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温故知新 onko chishin Respect the Past, Create the New

温故知新 (onko chishin), warm the old and know the new, is a saying of Confucius on who is fit to teach. It is in the Analects, and a Japanese edict of 703 already uses the four characters. This study follows its commentaries and English renderings, and the one character Japanese readers still read two ways.

Japanese Scroll of Respect the Past, Create the New (onkochishin) — Calligraphy by Eri Takase
Respect the Past, Create the New温故知新onko chishin

Original art by Master Calligrapher Eri Takase

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Abstract

温故知新, warm the old and know the new, is Confucius's saying in the Analects, chapter 為政, saying eleven, on who is fit to teach: one who goes back over what they have learned and finds something new in it. This study follows the four characters from that saying through a Chinese edict of 23 BC and a Japanese one of 703, both naming what a teacher must be, through the commentaries that gave the first character two pictures, seek out and reheat, from 皇侃 in the sixth century to 朱熹 in the twelfth, to a Japanese proverb in kana and a modern motto, and through the English lineage from Marshman in 1809 to Soothill in 1910. It finds that the commentaries agree on the old as one's own learning and give 溫 both pictures without dispute; the dispute is the Japanese one, tazunete or atatamete. What moved is the old: an Edo commendation for a provincial history uses the phrase of the past as record, and the Japanese dictionaries from 1910 read it as study of the past.

Overview

The sense. The Chinese commentaries agree on what the old is: what one has already learned. 皇侃 in the sixth century writes 故謂所學已得之事也, the old means what one has learned and already holds; 邢昺 says what one learned before; 朱熹 says what one heard before. Go back over it, and you will know something you did not know. They give the first character two pictures, seek out and reheat, and do not dispute them: 皇侃 writes that it means both, and 邢昺 shows from an older gloss that the two words are one. The dispute is Japanese, a choice of reading between tazunete and atatamete, set out under The words. What moved is the old. For Confucius the line describes a teacher, and the Han edict and the Japanese court in 703 used it so, though the edict sets it beside clear about old and new, which is lore as much as one's own study. An Edo commendation for a provincial history uses it of the past as record: warming the old and knowing the new … cannot be had without books. 藤井's 1910 gloss, look at the successes and failures of the past and apply them to the present, reads it so, and so do the modern dictionaries, study the facts of the past; Brinkley in 1896 had already made the new the future. 朱熹 adds a theory of learning against rote: learning held only as memory has a limit, learning that is one's own answers without end. The phrase as a stated motto, a company's 社是, is in print by 1997, set out below with its earlier uses as a figure; a motto is not what the sentence says.

The words. The line is four characters taken from a ten-character sentence. Confucius said 溫故而知新，可以為師矣, warm the old and know the new, and you may be a teacher; the phrase drops the connective 而 and keeps the two verbs and their objects. 故, ko, is the old, and the commentators are careful about what kind of old: 朱熹 glosses it 舊所聞, what one heard before, as 皇侃 and 邢昺 do in their own words, so in the commentaries it is one's own past learning, not the past as history. 知新, chishin, is to know the new; 朱熹 again, 新者，今所得, the new is what one gets now. The character Japanese readers divide over is the first. 溫, on, is the ordinary word for warm. He Yan 何晏's 集解 of the third century, which gathers eight earlier commentators with notes of his own and is the oldest complete commentary to survive, glosses it 溫，尋也, 溫 means to seek out, in a note that names no earlier commentator, where its neighbors are signed; 徂徠's head note gives it as He Yan's. Three centuries later 皇侃 read it both ways at once: 溫是尋繹之義，亦是燖煖之義也, 溫 means seeking out, and it also means warming. Xing Bing 邢昺's sub-commentary of the Song, a revision of 皇侃's, shows from 賈逵's gloss 尋，溫也 that the two words are one, and quotes Zheng Xuan 鄭玄's note on the same phrase in the 中庸: 溫讀如燖溫之溫, read 溫 as the 溫 of reheating, old learning well mastered and practised again later; 邢昺 adds the simile, like reheating food cooked before, 猶若溫燖故食也. 朱熹 in the twelfth century kept both: 溫，尋繹也, to seek and draw out, in his note on the Analects, and 溫，猶燖溫之溫, like the warming of cold food, in his note on the 中庸. Japanese readers inherited the split as a choice of reading. 温ねて, tazunete, seeking out, is what the kunten printing of He Yan's commentary writes beside the character, what the 1910 proverb dictionary's headword says, and what the Edo saying said in kana, ふるきをたづねてあたらしきをしる; 温めて, atatamete, warming, is the reading the Iwanami paperback Analects adopts and one modern dictionary records as another view. Both are the commentaries' own, and the 経典余師, a kana gloss for town readers first printed in 1781, sidestepped the choice with 考へ溫て, think it over and warm it. The four-character reading is onko chishin, as Brinkley's dictionary entered it in 1896 and the 1910 proverb dictionary's sound index gives it, ヲンコ; the デジタル大辞泉 calls writing 温古 for 温故 an error.

