Fine Japanese Calligraphy

The Art of Master Japanese Calligrapher Eri Takase

Home › Library › Philology › Respect the Past, Create the New

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

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

Abstract

温故知新 means, in Japanese today, studying the past and finding new knowledge in it; its words, warm the old and know the new, are Confucius's saying in the Analects, chapter 為政, saying eleven, on who is fit to teach. 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, which gave the first character two pictures, seek out and reheat, and argued over it and over the second, the old; to a Japanese proverb in kana and a modern motto; and through the English lineage from Marshman in 1809 to Chin in 2014. It finds that the line of commentary from 皇侃 in the sixth century to 朱熹 in the twelfth reads the old as one's own learning, and that two of the commentaries read here dissent: the 論語筆解 under 韓愈's and 李翺's names, which the editors of the 四庫全書 find already existing before the 大中 era, for which the old is the Way of antiquity, and Ogyū Sorai 荻生徂徠 in Edo Japan, for whom it is everything handed down from earlier ages. 藤井's proverb dictionary of 1910 and the Japanese dictionaries today read the phrase as study of the past, the dissenters' old, where 上田's dictionary of 1915 reads it as going over what one first learned; and Japanese readers carried the argument over 溫 into a choice of reading, tazunete or atatamete.

Share this article:

X Facebook

Overview

The sense. Today the Japanese dictionaries read here give one sense, studying the past and finding new knowledge in it: 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, and 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, to study the things of old and find new knowledge and principles in them; JMdict gives developing new ideas based on study of the past; learning from the past (all three under The dictionaries today and Today, below). That sense is where the phrase arrived, not where it began. The main line of Chinese commentary reads the old as 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. Two of the commentaries read here break from that line. The note headed with 韓愈's name in the 論語筆解, which goes under his name and 李翺's, says the earlier scholars all made it a matter of going over written texts, which is learning by rote and not enough for a teacher, and that the old is the Way of antiquity and the new one's own new thought; 李翺 sets the line beside 告諸往而知來者, told what has gone, he knows what is to come, and calls Kong's going over written texts wrong. Ogyū Sorai 荻生徂徠, in Edo Japan, rejects 邢昺's and 朱熹's glosses by name: the old is the 故 of precedent, everything handed down from earlier ages, and the new is what the ancients did not say. The commentaries give the first character two pictures, seek out and reheat: 皇侃 writes that it means both, 邢昺 shows from an older gloss that the two words are one, and 徂徠 takes the reheating and calls the seeking a misreading. In Japan the question of 溫 became a choice of reading between tazunete and atatamete, set out under The words. 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 dictionaries today; Brinkley in 1896 had already made the new the future, as 李翺 had in the ninth century. 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 the earlier uses the snippets show; 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 that line of commentary it is one's own past learning, not the past as history; 韓愈 and 徂徠, under The historical record, read it the other way. 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 論語徴 gives it as He Yan's, and the 論語筆解, quoting it, heads it 孔曰, as 孔安國'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, built like 皇侃's on He Yan's 集解, 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: 温。尋繹也, to seek and draw out, in his note on the Analects, and 温猶燖温之温, like the 溫 of reheating, 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 an early Edo printing of the Analects with Japanese reading marks, catalogued as He Yan's 論語集解, 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 plain commentary on the Four Books with readings in kana, dated 1781 by the 日本国語大辞典, writes 考へ温て, think it over and 温 it, and the kana beside 温 is not legible on the leaf read here, so which reading it gives is not known. The four-character reading is onko chishin, as Brinkley's dictionary entered it in 1896; the 1910 proverb dictionary's sound index enters 溫故 under 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 begins with the sinologists'.

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 reads 溫 as reheating, the earliest reheating gloss on the phrase read here; 邢昺 and 徂徠, below, quote him from here. 朱熹's own note on the passage, in his 中庸章句, keeps the reheating: 温猶燖温之温。謂故學之矣。復時習之也, 溫 is like the 溫 of reheating: it means what was learned before, practiced again in season [2].

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 earliest use of the four-character form read here names what a teacher must be, as Confucius's sentence does.

