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灯台下暗し tōdai moto kurashi It Is Darkest at the Foot of the Lamp

Japanese Scroll of It Is Darkest at the Foot of the Lamp (tōdai moto kurashi) — Calligraphy by Eri Takase
灯台下暗し Original Scroll by Master Calligrapher Eri Takase

Abstract

灯台下暗し tōdai moto kurashi, it is darkest at the foot of the lamp, is a Japanese proverb, what is nearest is hardest to see, and its 灯台 is the old lamp-stand of a room, an oil dish on a wooden stand whose own foot lies in shadow; the word took the sense lighthouse only with the Western lighthouses of the late 1860s [1][2][3]. The saying is in writing by the sixteenth century: it is cited as a known saying, with no speaker named, in records of the sayings of the circle of the Shin Buddhist reformer Rennyo 蓮如, the oldest dated copy read that carries it being the fair copy of such a record made by his son Jitsugo 実悟 in 1580; the first secular use read is in a book of essays its author dated 1636, and the proverb lists have it from the 1638 preface of 毛吹草 on [4][5][6][7][8]. Two Edo books set it beside one Song Chinese passage on seeking far what is near, 井沢長秀's of 1715 and the Confucian Muro Kyūsō 室鳩巣's of 1732, where his pupils bring it and Kyūsō reads a good sense into the proverb as well, while granting that its true sense is the bad one; in English it was the bottom of the candlestick is dark in 1872, and the lighthouse first appears in 1908 [9][10][11][12][13]. The history reads the lamp-stand, and the darkness that the light itself makes: those nearest a good know it least.

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Overview

The sense. デジタル大辞泉 gives 灯台下暗し as 灯台1 のすぐ下は暗いところから、身近な事情はかえってわかりにくいたとえ, because it is dark just below a lamp-stand: a figure for how the matters closest to one are, if anything, the harder to make out, with 魚の目に水見えず, a fish's eye does not see the water, as a related saying [1]. 精選版 日本国語大辞典 (the 日国) enters it under 灯台 as 下(もと)=暗し, 身近な事情にうといこと、身近な事は案外わかりにくいものであるというたとえ, being ignorant of what is close at hand, and gives as its first instance 「灯台(トウダイ)もとくらし」 in 毛吹草 of 1638 [1]. ことわざを知る辞典 says that the 灯台 is not the lighthouse on a cape but the indoor lighting implement that once burned rapeseed oil, that the proverb was in use from the sixteenth century while the first Western-style lighthouse was finished in 1869, and that which is the original meaning is clear; it names no sixteenth-century witness [1]. JMdict, the free Japanese–English dictionary, glosses it it is darkest under the lamp post; it's hard to see what is under your nose; go abroad to hear of home [2].

The words. 灯台 (燈臺) tōdai has two senses in the 日国: ① an indoor lamp of old, made of wood, shaped like a candle-stand, with an oil dish set on top, first instance the 延喜式 of 927; ② a lighthouse, first instance 1869–71 [3]. JMdict gives both, lighthouse first [2]. 下 is read moto, the foot or base, as the 日国's heading 下(もと) has it, and as the old witnesses show by writing もと, 元 or 本 in its place (§ Forms) [1]. 暗し kurashi is the classical form of dark, is dark.

Forms. The witnesses write the saying in more than one way: 燈臺もとくらし in 実悟's record as 稲葉昌丸 prints it, in 可笑記, in 毛吹草 and in 本朝俚諺; 燈臺モトクラシ in the 1919 edition of the 一期記; 灯臺もとくらし, with the short 灯, in 世話尽 of 1656; 燈臺元くらし in 西鶴's book of 1692; 燈臺もと暗し in the 1750 print of 駿台雑話; 燈臺本クラシ in a commentary of 1908 and 燈臺本暗シ in Brinkley's dictionary of 1896 [4][14][6][7][9][8][15][11][16][17]. Today's dictionaries write 灯台下暗し, and JMdict also 灯台もと暗し [1][2].

The historical record

The lamp-stand

The 灯台 of the proverb is a thing in the room. The 日国 defines it as an indoor lamp of wood with an oil dish on top [3]. The ニッポニカ's entry on the lamp-stand gives its height as about three 尺 two 寸 and says that the tall kind was called 高灯台 or 長檠 and the low kind 切灯台 or 短檠 [3]. In 毛吹草, the book of 1638 that lists the proverb, 燈臺 also appears among the words of a poet's linking list beside a child and a brush-rest (童、筆架、燈臺), and as 木灯臺, a wooden lamp-stand, in a hokku (をのつから火ともす花や木灯臺), in the typeset of 1943 [18]. In the chapter of 1732 on the proverb, the teacher points at a 燭臺, a candle-stand in the room, as he names it, and the 1750 print marks the two words apart by their readings, しよくだい and とうだい [11].