The text in English. The line was in English from the Chinese by 1809, and no Japanese book read here gave it in English before Brinkley's dictionary of 1896, so the lineage here is the sinologists', and every Japanese-English equation descends from them.

The historical record

The fifth to third century BC. The Analects, 論語, chapter 為政, saying 11. 子曰：「溫故而知新，可以為師矣。」 The Master said: warm the old and know the new, and you may be a teacher of others. [1] The saying is about who is fit to teach. Its neighbors are Confucius on his pupil 回, who is not stupid, and the line 君子不器, the gentleman is not a tool.

The 中庸, the chapter of the 禮記 later made one of the Four Books, section 28. The phrase again, inside a portrait of the 君子: 溫故而知新，敦厚以崇禮, he warms the old and knows the new, and is thick and generous so as to honor the rites [2]. This is the passage on which Zheng Xuan, in the second century AD, wrote the note that made 溫 a reheating, and every later commentator quotes him from here.

23 BC. An edict of the emperor Chengdi 成帝, in the 漢書. The four characters without 而, already a phrase. Explaining why the scholars of the imperial academy are called 博士, the edict says they should all be clear about old and new, warm the old and know the new, and understand the body of the state: 宜皆明於古今，溫故知新，通達國體，故謂之博士 [3]. The phrase's first life is as the job description of a teacher, which is what Confucius meant it as.

The third century AD, with an eleventh-century commentary on it. He Yan's 集解, as carried in the 論語注疏. The note: 溫，尋也。尋繹故者，又知新者，可以為人師矣, 溫 means to seek out; one who seeks out and draws out the old, and also knows the new, may be a teacher of others [4]. Xing Bing's sub-commentary of the Song opens 此章言為師之法, this chapter tells the way to be a teacher, and defends the gloss with Zheng Xuan and with the 左傳, where 尋 and 溫 are used of renewing a covenant: 言人舊學已精熟，在後更習之，猶若溫燖故食也, it says that what a man has already learned well he practices again later, like warming up old food.

The sixth century. 皇侃's 論語義疏. 皇侃 opens the saying 此章明為師之難也, this chapter makes clear how hard it is to be a teacher, reads 溫 as 燖, to reheat: what has been learned is warmed so that it is not lost, and the new is what one learns each day; and under He Yan's gloss he writes that 溫 means seeking out and also means warming, 溫是尋繹之義，亦是燖煖之義也 [5]. He also quotes 孫綽: 滯故則不能明新，希新則存故不篤, cling to the old and you cannot see the new; long for the new and you hold the old loosely.

703. The 続日本紀, the court chronicle, under the third month of 大宝 3. The earliest Japanese use the 精選版日本国語大辞典 knows, and the earliest here: an order about provincial teachers, the 國博士, who by the new code were to be recruited from within the province and its neighbors. 下制曰。依令國博士於部内及傍國取用。然溫故知新希有其人。若傍國無人採用。則申省。然後省選擬更請處分, the order was given: by the code, provincial teachers are to be taken from within the province and the neighboring provinces; but men who warm the old and know the new are rare. If the neighboring provinces have no one to appoint, report it to the ministry, and the ministry will then select and propose candidates and ask for a decision. [6] Two years after the 大宝 code of 701, the phrase arrives in Japan doing what it did in the Han edict: naming what a teacher must be.