The third century AD, with a Song sub-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's note and with 賈逵's note on the 左傳's 盟可尋也, a covenant can be renewed, which glosses 尋 as 溫, 尋，溫也; and it ends: 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。然温故知新希有其人。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 [6].

The ninth century. 論語筆解, notes on the Analects under the names of 韓愈 and 李翺. Under the line and the 集解's gloss, which it heads 孔曰, as 孔安國's, the note headed 韓曰 reads: 先儒皆謂㝷繹文翰由故及新，此是記問之學，不足為人師也。吾謂故者古之道也，新謂己之新意，可為新法, the earlier scholars all say it means going over written texts, from the old to the new; that is learning by memory and question, not enough to make a teacher of others. I say the old is the Way of antiquity, and the new is one's own new thought, which can become a new rule. 李翺 adds: 仲尼稱子貢云告諸往而知來者，此與温故知新義同。孔謂㝷繹文翰則非, Confucius said of 子貢, tell him what has gone and he knows what is to come; this is the same sense as 温故知新. Kong's going over written texts is wrong [7]. The editors of the 四庫全書, in their summary of the book, suppose the notes came from 韓愈's work on the Analects, find from 李匡乂, a writer of the 大中 era who reports readings in it, that the book existed before that era, 大中之前已有此本, and so reject a Song forgery; the labels 韓曰 and 李曰, they note, are not the old copy's [7]. It is the first commentary read here to make the old something other than one's own learning, and its charge against the older reading, learning by memory and question, is the 記問之學 朱熹 would set against rote learning some three centuries later.

1130 to 1200, 朱熹's life. The 論語集注. The Song commentary, printed in Japan; the printing read here is of 1766. 温。尋繹也。故者。舊所聞。新者。今所得。言學能時習舊聞而毎有新得。則所學在我。而其應不窮。故可以爲人師。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. [8]

The sixteenth century. Lecture notes on the Analects, 論語聴塵, a manuscript the library catalogues as 清原宣賢's. The line, 子曰温故而, with a lecture under it in kanji and katakana and a note between the columns with 温故トハ, as for 温故…, in its first line, 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 [9]. He Yan's commentary was printed in Japan, at Sakai, in 1364, the oldest printing of it that survives [10].

Early Edo, undated. The Analects with Japanese reading marks, in a printing the library catalogues as He Yan's 論語集解. The leaf carries the text alone, without the commentary's notes. 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 [11]. 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, a manuscript. Ogyū Sorai 荻生徂徠's 論語徴 with 西山元's head notes, 論語徴冠註. 徂徠 (1666–1728) sets out the whole Chinese chain under the line, 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, and then argues with it [12]. 尋 for 溫, he says, is the gloss handed down from of old, 尋 and 燖 being one word in the old script, and it means to practice: 何晏不識。以尋繹言之。朱子仍之。可謂粗鹵已, 何晏 did not know this and took it as seeking out; 朱子 followed him; crude, one may say. Then the old: 故者。邢疏曰。舊所學得。朱子曰。舊所聞。是皆據字義解。非也, the old: 邢昺's sub-commentary says what one learned before, 朱子 says what one heard before; both explain it from the character, and are wrong. The 故 of a state, of the world, of the dark and the bright, points to something definite: 蓋如典故故實之故。凡先世所傳者。皆謂之故, it is the 故 of precedent and established usage; everything handed down from earlier ages is called 故. He grants that what earlier ages handed down is what one learns, so 邢昺's and 朱熹's glosses seem to do no harm, 則邢朱如無害, but they explain an old word by the character, and carried into other books they do not hold: 然不知古言。而以字解之。推諸它書。有所不通. He ends: 新者。古人所不言。先師所不傳也。事變無窮。非能知此。則不足為人師也, the new is what the ancients did not say and earlier teachers did not hand down; the turns of affairs are without end, and one who cannot know this is not fit to be a teacher of others [12]. 西山元's head notes above the text gloss its words.

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 [13]. 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 [13]. 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 [14].