The lighthouse is later. The 日国's first instance of 灯台 ② is 村田文夫's 『西洋聞見録』, 1869–71, a book describing the West: 険処に於て壮麗なる燈台を建て〈略〉航海客の標的となす, on dangerous coasts they build splendid lighthouses … as marks for those at sea [3]. The encyclopedias date the lighting of 観音埼, the first Western-style lighthouse in Japan, to 1869, and the ニッポニカ calls the earlier coastal beacons 灯籠式油灯明台, lantern-style oil lamps [3]. In every witness read here from before 1869, 燈臺 or 灯臺 is the lamp-stand.

A saying among Rennyo's circle

The oldest text read that carries the words is a record of the sayings of Rennyo 蓮如 (1415–1499) and his circle, the reformer of the Shin Buddhist Hongan-ji, set down by his son Jitsugo 実悟 [4][19][20]. In the record that the scholar 稲葉昌丸 calls 『實悟舊記』, Jitsugo's old record, item 63 reads, in 稲葉's edition of 1928, at the page:

とをきはちかき道理。近きは遠き道理なり。燈臺もとくらしとて。佛法を不斷聽聞申ス身は。御用をあびきて。いつものことと思て。法義にをろそかなり。遠々の人は佛法にうとく候て。きゝたく大切にもとむる心あるなり。佛法は大切にもとむる心よりきくものなり。

There is a reason by which the far is near, and a reason by which the near is far. As they say, it is dark at the foot of the lamp-stand: those who hear the Dharma all the time … think of it as an everyday thing and grow careless of the teaching. People from far away, strangers to the Dharma, have a heart that longs to hear it and seeks it as precious. The Dharma is heard from a heart that seeks it as precious [4]. The words 燈臺もとくらしとて, as they say, it is dark at the foot of the lamp-stand, cite the proverb as something already said. No speaker is named: the item carries no the master said (仰られ候), as many of the record's items do [4].

稲葉 dates that record before 1531 [21]. His reasoning is in his study of the records [22]: Jitsugo wrote in 1574 that the record of these sayings he had made earlier was all lost in the Kyōroku disturbance, that part of it had come back to him, and that he had written it in again (右此條々者、蓮如上人御時之儀、宿老衆兄弟中各御物語儀等先年注置處、享祿亂皆失畢 … 天正二年甲戌十一月三日書納之); 稲葉 judges that a complete copy of the earlier record survived and was transcribed in the 享保 years (1716–36), and that the item stands in it [22]. 梅原真隆, in the commentary of 1959, follows the same account, dating the disturbance to 1531, and renders the item: 世間の諺にも「燈台もとくらし」とあるように, as the proverb of the world has it [23]. These are one line of scholarship, and the year before 1531 is an inference, not a date written on the text.

The same item is in two more records by 稲葉's concordance: as item 19 of 『蓮如上人御物語次第』, forty items gathered by someone close to Rengo 蓮悟, another of Rennyo's sons, and as item 37 of 『蓮如上人一期記』, the record of Rennyo's life, Jitsugo's own compilation [4][5][20]. The 一期記 is the oldest dated copy read that carries the line. 稲葉 reports that its original is in the treasury of the Ōtani-ha Hongan-ji, and that it ends with the note 天正八年九月中旬清書之, fair-copied in the middle ten days of the ninth month of 天正 8, 1580 [5]. The 1919 edition, which says that it prints the book as the original has it (本書は原本のまゝ) and that its editors take the original to be in Jitsugo's own hand, gives item 37 as 遠キハ近ク近キハ遠キ道理アリ、燈臺モトクラシトテ、イツモ佛法ヲ不斷ニ聽聞ス… [14]. The colophon is also quoted in a history of the Hongan-ji of 1961, a collection of Shin sources of 1977 and a survey of 1989, each in search windows only [24][25][26]. They report one colophon; the original itself has not been seen for this history. Jitsugo, Rennyo's tenth son by Japanese Wikipedia, lived from 1492 to 1584 [20][14].

A manuscript of 316 articles, 『蓮如上人御物語聞書』, with a copying note of 天正13 (1585), is reported by 稲葉 at second hand, from the lectures of the Edo scholar 深励, and was not seen by him [27]. The later collection 『蓮如上人御一代記聞書』 carries it as its article 129; 梅原 takes its editor to have been, probably, Jitsugo's son 顕悟 [16][23].

