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真理は勝つ shinri wa katsu The Truth Will Prevail

真理は勝つ (shinri wa katsu), truth prevails, is the Japanese of a sentence with homes in Latin, English, Czech and Sanskrit. It came into Japanese through the Meiji English-Japanese dictionaries, which print 眞理ハ勝ツ in 1889. This study follows its own life in Japanese prose from 1914, including a graduate's essay of 1924 and Gandhi's slogan.

Japanese Scroll of The Truth Will Prevail (shinri wa katsu) — Calligraphy by Eri Takase
The Truth Will Prevail真理は勝つshinri wa katsu

Original art by Master Calligrapher Eri Takase

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Abstract

真理は勝つ, truth prevails, is the Japanese of a sentence with several homes: the Latin Veritas vincit, whose oldest form is in the apocryphal Third Book of Esdras; the English proverb Truth will prevail, in print from about 1400; Prague's Pravda vítězí; and India's Satyameva jayate, from the Mundaka Upanishad. It came into Japanese through the Meiji English-Japanese dictionaries, which gave each Latin phrase a Japanese gloss: 眞理ハ勝利ヲ得ベシ in 1887, and the sentence itself, 眞理ハ勝ツ, in 1889. A modern English-Japanese dictionary still gives it as the Japanese of the proverb. From 1914 it has a life in Japanese prose of its own: in a translated history of philosophy, in a school graduate's essay of 1924, and in a dictionary of the 1930s as the slogan of Gandhi's movement.

Overview

The sense. Truth wins; not that it is winning now, but that it wins. The oldest dictionary to write the sentence also wrote the longer form, truth wins in the end.

The words. 真理 shinri is, in デジタル大辞泉, いつどんなときにも変わることのない、正しい物事の筋道。真実の道理, the right course of things, unchanging at any time; the true principle, and in philosophy the agreement of thought and its object; 精選版日本国語大辞典 also enters it as a Buddhist word for the true and unchanging law, with a first example in the 懐風藻 of 751 [1]. 勝つ katsu is to come out ahead in a fight or a contest [2]. The sentence is in the plain present.

The text in English. Truth prevails, truth conquers and truth will prevail all stand behind it. Kenkyusha's English-Japanese dictionary of 1980, under prevail, gives Truth will ~ with 《諺》真理は勝つもの, (proverb) truth is a thing that wins [3]. Masuda's of 1913 gave veritas vincit, Truth conquers, as 眞理ハ勝ツ, and veritas praevalebit, Truth will prevail, as 眞理ハ必ズ行ハル [4].

The historical record

The Latin, from the Third Book of Esdras. In the apocryphal book's contest of three young men at the Persian court, the third writes that above all things truth beareth away the victory, super omnia autem vincit veritas (3:12), and when he has spoken the people cry Magna est veritas, et praevalet, Great is truth, and it prevails (4:41) [5][6]. The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations gives the Vulgate's words, and the English Puritan Thomas Brooks's form of 1662, magna est veritas et praevalebit, great is truth, and shall prevail, in the future tense the tag is usually quoted in [5].

About 1400. The English proverb. Apperson's dictionary of English proverbs enters Truth will prevail with its first witness in the Tale of Beryn, about 1400, evir atte ende The trowith woll be previd, and Fulwell's Trueth in the ende shall preuayle of about 1580 [7].

1413 to 1920. Prague. The Czech Pravda vítězí, truth prevails, has been the motto on the Czechoslovak president's flag since 30 March 1920 and is on the Czech president's now. The Czech encyclopedia traces it through Masaryk's use of it in 1914 to 1918 to Jan Hus, who wrote in 1413 that truth prevails over all, super omnia vincit veritas, and behind Hus to the Third Book of Esdras [8].

India. The Mundaka Upanishad, 3.1.6, in Max Müller's English: The true prevails, not the untrue; by the true the path is laid out, the way of the gods [9]. On 30 May 1949 the Government of India announced "Satyameva Jayate" – "Truth alone triumphs" as the motto of the State Emblem and Seal, selected as embodying the cardinal principle of Mahatma Gandhi and as being acceptable to men of all religions [10].