1694 to 1846. The saying in kana in Edo 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, or its first half, in five Edo books found by full-text search and not read at the page for sense: in full in an 1836 storybook; in a 1694 collection of honest tales with the second half in kanji, ふるきをたつねて新敷をしる; in a 1791 comic book with another continuation, ふるきをたづねて。あたらしく書かゆる; and in the preface of an 1802 album of copied paintings and in an 1846 storybook as the first half, where the text found breaks off [15]. The Analects line had become a Japanese proverb in Japanese words.

1691, and after. 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 in the copy read, undated, 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, which cannot be had without written records, is the past as record, a province's history, not one's own learning. It is read in the 淡路草, 藤井彰民's book on Awaji, in a manuscript copy the library dates to the nineteenth century, which copies both texts [16].

1781, in a later impression. 渓百年's 経典余師, a plain commentary on the Four Books with readings in kana. The 日本国語大辞典 dates the work to 1781; the copy read here is catalogued as a later impression of the enlarged edition, 増訂経典余師, with a preface of 安政4 (1857) [17]. The line with reading marks and, in the left column, the paraphrase: 故く習學たる事を考へ温て自の工夫にて新き事を悟知すべし然バ人の上に立て師と為ても可し, think over and 温 what you once studied (the kana beside 温 is not legible on the leaf), and by your own effort come to know something new; do so, and you may stand above others and be a teacher [17].

1910. 藤井乙男, 諺語大辞典, a dictionary of proverbs. 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 saying; the Analects, chapter 為政 [18]. It stands between abandon the old and take up the new, from the 楚辭, and 古釘箱ノ中デ鹿角菜ガ喧嘩ヲスルヤウ, like seaweed quarrelling in an old nail box, a figure for poor handwriting. The four-character form, 【溫故知新】 read ヲンコチシン, refers the reader to it, 故キヲ溫ネテを見よ, on p. 一一一八, and the sound index enters 溫故 under ヲンコ [18].

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こと, to review what one first learned and discover a new principle [19]. 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 [20]. 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, in a sentence as far as the snippet shows [21]. A girls' school's handbook of training of 1943 prints 溫故知新 in a run of terms, between 承詔必謹 and 勤勞 [22]; a 1960 book on shipping-company funnel marks roots one company's founding in 「温故知新」と「郷土愛」 [23]; and in 1997 and 1998 two directories of Kansai manufacturers print one maker's stated motto as 〔社是〕温故知新 [24]. 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 [25]. 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 [25]. 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 [25]. Under the single words, the same dictionaries keep the older gloss. 精選版日本国語大辞典's entry 温故 says it is from the Analects line, 「故(ふる)きを温(たず)ねる」の意, and glosses it 昔のことを調べること。歴史、由来を求めること, looking into the things of old; seeking out history and origins, with a first citation from the preface to the 貞観格 of 869; its entry 知新, 「新しきを知る」の意, is 新しい知識や道理を見つけ出すこと. The デジタル大辞泉's character entry for 温 gives as its fifth sense おさらいをする, to go over again, with 温故 and 温習 as examples, and its entry for 故 gives first 昔の。以前の事柄, of old; things of before, with 温故. 白川静's 字通 lists for 温 the sense よく温熟する、ならう、たずねる, to warm through, to practice, to seek out, and holds that the 溫故 of this line is in the sense of 醞 and 蘊, words it places in a family that carry the sense of something shut in and held within [25].

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 the earliest reheating gloss on the phrase read here. The 漢書 edict and the 続日本紀 edict are the two uses of the four-character form the 精選版日本国語大辞典 cites, the 続日本紀 as its first example [25]; they are 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 the 群書類従 titles 後宇多院御灌頂記, of the consecration of the retired emperor 後宇多, whom it calls 太上法皇, has 惣温古知新之儀 in its closing lines, so it was written after he took the tonsure in 1307 [26][27], and 山岡鐵太郎 wrote 温古知新の則 in a note dated 1864 [20].

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 [28]. 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 [29].

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. [30] 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 names neither seeking nor warming in so many words.

