修行会

解説

このページの一句は「大御神七十五声を生みなして世の経綸をさづけ給へり」。ここでいう七十五声は、ページ注が指すとおり五十音＋濁音二十＋半濁音五の配列を母体にした言霊（ことだま）の枠組みで、声＝音が宇宙を成り立たせる編成力として扱われます。中句の生みなしては「生み出して・成し遂げて」という連用接続、結句さづけ給へりは授ける＋尊敬補助＋完了で、「大御神が、それ（七十五声）をもって〈世の経綸＝世界の織り／秩序〉を恵与した」という神授の図式を明言します。経綸の語は「経＝縦糸／綸＝より糸」を呼び込むため、音（声）の束ねで世界を“織る”というイメージが一句の芯です。

この“音で世界を織る”視座を植芝盛平の六つのプライマーに糸通しすると、運用図が立ち上がる。プライマーの第一原理〈武＝宇宙原理〉は声＝言霊が宇宙秩序を編む原理として位置づけられ、プライマーの第二原理〈人との合気〉は関係そのものを調和へ織り直す声（ことば／拍／呼吸）の扱いを要請する。プライマーの第三原理〈心魂一如〉は発する声と身の働きがズレない芯を作り、プライマーの第四原理〈和合美化〉は声が場を美へ返す織りになっているかを測る。プライマーの第五原理〈体＝道場、心＝修業者／修行者心／学び手〉は一声一拍を稽古で磨く（掛け声・呼吸・間合い）秤となり、プライマーの第六原理〈「至愛」の源に順う〉は「授けられた声」を何のために用いるかの最高基準を与える。こう読むと、本頁は「七十五の声」＝合気の実践を動かす“世界編成の糸”として、言と技を一体で扱えと説いているわけです。

直前の三首とも自然に結び直せる。第115首の「文武両輪／稽古の徳」は、文＝声と言／武＝からだの働きの両輪を回してこそ言霊が実地の徳になることの確認であり、第116首の「草薙ののり」は濁りを断ち秩序を回復する“声と剣”の規範として読める。第117首の「天地は主の造りし一家」は、その一家＝世界全体を織り上げる糸が“七十五の声”だと位置づける地図になる。つまり、（第115首）学びと言行一致の稽古で声を磨き、（第116首）守る掟として声を運用し、（第117首）同じ一家を織る糸として声を放つ——その総まとめを、この第118首は「大御神の声が世界を織る」という原点に還して示しているのです。

口語要約のひとこと

「大御神が七十五の声を生み出し、この世の織り（経綸）を授けてくださった。」

十字道のクレオール化と武産の生成エンジン

大御神の「七十五声（第118首）」と、仏教が指摘する「百八の渇愛（AN 4:199; Sujato, n.d.)」は、古代言語に固定された音声学的数値ではない。前者が宇宙の経綸（世の仕組・第112首）を編み上げる生成的な構造ベクトルであるのに対し、後者はその原初の響きを自我の力みと所有欲によって「こり霊（第114首）」へと変質させる無明の構造である。地球上のあらゆる言語共同体、あるいは激しい摩擦から生じるピジンやクレオールは、独自の音素（phonemes）と形態素（morphemes）の体系を持ち、各々の「七十五声」のバリエーションとして独自の天の浮橋（第112首）を現し世に架けている。言語共同体（language community）、そしてそれらと交差する実践共同体（community of practice）の数だけ、秩序を宣り直す「草薙ののり（第116首）」の音韻的インターフェースが存在し、同時に百八の歪みもまた存在する。多様な形態素の交差と再編そのものが、生きた言霊（第113首）の物理的な起動力なのだ。

だからこそ、異なる体系が激突する十字道（第111首）において爆発的に生まれる「ピジン」と、それが新たな生命系として定着した「クレオール」の力学は、合気の言語論的本質そのものである。高度な圧力と摩擦の交差点では、礼儀正しく馴化（domestication）された文法など即座に崩壊する。生存と伝達のために音と形が極限まで解体・再結合され、山彦（第110首）のように環境と同期する全く新しいコードが組み上がる。私が道歌の翻訳において耳触りの良い意訳を徹底して排し、古典文法（bungo）の張力を英語の骨格へ強制的に移し替える「異化（foreignizing）」のピジン化を貫くのも同じ理由だ。文と武の両輪（第115首）を回すとは、開祖の身体的コードと現代話者との間に妥協のない高圧的な「技術的ピジン」を立ち上げ、失われた内部の海（第109首）の圧力を現在に再起動することに他ならない。

