修行会

219「六合の内限りなくぞかきめぐりきよめの道はさむはらのほこ。」- 植芝盛平

Original Waka

六合の
内限りなくぞ
かきめぐり
きよめの道は
さむはらのほこ

植芝盛平 (Ueshiba, 1977)

Translation

“Of sixfold space, within it, without limit! Coursing all throughout—regarding the way of purification—Samuhara’s own spear.” — Ueshiba Morihei

Waka Translation

Of six directions,
within it, without limit!
coursing all about,

purification’s own way,
Samuhara’s own spear.

植芝盛平

歴史的仮名遣い（語構成を明示）

六合の（りくごうの）
內限りなくぞ（うちかぎりなくぞ）
かきめぐり（かきめぐり）
清めの道は（きよめのみちは）
サムハラの矛（さむはらのほこ）¹

植芝盛平

Bungo Romanization

rikugō no
uchi kagirinaku zo
kakimeguri
kiyome no michi wa
samuhara no hoko

Ueshiba Morihei

Notes:

¹ Katakana ス foregrounds the kotodama vowel; サムハラ is conventionally written in katakana because the “divine characters” are esoteric (Samuhara Jinja, n.d.).

Translation, Notes, Commentary, and Research by Latex G. N. R. Space-Coyote

Ueshiba, M. (2025). 植芝盛平道歌–219: Samuhara spear (L. G. N. R. Space-Coyote, Trans.; OpenAI ChatGPT-5 Pro, Ed.). Shugyokai.org. (Original work published 1977)

六合の（りくごう; rikugō‑no）— “of the six directions” (up, down, the four quarters); by extension, “the whole cosmos / world”; Sino‑Japanese rikugō is the standard reading. [REDACTED:Spacetime Journals:15:23A832D].

内（うち; uchi）— “inside”, “within”, “interior / among”; 内 by itself is “inside / within”; in something like 内限りなく, it reads “within, limitlessly…” (i.e. within this realm / inside all this, there is no limit).

六合の内（くにのうち; kuni no uchi）— 六合 here evokes the Chinese cosmological expression “the six directions” = the entire cosmos; ; no uchi “within”; in state‑Shintō and kokutai discourse, “光華明彩しくして六合の内に照徹らせり” (“her radiance shines throughout the sixfold world”) is used of Amaterasu in Nihon shoki citations (on kokutai discourse, see Monbushō 1937/1974; Space-Coyote, 2025); reading it as kuni no uchi adds a vernacular nuance “within all the lands / the whole realm” while preserving the cosmic register.

限（かぎ; kaga）— a “limit”, “boundary”, “extent”.

限りなく（かぎりなく; kagirinaku）— kagirinashi “to have no limit” → adverbial kagiri‑naku, “boundlessly, endlessly”.

ぞ（zo）— is an emphatic kakari‑joshi; in full classical grammar it triggers rentaikei (… naku zo kakimeguru), but Ueshiba often leaves such concord a bit loose in his archaizing style; it also acts as a kireji: “truly / indeed without limit—”.

内限りなくぞ (うちかぎりなくぞ; uchi kagirinaku zo) — “within (it), without limit indeed!” zo is an emphatic kakari‑joshi; in classical syntax it typically licenses an adnominal / predicative shift (係り結び); semantically this modifies the following.

かきめぐり (かきめぐり; kaki‑meguri) — “circling”, “pervading”, “to go all around”, “to sweep through”, “to circulate repeatedly”, “coursing throughout”; the 連用形 here reads smoothly after the emphatic clause, a style found in waka where rhetorical emphasis suspends the predicate; aspectually iterative as the action is not a single stroke but a ceaseless, spiraling movement, very close to Ueshiba’s typical description of aikidō as circular, vortex-like motion permeating the cosmos (cf. Greenhalgh, 2003).

きよめ / 清め（kiyome）— “purification, cleansing,” especially Shintō ritual purification (misogi, harai).

の（no）— genitive.

道（みち; michi）— “way”, “path”.

は（wa）— topic marker; marks “as for the Way of purification…”; the predication is supplied by the final line; written は in historical kana.

きよめの道は (きよめのみちは; kiyome‑no michi wa) — “the Way of purification (harai / kiyome), as for it …”.