1896. Brinkley's dictionary, from the Chinese. Onko … investigating antiquities. Onko chishin … research into the past assists us to understand the future, each with its kanji, the form of the first not legible at the page's resolution [31].

1910. William Edward Soothill, The Analects of Confucius, Yokohama, pages 160 to 162. The Master said: 'He who keeps on reviewing his old and acquiring new knowledge may become a teacher of others.' [32] His note heads the chapter Things new and old with a reference to Matthew, printed Mt XII. 52, then offers another rendering, Or, Warm up your old and learn the new, and you may become a teacher of others, cites the Mandarin version's 温習 for 温 (his Kuan.), quotes 朱熹 on learning that is only memory and questions, 記問之學, and on p. 162 prints 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 renderings, reviewing in his text and Or, Warm up in his note; he does not give them as the commentators' two, 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 [33]. 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 [34]. 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 in the chart Basic Character Styles, read onko chishin (to learn from the past; literally, "respect the old, know the new") from The Analects [35]. 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, 温故知新, and in order to better understand the new [36].

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 [37]. It takes up the reading question, and 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 [38]: the brackets carry the dictionaries' outward reading into English.

1938 to 2014. The translators after Soothill. Arthur Waley, 1938: He who by reanimating the Old can gain knowledge of the New is fit to be a teacher, with the note Literally, 'warming up.' The business of the teacher is to give fresh life to the Scriptures by reinterpreting them so that they apply to the problems of modern life [39]. D. C. Lau, 1979: A man is worthy of being a teacher who gets to know what is new by keeping fresh in his mind what he is already familiar with [40]. Roger T. Ames and Henry Rosemont Jr., 1998: Reviewing the old as a means of realizing the new—such a person can be considered a teacher [41]. Edward Slingerland, 2003: Both keeping past teachings alive and understanding the present—someone able to do this is worthy of being a teacher, with the note There is commentarial disagreement over whether this passage refers to keeping ancient teachings alive, or to keeping what one has previously learned in a lifetime current in one's mind so that one knows what to expect in the future, citing 李翺 for the second [42]. Burton Watson, 2007: Be thoroughly versed in the old, and understand the new—then you can be a teacher [43]. Annping Chin, 2014: A person is worthy of being a teacher if he is able to gain new insights from chewing over what he already knew, with the note that Wengu … means literally to "keep warm what one already knew" [44]. Waley and Slingerland take the old as teaching handed down, the dissenters' old; Lau, Ames and Rosemont, and Chin take it as one's own learning; of the six translations, Waley's warming up and Chin's keep warm are the two notes that give the character's picture of warmth, as Soothill's Or, Warm up had; Garrison's, above, gives the tazunete reading.

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 [45]. Respect is in one rendering here, the 1993 encyclopedia's literally, where the character says warm or seek, and none quoted here has create. What a rendering of the Analects line keeps: two verbs, one for the old and one for the new; the old as the main line of commentary reads it, what you yourself once learned; and the teacher at the end of the sentence, whom the short forms quoted here drop.

A reading

The text is old and clean: the same four characters, written 溫 or 温, in a Han edict and a Japanese one, with a canon address anyone can open. The story worth telling is two words. The commentaries give 温 two pictures, seeking out and reheating; 皇侃, 邢昺 and 朱熹 hold both, and 徂徠 calls the seeking a misreading of an old word for reheating. The reheating gloss on the phrase is 鄭玄's, of the second century, the earliest read here; the seeking may be older, since the 論語筆解 heads it 孔曰 and 徂徠 calls 溫 for 尋 the gloss handed down from of old. I read the line with the reheating: 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 word is the old. The line from 皇侃 to 朱熹 makes it one's own learning, 韓愈 the Way of antiquity, 徂徠 everything earlier ages handed down, and the dictionaries today the past. I read it with 徂徠's own concession, that what earlier ages handed down is what one learns: the old is received learning made one's own, and the subject of the sentence is still the person who may teach.

