修行会

113「一靈の元の御親御姿は響き光りてぞ生れし言靈。」- 植芝盛平

Original Waka¹

一靈の
元の御親御
姿は
響き光りてぞ
生れし言靈

植芝盛平 (Ueshiba, 1977)

Translation

“From one spirit’s source, the Mioya‘s manifestation—its echoing and shining, births kotodama.” – Morihei Ueshiba

Waka Translation

Of the One Spirit’s
Origin’s own Mioya’s
august form, on this:

echoing and shining, and
birthing kotodama.

Morihei Ueshiba

歴史的仮名遣い（語構成を明示）¹

一靈の（いちれいの）
元の御親の（もとのみおや）
御姿は（みすがたは）
響き光りて（ひびきひかりて）
言靈生まる（ことだまうまる）

植芝盛平

Bungo Romanization

ichihei no
moto no mi-oya no
mi-sugata wa
hibiki hikari-te
kotadama umaru

Ueshiba Morihei

Notes

¹ In the autograph, ぞ and 生れし give a beautiful kakari‑musubi pair (ぞ … 連体形). A metrically faithful alternative with ji-amari in the last line preserves this in the original autograph (響き光り ぞ [ひびきひかりぞ] – 7 mora; れし言靈 [うまれしことだま] – 8 mora). The reverse bungo translation yields a strict 5‑7‑5‑7‑7 on‑pattern (31 mora) where the final verb is set in the classical intransitive 生まる (ra‑shimonidan), “to be born” (Kotobank, n.d.).

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

Ueshiba, M. (2025). 植芝盛平道歌–113: Kotodama—living speech (L. G. N. R. Space-Coyote, Trans.; OpenAI ChatGPT-5 Pro, Ed.). Shugyokai.org. (Original work published 1977) https://shugyokai.org/hcp9

一靈 / 一霊 （いちれい; ichirei）— “one spirit”; evokes the Shintō doctrine ichirei shikon cosmological formula “one spirit, four spirits, eight powers”—a cosmology Ueshiba often referenced; the singular principle at the head of 植芝の宇宙論「一霊四魂三元八力」(ichirei shikon sangen hachiriki). Ueshiba repeatedly glosses Aikidō as the living form of this cosmology.

一靈の（いちれいの; ichirei no）— “of the One Spirit”; genitive の – marks one spirit as the source / ground of what follows: everything in the poem is “of / from” that primordial unity..

元（もと; moto）— origin, basis, source.

御（み; mi） — honorific prefix; in historical grammar it functions as a bound morpheme marking reverence toward the referent. NINJAL’s (2017) historical corpus treats ミ（御） as a prefixal element with numerous sacred exemplars (御子, 御言, 御手洗, etc.); indexes sacred dignity. In Shintō vocabulary mi‑ marks kami and imperial referents (mi‑koto, mi‑tama), a usage Kokugakuin’s (n.d.) Encyclopedia of Shintō treats as an honorific title/prefix for divine persons and attributes. Reading 御姿 as みすがた thus harmonizes with Ueshiba’s Shintō / Ōmoto‑inflected diction, where the cosmos itself is treated as theophany.

御親 (みおや; mi‑oya) – literally “august parent(s)”: mi- honorific + oya “parent,” used for a primordial or parental deity (oyagami) in many Shintō and new‑religion traditions (Ono & Woodard, 2011; Bocking, 1996). 

御親御姿（みおやおやがみ; mioya oyagami）— “Parent’s form”; points to the parent deity as primordial source and sustainer—an image used in sect Shintō to describe the origin that “endlessly gives birth to all things”.

元の御親（もとにみおや; moto no mi‑oya）— “the primal august Parent,” a Shintōic circumlocution for the cosmic source / primordial divinity. The double honorific (mi‑, go‑ / o‑) is idiomatic in ritual diction.

姿（すがた; sugata）— shape, figure, visible form; in religious language, a theophany or manifestation of a deity.

御姿（mi‑sugata）— “august form / manifestation” of the mi‑oya.

