Fine Japanese Calligraphy

The Art of Master Japanese Calligrapher Eri Takase

0
Visa, Mastercard, AmEx, PayPal accepted
Home › Library › Philology › Not Knowing is Buddha

知らぬが仏 shiranu ga hotoke Not Knowing is Buddha

This is a philological study of the Japanese proverb 知らぬが仏 (shiranu ga hotoke). It spans a haikai pun of 1638 that proves the saying already current, through a cuckold's line of 1686 and a mocking kabuki line of 1864, to the bilingual dictionaries and the Yokohama English press that gave it ignorance is bliss from 1876, and examines the second, mocking sense every modern dictionary carries beside the serene one.

Japanese Scroll of Not Knowing is Buddha (shiranu ga hotoke) — Calligraphy by Eri Takase
Not Knowing is Buddha (shiranu ga hotoke)

Not Knowing is Buddha (shiranu ga hotoke) on a traditional Japanese Scroll by Master Eri Takase.

View Scroll ›

Abstract

知らぬが仏, not knowing is Buddha, is a Japanese proverb attested by a pun before it is attested outright: a 1638 haikai verse puns on it with the name of a spring herb, proving the saying already current, and no dated witness earlier than that pun has been found. From its first prose witness, in 1686, the proverb carries two senses side by side: the serene one, that not knowing keeps a heart as calm as a Buddha's, and the mocking one, said with a smile of the one person in the room who does not know — the sense the dictionaries call the common one today. The bilingual dictionaries equated it with ignorance is bliss from 1876, and the Yokohama English press used it that way from 1884; the equation fits the serene sense and not the mocking half, which English has no idiom for and which only two English books carry.

Overview

The sense. Two senses, and the witnesses carry both from the start. The kind one is the proverb's face: to know is to suffer, and not to know is a Buddha's calm. It is the sense 藤井 chose to gloss in 1910, with the Buddha's compassion and forbearance, and the sense the Ming proverb and the German one match. The mocking one is the proverb's use. The first prose witness, in 1686, puts it in the mouth of a cuckold; the 1864 kabuki uses it of a man who does not know what has been decided about him; the 日国 marks it by extension and ことわざを知る辞典 says it is the common one. The karuta picture, a stone Jizō with a dragonfly on its head, holds both at once, which is why it is the right picture. What the English lineage did was choose the first sense and drop the second: Gray's line is a wish for the ignorant, and ignorance is bliss has never carried the smile.

The words. 知らぬ, shiranu, is the classical negative of shiru, to know: not knowing. が here is the particle that lets a whole clause stand as a subject, the same grammar as 見ぬが花, not seeing is the flower, and 聞くが花, hearing of it is the flower; Henderson's grammar of 1945 uses this proverb as its example of that use of ga in the written language [1]. So the sentence parses as not knowing is a Buddha, with the Buddha as the image of a calm nothing can disturb. 藤井乙男's 1910 dictionary says what kind of calm: 其心佛の慈悲忍辱なるが如し, his heart is like the Buddha's, compassionate and forbearing [2]; a 1917 dictionary is drier, 一向無頓着なること, being wholly unconcerned [3]. The word 仏, hotoke, also means a dead person in everyday Japanese, which every Meiji dictionary lists beside it, and an image, which is how one 1897 rendering into English took it. Nothing in the four words varies across the witnesses: the Edo 佛 and the modern 仏 are one character, and the kana spellings しらぬが仏 and しらぬがほとけ are the same sounds.

