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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. The four characters are in print by 1906, and Kanō made them a principle in 1922. This study follows the Kodokan's own reading of it as the first principle's result, aimed past the dojo at Japan's neighbors.

Japanese Scroll of Mutual Benefit (jita kyōei) — Calligraphy by Eri Takase
Mutual Benefit自他共栄jita kyōei

Original art by Master Calligrapher Eri Takase

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Abstract

自他共栄, jita kyōei, you and others prospering together, is the second of Kano Jigorō's two principles of judo, which he called the short form of 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 four characters were in print before judo took them up, in a book on ethics in 1906 and a book on colonial policy in 1918, and Kano made them a principle in 1922. The phrase has no headword in the Japanese dictionaries opened here, and Kano himself carried it into English, as mutual welfare and benefit, in 1932.

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 statement of 1925 gives it a longer form, 相助・相譲・自他共栄, help one another, yield to one another, prosper together [1], and Kano, writing of group life, calls the four characters its shortening: the long form may be shortened to jita kyoei [2]. The old books write 榮; the modern form is 栄. The phrase has no headword in kotobank's dictionaries or in Weblio, and the bilingual JMdict has no entry; kotobank defines the neighboring 共存共栄 as 自他ともに生存し、ともに繁栄すること, self and others both living and both prospering [3]. Its definition is the Kodokan's, though the four characters are older than the Kodokan's use of them.

The text in English. No Meiji dictionary enters the phrase; it reaches English in Kano's own lecture of 1932.

The historical record

1906 to 1921, before judo. The National Diet Library's full-text index finds the four characters three times before Kano took them up. The fourth edition of 藤本充安's treatise on ethics, 『人円主義』 (1906), has it in a sentence about what goes against the law of heaven: such a thing cannot be 永久、廣大、高尙自他共榮, lasting, broad, lofty, and prospering for self and others [4]. 松本敬之's 『南方帝国論』 (1918), a book on Japan's southern empire, uses it of colonial policy: this course of prospering together is not a new tendency found only between a home country and its colonies [5]. A chemical-industry magazine in 1921 complains that no one has prospering together in mind [6]. These are the phrase before it was anyone's principle, and they are rare.

1922, 嘉納治五郎 and the 講道館文化会, the Kodokan Cultural Society. Kano founded the society in 1922, and the society's own print carries the phrase from that year. An advertisement for its monthly 『柔道』 in the second volume of the 柔道叢書 (1922) promises that those who have not yet trained will, through the magazine, understand judo's cultural spirit, 生活の改善を圖り、自他共榮の實をあげ人類の幸福を增進することを得ん, improve their lives, make prospering together real, and advance the happiness of mankind [7]. The magazine's November 1922 issue speaks of the aim of prospering together that our society upholds [8]. The Kodokan's own bilingual dictionary dates the pair to 1922 [9]; a Nippon Budokan history has Kano declare the principle of the best use of energy at the society's council in 1922 [10]; an American history has the society founded in 1922 on the two [11]; and the history of 御影, Kano's native town, records the society as organized in 1922 by the educator 嘉納治五郎, a native of this town [12]. In June 1923 the magazine carries an article by Kano titled 自他共榮に對する種々の質問に答ふ, answering various questions about prospering together [13]. In the same year the phrase turns up in bankers' and business journals and in a Japanese review published in Korea, there beside 共存共榮 [14]. The longer form with 相助相譲 comes later in the index, from the society's second magazine, 作興, in 1924 [15]; the pair 精力善用自他共栄 is a Fukushima primary school's lesson title in 1924 [16]. Kano's own 『精力善用国民体育』(1930) is digitized for readers in Japan only, and his 『柔道教本』(1931) is not digitized; neither was read.

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 [17].

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 [18]; the Ministry of Education's 1932 handbook on physical education repeats the whole formula with the imperial house at its center [19]; the town history of 1936 records the society's branch in 御影, set up in 1925, holding up the two great spirits of 精力善用自他共栄 [12]; a teachers' college in 1939 makes its pupils apply them to every part of daily life [20]; 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 [21]. The library's full-text index finds the phrase in 175 items of the 1920s and 271 of the 1930s, books and magazine issues together [15].