The twelfth century. 朱熹, the 論語集注. The Song commentary, printed in Japan again and again; the printing read here is of 1766. 溫，尋繹也。故者，舊所聞。新者，今所得。言學能時習舊聞而每有新得，則所學在我，而其應不窮，故可以為人師。若夫記問之學，則無得於心，而所知有限, 溫 is to seek out and draw out. The old is what one heard before; the new is what one gets now. It says that if in learning one can practice in season what one heard before and each time get something new, then the learning is in oneself and its answers are without end, so one may be a teacher of others. As for learning that is only memory and questions, it gets nothing in the heart, and what it knows has a limit. [7]

The sixteenth century. 清原宣賢's lecture notes on the Analects, 論語聴塵, a manuscript. The line with a Japanese gloss in katakana beginning 温故トハ, as for 温故…, in a cursive hand only partly legible on the leaf; it is enough to show the line being lectured on in Japanese, in the court scholar's tradition [8]. He Yan's commentary had been in print in Japan since 1364, in the edition printed at Sakai, the oldest printed copy of it that survives [9].

Undated, Edo. He Yan's commentary with Japanese reading marks, 論語集解. The line with the kana that tell a Japanese reader how to say it: 温 read タヅネテ, tazunete, seeking out, and 故 read フルキヲ, the old [10]. This is the reading the older commentary's gloss 尋 implies, and the one the デジタル大辞泉 gives first.

Undated, Edo. Ogyū Sorai 荻生徂徠's 論語徴 with 西山元's head notes, 論語徴冠註. The head note above the line carries the whole Chinese chain into Japanese print: 何晏曰溫尋也。尋繹故者。皇侃引溫燖。又見中庸。鄭玄註溫讀如燖溫之溫。謂故學之熟矣。後時習之, 何晏 says 溫 is to seek; to seek out the old; 皇侃 cites 溫燖; it also appears in the 中庸; 鄭玄's note reads 溫 as the 溫 of reheating, meaning that old learning is well cooked and one practices it again later [11].

1645. 毛吹草, 松江重頼's handbook for haikai poets. Its second book lists some seven hundred sayings, the 世話, and in 藤井's account it is the earliest collection of proverbs of the Edo period, followed by 世話尽 of 1656 [12]. The saying stands in the list, between when water is too clear, no fish live in it and the poet knows the famous places without leaving home; 藤井 reprinted the list in 1929 as 古きをたづねて新しきを知る, with the Analects line as his note [12]. The typeset edition of 1943 gives it in kana, ふるきをたつねてあたらしきをしる, and the book's own prose quotes it: 文にもふるきをたづねてあたらしきをしれとぞ, the writings too say, seek out the old and know the new [13].

1694 to 1836. The saying in kana in Edo popular books. ふるきをたづねてあたらしきをしる, seek out the old and know the new, in a 1694 collection of honest tales, a 1791 comic book, an 1802 picture book and an 1836 book on go, among others, found by full-text search and not read at the page for sense; the 1791 book bends it to rewriting old stories, ふるきをたづねて。あたらしく書かゆる [14]. The Analects line had become a Japanese proverb in Japanese words.

After 1691. A commendation for the 淡國通記, a history of the province of Awaji. Its compiler, the monk 碧湛, signed his preface in the spring of 1691, and the commendation that follows it opens 夫温故知新窮理格物也。非載籍則不得矣, warming the old and knowing the new, the exhaustive study of principle and things: none of it can be had without written records, and goes on to the history's loss to fire. Here the old is the past as record, a province's history, not one's own learning. It is read in the 淡路草, a nineteenth-century gazetteer of Awaji that copies both texts [15].

1781, in an undated printing. 渓百年's 経典余師, the Analects with a plain-Japanese gloss for readers without a teacher. The 日本国語大辞典 dates the work to 1781; the copy read here carries no date [16]. The line with reading marks and, in the left column, the town reader's paraphrase: 故く習學たる事を考へ溫て自の工夫にて新き事を悟知して … 人の上に立て師と為ても可し, think over and warm what you once studied, and by your own effort come to know something new … then you may stand above others and be a teacher [16].