The proverb in English. The proverb reached English through the bilingual dictionaries and the Yokohama English press, and the equation with ignorance is bliss is Meiji: Satow's English-Japanese dictionary of 1876 offers the proverb as the Japanese for the English idiom [4], and The Japan Weekly Mail uses it, in the mocking sense, in 1884 [5]. The idiom is Thomas Gray's. His Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College (1747): Thought would destroy their Paradise. / No more; where ignorance is bliss, / 'Tis folly to be wise. It is about schoolboys who do not yet know what life will do to them [6]. The literal rendering, Not to know is to be a Buddha, first appears in an English book in Chamberlain's Things Japanese of 1902 [7]; the Buddha's own sense, the lenience 藤井 glossed, is kept only by Okada in 1958 [8]; and the mocking sense reaches a proverb book only with Buchanan in 1965 [9]. The proverb is not in David Galef's Even Monkeys Fall from Trees (Tuttle, 1987) or Even a Stone Buddha Can Talk (Tuttle, 2000), where Ignorance is bliss glosses a different proverb, 盲蛇に怖じず, the blind man does not fear the snake [10]; nor in Guy Zona's Even Withered Trees Give Prosperity to the Mountain (1996) [11].

The historical record

1638. 毛吹草, Matsue Shigeyori 松江重頼's haikai anthology, the fifth book, a verse by 重貞. ふみてもや雪にしらぬか仏のざ, treading on it in the snow, the henbit does not know, where 仏の座, hotoke no za, is the spring herb henbit, and its name is made to finish the proverb: しらぬが仏. A pun on a proverb is proof the proverb was current, so the saying is older than 1638, and no dated witness before it is known [12].

1686. 好色三代男, from Ihara Saikaku 井原西鶴's circle. In prose, and already the second sense: しらぬが仏といひながら。人に上荷とらるゝ夫, not knowing is Buddha, as they say, but a husband whose wife is taken by another. The cuckold is the Buddha [13].

1698. 新色五巻書. Paired with its mirror: かくすが秘密しらぬが仏, hiding it is the secret, not knowing is Buddha [14].

1700. 世間用心記, by 定延. しらぬがほとけ, all in kana, in a book of worldly cautions: あらたむるべきしるしもなくしらぬがほとけ。正直のかうべにいたゞく人によろこびきたり, with no sign of mending his ways, not knowing is Buddha; and to the one who wears honesty on his head comes joy. The National Diet Library dates its undated copy 1700 and holds a second printing of 1773; the earliest known witness for that spelling [15].

Edo. The いろはかるた, the し card. The proverb is on the card for し in the Edo set of proverb cards, and ことわざを知る辞典 describes the picture: a 地蔵 with a dragonfly settled on its head, the stone Buddha who does not know [16].

1864. The kabuki 処女翫浮名横櫛, known as 切られお富, the middle act. 然しおれが斯ういふ気になって居るのを知らぬが仏, but he has no idea I have made up my mind like this; not knowing is Buddha. The mocking sense, on stage, before Meiji; the 日国's second citation [12].

1872 to 1917. The bilingual dictionaries, where the English equation was made. Hepburn's dictionary of 1872 does not have the proverb; the nearest thing is under mashi, shiranu ga mashi da, it is better not to know [17]. The equation is made first in the English-to-Japanese direction: Satow and Ishibashi's dictionary of the spoken language, 1876, under Bliss, gives ignorance is ——, shiranu ga hotoke [4]. In 1886 a phrase book of English idioms translated into Japanese gives Gray's line, Where ignorance is bliss, 'tis folly to be wise, with a Japanese paraphrase and no proverb [18]; and Hepburn's fourth edition of 1888 takes the proverb in, under SHIRANU, — wa hotoke (prov.), ignorance is bliss, and gives the same English to a second proverb under MINU, — mono kiyoshi (prov.), = ignorance is bliss [19]. The 1894 dictionary in Hepburn's lineage repeats that second equation, ignorance is bliss for 見ぬもの清し, what you do not see is clean [20]. The first Japanese-to-English headword is 1896, in Brinkley's 和英大辞典: Shiranu ga hotoke, 知ラヌが佛, ignorance is bliss, marked as a proverb [21]. In 1897 a conversation manual tries the literal first, (Happy is) the idol which knows nothing, and then gives Ignorance is bliss [22]; from 1902 every dictionary opened gives Ignorance is bliss and nothing else [23] [24] [25] [26] [27] [28] [29]. Saitō's English-Japanese dictionary of 1915 gives 知らぬが佛 under Ignorance, and under where renders Gray's whole line as the proverb with a coda: 知らぬが佛なら知るは愚, if not knowing is Buddha, knowing is folly [30]. A Japanese dictionary of 1917 glosses it without any Buddha: if he knew the state of things he would be uncomfortable or angry, but since he does not, he is wholly unconcerned [3].

