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明歴々露堂々 meirekireki rodōdō Perfectly Clear, with Nothing Hidden

明歴々露堂々, perfectly clear, with nothing hidden: from a Song monk's question and a Japanese master's portrait to the tea room's one-line scroll.

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Japanese Scroll of Perfectly Clear, with Nothing Hidden (meirekireki rodōdō) — Calligraphy by Eri Takase
Perfectly Clear, with Nothing Hidden明歴々露堂々meirekireki rodōdō

Original art by Master Calligrapher Eri Takase

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Abstract

明歴々露堂々, perfectly clear, bare to view with nothing hidden, is a pair of Song Chan phrases that no one has traced to a single source: it is first known as the abbot Changling Shouzhuo 長靈守卓's answer to his own say a line!, and in a monk's question to Yuanwu Keqin 圜悟克勤 on the evening he was ordered to Jinshan, in 1127 or a little after, clear and distinct, bare in full view: why can heaven and earth not hold it? [1][2]. In Japan its first known use is a verse Nanpo Shōmyō 南浦紹明 inscribed on his own portrait for one disciple, and from then on it was given to one person or said over one person, at a master's memorial in 1352, at funerals, in a death verse, and as a one-line scroll for a poor tea man of Sakai [3][4][5][6]. By 1534 a commentator could write it as his own Japanese for what is seen in a flash once the mind is swept bare, and in the tea room a scroll written by Takuan Sōhō 沢庵宗彭 and Kōgetsu Sōgan 江月宗玩 together was named in 1951, by an art magazine writing of what buyers aim for, the king of one-line scrolls, on which, it said, every eye agrees [7][8][9]. Since at least 1893 its 露 has also been heard as dew, and later the line as the autumn moon, a reading one Zen master counted among the even worse ways of taking it [10][11].

Overview

The sense. At kotobank no headword address tried for the whole line or for 露堂堂 answers (each a 404); 明歴歴 has one, and its sense is ordinary Japanese, きわめてあきらかであるさま。きわめてはっきりしているさま, perfectly clear; perfectly distinct [12]. Its witnesses hold several senses, each in its own setting. In the Song records it names what is plain to see and yet cannot be contained, why can heaven and earth not hold it? [2]; Japanese masters set it beside 遍界不藏, nowhere in the world is it hidden [13]; a Ming sermon warned that to rest in it is still making a living in the ghosts' cave [14]. Said over the dead it is the body wholly manifest [4][15]; in vernacular commentary it is what is seen in a flash [7][16]; in the 1603 Jesuit dictionary its first half is entered, with none of the marks for poetic, written or Buddhist words, for plain to see [17]. An Edo tea master took it for the plainness of tea itself [18], and the tea room has also read it as the moon and the dew of autumn, a reading Zen writers have both refused and allowed as play [19][11][20].

The words. 明, clear, bright, and 歴々, distinct, one by one: 明歴歴 is a single word in the 日本国語大辞典, perfectly clear, first cited from a vernacular commentary of 1471–73 [12]. 露 is bare, exposed, plain to see, あらわ, むき出しであるさま。はっきりと見えるさま in the デジタル大辞泉 and あらわれる among its senses in 字通; the same character as a noun is つゆ, dew, a season word for autumn [21]. 堂々 here is the 日本国語大辞典's second sense, 少しもかくすところのないさま。公然としたさま, with nothing at all hidden; openly, which the デジタル大辞泉 gives as なんの隠しだてもないさま; the first sense in both, imposing, dignified, is the one a reader of modern Japanese meets first, and it is not the sense of the line [22]. The line is read meirekireki rodōdō: the 1852 tea compendium marks めい れき〃 and とう〃 [6], a commentary of 1930 marks the whole めいれき〱ろたう〱, as printed, without a voicing mark on 堂 [23], a tea guide of 1936 gives メイレキレキロダウダウ [24], and every reading printed before 1945 among the witnesses here gives 明 as mei. Two postwar authorities read myōrekireki: Sen Sōshitsu XV 千宗室 of Urasenke in 1978, who wrote that the line must be read みょうれきれき、ろどうどう or its sense as Zen teaching does not come through, and Arima Raitei 有馬頼底 in 1990 [25][26]; the later books are in Notes. The line is written 明歴々露堂々 with the repetition mark in the 1534 commentary, the 1657 glossary and the 1852 tea compendium, 明歷歷露堂堂 in the canon and the phrase books of 1645 and 1688, and with the mark after 明 as well, 明々歴々露堂々, in a manuscript commentary on the Linji lu [7][16][6][27][28][29].

The text in English. The line reached Europe first through the Jesuits: the Vocabulario da Lingoa de Iapam of 1603 enters Mei reqireqi, glossed Aqiracana . Cousa clara, ou que aparece manifestamente, a thing clear, or that appears manifestly, and Léon Pagès put it into French in 1868 [17][30]. In English the half 露堂堂 appears in Zen Dust (1966) as Apparent; perfectly clear. Revealed! [31]; the whole line as Bright and sharp! Exposed and majestic! in the English of Kusumoto Bun'yū 久須本文雄's book of zengo [32], Clearly revealed as it is in Tani Kōgetsu's bilingual book of 1991 and its American edition of 1995 [33][34], Unmistakably clear and proudly seen in a tea master's almanac [35], and Brilliant and fully present in Victor Sōgen Hori's Zen Sand (2003) [36]. JMdict, at jisho.org, carries no entry for the line or for either half [37].

The historical record

By early 1125, Changling Shouzhuo 長靈守卓 (1065–1124 or 1125), a hundred questions put in the room: say a line. In the record of the Song abbot of Tianning in the eastern capital, compiled by his heir Jiechen 介諶, whose account of his life is dated 1144, the master sets a hundred questions and answers each himself; to one, incense before the Buddha, palms joined behind the hall; where the lantern hangs on the pillar, say a line!, 燈籠挂露柱處，道將一句來, he answers [1]:

明歷歷，露堂堂。

Clear and distinct; bare in full view [1]. The account of his life gives his death as the twenty-seventh day of the twelfth month of 宣和 5, early in 1124, aged fifty-nine, and the record's own body gives 宣和 6, early in 1125 [1][38]. Either way he died before the next witness, so his is the older of the two Song uses by the men's dates, though his record was put together after his death, its account of his life dated 1144. Here the pair is a master's own answer: what is to be said is what is plainly there.

