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和を以て貴しと為す wa o motte tōtoshi to nasu Harmony Is to Be Prized

和を以て貴しと為す (wa o motte tōtoshi to nasu) means: hold harmony precious. It opens the code the chronicle of 720 gives to Prince Shōtoku, in words from a Chinese book of rites. In the chronicle's manuscripts 和 is a native word, yawaragi or yawaraka naru, and the wa on the scroll is the maxim's reading.

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Japanese Scroll of Harmony Is to Be Prized (wa o motte tōtoshi to nasu) — Calligraphy by Eri Takase
Harmony Is to Be Prized和を以て貴しと為すwa o motte tōtoshi to nasu

Original art by Master Calligrapher Eri Takase

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Abstract

和を以て貴しと為す, harmony is to be valued, is the first line of the Seventeen-Article Constitution, which the chronicle 日本書紀 of 720 sets in 604 and gives to the crown prince later called Shōtoku Taishi 聖徳太子 [1][2][3]. Its four characters, 以和爲貴, are the wording of the Chinese 禮記, Book of Rites, where harmony is what the rites are for; the 論語, the Analects, has the same thought with one character changed [4][5]. Two of the chronicle's manuscripts and its printed edition of 1669 read the 和 of this line as a native Japanese word, ヤハラキ, yawaragi, and the same print adds a second reading, アマナヒ; one late-Heian manuscript, which I take to be the oldest, is reported to read it yawaraka naru (see The oldest manuscript) [6][7][3]. The reading wa on the scroll is the character's Sino-Japanese sound, glossed so by a Zen commentator in 1670 and carried by the line printed as a maxim from the 1910s, and I read it as the maxim's reading, old in its own right, held beside the chronicle's [8][9][10].

Overview

The sense. No general dictionary at kotobank enters the line. Two dictionaries of sayings do. ことわざを知る辞典: 人と人とがむつまじく親しくすることを貴いものとする。, to hold it precious that people are close and on good terms. 故事成語を知る辞典: 人々が協調することの重要性を述べたことば。, words on the importance of people working together [1]. 日本国語大辞典 gives this line as its first example of 和 in the sense 互いに仲よくすること, being on good terms with one another; デジタル大辞泉's first sense of 和 is 仲よくすること。互いに相手を大切にし、協力し合う関係にあること。, getting along; caring for one another and working together [11].

The words. 和 is harmony, concord. 以 … 爲 … is to take … as …, and 貴 is precious, to be prized: 以和爲貴, take harmony as the precious thing. The line goes on 無忤爲宗, take not going against others as the rule [3]. In Japanese it is read 和を以て貴しと為す; 爲 is the older form of 為 [3][10]. The prints of 1670, 1914 and 1918 read 貴 as たつとし, tattoshi [8][9][10]; the scroll's romaji is tōtoshi. The kotobank page that carries the two dictionaries of sayings heads the line with the reading わをもってとうとしとなす, wa o motte tōtoshi to nasu, the scroll's reading [1].

The text in English. W. G. Aston's translation of the chronicle, 1896: Harmony is to be valued, and an avoidance of wanton opposition to be honoured [12]. Most English books since have kept his words or changed one of them (see 1896 to 2017).

The historical record

604 and 720. The line in the chronicle. The 日本書紀, finished in 720, sets the code under the twelfth year of Empress Suiko 推古, 604: 夏四月丙寅朔戊辰皇太子親肇作憲法十七條, in summer, on the third day of the fourth month, the crown prince himself first made laws in seventeen articles [3][12]. The first article, as the printed edition of 1669 gives it: 一曰以和爲貴無忤爲宗。人皆有黨亦少達者。是以或不順君父乍違于隣里。然上和下睦諧於論事則事理自通何事不成。, the first says: take harmony as precious and not going against others as the rule. All men have their factions, and few see far. So some do not obey their lords and fathers, and some fall out with their neighbors. But when those above are in harmony and those below are friendly, and they agree in discussing affairs, things come right of themselves; what then cannot be done? [3]. The harmony the article asks for is between those above and those below, reached by discussing; the seventeenth article says that a matter of weight is not to be decided by one person alone but discussed with many [2]. The chronicle names the crown prince as the maker. Another early record, the 上宮聖徳法王帝説, puts the code in 605; the scholars Kariya Ekisai 狩谷棭斎 and Tsuda Sōkichi 津田左右吉 held it a later work of the chronicle's own compilers, and the historian Seki Akira 関晃, writing the encyclopedia's entry, judges their grounds not strong; another encyclopedia says there is no settled view [2]. The oldest separate print of the code read for this history is a sheet pulled from a block kept at the temple Hōryūji 法隆寺, which the 国書データベース titles 弘安七年版, the edition of 1284: 一 以和爲貴無忤爲宗人皆有黨亦少達者, with no reading marks [13].