各々の言語的・身体的共同体が、独自の音素を用いて七十五声を無限に再編成し、百八の無明の結び目を伊都の雄武び（第114首）で祓い、新たな秩序の経綸を織り上げ続けること——これこそが「武産合気」の真髄である。武産とは、特定の島国の言語体系に縛られた閉鎖的な辞書ではない。未知のベクトルに直面したその瞬間に、最も機能的な音素と形態素を即座に産み出し続ける無限の生成エンジンである。日々の稽古とは、畳という物理的空間において、この言語的・身体的なクレオール化をリアルタイムで実行する過酷なプロセスだ。己の閉じた言語ループを捨て去り、相手と共にその瞬間だけの新たな身体的ピジンを生成するとき、我々は武産の歯車となり、無限に多様な音色を用いてこの世界をひとつの機能的な「一家（第117首）」として織り直し続けるのである。

詩法上の折り目——三十一音のなかで七十五声を織る

この一首は、表面上はきわめて明快な神授の叙述でありながら、和歌の詩法として見ると、上の句と下の句の折り目がかなり強く働いている。上の句は〈大御神／七十五声／生みなして〉で、神名の提示、声の生成、生成行為の完了直前までを受け持つ。下の句は〈世の経綸を／さづけ給へり〉で、その生成された声がどこへ向かうのか、すなわち世界の秩序・織り・統治へと転じる。したがって第三句の〈生みなして〉は、単なる接続ではなく、上の句の宇宙生成を下の句の恩寵・授与へ渡す蝶番である。五・七・五で声が生まれ、七・七でその声が世へ授けられる。ここに、内容上の「生成から授与へ」という運動と、形式上の「上の句から下の句へ」という折りがきれいに重なっている。

また、第一句〈大御神〉には初句切れに近い働きがある。切れ字そのものは用いられていないが、神名だけを一行に据えることで、読者の前にまず崇敬の対象が立ち上がる。これは結句の体言止めではなく、むしろ冒頭の体言据えと呼ぶべき構えである。歌は「大御神」と神名を宣り、その余韻の中で「七十五声を生みなして」と動き始める。つまり、切れ字によって感情を切るのではなく、神名の単独提示によって場を清め、発話全体を祝詞的なものへ寄せている。ここでは、俳諧的な鋭い切断ではなく、道歌らしい奉告の切れが働いている。

句またがりも見逃せない。第二句〈七十五声を〉は第三句〈生みなして〉へ、第四句〈世の経綸を〉は第五句〈さづけ給へり〉へ、それぞれ目的語から動詞へと流れ込む。つまり、二つの「を」が二つの行為を導く。第一の「を」は声を生む行為へ、第二の「を」は経綸を授ける行為へ向かう。この二重の目的語構造によって、一首は「声を生む」と「経綸を授ける」という二つの動詞的中心を持つが、それらは分裂せず、第三句の〈生みなして〉を介して一つの神業として結ばれる。句またがりはここで、音が句の境を越えて流れることそのものを演じている。声について詠む歌が、声の運動によって句をまたいでいくわけである。

さらに、この歌には明示的な掛詞というより、語の多義性を沈めた掛詞的な二重写しがある。〈世〉は単に「世界」だけでなく、「時代」「世代」「人の世」も含みうる語であり、〈経綸〉は政治的・宇宙論的な秩序であると同時に、字面においては縦糸とより糸を呼び込む。したがって〈世の経綸〉は、「世界の統治」であると同時に、「世代を貫いて織られる秩序」として響く。ここでの掛詞性は、古典和歌に典型的な同音異義の鋭い転換ではなく、漢語の字義・和語の語感・言霊思想が重なった厚い多義である。声が世界を説明するのではない。声そのものが世界を織る糸として見立てられている。

その意味で、見立ても強く働いている。七十五声は音韻表の数字にとどまらず、世界を構成する糸、あるいは機の経糸として見立てられる。〈経綸〉が「統治・計画」を意味しながら、同時に「織り」の手触りを持つため、声は抽象的な原理ではなく、実際に世界を編み上げる素材として現れる。この見立てによって、言霊論は観念的な神学ではなく、音・息・拍・身体操作に接続する稽古上の実感へ降りてくる。読む者は「七十五声」を数として理解するだけでなく、それを糸の束、響きの束、世界を編成する力の束として受け取ることになる。

縁語の面では、〈大御神〉〈授け〉〈給へり〉が尊崇と神授の語群をなし、〈声〉〈生み〉〈世〉〈経綸〉が生成と秩序の語群をなしている。とくに〈生み〉と〈世〉の近さは重要である。声は生まれ、世もまた世代として生まれ継がれる。そこへ〈経綸〉が加わることで、生まれたものがただ散乱するのではなく、秩序として織り込まれる。これは典型的な花鳥風月の縁語ではないが、道歌にふさわしい宗教的・宇宙論的な縁語である。神、声、生成、世、経綸、授与が同じ磁場に置かれることで、一首全体が「言霊による世界生成」という一つの意味圏に収束していく。

