What are the Pain's theme song lyrics?

Question

When Pain appears in Naruto Shippuden, there is always a good background music named Girei that is played.

I wanted to know the lyrics, so I looked it up on the net and found a few results that state that the lyrics are in English. Here are the results I found:

Version 1:

As we forgive for love
but we can not pull through
if we can not forgive
we all tribute to love

Version 2:

As we forgive for love
but we can not pull through
if we can not forgive
for our tribute true love

And Version 3 (the phonetic one):

meh-shea-fu-ni coo-ma
mah-ni-kay-nah-bow-coo
ee-ee-kay-nah for-gee
kor-ah-tay-boo troo- la or bah or ma

But I'm still convinced that the song is definitely Japanese.

Can anyone who is/knows Japanese confirm this?

Answer 1

Long shot, guys, but don't you think that if it's a chant it can be in Chinese? For example like this:

没师傅你哭吗    Méi shīfù nǐ kū ma
那你可那波苦    Nà nǐ kě nàbō kǔ

First two lines can be then read as such:

Master didn't cry for you
You can wave of that pain

Then I'd go with Japanese/English line:

いけない FORGIVE    Ikenai FORGIVE

And that one means simply:

Don't forgive

The only thing I can't possibly get is the last line... It sounds Latin-ish, but it can't be as there are no words fitting phonetically to these syllables... It sounds between Japanese and some ancient European language...

What do you think, guys?

Answer 2

I heard it as being poetic Japanese. Of course, I could be wrong.

"Pein no Rikudo - OR - Me sei no Rikudo
Aniki no boku
Girei te no ronri
Kono te boku wa"

Loosely translated:

"Pain of the six paths - OR - Logical eye of the six paths
Elder brother student to me
The crying god's hand of logic
This hand mine."

Remember, in poetry, typical sentence structure and word use does not always apply.

My translation fits well with the story of Naruto in the Pein arc. Pein had it all figured out supposedly, and Naruto, who had no answer to that logic yet knew that it was wrong, stood against him anyway.

Pein literally referred to himself as Naruto's "Aniki", and later on, Naruto refers to him as such.

In any case, I hope that my take on this is helpful. I know that a lot of people have wanted an alternative to the other interpretations out there.

Answer 3

But I'm still convinced that the song is definitely Japanese.

Contrary to the premise of the question, I'm doubting that the lyric is in Japanese.

Googling for combinations of 儀礼+歌詞 (Girei+Lyric) with ペイン, ナルト, and/or 疾風伝 (Pain, Naruto, and/or Shippuden) didn't return any convincing result that the lyric is in Japanese.

One of the top results was Yahoo! Chiebukuro (Japanese) asking the same question, which was answered with a link to Yamura Life's FC2 Blog (Japanese) with the same lyric mentioned on the question.

NicoNicoDouga (Japanese) video also doesn't contain commenter's lyric (not even 空耳/"misheard lyric" which is usually popular with song with unintelligible lyric)

"Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence", but seeing that Japanese people didn't even notice if the lyric is in Japanese (in addition to it being poetic, or even archaic) could be a strong evidence that the lyric is not in Japanese.

As for the "lyric" itself... probably the only one who knows is the composer, Toshio Masuda. Considering the song is like a chant/hymn, an unintelligible lyric is a possibility, or maybe it's actually a puzzle like Final Fantasy 10's Hymn of the Fayth.

Answer 4

After some research myself I found there might be some Japanese in there. Take note

1. I ain't natively Japanese so there might be some mistakes.
2. There have been no official lyric releases. Its current label stands on Ambient, this might be the reason for that.
3. As it is stated that it is chanting, it might even be a non-existent language or a combination of several, as is more often used in different forms of chanting. Example: repeating of the word "om" during meditation.
4. The composer Toshio Masuda composed and synthesized the song, so it can also just be synthesized English.

Besides those 4 points, I tried to get a Japanese lyrics out of it based on the phonetic version you gave and some parts by ear using this version of the song and got to something along those lines

meh-shea-fu-ni coo-ma
Me-ichi-fu-ni-ko-ma : 目 市 府 に 子 ま
The top eye city office

As this seemed most similar to the original phonetic I found this to be most matching. I also found the translation to be very fitting to Pain

Had a bit more issues with the next part as I found several possibilities

mah-ni-kay-nah-bow-coo
Nani-kai boku : 何 会 僕 : What I Association
Nan-kai boku : (placeholder) : How many times I
Nan-i- kaina boku- : なん-位-会 な 僕 : What - position - a meeting I  : 

I myself found the second one most fitting, but it felt as if some part was missing.

ee-ee-kay-nah for-gee
Īe kata-nori : いいえ肩乗り 
No shoulder ride

Also the most fitting in context one I found

kor-ah-tay-boo troo- la or bah or ma
Kore wa-bu Tsu ~a : これ 和 部 津 ァ  
This sum section §

So the lyrics would end up something along the lines of

The top eye city office
What position I meet
It is no shoulder ride
This sum section

This is the best I could make of it.