形影一如 keiei ichinyo Inseparable as Form and Shadow
Abstract
形影一如, keiei ichinyo, inseparable as a form and its shadow (in its characters, form and shadow as one), is a four-character word, rare in print, for two that go together as a body and its shadow. The National Diet Library's full-text index finds it first in 1911, where a Zen writer, lecturing on 寶鏡三昧, a song attributed to the master 洞山良价, sets it on the moment 洞山 saw his reflection in the water; the Chinese Buddhist canon does not carry the four characters. The song has form and shadow seeing each other in a jewel mirror, and commentaries on it printed in 1886 had already rooted its teaching of form and shadow in that reflection and, at the song's vajra line, said form and shadow one body, 形影一體. From the 1930s writers use it of people who go together, friends, brothers, comrades, parents and children, as often of things that go together, and in the Buddhist sense of not-two; the one dictionary entry read here gives husband and wife as its second sense, and the commoner 形影相伴う, in far more volumes of the index, is the form three dictionaries give for husband and wife.
Overview
The sense. The open dictionary's first gloss is being inseparable as a form and its shadow (below, The text in English). デジタル大辞泉, the one entry kotobank serves, gives two senses, from the way a thing's form and its shadow always keep together: that the good or evil of the heart shows in what a person does, and that husband and wife are close [1]. In print it is said of two that go together as a body and its shadow: friends, brothers, comrades, parent and child, and things that go together [2].
The words. 形影 is form and shadow, the pair that never parts: 良岑安世's poem on 王昭君, the Han palace lady sent as a bride to the Xiongnu, in the 文華秀麗集 of 818, says that her soul goes back to the Han palace, her form and shadow face the barbarian field, and the 列子 says that when the form bends, the shadow bends. 一如 is the Buddhist not-two, the one truth under its many appearances, and then simply one and the same. Of the dictionaries kotobank serves, only デジタル大辞泉 has the four characters together, and from the way a thing's form and its shadow always keep together it gives two senses: that the good or evil of the heart shows in what a person does, and that husband and wife are close. The 精選版 日本国語大辞典 there has no entry [1]. The printed four-character dictionaries carry it from 1990 on, and their entries were not read here [2].
The text in English. The open dictionary alone renders it, with three glosses, the third husband and wife being never apart [3]; its second and third match 大辞泉's two senses. No Japanese-English dictionary among the Library's hits lists it [2]. The English phrase inseparable as form and shadow glosses a different phrase, the Chinese 形影不離, in the earliest copy the Internet Archive's full-text index holds, of 1982 [4].
The historical record
1911. A Zen writer's gloss. The Library's full-text index, which reads the books still in copyright as well as the free ones, finds 形影一如 in seventy-nine volumes. The oldest among them, a 1711 print of 朱子's works, is a false hit: the leaf reads each has its form and shadow, as if it could be grasped; the 一 the index matched is a reading mark, and 如 begins the next phrase. The oldest real one is a Zen book of 1911 by 加藤咄堂, in the opening paragraph of its chapter on 寶鏡三昧, the Samādhi of the Jewel Mirror, a song attributed to 洞山良价, the ninth-century founder of the Caodong line, whom 加藤 calls the one said to be its author; he says he reads it leaning on the commentaries of 指月 and 萬仞. He then retells 洞山's awakening: one day, crossing water, he saw his reflection and was greatly awakened, and made the verse "Do not seek from another, or you will be far from yourself; today I walk alone, and everywhere I meet him; he is now just me, I am now not him; you must understand it so, to accord with thusness" — the master who, crossing the water, form and shadow one, was here suddenly and greatly awakened … 加藤 printed the paragraph again, nearly word for word, in 1936 [2]. The story is old: the 景德傳燈錄 of 1004 says that 洞山, still in doubt, later, crossing water, saw