New Delhi, May 9 -- This proverb comes from one of the oldest traditions in Japanese intellectual life. It appears in the Analects of Confucius, the ancient Chinese text that shaped Japanese scholarship for over a thousand years. Japan absorbed and refined this idea across centuries of learning. It became a guiding principle for scholars, craftsmen, warriors and artists alike. The Japanese did not merely borrow the idea; they made it their own.

The proverb's Japanese title gives it additional weight. The verb tazuneru means to visit, to inquire, to seek out. You do not passively receive the old. You go to it. You seek it out deliberately. That active posture is built into the language itself.

The proverb has four words in its core instr...