In writing and in print, 1636 to 1656

1636, 可笑記. The first secular use read is in 如儡子's book of essays 『可笑記』, book two, at the leaf of the print of 1642 [6]. The writer weighs the people of Kyoto, who have the court poets, the Five Mountains and the masters of linked verse at hand yet of whom hardly one in a hundred has any skill, against the samurai of the east, of whom seventy or eighty in a hundred know something, and asks: 但又燈臺もとくらしといへる本の語にもとづき給ふか, or is it, after all, that you rest on the original words, "it is dark at the foot of the lamp-stand"? [6]. The text ends with its author's date, 寛永十三 孟陽中澣, the middle ten days of the first month of 1636, written at Edo, and the print's colophon reads 寛永壬午季秋吉旦刊行, the ninth month of 1642 [6]. The author's dates divide between dictionaries, and none is given here [28]. The saying is again old words here, and again those nearest the source of a good know least of it.

1638, 毛吹草. 松江重頼's handbook for haikai poets lists the proverb among the common sayings of its second book [7]. A copy in the University of Tokyo library, a later impression of the edition whose preface is dated 寛永15 (1638), writes it 燈臺もとくらし, with 燈臺 in kanji and the reading とうだい beside it, after even sleeves brushing in passing are a bond from another life and before the broom-tree, seen only from afar, among sayings of fate, kinship and nearness [7]. The 日国 and デジタル大辞泉 date the print to 正保2 (1645) [29]. This is the 日国's first instance; the uses above are older.

1656, 世話尽. The proverb list 『世話尽』 of 皆虚, printed in 明暦2 (1656), has it in its list of sayings in iroha order, written 灯臺もとくらし, with the short form 灯 [8].

Uses, 1692 and after

1692, Saikaku. In the third book of 井原西鶴 (1642–1693)'s 『世間胸算用』, in a chapter set in Sakai, the town sends its fine sea bream up to Kyoto and makes do with shore fish though the sea is at its door; then: 惣じての事燈臺元くらし, in all things, it is dark at the foot of the lamp-stand [15][30]. The print writes 元, and every typeset of the passage read does the same [15]. 鈴木敏也, in his annotated edition of 1934, notes that the proverb points both at the fish and at what follows, the god of the year's luck, who walks into a showy merchant's house on New Year's Eve without knowing what awaits him there [31].

Kaibara Ekiken. A letter of 貝原益軒 (1630–1714), in a search window of his collected works, uses it of a lord: 世話に燈臺本くらしと申如く、上より下を御存被成候事は、暗く御座候て, as the saying has it, it is dark at the foot of the lamp-stand: for those above, knowing the lives of those below is a dark matter [32]. The letter's date has not been read.

The scholars: a Song passage, and a good sense

1715, 井沢長秀. The first commentary read is in 井沢長秀 (1668–1731)'s 『本朝俚諺』, a book of Japanese proverbs, book two, part one, at the leaf [9][33]: 燈臺もとくらし　これハ道ハちかきにあり、とをきにもとむとあるがごとし, this is like the saying, the Way is near, and one seeks it far, and then a poem, 鶴林玉露 尼悟道詩　盡日尋春不見春。芒鞋踏遍隴頭雲。歸來笑撚梅花嗅。春在枝頭已十分。これ諺の意にひとし, the nun's poem of awakening in the 鶴林玉露: all day I looked for spring and did not see it; my straw sandals trod the clouds on every ridge; I came home, laughed, took a plum blossom and smelt it; spring was on the branch tips, already full. This is the same as the proverb [9].

Both pieces come from one short article of the 鶴林玉露 of 羅大經, a Song Chinese book of 1248–52 [10][34][35]. Under the heading 道不遠人, the Way is not far from man, he writes: 子曰道不遠人孟子曰道在迩而求諸遠有尼悟道詩云盡日尋春不見春芒鞵蹈遍隴頭雲歸來笑撚梅花嗅春在枝頭已十分亦脱灑可喜, Confucius said, the Way is not far from man; Mencius said, the Way is near, and one seeks it far. There is a nun's poem of awakening … This too is free and delightful [10]. 孟子's line is in the 離婁上 chapter: 道在邇，而求諸遠；事在易，而求諸難, the Way is near and one seeks it far; the task is easy and one seeks it in the hard [36]. 井沢 names the book for the poem, and the maxim he sets before it stands in the same short passage.

