By a recent inquiry of a collector I came across a blade´s nickname that had given me a little headache a time ago in another context. This other context was a blade by Kotetsu (虎徹) I introduced in my Kantei volumes (No 237.621, Shinto & Shinshintô-kantei pages 124-125; Shintô & Shinshintô-kantei zenshû pages 198-199) (see picture 1). The mei of the blade reads: “Dôsaku horu kore (同作彫之) – Nagasone Kotetsu Nyûdô Okisato” (長曽祢虎徹入道興里), and the kinzôgan-mei: “Konkaidan (坤皆断) mitsu-dô, futatsu-dô setsudan no sono hoka shosho muichifu tameshi no yue gô Konkaidan” (三ツ胴二ツ胴截断之其外処々無一不試之故号坤皆断, “because of the cutting test where the blade cutted through two, three bodies and also because it never failed, it shall be named ´Konkaidan´”) – “Yamano Ka´emon no Jô Nagahisa + kaô” (山野加右衛門尉永久).

Picture 1: katana by Kotetsu, nagasa 71.2 cm, sori 1.2 cm

Konkaidan is, as mentioned in my Kantei volumes, a term from the divination system of the I-Ching, and after sending an inquiry to Japan, I was told that the konkaidan trigram also stands for the Dainichi-nyorai (大日如来), the Vairocana Buddha. Well, I was not that satisfied with that because of the lack of connection. A reference to the Vairocana Buddha alone would have been ok for me but the wording of the tameshi-mei “because of the cutting test … it shall be named ´Konkaidan´” made me doubt as if there is a better explanation. Now the Kantei volumes had to come to an end but this inscription preyed upon my mind. And some months later, it fell like scales from my eyes when browing through my Kantei volumes on the search for a certain blade by Kotetsu´s successor Okimasa (興正). The nickname of the blade has not so much to do with the Vairocana Buddha and the konkaidan trigram, or to be more precise the kon trigram (坤), has to be taken “literally” as a symbol. As seen in picture 2 it is composed of three broken lines which just look like three severed bodies positioned atop of each other for a cutting test! So the nickname of the blade Konkaidan translates roughly as “cut through three bodies like the kon trigram.”

Picture 2: The kon trigram and three bodies positioned at the dotanbarai.

The second blade I addressed was shortened to a wakizashi. It shows a flamboyant Bizen-style hamon with utsuri and has old tokubetsu-kichô papers to Heki Mitsuhira (日置光平), although the midare-komi bôshi and the workmanship in general made me and the owner of the blade also think that it might be a work of Tatara Nagayuki (多々良長幸). Anyway, the shortened nakago was inlayed with the nickname Konkaidan and interesting is, that this wakizashi comes with a habaki onto which the kon trigram is engraved (partly visible in picture 3).

Picture 3: The nakago of the supposed Mitsuhira wakizashi with the kinzôgan-mei “Konkaidan”

Picture 4: Flamboyant hamon of the supposed Mitsuhira wakizashi, nagasa 54.0 cm, sori 2.0 cm

So much for the supplements to the kinzôgan-mei “Konkaidan.” Now I want to introduce some more nicknames of swords which go more or less back to their cutting abilities, namely such nicknames which do not necessarily refer to the cutting ability of a single special blade but which are more “general” and thus might also be found inlayed on more than one blade.

Asaarashi (朝嵐): Asaarashi means literally “morning storm” and refers to strong storms in the morning which make it impossible for fresh snow to remain on mountain peaks. But it can also refer to a heavy storm which makes you slip and fall from a wintery mountain, so we have here basically the same allusion as the nickname → Sasanoyuki.