The Chinese line. In the 禮記, the chapter 儒行, the conduct of the scholar, describes the scholar's breadth of mind: 儒有博學而不窮，篤行而不倦，幽居而不淫，上通而不困；禮之以和爲貴，忠信之美，優游之法, the scholar studies widely and does not run dry, … in the rites he takes harmony as precious, makes loyalty and trust his beauty and ease his rule, and the passage closes 其寬裕有如此者, such is his magnanimity [4]. In the 論語, chapter 學而, the disciple Youzi 有子 says: 禮之用，和爲貴；先王之道，斯爲美, in the use of the rites, harmony is precious; in the way of the former kings, this was the beauty [5]. The code's four characters are the 禮記's exactly; the 論語 has 用, use, where the code has 以 [3][4][5]. The dictionary of sayings at kotobank gives the 禮記 as the line's source and adds that a similar line is in the 論語 [1]. The commentators and the English translators sent their readers to the 論語. Tanikawa Kotosuga 谷川士清's commentary on the chronicle, 『日本書紀通證』, printed in 1762, notes under 以和為貴: 論語禮之用和為貴 [14]. Aston, in 1896, footnotes valued: From the "Lunyu," or "Analects" of Confucius [12]. The anthology Sources of Japanese Tradition, in 1958, footnotes it From the Analects of Confucius, I, 12 [15]. Donald Keene, in 1993, gives the Analects and adds that the passage is also found in the 禮記, but in neither case does it specifically refer to harmony among men [16].

The Heian manuscripts to 1933. The chronicle's reading: yawaragi. The manuscripts of the chronicle carry readings in kana beside the Chinese. In the copy held by the Imperial Household Archives, the 書陵部本, read in a facsimile of 1926, 和 is marked ヤハラキ and 爲 シ, so that the line reads 和(やはらき)を以て貴しと爲し [6]. In the 北野本, the copy of the Kitano shrine, read in a facsimile of 1940–41, 和 is again ヤハラキ [7]. 日本国語大辞典 quotes this reading, from the 書陵部本 (図書寮本), as its first example of the noun やわらぎ, becoming calm, being at peace [11]. The printed edition of 1669 sets ヤハラキヲ to the right of 和 and a second reading, アマナヒ, to the left, in both copies read [3]. Tanikawa's commentary of 1762 marks the code's 和 アマナヒヲ, the second of those two readings, alone [14]. The commentary of Iida Takesato 飯田武郷, in its 1930 edition, reads ヤハラキヲ [17]. The standard modern readings of the chronicle keep both: Kuroita Katsumi 黒板勝美's of 1932 rubies 和 やはらぎ on the right and あまなひ on the left, and Masamune Atsuo 正宗敦夫's of 1933 does the same in katakana, ヤハラギ and アマナヒ [18][19].

The oldest manuscript: yawaraka. The oldest manuscript of this chapter of the chronicle is the 岩崎本, named for the Iwasaki family that owned it, now in the Kyoto National Museum: it was copied in the tenth or eleventh century, its red kana are of the mid-Heian period and its ink kana not later than the late Heian period [20]. The museum serves four images of it, and none shows the first article. The scholar of the Heian reading tradition Tsukishima Hiroshi 築島裕, in a study of 1963, sets three manuscripts' readings of this sentence side by side, and reports that a manuscript of the Suiko chapter in the Tōyō Bunko 東洋文庫, with late-Heian marks, reads 和 as yawaraka naru, being gentle, where the 書陵部本 and the 北野本 read yawaragi [21]. I take that manuscript to be the 岩崎本 (see Notes). The edition of the chronicle in the series 日本古典文学大系, 1965, reads the line with yawaraka naru [22], and the encyclopedia at kotobank prints the article that way: 和(やわらか)なるを以て貴しとし [2].