1732, 室鳩巣. The Confucian scholar Muro Kyūsō 室鳩巣 (1658–1734) wrote a whole chapter on the proverb in 『駿台雑話』, a book of his talks with his pupils, written in 1732 and printed after his death, in 1750 [11][37]. The chapter is titled 燈臺もと暗し, and in the 1750 print it fills scans 3 to 9 of book four [11]. On a summer evening, as the lights are brought, the old man points at a candle-stand and asks his pupils what the proverb means. They answer in turn: Mencius's the Way is near and one seeks it far; the archer who sees only his target; the nun's poem from the 鶴林玉露; the general 桓温 who did not see the worth of 王猛 at his side; Oda Nobunaga and Akechi [11]. Then he turns: 但各の申さるゝは、いづれも燈臺もと暗しを、あしきかたにたとへらるゝにて候。翁は又此諺をよろしき方にとりなして聞侍る。又一種の道理もあるべきにや, but each of you has taken the proverb in a bad sense. I hear it, rather, in a good one; there may be another kind of reason in it [11]. He gives Han Yu 韓愈 (768–824)'s couplet on the lamp-stand, 長檠八尺空自長、短檠二尺便且光, the tall stand, eight feet, is tall for nothing; the short stand, two feet, is handy and bright: a tall stand is dark at its foot and a short one bright, and so a light that reaches far leaves its own foot in shadow; he goes on to the 易 and to the line 君子之道闇然而日章, the way of the gentleman is hidden and grows brighter by the day [11][38][39]. He ends by granting the pupils the point: 但此諺の正意は各のいへるごとく成べし。翁がいへるをば姑く一說にそなへ給へかし, but the proverb's true sense must be as you all said; take what I have said as one more view, for now [11]. Every typeset of the chapter read agrees with the print on these words [40].

In Han Yu's poem the short stand is the poor student's faithful light, and the tall one is set up to show off jewels once he is rich; 鳩巣 takes only the couplet's picture, the tall stand dark at its foot, not the poem's moral [38]. Two chapters further on, in the same book, he says that a ruler's discernment should be like a candle-stand and not like a hand-held taper, but he does not name the proverb there [11].

1908, 吉谷覚寿. A commentator on the 御一代記聞書, 吉谷覚寿 (1842–1914), at the leaf, reads the article as two sayings: far is near from the lists of the 枕草子, and 燈臺本クラシ, for whose 本 he cites the 禮記: 燈臺本クラシト云言ハ禮記曲禮上ニ燭不見跋トアリ鄭玄ノ註ニ跋ハ本也トアリ, for the saying tōdai moto kurashi, the 禮記 has 燭不見跋, and 鄭玄's note says 跋 is 本, the base [16]. In the 禮記 the line is a rule of manners for a guest: one rises when the torch is brought, and does not stay until its butt shows [41]. 吉谷 uses it for the word 本, not for the proverb's sense.

1929, 藤井乙男. The scholar of proverbs 藤井乙男, in 『諺の研究』 (1929; the 1938 edition read), prints the 毛吹草's list of sayings, and beside this one, at the page, a Chinese parallel from 『傳家寶』, 燈臺照人不照己, the lamp-stand lights others and not itself; his introduction names 鳩巣's chapter as an exposition of the proverb's meaning (text layer) [42].

Chinese sayings beside it

The words of 藤井's parallel are older than his source. 顧起元's 『客座贅語』, with a preface of 1617, lists among the common sayings of the streets of Nanjing 燈臺照人不照己, the lamp-stand lights others and not itself, as coarse words with a truth in them [43]. 石成金's 『傳家寶』 has prefaces of 1707 and 1739, after 毛吹草 and 世話尽 [44]. ことわざを知る辞典 prints a different Chinese saying, 丈八灯台、照遠不照近, an eighteen-foot lamp-stand lights the far and not the near [1]; it was not found as printed in what was searched (§ Notes). The Chinese saying of 1617 and the Japanese saying share the object and a related thought, in different words. No source read says that the Japanese came from the Chinese, and this history does not.

