(13)Who created the inscription on the Cenotaph?

Words from a professor stir controversy

"Let all the souls here rest in peace; For we shall not repeat the evil." These are the words--a powerful prayer for peace--inscribed on the stone monument for the A-bomb victims. But who wrote them? I quickly found the answer.

The author was Tadayoshi Saika, a professor at Hiroshima University whose field is English Literature. At the time, Mayor Shinzo Hamai was considering the inscription when he was introduced to Professor Saika, who is also an A-bomb survivor.

Visitors pray in front of the A-bomb Cenotaph.

Apparently, Professor Saika met with the Mayor who told him that the inscription should convey both "a prayer and a vow". Professor Saika then spent two hours creating a rough draft, which he completed the next day.

55 years ago, on August 6th, the new Cenotaph was unveiled during the Peace Memorial Ceremony, but something unexpected happened soon after.

In November of that year, Dr. R.B. Pal, a delegate from India to the World Federation Asian Conference, questioned the subject "we" in "we shall not repeat the evil". (It should be noted that the original Japanese text does not contain a subject, a grammar-related distinction between the two languages.) Dr. Pal felt that "we" was referring to the Japanese and yet the Japanese were not solely responsible for the war and did not drop the atomic bomb. His comments led to a controversy over the inscription.

In fact, I discovered that Professor Saika worked on the English translation before the inscription had been completed. In this initial translation, which included the subject "we", Professor Saika intended to express the idea that all human beings--the Japanese, too--must vow never to repeat the evils of war and nuclear weapons.

Haruo Aoki, 77, a student at Hiroshima University at that time, recalled a conversation between Professor Saika and an American professor who was visiting Hiroshima. The American professor insisted "Only the United States was to blame, so it should not be 'we'." However, Professor Saika contended that "Japan was at fault, too" and so he could not accept this argument. A letter from Professor Saika to city officials indicates that he also sought support for his position from other academics in the United States, at the University of Illinois.

Moreover, Professor Saika directly opposed Dr. Pal's point-of-view. His son, Hiryo, 79, showed me the draft of a letter to Dr. Pal that was typed in English. In it Professor Saika asserts, "Now this appeal of the Epitaph is plain enough, and 999 people out of a thousand can catch it."

Masaru Kumagawa, 75, and Hiroshi Onishi, 74, were Professor Saika's students at Hiroshima University. They vividly remember his words, spoken during a lecture, "With an attitude of blame, how can we achieve lasting peace as a species?"

Standing in front of the inscription, I now felt the meaning of these words more profoundly. (Kyoko Morioka, staff writer)