一方、歌枕・枕詞・係り結びは、ここでは目立って用いられていない。その不在もまた大事である。この歌は、名所の記憶や王朝和歌の定型的連想に寄りかかって情趣を開く歌ではない。〈大御神〉という神名、〈七十五声〉という教理的数、〈経綸〉という統治的漢語を前面に出し、場所の情景ではなく宇宙の構造を詠む。枕詞による柔らかな導入も、係り結びによる文法的な強調も採らず、尊敬補助と完了によってまっすぐ神授の事実へ閉じる。この直線性が、道歌としての教示性を強めている。

また、三十一音そのものが内容と照応している点も見逃せない。七十五声という大きな音の体系が、短歌の三十一音へ凝縮されている。つまり、この歌は「声が世界を織る」と述べるだけではなく、実際に限られた音数の中で七十五声の宇宙論を織り込んでいる。ここに一種のメタ詩性がある。声についての歌が、声の定型によって成り立つ。音の秩序を説く歌が、五・七・五・七・七という音数律の秩序の中に置かれる。内容と形式が互いを映し、三十一音が七十五声の縮図として響くのである。

結句の〈さづけ給へり〉は、余韻の作り方としても重要である。体言止めで余白に投げ出すのではなく、尊敬補助＋完了でいったん文法的には閉じる。しかし、誰に授けられたのかは明示されない。世に、私たちに、稽古する身体に、あるいは天地の一家そのものに——その受け手は読者の側に開かれている。完了の〈り〉が「すでに授けられている」という確定を与え、同時に受け手の省略が「では、その授けられた声をどう用いるのか」という余韻を残す。ここで歌は、神話の叙述として終わるのではなく、実践者への問いとして残る。

したがって、この一首の詩法は、華麗な掛詞や歌枕で情緒を広げる型ではなく、初句の神名提示、上の句・下の句の生成的折り、二重の句またがり、経綸の見立て、宗教的縁語、そして結句の余韻によって、声と言葉と世界秩序を一つに束ねる型である。七十五声は上の句で生まれ、下の句で世へ授けられ、読後には読者自身の声・息・言葉遣いの問題として戻ってくる。ここに、第118首の和歌的な働きがある。声を説く歌が、声のかたちによって、世界の織りをもう一度小さく実演しているのである。

発話行為理論

この一句をオースティン（Austin, 1962）の三区分に糸通しすると、まず発話行為（locutionary）の層では、「大御神が七十五声を生み成し、世の経綸を授けた」という宇宙論的命題が発話内容として置かれている。重要なのは、上の句から下の句への折りが、名詞の束と動詞の束を対応させている点である。第一・二句の〈大御神／七十五声〉に対して第四句の〈世の経綸〉が応じ、第三句の〈生みなして〉に対して第五句の〈さづけ給へり〉が応じる。したがって、この歌の骨組みは主体と対象、生成と授与を二度織り込む構えになっている。しかも、切れ字が露わに立つというより、第一句の孤立が切れの働きを担い、経綸の語が「統べる」と「織る」を同時に呼び込む掛詞的な蝶番になる。

つぎに発話内行為（illocutionary）の層では、単なる神話叙述より一段強く、言霊の宇宙論を宣明し、大御神を讃仰する力が働いている。大御神という尊称、結句の〈授け＋給ふ＋り〉という尊敬・完了の重なりが、記述をそのまま崇敬の発話へ押し上げる。力点は「世界は音によって編成され、その編成は神授である」という定立にある。第三句の連用接続が未完の運動をひらき、第五句の完了が恩寵として閉じるため、発話内の力は説明より宣告、報告より奉告に近づく。

そして発話媒介行為（perlocutionary）の層では、読む身・唱える身・稽古する身に、声を単なる音声ではなく世界編成の糸として受け取らせる作用が期待される。畏れ、整え、慎み、あるいは発声・呼吸・言葉遣いへの緊張感が立ち上がるなら、そうした変化が発話媒介的な帰結である。経綸の掛詞的二重性が、抽象的な「秩序」を手触りある「織り」へ変え、折りの構造が「生む」から「授ける」への移りを体感させるため、宇宙論は観念に留まらず稽古の作法へ沈む。こう読めば、第118首は教義の説明であると同時に、声と世を結び直す感受性そのものを鍛える一首になる。

コーダ

ここで第118首は、ひとつの終止ではなく、むしろ発声以前の静けさへ読者を戻す。七十五声はすでに生みなされ、世の経綸はすでに授けられている。ならば、問題はもはや「声はどこから来るのか」ではない。問題は、その授けられた声を、われわれがどのような身ぶりで受け、どのような息で運び、どのような世界へ織り返しているのかである。

