Wednesday, February 27, 2013

Konjaku Monogatarishū Vol. 2, Tale 1: Śuddhodana's Death #1 (part 7)

Fig. 1: 失
Fig. 2: 御
Last time, Śuddhodana's life finally came to an end. But the story doesn't end there:
As [Śuddhodana] vanished, the Buddha and Nanda were both at his bedside (fig. 1), while Ānanda and Rāhula were both at his feet (fig. 2).
Note the term 「枕上」 — it means "a person's bedside", in this case Śuddhodana's. As for 「候ひ」, that is the continuative form （連用形） of the verb 「候ふ」, which is an archaic verb for "to be".

I wasn't entirely sure about the furigana for the kanji in 「在シマス」, but based on dictionary entries like 「ましま」, I guessed that the text had an alternate writing where 「しま」 had been moved from the furigana into the okurigana.

Edit: as explained by Matt in the comments below, 「御跡」 means "feet", rather than the literal meaning of "remains".

Fig. 4: 佛


Fig. 3: カクテ
Thus, during the funeral (fig. 3), in order to warn people in the far future about failing to repay their debts of gratitude to their parents for their upbringings, the Buddha (fig. 4) went to shoulder his father’s coffin, when (fig. 5) a major earthquake hit, and the world was not calm (fig. 6).
 The first point of confusion in fig. 4 is the meaning of the phrase 「末世の衆生」. According to the explanation on this page, it refers to "people [the masses] in the distant future", which makes sense in this context.

Fig. 5: 父ノ
Next, we see the kanji 「恩」 by itself. It has a couple of meanings, including "favor", "obligation", and "debt of gratitude". I think either of the last 2 would apply here.

There is also the verb 「報ふ」, which means "to repay [a debt]". Note how it is in the Sinitic "negative first" grammatical format in the original text. I have changed it to the Japanese equivalent in the quoted text above.

「報ふ」 is in the imperfective form here （未然形）, followed by the negative auxiliary verb 「ず」, which is also in the imperfective form and takes on the form 「ざら」. Finally,  we see the auxiliary verb 「む」 in the attributive form （連体形）, which has several possible meanings. I think it takes on the "hypothetical" meaning here, since it refers to something that happens in the distant future.

That same verb is encountered at the end of 「給ハム」, but there takes on the meaning of intention ("in order to"). It's also seen with this meaning in fig. 5: 「荷ハム」.

Fig. 6: 

The meaning of 「御棺」 is explained here — it's a polite way of referring to the coffin that Śuddhodana was placed in.

The kanji 「為」 is used in fig. 5 for a different purpose than it is at the end of fig. 4. Here, it represents the verb 「」, which has the same meaning as the modern verb 「する」.

At the end of fig. 6, there is another Sinitic negative pattern — 「不安ス」. The okurigana 「ス」 is missing dakuten. This is very interesting, as it must be the auxiliary negative verb 「ず」, even though there is also a 「不」 in the original text.

Sunday, February 10, 2013

Shunshoku Umegoyomi Vol. 1: The Yōshi (part 2)

Fig. 1: 主「さ

Fig. 2: やつ

Last time, we found out about Tanjirou's stint as a yōshi. Now we get into the details of what actually happened to him:
Master [Tanjirou]: "Well...when I think about it now (fig. 1), after all, Kihei was conspiring with the previous head clerk, Matsubei (fig. 2), and as soon as the door was closed, being fully aware of [the state of] the household assets, [he] immediately [made] me a yōshi (fig. 3)."
In fig. 1, we see the phrase 「今さら」, which is of course the same as 「今更」. In this case, it specifically has the first definition listed on Tangorin: "now", including the parenthetical "after such a long time".

At the beginning of fig. 2 is 「やつはり」. This is equivalent to 「やっぱり」. There's just a large 「つ」 and a 「は」 without a handakuten. The meaning stays the same.

Fig. 3: 直に

Some online sources have suggested that Kihei is written here as 「鬼兵へ」, rather than 「鬼兵」. However, I don't see that being true (at least with this manuscript), since then the bottom of 「兵」 would be missing from the script.

Edit: as Chris has suggested below, his kuzushiji dictionary suggested that this is actually 「兵へ」. The bottom radical in 「兵」 is essentially omitted. This applies both for Kihei （鬼兵へ） and Matsubei （松兵へ）, in fig. 2 and 6.

Fig. 4: そ
Also note the use of the phrase 「なれ合」  this is equivalent to 「馴れ合い」, which can mean "conspiracy".
"[I] knew very little [about all] that. When I entered the family (fig. 4), I also married the mountain (fig. 5) of debt (fig. 4), and so (fig. 5), for that reason, I also had Kihei (fig. 6) stamp a 100 ryō (fig. 7) coin and gave it to my adoptive family, but it turned out to be a waste [of money] (fig. 8)."
In fig. 4, we see the kanji 「露」. Although the common meaning is "dew", it can also mean "a small quantity" （「わずかなこと」）.

Fig. 5: 山
We also see the pattern 「しらき」. I wasn't entirely sure about having 「き」 at the end, but nothing else made sense grammatically. I couldn't figure out which kanji this kana would be derived from, though. If it is actually 「き」, in grammatical terms it would be the predicative form （終止形） of 「き」, an auxiliary verb that indicates that the preceding verb is in the personal past. Since the preceding verb has to be in the continuative form （連用形）, I'm not sure why it's 「し」 (the original verb presumably being 「知る」), but perhaps it's using a non-yodan conjugation (I don't have my dictionary with me, so I can't check).

Edit: as Chris explains below, the kana after 「しら」 is actually 「す」, derived from the kanji  「須」. This is a little confusing because the dakuten have been omitted here. The correct way to read this is 「しらず」, which is the imperfective form （未然形） of the verb 「知る」 followed by the negative auxiliary verb 「ず」, in its predicative form （終止形）.

Fig. 6: 思つ

There is also an irregular form of 「入る」 — 「這入る」. Both are pronounced 「はいる」.

At the end of fig. 4 is the word 「借金しゃっきん」, which is read as 「しゃくきん」 here instead, but retains its meaning.

In fig. 5, we see the phrase 「縁つく」, which is equivalent to 「縁づく」, also written as 「縁付く」 — "to marry".

Fig. 7: 判を
In fig. 7, we see the term 「おさせた」, which is the past tense and causative form of 「押す」. This word appears to have been formed according to modern Japanese grammar. Once again, it may be that the author switches back and forth when going from narration (classical) to dialogue (modern). This particular instance occurs while Tanjirou is speaking, so the modern form was used.

The kanji 「両」 refers to a premodern Japanese currency, the ryō. As mentioned in that article, 100 ryō would have been a very significant amount of money, particularly for someone as poor as Tanjirou (perhaps he became poor as a result of wasting all this money).

Fig. 8: 金も
The phrase 「いれ仏事」, also written as 「仏事ぶつじ」, refers to pointlessly throwing money at something （「むだな出費」）. It's very interesting how dakuten are included for the furigana 「ぶつ」, but excluded for 「事」, which has its furigana written as 「し」, rather than 「じ」.