Daiyagawa (大谷川) → Taki no mizu (滝之水)

Funabashi (船橋) → Tanahashi (棚橋)

Fusenaikyô (無布施経・布施無経): This term means literally “no offering at Sutra reading” and refers to the practice that monks usually received offerings (fuse, 布施) when paying a visit and reading Sutras. But sometimes the parishioners did not give any offerings and in such a case the monks so to speak showed up without their kesa robe, almost in the sense of “no money, no honey.” In sword terms, fusenaikyô just means to perform a kesa-kiri (袈裟斬り), i.e. a cut diagonally over the chest following theoretically the seam of a monks kesa robe. So, a saying among monks developed from this context, which was: “Take off your kesa when going to read Sutras with no offerings” (fusenai-kyô ni kesa-otosu, 布施ない経に袈裟落す), and with this context, the nickname in the context of swords could also mean: “Here, I take the kesa off for you with my sword!” For example, there is supposedly a blade by the Kan´ei-era (寛永, 1624-1644) Owari smith Ujikumo (氏雲), and one by the Osafune Sanenaga (真長) bearing the nickname Fusenaikyô.

Gibôshi-fusetsu no todomarazu (擬法珠風雪不溜): “Snow does not accumulate on a gibôshi.” A gibôshi is the onion-shaped ornament on a bridges handrail and so this nickname refers to a blade so sharp that it cuts through an object as easily as a snow slides from such a gibôshi.

Hachimonji (八文字): This nickname goes back to a legend which says that Satake Yoshishige (佐竹義重, 1547-1612) cut with his Chôgi blade (長義) in the tenth year of Eiroku (永禄, 1567) in a battle a mounted enemy into halves. Because the blow went through the helmet down to the saddle, both body halves slided down to the left and right of the horse. This “sliding” resembled the character (monji, 文字) for “eight” (hachi, 八) and this is why the blade got its nickname “Hachimonji.”

Picture 5: The meibutsu Hachimonji-Chôgi, nagasa 78.5 cm, sori 2.1 cm

Hatchô-Nenbutsu-dango-zashi (八丁念仏団子刺し): There is the legend about Suzuki Magoichi (鈴木孫一, 1534-1589) who cut with his sword at a monk but who kept reciting the nenbutsu and walked away from the scene as if nothing happened. Magoichi was so perplexed and wondered about the sharpness of his sword so that he stabbed angrily on the ground several times. After he had calmed down he looked down at his sword which had skewered stones (sashi/zashi, 刺し) like dumplings (dango, 団子). Then he followed the tracks of the monk and found him dead, cut intwo two halves, at a distance of eight chô (hatchô, 八丁 ~ 870 m). Thus he nicknamed his blade by Bizen Yukiie (行家) Hatchô-Nenbutsu-dango-zashi, about “if you cut somebody with this blade, the person doesn´t notice it because of the sharpness and can still make eight chô, and apart from that, you can skewer stones with it like dumplings.”

Jigokuzue (地獄杖): This term means literally “hell cane.” It is found for example as kinzôgan-mei on a Bungo-Takada blade and stands for the sword in general, i.e. the sword being a “cane” which sends you to hell.

Kagotsurube (籠釣瓶): This term is found on quite many blades. It means “woven bamboo basket (kago, 籠) as sinking bucket (tsuruba, 釣瓶).” A woven bamboo basket can´t hold water of course and as easy the water leaks out from such a basket, as easy cuts a blade with that nickname. An about identical nickname is Kotsurube (古釣瓶), i.e. a lit. “old basket” which can´t hold water. It is found as kinzôgan-mei on a wakizashi by Osafune Motoshige (元重) which was once a heirloom of the Tsuyama-Matsudaira family (津山松平).

Picture 6: katana by No-Sada with the kinzôgan-mei “Gô Kagotsurube” (号笭釣瓶), nagasa 66.8 cm, sori 1.7 cm. Please note that a different character for “Kago” was used for this inscription.

Kokesa (古袈裟): This name has basically two meanings. One alludes again to the kesa cut and the other one goes back to the symbolism of a very old kesa robe, i.e. a ko-kesa, which tears by itself and without any further force, quasi cutting through something so easily as if doesn´t need any extra force to do so. There is a blade by the Sue-Seki smith Kanemine (兼峯) which bears the ginzôgan-mei “Kokesa” (古けさ). A similar nickname is → Yaregoromo.

