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自業自得 jigō jitoku You Reap What You Sow

This is a philological study of the Japanese Buddhist formula 自業自得 (jigō jitoku), sold as a proverb. It spans nearly fifteen centuries, from a sixth-century Chinese sutra's verse spoken by a hell-warden to a Zen master's eighteenth-century mill-song, and examines why the compound's second half means to receive, not to gain.

Japanese Scroll of You Reap What You Sow (jigō jitoku) — Calligraphy by Eri Takase
You Reap What You Sow (jigō jitoku)

You Reap What You Sow (jigō jitoku) on a traditional Japanese Scroll by Master Eri Takase.

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Abstract

自業自得, one's own deeds, one's own fruit, is a Buddhist formula first written down in Chinese in 539, in the 正法念處經, where a hell-warden speaks it to a sinner who asks why he burns. Japanese sources carry it from a monk's confession of about 1213, through storytellers who give it to King Enma and to a hell-warden judging the damned, to a Zen master's mill-song of 1760 and a novelist's use in 1815. The sutra states the law both ways, of good deeds and of bad; Japanese usage narrows it to the bad, and the four characters have never had a single owner. English has rendered it as a harvest since Hepburn's dictionary of 1872, and the bilingual dictionaries have kept that equation since.

Overview

The sense. The sutra is neutral and the Japanese use is not. In the sutra the law cuts both ways, good deed and good fruit, evil and evil; the same text says 自作善業、自得樂報 in another chapter. In Japanese, from the first kana witness on, the word is said of the bad: Hakuin 白隠's 罪科, Kyokutei Bakin 曲亭馬琴's villain, Mishima Yukio 三島由紀夫's you brought it on yourself, and the dictionaries record the narrowing. What did not change is the shape of the claim: no one else did this to you. The sutra says it to a sinner in hell, a monk says it of himself, a storyteller gives it to the king of the dead, a Zen master sings it to working women, and a novelist has one character say it to another. It is the same sentence each time, and it has never had an owner.

The words. 自業, jigō, is one's own karma, the acts one has done, which bear fruit; Hepburn's dictionary of 1872 glosses it one's own works or actions, according to which reward or punishment is allotted in a future state [1]. 自得, jitoku, is to receive oneself. 得 here is not gain: Fujii Otoo 藤井乙男's 1910 dictionary glosses the whole 自己の爲したる業因により、其果報を受くるをいふ, to receive the fruit of the karma one made oneself [2], and the 日国 says 報いを自分の身に受けなければならない, must receive the recompense in one's own person [3]. The sutra's form is five characters, 自業自得果, the fruit of one's own karma, self-received; the Japanese dropped the 果 by 1213. The historical kana is じごふじとく, which is what the Edo and Meiji books write beside the characters.

The proverb in English. Hepburn's dictionary of 1872 already has the equation the house title uses, and the Buddhist note, under JI-GŌ: Ji-gō ji-toku, to receive according to one's deeds, what a man soweth that shall he also reap [1]. Sakuma Nobuyasu 佐久間信恭's 和英中辞林 of 1904 gives: Natural result of one's misdeed; one's deeds bring their own rewards; one must reap what one sowed [4]. Arthur Lloyd's dictionary of 1907 offers: Self do, self have; a man's sin brings its own punishment; he that makes his bed ill, lies ill thereon [5]. Inoue Jūkichi 井上十吉 in 1909 gives: He has only brought it upon himself; we must resign ourselves to it as the result of our own deeds [6]. Saitō Hidesaburō 斎藤秀三郎 in 1918 glosses ten English idioms with the word, from face the music to pay the penalty of one's deeds [7]. Okakura Yoshisaburō 岡倉由三郎 in 1929 gives reap as one has sown, paired with 身から出た錆 and 因果応報 [8].