1127 or a little after, Yuanwu Keqin 圜悟克勤 (1063–1135), ordered to Jinshan: why can heaven and earth not hold it? Moved by imperial order to the abbacy of Jinshan in the first years of 建炎, from 1127 [39][40], Yuanwu gave an evening talk that his record heads 高郵乾明受勅，住金山龍遊寺，當晚小參, at Qianming in Gaoyou, on receiving the order to reside at Jinshan, the talk that evening, and a monk asked [2][41]:

僧問：「明歷歷、露堂堂，因什麼乾坤收不得？」師云：「金剛手裏八稜棒。」

A monk asked: "Clear and distinct, bare in full view: why can heaven and earth not hold it?" The master said: "The eight-edged club in the vajra-bearer's hand" [2]. The pair is the monk's, and the question is what cannot be contained. The later lamp histories copy this exchange under Yuanwu's name, word for word but for 因甚麼, why, written for 因什麼, the same word [39][40]. In the Chinese canon as CBETA searches it, the six characters stand together in fourteen texts, while each half alone stands in hundreds; the Biyan lu 碧巖錄 (The Blue Cliff Record), Yuanwu's own commentary, is not among the fourteen [42].

The Ming, a sermon on the pair: the ghosts' cave. A Ming master, asked clear and distinct, bare in full view: is there anything more?, answers 猶是鬼窟裏活計, that is still making a living in the ghosts' cave, and goes on: 所以認個明歷歷、露堂堂，猶是鬼窟裏活計。到者裏有個透脫處，方得光明燦爛, so to take "clear and distinct, bare in full view" for it is still making a living in the ghosts' cave; only where there is a way clean through does the light blaze [14]. That is the Wudeng huiyuan xulüe 五燈會元續略's text; the other two witnesses write 鬼窟裡底活計 or 鬼窟裏底活計, 認箇 for 認個, and 須有箇, must have, for 有個, with the sense unchanged [14][43]. The lamp histories give the sermon to Shiche Tongcheng 石車通乘 and the recorded sayings of Chaozong Tongren 朝宗通忍 print it as his [14][43]: whose it is, the witnesses do not settle. It is the one witness read that warns against the line.

Before 1309, Nanpo Shōmyō 南浦紹明 (1235–1309), known as Daiō 大應, an inscription on his own portrait: given to one disciple. In Daiō's recorded sayings, under the heading 自賛, self-inscriptions, verses written on the master's own portrait for the disciple who asked for it, the verse for the monk Sōi 宗意 reads [3][44]:

明歷歷露堂堂。沒巴鼻有來由。乾坤收不得。突出一毫頭。

Clear and distinct, bare in full view; nothing to grab it by, and yet it has its source; heaven and earth cannot hold it; it juts out at the tip of a hair [3]. It is the earliest Japanese use known. Yuanwu's monk asked why heaven and earth cannot hold it; Daiō answers by saying it: 乾坤收不得. A master's likeness, given to one person, is inscribed with the line. A commentary of 1930 prints the verse with the kana めいれき〱ろたう〱, as printed, and reads the monk's name 宗意 そうい [23].

1352, the twenty-fourth day of the seventh month, Shōkai Reiken 性海靈見 (?–1396), at Kokan Shiren's seventh memorial: the master's body. Kokan Shiren 虎關師鍊 (1278–1346) died on the twenty-fourth day of the seventh month of 貞和 2, 1346; his hand too palsied to write, he had an attendant take down his last verse, which opens by refusing the deathbed words of Zengzi 曾子 in the Analects, 啓予足啓予手, uncover my feet, uncover my hands [45][46]:

勿啓予手。勿啓予足。脫體現成。其人如玉。

Do not uncover my hands; do not uncover my feet. The body wholly manifest; the man like jade [45]. Six years later, on the same day, at the memorial held at Tōfukuji and Nanzenji in a year the temple history files under 文和 1, the era named that autumn [15][38], Shōkai Reiken took the pulpit and preached on that verse [15][47]: 啓予手啓吾足、大用現前不存軌則、脫體現成、其人如玉、本自天然不假雕琢、明歷々、露堂々、圓陀々、光爍々, uncover my hands, uncover my feet. The great function, present, keeps no rule. The body wholly manifest, the man like jade, by nature so from the first, owing nothing to the carver: clear and distinct, bare in full view, round and whole, its light blazing [15], and the 1906 edition goes on, 如大火聚。近之則燎却面門, like a great mass of fire: come near and it scorches your face [4]. The two books' text layers differ in a character or two (the 1906 reads 啓子手 and 光傑燦), and neither is served outside Japan, so the page has not been seen [4][15]. The line is said over a dead master, of his body, glossing his own last words. A history of Japanese thought of 1988 gives this sermon as its speaker's own deathbed cry [48]; both editions set it under the heading of Kokan's seventh memorial [4][15].

The fourteenth century, Tettō Gikō 徹翁義亨 (1295–1369): nowhere hidden. In the Taishō text of his record the Daitokuji master uses the line three times, each time beside 遍界不藏, nowhere in the world is it hidden: in a sermon on a monk's arrival; in a teaching for the monk 宗紹, 輝天輝地明歴歴露堂堂。挺拔清虚遍界不藏。當人會得不離目前, shining over heaven and earth, clear and distinct, bare in full view; towering, pure and empty, hidden nowhere in the world; the one who grasps it does not leave what is before his eyes; and at the memorial of the nun 宗明, 明歴歴露堂堂。突出物外。遍界不藏, clear and distinct, bare in full view; jutting out beyond things; hidden nowhere in the world [13][49].

1455, Yōsō Sōi 養叟宗頤 (1376–1458), an ensō: the first half. Audrey Yoshiko Seo describes the earliest known extant ensō in Japan, dated 1455 by the Daitokuji master, with the inscription meireki reki, which she renders obvious, obvious [50]. The circle carries the first half alone.

1467 and after, Gokei Sōton 悟溪宗頓 (1416–1500): the solstice and the cremation torch. In the winter-solstice sermon, which the record sets between its notes 應仁 1 and 應仁 2, so in 1467, 今日書雲令節雪覆千山。爲白銀闕。淨裸裸赤洒洒。明歴歴露堂堂, today, the festival of recording the clouds, snow covers a thousand mountains and makes a palace of white silver: naked and clean, bare and washed, clear and distinct, bare in full view; and at two cremations of lay people, when the master lit the pyre, among them 一靈眞性逼塞虚空。孤危峭峻八面玲瓏。明歴歴露堂堂, the one spirit, true nature, fills all of space; alone and sheer, bright on all eight sides; clear and distinct, bare in full view [5][51].

