 一陽来復 means that after 剥 one yang has come back; the deep return is the one at the root, and what shows in the eleventh month is 一陽来復, the shallow return; and the ethical reading at once: when one good thought rises, evil stops, and from the eleventh month the one yang returns [14][15]. A Ming edition of the standard commentaries, printed with Japanese reading marks, carried Zhu Xi's gloss to the students of the I Ching in Japan [16].

Edo, the eleventh month's name. Japanese Zen kept the solstice sermon: an anthology of sermons of 1676 gathers solstice sermons that open with the four characters, Mujun's and Kōhō's among them, and Zekkai Chūshin's 絶海中津 with the Han antithesis in full, the small man's way wanes … one yang returns, the noble man's way grows [17]. Outside the temple the phrase became the name of the month. An almanac of 1688 explains the spring equinox by it: at the solstice one yang returns, the yang breath is born little by little, and the days grow long [18]. An almanac of 1783: from the fifth month one yin is born, and by the eleventh one yang is born; this is called 一陽来復, so the month is called 復月, the month of Return; the solstice day was 一陽嘉節, the glad festival of the one yang [19]. Another almanac gives the same reasoning [20]. A swordsmith's book of 1752 explains a rite of the eleventh month by it [21]; a kabuki chronicle of 1762 explains the season-opening of the eleventh month by it: the eleventh month is the month of 一陽来復, so the year is celebrated with peace under heaven and safety in the land [22]. The season-word books file it under the eleventh month [23], and a haikai dictionary of 1927 glosses it in one word: the solstice [24]. A print of 1860 by Toyokuni 豊国 carries it as a title [25].

1942, a dictionary for calligraphers. Files it under the eleventh month beside two related phrases, glosses it as the noble man's revival and likens it to the plum that opens when the leaves are down; tags it for the start of winter, the solstice and New Year's Eve. Its source note attributes to the sixth-century book of customs a sentence that book does not contain; the sentence is the Han one about the ruler's way, crossed with the I Ching [26].

The dictionary today. 大辞泉: the eleventh month, or the winter solstice; winter going and spring coming, the new year coming; after a run of bad things, at last a turn for the better [1]. Sakaguchi Ango 坂口安吾 in 1942 wrote of the fallen soldiers of life who pray for 一陽来復; Nogami Yaeko 野上弥生子 in 1962 of an invalid who will be well by spring, 一陽来復 [27]. A shrine near Waseda, the 穴八幡宮, issues a charm bearing the four characters from the solstice to Setsubun, the eve of the first day of spring [28], a custom a 1973 English magazine already describes [29].

What is not a source. The sixth-century book of customs, which a 1942 handbook named: its solstice entry is gruel and a shadow, and the four characters are nowhere in it [3]. Nobody coined the phrase; it grew out of the hexagram over a thousand years and was a set phrase by the time it was first written in the form now brushed.

The word in English

1910. Henri Joly, cataloguing London collections of sword fittings. A fitting inscribed with the phrase, rendered Good fortune comes at the New Year; a second catalogue repeats the words for a related fitting [30].

1918. Takenobu Yoshitarō 武信由太郎, Japanese-English dictionary. Ichiyō-raifuku, n. Return of spring, with an example, signs are manifest of the revival of trade; Kenkyūsha's dictionary keeps the words and adds Fortune turned in our favour by its printing of 1939 [31].

1962 to 1974. Andrew Nelson, character dictionary. Ichiyō-raifuku, return of spring, the dictionaries' words [32].

1972. An exhibition catalogue in Essen. A kyōka of about 1800 that opens with the phrase, rendered today at the turning of winter [33].

1973. An English magazine article. The o-mamori inscribed with the characters ichiyo raifuku … On New Year's Day this charm is placed — the solstice charm named above, as a living custom [29].

1987. An Asahi newspaper column, in English translation. A purification ceremony that sends out a call for "ichiyo-raifuku" (return of spring) [34].