The saying in English

1872, a candlestick. The earliest English read is in The Phœnix, a London monthly on Asia, in August 1872, in an addition to a list of Japanese proverbs that the magazine had been printing, the addition credited to Mr. John O'Neill and with the help of some Japanese friends: (70) To-dai moto kurashi. The bottom of the candlestick is dark. This is like "The nearer the church, the farther from grace." [12]. Hepburn's dictionary of the same year enters it under the lamp-stand: TŌ-DAI, トウダイ, 燈臺, n. A lamp-stand, candle-stick. — moto kurashi (prov.); his first edition of 1867 has the word as A lamp and no proverb [45][46]. Eden in 1877 gives the Phœnix's rendering and its English parallel, The nearer the church, the farther from God, and Dixon in 1882 At the foot of the lamp it is dark (both in text-layer windows) [47][48].

1893, the chapter in English. George William Knox translated 鳩巣's chapter in a paper printed in the Transactions of the Asiatic Society of Japan in 1893, after he had read extracts from it to the Society in January 1892: Dark is the Foot of the Candlestick, the old man pointing to the candles, the pupils' Mencius and the nun's poem, and the old man's turn to Han Yu's short lamp-stand, victor in giving light [49]. He took 尼悟道詩, a nun's poem of awakening, for the verse of the nun Godo, and his note on Radaikyō, 羅大經, the 鶴林玉露's author, reads A Buddhist priest said to be of India (?) [49].

Lamps and candles, 1896 to 1913. Brinkley's dictionary of 1896, under the adjective kurashi: Tōdai moto kurashi, 燈臺本暗シ, then, marked in square brackets as literal, it is dark at the base of the lamp (signifying that a person is often ignorant of accidents occurring in his very neighborhood) [17]. A play of 1902 set in Japan, The Darling of the Gods, has Do you know the proverb: "The darkest place is just beneath the candlestick"?, as a dictionary of proverbs of 1948 quotes it [50]. Chamberlain's handbook of colloquial Japanese, in its edition of 1907, has The foot of the lamp is dark, glossed one has to go abroad to get news of home (window) [51]. Arthur Lloyd in 1909 gives The darkest place in the room is just at the foot of the candlestick (window), and Harrison in 1913 It is darkest beneath the candlestick [52][53].

1908, a lighthouse. The lighthouse first appears, in what was read, in a paper of Galen M. Fisher on the scholar Nakae Tōju, in the Transactions of 1908: the villagers near the sage's school knew little of him, a modern instance of the old proverb, "Tōdai moto kurashi. It's darkest at the foot of the light-house." [13]. A book of 1915 has the darkest place is at the base of the lighthouse, a translation of 1918 the foot of the beacon is dark, and a book of 1922 At the foot of the lighthouse it is dark [54][55][56]. The scholar 藤井乙男, under the name Otoo Huzii, gives Dark below the lighthouse as the literal translation in the government's Tourist Library of 1940, with the candle does not give light to itself and just below the candlestick is the darkest place of all as English equivalents [57]. The lighthouse came into English about forty years after 灯台 took that sense in Japanese, and for decades the two renderings lived side by side: a guide of 1958 has a lighthouse, a dictionary of 1968 a candle [58][59]. The popular books of Japanese proverbs read here, from 1996 to 2012, give the lighthouse alone [60][61][62][63].

What is not a source, and what is not claimed

A reading

I read the 灯台 as the lamp-stand of the room, and the darkness at its foot as one that the light itself makes. The stand throws its light round the room, and its own base lies in the shadow of the dish above it: what is closest to the source of light is the one place the light does not reach. That is the sense of the two oldest uses read. In the Shin record those who hear the Dharma all the time grow careless of it, while strangers from far away long for it [4]; in 可笑記 the Kyoto people who live beside the poets and the temples know least of learning [6]. Neither use is about a thing mislaid nearby. Both are about people who stand nearest a good and see least of it because they stand so near. Saikaku's fish and his god of the year carry the same turn: the sea at the door, and the luck one does not see coming [15][31]. The Edo scholars widened it toward Mencius's Way that is near and sought far [9][11], which is a kindred thought and a gentler one, since it blames the seeker's looking rather than his nearness.

鳩巣's good sense is a reading the words can bear, and he offered it himself only as one more view, granting the bad sense as the true one [11]. I hold it beside the old sense and do not take it. The lighthouse is the reading the words could not bear before 1869, and in Japanese it is a mistake about the object; but the picture works the same way, and English has carried it since 1908, so a reader who sees a lighthouse sees the same truth with a newer lamp [3][13]. On a scroll the words say what they said in 1580: the foot of the lamp is dark, and the dark is the lamp's own. Signed, 典.