Undated, Ikkyū Sōjun 一休宗純 (1394–1481), the Kyōunshū 狂雲集 (Crazy Cloud Anthology), a poem on a name. Under the title 勝瓊, a name whose second character means jade [52][53]:

傑出祖門靈光。明歷歷露堂堂。趙璧本無瑕類。相如謾誑秦王。

Towering from the patriarchs' gate, the spirit's light: clear and distinct, bare in full view. The jade of Zhao never had a flaw; Xiangru only lied to the King of Qin [52]. The last two lines are the preface of the Biyan lu, dated 1128, which writes 瑕纇, flaw, where the 1909 print of the poem has 瑕類, and where the commentary is Xiangru's stratagem to win back a jade that was never flawed [54]. The 1645 phrase book carries all three of the lines that are stock [27]. That the poem plays on a person's name, jade, and on the preface, is my reading.

1534, the Shiga nyūkai 四河入海, compiled by Shōun Seizan 笑雲清三, a commentary on Su Shi: seen in a flash. In the compilation of commentaries on the poems of Su Shi 蘇軾 that the dictionaries date to 天文 3, 1534 [55], in an early old-type print, a commentator explains the lines 歸來掃一室, 虛白以自怡, come home and sweep a room; empty and bright, delight in it: sweep out the ten thousand thoughts one by one until the mind is empty, and [7]

其中ニ悟アツテキラリト見テ明歴々露堂々ナルヲ 此ヲ名テ父母未生トモ云イ 萬物ノ初トモ云ソ

in it enlightenment comes, sees in a flash that all is clear and distinct, bare in full view; and this is called "before father and mother were born", and also "the beginning of the ten thousand things" [7]. The line is no longer quoted; it is the commentator's own Japanese predicate, 明歴々露堂々ナル. The 日本国語大辞典 cites 明歴歴 alone from a vernacular commentary of 1471–73 [12].

The sixteenth century, Baioku Sōkō 梅屋宗香, installed at Nanzenji: the circle. Installed at Nanzenji by imperial order, the master drew a circle in the air with his whisk and said: 個大圓鏡照破十方，本無定相，體用全彰，圓陀陀阿轆轆，明歷歷露堂堂，内外絕瑕翳, this great round mirror shines through the ten directions; from the first it has no fixed form, its substance and its function wholly displayed; round and whole, rolling free, clear and distinct, bare in full view; within and without, no flaw or shadow [56]. The biography gives no year; the printing in the 大日本仏教全書 (1912–1922) adds a note, at the words installed at Nanzenji, that the Nanzenji register has him enter the temple on the sixth day of the twelfth month of 天文 13, which was January 1545 [57][38]. The woodblock text has no such note [56].

1603, the Vocabulario da Lingoa de Iapam, Nagasaki: the first half, unmarked. The Jesuits' dictionary of the Japanese language enters Mei reqireqi . i, Aqiracana . Cousa clara, ou que aparece manifestamente, Meireqireqi, that is akiraka na: a thing clear, or that appears manifestly [17]. Its prologue marks words used only in poetry P., words only of writing S., Buddhist words Bup., low words B. and words of Kyushu X.; the entry carries none of these marks, while its neighbors on the same page carry S., Bup and P. [17]. Of Buddhist words the prologue adds that many, being obscure and little used, deixamos de as por, which I read as left out of the book, not left unmarked; on that reading, by the Jesuits' judgment the first half was current Japanese [17]. There is no Rodôdô where the alphabet would put it [17].

元和 9, 1623, a memorial for Kuroda Nagamasa 黒田長政, reported in 1942: the master's own name. A compilation of 1942 reports that at the memorial of the lord Kuroda Nagamasa, held at Sūfukuji in Hakata, the presiding master, styled 興宗禪師, tested the lord's retainers [58]; the title is Kōgetsu Sōgan's, 大梁興宗禅師, and he did not hold it in 1623: a dictionary calls it posthumous [59], and a tea book of 1975 says the retired emperor Go-Mizunoo, 後水尾上皇, gave it [60]. The telling names him as later generations did. One elder of the house answered in front of the eyes, and then: 江月照、松風吹。師云ク、如何是江月照底。禪人云ク、明歷々。師云ク、如何是松風吹底。禪人云ク、露堂々。師云ク、畢竟如何。禪人云ク、明歷々露堂々, "The moon on the river shines, the wind in the pines blows." The master said: "What is the moon on the river shining?" "Clear and distinct." "What is the wind in the pines blowing?" "Bare in full view." "In the end, what?" "Clear and distinct, bare in full view" [58]. The answer 江月照、松風吹 holds the master's own name, 江月. The compilation prints the exchange from the 武士禪機緣集, a collection of warriors' Zen encounters gathered by 今井福山 of Sūfukuji, in its Sūfukuji edition of 1925 [58]; no older record of the exchange is named in the windows read.

1645, 1657 and 1688, the phrase books: a stock line without a source. The printed phrase book Kuzōshi 句雙紙 of 正保 2, 1645, sets 明歷歷露堂堂 in its run of six-character lines between 射虎不勞沒羽 and 月印水水印月, with no source, as it gives none for any line [27]. A glossary of Zen words and phrases printed in 明暦 3, 1657, the Shūmon kattōshū 宗門葛藤集, writes 明歴々露堂々 and glosses it in the vernacular, ギラリト / シレタ, known in a flash [16]; the phrase giraritto, with a flash, is in the Kenkyusha dictionary of 1942 [61]. The enlarged phrase book of 貞享 5, 1688, the Zōho shusho Zenrin kushū 増補首書 禪林句集, keeps the line in the run it received, before the heading of its own additions, 外句增續; where each neighbor carries a note of its source, the line carries a solid black block, and the book's afterword says that sources not clear to the editor, five or six in a hundred, are left blank for later scholars, 本據未分明者闕於百中五六、而以俟來哲焉 [28]. That the block is that blank is my reading. A print of 1889 keeps the line with no note [62].