Kotsurube (古釣瓶) → Kagotsurube (籠釣瓶)

Kusarinawa (腐り縄・クサリナワ): Kusarinawa means literally “rotten straw rope.” This nickname is found as kinzôgan-mei and in katakana syllables on an Aoe blade and refers like → Kokesa to an easily tearing rope, i.e. in the figurative sense to a very sharp blade which cuts through things easily.

Matsukaze (松風): This nickname is used for a sword which cuts through things as if nothing had happened, just making the sound of the wind soughing through pine trees. The kinzôgan-mei “Matsukaze” is for example found on a blade of the Sue-kotô Sakakura-Seki smith Masatoshi (酒倉正利).

Michishiba no tsuyu (道芝の露) → Sasanoyuki (笹雪・篠雪)

Odoributsu (踊仏): Literally “dancing Buddha”, this term alludes to Buddha or a monk starting to dance and taking off the kesa from the shoulder. So again we have here a reference to the kesa cut. This nickname is found for example on a katana by Etchû no Kami Masatoshi (越中守正俊).

Oni-Hôchô (鬼包丁): A wakizashi in kata-shinogi-zukuri – a shape where one side is in shinogi-zukuri and the other one in hira-zukuri – by Hata Mitsuyo (秦光代) with a nagasa of 42,4 cm was the favourite sword of the famous Shinkage-ryû (新陰流) swordsman Yagyû Ren´ya Yoshikane (柳生連也厳包, 1625-1694). When Ren´ya was surprised one night by an assassin, he drew this short sword and killed his opponent with one single blow. Due to this incident, the blade received the nickname “Oni-Hôchô” (鬼包丁), lit “devil´s kitchen knife.” The peculiar shape was copied later by other smiths too whereas the nickname “Oni-Hôchô” was kept for such blades.

Picture7: Oni-Hôchô-style blade attributed to Hata Mitsuyo, nagasa 62.2 cm, sori 0.7 cm

Sasanoyuki (笹雪・篠雪): Literally “snow on a bamboo leaf,” this term alludes to no force needed to cut with such a blade just like snow slips from a bamboo leaf without further ado when too heavy. A similar nickname is Michishiba no tsuyu (道芝の露). It alludes to the dew (tsuyu, 道露) on roadside grass (michishiba, 道芝) which also slips from the leaves without any further ado. This rather uncommon name was used for a blade of Kimura Shigenari (木村重成, 1593-1615) who fought an all-out battle at the Siege of Ôsaka but was caught and beheaded. And the same allusion is used by the nickname Take no ha no arare (竹葉霰・竹の葉のあられ), lit. “hail slipping from bamboo leaves.”

Sotto-hasamibako (ソット挟箱): This nickname is found for example as inscription on a blade by Kanefusa (兼房). It refers to a certain storage box (hasamibako, 挟箱) for spare clothes worn by a servant via a stick over the shoulder. At this certain form of such a box, clothes were pinched between two bamboo sticks and carried over the shoulder to let them dry. But they sometimes fell down, silently and unnoticed (sotto, ソット) as the weight did not much decrease and not making any noise when hitting the ground. So a sword nicknamed that way is so sharp that the enemy doesn´t even notice that he had been hit.

Take no ha no arare (竹葉霰・竹の葉のあられ) → Sasanoyuki (笹雪・篠雪)

Taki no mizu (滝之水): Nickname for a blade which is so sharp that a severed body part falls off like the water (mizu, 水) of a waterfall (taki, 滝). A blade by the Kan´ei-era (寛永, 1624-1644) Owari smith Bungo no Kami Masamitsu (豊後守正全) is named that way. A nickname with the same meaning is Daiyagawa (大谷川). It refers to Kegon Falls (華厳滝) along the Daiyagawa in the Nikkô National Park.

Tanahashi (棚橋): A tanahashi is a bridge without any railing, i.e. a bridge from which one can fall from easily. The Yamano family used this term to mark a very sharp blade, for example found as kinzôgan-mei on a blade of Yamato no Kami Yasusada (大和守安定). A similar term is Funabashi (船橋), a “bridge” made out of aligned boats. Crossing a river via aligned and moving boats without any railings is of course dangerous and one can slip easily. The nickname Funabashi is for example found on a blade by Tanba no Kami Yoshimichi (丹波守吉道).