1910. 藤井乙男 Fujii Otoo, 諺語大辞典. 【知ラヌガ佛】知らざれば、不快にも感ぜず、腹立つこともなく、其心佛の慈悲忍辱なるが如し, if one does not know, one feels no displeasure and no anger, and one's heart is like the Buddha's, compassionate and forbearing. Then the 1638 verse, a line from a jōruri with the continuation 見ぬが花, a line from another with the three monkeys and a namu amida, a Ming proverb from the 耳談續纂, 聞則病、不聞是藥, to hear is sickness; not to hear is medicine, and a German proverb, Without knowledge, without sin. On the same page he lists the proverb's longer forms as headwords: 【知ラヌハ佛、見ヌガ神】, not knowing is Buddha, not seeing is a god, glossed not to know and not to see is better, since it does not trouble the heart; then 見ヌガ極樂, not seeing is paradise, and 見ヌガ心ニクシ, not seeing is the more alluring, each marked same as above. 藤井 hangs an English equivalent on his neighbors, Ignorance of the law excuses no one and The good man is the last who knows what's amiss at home, and gives this proverb German [2].

What is not a source. The longer forms 藤井 lists, 知らぬは仏、見ぬが神, 見ぬが極楽 and 見ぬが心にくし, and the kin proverb 見ぬもの清し, are the same pattern of Japanese sentence and not the origin of this one; only the first half is in common use, the same half the karuta and the dictionaries carry. The Chinese 眼不見心不煩, what the eye does not see the heart is not vexed by, and the Korean 모르면 약이요, not knowing is medicine, which the dictionaries print beside it, are parallels; the Ming line 藤井 quotes is a parallel he found, not a source he claims. Gray's where ignorance is bliss is an English poem of 1747, attached to the proverb by Meiji lexicographers a century and a quarter later. No witness names an origin, and the form does not need one.

The dictionaries today. 精選版日本国語大辞典: 知れば腹も立ち、苦悩や面倒も起こるが、知らないから腹も立たず、心のひろい仏のようにしていられる。見ぬが仏。転じて、当人だけが知らないで平気でいるさまをあざけっていう語, if you knew you would be angry and troubled, but since you do not you are not, and can stay like a broad-hearted Buddha; by extension, a word that mocks the state of the one person who does not know and is unbothered [12]. デジタル大辞泉 says the same in fewer words. ことわざを知る辞典: 平気でいるさまを皮肉に評していうことが多い, it is most often said ironically of someone who is unbothered because they have no idea of the situation they are in, with examples from Natsume Sōseki 夏目漱石 in 1902 and Ishikawa Tatsuzō 石川達三 in 1956, the karuta card, 見ぬもの清し as kin, and Ignorance is bliss as the English [16].

The proverb in English

1876. Ernest Mason Satow and Ishibashi Masakata, An English-Japanese Dictionary of the Spoken Language, Trübner, under Bliss. ignorance is ——, shiranu ga hotoke. The proverb enters English as the Japanese for an English idiom, in a dictionary that runs the other way, eight years before an English sentence uses it [4].

1884. The Japan Weekly Mail, Yokohama, 24 May. On a lecture given in England: There is a Japanese proverb which says "Shiranu wa Hotoke," or ignorance is bliss. We trust for Mr. Pfoundes' sake that his English audiences may long be able to regard him as a Hotoke. The earliest known English sentence to use the proverb, and it uses the mocking sense: the lecturer is the Buddha, and the joke is at his expense. The paper writes wa for ga, the particle of the longer form 藤井 lists [5].