About 1650, Ōmi, temple inscriptions: the image that answers. In a manuscript collection of prose from a temple of Ōmi, an inscription for a Jizō shrine says of the image, 譬如影之隨形 響應聲 妙鑑明歷々露堂々 胡來胡現 漢來漢現, like a shadow following its form, like an echo answering a voice, its wondrous mirror clear and distinct, bare in full view: a foreigner comes and a foreigner appears, a Han comes and a Han appears, beside a piece dated 慶安 3, 1650; another, for an eleven-faced thousand-armed Kannon, says the same of the image [63].

Before 1657, Hayashi Razan 林羅山 (1583–1657), against the Zen men. In an essay on three men, the Confucian scholar lists the talk he dismisses: 淨裸裸赤洒洒 明歷歷露堂堂 揚眉瞬目 着衣喫飯 說悟道受用, naked and clean, bare and washed, clear and distinct, bare in full view, raising the eyebrows and blinking, putting on clothes and eating rice, talking of awakening and its use; in the end, he writes, the Buddhists take mountains, rivers and the earth for illusion and human bonds for delusion, and 吾道非彼所謂道也, our Way is not what they call the Way [64][65]. The line, for an outsider, is the sound of Zen talk.

Before 1662, Seigan Sōi 清巌宗渭 (1588–1662), a one-line scroll, in a painter's copy. A copybook of the painter Kita Busei 喜多武清 (1776–1856) records a one-line scroll of 明歴々露堂々 in running hand, signed 大徳清巖宗渭漫書, written idly by Seigan Sōi of Daitokuji, with its two seals [66][67]. Nothing on the page names a recipient.

Before 1666, recorded in 1852, a one-line scroll for a poor tea man of Sakai. The tea compendium Chaji shūran 茶事集覧 of 嘉永 5, 1852, tells of Sōtoku 宗徳, a wabi man of Sakai who cooked his rice and boiled his tea water in one kettle and was styled 自在庵一釜斎, a name in two parts: 自在庵, the hermitage of 自在, a word the dictionaries give as free of every bond and hindrance and also as short for 自在鉤, the adjustable hook a kettle hangs from over the hearth [68]; and 一釜斎, the one-kettle studio [6]:

清巌和尚自在庵一釜斎の号を書し贈らる。江雪和尚明歴々露堂々一行を与へらる

The monk Seigan wrote out the name 自在庵一釜斎 and gave it to him; the monk Kōsetsu gave him a one-line scroll of 明歴々露堂々 [6]. The last kana, read る with the National Diet Library's text layer, is cursive and not certain. Kōsetsu Sōryū 江雪宗立 (1595–1666) was born in Izumi, the province of Sakai, and took Kōgetsu's Dharma [69]. A history of the city of Sakai of 1930 names the giver as Kōgetsu Sōgan himself [70]; neither source names its own. A name written out and a line, each given to one man by a master.

延宝 6, 1678, a death verse. A monk born in Mino 濃州, whose life a history of Hino in Ōmi prints, died on the twenty-eighth day of the eighth month of 延宝 6, aged fifty-three, left 死活循然是此日。明々歷々露堂々。終焉一句我何謂。野水稻光無處藏, death and life go round: it is this day. Clear and distinct, bare in full view. My last line, what shall I call it? The field water, the rice's gleam: nowhere to hide [71].

The Kan'ei generation to the twentieth century, the scroll by two hands: Takuan and Kōgetsu. The scroll the tea world calls the 澤庵江月兩筆, by the two brushes of Takuan and Kōgetsu, is a vertical one-line; an art magazine of 1944 describes such a scroll from Daitokuji, which I take to be this one: 上の三字『明歷々』には、左に片寄せて、澤庵叟と署名して花押を書いて居り、下の『露堂々』三字には、眞下に印を二顆捺した, on the upper three characters, 明歷々, he has signed 澤庵叟 to the left with his cipher; under the lower three, 露堂々, two seals are impressed [72]. Takuan Sōhō (1573–1646) [73] wrote the first half and signed it; the second half carries seals [72]; the tea records name the scroll for both men, 江月澤庵兩筆 [8], and a tea book of 1975 gives the lower half to Kōgetsu Sōgan (1574–1643), 沢庵が明歴々、江月が露堂々 [60][59]. A book of Daitokuji one-line scrolls of 2000 measures it 130.8 by 28.4 centimeters, with a letter of Shōkadō Shōjō 松花堂昭乗 mounted as its companion and a box inscribed by Kobori Enshū 小堀遠州 [74]. Its history before the twentieth century is reported in modern tea histories: a treasure of the Takimotobō 滝本坊 of Iwashimizu Hachiman, Shōkadō's temple, whose things, once dispersed, Sakai Sōga 酒井宗雅 gathered and gave back to the temple in the twelfth month of 天明 8, the winter of 1788–89, receiving the scroll from it in thanks and hanging it that month [60][75]; in the 寛政 era it passed to Matsudaira Fumai 松平不昧 and was entered in the 中興名物 section of the Unshū catalogue [75], and a market history gives the price as 150 ryō [76]. The Taishō meikikan 大正名器鑑, a catalogue of famous tea wares published from 1921 to 1926, prints the record of a gathering of Lord Matsudaira of Unshū in the fourth month of 文化 13, 1816: 一 掛物 江月澤庵兩筆 明歷々露堂々 [8]; a journal of 1936 describes Fumai, as host, hanging it at a gathering in the third month of 文化 9, 1812 [77]. By 1929 it had left the house: a history of the movement of tea wares published that year lists it among the famous pieces of the Unshū house that had passed through the hands of 三尾邦三 of Osaka and 山田保藏 of Tokyo into those of collectors [78], and a tea compendium of 1951 repeats the list [79]; in 1951 a tea compendium, in a passage on the tea man Niwa Suichikuan 丹羽翠竹庵, called it 天下の名幅, a famous scroll of the realm [80], and in an art magazine of the same year, writing of buyers who always aim for the king, the king of one-line scrolls? is answered 澤庵江月合作の明歷々露堂々, the joint work of Takuan and Kōgetsu, and of this and the kings of painting and of letters it says 衆目の見るところ、必ず一致するものだ, on these every eye agrees [9]. Its present owner is not shown in the sources read. Kōgetsu also wrote the whole line alone, as a large horizontal scroll, catalogued by the Itsuō Art Museum in 1980 [81].