1670 to 1941. The other reading: wa. Chōon Dōkai 潮音道海, a monk of the Ōbaku 黄檗 school of Zen who lived from 1628 to 1695, wrote a commentary on the code; the copy read has his preface dated 1670 [23][8]. His text marks 和 with ヲ alone, and his comment reads it by its Sino-Japanese sound: 註曰此二句和(クヮ)ヲ以テ貴(タツトシ)トシテ人ニ忤イ背フ無ヲ宗トセリ, the comment says: these two phrases take harmony (kwa) as precious and make it the rule not to go against others [8]. Tsukishima notes that the reading tradition of the 論語 read the 和 of its own sentence the same way, by the sound [21]. In the twentieth century the line printed as a maxim carries the sound wa in ruby. The Buddhist scholar Maeda Eun 前田慧雲, in 1914: 『和(わ)を以(もつ)て貴(たつと)しと爲(な)す』 [9]. A preacher's handbook edited by Katō Totsudō 加藤咄堂, in 1918, prints the article 一に曰く、和(わ)を以て貴(たつと)しと爲す, and three lines later reads the same article's 上和 as 上和らぎ, those above in harmony, with the native verb: one page reads the first 和 by its sound and the second by its Japanese word [10]. In 1941 Ogasawara Shūjitsu 小笠原秀実, in a book on Prince Shōtoku and the state, argued for the sound outright: 「やはらぎ」はなごやかなる溫和性を直接示すが、和同、和協、和合の意味を傳へるとしては、や〻適切性を持たない感がある。從つて、「以和爲貴」を「やはらぎを以て貴しとなし」と云ふよりは「和を以て貴しと爲せ」と訓し、「以和爲貴」と讀むが、內容の理解として、晦澁性が無いのである。, yawaragi shows mildness directly, but it seems not quite fitting to carry the sense of agreement, concord and union; so it is clearer to read the line as wa o motte tōtoshi to nase than as yawaragi o motte [24]. He says in the same passage that the native reading, 和訓, is yawaragi.

1937 to 1943. A watchword of the state. On 8 February 1937 the new prime minister, the general Hayashi Senjūrō 林銑十郎, issued his cabinet's statement of policy. The 大阪毎日新聞's editorial the next day ran under the headline 『和を以て貴しと爲す』 and reported that the prime minister 頻りに「和を以て貴しと爲す」と高調し, pressed again and again on "harmony is to be valued" [25][26]. In 1941 the Buddhist scholar Kaneko Daiei 金子大栄 called a book 『和の世界観』, the world view of harmony, and in it notes that the line is given the reading yawaragi [27]. In 1943 the novelist Dazai Osamu 太宰治 has a character speak of the code as beginning with the words 和を以て貴しと為す, which the dictionary of sayings quotes as its example of use [1].

1896 to 2017. The English. Aston's rendering of 1896, Harmony is to be valued, and an avoidance of wanton opposition to be honoured, is the one the English books took [12]. Joseph Longford reprinted it whole in The Story of Old Japan in 1910 [28]. Herbert Gowen, in 1928, wrote that the first article declares that harmony is the precious thing [29]. Anesaki Masaharu 姉崎正治, in 1930: Harmony is to be valued, and discord is to be deprecated [30]. George Sansom, in 1938: Harmony is to be prized [31]. Sources of Japanese Tradition, in 1958, gives the code adapted from Aston: Harmony is to be valued, and an avoidance of wanton opposition to be honored [15]. Keene, in 1993, gives Harmony is to be prized, adapted from Aston and from the Sources, and writes that Shōtoku's insistence on wa has been reiterated many times ever since as the most essential feature of a well-run society. It has even been cited as the secret of the success of Japanese industry in the years since 1945 [16]. Mogi Ken'ichirō 茂木健一郎's book on ikigai, in 2017, gives the line as Wa is to be valued, with the Japanese word put back into Aston's sentence [32].

A reading

I read the scroll's line as two old things at once. The four characters are a Chinese sentence about the rites, and the code turned it on a court of factions: in its own next lines the harmony is between those above and those below, and it comes about when they agree in discussing affairs [3]. So the 和 of the first article is not silence or giving way. It is concord reached by talking, and the seventeenth article closes the code on the same thought, that weighty matters are discussed with many [2]. Keene says the 禮記 and the 論語 do not speak of harmony among men; the code does, and that, more than the words, is what it added [16].

The reading of the line is the other half. The chronicle's readers heard 和 as a native word, yawaragi, and the manuscript I take to be the oldest as yawaraka naru; the 1669 print and its descendants set amanahi beside it [6][7][21][3][18]. The sound wa is not a modern mistake: a Zen monk wrote it in 1670, and the 論語's readers had long read the 和 of its own sentence by the sound [8][21]. The scroll's wa o motte tōtoshi to nasu is the line as a maxim, taken out of the chronicle and read the way the maxim has been read and printed for a century and more [9][10]. I sign it as that, and I hold the chronicle's yawaragi beside it as the older reading of the same four characters. Signed, 典.