Notes

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Japanese Scrolls by Master Calligrapher Eri Takase

Japanese Scroll of It Is Darkest at the Foot of the Lamp (tōdai moto kurashi) in a block font by Master Japanese Calligrapher Eri Takase
灯台下暗しVB5JBlock
Japanese Scroll of It Is Darkest at the Foot of the Lamp (tōdai moto kurashi) in a cursive font by Master Japanese Calligrapher Eri Takase
灯台下暗しVC5JCursive
Japanese Scroll of It Is Darkest at the Foot of the Lamp (tōdai moto kurashi) in Master Japanese Calligrapher Eri Takase's own style (Eri's Choice)
灯台下暗しVD5JEri's Choice
Japanese Scroll of It Is Darkest at the Foot of the Lamp (tōdai moto kurashi) in a semi-cursive font by Master Japanese Calligrapher Eri Takase
灯台下暗しVS5JSemi-Cursive

Sources not seen

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

References

  1. 「灯台下暗し」, デジタル大辞泉, 精選版 日本国語大辞典 and ことわざを知る辞典, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/灯台下暗し-580848
  2. JMdict, entries 1448740 (灯台下暗し・灯台もと暗し) and 1448730 (灯台・燈台), in the local copy of the dictionary used by gokanji.com.
  3. 「灯台」, 精選版 日本国語大辞典, デジタル大辞泉 and 日本大百科全書 (ニッポニカ; the lamp-stand entry by 倉石忠彦, the lighthouse entry by 川本文彦), at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/灯台-103858
  4. 稲葉昌丸, 『蓮如上人行実』, 1928, 『實悟舊記』 item 六三, p. 86, with the concordance line, National Diet Library pid 1226826, scan 56. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1226826/1/56
  5. 稲葉昌丸, 『蓮如上人行実』, 1928, the list of the records, pp. 390–391 (『實悟舊記』 and 『蓮如上人一期記』, its colophon 天正八年九月中旬清書之), National Diet Library pid 1226826, scan 208. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1226826/1/208
  6. 如儡子, 『可笑記』, a print of 寛永19 (1642), 大阪公立大学中百舌鳥図書館, 巻二, canvas 115 (the passage), and canvases 325–326 (the author's date line and the colophon), at the 国書データベース. https://kokusho.nijl.ac.jp/biblio/100097675/115
  7. 松江重頼, 『毛吹草』, a later impression of the edition with the preface of 寛永15 (1638), 東京大学総合図書館, 巻二, canvas 79, at the 国書データベース. https://kokusho.nijl.ac.jp/biblio/100419933/79
  8. 皆虚, 『世話尽』, a print of 明暦2 (1656), 筑波大学附属図書館, 曳言之話, canvas 54, at the 国書データベース. https://kokusho.nijl.ac.jp/biblio/100000828/54
  9. 井沢長秀, 『本朝俚諺』, a print of 正徳5 (1715), 東京藝術大学附属図書館, 巻二上, canvases 63–64, at the 国書データベース. https://kokusho.nijl.ac.jp/biblio/100378459/63
  10. 羅大經, 『新刊鶴林玉露』 三集 卷六, the article 道不遠人, 内閣文庫, frame 50, at the 国立公文書館 digital archive. https://www.digital.archives.go.jp/item/3743911
  11. 室鳩巣, 『駿台雑話』 巻四, the chapter 「燈臺もと暗し」 (scans 3–9) and the chapter 「法は江河のごとし」 (scan 12), a print of 寛延3 (1750), National Diet Library pid 2559323. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/2559323/1/4
  12. John O'Neill (the addition credited to him), "Japanese Proverbs", The Phœnix: A Monthly Magazine for India, Burma, Siam, China, Japan & Eastern Asia, edited by the Rev. James Summers, London, vol. III, no. 26, August 1872, p. 30 (the credit) and p. 31, item (70), at the Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/the-phoenix-a-monthly-magazine-for-india-burma-siam-china-japan-eastern-asia-vol-iii-1872-1873
  13. Galen M. Fisher, "The Life and Teaching of Nakae Tōju, the Sage of Ōmi", Transactions of the Asiatic Society of Japan, 1908, p. 47, at the Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/transactionsasi11japagoog
  14. 実悟 編, 『蓮如上人一期記 : 附・拾塵記』, 仏教史学会 編, 1919, item 卅七 and the front matter (search windows only), National Diet Library pid 1183621. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1183621
  15. 井原西鶴, 『世間胸算用』, a print of 元禄5 (1692), 巻三, National Diet Library pid 2534240, scan 64. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/2534240/1/64
  16. 吉谷覚寿, 『蓮如上人御一代記聞書略述』, 1908, on article 129, National Diet Library pid 822757, scan 122. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/822757/1/122
  17. F. Brinkley, An Unabridged Japanese-English Dictionary, 1896, p. 792, Kurashi, at the Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/cu31924082117288
  18. 松江重頼, 『毛吹草』, 岩波文庫, 1943 (search windows only), National Diet Library pid 1128297. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1128297
  19. 「蓮如」, 日本大百科全書 (ニッポニカ) and other entries, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/蓮如-152224
  20. 「実悟」, Japanese Wikipedia (Rennyo's tenth son; 1492–1584). https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/実悟
  21. 稲葉昌丸, 『蓮如上人行実』, 1928, the head note to 『實悟舊記』, p. 70, National Diet Library pid 1226826, scan 48. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1226826/1/48
  22. 稲葉昌丸, 『蓮如上人行実』, 1928, 「蓮如上人御一代聞書類の研究」, pp. 358–359, National Diet Library pid 1226826, scan 192. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1226826/1/192
  23. 梅原真隆 訳註, 『蓮如上人御一代記聞書 : 附現代語訳』, 1959, the rendering and the 解説 「御一代記聞書の成立と編者」 (search windows only), National Diet Library pid 2966578. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/2966578
  24. 『本願寺史』, 1961 (search windows only), National Diet Library pid 3004627. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/3004627
  25. 『真宗史料集成』, 1977 (search windows only), National Diet Library pid 12268772. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/12268772
  26. 『親鸞大系』, 1989 (search windows only), National Diet Library pid 14039485. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/14039485