Tôrinuke (通抜): This term means as verb torinukeru (通り抜ける) “to cut through, to go through,” i.e. it refers to a sharp sword which cuts through things easily.

Unomi (鵜呑): A sword which cuts through things as easy and fast as a cormorand (u, 鵜) swallows (nomi, 呑) fish. A blade by Hachiya Kanesada (蜂屋兼貞) for example bears this nickname.

Yaregoromo (弊衣・破衣): The term means “worn out clothes”, i.e. so worn out and thin that they tear easily. It is said that Tokugawa Mitsukuni (徳川光圀, 1628-1701) nicknamed his blade by Onizuka Yoshikuni (鬼塚吉国) that way when punishing a dissolute priest with it. That means the sharp blade cut so easily through the poor monk like worn out clothes tear apart. Another nickname with the same meaning is Yareginu (破絹), lit. “worn out silk.” It is found on a blade by Harima no Kami Teruhiro (播磨守輝広).

Yume no aida (夢の間): This term means “as in a dream” or “like dreaming.” It is found for example on a blade by Suishinshi Masahide (水心子正秀) which with a wakige (脇下) test cut through the armpits went through the body as if nothing had happened, i.e. just like everything was a dream.

In the course of my research on the more unknown schools, I want to introduce this time the Kaimoto smiths (甲斐本) of Bungo province. First of all, let´s address the name of the group. It goes back to an area of the same name in Nakao (中尾). Nakao in turn is located about 3 km to the southwest of the city of Bungo-Ôno (豊後大野市) and about 30 km to the south of the city of Ôita (大分市) and at the limits of the village of Nakao, there are still the graves of the Kaimoto smiths extant. The i in “Kaimoto” is usually not pronounced, i.e. with kay like in okay but with a longer “a” and not stressing the “y”. Older topographies transcribe the area also as “Kehinomoto” (ケヒノモト) and write the name with the characters (賀井本), or (賀井ノ本) respectively when the particle no was noted too.

Picture 1: The red dot marks Nakao/Kaimoto (© 2014, Google, ZENRIN)

We don´t know exactly when smiths started to forge swords in the Kaimoto neighborhood but it is assumed that this was at the latest in the Sengoku period. The earliest written reference we have today is on a document with a joint signature of five magistrates (bugyô, 奉行) of the Ôtomo family (大友) from Eiroku five (永禄, 1562). From this document we learn that the Ôtomo provided the Kaimoto smiths from within Bungo´s Mie district (三重郷) with charcoal and iron and paid them a salary of 50 koku. Also we have genealogic informations on the group or rather family compiled by the 6^th Kaimoto-generation Yukihisa (行久). Therein he states that the ancestor of the family was a certain Magoshirô Yukinaga (孫四郎行長) and the actual founder of the school his successor Matazaemon Yukinaga (又左衛門行長). Yukihisa states that the Kaimoto smiths were employed like the Takada smiths (高田) by the Ôtomo family and that they received initially a salary of 50 koku what matches with the bugyô document. But further he writes that when their lord Ôtomo Yoshishige (大友義鎮, 1530-1587), aka Sôrin (宗麟), retired and moved to Usuki Castle (臼杵城) in Tenshô four (1576), the salary was reduced to 10 koku. This is insofar interesting as it shows that the Kaimoto smiths played a more important role for the earlier Ôtomo campaigns, e.g. against the Kikuchi (菊池), Ryûzôji (龍造寺), and Môri (毛利) and until about the time Yoshishige was appointed shugo governor of Buzen and Chikuzen province and Kyûshû-tandai (九州探題) in Eiroku two (1559), compared to the later fightings against the Shimazu family (島津) and their fighting for Hideyoshi in the course of his Kyûshû Campaign in Tenshô 15 (1587). It surely also played a role that Yoshishige´s son Yoshimune (大友義統, 1558-1610) was accused by Hideyoshi in Bunroku two (文禄, 1593) of deserting under enemy fire in Korea and lost so all Bungo domains, a measure which basically sounded the bell for the end of the Ôtomo family.