1910. 藤井乙男, 諺語大辞典, the standard proverb dictionary. The headword in the kun form: 【故キヲ溫ネテ新シキヲ知ル】既往の成敗得失を見て、今の世の新しき事變に應用すべし。〔毛吹草〕。〔論語〕爲政篇、子曰溫故而知新、可以爲師矣, look at the successes and failures, gains and losses of the past and apply them to the new turns of the present world; Kefukigusa; the Analects, chapter 為政 [17]. It stands between abandon the old and take up the new, from the 楚辭, and a saying about rusty nails. The four-character form is cross-referenced to it.

1915. 上田萬年's romanized dictionary, ローマ字びき國語辭典. Onko-chishin 溫故知新 もと學んだ所を復習して，新しい道理を發明する, to review what one first learned and discover a new principle [18]. The first Japanese dictionary here to enter it in roman letters; an English one had done so in 1896, below.

1864 to 1998. The phrase for a record kept for the future, and as a motto. 山岡鐵太郎 in 1864 sets down a record as a rule of 温古知新, a road-marker for later days, 温古知新の則となし、以て自から後日の路標に供す [19]. An oil-industry centennial history of 1940 gives the phrase as the reason it was written, 温故知新、業界の今後の發展に資せんが爲め, a figure in its preface's sentence [20]. A girls' school's handbook of training of 1943 prints 溫故知新 in a list of headings, between 承詔必謹 and 勤勞 [21]; a 1960 book on shipping-company funnel marks roots one company's founding in 「温故知新」と「郷土愛」 [22]; and in 1997 and 1998 two directories of Kansai manufacturers print one maker's stated motto as 〔社是〕温故知新 [23]. All but 山岡's are read in the library's snippet view only, so the frame each gives the phrase is as far as the snippet shows.

The dictionaries today. デジタル大辞泉: 過去の事実を研究し、そこから新しい知識や見解をひらくこと, to study the facts of the past and open new knowledge and views from them, with the note that the line is read 故きを温ねて新しきを知る, that some read 温 as あたためて, and that 温古知新 is an error [24]. 精選版日本国語大辞典: 昔のことを研究して、そこから新しい知識や道理を見つけ出すこと, with the 703 edict as first citation and the 漢書 as the Chinese one [24]. 四字熟語を知る辞典 gives examples from 坪内逍遙 in 1891, Ishizaka Yōjirō 石坂洋次郎 in the 1930s and Gomikawa Junpei 五味川純平 in 1978, and notes that the Iwanami paperback Analects reads あたためて while the character dictionaries give both [24].

What is not a source. The 中庸 is not a second origin; it is the same phrase in a second canonical book, and matters because 鄭玄's note on it is where the reheating reading comes from. The 漢書 edict and the 続日本紀 edict are the phrase's earliest uses, not its source, which is the Analects. 温古知新, with the character for antiquity, is a spelling the デジタル大辞泉 calls an error, and it is not a new one: the record of the retired emperor 後宇多院's consecration, written after he took the tonsure in 1307, has 惣温古知新之儀 in the 群書類従's text [25][26], and 山岡鐵太郎 wrote 温古知新の則 in a note dated 1864 [19].

The text in English

1809. Joshua Marshman, The Works of Confucius, volume 1. Chee says. Meditate on former ideas, and acquire new; you can thus become a master, his Chee says for 子曰, the Master said, with 朱熹's commentary rendered after it: you may thus become an instructor of others [27]. The first English rendering found here.

1828. David Collie, The Chinese Classical Work Commonly Called the Four Books. Make yourself completely master of what you know and constantly learn new ideas, then you may be a teacher of others [28].

1861. James Legge, The Chinese Classics, volume 1, Book II, chapter XI. If a man keeps cherishing his old knowledge, so as continually to be acquiring new, he may be a teacher of others. [29] Legge's sentence is quoted in later English books from 1867 on, as far as the archive's full-text search reaches, and is the one Soothill prints first under his own; his cherishing is a third reading of 溫, neither seeking nor warming.

1896. Brinkley's dictionary, from the Chinese. Onko, 溫故, investigating antiquities. Onko chishin, research into the past assists us to understand the future [30].

