The concept of mono no aware has widely been accepted as an epitome of things Japanese. However, it is almost surprising that, while the concept is often discussed in close relation with Motoori Norinaga, the Edo-period scholar who examined it in several tomes, it is seldom surveyed in connection to Tosa Nikki, the pioneering "diary literature" written by 10th century poet Ki no Tsurayuki, which is in fact the first text written in Japanese to demonstrate the term.

This paper aims to approach the original substance of mono no aware by carefully evaluating the ways in which the term is applied in the text, and see whether its usage is "accurate" compared to how the concept is understood today. This should, naturally, give rise to a new question: do we truly understand mono no aware? To further address this question, I would like to go for a ramble through different attempts of translation conducted on mono no aware, especially in the case of Tosa Nikki, since it has been translated into English at least five times, by translators who lived in different times and places, and associated with Japanese literature in different manners. While it is not the purpose of this paper to derive the ultimate definition of the concept, hopefully, my attempt would shed some light on how mono no aware has disseminated to the future and to the West.