声は、ただ内側から外側へ放たれるものではない。相手の圧、場の湿り、沈黙の重さ、まだ言葉にならない痛みや祈りを受けて、はじめて声となる。だから、言霊は孤立した音の神秘ではなく、応答の倫理でもある。発した一音が場を乱すなら、その声はまだ己のこり霊をほどいていない。発した一音が相手の身を立て、世界の縒れを少しでもほどくなら、その声は経綸の糸に触れている。

稽古とは、結局のところ、この一音の責任へ帰る。剣を振る前の息、手を取る前の間、名を呼ぶ前の心、沈黙を破る前の慎み。そのすべてが、七十五声のどこか一つを、その瞬間の天地へ置く行為である。世界は大きな抽象ではなく、いま目の前の相手とのあいだに、声・息・身・間として織られ直す。そこに失敗すれば、宇宙論は教義に堕ちる。そこに応じれば、もっとも小さな一声にも、武産の生成が宿る。

大御神が世の経綸を授けたというなら、その授けは遠い神話の過去ではなく、いまこの喉、この胸、この掌、この沈黙に届いている。われわれはすでに声を持っている。すでに世界を織る糸を受けている。では、その声で、今日、何を織り直すのか。

English Translation

Commentary

The poem on this page is: “Ōmikami nanajūgoe o uminashite yo no keirin o sazuke-tamaeri (大御神七十五声を生みなして世の経綸をさづけ給へり).” The “seventy-five voices” here, as the page note indicates, belong to a framework of kotodama (言霊) based on the matrix of the fifty sounds, twenty voiced sounds, and five semi-voiced sounds. Voice, that is, sound, is treated as the formative power by which the cosmos is composed. The middle phrase, uminashite (生みなして), is a continuative construction meaning “having brought forth” or “having brought into completion,” while the closing phrase sazuke-tamaeri (さづけ給へり) combines “to grant,” an honorific auxiliary, and perfective completion. It explicitly states a diagram of divine bestowal: the Great Deity, by means of those seventy-five voices, granted the keirin (経綸) of the world—that is, the weaving, ordering, and governance of the world. Because the word keirin (経綸) calls forth kei (経), the warp-thread, and rin (綸), the twisted thread, the core image of the poem is that the world is “woven” through the binding-together of sounds, or voices.

When this perspective of “weaving the world through sound” is threaded through Ueshiba Morihei’s Six Primers, an operational diagram comes into view. The First Primer, Bu = Uchū Genri (武＝宇宙原理), “Bu = Cosmic Principle,” positions voice—kotodama (言霊)—as the principle that composes cosmic order. The Second Primer, Hito to no Aiki (人との合気), “Aiki with Others,” demands an handling of voice—word, beat, and breath—that rewrites relationship itself into harmony. The Third Primer, Shin-kon Ichinyo (心魂一如), “Heart-Mind and Spirit Inseparable,” establishes the center in which the emitted voice and the action of the body do not fall out of alignment. The Fourth Primer, Wagō Bika (和合美化), “Harmonious Beautification,” measures whether the voice is becoming a weave that returns the field to beauty. The Fifth Primer, Karada = Dōjō, Kokoro = Shugyōsha / shugyōsha-gokoro / manabite (体＝道場、心＝修業者／修行者心／学び手), “Body as Dōjō, Heart-Mind as Practitioner, Practitioner-Mind, Learner,” becomes the scale by which each voice and each beat are refined in training: shout, breath, and interval. The Sixth Primer, Shiai no Minamoto ni Shitagau (「至愛」の源に順う), “Follow the Source of Supreme Love,” gives the highest criterion for what the “granted voice” is to be used for. Read in this way, the page is teaching that the “seventy-five voices” are the world-composing threads that move the practice of aiki, and that word and technique must be handled as one.

The poem can also be naturally tied back to the three immediately preceding poems. Poem 115, bunbu ryōrin / keiko no toku (文武両輪／稽古の徳), “the two wheels of letters and martiality / the virtue of training,” confirms that kotodama becomes practical virtue only when the two wheels of bun (文), letters, voice, and word, and bu (武), the working of the body, are turned together. Poem 116, Kusanagi no nori (草薙ののり), “the law of Kusanagi,” can be read as the norm of “voice and sword” that cuts through turbidity and restores order. Poem 117, Ame-tsuchi wa Su no tsukurishi ikka (天地は主の造りし一家), “heaven and earth are one household made by Su,” becomes the map that locates the “seventy-five voices” as the threads by which that one household—the whole world—is woven. In other words: through the training of learning and unity of word and deed, Poem 115 polishes the voice; as a law of protection, Poem 116 puts the voice into operation; as the thread weaving the same one household, Poem 117 releases the voice. Poem 118 gathers all of this together and returns it to the origin: the voice of the Great Deity weaves the world.