1910. William Edward Soothill, The Analects of Confucius, Yokohama, pages 160 to 161. The Master said: 'He who keeps on reviewing his old and acquiring new knowledge may become a teacher of others.' [31] His note heads the chapter with the scribe of Matthew who bringeth forth out of his treasure things new and old, a reference it prints as Mt XII. 52, then offers another rendering, Or, Warm up your old and learn the new, and you may become a teacher of others, glosses 溫 with 溫習, to review, which is his reviewing, and prints under it Legge, Zottoli in Latin, Recole antiqua et hinc deduc nova, et poteris fieri praeceptor, Ku Hung-ming, If a man will constantly go over what he has acquired, and keep constantly adding to it, and Couvreur in French, Celui qui repasse dans son esprit ce qu'il sait déjà, et par ce moyen acquiert de nouvelles connaissances. Soothill gives the character two senses on one page, review and warm up; they are not the commentators' two, which are seek out and reheat.

1915. 上田萬年. Onko-chishin, glossed in Japanese only; a full-text search found the four-character word in neither Hepburn's dictionary of 1872 nor fourteen other Japanese-English dictionaries of 1904 to 1929, three of which carry onko only as other words [32]. Brinkley's of 1896 has it, above.

1939, printed again in 1942. 研究社, Kenkyūsha's New Japanese-English Dictionary. onko-chishin (温故知新): Taking a leaf out of a wise man's book; carrying knowledge into new fields [33]. The Harvard printing of 1942 is photolithographed, without changes, from its eighty-second printing, of 1939.

1993. Kodansha, Japan: An Illustrated Encyclopedia, page 1411, under shotai. The four characters are the specimen for nine styles of script, read onko chishin (to learn from the past; literally, "respect the old, know the new") from The Analects [34]. The one rendering here with respect in it.

2008. Joe Swift, in Patrick McCarthy's Bubishi. In the karate lineage the two four-character maxims travel together: Bunbu Ryodo (a maxim representing the twin paths of the sword and the pen) and Onko Chishin (a saying representing the appreciation of the old in order to understand the new); the 2016 edition prints the kanji and to better understand the new [35].

2002. Jeff Garrison and others, Kodansha's Dictionary of Basic Japanese Idioms, page 470. onko-chishin "visit the past to know the new" (in old Japanese 温 means "to visit"), glossed as a study of the classics is the springboard for new research [36]. The one English book here that takes up the reading question, and it takes tazunete.

2013. Jack Halpern, The Kodansha Kanji Dictionary, under 故. Exploring the old … one comes to understand the new, with past in brackets after old and present after new [37]: the brackets carry the dictionaries' outward reading into English.

Today. The EDRDG dictionary gives developing new ideas based on study of the past; learning from the past, and keeps study, which is the half of the line a short rendering loses [38]. Respect is in one rendering here, the 1993 encyclopedia's literally, where the character says warm or seek. What a rendering of the Analects line keeps: two verbs, one for the old and one for the new; the old as the commentaries read it, what you yourself once learned; and the teacher at the end of the sentence, whom every short form drops.

A reading

The text is as old and as clean as anything in the tradition: four characters unchanged from a Han edict to a Japanese one, with a canon address anyone can open. The story worth telling is the one word. The commentaries give 温 two pictures, seeking out and reheating, and say both and mean it; the Japanese still read it either way, and that choice is the only argument the record shows. The reheating is the older gloss, 鄭玄's of the second century, and I read the line with it: what was learned and mastered, taken up again, and in the taking up something not known before. That is a reading, not the character's own picture; the record holds no study of the character's history, and the one study of the Japanese reading is unread here. The other thing the record shows is the old widening, from a teacher's own learning to the past as record, and I would not read the sentence that way; its subject is still the person who may teach.

Sources not seen

春本秀雄's 「『論語』為政篇「温故而知新」について―「温(たづ)ネテ」か「温(あたた)メテ」か」, in 大正大學研究紀要 93, 2008, pp. 75–96, the one paper found on the reading question. It would say which Japanese commentators and schools chose tazunete and which atatamete, and when the second reading first appears in print.