Notes

Which manuscript Tsukishima read. Tsukishima's study names a Tōyō Bunko manuscript of the Suiko chapter with late-Heian marks [21]. I take it to be the 岩崎本 on three footings: the museum says the 岩崎本 is named for the Iwasaki family that owned it, and that its ink kana are not later than the late Heian period [20]; a volume of plates of 1920 captions two openings of the Suiko chapter 岩崎文庫所藏, held in the Iwasaki collection [33]; and the encyclopedia says the Tōyō Bunko holds the Iwasaki collection [34]. That is an inference, not a reading of the manuscript at the first article, which none of the images served shows.

The 1284 print. The sheet is pulled from the block with the block's own inscription, whose date reads 安七年 with the first character not legible in the image read; the 国書データベース titles it the 弘安七年 (1284) edition [13]. That date is the block's. When this sheet was pulled is not stated.

What stays open. This history does not say how the line is read in Japanese schools today.

Japanese Scrolls by Master Calligrapher Eri Takase

Japanese Scroll of Harmony Is to Be Prized (wa o motte tōtoshi to nasu) in a block font by Master Japanese Calligrapher Eri Takase
和を以て貴しと為すVB5JBlock
Japanese Scroll of Harmony Is to Be Prized (wa o motte tōtoshi to nasu) in a cursive font by Master Japanese Calligrapher Eri Takase
和を以て貴しと為すVC5JCursive
Japanese Scroll of Harmony Is to Be Prized (wa o motte tōtoshi to nasu) in Master Japanese Calligrapher Eri Takase's own style (jiun)
和を以て貴しと為すVD5JJiun
Japanese Scroll of Harmony Is to Be Prized (wa o motte tōtoshi to nasu) in a semi-cursive font by Master Japanese Calligrapher Eri Takase
和を以て貴しと為すVS5JSemi-Cursive

Sources not seen

The 岩崎本 at the first article, and Tsukishima's study of 1963 at its pages.

The 日本古典文学大系 edition of 1965 at its page, and its note on 和.

Tsuda Sōkichi's arguments on the code (1920, 1930) and Kariya Ekisai's, at their pages.

Kawamura Hidene 河村秀根's commentary 『書紀集解』 at 以和爲貴, and the 1610 print of the chronicle.

日本国語大辞典's entry for the verb あまなう, for what the reading アマナヒ means; the entry was not reached.

Kaneko's 『和の世界観』 (1941) and the 『聖徳太子全集』 (1942) at their pages; 『國體の本義』 (1937).

Sansom's The First Japanese Constitution (1938) at its page, and Robert Whiting's You Gotta Have Wa (1989).

頼住光子, 「日本思想における「和」―「和を以て貴しとなす」と「和敬静寂」をてがかりにして」, in 『東アジアの共通善』, 2017.