  27. 稲葉昌丸, 『蓮如上人行実』, 1928, p. 374, on the manuscript reported by 深励, National Diet Library pid 1226826, scan 200. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1226826/1/200
  28. 「如儡子」, デジタル大辞泉 and 精選版 日本国語大辞典, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/如儡子-110690
  29. 「毛吹草」, デジタル大辞泉 and 精選版 日本国語大辞典, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/毛吹草-490969
  30. 「井原西鶴」, デジタル大辞泉, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/井原西鶴-15480
  31. 鈴木敏也 校註, 『世間胸算用 : 新註』, 1934, p. 60 and note 一四, p. 61, National Diet Library pid 1028256, scan 38. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1028256/1/38
  32. 貝原益軒, a letter, in 『益軒全集』, 1911 (search window only), National Diet Library pid 992412. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/992412
  33. 「井沢蟠竜」, デジタル版 日本人名大辞典+Plus, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/井沢蟠竜-1052851
  34. 「鶴林玉露」, デジタル大辞泉 and 精選版 日本国語大辞典, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/鶴林玉露-43874
  35. 羅大經, 『鶴林玉露』, 丙編 卷六, at Chinese Wikisource. https://zh.wikisource.org/wiki/鶴林玉露/丙編/卷六
  36. 『孟子』, 離婁上, at Chinese Wikisource. https://zh.wikisource.org/wiki/孟子/離婁上
  37. 「駿台雑話」, 精選版 日本国語大辞典, デジタル大辞泉, 世界大百科事典, マイペディア and 日本大百科全書, at kotobank; and 「室鳩巣」, デジタル大辞泉. https://kotobank.jp/word/駿台雑話-85423
  38. 韓愈, 「短燈檠歌」, 『全唐詩』 卷340, at Chinese Wikisource. https://zh.wikisource.org/wiki/全唐詩/卷340
  39. 「韓愈」, デジタル大辞泉, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/韓愈-49712
  40. 室鳩巣, 『駿台雑話』, in 『日本倫理彙編』, 1902, one of the typesets read in search windows, National Diet Library pid 1913309. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1913309
  41. 『禮記』, 曲禮上, at Chinese Wikisource. https://zh.wikisource.org/wiki/禮記/曲禮上
  42. 藤井乙男, 『諺の研究』, the 1938 edition, p. 295 (the parallel from 傳家寶; scan 156) and the introduction naming 室鳩巣's chapter (scan 12), National Diet Library pid 1453442. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1453442/1/156
  43. 顧起元, 『客座贅語』 卷一, 「諺語」, preface of 萬曆丁巳 (1617), at Chinese Wikisource. https://zh.wikisource.org/wiki/客座贅語/01
  44. 石成金, 『傳家寶』, the prefaces 「傳家寶全集序」 (1707) and 「重刻傳家寶俚言自叙」 (1739), at Chinese Wikisource. https://zh.wikisource.org/wiki/傳家寶
  45. J. C. Hepburn, A Japanese and English Dictionary, 1867, p. 473, TŌ-DAI, at the Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/japaneseenglishd00hepb
  46. J. C. Hepburn, A Japanese-English and English-Japanese Dictionary, 1872, p. 542, TŌ-DAI, at the Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/japaneseenglishe00hepb_0
  47. Charles H. Eden, Japan, Historical and Descriptive, 1877, p. 292 (text-layer window), at the Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/japanhistoricald00eden
  48. William Gray Dixon, The Land of the Morning, 1882 (text-layer window), at the Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/landmorninganac00dixogoog
  49. George William Knox, "A Japanese Philosopher", Transactions of the Asiatic Society of Japan, vol. XX, Yokohama, 1893 (the minutes of the meeting of 20 January 1892, in the same volume), Book IV, "Dark is the Foot of the Candlestick", pp. 113–114, at the Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/transactionsasi28japagoog
  50. Burton Stevenson, The Home Book of Proverbs, Maxims and Familiar Phrases, Macmillan, 1948, p. 486, Darkness no. 8, quoting Belasco and Long, The Darling of the Gods, Act iii (1902) (at the printed page in the library's copy).
  51. Basil Hall Chamberlain, A Handbook of Colloquial Japanese, the edition of 1907 (text-layer window), at the Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/hand00bookofcolloqchamrich
  52. Arthur Lloyd, Every-day Japan, 1909 (text-layer window), at the Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/everydayjapanwri00lloyuoft
  53. E. J. Harrison, The Fighting Spirit of Japan, 1913, p. 215, at the Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/india.history.resource.91404
  54. Lindsay Russell, ed., America to Japan, 1915 (text-layer window), at the Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/americatojapan00russrich
  55. Setsuko Koizumi, Reminiscences of Lafcadio Hearn, translated by Paul Kiyoshi Hisada and Frederick Johnson, Boston, 1918, Introduction, p. viii, at the Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/cu31924022054757
  56. J. W. Robertson Scott, The Foundations of Japan, 1922 (text-layer window), at the Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/cu31924023222320
  57. Otoo Huzii, Japanese Proverbs, Tourist Library 33, Board of Tourist Industry, Japanese Government Railways, 1940, p. 70 (the library's copy).
  58. Rokuo Okada, Japanese Proverbs and Proverbial Phrases, Japan Travel Bureau, 1958 (text layer of the library's copy).
  59. Kenkyusha's New School Japanese-English Dictionary, 1968, tōdai (text layer of the library's copy).
  60. Guy A. Zona, Even Withered Trees Give Prosperity to the Mountain, Simon & Schuster, 1996 (text layer of the library's copy).
  61. David Galef, Even a Stone Buddha Can Talk, Tuttle, 2000, no. 49 (text layer of the library's copy).
  62. David Galef, Japanese Proverbs, Tuttle, 2012, no. 149, 燈台下暗し (text layer of the library's copy).
  63. Edward Trimnell, Tigers, Devils, and Fools, Beechmont Crest, 2004, 灯台下暗し (text layer of the library's copy).
  64. 「かるた」, § 古典的ないろはかるた, Japanese Wikipedia. https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/かるた

