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Every culture has to wrestle with the problem of dealing with the concept of time. Time is seen as something to which we are all subject, but which can and indeed must be regulated, if not mastered.

Leach suggests that all aspects of time are derived from ‘two basic experiences: (1) that certain phenomena of nature repeat themselves and (2) that life change is irreversible (Leach 1966:125).

Leach goes on to assert that religion constantly requires the two basic experiences to be embraced under one category:

Repetitive and non-repetitive events are not, after all, logically the same. We treat them both as aspects of one ‘thing’, time, not because it is rational to do so, but because of religious prejudice.

The idea of Time, like the idea of God, is one of those categories which we find necessary because we are social animals rather than because of anything empirical in our objective experience of the world, (ibid.)

Language is the key to the concept of time in any culture. Numbers may then provide the means for using this concept as a means for organising activity in everyday life. Before dealing with numbers in relation to time in Japan (which is the main theme of this chapter) it is necessary to see how time appears in the Japanese language. The kanji used for the different words in the written language can also be analysed so as to add to our understanding of the way the Japanese conceive of time.

The basic character is , with an on reading, ji and a kun reading, toki, which is the ‘only pure Japanese word for time’ (Caillet 1986:45). Although the meaning of toki is quite general, it occurs particularly in contexts where in English it would be translated by

‘when’, so as to indicate the time at which something specific happens, or is expected to happen.¹ In other words, toki is the time of an event. The radical, , of the character, , generally in its kun reading, hi, means ‘sun’² or ‘day’. The on reading of , ji, occurs in any number of compounds, all of which connote time in some way.

Of these, four in particular show how the Japanese conceive of time:

jiten, jikoku, jikan and jidai.

Jiten, in kanji , means ‘a point in time’, in principle an instant of time without duration. In this it corresponds to words in several western languages, such as the Dutch tijdstip. It connotes much of what is summed up in the English ‘punctual’, that is that a point in time can be identified in advance and specified as the instant at which something is to take place.

Jikoku, in kanji , has much the same meaning, although it is used in different contexts, such as jikokuhy), the normal word for a time-table. The kun reading of the same kanji is the verb kiza(mu), which can mean to ‘cut’ or ‘notch’, so that jikoku imports the recording of time in this way. The use of the word in jikokuhy) is therefore appropriate, for it relates the dimension of time to that of space.

Jikan, in kanji , is a word connoting duration, not the instant moment. Kan is the interval³ between two ten,⁴ in time or space, so that jikan is the normal word for ‘hour’ although it can mean simply ‘time’.⁵ The normal word for an interval is the kun reading, aida,⁶ equivalent to kan, which refers particularly to the time between the days, setsu-bi, for recognised rites. Setsu occurs also in the normal word for ‘season’, kisetsu,⁷ and its original connotation was that of a ‘(bamboo) joint’—

by implication between two aida (Caillet 1986:34).

Jidai, in kanji , is perhaps the most significant of the four ji-compounds to be analysed. This word, familiar to any Japanese, means ‘period’ or ‘era’, which would also be the meaning of dai if it stood alone. The kun equivalents to dai, in the verbal forms ka(eru) and ka(waru), import ‘substitution’, ‘renewal’, ‘change’

and ‘alternation’. The commonest use of jidai is probably to designate an era corresponding to the reign of an emperor, so that one now talks of the Sh) wa-jidai. Jidai therefore implies succession, and with succession, a new zeitgeist for every era. This point will come up again with the detailed examination of the Japanese calendar.

Besides ji, with all its compounds relating to time, two other kanji, and , commonly connote time. Both have the on reading, ki, but this is pure coincidence. The former, , is particularly appropriate for

98 The Japanese numbers game

statements relating to future time. An example is kitai, meaning ‘hope’

or ‘expectation’, in which the component, tai, means ‘waiting’. Many compounds imply the limitation, also, of time, so that kigen is a time limit, or deadline, and kikan is a period with a definite starting point, kishu, and endpoint, kimatsu. (This clearly distinguishes it from jidai, which is a period in the sense of an era.)

The connotations of ki, written with the kanji, , are in a quite different semantic area. Not surprisingly, for a kanji whose kun reading, hata, means ‘loom’, most of the compounds connote something mechanical, but kikai is a quite normal word for ‘chance’ or

‘opportunity’, and other compounds, such as kigi, kien and kiun, have much the same meaning. Here again time is evoked in terms of the alternation, with kikai being determined by the place where, instantaneously, the shuttle stops. The connotation is relatively weak in this case, and its metaphorical basis comparatively modern.

In words relating to time, the connotation of cyclic movement is much weaker than that of alternation. Common kanji such as and , connoting circularity in most of their compounds, do not relate to time. , which combines in its on reading, kai, with numerals to mean

‘-times’ (so that, for instance, nikai means ‘twice’), implies circularity in almost every variant of its kun readings, so that mawa(ri) can mean

‘rotation’ or ‘circumference’. Mawari is also a kun reading of , which in its on reading, sh*, has any number of compounds implying a recurring cycle—so much so that sh*ha and sh*ki⁸ are both normal words for ‘cycle’ or ‘frequency’ in the wave theory of physics. The kanji also provides the phonetic component of , whose only meaning is ‘week’, almost always in the compound sh*kan.⁹ The question is, how significant is it that a measured period of time, that is, the week, which was only introduced into Japan in the modern era (Chamberlain 1974:475), is the one with the most pronounced cyclical basis? An answer must wait on the analysis of the cyclical nature of the traditional calendar.

Finally, it is worth noting that the two periods of time, defined in terms of the suffix kan, that is, jikan and sh*kan, both have no basis in natural, or better, celestial phenomena. The hour, as a fixed part of the day, is a cultural invention, just as is the week, as a period of a fixed number of days. In traditional Japan, because the length of the day was determined by the period of daylight, the length of the hour varied according to the season, whereas the length of the week remained, a fortiori, constant. The hour also, as it is divided into minutes, or jibun, makes use of a unit, derived from the Chinese fen, which means the smallest unit into which anything can be divided. The corresponding

kanji, , with, in Japanese, the on reading, bun, has a kun reading, wa(keru), meaning ‘to divide’.¹⁰