One-line colloquial summary

“The Great Deity brought forth the seventy-five voices and granted us the weaving—the keirin (経綸)—of this world.”

The creolization of the crossroad and the generative engine of takemusu

The Great Deity’s “seventy-five voices,” nanajūgoe (七十五声), in Poem 118, and the Buddhist “one hundred and eight cravings” pointed out in AN 4:199; Sujato, n.d., are not phonetic numbers fixed to an ancient language. The former is a generative structural vector that weaves together the cosmic keirin (経綸), the structure of the world, yo no shikumi (世の仕組), in Poem 112. The latter is the structure of ignorance that transforms that primordial resonance into kori-dama (こり霊), “clotted spirit,” in Poem 114, through the strain of ego and the desire for possession. Every language community on earth, and every pidgin or creole born from intense friction, has its own system of phonemes and morphemes. Each manifests and casts into the world its own Ame no ukihashi (天の浮橋), its own floating bridge of heaven, as a variation on the “seventy-five voices.” As many language communities, and as many intersecting communities of practice, as exist—so too exist phonological interfaces of Kusanagi no nori (草薙ののり), the law of Kusanagi, by which order is declared anew. At the same time, the one hundred and eight distortions also exist there. The crossing and reconfiguration of diverse morphemes is itself the physical ignition-force of living kotodama (言霊), as in Poem 113.

That is precisely why the dynamics of “pidgin,” born explosively at the crossroad, jūjidō (十字道), where different systems collide, and of “creole,” when that pidgin settles as a new living system, are the linguistic essence of aiki itself. At a crossing-point of high pressure and friction, politely domesticated grammar collapses at once. For the sake of survival and transmission, sound and form are broken down to their limit and recombined; a wholly new code, synchronized with the environment like yamabiko (山彦), the mountain echo of Poem 110, is assembled. The reason I thoroughly reject smooth, pleasant paraphrase in translating the dōka and persist instead in a foreignizing pidginization that forcibly transfers the tension of classical grammar, bungo (文語), into the skeleton of English is the same. To turn the two wheels of letters and martiality, bun to bu no ryōrin (文と武の両輪), as in Poem 115, is nothing other than to bring into being an uncompromising, high-pressure “technical pidgin” between the Founder’s bodily code and the modern speaker, and thereby to restart in the present the pressure of the lost inner sea of Poem 109.

For each linguistic and bodily community to use its own phonemes to reconfigure the seventy-five voices without end; to purify, through Izu no otakebi (伊都の雄武び) in Poem 114, the knots of the one hundred and eight forms of ignorance; and to continue weaving the keirin (経綸) of a new order—this is the very essence of takemusu aiki (武産合気). Takemusu (武産) is not a closed dictionary bound to the language-system of a particular island nation. It is an infinite generative engine that, in the very instant it confronts an unknown vector, continues to produce at once the most functional phonemes and morphemes. Daily training is the severe process of carrying out this linguistic and bodily creolization in real time, within the physical space of the tatami. When casting away closed linguistic loops and generate, together with the other, a new bodily pidgin that exists only for that instant, the gears of takemusu (武産), and by means of infinitely varied tones, there is a continued reweaving of this world as one functional household, ikka (一家), as in Poem 117.

A fold in the poetics: Weaving the seventy-five voices within thirty-one sounds

On the surface, this poem is an extremely clear narration of divine bestowal. Yet when seen as waka poetics, the fold between the upper phrase and lower phrase works with considerable force. The upper phrase consists of Ōmikami / nanajūgoe / uminashite (大御神／七十五声／生みなして): the presentation of the divine name, the generation of the voices, and the action of generation up to the point just before completion. The lower phrase consists of yo no keirin o / sazuke-tamaeri (世の経綸を／さづけ給へり): it turns toward where those generated voices are directed—toward the order, weaving, and governance of the world. Therefore, the third phrase, uminashite (生みなして), is not a mere connector. It is the hinge that passes the cosmic generation of the upper phrase into the grace and bestowal of the lower phrase. In the five-seven-five, the voices are born; in the seven-seven, those voices are granted to the world. Here the movement of the content, “from generation to bestowal,” aligns beautifully with the formal fold, “from upper phrase to lower phrase.”

