自他共栄 jita kyōei Mutual Benefit
自他共栄 (jita kyōei), self and others prospering together, is the second of Kanō Jigorō's two principles of judo, and in the Kodokan's own 1925 statement it is not the first principle's companion but its natural result. Kanō aimed it past the dojo, at a Japan that had, he wrote, not yet one true friend in the world.
Abstract
自他共栄, jita kyōei, you and others prospering together, is the second of Kano Jigorō's two principles of judo, the short form of the Kodokan's 相助相譲・自他共栄, help one another, yield to one another, prosper together. The Kodokan's own statement of purpose, printed in 1925, reads it not as a companion to the first principle, 精力善用, the best use of energy, but as its natural result, and aims it at Japan's neighbors as much as at the dojo. The phrase never entered a Japanese dictionary, and it reached English only with judo itself, from 1945.
Overview
The sense. You and others prosper together: the second of 嘉納治五郎's two principles, the result of keeping the first, 精力善用, use your energy in the best way.
The words. Four characters: 自他 self and others, 共栄 to prosper together. The Kodokan's founding statement gives it a longer form, 相助相譲・自他共栄, help one another, yield to one another, prosper together [1]. The old books write 榮; the modern form is 栄. The phrase is not in a Japanese dictionary: kotobank returns nothing for it, and the bilingual JMdict has no entry [2]. It belongs to judo and to the schools and societies that borrowed it, and its definition is the Kodokan's.
The text in English. No Meiji dictionary enters the phrase; it reaches English with judo itself.
The historical record
Around 1922, 嘉納治五郎 and the 講道館文化会, the Kodokan Cultural Society. Every witness puts the fixing of the pair here: the Kodokan's own bilingual dictionary dates both phrases to 1922 [3]; a Nippon Budokan history has Kano declare the principle of the best use of energy at the society's council in 1922 [4]; an American history has the society founded in 1922 on the two [5]. The library's index agrees from its own side: 自他共栄 is absent before 1924 and in four books in that year, two of them about scientific management and civic youth rather than judo, which is what a freshly launched slogan looks like in print; the pair 精力善用自他共栄 is a primary school's lesson title in Fukushima in 1924 [6]. Kano's own books that carry them, 『精力善用国民体育』(1930) and 『柔道教本』(1931), are catalogued but not digitized.
1925, the society's statement of purpose, printed in the 柔道年鑑 and reprinted verbatim in the yearbooks to 1939. Written in the founder's first person, it is the Kodokan's own definition and the nearest thing to Kano's own words among the digitized books. The principle of judo, it says, applied to the body makes the strongest body, to the mind the best man, to food, clothing, housing and manners the people's welfare, to business its results. Then the diagnosis and the cure: 近來の我が國は、勞を厭ひ逸を追ふものが益々增加し、奢侈贅澤風をなし、到る所、個人も團體も、喧嘩、小競合ひで精力を消耗しつゝあるの現狀である。これを救ふには、一面柔道の原理を社會生活に應用した主義である精力最善活用に依て各般のことを行ふと同時に、その自然の結果として成立する相助・相讓・自他共榮主義を以て、個人、團體相互の融和、協調を圖るより外に有効なる道はないと信ずる, in recent years more and more of our people shun labor and chase ease, luxury has become the fashion, and everywhere, individuals and groups alike, energy is being worn away in quarrels and squabbles. To cure this there is no effective way but to do everything by the principle that is judo's applied to social life, the best use of energy, and at the same time, by the principle that comes into being as its natural result, helping one another, yielding to one another, prospering together, to seek harmony and concord between persons and between groups. The two are cause and effect, and 自他共栄 is the effect. And the statement ends abroad: Japan, differing from the West in race, language, religion and custom, has not yet one true friend in the world, and to mend its international relations there is no means but to carry the principle of 自他共栄 through to the end [1]. The 1928 yearbook adds that the society's magazine 作興 clarifies in every issue the sense of 精力善用・自他共栄 that Master Kano has preached for many years [7].
1928 to 1939, the phrase in the schools. A 1928 treatise on handicraft education quotes Master Kano's words and glosses 自他共栄 as 共存共栄, coexistence and co-prosperity [8]; the Ministry of Education's 1932 handbook on physical education repeats the whole formula with the imperial house at its center [9]; a town history of 1936 records a branch of the society holding up the two great spirits of 精力善用自他共栄 [10]; a teachers' college in 1939 makes its pupils apply them to every part of daily life [11]; and the Tokyo prefecture's register of 1937 defines the society by thought-guidance and life-improvement by the 精力善用自他共栄 principle [12]. A hundred and six books in the index carry the phrase before 1945 [6].
The sense across time. One sense, unchanged since 1925: 自他共栄 is what follows when everyone keeps the rule of 精力善用, the best use of oneself. It was Kano's from the start and was aimed, in his own statement, at Japan's neighbors as much as at the dojo.
What is not a source. The wartime English mutual prosperity, which the Nippon Times uses in 1943 and 1944 for the Greater East Asia sphere, translates a different Japanese, 共栄圏, and is not this phrase, though it shares the character 栄 and the translators' word; the coincidence is worth knowing because the same English words carry both. 共存共栄, coexistence and co-prosperity, is a neighbor the 1928 gloss offers, not an origin.
