The iroha (Jp. 伊呂波/いろは) is a Japanese poem most likely written sometime during the Heian era (AD 794–1179). The first record of its existence dates from 1079. It is famous because it is a perfect pangram, containing each character of the Japanese syllabary exactly once. Because of this, it is also used as an ordering for the syllabary.

The text

The text of the poem in hiragana (with archaic ゐ and ゑ but without voiced consonant marks) is:

いろはにほへと
ちりぬるを
わかよたれそ
つねならむ
うゐのおくやま
けふこえて
あさきゆめみし
ゑひもせす

The text of the poem in kanji and kana, voiced where appropriate, is:

色は匂へど
散りぬるを
我が世誰ぞ
常ならむ
有為の奥山
今日越えて
浅き夢見じ
酔ひもせず

The poem exhibits the 7-5-syllable repeated verse structure.

An English translation:

As flowers are brilliant but ^* fall,

who could remain constant in our world? one could

Today let us transcend the high mountain of transience,

and there will be no more shallow dreaming, no more drunkenness.

Sound change

The iroha is used as an indicator of sound changes in the spoken Japanese language in the Heian era.

Strictly transliterated the poem runs:

i ro ha ni ho he to chi ri nu ru (w)o wa ka yo ta re so tsu ne na ra mu u (w)i no o ku ya ma ke fu ko e te a sa ki yu me mi shi (w)e hi mo se su

To obtain the meaning indicated above, one must read the poem with some flexibility. These changes yield:

Iro wa nioedo

Chirinuru o

Wa ga yo tare zo

Tsune naran

Ui no okuyama

Kyō koete

Asaki yume miji

Ei mo sezu.

Usage

The iroha contains every kana precisely once, with the exception of ん ^*, which was added to the syllabary later. For this reason, the poem was frequently used as an ordering of the kana until the Meiji era reforms in the 19th century. Thereafter the gojūon (五十音, literally "fifty sounds") ordering system became more common. This order is partly based on Sanskrit. It begins with "a, i, u, e, o" then "ka, ki, ku..." and so on for each kana used in Japanese. Although the iroha is seen as more "old fashioned" than the gojūon, the earliest known copy of the gojūon predates the iroha.

The iroha is still occasionally encountered in modern Japan. For example, it is used for seat numbering in theaters, and (from right to left) across the top of Go game diagrams (kifu), as in Yasunari Kawabata's Meijin. In music, the notes of an octave are named i ro ha ni ho he to, written in katakana.

The word いろは (iroha) can also be used to mean "ABCs" or "the basics" in Japanese.

Although the Japanese employ the Heavenly stems for rank order besides both the Chinese and Arabic numerals as well as the Latin alphabet, the iroha sequence was used to note the rank of submarines of the Imperial Japanese Navy during the Second World War. All long-range submarines had designations beginning with "I" (e.g., the largest submarine had "I400" painted on its conning tower), coastal submarines began with "Ro", and training or marginally usable submarines had "Ha".

Origin

Authorship is traditionally ascribed to the Heian era Japanese Buddhist priest and scholar Kūkai (空海) (774–835). However, this is unlikely as it is believed that in his time there were separate e sounds in the a and ya columns of the kana table. The え (e) above would have been pronounced ye, making the pangram incomplete.

It is said that the iroha is a transformation of these verses in the Nirvana Sutra:

諸行無常

是生滅法

生滅滅已

寂滅為楽

which translates into

That everything is impermanent

Is the way all things come into and go out of existence.

It is when these processes are over

That we see true happiness in nirvana.

The above in Japanese is read

Shogyōmujō

Zeshōmeppō

Shōmetsumetsui

Jakumetsuiraku .

See also

• Ametsuchi No Uta (an earlier pangram)
• Japanese literature

External links

• The Iroha song (cut)
• sci.lang.japan FAQ on the origin of kana ordering
• Other translations of the poem

Japanese poetry | Japanese writing system

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