his reflection and was greatly awakened to the former meaning, and gives the verse [5]. The Chinese Buddhist canon does not carry the four characters, nor 形影一體 [6]. The song itself, which 洞山's recorded sayings give as the teaching he passed to his disciple 曹山 when 曹山 took leave, has 如臨寶鏡，形影相覩，汝不是渠，渠正是汝, as when you face a jewel mirror, form and shadow see each other: you are not him, he is just you, which echoes the water verse's he is now just me, I am now not him [7]. The commentators had already joined the two. An edition of 1886 prints, under the name 月舟和尚 (the library's record names the book's author 宗胡; the history takes him for 月舟宗胡, 1618–1696, the dates kotobank's), on a page that also records that some say 雲岩 made the song and 洞山 handed it on, so that its author is not known for certain, 作者詳かならず, and judges it nonetheless 洞山's own, 當に洞山大師の作述なるべし; and it prints 室中潛に曹山和尚に口授し玉ふ形影の法門は過水悟道の頌に本けり, the teaching of form and shadow that he passed secretly by word of mouth in his room to 曹山 is rooted in the verse of his awakening crossing the water; its editor sets the water verse beside the song's 形影相覩る; and at the song's like the taste of the 荎 herb, like the vajra (如荎草味，如金剛杵), the commentaries of 恒川 printed the same year say of the vajra, one body with five prongs, 是又形影一體, this too is form and shadow one body, the nearest form to 形影一如 found before 1911; the index has 形影一體 again in a book of 1906, not read here. 指月's commentary, printed three times in the 1880s, has 形影 at the jewel mirror line and no 形影一如 in its text layer [8]. Nothing in the index puts the four characters before 加藤; whether he made them or took them up is not known, but he wrote them inside a commentary tradition that had already set the song's form and shadow on that reflection.
1934 to 2000. People, things, and the not-two. From the 1930s the word is used of almost any close pair. Of people: a 1934 book on education, a sketch of Yamagata's prefectural folk high school, says ruler and people stand as water and wave, not two; as form and shadow, one. A 1942 book on the family has parents growing in self-cultivation with their children as form and shadow, one. It is said of two friends who for more than twenty years kept the closest friendship, form and shadow as one, striving together toward the one road of children's literature (1943), of a lover cast off overnight (1950), of two Zen masters (1962), and from the 1960s to the 1990s of brothers, sworn comrades, teachers and friends, and an author and his character. An oratory magazine of 1935 glosses it at once with 一心同體, one heart, one body. Of things, as often: a company man writes in 1937 that in things there is what is called form and shadow as one; as for me, I am like a shadow that is there because its form is, and I am there because the company is; it is said of the railways of Manchuria and the South Manchuria Railway Company (1942), of two things a patent journal says ordinary people confuse (1942), of something and the raising of shipping efficiency, the first of the pair before the window (1943), of a man and his thought (1976), and of a city and its military (1988). And it keeps the Buddhist sense of not-two: a magazine article of 1934 sets it beside 色即是空, form is emptiness, and a 1953 study of the 正法眼蔵 has 悟は元來不二であり、形影一如である, awakening is at root not two, and form and shadow one, in a window that opens on 悟, so what awakening is paired with is cut off [2]. The use printed most often is one sentence of 石坂洋次郎's novel 『若い人』, a life of form and shadow as one, content from moment to moment, in the magazine 三田文学 in 1935, the earliest printing in the index, and in fourteen later volumes to 2000, five of them the novel alone and nine collected works, one with the reading in ruby [2].
The dictionaries. From 1990 the four-character dictionaries carry it, among them 三省堂's 新明解四字熟語辞典 of 1998; their entries were not read here. A 1998 book of four-character words sets it in a run with a word ending in 同体 (the window cuts it), 関雎之化 (the snippet reads 関雌之化), 比翼連理, 夫唱婦随 and 偕老同穴, the last three words for husband and wife in the dictionaries [9]; the window does not show the heading over the run [2].