The historical record

539. 正法念處經 (the Saddharma-smṛtyupasthāna-sūtra), translated by Hannya Rushi 般若流支. Twice. In the first fascicle, plainly: 自作惡業、自得惡報, you do the evil deed yourself; you receive the evil fruit yourself. In the seventh, the chapter on the hells, a warden speaks a verse to a sinner: 非異人作惡，異人受苦報，自業自得果，衆生皆如是, it is not that one person does the evil and another suffers for it; each receives the fruit of his own act; all beings are so. And then: 汝自心所作 … 今為大火燒，何故爾呻喚, your own mind made this; now the great fire burns you; why do you wail? A search of the whole canon finds the four characters in this sutra alone among the Chinese texts; the rest are Japanese commentaries [9].

About 1213. Jōkei 貞慶 (解脱上人), 愚迷發心集, a confession. 自業自得因果必然也。當來苦報誠以難遁, one's own deeds, one's own fruit; cause and effect are inevitable; the suffering to come is truly hard to escape. The 日国's first Japanese citation, in a monk's kanbun, turned on himself [10].

1252. 十訓抄, a collection of moral tales. The courtier 朝成 prays at Iwashimizu for promotion, boasting that he has cut off the heads of a hundred robbers; the shrine answers his boast in kind, and the tale calls it 如此の自業自得の類, this kind of one's-own-doing, beyond pity [11].

1532 and after. The verse in the mouth of King Enma and of a hell-warden. In the Zenkōji legend as the 塵添壒囊鈔 tells it, the Buddha asks the king of the dead to spare a boy, and 閻王答テ曰。非異人作惡異人受苦報自業自得果衆生皆如是ト唱テ。我力モ不及, Enma answered by reciting the verse, and said: it is beyond my power [12]. In a Pure Land commentary, Jizō pleads for the damned and the warden recites the same verse: 云何是を免乎, how could they be spared? [13] The sutra's line became, in Japanese storytelling, the one law a bodhisattva's plea cannot bend.

1760. Hakuin, おたふく女郎粉引歌, a sermon in the form of a mill-girls' song. 一切衆生は皆是前世の。父也母也恩ある族じや。何とぞ扶けて遣りたいものじやと。泪をこぼして勞りたまへど。自業自得の罪科はのがれず。心の田地に蒔置く種じやで。萌切り生出て一粒萬倍。無間の苦患を受けねばならない, all beings were your father and mother in a former life, and they weep and wish to save you; but the crime that is your own doing is not escaped; it is seed sown in the field of the heart, it sprouts ten-thousandfold, and the torment must be borne. Then, in the same breath: so change your nature today. The 日国's second citation, and the first with the reading written beside it, じごふじとく. The seed and the field are Hakuin's own, and they are where the English harvest meets the Japanese [14].

1815. Kyokutei Bakin, 皿皿郷談. 鮮衣どのよ撃れしは自業自得よ侍るめり, that he was struck down was his own doing, said of a villain's death, with the reading じごふじとく [15].

1827. 大全早引節用集, a household dictionary. The four characters in the じ list: the oldest dated print among the National Diet Library's digitized books to carry them as a word [16].

1910. Fujii Otoo, 諺語大辞典. Filed as 仏語 with the two sutra lines, and with two European proverbs: As you make your bed so you must lie on it (French, German, Spanish, Danish) and As you sow, you shall reap (German, Dutch). 自作自受, the Zen records' form, is entered as the same thing. The word is absent from the two first proverb collections of the 1600s, which is what a Buddhist term looks like beside a folk proverb [2].

What is not a source. No legend attaches to the four characters; the stories that use them name the sutra. The kin the dictionaries give are 自作自受, the Zen form; 自業自縛, bound by one's own karma; 因果応報, the general law of cause and recompense; and the folk proverb 身から出た錆, rust from one's own body, which the dictionaries have paired with it since 1929 [8]. Galatians 6:7, whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap, is the English equation, not a source, and it is older in the bilingual dictionaries than any other [1].

The dictionaries today. デジタル大辞泉: 仏語。自分の行為の報いを自分自身が受けること。一般に、悪業の報いを受けることにいう. The ことわざを知る辞典 explains the shift in one sentence: 「業」は行為、所作の意で、本来は、よい行いにも悪い行いにもいいましたが、今日では主として後者についていいます, "karma" means act or deed; originally it was said of good acts and bad alike, but today mainly of the latter, with Mishima's 金閣寺 (1956) as its example: まあ怨むなよ … 結局君の自業自得なんだから [3].

