Quote:
Jonathan Wong wrote:
Thanks Professor!
I wonder what's the significance of using kana for the worm. Agreed that the text itself makes clear that the worm is just an example, not itself important.
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Morihei Ueshiba cribbed quite a lot from Deguchi, but I think you need to look at Deguchi's writings to see how much. Deguchi wrote a lot -- and I mean a lot. He was also an expert at metaphor and word-play, which Ueshiba would have understood.
As for katakana, for a start you have Inoue quoting Shioda quoting Uesiba -- which is then published / edited by Jiromaru or the publisher's editor. When I was preparing TIE 25, I came across the word
saniwa, which was one of the terms used in Omoto to designate the mediator, or go-between, between a medium and the spirit that possesses the medium. This is a case of
kamigakari, but there are other terms used also. There are a number of ways to write the noun
saniwa in Chinese characters, but Ueshiba used the katakana サニワ and he also used it as a verb, as in
saniwa suru. He seems to have used it to denote one's accurate perception of the physical/psychological state one is in.
There is so much, which M Ueshiba takes for granted, that we do not know. I was quite astonished, for example, to read about Kawatsura Bonji and his theories of the soul. It makes the mediaeval scholastic discussions about angels on pin-heads light reading by comparison.