After Yoshimune was removed by Hideyoshi, the lands of Usuki, i.e. where Kaimoto was located, were given to his retainer Ôta Kazuyoshi (太田一吉, ?-1617). But Ôta sided with Ishida Mitsunari at Sekigahara and so his lands were again confiscated and transferred by Ieyasu to Inaba Sadamichi (稲葉貞通, 1546-1603) as he changed sides in favor of the Eastern Army during the battle. And the Inaba family held the Usuki fief (臼杵藩) until the abolition of the feudal system. Back to the Kaimoto smiths. We know from fief records from Keian four (慶安, 1651) that the Kaimoto smith Matazaemon (又左衛門) received still the salary of 10 koku and that the family was treated like with the same social status as that of a village head, whatever that means. It is assumed that this entry refers to the same sixth Kaimoto-generation Yukihisa who made the aforementioned copy of the families genealogy. So if this is correct than the meikan must be corrected because they date Yukihisa around Tenshô (天正, 1573-1592). Then we find an entry from Kyôhô eleven (享保, 1726) which states that the Kaimoto smith Sôzaemon (惣左衛門) is “doing a good job”, lit. “saiku mo yoroshiku tsukamatsuri-sôrô” (細工も宜く仕り候). But Kyôhô eleven seems too late for Kaimoto Toyoyuki (豊行) who was the one who bore the first name “Sôzaemon.” From another document we learn that the family was granted the status of o-memie (御目見), i.e. qualified to meet with the shôgun, in Hôreki nine (宝暦, 1759) what meant usually samurai status. But then for Kansei eleven (寛政, 1799) we read that the Kaimoto smith Ka´emon (嘉右衛門) couldn´t cope with the fief´s demands in him as a craftsman – lit. “shokubun-fushussei” (職分不出精) – and that so the status of o-memie was again withdrewn. After that time, i.e. entering the late Edo period, we loose track of the Kaimoto smiths. However, a document from the Usuki fief from Bunsei three (文政, 1820) in which several local merchants ask their government for the permission to have a bridge erected on their own costs mentions the name “Kaimoto Gensuke” (甲斐源助) as being as tea dealer (chaya, 茶屋) one of the petitioners.

A nice wakizashi of Toyoyuki with some utsuri can be seen here.

Picture 2: wakizashi, mei: “Toyoyuki” (豊行).

Picture 3: Signature comparison of the two Toyoyuki wakizashi.

So that was basically the history of the Kaimoto smiths and as a reference, I want to present a genealogy which bases largely on the information provided by Yukihisa but which was enlarged by other available data. But it must be mentioned that there is some confusion with the Bungo smiths, especially around the transition from kotô to shintô. For example there are several smiths from the Kaimoto and Takada group using the same name and in the meikan some shinshintô smiths pop up which are supposedly sons or students of the early shintô smiths. Also a question raises the naginata of the supposed 7^th Kaimoto-generation Yukiie which is dated Kan´ei two (寛永, 1625) and which is today an important cultural object of Ôita City. To be more precise, when the 2^nd Kaimoto-generation Yukinaga died in Jôô one (承応, 1652) as a transmission says, that how can the 7^th generation be active at about the same time or even a bit earlier? The information provided by Ôita City says further that Yukiie, the maker of the naginata, was the son of Yukihisa what matches with the genealogy, but also that he was the younger brother of a Yukinaga.

 KaimotoGenealogy

Apart from that, Yamada Masato (山田正任) presents in his 1974 publication Zusetsu Bungo-tô (図説豊後刀, p. 414) a blade signed “Bungo no Kuni Mie-jû Fujiwara Yukinaga” (豊後国三重住藤原行長) dated Keichô 13 (慶長, 1608). So one of the Yukinaga did not only sign with “Kaimoto-jû” but also with “Mie-jû”, i.e. with the district or larger area instead of the local neighborhood. Well, the naginata of Yukinaga which is signed with “Kaimoto” (without “jû”) and which is dated Keichô 16 (1611) presented by Yamada on page 349 seems to go back to a different Yukinaga, at least this is what the noticeable differences in signature style, in particular in the characters for “Yuki” (行), suggest (see pictures 4 and 5).