Authors

Tim Jackowski (Systems Architect, Takase Studios, LLC) · 典 Ten (Anthropic Claude Opus 5.5, Takase Studios, LLC)

AI written · Ten wrote the history. Tim Jackowski commissioned it and answers for it.

Checked · Takase Studios (an address check by script), 2026-10-30, citations — every reference with a web address opened where a script could open it and the quoted words looked for at each; the one row that differed was the text layer's misreading of a 1938 page, and the page image reads as the history quotes it; the leaves a script could not open were opened in the reading by eye, and one quotation's punctuation was corrected there (Brinkley's dictionary marks its literal gloss in square brackets); the items readable only in Japan or at the National Diet Library could be read only in its search windows, and the history says so · two fresh-context readers (Claude), 2026-10-30, every claim in the page's summary block traced to its source, claim by claim: both passed it in the first round, with wordings scoped to what was read (1638 is the date of 毛吹草's preface, not a print; the 1580 copy is the 一期記; the lighthouse is the earliest read in 1908); in the body, the lighting of the first Western lighthouse is given by year, since the encyclopedia's 1 January is the old calendar's, 可笑記's 本の語 is rendered the original words, and O'Neill's credit is cited at its page, p. 30

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

Cite as: Tim Jackowski and Ten, "Philology of 灯台下暗し (tōdai moto kurashi)," Takase Studios, 2026, https://takase.com/library/philology/todai-moto-kurashi.