The 1645 printing of 毛吹草, and its 1943 typeset edition at the page. Either would show the saying's exact spelling and place in the list as the book printed it, which 藤井's 1929 reprint gives in his own kanji and kana.

The 1943 girls' school handbook and the other motto witnesses at their pages. Their pages would show how each one frames the phrase: as a school's stated aim, a company's motto, or a figure of speech.

Waley, Lau and the later English translators, and 坪内逍遙's 梓神子 of 1891 at its page. They would carry the English lineage past 1910 and the modern Japanese use back past the 1930s.

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

References

  1. 『論語』為政第二, 第十一章, at the Chinese Text Project. https://ctext.org/analects/wei-zheng
  2. 『禮記』中庸, 第二十八節, at the Chinese Text Project. https://ctext.org/liji/zhong-yong
  3. 『漢書』成帝紀, 陽朔二年九月, 第六十二節, at the Chinese Text Project. https://ctext.org/han-shu/cheng-di-ji
  4. 何晏 集解, 邢昺 疏, 『論語注疏』為政, at the Chinese Text Project. https://ctext.org/lunyu-zhushu/wei-zheng
  5. 皇侃, 『論語集解義疏』卷一, 為政, the 四庫全書 text at Kanripo, KR1h0006. https://www.kanripo.org/text/KR1h0006/001
  6. 『続日本紀』大宝三年三月. National Diet Library, 1900 typeset, pid 1089485, scan 4. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1089485/1/4
  7. 朱熹, 『論語集注』, Japanese printing of 1766. National Diet Library pid 2583036, scan 19. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/2583036/1/19
  8. 清原宣賢, 『論語聴塵』, manuscript. National Diet Library pid 2544950, scan 54. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/2544950/1/54
  9. 「正平版論語」, 旺文社日本史事典; 「論語正義」, 世界大百科事典 (旧版), citing 「論語集解」: 1364年(正平19)の刊本が最古のものとして現存する; at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/正平版論語
  10. 何晏, 『論語集解』, Edo printing, undated. National Diet Library pid 2532143, scan 8. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/2532143/1/8
  11. 荻生徂徠, 西山元 頭注, 『論語徴冠註』, Edo printing, undated. National Diet Library pid 2560576, scan 79. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/2560576/1/79
  12. 藤井乙男, 『諺の研究』, 1929, p. 240 (scan 127: 江戸時代に最も早く諺を蒐集したものは毛吹草で、之に次いで世話盡がある) and p. 266 (scan 150, the 毛吹草 list). National Diet Library pid 1452761. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1452761/1/150
  13. 松江重頼, 『毛吹草』, 竹内若 校訂, 岩波書店, 1943, scans 13 and 53, snippet view, National Diet Library, pid 1128297. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1128297/1/53
  14. National Diet Library, NDL Lab full-text search, ふるきをたづねてあたらしきをしる and its spellings, by full text only: 石川流舟 『正直咄大鑑』 1694, pid 2533049; 京伝 『盧生夢魂其前日』 1791, pid 9892710; 『聚珍画帖』 1802, pid 2553051; 瓢亭種繁 『囲碁手段鶴巣籠』 1836, pid 9893292; and 『戯作花赤本世界』 1846, pid 10301180. https://lab.ndl.go.jp/dl/
  15. 藤井彰民, 『淡路草』, nineteenth century, copying 碧湛's preface to the 『淡國通記』 (元禄辛未, 1691) and the 「淡國通記贊辞」 that follows it. National Diet Library pid 2561076, scan 102. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/2561076/1/102
  16. 渓百年, 『経典余師』, undated printing, 豊田屋宇左衛門 and others. National Diet Library pid 2599283, scan 22. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/2599283/1/22 · the work dated 天明元年 (1781) in 「経典余師」, 精選版日本国語大辞典, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/経典余師
  17. 藤井乙男, 『諺語大辞典』, 1910, headword 故キヲ溫ネテ新シキヲ知ル. National Diet Library pid 862766, scan 468. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/862766/1/468
  18. 上田萬年, 『ローマ字びき國語辭典』, 1915. National Diet Library pid 1900620, scan 357. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1900620/1/357