は（wa）— topic marker.

ぞ (zo) — kakari-musubi [連体形] in the autograph, ぞ triggers adnominal (連体形) on the concluding predicate (生れし). We offer a strict‑meter version without ぞ, and a faithful kakari‑musubi variant at the price of one extra mora, a known waka technique (ji‑amari).

響き光りて (hibiki‑hikari‑te) — two ren’yōkei 響き (hibiki) – ren’yōkei ‘echoing, resounding’ and 光り (hikari) – ren’yōkei ‘shining, radiating light’ connected by て, a classical conjunctive particle linking actions/states in sequence or co‑occurrence (Vovin, 2003; Frellesvig, 2010).

言靈 / 言霊（ことだま; kotodama）— “word‑spirit” names the spiritual power resident in words; classical scholarship links this idea to waka’s 31‑syllable form (5‑7‑5 / 7‑7)—hence the choice to render Ueshiba’s line as a tanka.

生まる（umaru）— classical ra‑shimonidan intransitive “to be born; come into being.” Using 生まる (not modern 生まれる) keeps the diction in bungo.

Classical morphology. The final predicate 生まる (ra‑shimonidan) is a textbook bungo verb, not the modern 生まれる. 

Honorific prefixes in ritual diction. 御親 / 御姿 with mi‑, o‑ / go‑ is standard ceremonial diction reflected across premodern texts.

Ren’yōkei sequence with ‑て. 響き光りて is syntactically classical; the connective ren’yōkei + て chain is described in reference grammars of bungo.

Metering choices consistent with waka practice. The strict 31‑on lineation is canonical; when one preserves kakari‑musubi ぞ … [連体形], a one‑mora ji‑amari is an attested technique (hypermetric line) in court poetry practice.

Lexical register. “august Parent,” “word‑spirit,” and “living speech” emulate the ritual elevation and semantic weight of mi‑oya／kotodama in Shintō discourse rather than modern paraphrase, matching the solemnity of bungo diction.

Metrical discipline with semantic fidelity. Maintaining 5‑7‑5‑7‑7 in English forces compression; however, the core propositions (source—form—echo/shine—birth of kotodama) remain intact, mirroring the semantics of the classical reading.

Kami‑no‑ku / shimo‑no‑ku structure. The English 5‑7‑5 “question/setting” is matched to the revelation of the mi‑oya’s “form,” while the 7‑7 “response/completion” gives the doctrinal effect—kotodama coming into being—following premodern waka’s dialogic ancestry (5‑7‑5 // 7‑7). This tanka preserves the upper phrase (cosmic source and the Parent‑deity’s manifestation) and the lower phrase (the manifestation’s presence of echoing and shining and its consequent birth of kotodama), mirroring the original’s movement from origin to manifestation.

Kotodama and Aikidō. Ueshiba consistently links creation and Aikidō to the vibratory power of utterance (kotodama), often integrating it with the cosmogram 一霊四魂三元八力 and the “seventy‑five sounds.” This doctrine frames speech as cosmogenic—“the universe was created through the working of kotodama”.

“One Spirit” and the “august Parent”. The poem’s ichirei and mi‑oya echo broader Shintō cosmology—the ultimate source (Takamagahara / Ame‑no‑Minakanushi, etc.)—and reflect Ueshiba’s habit of presenting the divine as a luminous, sonorous principle rather than an anthropomorphic deity.

Shintō concept of word‑power. In Japanese religious thought, kotodama is the efficacy of words themselves to shape reality; correct, beautiful utterance is understood to conduce to order and blessing. The poem’s “echo + light → birth of kotodama” neatly stages this cosmo‑phonetic causality.

Waka form as didactic vehicle. Ueshiba’s dōka condense doctrine into 31 mora in the long line of waka being used for instruction and ethical/religious counsel—uta as mnemonic and spiritual exercise.

Yoin. Ending on “kotodama, born to be” leaves a strong yoin: the poem doesn’t explain kotodama, it just names it and leaves the idea resonating, much like Japanese waka ending on a charged noun or compound