Share this article:

X Facebook

Japanese Scrolls by Master Calligrapher Eri Takase

Japanese Scroll of Respect the Past, Create the New (onkochishin) in a block font by Master Japanese Calligrapher Eri Takase
温故知新VB3CBlock
Japanese Scroll of Respect the Past, Create the New (onkochishin) in a cursive font by Master Japanese Calligrapher Eri Takase
温故知新VC3BCursive
Japanese Scroll of Respect the Past, Create the New (onkochishin) in Master Japanese Calligrapher Eri Takase's own style (Eri's Choice)
温故知新VD4BEri's Choice
Japanese Scroll of Respect the Past, Create the New (onkochishin) in a semi-cursive font by Master Japanese Calligrapher Eri Takase
温故知新VS3CSemi-Cursive

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.

坪内逍遙's 梓神子 of 1891 at its page. It would carry the modern Japanese use back past the 1930s.

伊藤仁斎's 論語古義 on the line; 徂徠 wrote his 論語徴 against 朱熹 and 仁斎. It, and the commentaries after 徂徠, would say whether the old of 韓愈 and 徂徠 had other readers before the dictionaries took it up.

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 · 朱熹, 『中庸章句』 第二十七章, in 『四書章句集註』, the 四庫全書 text at Kanripo, KR1h0015, 卷16, leaf 59b; unpunctuated, the stops in the quotation are mine. https://www.kanripo.org/text/KR1h0015/016 · https://github.com/kanripo/KR1h0015/blob/master/KR1h0015_016.txt
  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 · 陽朔二年 is 23 BC: the 成帝紀 counts four years of 建始 and four of 河平 before 陽朔, and 建始 opened in 32 BC, the year 「成帝」 in 日本大百科全書 starts his reign (the ブリタニカ entry gives 33 BC, his accession), at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/成帝
  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, 立野春節 校, 大阪 象牙屋治郎兵衛 ほか, a woodblock printing in Japanese binding that the catalogue dates only 〔明治--〕. National Diet Library pid 1089485, scan 4. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1089485/1/4 · the code of 大宝元年 (701), 「大宝律令」, デジタル大辞泉 and 精選版日本国語大辞典, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/大宝律令
  7. 韓愈 and 李翺 (attributed), 『論語筆解』 卷上, 為政, with the 四庫全書 editors' summary (提要), the 四庫全書 text at Kanripo, KR1h0008; unpunctuated, the stops in the quotations are mine. https://www.kanripo.org/text/KR1h0008/001 · https://github.com/kanripo/KR1h0008/blob/master/KR1h0008_001.txt · the summary https://github.com/kanripo/KR1h0008/blob/master/KR1h0008_000.txt
  8. 朱熹, 『論語集注』, in 『四書集註』, Japanese printing of 1766 (明和3 in the library's record). National Diet Library pid 2583036, scans 19 and 20. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/2583036/1/19 · https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/2583036/1/20
  9. 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
  10. 「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
  11. 『論語集解』 10卷, 江戸初期刊 in the library's record; the leaf carries the Analects text with reading marks and no notes. National Diet Library pid 2532143, scan 8. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/2532143/1/8
  12. 荻生徂徠, 西山元 頭注, 『論語徴冠註』, manuscript, undated (書写資料, 自筆 in the library's record). National Diet Library pid 2560576, scans 79 and 80. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/2560576/1/79 · https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/2560576/1/80
  13. 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. 286 (scan 150, the 毛吹草 list, on the right-hand page; its folio is blurred, the facing folio reads 287, and the number follows from scan 127 being pp. 240–241). National Diet Library pid 1452761. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1452761/1/150
  14. 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
  15. 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 first half, in their spellings, by full text only: 石川流舟 『正直咄大鑑』 1694, pid 2533049, scan 73; 京伝 『盧生夢魂其前日』 1791, pid 9892710, scan 3; 『聚珍画帖』, preface 1802, pid 2553051, scans 26–27; 瓢亭種繁 『囲碁手段鶴巣籠』 1836, pid 9893292, scan 12; and 『戯作花赤本世界』 1846, pid 10301180, scan 8. https://lab.ndl.go.jp/dl/
  16. 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
  17. 渓百年, 『経典余師』, catalogued 増訂経典余師, a later impression of the printing with a preface of 安政4 (1857), 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
  18. 藤井乙男, 『諺語大辞典』, 1910, headword 故キヲ溫ネテ新シキヲ知ル, scan 468; 【溫故知新】, p. 一一一八, scan 578; the sound index (字音索引), ヲンコ, scan 14. National Diet Library pid 862766. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/862766/1/468 · https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/862766/1/578 · https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/862766/1/14
