# Iroha Uta Since I wrote about permutations on the last post, I will write about Iroha Uta on this post. Because of the family resemblance. I occasionally wrote about this poem on emails. There were posts indirectly refering to it. But I haven't written a post directly explaining it. This poem is a perfect pangram written in late Heian period. That means this poem contains every kana character at that time exactly once. No one knows who wrote it. It contains every kana character exactly once. So it gives you an ordering of kana characters. For example 1-i, 1-ro, 1-ha are like 1-a, 1-b, 1-c. People have been using the ordering almost a thousand years. So everyone in Japan knows the poem. Though I don't know how many people remember more than the first 12 characters "i ro ha ni ho he to chi ri nu ru wo". The closest thing in English might be "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog". Although there are duplications, it at least contains every alphabet in English. People use the sentence to check fonts. But I haven't met a perfect pangram that is perfect like Iroha. Both syntactically and semantically. Other Japanese ones included. Though I like the Sanskrit one. Since translating poems sucks, I will explain it word by word. That alone would make this post valuable. ## The poem in the original format i ro fa ni fo fe to ti ri nu ru wo wa ka yo ta re so tu ne na ra mu u wi no o ku ya ma ke fu ko e te a sa ki yu me mi si we fi mo se su Note that "H" in modern Japanese was pronounced as "F". So it was pronounced as "Irofa" instead. There are things like characters that are no more used in modern Japanese too. ## Analysis It follows the form of [7-5]-[6-5]-[7-5]-[7-5]. The form was widespread at that time. The "6" is because of the number of kana characters. It should be 7 in other cases. It was originally written in Manyo-gana. That means it used kanjis of the same pronunciations to write kana characters. Since things like the word order in Japanese are different than English, it might feel weird. But keep in mind that this poem is grammatically nothing wrong in Japanese. I hate translating poems. The exact meanings are indeterminate and always controversal. So this interpretation is just my personal one. 1. i ro fa | ni fo fe to Color is | Fragrant but -> Color means the material world or forms. It is also used in "What is form is emptiness, what is emptiness is form." in Heart Sutra. The word which is translated as "form" is written as "color". In some versions, "fa" is written as the kanji for "leaf". So it might also mean cherry blossoms or fallen leaves which eventually fall apart. Classical Japanese people meant beautiful when they said "Color is fragrant". ti ri | nu ru wo Scatter | Going -> Beautiful things fall apart in the end like flowers. By the way "nu ru" is no more used as "going" in modern Japanese. 2. wa ka yo | ta re so Our world | Who ever -> Everything, everyone. tu ne | na ra mu Eternity | Be would? -> Can't be eternal. Impermanent. 3. u wi no | o ku ya ma Sankhara 's | Deep mountain -> I used "'s" instead of "of" to aid the understanding. Because of the word orders of "'s" and "of". Sankhara is a thing similar to Karma. The principle of sufficient reason and dependent origination. Everything has a reason. Causes and effects are interconnected. But it especially focuses on will. Deep mountain means the phenomenal world or the suffering caused by life itself. The phenomenal world or life is full of karma. The author wrote that as endless deep mountains. If I make an analogy to Greek mythology, this is basically Sisyphus who endlessly rolls a ball to the top as a punishment. ke fu | ko e te Today | Surpass -> Transcend. 4. a sa ki | yu me mi si Shallow | Dream see not -> Shallow dream means life or success. It basically means that when you die, you realise that it was a shallow dream. In some versions the kanji "Kyo" is used right before "Dream". The same kanji with Kyoto or Tokyo. "The capital". By the way Kyoto means "The capital city". Tokyo means "The eastern capital". For people who don't know anything about kanji. we fi | mo se su Drunkenness | Also do not -> Don't be drunken by shallow dreams. ### Summary Color is Fragrant but Scatter Going Our world Who ever Eternity Be would? Sankhara 's Deep mountain Today Surpass Shallow Dream see not Drunkenness Also do not ### Vertical reading In the original format of 7-7-7-7-7-7-5, if you read only the last characters of the lines it's "to ka na ku te si su". That means "Dying without wrong doings". That is the hidden meaning of this poem.