The first phrase, Ōmikami (大御神), also has a function close to an initial cut, shoku-gire (初句切れ). No cutting-word is used, but by setting the divine name alone in a single line, the object of reverence first rises before the reader. This is not a nominal ending, taigen-dome (体言止め), at the close of the poem; rather, it should be called an opening placement of a noun, bōtō no taigen-sue (冒頭の体言据え). The poem declares the divine name, “Ōmikami (大御神),” and then, within the resonance that follows, begins to move: nanajūgoe o uminashite (七十五声を生みなして), “having brought forth the seventy-five voices.” In other words, the poem does not cut feeling by means of a cutting-word. Instead, by presenting the divine name in isolation, it purifies the field and draws the whole utterance toward the quality of a norito, a ritual prayer. What is at work here is not the sharp severance of haikai, but the reverential cut of dōka (道歌), a poem of the way.

The use of line-crossing, ku-matagari (句またがり), should also not be missed. The second phrase, nanajūgoe o (七十五声を), flows into the third, uminashite (生みなして); the fourth phrase, yo no keirin o (世の経綸を), flows into the fifth, sazuke-tamaeri (さづけ給へり). Each object moves into its verb. That is to say, the two instances of the particle o (を) guide two actions. The first o (を) moves toward the act of giving birth to the voices; the second o (を) moves toward the act of granting the keirin (経綸). Through this double object-structure, the poem has two verbal centers: “to give birth to the voices” and “to grant the keirin.” Yet these do not split apart. Through the third phrase, uminashite (生みなして), they are bound into a single divine act. Here, line-crossing enacts the very fact that sound flows beyond the boundaries of the phrases. A poem that sings of voice crosses phrase-boundaries by means of the movement of voice.

Further, the poem contains not so much an explicit pivot-word, kakekotoba (掛詞), as a pivot-like double exposure in which the plurality of meanings is sunk into the words. Yo (世) means not only “world,” but can also include “age,” “generation,” and “the human world.” Keirin (経綸) is a political and cosmological order, while at the same time its written form calls forth the warp-thread and twisted thread. Therefore, yo no keirin (世の経綸) resonates both as “the governance of the world” and as “the order woven through generations.” The pivot-quality here is not the sharp turn of homonymic double meaning typical of classical waka. It is a thick multiplicity in which the written sense of the Sinitic compound, the felt sense of the Japanese word, and kotodama thought overlap. Voice does not explain the world. Voice itself is figured as the thread that weaves the world.

In that sense, figurative transposition, mitate (見立て), is also strongly at work. The seventy-five voices are not merely a number on a phonological table; they are figured as threads composing the world, or as the warp of a loom. Because keirin (経綸) means governance and planning while also carrying the texture of weaving, voice appears not as an abstract principle but as the very material that actually braids the world together. Through this figuration, kotodama theory descends from conceptual theology into the felt reality of training, where it connects with sound, breath, beat, and bodily operation. The reader does not merely understand the “seventy-five voices” as a number, but receives them as a bundle of threads, a bundle of resonances, a bundle of powers that compose the world.

In terms of associated words, or engo (縁語), Ōmikami (大御神), sazuke (授け), and tamaeri (給へり) form a word-group of reverence and divine bestowal, while koe (声), umi (生み), yo (世), and keirin (経綸) form a word-group of generation and order. The closeness of umi (生み), “birth,” and yo (世), “world” or “generation,” is especially important. Voice is born, and the world too is born and carried on as generations. When keirin (経綸) is added to this, what is born does not merely scatter; it is woven into order. This is not the typical engo of flowers, birds, wind, and moon, but it is a religious and cosmological engo appropriate to dōka (道歌). By placing deity, voice, generation, world, order, and bestowal within the same magnetic field, the entire poem converges into a single semantic sphere: the generation of the world through kotodama (言霊).

On the other hand, place-names with poetic resonance, pillow-words, and binding constructions—utamakura, makurakotoba, kakari-musubi (歌枕・枕詞・係り結び)—are not prominently used here. Their absence is also significant. This poem does not open its emotional atmosphere by leaning on the memory of famous places or the fixed associations of courtly waka. It brings to the foreground the divine name Ōmikami (大御神), the doctrinal number nanajūgoe (七十五声), and the governing Sinitic compound keirin (経綸), and it sings not a landscape of place but the structure of the cosmos. It adopts neither the gentle introduction of a pillow-word nor the grammatical emphasis of kakari-musubi (係り結び), but closes directly into the fact of divine bestowal through the honorific auxiliary and the perfective. This linearity strengthens its instructional character as dōka (道歌).

Nor should we overlook the way the thirty-one sounds themselves correspond to the content. The large system of sound called the seventy-five voices is compressed into the thirty-one sounds of the tanka form. In other words, the poem does not merely say, “voice weaves the world.” It actually weaves the cosmology of the seventy-five voices into a limited number of sounds. Here there is a kind of metapoetic quality. A poem about voice is formed by the fixed pattern of voice. A poem that teaches the order of sound is placed within the order of the five-seven-five-seven-seven sound-count. Content and form mirror one another, and the thirty-one sounds resonate as a miniature of the seventy-five voices.