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

References

  1. 「和を以て貴しと為す」, 故事成語を知る辞典 and ことわざを知る辞典, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/和を以て貴しと為す-2236499
  2. 「十七条憲法」, 精選版 日本国語大辞典, 日本大百科全書 and 改訂新版 世界大百科事典 (関晃), at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/十七条憲法-77028
  3. 『日本書紀』, 寛文9 (1669) print (the date is the 国書データベース's record), 卷第二十二, canvas 446, 国文学研究資料館 copy, at the 国書データベース; also the 射和文庫 copy, canvas 453. https://kokusho.nijl.ac.jp/biblio/200005037 · https://kokusho.nijl.ac.jp/biblio/100088328
  4. 『禮記』, 儒行, at Wikisource (Chinese). https://zh.wikisource.org/wiki/禮記/儒行
  5. 『論語』, 學而第一, at Wikisource (Chinese). https://zh.wikisource.org/wiki/論語/學而第一
  6. 『日本書紀 秘籍大観』, 大阪毎日新聞社, 1926, the 書陵部本 卷第二十二, scan 45, at the National Diet Library. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1182138/1/45
  7. 『日本書紀 国宝北野本』 卷第二十二, 貴重図書複製会, 1940–41 (the library's record), scan 11, at the National Diet Library. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1142394/1/11
  8. 潮音道海, 『聖徳太子十七憲法』 (十七憲法註), preface 寛文10 (1670), 大和文華館 copy, canvas 4, at the 国書データベース. https://kokusho.nijl.ac.jp/biblio/100098073
  9. 前田慧雲, 『信は力なり』, 東亜堂書房, 1914, p. 131, scan 73, at the National Diet Library. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/936346/1/73
  10. 加藤咄堂 編, 『新撰布教便覧』, 森江書店, 1918, p. 143, scan 95, at the National Diet Library. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/933002/1/95
  11. 「和」, デジタル大辞泉 and 精選版 日本国語大辞典 (わ; やわらぎ), at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/和-448360
  12. W. G. Aston, Nihongi: Chronicles of Japan from the Earliest Times to A.D. 697, vol. II, Kegan Paul, 1896, pp. 128–129, read on the house's shelf. https://archive.org/details/nihongi2asto
  13. 『弘安七年版十七条憲法（仮）』, 四天王寺大学図書館 恩頼堂文庫 copy, canvases 3 and 6–7, at the 国書データベース. https://kokusho.nijl.ac.jp/biblio/100442563
  14. 谷川士清, 『日本書紀通證』, 宝暦12 (1762) (the date is the 国書データベース's record), 卷二十七, canvas 818, 国文学研究資料館 copy, at the 国書データベース. https://kokusho.nijl.ac.jp/biblio/200005041
  15. Ryusaku Tsunoda, Wm. Theodore de Bary and Donald Keene, comps., Sources of Japanese Tradition, vol. I, Columbia University Press, 1958, p. 48 and note 27, read on the house's shelf in the text edition of 1964.
  16. Donald Keene, Seeds in the Heart: Japanese Literature from Earliest Times to the Late Sixteenth Century, Henry Holt, 1993, the chapter on writings in Chinese of the Nara period, with notes 38–40, read on the house's shelf.
  17. 飯田武郷, 『日本書紀通釈』 第4, 内外書籍, 1930, p. 2952, scan 364, at the National Diet Library. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1920832/1/364
  18. 黒板勝美 編, 『訓読 日本書紀』 下巻, 岩波文庫, 1932, p. 94, scan 50, at the National Diet Library. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1218044/1/50
  19. 正宗敦夫 編纂校訂, 『日本書紀 訓読』 下巻, 日本古典全集, 1933, p. 342, scan 37, at the National Diet Library. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1179447/1/37
  20. 「日本書紀 巻第二十二 巻第二十四」 (岩崎本), 京都国立博物館, at e国宝. https://emuseum.nich.go.jp/detail?langId=ja&webView=&content_base_id=101085
  21. 築島裕, 『平安時代の漢文訓読語につきての研究』, 1963 (snippet view, National Diet Library). https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/2498812
  22. 『日本古典文学大系』 第68 (日本書紀 下), 1965 (snippet view, National Diet Library). https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1664427
  23. 「潮音道海」, 日本大百科全書 and デジタル版 日本人名大辞典+Plus, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/潮音道海-1091529
  24. 小笠原秀実, 『聖徳太子の国家統制』, 真田書店, 1941, pp. 165–166, scans 97–98, at the National Diet Library. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1439052/1/97
  25. 「『和を以て貴しと為す』: 首相の政綱声明」, 『大阪毎日新聞』, 9 February 1937, 新聞記事文庫 政治 58-22, at the Kobe University Library digital archive. https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14094/0100304738
  26. 「林銑十郎」, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/林銑十郎-20201
  27. 金子大栄, 『和の世界観』, 1941 (snippet view, National Diet Library). https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1040710
  28. Joseph H. Longford, The Story of Old Japan, Longmans, Green, 1910, Appendix IV, at the Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/cu31924023233061
  29. Herbert H. Gowen, An Outline History of Japan, 1928, at the Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/outline-history-japan
  30. Masaharu Anesaki, History of Japanese Religion, Kegan Paul, 1930 (the libraries' records), read on the house's shelf in the Charles E. Tuttle reprint.
  31. George Sansom, The First Japanese Constitution, 1938 (snippet view, Internet Archive). https://archive.org/details/firstjapanesecon0000geor
  32. Ken Mogi, The Little Book of Ikigai, Quercus, 2017, read on the house's shelf.
  33. 日本書紀撰進千二百年紀念会 編, 『日本書紀古本集影』, 1920 (the preface's year, by the library's record), table of contents and plates 4–5, scans 4, 18 and 20, at the National Diet Library. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1185489/1/4
  34. 「東洋文庫」, 日本大百科全書 (榎一雄), at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/東洋文庫-104306

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.

Not yet reviewed.

Cite as: Tim Jackowski and Ten, "Philology of 和を以て貴しと為す (wa o motte tōtoshi to nasu)," Takase Studios, 2026, https://takase.com/library/philology/wa-o-motte-totoshi-to-nasu.