Picture 4, signature comparison: Yukinaga naginata from 1611 left, Yukinaga katana from 1608 right.

Picture 5: Line-up of the differing characters in question.

My conclusion is that the Kaimoto genealogy provided by Yukihisa is sound as long as it is “enjoyed” by itself. As soon as we add data from outside, like for example extant date signatures and the genealogies of the Takada smiths, problems occur. I think that the Kaimoto smiths were surely working for the Ôtomo in late Muromachi times and that they were still pretty active in the Keichô era, i.e. right after Sekigahara. But with the establishment of the han system, the shifting of all major industries to the castle towns, and the general decreasing demand for swords, there was probably no longer much to do for a family of swordsmiths deep inside rural Bungo province. On the other hand, the chronicles of the Usuki fief still refer much later to certain Kaimoto smiths, so there must had been something going on. But maybe by then the Kaimoto smiths were already working from the fief´s capital, the coastal town of Usuki of the same name.

Let me introduce a kozuka of the great Tsuchiya Yasuchika (土屋安親) which does not look so spectacular at a glance. First the technical terms. It is of suaka and with shibuichi and shakudô hira-zôgan and measures 10 cm in length. It is signed via a kinzôgan seal which reads “Tô´u” (東雨), so we learn that we are facing a work from his later years. The kozuka depicts or rather represents a famous tea scoop container (chashaku-zutsu, 茶杓筒) made by Kobori Enshû (小堀遠州, 1579-1647).

Picture 1: Kobori Enshû (left), Shôkadô Shôjô (right)

You may already be familiar with Kobori Enshû, the famous aristocratic tea master and “allround artist” who developed his own style of the tea ceremony and who taught among others the third Tokugawa-shôgun Iemitsu (徳川家光, 1623-1651) the ways of the sadô (茶道). One day, Enshû received a gift of Shôkadô Shôjô (松花堂昭乗, 1584-1639) in the form of a hanging scroll. The Buddhist monk Shôjô was a master of the tea ceremony too who became also famous as calligrapher as one of the “Three Brushes of the Kan´ei Era” (Kan´ei-sanpitsu, 寛永三筆). As a return gift, Enshû presented him a self-made tea scoop container with the nickname aogoke (青苔, “green moss,” sometimes also quoted as seitai). This nickname is a reference to the 78^th chapter of the Ise-monogatari (伊勢物語) in which the court noble Fujiwara no Tsuneyuki (藤原常行, 836-875) is on his way back from a memorial service and stops at Prince Saneyasu´s (人康親王, 831-782) residence in Yamashina (山科) to the north of Kyôto. The prince entertained Tsuneyuki and so he gave him as a gift a beautiful rock from Chisato Beach (千里の浜) of Kii province which was once intended to be a present for Tsuneyuki´s father but did not arrive in time for the festivities. But although beautiful, just a rock would not be adequate as a present for a prince and so Tsuneyuki scaped away the green moss from the surface until characters in the form of a poem remained. The Ise-monogatari speaks of “scraped away the green moss from the rock until … the words stood out like the raised design of a makie lacquerware.” The poem goes:

あかねども岩にぞかふる色見えぬ心をみせむよしのなければ
Akane domo iwa ni zo kafuru iro mienu kokoro o misemu yoshi no nakareba.
“Inadequate though it be, this rock must represent those feelings that 
by their nature have no color to arrest the eye and thus cannot be made 
visible.”

So this receiving and returning of gifts must had reminded Enshû of Tsuneyuki and the prince and when he made the tea scoop container for Shôjô he added an inscription which is an allusion to the above mentioned poem:

伊勢物語尓ハあをきこけ越き佐三てとありたけをき佐みてお可しくあかねとも竹尓曽可ふる色三えぬ
古々ろをみせむよしのなければ
Ise-monogatari ni wa aoki-koke o kizamite to ari, take o kizamite 
okashiku, akane domo take ni zo kafuru iro mienu kokoro o misemu yoshi 
no nakareba.
“The Ise-monogatari tells of an inscription in the form of green moss 
of which I was thinking carving this bamboo. Inadequate though it be, 
this bamboo must represent those feelings that by their nature have no 
color to arrest the eye and thus cannot be made visible.”