1887 to 1925. The sentence comes into Japanese. The Meiji English-Japanese dictionaries closed with lists of Latin and other foreign phrases, each with a Japanese gloss. Okura's lexicon of 1887 has Vincit veritas. (羅) 眞理ハ勝利ヲ得ベシ, truth shall gain the victory [11]. 尺振八's 明治英和字典, completed in 1889, has the sentence itself: Veritas prevalebit. 眞理ハ終ニ勝ツ, truth wins in the end, and Veritas vincit. 眞理ハ勝ツ, truth wins [12]. Eastlake's dictionary of 1894 gives praevalebit as 眞理ハ勝ツベシ and vincit as 眞理ハ勝利ヲ得 [13]; Masuda's of 1913 has the forms above [4]; and a Latin primer of 1925 glosses Vincit veritas 眞理は勝利者(眞理は勝つの意), truth is the victor (meaning, truth wins) [14]. The same years carry it in religious prose: a Japanese translation of a Swedenborgian Buddhist tract, in 1893, gives the Swedish teacher's words as 蓋し眞理は終に勝つべし, for truth shall win in the end [15], and a Christian daily reader of 1907 has 眞理は勝ん, truth will win [16].

1914. A history of philosophy. 村岡典嗣's translation of Windelband's history of modern philosophy uses the sentence of the Copernican turn: Tycho Brahe's attempt at a compromise between the old doctrine and the new came to nothing, and 眞理は勝つた。精神的創造の數々は、またこの新說のうちから發生した, truth won; many spiritual creations sprang from the new doctrine [17].

1924. A graduate's essay. The twenty-fifth anniversary volume of a prefectural middle school in Ibaraki, 茨城県立太田中学校, prints 後に來るものゝ爲めに, For those who come after, by 樫村功 of the twelfth graduating class, the manager of a printing firm, who calls himself a man in his twenties just out of school (學校出たての廿いくつかの人間). His one thing to say is be earnest, and he closes: 眞面目は眞理であり、眞理は勝つ。自分は敢えてこゝに「眞面目の哲學」「眞劍な生活」を提唱するものである, earnestness is truth, and truth prevails; I dare to propose here a philosophy of earnestness, a life in earnest. The essay is dated 20 June 1924, the year of the American exclusion law the volume's preceding essay discusses, and on the page before its close he writes that the same earnestness that once won Japan its war against the world's greatest army would make defeating America easy (米國を敗るや易々たるものがある) [18].

1933. Gandhi. A pocket dictionary of social science, in its supplement, enters サチア·グラハ Satya Graha: サチア(眞理)、グラハ(把持)、眞理は勝つとのガンヂー運動のスローガン, satya (truth), graha (holding): the slogan of Gandhi's movement, "truth prevails" [19]. It glosses satyagraha, holding to truth, with the sentence India would take for its motto sixteen years later.

1942. A motto on a flag. A Japanese translation of Emil Lengyel's The Danube has its traveler read a motto on a flag: 私は旗に記された標語を讀んだ。<眞理は勝つ>と書かれてあつた, I read the motto written on the flag: it said "Truth prevails" [20].

The count. The National Diet Library's full-text search, which also reaches books served only inside Japan, returns 165 items for 眞理は勝つ on 1 October 2026, the oldest the 1889 dictionary; its next-generation search, which reads only the public-domain books, finds four [21].

A reading

真理は勝つ came into Japanese as a translation, a dictionary's Japanese for a Latin tag, and became a sentence of its own: a translator of philosophy could use it of Copernicus in 1914, and a young man in Ibaraki could end his essay on it in 1924. The scroll's English title, The Truth Will Prevail, is the English proverb, and the Japanese is the sentence a modern dictionary pairs with that proverb, so the title and the text are one saying in two languages. I read it as the oldest dictionary to write it did, with the 終ニ left unwritten: truth wins in the end. The Japanese names none of its homes, Esdras, India or Prague, which suits a sentence that belongs to so many.