Beside its neighbors. The Chinese Buddhist canon at CBETA and Chinese Wikisource do not carry 形影一如 [6]. The canon has 形影相隨, said of two monks who kept together for twenty years, 形影不離, 形影相弔, form and shadow console each other, and 如影隨形, as the shadow follows the form, for the merit that follows a gift in the 長阿含經 [10]. Japanese settled on its own form, 形影相伴う, form and shadow keep company, which three dictionaries give for husband and wife, the 日本国語大辞典 also for people on good terms and 故事成語を知る辞典 for friends, the 日本国語大辞典 first from 1910 [9]. On the same index 形影相伴 is in 8,804 volumes, 形影相弔 in 2,125, 形影相随 in 577 and 形影不離 in 154, against seventy-eight for 形影一如, fifteen of them one novel [2].
The sense across time. In the one dictionary entry read here 形影一如 has two senses, the moral and the marital. On the Library's index it was first set on a monk's awakening, and after that on two of almost anything that go together, people and things alike, with the Buddhist not-two running beside.
What is not a source. No source read calls 形影一如 a common idiom; a company man in 1937 introduces it as something said, 形影一如と申す事.
A reading
形影一如 is a four-character word, rare in print, for two that go together as a body and its shadow. A Zen writer set it on 洞山's reflection in the water in 1911, lecturing on the song of the jewel mirror attributed to 洞山, where form and shadow see each other; whether the four characters were his is not known, but commentaries printed in 1886 had already rooted the song's form and shadow in that reflection, and one of them, at the song's vajra line, says form and shadow one body. From the 1930s it was said of whatever pair the writer needed, people and things alike, and in 1976 of a man whose person and thought had become one, which is as near as the print I read comes to the dictionary's first sense. The couple is the dictionary's second sense and a small part of the print read in snippets, where the nearest is a lover cast off in 1950; the dictionaries give that sense to the commoner 形影相伴う, and the canon's phrase for two who never part is 形影相隨. It suits a marriage, and its history is wider than one.
Japanese Scrolls by Master Calligrapher Eri Takase
References
- 「形影」・「一如」・「形影一如」, 精選版日本国語大辞典・デジタル大辞泉・字通, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/形影一如 · https://kotobank.jp/word/形影
- National Diet Library Digital Collections, full-text search on 形影一如, oldest first, seventy-nine hits; comparison totals on the same search for 形影相伴, 形影相弔, 形影相随 and 形影不離. Cited: 晦庵先生朱文公文集, 1711 print, scan 59; 加藤咄堂, 文字禅, 東亜堂書房, 1911, scan 83; 加藤咄堂, 涼心禅話, 春潮社, 1936, scan 60; 角南元一, 教育転換点に立つての回顧と新展望 上 (山形県立国民高等学校の素描), 1934, scan 93; 中央公論 49(9), 1934, scan 162; 雄弁 26(1), 1935, scan 221; 三田文学 10(4), 1935, scan 11 (石坂洋次郎, 若い人); れいえん 55, 1937, scan 17; 富野敬邦, 日本の家と教育, 1942, scan 164; 東亜経済展望, 1942, scan 76; 特許と商標 11(10), 1942, scan 18; 木村小舟, 少年文学史, 明治篇, 童話春秋社, 1943, scan 145; 海運 251, 1943, scan 75; フィルハーモニー 22(9), 1950, scan 18; 岡田宜法, 正法眼蔵思想大系 3, 1953, scan 46; 株式会社喜多村石油本店50年史, 1961, scan 22; 日置黙仙禅師伝, 1962, scan 60; 井原市史, 1964, scan 139; 日本の文学 58, 中央公論社, 1964, scan 127; 人間・空間・時間 (常盤敏太博士喜寿記念論集), 1976, scan 288; 川端康成 (新潮日本文学アルバム 16), 1984, scan 44; 特別甲種幹部候補生の記, 1986, scan 233; 日本人の戦争, 1988, scan 311; 四字熟語に強くなる本, 1998, scan 81 (the text layer reads 関雌之化); 新明解四字熟語辞典, 三省堂, 1998. The 1711, 1911 and 1943 leaves are read at the page and the 1936 book at its text layer; every other book is read at the search's snippet, snippet view, and its full text is open only in Japan. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/search/searchResult?keyword=形影一如&fulltext=true&sortKey=ISSUED_ASC · https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/2583193/1/59 · https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/823531/1/83 · https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1223128/1/60 · https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1090640/1/93 · https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/10232245/1/162 · https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/11006874/1/221 · https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/2303500/1/11 · https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/8099978/1/17 · https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1039364/1/164 · https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1108841/1/76 · https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1586220/1/18 · https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1127298/1/145 · https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1558442/1/75 · https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/2258757/1/18 · https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/2972484/1/46 · https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/8312627/1/22 · https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/2968296/1/60 · https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/3008692/1/139 · https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1664950/1/127 · https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/11896324/1/288 · https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/12462823/1/44 · https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/12012790/1/233 · https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/13203906/1/311 · https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/14110020/1/81 · https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/14092608
- JMdict (EDRDG), 「形影一如」, at jisho. https://jisho.org/word/形影一如
- P. C. T'ung and D. E. Pollard, Colloquial Chinese, character text, 1982: 形影不离 xíng-yǐng bù lí (set phrase) inseparable (as form and shadow), read at the Internet Archive full-text highlight. https://archive.org/details/charactertextfor0000tong
- 景德傳燈錄 (1004), book 15, 洞山良价, T51n2076_p0321c19–24, at CBETA. https://cbdata.dila.edu.tw/stable/juans?work=T2076&juan=15
- CBETA full-text search on 形影一如, 形影如一 and 形影一體, no hits; Chinese Wikisource search on 形影一如 and 形影如一, no hits. https://cbdata.dila.edu.tw/stable/search?q=形影一如 · https://zh.wikisource.org/w/index.php?search=形影一如
- 瑞州洞山良价禪師語錄, 寶鏡三昧, T47n1986B_p0525c23–0526a02, at CBETA (師因曹山辭，遂囑云 … 如臨寶鏡，形影相覩，汝不是渠，渠正是汝). https://cbdata.dila.edu.tw/stable/juans?work=T1986B&juan=1
- 宗胡 著, 恒川 編, 『宝鏡三昧薫蕕談』, 林古芳, 1886, National Diet Library pid 823493, scan 3 (○月舟和尚の辨に … 形影の法門は過水悟道の頌に本けり, and ○編者曰く … 形影相覩る) and scan 15 (○恒川和上の辨に … 是又形影一体なるのみ), read at the page in the library's viewer; the same page as scan 4 of 恒川 述『参同契薫蕕談』, 1886, pid 823013; 恒川 著『参同契宝鏡三昧異譫』, 森江佐七, 1886, pid 823014, scan 15 (當知莖草一根分五味金剛杵一體分五股是又形影一體); 慧印 (指月) 著『参同契宝鏡三昧不能語』, printings of 1881, 1884 and 1886, pids 823029, 823028 and 823030, searched within each book; 「月舟宗胡」, 日本大百科全書 and デジタル版 日本人名大辞典+Plus, at kotobank, for his dates. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/823493/1/3 · https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/823493/1/15 · https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/823013/1/4 · https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/823014/1/15 · https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/823030 · https://kotobank.jp/word/月舟宗胡-59606
- 「形影相伴う」 (デジタル大辞泉, 精選版日本国語大辞典 with its first example, 竹越与三郎, 南国記, 1910, and 故事成語を知る辞典), 「比翼連理」, 「夫唱婦随」, 「偕老同穴」, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/形影相伴う · https://kotobank.jp/word/比翼連理 · https://kotobank.jp/word/夫唱婦随 · https://kotobank.jp/word/偕老同穴
- CBETA full-text search on 形影相隨 (24 hits), 形影不離 (6), 形影相弔 (29) and 如影隨形 (382); 靈峰宗論, book 8, B0130 p0758b13 (二師同堂相聚 … 從是形影相隨者，二十餘年); 長阿含經, book 2, T01n0001_p0015a02 (施持戒人，則獲大果。此為真伴，終始相隨，所至到處，如影隨形). https://cbdata.dila.edu.tw/stable/search?q=形影相隨 · https://cbdata.dila.edu.tw/stable/search?q=如影隨形 · https://cbdata.dila.edu.tw/stable/juans?work=T0001&juan=2