Picture 2: chashaku-zutsu kozuka of Yasuchika, in´mei “Tô´u” (東雨)

Yasuchika now took Enshû´s tea scoop container and turned it – with a certain artistic freedom – into a kozuka. He also added Enshû´s inscriptions via a shakudô hira-zôgan on the back and front and also copied the worm damage of the front. The inscription on the front reads: “Takimotobô, chashaku, Sôhoshi” (瀧本坊・茶杓・宗甫子). The Takimotobô was the temple of which Shôkadô Shôjô was the chief priest and “Sôhoshi” (mostly without “-shi”) was a pseudonym of Kobori Enshû. Please note that the original tea spoon container of Enshû seems to bear a slightly inscription, namely “Takimoto onbô” (瀧本御坊, “monk Takimoto”). The chashaku-zutsu is owned by the Hatakeyama Memorial Museum of Fine Art and a picture can be seen here. Yasuchika´s adaption is very tasteful and has the typical more calm and introverted approach of his later years. There is no other kozuka of him known representing a tea spoon container and so it is possible that it was made on request and/or it was maybe a return gift for somebody?

Picture 3: Bodhidharma kozuka of Yasuchika, mei: “Yasuchika” (安親)

As comparison, I would like to introduce a kozuka from Yasuchika´s earlier years. It is of shakudô with a nanako ground and depicts the Bodhidharma in his form as great teacher. The inscription reads: “Ma iwaku – mu-kudoku” (磨曰・無功徳), “Daruma said: No merits.” This line refers to an encounter of the Chinese Emperor Wû of Líang (梁武帝, 464-549), who was a fervent patron of Buddhism, with Bodhidharma whom he didn´t know yet: Emperor Wû asks Bodhidharma how much karmic merit he has yet earned by doing so much for Buddhism and Bodhidharma replied: “No merits. Good deeds done with wordly intent bring good karma, but no merit.” Upon this Emperor Wû asks: “So what is the highest meaning of noble truth of Buddhist wisdom?” And Bodhidharma replies again: “There is no noble truth, there is only emptiness.” Then Emperor Wû wonders and asks: “Then, who is standing before me?”, and Bodhidharma finally replies: “I don´t know.” This kozuka takes the viewer into the position of Emperor Wû, being confronted with the enlightened teacher Bodhidharma, whose at a glance incomprehensible answers make one to rethink his approach so far. And with quoting explicitly the line “No merits”, the kozuka reminds the viewer of doing good things but in an unselfish manner.

Between two sword club meetings with main focus on the Rai school,  I thought I do some research to provide some background on the origins of the school as I am unfortunately unable to provide some Rai blades for appreciation. We known that the Rai school originated in Kyôto, Yamashiro province, somewhere in the mid-Kamakura period, and that in terms of workmanship it is probably linked to the Awataguchi school. These are the facts we have about the school´s origins, now to the theories. Most old relevant sources quote Kuniyoshi (国吉) as founder of the Rai school and the Kanchin´in-bon mei-zukushi (観智院本銘尽) from Ôei 30 (応永, 1423), the oldest extant sword document, states that Kuniyoshi was a Korean smith who had immigrated, or who had came to Japan, and sees the origins of the school´s name in the term raigoku (来国). Raigoku means namely literally “came to [our] country” and so the first character was adopted as name of the school and the second character, koku/goku or in its Japanese reading kuni, was adopted as tôri-ji (通字), as distinctive character used in the names of all people belonging to a single clan or school. So raigoku extended by another character became “Rai Kuni-X”, e.g. “Rai Kuniyoshi” (来国吉). This theory, i.e. that Kuniyoshi was from Korea and had immigrated to Japan where he founded the Rai school, is also found amongst Fukunaga Suiken´s (福永酔剣) seven theories on the Rai school´s character “Rai” forwarded in his publication Nihontô-daihyakka-jiten (日本刀大百科事典). Two more of these seven theories are pretty similar, namely one says that the Rai school´s ancestor – no concrete name is mentioned, just “ancestor” – came from Korea, and one says that Kuniyoshi´s ancestor was from Táng China (唐, 618-907). So these two theories too go with the assumption that the school´s use of the character “Rai” goes back to an earlier immigration. Another, similar theory from the seven says that Kuniyoshi´s supposed son Kuniyuki (国行) was a copper craftsmen from another country (no specification here) who came to Japan, and because his skills were of use for the country, he was granted with the family name “Rai” by the court. This practice was pretty common and we can confirm from historic sources that several Korean immigrants were naturalized by the court and received family names.