1987 to 2003, the I Ching literature. Thomas Cleary's translations render the four characters as the sentence they are: at the winter solstice, one yang returns [35]; a separate study of Song-dynasty uses of the I Ching renders it the same way [36].

1996. Spahn and Hadamitzky, kanji dictionary. Ichiyō-raifuku, return of spring, the same words [37].

2009. A translation of a Nichiren monk's talks. A translator's note: the term derives from the Chinese I Ching [38].

2023. A Sotheby's auction catalogue. An Edo print title that puns on the phrase [39].

Today. Hepburn's dictionary carries no English entry for the phrase, and Blyth's winter volume treats the solstice through Shiki's haiku without ever reaching the phrase. The house rendering, Favorable Turn Of Fortune, is the dictionaries' third sense in its own words; the English that fits all three senses of the phrase is the one the I Ching translators use for the hexagram itself, one yang returns.

A reading

The phrase is a picture before it is a proverb, and the picture is exact: six lines, five dark, one bright at the bottom, the bright one just arrived. Everything the phrase has meant is a way of standing at some distance from that. Stand close and it is the solstice, the shortest day, the day the light starts back, which is why the Song court said it to the emperor and the Zen masters said it to their monks on that morning. Stand back and it is the new year. Stand further back and it is Zhu Xi's point of light in the dark and the Taiheiki's dragon in the winter ground, which is what a person means who gives this to someone in a hard year: not that things are good, but that the turn has happened and cannot be undone. The I Ching's own moral is it is good to have somewhere to go. It is a solstice and a New Year's text as much as a text for bad luck ending, one of the few Japanese four-character phrases with a date on the calendar, and one yang returns is the English that keeps the picture.

