Letter to a friend. February 2024. On language as a given. Translated by Google. 2025

  

 Friday, 21 March 2025

Letter to a friend. February 2024

 

Dear Sir,

Regarding Tsuneyuki KAWASAKI, I found a letter. I sent to a friend in my Gmail, so, now

I will send it to you.

The main thing I noticed was how amazing the teacher was at quoting the Man'yoshu.

As you also write in the letter, this was the turning point
for me to completely move away from history and return to my original language.

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It's part of a letter.

The blue text remains the same.

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After the lectures and seminars at Wako University were over and the students had gone home,

When I was talking face-to-face with the professor in the quiet lab,

It was an irreplaceable moment for me.

The conversation ranged from lectures and exercises to a wide range of topics.

The topics were wide-ranging, including the former First Higher School, his research at university, and his involvement with Mount Hiei after graduation.

In particular, he was deeply involved in the pioneering studies of Sanskrit, Tibetan, Pali, and other languages ​​that led the way in philosophy and modern Buddhist studies .

It was a sign of deep respect.

At the end of those days, the teacher would sometimes say,

His words were, "I have just done what I was given."

I didn't understand what the teacher was trying to convey to me by using the word "given. "

Although it would generally be taken as a sign of humility, I didn't ask my teacher.

I knew that the teacher would rarely respond to my questions in more detail.

In the summer of 1982, the editing of a three-volume collection of historical writings to be published by the University of Tokyo Press was almost complete the proofreading stage was underway.

The author, the editors of the anthology, and the publishing company were all involved in this work.

Because I was involved in the chronology and bibliography, the publishing company asked me to also proofread the text of the entire anthology .

The university had already entered summer vacation and my regular night shift work had almost finished, so

From July to early September, I was dedicated to proofreading the text of all three volumes.

This was my first time doing such serious, responsible proofreading work.

I didn't know how to properly proofread, so I worked by going back and forth between the text and the typesetting many times.

And at that moment, the image of people who lived their lives wholeheartedly in history , something that had previously been completely invisible to me due to my lack of talent , emerged from each and every sentence of the professor's essay.

The teacher had quoted an exquisite poem in an exquisite place.

Although it is excluded from this collection, a careful reading of the first volume of the anthology, which deals with the relationship between ancient literature and history, reveals that

When just one poem by a poet who has only one or a few poems published in the Manyoshu was placed in the description of the professor's essay, the poet's entire life was revealed as if it were being surveyed .

More than any commentary on the poet or the waka poem, the deep and broad world that the poet had experienced emerged from .

The professor simply quoted that poem at a certain point in his essay .

The teacher truly " just did what he was told to do."

But through this encounter,

As a result, it has disappeared from history.

To me, my teacher's world was separate.

From now on, I will return to the world of language, which was my original subject .

The road from then on was long, long and winding.

His theory gave me a vague idea of ​​my own state of being in this world . I too felt that
I had to do my own thing .

Language itself taken as a given.

Yours sincerely,

TANAKA Akio

February 11, 2024

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18 March 2025