You Don't Know "BU"

I have always appreciated Kanji, otherwise known as ideograms and described as pictographs.  Rich in texture, when beautifully executed the brush work is fine art.  Indeed in Asia, calligraphy must be mastered before being considered an accomplished artist.  Complex thoughts are expressed and the message often provides a deeper level of communication than a simple alphabetic symbol could achieve. 

We know language is a vibrant living thing.  Words are added.  Others atrophy into disuse and fade away. Others have their original meanings hijacked and are known forever within a new context.   I’m old enough to remember when the word “gay” meant happy but today it is used to describe a life style. 

The weight of kanji tend to have us think of something ancient which they are.  We conjure up visions of ancient geomancers studying the cracked tortoise shells in the fire from which some of these symbols emerged. Obstructed by the haze is a quasi-mythical quasi-religious experience.  Sorry, the theory that kanji evolved from a drunk chicken that ran through an ink well has been debunked and the culprit caught – it was me!

There have always been efforts to explain how kanji came to depict certain things.  It is easy for example to picture “Tsuki” or Moon. 

『月』つき　MOON４画〔〕４画（ゲツ・ガツ・つき）小学１年
甲骨文字　　　金文　　　篆文
（象形）三日月の形。Shape of 　Crescent moon

That’s what the picture kinda looks like.  It isn’t always this easy.  It isn’t easy to buck the conventional wisdom of the most credible dictionaries and experts  when you have a contrary interpretation. 

Armed with centuries of tradition promoting incorrect exactitude s can obviously trigger some resistance.  Within the Japanese language a battleground has been set and the outcome is far from certain as firmly entrenched truths are now being challenged through new scholarship and yes the changes are both combative and painful.

Enter the fray of one Dr. Shirakawa.  In fact this article is in part small homage to his work and for his unwavering desire to take up the battle and demystify some of the currently held sacrosanct beliefs about the meaning of kanji.  Dr. Shirakawa stumbled upon the good fortune of a Westerner’s rummaging through an antique store where a vessel containing a “dragon’s bone” was found. Yup, well it was actually a tortoise shell that had been been placed in fire many millennia ago.  This shell was the remnant of the birth of kanji as a written language. (Koukotsu Moji)  

It was also a catalyst for Dr. Shirakawa to dedicate his life’s study  to the Yin dynasty of 3000 years ago. Perhaps tedious to us, he went about the task of challenging comfortably held tenets of what generations of Japanese had been taught about their language. Sometimes the differences are startling and sometimes nuanced and hardly worth debating outside of academic circles.​

​Deciding to take a closer look at the debate we chose the character “BU”   武 or martial and as used in bushi  (warrior) and bujutsu (martial arts), for examination.  This is such an important anchor when discussing Japanese martial culture.  Bu and Bun are the two virtues for bravery and writing though in the later context, this should be considered as a cultured man of letters.  Miyamoto Musashi might be an example of a warrior that evolved into this man of letters as an author and an artist of note.

The Japanese native word is "Mono-nou" which means to speak out which also takes courage and perhaps Dr. Shirakawa was a bushi in this regard.

Dr. Shirakawa, who recently passed away was perhaps Japan’s most preeminent scholar on the topic of the origins and meanings of kanji. 

“BU” is made from “tate” or shield and the verb to stop - tomeru.  It was therefore interpreted as the shield being used, almost statically to defend against the spears and arrows of the foe. The definition states that this was the bushi's basic posture for holding a shield and moving forward.  Consequently the shield defended against attack – end of message.  However this “stop” TOMERU  止める has "stop" as its' meaning and it is built into the kanji for bu!  Is the poor guy with the shield moving forward or has he stopped?  There seems to be a controversy here as Dr. Shirakawa’s research would have it! 

The definition has the shield facing and moving forward. But there is more, a detail that was lost over time eaten by the beast of evolving language perhaps.  The kanji for tomeru is a pictograph of footsteps.  So why would a shield have footsteps incorporated into the picture?  The footstep pictures were interpreted as “stop” as if the action had already ceased and the moment was static.  The intellectual curiosity stopped here  too until the good doctor came along and asked the question.

Next, it could be argued that a fuller meaning is that you step forward, advancing against the retreating enemy that is routed.  Okay case settled except it wasn’t.  I’ll diverge here as I was left way behind on this battlefield simply because I couldn’t decipher a picture of these footsteps in the kanji tomeru.  I had to have it drawn for me.  The footsteps are IMPORTANT.  The shield didn’t spring feet – that couldn’t be what the ancients wanted to pass along through ancient  written and oral transmission!

The weight of the meaning has a ghost-like vestige to it.  The footsteps are hallowed like a war memorial is held reverentially today. These are the tracks left by the courageous going off to war, possibly never to return. The tracks are all that remain. From this perspective, the footsteps were left behind as a shadow monument attesting to the warriors bravery.  The lesson really is more about appreciating the sacrifice than simply blocking an assault.

If you read the accounts of ancient warfare, often total annihilation was the consequence of failure.  Life was extreme with the prospects either for absolute victory over an enemy or utter destruction at the swords of your adversaries. 

The meaning of “BU” is so much more than a “shield” or to “stop” or of the direction of “footsteps”.  It is about what direction the footsteps take and when they took them.  The character is infused with dynamic tension and is not static.  It is aggressive and not defensive in nature and it inherently expresses the bravery of those that marched off with an attitude that they might never return.  The letters “BU” as alphas could never convey this in so few strokes.

Now this might not seemingly bring meaning to our practice of hikiotoshi but conceptually it might help if we appreciate how deep the confusion can profoundly be! More seriously, it helps us understand that there is an ongoing need to gird against a study of things only at face value. Nothing worthy of being truly studied should be treated lightly or taken for granted.

Today the battle that Dr. Shirakawa engaged in is still going on too and his adherents call his school of thought the Shirakawa-ha.  Who would’ve thought that this is just like our budo or perhaps our budo is just like…