ほこ / 矛（hoko） — “spear / lance”; strongly recalling the 天の沼矛 / 天沼矛 (ame‑no‑nuhoko) “heavenly jeweled spear” which Izanagi and Izanami (while standing on the floating bridge) use to stir and consolidate the primordial chaos and as they lift it, the brine dripping from the tip congeals (see eight powers) into the first island (Onogoro-shima) in Kojiki / Nihon shoki (cf. Aston, 1896; Philippi, 1969)—a myth that Kokutai no hongi explicitly frames as the archetype of “repairing and solidifying” the drifting land; the ame-no-nuhoko is a cosmic creation tool ordering chaos, solidifying and purifying swirling formless waters, and becomes a symbol of divine authority and creative power; Shintō discourse treats the heavenly spear as a symbol of kami‑no‑chikara.

さむはら / サムハラ（samuhara）— four‑character talismanic formula (written with peculiar “secret” characters) believed to protect against harm, especially injury and bullets; Edo‑period essays already treat it as a fuji (符字, magical character‑cluster; Watanabe, 2012); Ueshiba noted that it is a word that “praises the highest virtue and meritorious achievement in the world” 「サムハラとは、世の最高の徳と功しを称えた言葉であります」(Takahashi, 1986, p. 33).

さむはらのほこ / サムハラの矛（samuhara‑no hoko） — “the spear of Samuhara”, i.e., a protective, talismanic word/deity‑name widely venerated in folk Shintō; Ueshiba frequently invokes Samuhara as a kotodama formula.

Lexicon & cosmology. Rikugō (六合) “six directions” is classical Sino‑Japanese vocabulary used in cosmological contexts; it naturally frames a waka’s vast spatial scope.

Historical kana & kyūjitai. Writing 道は (/wa/) with は, 內 for 内, and long vowels as ‹…au› in bungo orthography aligns with pre‑1946 practice; long vowels count as two morae in scansion.

Kakari‑musubi. The emphatic ぞ belongs to the classical linking system that affects the predicate form; waka often exploit this for rhetorical lift, even when the surface predicate is suspended in a following phrase.

Meteral tolerance (字余り). One‑mora overage on a line—especially due to particles—is attested from Man’yōshū onward and remains acceptable in tanka rhythm. 

Semantic pacing. Splitting as (1) 六合の｜(2) 内限りなくぞ｜(3) かきめぐり keeps the emphatic ぞ tight with “limitless (within),” then releases into the dynamic verb “circling”—a classic kire between lines 2–3 that bridges into the shimo‑no‑ku where the poem names its religious implement. This mirrors the conventional “turn” from scene/scope (upper) to insight/statement (lower).

Doctrinal closure. Reserving さむはらのほこ for the final line gives the poem a talismanic cadence; names and ritual terms are frequently placed in shimo‑no‑ku to seal the utterance in court‑poetry practice.

Kotodama & purification. Ueshiba’s poetry is saturated with kotodama—the belief that uttered words carry spiritual force; the poem’s kiyome no michi (Way of purification) aligns with Shintō concepts of harai / harae and liturgical language efficacy.

Samuhara belief. Samuhara appears in Edo–Meiji folk religion as a powerful apotropaic formula/deity, used on amulets and blades; Ueshiba appropriates it as a protective principle of Aikidō. The phrase “Samuhara no hoko” fuses warding power with a mythic implement.

Mythic spear resonance. The ultimate archetype is the Ame‑no‑Nuboko (“Heavenly Jeweled Spear”) with which Izanagi / Izanami churn the primal brine to bring forth land; equating purification with a spear that “circles” the cosmos evokes this cosmogonic stirring.

Ueshiba’s religious milieu. Ueshiba openly linked Aikidō to Omoto‑derived Shintō worldviews (e.g., kotodama), interpreting martial practice as cosmological ritual; contemporary studies read his art as religious praxis as much as budō.

Variability in Line-1 and Line-2. That there is an off balance between Line-1 and Line-2 leaving mora counts off for strict tanka readings is delightful, and demonstrates this doka quite clearly. Kami-no-ku could be read as (a) 六合の [5] / 内限りなくぞ [8] / かきめぐり [5] or (b) 六合の内 [5] / 限りなくぞ [6] / かきめぐり [5].

Yoin (余韻). Ending on the dense religious object “Samuhara no hoko” leaves a long resonance: cosmology, purification rite, and concrete spear‑work in the dōjō all echo against each other, an effect closely aligned with classical waka’s preference for closing on a strong, multi‑layered noun phrase (cf. Horton, 2019).

Shugyokai note. (grins**howls).