1800, Hayami Sōtatsu 速水宗達 (1739–1809), the Charodō 茶露堂: the plainness of tea. The tea master, writing a critique of another man's book, named his own from the line, and said why in its colophon, dated 寛政 12, 1800 [18]: 茶意尤顕然ノ理リナレハ、喫茶ノ趣ハ、明歴々露堂々ナルヘシト云ヲ以テ、慢筆ノ次テ茶露堂トハトナウ也, since the meaning of tea is a principle perfectly plain, the spirit of drinking tea should be clear and distinct, bare in full view; and so I call these idle jottings Charodō [18]. Just before, he asks what in the way of tea, done with ordinary human acts, could be hard even for simple men and women. The line is the tea room's own claim that nothing in tea is hidden.

1893, Jōno Saigiku 条野採菊, a Meiji Othello: a 江月 on the wall, and dew. In an adaptation of Othello set in Japan, serialized in a newspaper and published in 明治 26, 1893 [10], a guest kneels before the alcove at a tea gathering and says [10]:

お軸は江月でござりますな 明歴々露堂々が思ひ限ッた出來でお仕立も見事で定めし遠州侯のお好とでも申シさうな物で

"The scroll is a Kōgetsu, I see. The 明歴々露堂々 is done with full resolve, and the mounting is fine too: I would say it must be to Lord Enshū's taste" [10]. The ruby marks 明 めい, 歴 れき, 露 つゆ and 堂 だう: 露 as tsuyu, dew [10]. By 1893 a Kōgetsu of the line was a thing a novelist could hang on a fictional tea-room wall, and the printed reading heard dew in it.

1907 to 1919, the moment of death and the nation. A Meiji Zen writer in 1907, of the last instant of life: 斷末場の一刹那に至つては僞善は毫もない … 眞に洞然明白である。明歷々露堂々である, at the instant of death there is no pretense at all … it is truly open and plain: clear and distinct, bare in full view [82]. The line was praise of a person's life, 其の德化其の治蹟明歷々露堂々である, his virtuous influence and his government were clear and distinct, bare in full view, in 1908 [83], and in 1919 a magazine wrote that the emperor's own nature shines in the one word sumeramikoto, 天皇の御本質はスメラミコトの一語の中にその光を放つ事明歷々露堂々 [84].

1929 to 1936, the tea writers read 露. 露 is glossed as the 露 of 發露, to come to light, and the line set beside 公明正大, fair and above board, in a tea book of 1929 [85]; a guide to Zen lines for tea-room scrolls of 1936 calls it 茶席の掛物として至極よろしい, excellent as a scroll for the tea room, and reads it メイレキレキロダウダウ [24].

1948, Tanaka Toyozō 田中豊蔵, a legend with its subject. In an article on the tea room the art historian writes that the one-line scroll is rare in China, where a single line is almost always one half of a couplet, and goes on [86]: 雲州家傳來の「明歷々、露堂々」の大字一行は、日本に一行ものを流行させた始祖と傳へられているが、如何さま氣象雄渾なる隷書で宋以後のものとは思われず、誠に珍らしい例である, the large-character one-line 明歷々露堂々 handed down in the house of Unshū is said to be the progenitor that made one-line scrolls fashionable in Japan; it is indeed in a clerical script of vigorous spirit, not, one would think, later than the Song, and a truly rare example [86]. The legend is reported as hearsay; its earliest known attestation is this article; and its subject is a scroll in clerical script that Tanaka would not date after the Song, not the scroll of Takuan and Kōgetsu, which Takuan signed [86][72].

1956 to 1990, moon and dew, and the argument over them. The tea master Sasaki Sanmi 佐々木三味 in 1960 offers the line as an oblique scroll for a moon-viewing gathering [19]. The historian Hayashiya Tatsusaburō 林屋辰三郎 in 1964 glosses it 明らさまに堂々とやろう, let us do it openly and boldly, reading 堂々 in its first sense [87]. The Daitokuji master Tachibana Daiki 立花大亀 in 1972 counts the seasonal reading among the even worse ways of taking it: もっとひどい取り方も … たとえば『明歴々露堂々』と書いてあると、これは秋のものだという。明歴々は月を表…, there are even worse ways of taking it … if it says 明歴々露堂々, they say it is a thing of autumn, that 明歴々 stands for the moon … [11]. Sen Sōshitsu XV in 1978 refuses the dew: 露(つゆ)と思われるようだが、禅のほうでは「つゆ」の解釈ではない, it seems to be taken for dew, but in Zen it is not read as dew [25]. Nishibe Bunjō 西部文浄 in 1985 allows the moon as play: 月の取り合わせに用いてもおもしろ(い), it is amusing to use it with the moon [20]. The disagreement is between Zen writers. In 1973 the historian Haga Kōshirō 芳賀幸四郎 writes that the six characters are 古来、一行物として最もしばしば書かれる句, since old times the line most often written as a one-line scroll [88].

What is not a source. The line is not in the Linji lu 臨濟錄 (The Record of Linji), which has 孤明歷歷, solitary and bright, distinct, but not the pair [89][42]; a Chinese-Japanese dictionary of 1932 and a magazine's answer of 1942 give it to the Linji lu [90][91], and a manuscript commentary on the Linji lu uses the line to gloss Linji's 靈靈, luminous, which may be how the credit arose [29]. Nor does it come from Dōgen. A book of zengo of 1982, in its English edition, gives the Eihei kōroku 永平広録 (Dōgen's Extensive Record) as its source, placing 明歴々 in its fourth record and 露堂堂 in its eighth [32], and a dictionary of Zen words of 1988 gives it to the Eihei kōroku and also to Yunmen 雲門 [92]; the Eihei kōroku, in its printings of 1909 and of 1914 to 1920, has 明歷歷 in the fourth record, alone and in 明明歷歷, and 露堂堂 in the eighth, where the 1982 book puts the halves, apart, and the line in neither [93][94]. A Dharma hall discourse closes 巍巍堂堂萬像之中本主。明明歷歷百草頭上祖師, which its translators render the original master within the ten thousand forms is magnificent, imposing! With the ancestral teachers on top of the hundred grass tips, all is unmistakably clear, and whose notes trace its 巍巍堂堂, magnificent, imposing, to Baizhang's words on first meeting Huangbo, and the second sentence, as a paraphrase, to a saying of the layman Pangyun; a talk at the close of the summer retreat has 若問箇中正偏。大尊貴露堂堂, if you ask about the universal and particular within this, the great venerable precious one is apparent and magnificent; and a talk on a snowy morning opens 明白露而堂堂, bright whiteness manifests with boundless dignity, of the snow [93][94][95]. It is not from the Congrong lu 從容錄 (The Book of Equanimity), to which a handbook of 1990 gives it [26]. Of these texts, the Linji lu, Yunmen's record and the Congrong lu are in CBETA's canon and are not among the fourteen in which it finds the six characters, nor is the Xutang lu 虛堂錄 [42]; the Eihei kōroku is not among them either, and is read above in its printings of 1909 and 1914 to 1920. The Japanese phrase books carry the line without a source, and the 1688 print sets a black block where its neighbors carry one, which I read as the blank its afterword keeps for a source not found [27][28]. The legend that it made one-line scrolls fashionable belongs to a scroll in clerical script its teller would not date after the Song, not to the scroll of Takuan and Kōgetsu [86].