The closing phrase, sazuke-tamaeri (さづけ給へり), is also important in the way it creates resonance. The poem does not cast the reader into open space through a nominal ending. Rather, through honorific auxiliary plus perfective, it comes once to a grammatical close. Yet to whom the gift has been granted is not explicitly stated. To the world, to us, to the body that trains, or to the one household of heaven and earth itself—the recipient remains open on the side of the reader. The perfective ri (り) gives the certainty that it “has already been granted,” while the omitted recipient leaves behind the resonance of a question: “Then how are we to use the voice that has been granted?” Here the poem does not end as mythic narration. It remains as a question addressed to the practitioner.

Therefore, the poetics of this poem are not the type that opens emotion through brilliant pivot-words or famous poetic places. Rather, through the presentation of the divine name in the first phrase, the generative fold between upper phrase and lower phrase, the double line-crossing, the figuration of keirin (経綸), the religious field of associated words, and the resonance of the final phrase, it binds voice, word, and world-order into one. The seventy-five voices are born in the upper phrase, granted to the world in the lower phrase, and after the poem is read, return as a question concerning the reader’s own voice, breath, and use of language. Here lies the waka-function of Poem 118. A poem that teaches voice, through the very shape of voice, performs once more in miniature the weaving of the world.

Speech-act theory

When this poem is threaded through Austin’s threefold division (Austin, 1962), the locutionary layer first presents, as its uttered content, the cosmological proposition that “the Great Deity brought forth the seventy-five voices and granted the keirin (経綸) of the world.” What matters is that the fold from upper phrase to lower phrase makes the bundle of nouns correspond to the bundle of verbs. The fourth phrase, yo no keirin (世の経綸), answers the first and second phrases, Ōmikami / nanajūgoe (大御神／七十五声); the fifth phrase, sazuke-tamaeri (さづけ給へり), answers the third phrase, uminashite (生みなして). Thus the skeleton of the poem is arranged so that subject and object, generation and bestowal, are woven in twice. Moreover, rather than having an overt cutting-word stand forth, the isolation of the first phrase bears the function of the cut, while the word keirin (経綸) becomes a pivot-like hinge that calls forth both “to govern” and “to weave.”

Next, at the illocutionary layer, the poem works with a force one degree stronger than simple mythic narration: it declares the cosmology of kotodama (言霊) and reveres the Great Deity. The honorific title Ōmikami (大御神), and the layered reverence and completion of the closing sazuke + tamau + ri (授け＋給ふ＋り), raise description itself into an utterance of veneration. The point of force lies in the assertion that “the world is composed through sound, and that composition is divinely granted.” Because the continuative linkage of the third phrase opens an unfinished movement, while the perfective of the fifth phrase closes it as grace, the illocutionary force approaches proclamation rather than explanation, reverential report rather than ordinary report.

Finally, at the perlocutionary layer, the expected effect is to make the reading body, chanting body, and training body receive voice not as mere sound, but as the thread that composes the world. If awe, ordering, restraint, or a tension around vocalization, breath, and language-use arises, such change is the perlocutionary consequence. Because the pivot-like doubleness of keirin (経綸) turns the abstract “order” into a tactile “weaving,” and because the structure of the fold makes one feel the transition from “giving birth” to “granting,” the cosmology does not remain conceptual; it sinks into the etiquette and method of training. Read in this way, Poem 118 is at once an explanation of doctrine and a poem that trains the very sensitivity by which voice and world are joined anew.

Coda

Here Poem 118 does not close the matter; it returns the reader to the stillness before utterance. The seventy-five voices have already been brought forth, and the keirin of the world has already been bestowed. The question, then, is no longer simply where voice comes from. The question is how that granted voice is received, by what bodily bearing is it carried, by what breath is it released, and into what kind of world is woven back.

Voice does not merely move from the inside outward. It becomes voice only after receiving the pressure of the other, the moisture of the field, the weight of silence, and the pain or prayer that has not yet become language. For this reason, kotodama is not an isolated mystery of sound. It is also an ethics of response. If a single utterance disorders the field, that voice has not yet loosened its own clotted spirit. If a single utterance helps the other stand, and loosens even slightly the twisted strands of the world, then that voice has touched the thread of keirin.

Training finally returns to the responsibility of this one sound: the breath before the sword moves, the interval before the hand is taken, the heart before a name is spoken, the restraint before silence is broken. Each is an act of placing one of the seventy-five voices into the heaven and earth of that moment. The world is not first an abstraction; it is rewoven here, between oneself and the one before oneself, as voice, breath, body, and interval. If that is missed, cosmology hardens into doctrine. If that is answered, even the smallest voice can bear the generation of takemusu.