The sense across time. One sense in judo, 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. The words were not new in 1922; the principle was, and in his own statement Kano aimed it 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 Japan's aims in Asia, belongs to the language of the co-prosperity sphere, 共栄圏, not to judo, 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

1932. Kano's own English. Lecturing at the University of Southern California, printed in the Journal of Health and Physical Education that November, Kano renders 相助相譲・自他共栄 himself: the principle of maximum efficiency, applied to social life, demands, first of all, order and harmony among its members, and this can only be attained through mutual aid and concession, leading to mutual welfare and benefit, and the final aim of Jiudo, therefore, is to inculcate in the mind of man a spirit of respect for the principle of maximum efficiency and of mutual welfare and benefit [22].

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 after the war known here [23]. 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 [24]. Richard Bowen's Judo and The Key to Judo, both 1963, give the motto Jita Kyoei (literally "mutual welfare and prosperity") [25].

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 [26]. Kodansha International's 1986 English edition of Kano's own Kodokan Judo carries a chapter on Principles and Aims [27]. Murata Naoki's 2005 anthology of the founder's writings, Mind Over Muscle, has Kano say of the long form that this may be shortened to jita kyoei [2]. Kano's memoirs in Brian Watson's translation, 2014, open a chapter Benefiting Oneself and Others: it is an English rendition of one of my principles to be observed in life: jita kyoei [28]. John Stevens, Three Budo Masters, 1995, has Kano's other essential principle, jita kyoei, "mutual aid and co-operation." [29] Kawamura Teizō's Kōdōkan New Japanese-English Dictionary of Judo, 2000, dates the phrase to 1922 [9]. Takahashi Masao's Mastering Judo, 2005, gives "jita kyoei" (mutual welfare and benefit) [30]. Alexander Bennett's Budō: The Martial Ways of Japan, Nippon Budokan, 2009, gives "Jita-kyoei" (mutual prosperity) [10]. The Legacy of Kano Jigoro: Judo and Education, 2020, gives jita kyoei (mutual prosperity for oneself and others) [31].

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 opened here enters it [3].

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. He did not coin the words; a moralist and a writer on colonies had used them before him, and what he did was to make them a rule and tie them to the first. And he aimed it, 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

The Kodokan Cultural Society's magazines, 『柔道』 (1922–23) and 『作興』 (1924–), past the excerpts the library shows, and Kano's own 『精力善用国民体育』 (1930): digitized by the National Diet Library for transmission to libraries and readers in Japan, which this house cannot reach. They would show where the phrase first appears in the society's own pages and in whose hand, and what Kano answered when he was asked about it in 1923. The 1906 and 1921 uses were seen only as excerpts, for the same reason.

A reader with access to any of these is invited to write to Takase Studios at Tim@Takase.com.