References

  1. 「一陽来復」, 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・四字熟語を知る辞典・日本大百科全書, at kotobank.
  2. 太平御覽, 卷二十八 and 卷五百四十三; 北堂書鈔, 卷八十五; 五禮通考, 卷一百四十 (attributing the sentence to 蔡邕's 獨斷), at Chinese Wikisource.
  3. 荊楚歲時記, 冬至日 entry, 6th century, at Chinese Wikisource. https://zh.wikisource.org/wiki/荊楚歲時記
  4. 田錫, 賀大赦表, in 咸平集 (四庫全書本), 卷二十五, at Chinese Wikisource. https://zh.wikisource.org/wiki/咸平集_(四庫全書本)/卷25
  5. 蘇軾, 上皇帝書, Northern Song, before 1101, at Chinese Wikisource. https://zh.wikisource.org/wiki/上皇帝書
  6. 蘇頌, 賀太皇太后表, in 蘇魏公文集, 卷四十七; an anonymous court 表 for the solstice rite at 神宗's tomb, at Chinese Wikisource.
  7. 程頤, 伊川易傳, 卷二, before 1107, at Chinese Wikisource.
  8. 朱熹, 周易本義, 卷一, 1177; 朱子語類, 卷七十一, at Chinese Wikisource.
  9. 無準師範, 語録, 冬至上堂 and 冬夜小参, in the 應安三年 (1370) Japanese print, scans 11, 40, 44, 47 and 48. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/2543479/1/11
  10. 円爾, 聖一国師住東福禅寺語録, 冬至上堂, compiled by 虎関師錬 with his preface of 1331, in the 1675 print, scan 10; the Taishō text at SAT, T2544, vol. 80, p. 18c. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/2537760/1/10 · https://21dzk.l.u-tokyo.ac.jp/SAT/T2544_.80.0018c06:0018c08.cit
  11. 高峰顕日, 仏国録, 巻一, 初住下野州東山雲巌禅寺語録, 冬至上堂, in the 寛文四年 (1664) print, scan 6; the same sermon at CBETA, D51n8948, p. 3a. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/2537696/1/6 · https://cbetaonline.dila.edu.tw/D51n8948_p0003a01
  12. 太平記, 巻四, 14th century, in the 慶長八年 (1603) print, scan 41, and the 1891 typeset, scan 79. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/8943154/1/41 · https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/877603/1/79
  13. 明徳記, 中巻, 1392–93, in the 慶長十九年 (1614) print, scan 55 (the leaf reads 待; the Library's machine reading has 得). https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/2532182/1/55
  14. 周易講義, 一栢 講, late Muromachi, scans 15–22. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/2544972/1/15
  15. 柏舟宗趙, 周易抄, 元亀四年 (1573), scans 20–23. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/2552700/1/20
  16. 五經大全, 明内府刊 (1415), with Japanese kunten, scans 64, 67 and 70. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/2545464/1/64
  17. 法海具観, 延宝四年 (1676), scans 70, 75, 82, 83 and 85. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/2576575/1/70
  18. 貝原好古, 日本歳時記, 巻三, 1688, scan 5. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/2563535/1/5
  19. 華実年浪草, 天明三年 (1783), scans 4 and 17. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/2556913/1/4
  20. 月令博物筌, Edo period, undated, scans 5–6. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/2557820/1/5
  21. 都老子, 宝暦二年 (1752), scans 67 and 69. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/2537045/1/67
  22. 歌舞妓事始, 宝暦十二年 (1762). https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/2554388
  23. 俳翼, 1795, scan 105. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/2541278/1/105
  24. 新撰俳諧辞典, 1927, scan 61. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1128241/1/61
  25. 豊国, print, 万延元年 (1860). https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1313362
  26. 揮毫辞典, 松崎覚本, 1942, scans 95, 98, 102, 103 and 108. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1884879/1/95
  27. 坂口安吾, 1942; 野上弥生子, 1962, as quoted at kotobank's entry for the phrase.
  28. 穴八幡宮, 一陽来復御守, at the shrine's site. https://www.anahachimanguu.jp/ichiyouraifuku/
  29. The East, March 1973.
  30. Henri L. Joly, Japanese Sword-Mounts: the Collection of J. C. Hawkshaw, privately printed, London, 1910; Japanese Sword Fittings: Collection of G. H. Naunton, undated.
  31. 武信由太郎, 武信和英大辞典 (Takenobu's Japanese-English Dictionary), 1918, p. 569, scan 292; 研究社新和英大辞典 (Kenkyusha's New Japanese-English Dictionary), 1941 printing, p. 577, scan 295, the edition Harvard photolithographed in 1942 from its printing of 1939. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1699860/1/292 · https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1126818/1/295
  32. Andrew N. Nelson, The Modern Reader's Japanese-English Character Dictionary, Tuttle, editions of 1962 to 1974.
  33. Ukiyo-e: die Kunst der heiteren vergänglichen Welt, exhibition catalogue, Villa Hügel, Essen, 1972.
  34. Vox Populi, Vox Dei, Asahi, winter 1987 column, in English translation.
  35. Thomas Cleary, translator, Understanding Reality, 1987, and a translation of Cheng Yi's commentary, Shambhala, 2003.
  36. Sung Dynasty Uses of the I Ching, Princeton University Press, 1990.
  37. Mark Spahn and Wolfgang Hadamitzky, The Kanji Dictionary, Tuttle, 1996.
  38. Nichidatsu Fujii, I Bow to the Buddha in You, Nipponzan Myohoji, 2009.
  39. Sotheby's, Japanese Woodblock Prints, auction catalogue, December 2023.

Authors

Tim Jackowski (Systems Architect, Takase Studios, LLC) · 典 Ten (Anthropic Claude Fable 5.1, Takase Studios, LLC)

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

Checked · Claude Sonnet (Anthropic), 2026-09-15, citations — every claim tested at its address; nearly all resolve; nothing found to differ and nothing failed to resolve; the rest not openable, live URLs and page images not supplied

Cite as: Tim Jackowski and Ten, "Philology of 一陽来復 (ichiyō raifuku)," Takase Studios, 2026, https://takase.com/library/philology/ichiyo-raifuku.