Iroha

The is a Japanese poem. Originally the poem was attributed to the founder of the Shingon Esoteric sect of Buddhism in Japan, Kūkai, but more modern research has found the date of composition to be later in the Heian period (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, in the same way as the "A", "B", "C", "D"... sequence of the Latin alphabet.
Text.
The first appearance of the Iroha, in was in seven lines: six with seven morae each, and one with five. It was also written in man'yōgana.
<poem>
以呂波耳本部止
千利奴流乎和加
餘多連曽津祢那
良牟有為能於久
耶万計不己衣天
阿佐伎喩女美之
恵比毛勢須
</poem>
Structurally, however, the poem follows the standard 7–5 pattern of Japanese poetry (with one hypometric line), and in modern times it is generally written that way, in contexts where line breaks are used. The text of the poem in hiragana (with archaic and but without voiced consonant marks) is:
Note that archaic hiragana uses and , which are now only used in proper names and certain Okinawan orthographies. Modern writing uses voiced consonant marks (with dakuten). This is used as an indicator of sound changes in the spoken Japanese language in the Heian era.
An English translation by Professor Ryuichi Abe reads as:
Komatsu Hideo has revealed that the last syllable of each line of the Man'yō-gana original (), when put together, reveals a hidden sentence, "toka [=toga] nakute shisu" (), which means "die without wrong-doing". It is thought that this might be eulogy in praise of Kūkai, further supporting the notion that the Iroha was written after Kūkai's death.
Usage.
The iroha contains every kana only once, with the exception of (-"n"), which was not distinguished from "mu" in writing until the early 20th century (see Japanese script reform). For this reason, the poem was frequently used as an ordering of the kana until the Meiji era reforms in the 19th century. Around 1890, with the publication of the "Wakun no Shiori" () and "Genkai" () dictionaries, the "gojūon" (, literally "fifty sounds") ordering system, which is based on Sanskrit, became more common. It begins with "a", "i", "u", "e", "o" then "ka", "ki", "ku"... and so on for each kana used in Japanese. Although the earliest known copy of the "gojūon" predated the iroha, "gojūon" was considered too scholarly and had not been widely used.
Even after widespread use of "gojūon" in education and dictionaries, the "iroha" sequence was commonly used as a system of showing order, similarly to "a", "b", "c"... in English. For example, Imperial Japanese Navy submarines during the Second World War had official designations beginning with "I" (displacement 1,000 tonnes or more), "Ro" (500 to 999 tonnes), and "Ha" (less than 500 tonnes). Also, Japanese tanks had official designations partly using "iroha", such as "Chi-ha" ("ha" meaning the third model). Other examples include subsection ordering in documents, seat numbering in theaters, and showing go moves in diagrams (kifu).
Current uses.
The "iroha" sequence is still used today in many areas with long traditions. Most notably, officially use "iroha" for lower-level subsection ordering purposes, for example (Article 49, Section 2, Subsection 1-"ro"). In official translation to English, "i", "ro", "ha"... are replaced by "a", "b", "c"... as in "49(2)(i)(b)".
In music, the notes of an octave are named "i ro ha ni ho he to", written in katakana.
"Iroha" is also used in numbering the classes of the conventional train cars of Japanese National Railways (now known as JR). "I" is first class (no longer used), "Ro" is second class (now "Green car") and "Ha" is third class (standard carriages).
Some Japanese expressions need knowledge of "iroha" to understand. The word "iroha" (, often in katakana) itself can mean "the basics" in Japanese, comparable to the term "the ABCs" in English. Similarly, "iroha no i" () means "the most basic element of all". "I no ichiban" (, "number one of "i"") means "the very first".
"Iroha karuta", a traditional card game, is still sold as an educational toy.
Irohazaka (), a one-way switchback mountain road at Nikkō, Tochigi, is named for the poem because it has 48 corners. The route was popular with Buddhist pilgrims on their way to Lake Chūzenji, which is at the top of the forested hill that this road climbs. While the narrow road has been modernized over the years, care has been taken to keep the number of curves constant.
Origin.
Authorship is traditionally ascribed to the Heian era Japanese Buddhist priest and scholar Kūkai () (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 ("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":
<poem>
諸行無常
是生滅法
生滅滅已
寂滅為楽
</poem>
which translates into
The above in Japanese is read
<poem>
"Shogyō mujō"
"Zeshō meppō"
"Shōmetsu metsui"
"Jakumetsu iraku"
</poem>