1888. James Curtis Hepburn, A Japanese-English and English-Japanese Dictionary, fourth edition, Z. P. Maruya, page 578, under SHIRANU. — wa hotoke (prov.), ignorance is bliss. Hepburn also writes wa, and gives the same English under MINU to 見ぬもの清し. The first Japanese-to-English dictionary to carry the proverb [19].

1896. Brinkley, An Unabridged Japanese-English Dictionary, Sanseidō, page 1293. Shiranu ga hotoke, 知ラヌが佛, ignorance is bliss, marked as a proverb [21].

1902. Basil Hall Chamberlain, Things Japanese, fourth edition, John Murray and Kelly & Walsh, page 395, the article Proverbs. Not to know is to be a Buddha. (Ignorance is bliss.) One of a few Japanese proverbs given in English, between Cows herd with cows, horses with horses and A man's heart and an autumn sky (are alike fickle). The first literal rendering in an English book, with the idiom in parentheses; the fifth edition of 1905 repeats it at page 399 [7].

1903. The Japan Weekly Mail, Yokohama, 30 May. Reviewing a play about old Japan: Possibly there is no field of achievement in which the proverbs "Where ignorance is bliss, 'tis folly to be wise" (Shiranu ga Hotoke), and "Hearing is paradise, seeing is hell," are more in point than in the fictional or theatrical representations of old Japan by those who see it only in transfiguration. Gray's whole line stands for the proverb, and the proverb is set beside its kin 聞いて極楽見て地獄 [31].

1904. The Japan Weekly Mail, Yokohama, 10 September. Translating a Japanese article on happiness: That ignorance is by some considered to be bliss is taught by our proverb Shiranu ga hotoke, "Not to know is to become a divinity." Many uneducated people fancy that Buddhism favours the suppression of the desire to know. A second literal rendering, with the Buddha turned into a divinity [32].

1904. Satow and Ishibashi, An English-Japanese Dictionary of the Spoken Language, third edition, edited by Hobart-Hampden and Parlett, Kelly & Walsh, under Bliss. ignorance is ——, shiranu ga hotoke, as in 1876 [25].

1907. Yamaguchi and Irie, A New Critical Japanese-English Dictionary, Shōbunkan, under Hotoke. Buddha; a dead man. 知らぬが佛, Ignorance is bliss. The proverb as the example under the noun, beside the sense a dead man [27].

1915. Saitō, Saito's Idiomological English-Japanese Dictionary, SEG Publishing Department, page 592, under Ignorance. Ignorance is bliss. 知らぬが佛. And under where: Where ignorance is bliss, 'tis folly to be wise. (事に依っては)知らぬが佛なら知るは愚, depending on the case: if not knowing is Buddha, knowing is folly. The only dictionary to render Gray's second half into Japanese [30].

1945. Henderson, Handbook of Japanese Grammar, under GA. In bungo ga has still another use, which perhaps should not be called that of a conjunction, as here it acts also as a substantivizing particle, and seems to mark the subject. Shiranu ga hotoke. Ignorance is bliss. Then: Presumably the original function of ga in such sentences was that of a conjunction, as the sentences can also be read: Not know (anything) but be Buddha. The proverb as a grammar's example of the particle, with a reading of ga as but [1].

1958. Okada, Japanese Proverbs and Proverbial Phrases, Japan Travel Bureau, page 145. Shiranu ga hotoke. Ignorance is Buddha-like lenience. You are as lenient and as merciful as Buddha, presumably because you know nothing objectionable about it. If you knew the fact, you would no doubt feel very sore about it. "He that knows nothing doubts nothing." "Ignorance is bliss." "What the eye doesn't see, the heart doesn't grieve over." The one English rendering that keeps the Buddha's own quality, the lenience 藤井 glossed as 慈悲忍辱 [8].

1965. Daniel Crump Buchanan, Japanese Proverbs and Sayings, University of Oklahoma Press, page 215. Shiranu ga Hotoke: "Ignorance is bliss." (Lit., "Not to know is Buddha-like.") That is to say, it is sometimes best for a man not to know about a scandalous affair, lest if he did he would be subject to ridicule. The first proverb book in English to reach the second sense: the scandal, and the ridicule [9].