The line in English

1966, Isshū Miura and Ruth Fuller Sasaki, Zen Dust. In the anthology of Zen phrases, the second half alone: 露堂堂, Rododo. Apparent; perfectly clear. Revealed!, p. 85 [31]. Revealed is 露, and perfectly clear is 堂堂 in its sense of nothing hidden.

1982, Kusumoto Bun'yū, Zengo nyūmon 禅語入門, in the English of Michael Ruymar, An Introduction to Zen Words and Phrases. Mei-rekireki; ro-dōdō. Bright and sharp! Exposed and majestic! Source: Eihei Kōroku [32]. Majestic is 堂堂 in its first sense, not the line's. The book's note puts 明歴々 in the fourth record of the Eihei kōroku and 露堂堂 in its eighth, and adds that the second is also found in A Presentation on the Faith-Mind Maxim; the printings have 明歷歷 in the fourth record, alone and in 明明歷歷, and 露堂堂 in the eighth, apart: the source holds the halves, not the line [32][94].

1991 and 1995, Tani Kōgetsu 谷耕月 and Eido Shimano. Tani's bilingual book of calligraphy and Zen words gives Clearly revealed as it is, with the Japanese はっきりそのまま現われている、丸出しである [33]; the American edition, Zen Word, Zen Calligraphy (1995), with Eido Shimano's text, keeps the rendering [34]. One rendering, in two editions.

1998, Audrey Yoshiko Seo with Stephen Addiss, The Art of Twentieth-Century Zen. A lecturer's story of a Daitokuji abbot who brushed 明歴歴 for a gathering is translated Bright Dignitaries, with the romaji meirekireki in the book's own brackets, p. 66 [96]: a misreading of the words.

2002, Sasaki Sanmi, Chado: The Way of Tea, translated by Shaun McCabe and Iwasaki Satoko. In September, for a moon-viewing gathering, something more indirect, like: Mei rekireki Ro dôdô / Unmistakably clear and proudly seen; and among the month's season words, under Tsuyu, dew, For the hanging scroll, there is the line of calligraphy 'Ro dôdô' [35]. The tea almanac carries the dew reading into English with the line; proudly is 堂堂 in its first sense.

2003, Victor Sōgen Hori, Zen Sand: The Book of Capping Phrases for Kōan Practice. Mei reki-reki, ro dō-dō. / Brilliant and fully present, no. 6.257, p. 253 [36]. The nearest to the words: fully present is 露堂堂, nothing hidden.

2007, Audrey Yoshiko Seo, Ensō: Zen Circles of Enlightenment. The first half on the 1455 ensō, meireki reki (obvious, obvious), p. 15 [50].

Today. The English given in the work order for the scroll is Clear and distinct, wholly revealed: clear and distinct is 明歴歴, perfectly clear, and wholly revealed is 露堂堂, bare with nothing hidden [12][22][21]. It keeps the line's sense and leaves out the two readings the characters invite: 堂々 as imposing and 露 as dew. A rendering should keep that nothing in it is hidden.

A reading

The line has been read as a statement, a question and a warning. Changling says it as his line when asked for one [1]; Yuanwu's monk asks why, if it is so plain, heaven and earth cannot hold it [2]; the Ming sermon says that to rest in it is the ghosts' cave [14]. The Japanese masters took it as the first of these, and set it beside nowhere in the world is it hidden [13][56]. In vernacular Japanese it became what is seen: the 1534 commentary's mind swept bare, where enlightenment sees in a flash that all is clear and distinct, and the 1657 glossary's known in a flash [7][16]. Sōtatsu made that the plainness of tea [18]. The readings that hear dew and the autumn moon, or bold in 堂々, read the characters rather than the line, and Zen writers have argued over them since [10][11][25][20].

I read it as the 1534 commentary does: the line names what is seen once the room is swept, not a thing said. It is not a claim that the truth is somewhere and is plain; it is the report of looking and finding nothing hidden. And in Japan it has been given to one person, or said over one person, from the first use known: Daiō's portrait for one disciple, Shōkai's sermon over his master's last words, the torch at a lay cremation, a monk's death verse, a one-line scroll for a poor tea man of Sakai [3][4][5][71][6]. Hung in a room, it says that what is before the guest is what there is.

Notes

Japanese Scrolls by Master Calligrapher Eri Takase

Japanese Scroll of Perfectly Clear, with Nothing Hidden (meirekireki rodōdō) in a block font by Master Japanese Calligrapher Eri Takase
明歴々露堂々VB5JBlock
Japanese Scroll of Perfectly Clear, with Nothing Hidden (meirekireki rodōdō) in a cursive font by Master Japanese Calligrapher Eri Takase
明歴々露堂々VC5JCursive
Japanese Scroll of Perfectly Clear, with Nothing Hidden (meirekireki rodōdō) in Master Japanese Calligrapher Eri Takase's own style (jiun)
明歴々露堂々VD5JJiun
Japanese Scroll of Perfectly Clear, with Nothing Hidden (meirekireki rodōdō) in a semi-cursive font by Master Japanese Calligrapher Eri Takase
明歴々露堂々VS5JSemi-Cursive

Sources not seen

『沢庵・江月とその時代』, the catalogue of the special autumn exhibition of 1983 at the Sakai City Museum, 堺市博物館, a printed book (CiNii Research https://cir.nii.ac.jp/crid/1130000797316467712). It would show whether the scroll by Takuan and Kōgetsu was exhibited there and who held it then, which would let the history name a later owner than the 1950s one.

