Borrowed fromJapanese悟り(satori,“understanding; (Buddhism) enlightenment, satori”), from悟る(satoru,“to perceive; to comprehend, understand; to come to enlightenment”), fromMiddle Chinese悟(nguH,“to become aware, apprehend, realize; to awaken”) (modernMandarin悟(wù)), used to translatePalibodhi(“supreme knowledge”) or itsetymonSanskritबोधि(bodhi,“perfect knowledge or wisdom by which a person becomes a buddha or jina; enlightened or illuminated intellect of a Buddha or jina”).[1]
Etymology 1 sense 3 (“mutant gene ofDrosophila that causes homosexual behaviour in males”) wascoined by the Japanese scientist Daisuke Yamamoto in a 1991 paper,[2] based on the Japanese term.
1727, Engelbertus Kæmpfer [i.e.,Engelbert Kaempfer], “Of the Temples and Clergy of this City”, in J. G. Scheuchzer [i.e.,Johann Caspar Scheuchzer], transl.,The History of Japan,[…], volume I, London:[…][F]or the translator,→OCLC, book IV (Of Nagasacki,[…]),page308:
[B]y his ſublime underſtanding and reputed great knovvledge in divine myſteries he obtain'd, and ſtill keeps, the name and repute of aGodo, that is, a perſon bleſs'd vvith a divine and moſt accute underſtanding, vvhom they ſuppoſe to be able to find out by hisSatori, or Enthuſiaſtic Speculations, ſuch miſterious truths, as are far beyond the reach of common knovvledge.
1727, Engelbertus Kæmpfer [i.e.,Engelbert Kaempfer], “[The Appendix[…].] I. The Natural History of the Japanese Tea; with an Accurate Description of that Plant, Its Culture, Growth, Preparation, and Uses.”, in J. G. Scheuchzer [i.e.,Johann Caspar Scheuchzer], transl.,The History of Japan,[…], volume II, London:[…][F]or the translator,→OCLC,§ 2,page 3:
He[Darma orBodhidharma] lived only upon vegetables, and thought this to be the higheſt degree of Holineſs, to paſs days and nights in an uninterruptedSatori, that is, a contemplation of the Divine Being.
Satori and Zen seem to have such an intimate relationship in Japan that when somebody says "satori," everybody immediately associates it with Zen, and vice versa.[…] ForShakyamuni,satori wasn't something peculiar only to himself. His was thesatori of life inclusive of himself and all things. That is something that truly goes beyond the discrimination of our minds.
What happened to the Merry Band on its trip during the summer of 1964 ranged from the cosmically sublime to the ridiculous, from peak ecstasy to full-tiltsatori. To say that they were merely high would do a disservice to how stoned they really were,[…]
We have isolated a newDrosophila mutant,satori (sat), the males of which do not court or copulate with female flies.[…] We have screened about 2000 fly lines with single P-element insertions for altered sexual behavior, yielding a mutant namedsatori (sat; nirvana in Japanese), the males of which do not court or copulate with females. Instead,sat males exhibit homosexual courtship.
1996 October, Daisuke Yamamoto, Hiroki Ito, Kazuko Fujitani, “Genetic Dissection of Sexual Orientation: Behavioral, Cellular, and Molecular Approaches inDrosophila melanogaster”, inNeuroscience Research: The Official Journal of the Japan Neuroscience Society, volume26, number 2, Amsterdam:Elsevier Science,→DOI,→ISSN,→OCLC, abstract, page95:
[T]he primary site of action of thefru gene should be in the neural cells.satori,[sic] one of the P-insertion alleles offru which we isolated, carried thelacZ gene ofE. coli as a reporter, and β-galactosidase expression was found in a subset of brain cells including those in the antennal lobe in thesatori mutant.
Borrowed fromJapanese覚(satori), fromMiddle Chinese覺(kaewk,“to become aware, awaken to, dawn on”) (modernMandarin覺 /觉(jué); referring to the creature’s mind-reading ability).[3]
TheSatori appears in[Toriyama] Sekien'sKonjyaku Gazu Zoku Hyakki as a hairy, ape-like, mountain-dwelling creature that can read people's minds[…].
2023, Masami Kinoshita, “Super Scary Yokai”, inThe Japanese Yokai Handbook: A Guide to the Spookiest Ghosts, Demons, Monsters and Evil Creatures from Japanese Folklore, Tokyo:Tuttle Publishing,→ISBN,page29:
Satori is a ghost that can read people's thoughts and haunts the mountains. The hairySatori appears in an Edo-period book titledKonjaku Gazu Zoku Hyakki. According to the book,Satori can read people's minds, but will not harm them. Even if a frightened person plans to kill him or her,Satori reads his or her mind and simply runs away before he or she can do any harm.
2023, Kenji Murakami, “Yokai Countermeasures and Weaknesses”, inZack Davisson, transl.,Strange Japanese Yokai: A Guide to the Weird and Wonderful Monsters, Demons and Spirits, North Clarendon, Vt.:Tuttle Publishing,→ISBN,page89:
This is most likely a type of Yokai called aSatori. They have the ability to read people's minds. And like withSatori, the only way to get rid of them is with a sudden, unexpected attack.[…] The ability to read minds is dangerous, but it doesn't give the ability to predict sudden actions.
^Daisuke Yamamoto (30 March 2016), “Nature vs. Nurture in Drosophila Courtship[abstract of a lecture]”, inOkinawa Institute of Science and Technology[1]: “Approximately 25 years ago, I discovered a clue to tackling this problem by isolating aDrosophila mutant that I namedsatori, males of which preferentially courted males rather than females without copulating (Yamamoto et al., 1991).”
^Toriyama Sekien (2016), “覚: Satori (Perceiver)”, in[anonymous], transl.,Japandemonium Illustrated: The Yokai Encyclopedias of Toriyama Sekien, Mineola, N.Y.:Dover Publications, published2017,→ISBN,page92: “Satori is written with a character meaning ‘enlightenment,’ presumably a reference to its ability to read minds.”
, Oxford:Oxford University Press,July 2023;“satori,n.”, inLexico,Dictionary.com;Oxford University Press,2019–2022.
satori on Wikipedia.Wikipedia