References

  1. 「真理」, デジタル大辞泉 and 精選版日本国語大辞典, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/真理-82706
  2. 「勝つ」, デジタル大辞泉 and 精選版日本国語大辞典, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/勝つ-464050
  3. 小稲義男 編, 『研究社新英和大辞典』 第5版 (Kenkyusha's New English-Japanese Dictionary, fifth edition), 研究社, 東京, 1980, p. 1409, s.v. prevail.
  4. T. Masuda, A New English-Japanese Dictionary, Maruzen, Tokyo, 1913, the list of foreign phrases, pp. 83–84. National Diet Library pid 1681540, scans 694–695. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1681540/1/694
  5. Elizabeth Knowles, editor, The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations, eighth edition, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2014, p. 113 (Bible, Vulgate, III Esdras 4:41) and p. 152 (Thomas Brooks).
  6. Burton Stevenson, The Home Book of Proverbs, Maxims and Familiar Phrases, Macmillan, New York, 1948, s.v. Truth (I Esdras 3:12).
  7. G. L. Apperson, English Proverbs and Proverbial Phrases, Dent, London, 1929, p. 651, s.v. Truth, 26.
  8. 「Pravda vítězí」, Czech Wikipedia. https://cs.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pravda_vítězí
  9. Mundaka Upanishad, Third Mundaka, First Khanda, 6, tr. Max Müller, Sacred Books of the East 15, 1884, at Wikisource. https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Page:Sacred_Books_of_the_East_-_Volume_15.djvu/99
  10. Press Information Bureau, Government of India, "Motto for State Emblem", press note, Ministry of Home Affairs, New Delhi, 30 May 1949. https://web.archive.org/web/20170808194446/http://pib.nic.in/archive/docs/DVD_38/ACC%20NO%20806-BR/HOM-1949-05-30_393.pdf
  11. An English and Japanese Lexicon, Explanatory, Pronouncing and Etymological, revised by S. Sugiura, J. Inoue and A. Manase, M. Okura, 1887, appendix p. 46. National Diet Library pid 1699966, scan 506. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1699966/1/506
  12. 尺振八 訳, 『明治英和字典』, 六合館, 1885–1889, p. 1196. National Diet Library pid 870185, scan 110. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/870185/1/110
  13. イーストレーキ 著, 『英和故事熟語辞林』, 1894, p. 1205, s.v. Veritas. National Diet Library pid 870049, scan 617. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/870049/1/617
  14. 前田越嶺 著, 『羅甸語初歩独修』, 尚文堂, 1925, scan 314 (text layer). National Diet Library pid 943301. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/943301/1/314
  15. フィランジ・ダーサ 著, 大原嘉吉 訳, 『瑞派仏教学』, 博文堂, 1893, p. 721. National Diet Library pid 816780, scan 372. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/816780/1/372
  16. 星野光多 編, 『基督教思林』, 警醒社, 1907, scan 175 (text layer). National Diet Library pid 824266. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/824266/1/175
  17. ヴィンデルバント 著, 村岡典嗣 訳, 『ヴインデルバント近世哲学史』 第壱, 内田老鶴圃, 1914, p. 134. National Diet Library pid 950807, scans 76–77. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/950807/1/77
  18. 茨城県立太田中学校祝賀会 編, 『創立二十五週年祝賀記念号』, 1924, pp. 99–102, 樫村功「後に來るものゝ爲めに」. National Diet Library pid 918653, scans 73–75. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/918653/1/75
  19. 田所輝明 編, 『社会科学小辞典』, 白揚社, 1933, the supplement. National Diet Library pid 1465254, scan 748. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1465254/1/748
  20. エミール・レンギル 著, 伊藤敏夫 訳, 『ダニューブ』, 地平社, 1942, snippet view, National Diet Library, pid 1044566. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1044566
  21. National Diet Library Digital Collections, full-text search on 眞理は勝つ, oldest first, 1 October 2026: 165 items; and the next-generation full-text search on 真理は勝つ, 4 books. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/search/searchResult?keyword=眞理は勝つ&fulltext=true&sortKey=ISSUED_ASC

Authors

Tim Jackowski (Systems Architect, Takase Studios, LLC) · 典 Ten (Anthropic Claude Fable 5.1 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), 2026-09-06, citations of the grouped history this page was split from, with web search on; the Lab counts and two aggregator addresses were beyond the checker. Not re-run on this text.

Cite as: Tim Jackowski and Ten, "Philology of 真理は勝つ (shinri wa katsu)," Takase Studios, 2026, https://takase.com/library/philology/shinri-wa-katsu.