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

References

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  27. 『句雙紙』 (禅林句双紙), 正保2 (1645), 西村又左衛門, the six-character lines, canvas 65, and the six-character couplets, canvas 73. 国書データベース. https://doi.org/10.20730/100103433
  28. 『増補首書 禪林句集』, 1688, the copy of Kobe University, canvas 89, and the afterword, canvases 153–154. 国書データベース. https://doi.org/10.20730/100272428
  29. 『鎮州臨済恵照禅師語録』 (題簽 臨済鈔), manuscript, undated, scan 138. National Diet Library pid 2551865. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/2551865/1/138
  30. Léon Pagès, Dictionnaire japonais-français, Paris, 1868, Mei rekireki, the Internet Archive's full text. Internet Archive dictionnairejap00japagoog. https://archive.org/details/dictionnairejap00japagoog
  31. Isshū Miura and Ruth Fuller Sasaki, Zen Dust: The History of the Koan and Koan Study in Rinzai (Lin-chi) Zen, Harcourt, Brace & World, 1966, p. 85.
  32. Kusumoto Bun'yū, An Introduction to Zen Words and Phrases, translated by Michael Ruymar, Zengo 75, the Internet Archive's text. Internet Archive ZenBlueCliff. https://archive.org/details/ZenBlueCliff
  33. 谷耕月『禅語と墨蹟 : 対訳』, 1991, snippet view. National Diet Library pid 13264160. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/13264160
  34. Eido Shimano and Kogetsu Tani, Zen Word, Zen Calligraphy, Shambhala, 1995, the Internet Archive's full-text search. Internet Archive zenwordzencallig0000eido_j4f5. https://archive.org/details/zenwordzencallig0000eido_j4f5
  35. Sasaki Sanmi, Chado: The Way of Tea. A Japanese Tea Master's Almanac, translated by Shaun McCabe and Iwasaki Satoko, Tuttle, 2002, September, Chashu and Kigo (Tsuyu), in the 2005 paperback.
  36. Victor Sōgen Hori, Zen Sand: The Book of Capping Phrases for Kōan Practice, University of Hawaiʻi Press, 2003, no. 6.257, p. 253.
  37. JMdict, at jisho.org, searched for 明歴々露堂々, 明歴々, 明歴歴 and 露堂堂: no entry. https://jisho.org/search/%E6%98%8E%E6%AD%B4%E3%80%85%E9%9C%B2%E5%A0%82%E3%80%85
  38. 国立天文台 暦計算室「日本の暦日データベース」, 観応3年7月24日 (1352; the era 文和 from 9月27日) and 天文13年12月6日 (18 January 1545, Julian); for two Song dates, which it does not cover, the same days of the Japanese calendar as bounds: 保安4年12月27日 (15 January 1124) and 天治元年12月27日 (2 February 1125), Julian. https://eco.mtk.nao.ac.jp/cgi-bin/koyomi/caldb.cgi
  39. 正受 編『嘉泰普燈錄』 卷十一, 東京天寧佛果克勤禪師, X79, no. 1559, p. 359b12–b14 and p. 360b11, at CBETA. https://cbdata.dila.edu.tw/stable/juans?work=X1559&juan=11
  40. 普濟 集『五燈會元』 卷十九, 成都府昭覺寺克勤佛果禪師, X80, no. 1565, p. 396c03–c05 and p. 396c23, at CBETA. https://cbdata.dila.edu.tw/stable/juans?work=X1565&juan=19
  41. 「圜悟克勤」, デジタル大辞泉, 日本大百科全書, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/%E5%9C%9C%E6%82%9F%E5%85%8B%E5%8B%A4-38117
  42. CBETA full-text search of the canon for 明歷歷露堂堂: fourteen texts (X1566, X1583, B0088, JB202, JB300, JB462, T1997, T2077, X1347, X1559, X1565, X1568, X1571, X1590). https://cbdata.dila.edu.tw/stable/search?q=%E6%98%8E%E6%AD%B7%E6%AD%B7%E9%9C%B2%E5%A0%82%E5%A0%82
  43. 通忍 說, 行導 編『朝宗禪師語錄』 卷四, 南華寺小參, J34, no. B300, p. 244c20, at CBETA. https://cbdata.dila.edu.tw/stable/juans?work=JB300&juan=4
  44. 「南浦紹明」, デジタル大辞泉, 日本人名大辞典+Plus, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/%E5%8D%97%E6%B5%A6%E7%B4%B9%E6%98%8E-108986
  45. 卍元師蛮『延寶傳燈錄』 卷十一, the life of 虎關師鍊, in 『大日本仏教全書』, 仏書刊行会, 1912–1922, p. 170, scan 89. National Diet Library pid 952812. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/952812/1/89
  46. 『論語』, 阿佐井野氏, 天文2 (1533) 跋, 泰伯第八, 曾子有疾, scan 31. National Diet Library pid 1288426. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1288426/1/31
  47. 「性海霊見」, 日本人名大辞典+Plus, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/%E6%80%A7%E6%B5%B7%E9%9C%8A%E8%A6%8B-1082072
  48. 石田一良『日本精神史』, 1988, snippet view. National Diet Library pid 13260866. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/13260866
  49. 「徹翁義亨」, 日本大百科全書, 日本人名大辞典+Plus, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/%E5%BE%B9%E7%BF%81%E7%BE%A9%E4%BA%A8-1092929
  50. Audrey Yoshiko Seo, Ensō: Zen Circles of Enlightenment, Weatherhill, 2007, p. 15, and note 41, p. 161.
  51. 「悟渓宗頓」, 日本人名大辞典+Plus, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/%E6%82%9F%E6%B8%93%E5%AE%97%E9%A0%93-1074620
  52. 一休『狂雲集』, 1909 (明治42), 勝瓊, p. 178, scan 121. National Diet Library pid 822930. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/822930/1/121
  53. 「一休宗純」, デジタル大辞泉, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/%E4%B8%80%E4%BC%91%E5%AE%97%E7%B4%94-15378
  54. 重顯 頌古, 克勤 評唱『佛果圜悟禪師碧巖錄』, 序, 普照, 建炎戊申 (1128), T48, no. 2003, p. 139a13–a14, at CBETA. https://cbdata.dila.edu.tw/stable/juans?work=T2003&juan=1
  55. 「四河入海」, 精選版 日本国語大辞典, デジタル大辞泉, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/%E5%9B%9B%E6%B2%B3%E5%85%A5%E6%B5%B7-517343
  56. 卍元師蛮『本朝高僧伝』, 京兆南禅寺沙門宗香傳, scan 34. National Diet Library pid 1089668. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1089668/1/34
  57. 卍元師蛮『本朝高僧傳』 卷四十四, 京兆南禪寺沙門宗香傳, with the note 考 南禪籍云天文十三年十二月六日入寺, in 『大日本仏教全書』, 仏書刊行会, 1912–1922, p. 610, scan 67. National Diet Library pid 952807. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/952807/1/67
  58. 佐伯有義 他編『武士道全書』, 1942, 黑田長政 小歛忌 入室勘辨, snippet view. National Diet Library pid 1913261. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1913261
  59. 「江月宗玩」, デジタル大辞泉, 日本大百科全書, 改訂新版 世界大百科事典, 日本人名大辞典+Plus, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/%E6%B1%9F%E6%9C%88%E5%AE%97%E7%8E%A9-494967