If the Great Deity has bestowed the weaving of the world, then that bestowal is not sealed in a remote mythic past. It has arrived in this throat, this chest, this palm, this silence. This voice is already had. It has already received the thread by which the world may be woven. The remaining matter is the tenderness and severity with which it is used.

References

Austin, J. L. (1962). How to do things with words. Oxford University Press.

Antoni, K. J. (2012). Kotodama and the Kojiki: The Japanese “word soul” in historical perspective (Unpublished Manuscript). University of Tübingen.

Blumer, H. (1969). Symbolic interactionism: Perspective and method. Prentice-Hall.

Breen, J., & Teeuwen, M. (2010). A new history of Shinto. Wiley‑Blackwell.

Brower, R. H., & Miner, E. (1961). Japanese court poetry. Stanford University Press.

Frellesvig, B. (2010). A history of the Japanese language. Cambridge University Press.

Goffman, E. (1959). The presentation of self in everyday life. Doubleday.

Horton, H. M. (2019). Premodern Japanese poetry in English translation (pp. 112–114).

Kanazawa, H. (1997). 助動詞「ない」の連用中止法について. 日本語科学, 1, 105–113. https://doi.org/10.15084/00001970

Kubozono, H. (2006). Mora and syllable. In The handbook of Japanese phonetics and phonology (pp. 31–79). Blackwell.

Kotobank [日本国語大辞典（精選版）]. (n.d.). 「経綸」. https://kotobank.jp/word/%E7%B5%8C%E7%B6%B8-489388

Lucy, J. A. (1997). Linguistic relativity. Annual Review of Anthropology, 26(1), 291–312.

Mead, G. H. (1934). Mind, self, and society: From the standpoint of a social behaviorist (C. W. Morris, Ed.). University of Chicago Press.

Miller, R. A. (1982). Japan’s modern myth: The language and beyond. Weatherhill.

National Institute for Japanese Language and Linguistics [NINJAL]. (2017). 日本語歴史コーパス 短単位規程集 Ver.1.0（鎌倉時代編）. https://clrd.ninjal.ac.jp/chj/doc/morph_kamakura_v1_0.pdf

Onido. (2025). 七十五声. In Onipedia. Retrieved from https://onipedia.info/wiki/%E4%B8%83%E5%8D%81%E4%BA%94%E5%A3%B0

Pranin, S. (2019). A provocative interview with Morihei Ueshiba (notes on kotodama → 75 sounds). Aikido Journal.

Sapir, E. (1921). Language: An introduction to the study of speech. Harcourt, Brace.

Sasaki Aiki. (n.d.). 【第822回】言霊とは（合気思想メモ引用: “七十五声…”）. https://sasaki-aiki.com/article/?c=1&v=822

Shimazu, N. (n.d.-b). Mikoto. In Encyclopedia of Shinto [EOS]. Retrieved October 16, 2025, from https://d-museum.kokugakuin.ac.jp/eos/detail/?id=9949

Space-Coyote, L. G. N. R. (2025). Exemplar overshadowing and the underextension of theory across spheres of application: Insights from three canonical cases (OpenAI ChatGPT-5, Ed.). Shugyōkai. https://shugyokai.org/m9fy

Stalker, N. K. (2008). Prophet motive: Deguchi Onisaburō, Ōmoto, and the rise of new religions in imperial Japan. University of Hawai‘i Press.

Sujato, B. (Trans.). (n.d.). Taṇhā sutta: Craving (AN 4.199). SuttaCentral. https://suttacentral.net/an4.199/en/sujato

Takeuchi, S. (2012). 古代日本語の主節の無助詞名詞句 ―活格性との関わりから (Workshop paper). National Institute for Japanese Language and Linguistics [NINJAL].

Ueshiba, M. (1977). 合気道奥義（道歌）(S. Abe, Ed.). 阿部, 醒石. Retrieved from  http://www.asahi-net.or.jp/~yp7h-td/douka.htm

Vance, T. J. (1987). An introduction to Japanese phonology. SUNY Press. 

Whorf, B. L. (1956). Language, thought, and reality: Selected writings of Benjamin Lee Whorf (J. B. Carroll, Ed.). MIT Press.

Appendix I: Change Modification Log

03 JUL 26 - Improved formatting; added Shugyokai note; added additional poetic analysis; translated commentary to English and Japanese; added codas to Japanese and English commentaries.
22 MAY 26 - Added Speech Act Analysis; updated citation style; added an addendum to clarify application to different language communities, communities of practice, pidgins, and creoles.
21 DEC 25 - Phase V styling applied to waka.
20 NOV 25 - Phase IV completion; commentary added.
16 OCT 25 - Phase III completion.
14 APR 20 - Initial notes transferred.