Today. JMdict gives paying for one's mistakes; getting one's just deserts; suffering the consequences of one's own actions; reap what you sow [17]. The house title, You Reap What You Sow, is Hepburn's equation in its modern shape, and it is the right one: neutral like the sutra, moral like the Japanese use, and a harvest, which is Hakuin's image too [1]. Word for word the text says one's own deeds, one's own fruit, a law with no harvest in it; the title renders the English equation the dictionaries have set beside the law since 1872, so the image is the translators' and the law is the sutra's. What a rendering must keep is that the fruit is received, not gained.

A reading

The sutra says it of good deeds too, while Japanese usage says it of bad ones: so the words are a warning in Japanese and can be a promise in English. The sutra speaks it in hell, to a sinner who asks why he burns; no other did the evil that another suffers for.

References

  1. James Curtis Hepburn, 『和英語林集成』, 2nd ed., American Presbyterian Mission Press, 1872, p. 181. National Diet Library pid 993689, scan 108. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/993689/1/108
  2. 藤井乙男『諺語大辞典』, 有朋堂, 1910, 【自業自得】【自作自受】, National Diet Library pid 862766, scan 252. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/862766/1/252
  3. 「自業自得」, 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・四字熟語を知る辞典・ブリタニカ, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/自業自得
  4. 佐久間信恭『和英中辞林』, 1904, National Diet Library pid 870204, scan 211. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/870204/1/211
  5. Arthur Lloyd, 『和英新辞典 : 註解』, 賞文館, 1907, National Diet Library pid 903157, scan 276. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/903157/1/276
  6. 井上十吉『和英辞典』, 1909, National Diet Library pid 1869465, scan 305. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1869465/1/305
  7. 斎藤秀三郎『熟語本位英和中辞典』, 1918, National Diet Library pid 1681530, scans 53, 113, 198, 364, 421, 484, 545, 627, 680 and 692. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1681530/1/53
  8. 岡倉由三郎, 『新英和中辞典』, 研究社, 1929, National Diet Library pid 1904907, scans 43, 334 and 366. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1904907/1/43
  9. 般若流支 tr., 『正法念處經』, 539, 十善業道品第一 (T17n0721, p. 4c04–c05) and 地獄品 (T17n0721, p. 36b28–c02), at CBETA. https://cbdata.dila.edu.tw/stable/juans?work=T0721&juan=1
  10. 貞慶『愚迷發心集』, in 『日本仏教思想資料集』, 1941, pp. 178–179. National Diet Library pid 1040306, scan 108. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1040306/1/108
  11. 『俚言集覧』中, 1900, the 十訓抄 story, National Diet Library pid 991570, scans 128–129. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/991570/1/128
  12. 『塵添壒囊鈔』卷第十七, in 『大日本仏教全書』, 1922, pp. 428–429. National Diet Library pid 952854, scan 218. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/952854/1/218
  13. 『觀經厭欣鈔』卷中之末, in 『大日本仏教全書』, 1922, pp. 494–495. National Diet Library pid 952740, scan 252. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/952740/1/252
  14. 白隠, 「おたふく女郎粉引歌」, in 石上学人編『新註白隠法語集』, 1911, pp. 192–193. National Diet Library pid 823165, scan 103. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/823165/1/103
  15. 曲亭馬琴『皿皿郷談』, 1896 typeset of the 1815 yomihon, pp. 134–135. National Diet Library pid 879500, scan 70. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/879500/1/70
  16. 『大全早引節用集』, 1827, National Diet Library pid 2536906, scan 292. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/2536906/1/292
  17. JMdict, 「自業自得」, at Weblio 英和・和英辞典. https://ejje.weblio.jp/content/自業自得

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 · grok-4.6 (xAI), 2026-09-05, citations · gpt-6-astra (OpenAI), 2026-09-05, citations