The phrase in English
1945 to 1963. The Budokwai, then the Kodokan's own English. A contents line in the Budokwai's Judo Quarterly Bulletin, vol. 1, London, Judo: Maximum Efficiency and …, is the earliest English of the pair known [13]. The Kodokan's own Judo, Tokyo, 1955, gives the standard since: Professor Kano summarized the above teaching in the slogans, Seiryoku-Zen'yō, the Maximum-Efficiency, and Jita-Kyōei, the Mutual Welfare and Benefit [14]. Richard Bowen's Judo and The Key to Judo, both 1963, give the motto Jita Kyoei (literally "mutual welfare and prosperity") [15].
1974 to 2020. The handbooks, the founder's own voice in English, and the teaching books. The 1974 Judo Handbook sets it as an examination question. Pat Harrington's 1987 Judo: A Pictorial Manual reproduces Dr Kano's handwriting of both principles, the second glossed mutual welfare and benefit [16]. Kodansha International's 1986 English edition of Kano's own Kodokan Judo carries a chapter on Principles and Aims [17]; Murata Naoki's 2005 anthology of the founder's writings, Mind Over Muscle, gives jita kyoei (mutual prosperity) in his own voice [18]. John Stevens, Three Budo Masters, 1995, has Kano's other essential principle, jita kyoei, "mutual aid and co-operation." [19] Kawamura Teizō's Kōdōkan New Japanese-English Dictionary of Judo, 2000, dates the phrase to 1922 [3]. Takahashi Masao's Mastering Judo, 2005, gives "jita kyoei" (mutual welfare and benefit) [20]. Alexander Bennett's Budō: The Martial Ways of Japan, Nippon Budokan, 2009, gives "Jita-kyoei" (mutual prosperity) [4]. The Legacy of Kano Jigoro: Judo and Education, 2020, gives jita kyoei (mutual prosperity for oneself and others) [21].
Today. The English forms are the judo world's, not any one translator's: mutual welfare and benefit, mutual prosperity, mutual benefit. A rendering keeps the phrase as together, not for others. No Japanese dictionary cited here enters it [2].
A reading
This is Kano's second principle, and the grammar matters: in the Kodokan's own sentence it is not the companion of the first but its consequence, what follows from keeping the rule of the best use of energy. And it was aimed, in his own statement, at a Japan without one true friend in the world, which is a larger claim for a dojo wall than the English mutual benefit lets on.
Sources not seen
Kanō Jigorō, "The Contribution of Judo to Education," a lecture at the University of Southern California, printed in the Journal of Health and Physical Education, November 1932: cited by title and journal in a dozen later books, none of them a copy of the lecture itself, and no copy is held here. It would settle the founder's own English for both principles, and so the credit for maximum efficiency as his wording or a translator's.
A reader with access to any of these is invited to write to Takase Studios at Tim@Takase.com.
References
- 講道館文化会, 柔道年鑑, 大正14年度 (1925), scan 16; reprinted in the yearbooks of 1928, 1930, 1933, 1935, 1937, 1939. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/964759/1/16
- kotobank, 精力善用・自他共栄・自他共榮・精力最善活用 (no entry); JMdict via gokanji.com (no entry). https://kotobank.jp/word/精力善用
- Kawamura Teizō, ed., Kōdōkan New Japanese-English Dictionary of Judo, 2000, at Internet Archive (kodokan-new-japanese-english-dictionary-of-judo-etc.).
- Alexander Bennett, ed., Budō: The Martial Ways of Japan, Nippon Budokan, 2009, at Internet Archive (martialwaysofjap0000alex).
- Michel Brousse, Judo in the U.S., North Atlantic, 2005, at Internet Archive (judoinuscenturyo0000brou).
- National Diet Library Digital Collections, next-generation full-text search on 精力善用 and 自他共栄, counted by decade. https://lab.ndl.go.jp/dl/
- 講道館文化会, 柔道年鑑, 昭和3年度, National Diet Library, pid 1121921.
- 鈴木定次, 手工教育学原論, 1928, National Diet Library Digital Collections. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1279662
- 文部省, 現代体育の施設と管理, 1932, National Diet Library Digital Collections. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1119716
- 御影町誌, 1936, National Diet Library Digital Collections. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1257877
- 宮城県師範学校, 本校の教育, 1939, National Diet Library Digital Collections. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1278088
- 東京府, 東京府史 行政篇 第5巻, 1937, scan 306. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1686821/1/306
- Judo Quarterly Bulletin, vol. 1, the Budokwai, London, 1945–46, at Internet Archive (budokwai.-1946.-judo-quarterly-bulletin-vol.-1-nos.-1-4).
- Kodokan, Judo, Tokyo, 1955, at Internet Archive (judo0000kodo).
- Richard Bowen, Judo, Nutshell Books 19, Collins, 1963, at Internet Archive (judonutshellbook0000rich); The Key to Judo, 1963, at Internet Archive (keytojudo0000unse).
- Pat Harrington, Judo: A Pictorial Manual, David & Charles, 1987, at Internet Archive (judopictorialman0000harr).
- Kanō Jigorō, Kodokan Judo, Kodansha International, 1986, the 1994 printing, at Internet Archive (kodokanjudo0000kanj).
- Murata Naoki, ed., Mind Over Muscle: Writings from the Founder of Judo, Kodansha, 2005, the 2013 printing, at Internet Archive (mindovermusclewr0000kanj).
- John Stevens, Three Budo Masters, Kodansha, 1995, at Internet Archive (threebudomasters0000stev).
- Takahashi Masao, Mastering Judo, Human Kinetics, 2005, at Internet Archive (masteringjudo0000unse).
- The Legacy of Kano Jigoro: Judo and Education, Japan Publishing Industry Foundation, 2020, at Internet Archive (legacyofkanojigo0000seit).