1968. Corwin, A Dictionary of Japanese and English Idiomatic Equivalents, Kodansha International, page 148. Shiranu ga hotoke 知らぬが仏 Ignorance is bliss, marked on both sides as a proverb, P and PF [33].

1974. Kenkyusha's New Japanese-English Dictionary, fourth edition, page 494, under hotoke. 知らぬが仏. Ignorance is bliss. / The sweetest life is in knowing nothing. / What the eye sees not the heart rues not. And under shiru, page 1572: 知らぬが仏. Where ignorance is bliss, 'tis folly to be wise [34]. The fifth edition of the English-Japanese dictionary, 1980, under ignorance, glosses the idiom 知らないでいるうちは気が楽 and then gives the proverb in brackets, 「知らぬが仏」 [35].

2004. Edward Trimnell, Tigers, Devils, and Fools: A Guide to Japanese Proverbs, Beechmont Crest, page 130. Shiranu ga hotoke. "Ignorance is bliss." You can't worry or feel regret over the things that you don't know about. What you don't know can't hurt you. The first sense only, and no literal rendering [36].

Today. The house title, Not Knowing is Buddha, is the literal rendering, and the page gives ignorance is bliss as the idiom beside it, which is the right way round. What a rendering must keep: the Buddha, who is the whole picture; and room for the second sense, which no English idiom has, so a page has to say it in a sentence.

A reading

The proverb is old enough that in 1638 a haikai poet could pun on it with the name of a spring herb, and it has been on the し card of the Edo proverb karuta ever since, drawn as a stone Buddha with a dragonfly on its head. The mocking half is the one a Japanese speaker hears first today and heard on the kabuki stage in 1864: the smile at the one person in the room who does not know. English met that half first, in a Yokohama newspaper's joke of 1884, and then lost it for eighty years to ignorance is bliss, until Buchanan wrote the scandal and the ridicule back in.

