温故知新 onko chishin Respect the Past, Create the New
A philological study of Confucius's 温故知新 (onko chishin), warm the old and know the new: the saying on who is fit to teach, the edicts and commentaries that carried it into Japan, and the one character whose picture has been argued over for two thousand years.
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 returns to what they once learned until it lives again will find in it something new. 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 Song commentary that made warming and seeking-out one act, to a Japanese proverb in kana and the English lineage from Legge in 1861 to Soothill in 1910. It finds that the sense has not moved in two thousand years — only the picture inside one character, seek out or warm up, has ever been argued.
Overview
The sense. The sense has not moved in two thousand years, and the argument has never been about it. From He Yan 何晏 to the modern dictionaries the line means one thing: what you learned once and let cool, take up again until it is alive, and in doing so you will know something you did not know. What the tradition argues about is the picture inside the first character, seek out or warm up, and the commentators' answer since the Song has been that the two are one act. What shifts is the object. For Confucius and the Han edict the line describes a teacher, and the Japanese court used it that way in 703. For 朱熹 it is a theory of learning against rote: knowledge held only as memory has a limit, knowledge warmed until it lives answers without end. The Edo proverb books turned it outward, from one's own learning to the past in general, and 藤井's 1910 gloss, look at the successes and failures of the past and apply them to the present, is where the modern dictionaries' study the facts of the past comes from. A widened, motto-form use of the phrase — tradition and innovation — is a real modern use in school and company mottoes; it is not what the sentence says.
The words. The line is four characters of a seven-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, so 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 every reader argues about is the first. 溫, on, is the ordinary word for warm, and the oldest commentary, He Yan's of the third century, glosses it 溫，尋也, 溫 means to seek out. Four centuries later Xing Bing 邢昺 explained why the two meanings are one, by quoting 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; learning you have let go cold is warmed until it can be eaten again, 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 1786 kana edition for town readers sidestepped the choice with 考へ溫て, think it over and warm it. The four-character reading is onko chishin, unambiguous since at least 1915, when 上田's romanized dictionary entered it as Onko-chishin; the modern dictionaries warn that writing 温古 for 温故 is an error.
The text in English. The Analects reached English before any Japanese proverb book did, 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.
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. [5] The year after the 大宝 code, the phrase arrives in Japan doing what it did in the Han edict: naming what a teacher must be.
1177. 朱熹, the 論語集注. The Song commentary, printed in Japan again and again; two Japanese printings are here, one 林羅山-pointed and one 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. [6]
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, before any printed commentary [7].
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 [8]. This is the reading the older commentary implies and the one Japanese tradition took as 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 [9].
1645, cited at second hand. 毛吹草, the first Japanese proverb collection. The 1910 proverb dictionary gives it as the Japanese source of the proverb in its kun form [10].
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 [11]; the Analects line had become a Japanese proverb in Japanese words.
1786. 渓百年's 経典余師, the Analects with a plain-Japanese gloss for readers without a teacher. 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 [12].
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 [13]. 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 [14]. The earliest witness here to the four-character reading in roman letters.
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 a misspelling [15]. 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 [15]. 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 [15].
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 modern misspelling the dictionaries warn against, not a variant.
The text in English
1861. James Legge, The Chinese Classics, volume 1. If a man keeps cherishing his old knowledge, so as continually to be acquiring new, he may be a teacher of others. [16] Legge's is the sentence every later translator answers; his cherishing is a third reading of 溫, neither seeking nor warming.
Zottoli, in Latin; Couvreur, in French; Ku Hung-ming, in English. Recole antiqua et hinc deduc nova, et poteris fieri praeceptor; Celui qui repasse dans son esprit ce qu'il sait déjà, et par ce moyen acquiert de nouvelles connaissances; If a man will constantly go over what he has acquired, and keep constantly adding to it [17]. All three are quoted as Soothill printed them, the lineage as a reader in Yokohama saw it in 1910.
1896. Brinkley's dictionary, from the Chinese. Onko, 溫故, investigating antiquities. Onko chishin, research into the past assists us to understand the future [18].
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.' [17] In his note he gives the literal, Warm up your old and learn the new, sets the line beside the scribe of Matthew who bringeth forth out of his treasure things new and old, a reference his note prints as Mt XII. 52, and prints Legge, Zottoli, Ku and Couvreur under it. Soothill translates the character both ways on one page, which is the commentators' position exactly.
1915. 上田萬年. Onko-chishin, glossed in Japanese only; the four-character word is absent from Hepburn's dictionary of 1872 and from fourteen other Japanese-English dictionaries of 1904 to 1929 in the sweep, three of which carry onko only as other words [19]. Brinkley's of 1896 has it, above.
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 [20].
2016. Patrick McCarthy, Bubishi, the foreword. In the karate lineage the two four-character maxims travel together: Bunbu Ryodo 文武両道 (a maxim representing the twin paths of the sword and the pen) and Onko Chishin 温故知新 (a saying representing the appreciation of the old in order to better understand the new) [21].
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 [22]. The stored title is on both pages that sell the design; the stored explanation, review the old to know the new, is right and is printed on neither, and it is not a translation from any translator here — no rendering here, from Legge in 1861 to the modern glossaries, has respect or create in it. What a rendering must keep: two verbs, one for the old and one for the new; the old as 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. For two thousand years readers have asked whether 温 means to seek out or to warm up, the commentaries say both and mean it, and the Japanese still read it either way. The older picture is the better one and the one the character actually shows: learning gone cold, heated until it answers.
References
- 『論語』為政第二, 第十一章, at the Chinese Text Project. https://ctext.org/analects/wei-zheng
- 『禮記』中庸, 第二十八節, at the Chinese Text Project. https://ctext.org/liji/zhong-yong
- 『漢書』成帝紀, 第六十二節, at the Chinese Text Project. https://ctext.org/han-shu/cheng-di-ji
- 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
- 『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
- 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
- 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
- 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
- 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
- 藤井乙男, 『諺語大辞典』, 1910, headword 故キヲ溫ネテ新シキヲ知ル, citing 毛吹草 (1645). National Diet Library pid 862766, scan 468. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/862766/1/468
- 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, four books of 1694 to 1836, counted by decade. https://lab.ndl.go.jp/dl/
- 渓百年, 『経典余師』, 1786. National Diet Library pid 2599283, scan 22. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/2599283/1/22
- 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
- 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
- 「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
- James Legge, translator, The Chinese Classics, volume 1, 1861, as quoted in Soothill's apparatus (below) and at the Chinese Text Project.
- 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
- F. Brinkley, F. Nanjō and Y. Iwasaki, An Unabridged Japanese-English Dictionary, Sanseidō, 1896, p. 1087, s.v. Onko.
- 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.
- 武信由太郎 ed., Kenkyūsha's New Japanese-English Dictionary, Kenkyūsha, 1942 (the Harvard University Press printing), s.v. onko-chishin (the shelf copy's text layer shows no page number at the entry; the record gives the position).
- Patrick McCarthy, translator, Bubishi: The Classic Manual of Combat, Tuttle, 2016, foreword (e-book text; the record gives the position).
- EDRDG (JMdict), 「温故知新」.