  19. 山岡鐵太郎, 『鉄舟随筆』, 光融館, 1903, p. 153, the note dated 元治元年甲子正月十日. National Diet Library pid 782096, scan 90. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/782096/1/90
  20. 中央経済新報社 編, 『皇紀二千六百年奉祝記念油界百年史』, 1940, scan 20, snippet view, National Diet Library. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1685202/1/20
  21. 千賀博, 『錬成教育提要』, 熊本県立甲佐高等女学校報国団, 1943, scan 19, snippet view, National Diet Library: 剛毅度量識見承詔必謹溫故知新勤勞節制. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1267012/1/19
  22. 長尾桃郎, 『ファンネルマークの由来』, 1960, scan 45, snippet view, National Diet Library. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/2491453/1/45
  23. 京都工業会 and 日刊工業新聞 編, 『京都の優良104社』, 1997, scan 35; 日刊工業産業研究所 編, 『関西の優良機械メーカー100社』, 1998, scan 56; snippet view, National Diet Library. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/13898860/1/35 · https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/13965699/1/56
  24. 「温故知新」, デジタル大辞泉 · 精選版日本国語大辞典 · 四字熟語を知る辞典, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/温故知新
  25. 『後宇多院御灌頂記』, in 『群書類従』 第十五輯, 経済雑誌社, 1901, p. 86. National Diet Library pid 1879545, scan 49. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1879545/1/49
  26. 「後宇多天皇」, 山川 日本史小辞典 and 世界大百科事典: 1307年(徳治2)出家, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/後宇多天皇
  27. Joshua Marshman, The Works of Confucius, volume 1, 1809, the Analects, section XI. Internet Archive in.ernet.dli.2015.110244. https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.110244
  28. David Collie, The Chinese Classical Work Commonly Called the Four Books, 1828, the Analects, book 2. Internet Archive chineseclassical00confrich. https://archive.org/details/chineseclassical00confrich
  29. James Legge, translator, The Chinese Classics, volume 1, 1861, Confucian Analects, Book II, chapter XI. Internet Archive chineseclassics01legg_0. https://archive.org/details/chineseclassics01legg_0
  30. F. Brinkley, F. Nanjō and Y. Iwasaki, An Unabridged Japanese-English Dictionary, Sanseidō, 1896, p. 1087, s.v. Onko.
  31. William Edward Soothill, The Analects of Confucius, Yokohama, 1910, pp. 160–161, quoting Zottoli, Couvreur and Ku Hung-ming. Internet Archive analectsofconfuc00confrich. https://archive.org/details/analectsofconfuc00confrich
  32. James Curtis Hepburn, A Japanese-English and English-Japanese Dictionary, 1872, and fourteen other Japanese-English dictionaries of 1904 to 1929, checked for the headword.
  33. 武信由太郎 ed., Kenkyūsha's New Japanese-English Dictionary, American edition, Harvard University Press, 1942, photolithographed from the printing of 1939, s.v. onko-chishin (the shelf copy's text layer shows no page number at the entry; the record gives the position).
  34. Japan: An Illustrated Encyclopedia, Kodansha, 1993, p. 1411, s.v. shotai, the chart Basic Character Styles.
  35. Joe Swift, in Patrick McCarthy, translator, Bubishi: The Classic Manual of Combat, Tuttle, revised edition 2008 (e-book text of the 2015 printing), and the 2016 edition's The Evolution of Modern Karate and the Bubishi (e-book text; the record gives the positions).
  36. Jeff Garrison, Kayoko Kimiya, George Wallace and Masahiko Goshi, Kodansha's Dictionary of Basic Japanese Idioms, Kodansha International, 2002, p. 470, s.v. onko-chishin.
  37. Jack Halpern, editor in chief, The Kodansha Kanji Dictionary, updated and revised edition, Kodansha USA, 2013, entry 1466, 故, s.v. 温故知新.
  38. EDRDG (JMdict), 「温故知新」.

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

Cite as: Tim Jackowski and Ten, "Philology of 温故知新 (onko chishin)," Takase Studios, 2026, https://takase.com/library/philology/onko-chishin.