References

  1. 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
  2. Kanō Jigorō, Mind Over Muscle, Snowball Publishing, 2022, chapter Group Life and Judo (the essay undated in this edition: This is known as sojo sojou jita kyoei … This can be reduced to Jita Kyoei); Murata Naoki, ed., Mind Over Muscle: Writings from the Founder of Judo, Kodansha, 2005, the 2013 printing, at Internet Archive (mindovermusclewr0000kanj: assistance and concession. This may be shortened to jita kyoei).
  3. kotobank, 自他共栄 and 自他共榮 (no entry), 共存共栄 (精選版 日本国語大辞典); Weblio, 自他共栄 (no headword); JMdict via gokanji.com (no entry). https://kotobank.jp/word/共存共栄
  4. 藤本充安, 人円主義, 第4版, 博広社, 1906, scan 95, National Diet Library Digital Collections (excerpt only). https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/757244/1/95
  5. 松本敬之, 南方帝国論, 縦横社, 1918, p. 177, scan 128. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/955609/1/128
  6. 化学工芸 5, no. 2, February 1921, scan 5, National Diet Library Digital Collections (excerpt only). https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1535553/1/5
  7. 講道館文化会, 柔道叢書 第2, 1922, scan 103 (the advertisement for 『柔道』). https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/969795/1/103
  8. 講道館文化会, 柔道 1, no. 8, November 1922, scan 21, National Diet Library Digital Collections (excerpt only). https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/2269655/1/21
  9. Kawamura Teizō, ed., Kōdōkan New Japanese-English Dictionary of Judo, 2000, at Internet Archive (kodokan-new-japanese-english-dictionary-of-judo-etc.).
  10. Alexander Bennett, ed., Budō: The Martial Ways of Japan, Nippon Budokan, 2009, at Internet Archive (martialwaysofjap0000alex).
  11. Michel Brousse, Judo in the U.S., North Atlantic, 2005, at Internet Archive (judoinuscenturyo0000brou).
  12. 御影町誌, 1936, pp. 352–353, scan 210. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1257877/1/210
  13. 講道館文化会, 柔道 2, no. 6, June 1923, contents (嘉納治五郎, 自他共榮に對する種々の質問に答ふ, p. 5), National Diet Library Digital Collections (contents line only). https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/2269662
  14. 銀行通信録 75, no. 451, May 1923, scan 57 (pid 1587069); 自由評論 12, no. 6, June 1923, scan 31 (pid 1542385); 朝鮮公論 11, no. 1, January 1923, scan 59 (pid 11186984); National Diet Library Digital Collections (excerpts only).
  15. National Diet Library Digital Collections, the full-text index on 自他共栄 and on 相助相譲, oldest first, counted by decade. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/search/searchResult?keyword=自他共栄&fulltext=true&sortKey=ISSUED_ASC
  16. 福島県師範学校附属小学校教育研究会, 小学校に於ける新教育の実際, 1924, National Diet Library Digital Collections. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/939413
  17. 講道館文化会, 柔道年鑑, 昭和3年度, National Diet Library, pid 1121921.
  18. 鈴木定次, 手工教育学原論, 1928, National Diet Library Digital Collections. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1279662
  19. 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
  20. 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
  21. 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
  22. Jigoro Kano, The Contribution of Jiudo to Education, Journal of Health and Physical Education 3, no. 9, November 1932, p. 37 and continued, at Internet Archive (sim_journal-of-physical-education-recreation-dance_1932-11_3_9).
  23. Judo Quarterly Bulletin, vol. 1, the Budokwai, London, 1945–46, at Internet Archive (budokwai.-1946.-judo-quarterly-bulletin-vol.-1-nos.-1-4).
  24. Kodokan, Judo, Tokyo, 1955, at Internet Archive (judo0000kodo).
  25. Richard Bowen, Judo, Nutshell Books 19, Collins, 1963, at Internet Archive (judonutshellbook0000rich); The Key to Judo, 1963, at Internet Archive (keytojudo0000unse).
  26. Pat Harrington, Judo: A Pictorial Manual, David & Charles, 1987, at Internet Archive (judopictorialman0000harr).
  27. Kanō Jigorō, Kodokan Judo, Kodansha International, 1986, the 1994 printing, at Internet Archive (kodokanjudo0000kanj).
  28. Brian N. Watson, trans., Judo Memoirs of Jigoro Kano, Trafford, 2014, chapter 75, Benefiting Oneself and Others.
  29. John Stevens, Three Budo Masters, Kodansha, 1995, at Internet Archive (threebudomasters0000stev).
  30. Takahashi Masao, Mastering Judo, Human Kinetics, 2005, at Internet Archive (masteringjudo0000unse).
  31. The Legacy of Kano Jigoro: Judo and Education, Japan Publishing Industry Foundation, 2020, at Internet Archive (legacyofkanojigo0000seit).

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; most resolve; several resolve but differ — side-findings off the cited addresses, taken into the record; the rest not openable; the withheld books stated to the check rather than shown, several re-opened by hand

Cite as: Tim Jackowski and Ten, "Philology of 自他共栄 (jita kyōei)," Takase Studios, 2026, https://takase.com/library/philology/jita-kyoei.