  19. 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
  20. 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
  21. 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
  22. 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
  23. 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
  24. 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
  25. 「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 · 「温故」, 精選版日本国語大辞典 · 普及版 字通, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/温故 · 「知新」, 精選版日本国語大辞典, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/知新 · 「温」, デジタル大辞泉 (漢字項目) · 普及版 字通 (訓義 3; 語系, where three characters print as images, read as 溫, 醞 and 蘊), at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/温 · 「故」, デジタル大辞泉 (漢字項目), at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/故
  26. 『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, its closing lines, before 『七佛藥師御修法記』 begins on the same page; the record's title heads scan 43 and runs over scans 44 to 48. National Diet Library pid 1879545, scan 49. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1879545/1/49
  27. 「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
  28. 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
  29. David Collie, The Chinese Classical Work Commonly Called the Four Books, 1828, the Analects, book 2. Internet Archive chineseclassical00confrich. https://archive.org/details/chineseclassical00confrich
  30. 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
  31. F. Brinkley, F. Nanjō and Y. Iwasaki, An Unabridged Japanese-English Dictionary, Sanseidō, 1896, p. 1087 (the folio printed at the page head), s.v. Onko. Internet Archive cu31924082117288. https://archive.org/details/cu31924082117288
  32. William Edward Soothill, The Analects of Confucius, Yokohama, 1910, pp. 160–162, quoting Zottoli, Couvreur and Ku Hung-ming. Internet Archive analectsofconfuc00confrich. https://archive.org/details/analectsofconfuc00confrich
  33. 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.
  34. 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).
  35. Japan: An Illustrated Encyclopedia, Kodansha, 1993, p. 1411, s.v. shotai, the chart Basic Character Styles.
  36. 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).
  37. 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.
  38. 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.
  39. Arthur Waley, translator, The Analects of Confucius, Macmillan, 1938; Vintage Books, 1989, Book II, 11, and its note.
  40. D. C. Lau, translator, Confucius: The Analects (Lun yü), Penguin Books, 1979, Book II, 11.
  41. Roger T. Ames and Henry Rosemont Jr., translators, The Analects of Confucius: A Philosophical Translation, Ballantine Books, 1998, 2.11.
  42. Edward Slingerland, translator, Confucius: Analects, with Selections from Traditional Commentaries, Hackett, 2003, 2.11, and its note.
  43. Burton Watson, translator, The Analects of Confucius, Columbia University Press, 2007, Book 2, 11.
  44. Annping Chin, translator, The Analects, Penguin Books, 2014, 2.11, and its note.
  45. EDRDG (JMdict), 「温故知新」.

Authors

Tim Jackowski (Systems Architect, Takase Studios, LLC) · 典 Ten (Anthropic Claude Fable 5.1, Sonnet 5 and Opus 5.5, 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 · Claude Sonnet (Anthropic), 2026-10-23, citations — 57 claims tested at the addresses it was handed; most could not be opened by the check (National Diet Library leaves, web texts and Internet Archive books), and each was read at the page image or live by the readers who followed; two differed and were judged at the page: the 1929 proverb list is on p. 286, not 266, and the 1915 gloss runs on to its last word on the next line · two fresh-context readers per round (Claude), 2026-10-23, every claim in the page's summary block traced to the body, the dictionary entries and the page images, claim by claim: round 1 FAIL, both (朱熹's 中庸 note without an address; the commentaries said to agree); round 2 FAIL, both, on the phrase “the earliest known uses”, narrowed to the two the dictionary cites; round 3 PASS, both, with wordings applied

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

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