  60. 粟田添星『酒井宗雅茶会記』, 1975, snippet view. National Diet Library pid 12439478. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/12439478
  61. Takenobu Yoshitarō, Kenkyusha's New Japanese-English Dictionary, Kenkyusha, 1942, girari, p. 380.
  62. 英朝『禅林句集』 坤, 1889, scan 10. National Diet Library pid 899716. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/899716/1/10
  63. 『黔驢集』, manuscript, 円光寺旧蔵, vol. 1, 近江州甲賀郡音羽野妙樂寺地藏龕室銘, scan 64, and vol. 2, 近江州神崎郡種村郷初種山善教寺觀音堂記, scan 33. National Diet Library pid 2559710. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/2559710/1/64 · https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/2559711/1/33
  64. 『羅山林先生文集』 巻五十六, 論三人, 1918, scans 129–130. National Diet Library pid 957401. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/957401/1/129 · https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/957401/1/130
  65. 「林羅山」, 精選版 日本国語大辞典, 改訂新版 世界大百科事典, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/%E6%9E%97%E7%BE%85%E5%B1%B1-14680
  66. 喜多武清『武清粉本』 vol. 23, manuscript, scan 42. National Diet Library pid 2591877. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/2591877/1/42
  67. 「清巌宗渭」, 日本人名大辞典+Plus, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/%E6%B8%85%E5%B7%8C%E5%AE%97%E6%B8%AD-18193
  68. 「自在」, デジタル大辞泉 (1, 2), 精選版 日本国語大辞典 (①), at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/%E8%87%AA%E5%9C%A8-73132
  69. 「江雪宗立」, 日本人名大辞典+Plus, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/%E6%B1%9F%E9%9B%AA%E5%AE%97%E7%AB%8B-16332
  70. 堺市 編『堺市史』, 1930, snippet view. National Diet Library pid 3025351. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/3025351
  71. 『近江日野町志』, 1930, 毘沙門堂縁由, p. 325, scan 190. National Diet Library pid 1208306. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1208306/1/190
  72. 『美術・工芸』, 1944-12, snippet view. National Diet Library pid 2252337. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/2252337
  73. 「沢庵宗彭」, デジタル大辞泉, 日本人名大辞典+Plus, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/%E6%B2%A2%E5%BA%B5%E5%AE%97%E5%BD%AD-18646
  74. 福富雪底『大徳寺一行名品集』, 2000, snippet view. National Diet Library pid 14127897. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/14127897
  75. 小田栄作『茶道古美術蔵帳集成』, 1977, snippet view. National Diet Library pid 12439368. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/12439368
  76. 『東京美術市場史』, 1979, snippet view. National Diet Library pid 12420278. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/12420278
  77. 「俳句と茶道」, 『家事と衛生』 12 (8), 1936, J-STAGE. https://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/article/seikatsueisei1925/12/8/12_8_34/_article/-char/ja/
  78. 高橋義雄 (箒庵)『近世道具移動史』, 慶文堂書店, 1929, scan 269. National Diet Library pid 1187648. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1187648/1/269
  79. 『新修茶道全集』, 1951, snippet view. National Diet Library pid 2467753. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/2467753
  80. 『新修茶道全集』, 1951, snippet view. National Diet Library pid 2467755. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/2467755
  81. 逸翁美術館『逸翁清賞 : 名品図録』, 1980, no. 36, snippet view. National Diet Library pid 12665986. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/12665986
  82. 秋山悟庵『禅と武士道』, 1907, scan 129. National Diet Library pid 823244. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/823244/1/129
  83. 秋山悟庵 編『上杉鷹山言行録』, 内外出版協会, 1908, scan 4. National Diet Library pid 781088. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/781088/1/4
  84. 『東亜の光』, 1919-08, snippet view. National Diet Library pid 1591553. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1591553
  85. 高橋竜雄『茶道』, 1929, snippet view. National Diet Library pid 1175413. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1175413
  86. 田中蒼琅子 (田中豊蔵)「茶室並に茶庭の構造」, 『座右宝』, 1948-01, snippet view. National Diet Library pid 1817869. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1817869
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  88. 芳賀幸四郎『禅語の茶掛一行物』, 1973, snippet view. National Diet Library pid 12439535. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/12439535
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Authors

Tim Jackowski (Systems Architect, Takase Studios, LLC) · 典 Ten (Anthropic Claude Opus 5.5, Takase Studios, LLC)

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

Checked · Takase Studios (an address check by script), 2026-10-18, citations — the cited web addresses opened and the quoted words looked for at each; every address answered with the words sought; nothing found to differ · two fresh-context readers per round (Claude), 2026-10-19, every claim in the page's summary block traced to its source, claim by claim: round 1 FAIL on a reader's finding of wrong facts (the hour and place of a Chinese master's talk, a title a monk did not yet hold, how a scroll's lettering is printed); round 2 FAIL, both, on a scroll's exact reading, the date of a hanging and a scholar's account of a source; round 3 FAIL, both, on how a collection's rank was worded; round 4 PASS, both, on the corrected items only; corrections made

Research depth: step 3 of our 10-step ladder, foundation complete · October 2026

Cite as: Tim Jackowski and Ten, "Philology of 明歴々露堂々 (meirekireki rodōdō)," Takase Studios, 2026, https://takase.com/library/philology/meirekireki-rododo.