References

  1. Henderson, Handbook of Japanese Grammar, Routledge, 1945, the entry GA, its bungo uses.
  2. 藤井乙男『諺語大辞典』, 有朋堂, 1910, 【知ラヌガ佛】【知ラヌハ佛、見ヌガ神】, pp. 528–529. National Diet Library pid 862766, scan 281. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/862766/1/281
  3. 『ABCびき日本辞典』, 1917. National Diet Library pid 958671, scan 1021. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/958671/1/1021
  4. Ernest Mason Satow and Ishibashi Masakata, An English-Japanese Dictionary of the Spoken Language, Trübner, London, 1876, s.v. Bliss.
  5. The Japan Weekly Mail, Yokohama, 24 May 1884. https://archive.org/details/jwm-bound-1884.1-6
  6. Thomas Gray, Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College, 1747, at English Wikisource. https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Ode_on_a_Distant_Prospect_of_Eton_College
  7. Basil Hall Chamberlain, Things Japanese: Being Notes on Various Subjects Connected with Japan, 4th ed., John Murray and Kelly & Walsh, 1902, the article Proverbs, p. 395; 5th ed., 1905, p. 399.
  8. Okada, Japanese Proverbs and Proverbial Phrases, Japan Travel Bureau, 1958, p. 145.
  9. Daniel Crump Buchanan, Japanese Proverbs and Sayings, University of Oklahoma Press, Norman, 1965, p. 215.
  10. David Galef, Even Monkeys Fall from Trees: The Wit and Wisdom of Japanese Proverbs, Tuttle, 1987; Even a Stone Buddha Can Talk, Tuttle, 2000.
  11. Guy Zona, Even Withered Trees Give Prosperity to the Mountain: And Other Proverbs of Japan, Simon and Schuster, New York, 1996.
  12. 「知ぬが仏」, 精選版 日本国語大辞典, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/知ぬが仏-2051502
  13. 『好色三代男』. National Diet Library pid 2544912, scan 9. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/2544912/1/9
  14. 『新色五巻書』, 1698. National Diet Library pid 2546490, scan 15. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/2546490/1/15
  15. 定延『世間用心記』. National Diet Library pid 2554736, scan 35, an undated Edo copy the library dates 1700. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/2554736/1/35 · The printing of 1773 (明和10), 菊屋七郎兵衛, pid 2567069, scan 15. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/2567069/1/15
  16. 「知らぬが仏」, ことわざを知る辞典, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/知らぬが仏-535942
  17. James Curtis Hepburn, 『和英語林集成』 A Japanese-English and English-Japanese Dictionary, 2nd ed., American Presbyterian Mission Press, 1872, s.v. MASHI. National Diet Library pid 993689. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/993689
  18. 『和訳英文熟語叢』, 1886. National Diet Library pid 903177, scan 379. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/903177/1/379
  19. James Curtis Hepburn, A Japanese-English and English-Japanese Dictionary, fourth edition, Z. P. Maruya, Tokyo, 1888, s.v. SHIRANU, p. 578, and s.v. MINU. Internet Archive japaneseenglishe00hepbuoft. https://archive.org/details/japaneseenglishe00hepbuoft
  20. 『和英英和語林集成』, 1894. National Diet Library pid 870191, scan 218. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/870191/1/218
  21. Brinkley, 『和英大辞典』 An Unabridged Japanese-English Dictionary, with Copious Illustrations, Sanseidō, 1896, s.v. Shiranu, p. 1293. National Diet Library pid 903159. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/903159
  22. 『英和実用会話独修』, 1897. National Diet Library pid 871361, scan 173. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/871361/1/173
  23. 『和英会話辞書』, 1902. National Diet Library pid 870192, scan 257. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/870192/1/257
  24. 『和英中辞林 : 会話作文』, 1904. National Diet Library pid 870208, scan 188. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/870208/1/188
  25. Ernest Mason Satow and Ishibashi Masakata, An English-Japanese Dictionary of the Spoken Language, 3rd ed., edited by E. M. Hobart-Hampden and Harold G. Parlett, Kelly & Walsh, Yokohama, 1904, s.v. Bliss. https://archive.org/details/englishjapanesed00satouoft
  26. 『実用和英新辞典』, 1906. National Diet Library pid 903029. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/903029
  27. Yamaguchi Miki and Irie, A New Critical Japanese-English Dictionary, Shōbunkan, Tokyo, 1907, s.v. Hotoke. https://archive.org/details/anewcriticaljap00iriegoog
  28. 『和英新辞典 : 註解』, 1907. National Diet Library pid 903157. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/903157 · 『和英新辞典 : 会話作文』, 1908, pid 903158. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/903158
  29. Inouye, Inouye's Comprehensive Japanese-English Dictionary, Sanseidō, 1909, the entry at the proverb.
  30. Saitō, Saito's Idiomological English-Japanese Dictionary, SEG Publishing Department, 1915, s.v. Ignorance, p. 592, and s.v. Where.
  31. The Japan Weekly Mail, Yokohama, 30 May 1903. https://archive.org/details/jwm-bound-1903.1-6
  32. The Japan Weekly Mail, Yokohama, 10 September 1904. https://archive.org/details/jwm-bound-1904.7-12
  33. Corwin, A Dictionary of Japanese and English Idiomatic Equivalents, Kodansha International, 1968, p. 148.
  34. Kenkyusha's New Japanese-English Dictionary 『新和英大辞典』, 4th ed., Kenkyūsha, 1974, s.v. hotoke, p. 494, and s.v. shiru, p. 1572.
  35. Kenkyusha's New English-Japanese Dictionary, 5th ed., Kenkyūsha, 1980, s.v. ignorance, p. 884.
  36. Edward E. Trimnell, Tigers, Devils, and Fools: A Guide to Japanese Proverbs, Beechmont Crest Publishing, 2004, p. 130.

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