Another theory of the seven says that “Rai” (来) was an abbreviation of the Korean family name “Rae.” This name is written with the left-hand radical (阝) and the old variant of “Rai” (來), but as this character is not available in modern charset, I have to quote it as (阝來). Reading of this theory, I immediately remembered a tantô which had been a confusing jigsaw piece in explaining the origins of the Rai school for now half a century. The tantô in question (see picture 1) was once owned by Mr. Asabuki (朝吹). It is dated “Bunji ninen nigatsu ?-nichi” (文治二年二月？日, “? day of second month Bunji two [1186]”) and its signature is mostly quoted as “Rai Sama no Jô Minamoto Kuniyori” (徠左馬尉源国頼). Already Dr. Honma writes in his Nihon-kotô-shi that it is possible that the Rai connection of this tantô goes back to an erroneous transcription of the character “Chin/Jin” (陳). So according to Honma, “Chin/Jin” (陳) became “Rai” (徠). But with Fukunaga´s forwarding of the theory with the Korean family name “Rae” in mind, maybe the tantô is not signed with “Chin/Jin” but with “Rae” (阝來)? So the chronicler was just wrong with the left radical, i.e. (彳) compared to (阝), instead of getting the entire character wrong, i.e. (徠) compared to (陳). The problem is that the first character of the signature is hardly legible. But who was this Kuniyori? His name does not appear in the old sword documents and it seems that he slipped into the meikan just towards the beginning of the Edo period. The Kokon-mei-zukushi (古今名尽) quotes him as ancestor of the Awataguchi school but says that he was not a swordsmith and that he lived in Yamato province. He is followed in the genealogy in question by his son Kuniie (国家) who in turn is listed with the comment “he was the first who carried out the profession of a swordsmith” and that he was a descendant from Yamato´s Kôfukuji (興福寺), although it doesn´t say in which context this “descent” has to be understood. Anyway, the aforementioned tantô shows typical Awataguchi characteristics, i.e. a nashiji-hada, beautiful ji-nie, a nie-loaden chû-suguha, and an ô-maru-bôshi. And because of this typical Awataguchi deki, the inscription was brushed aside as not showing the characteri “Rai” (徠) but “Chin/Jin” (陳). But with the Korean family name “Rae” (阝來) as a possibility, we might come back to a direct Awataguchi-Rai connection. However, Kuniyoshi and his son Kuniyuki (国行), who are today considered as actual founders of the Rai school, were active about 70 or 80 years later than this tantô was made. Honma also mentions another Kuniyori tantô dated Gennin one (元仁, 1224) but he is doubtful of the authenticity of the signature. I haven´t seen any oshigata or pictures of this tantô yet and he also doesn´t go into detail regarding its workmanship. Incidentally, the Kokon-mei-zukushi says in another context that the Awataguchi-ancestor Kuniyori was active around Kôji (康治, 1142-1144). So all these speculations might lead – with a little phantasy – to a new theory, namely that maybe both the Awataguchi and the Rai school had their origins in Korea or in a smith whose ancestors had immigrated from Korea?

Picture 1: tantô, mei “Rai? Sama no Jô Minamoto Kuniyori – Bunji ninen nigatsu ?-nichi” (徠左馬尉源国頼・文治二年二月？日)

Let us now turn to the fifth theory on how the Rai school came to the character “Rai.” This theory, which goes according to Fukunaga back to the Honchô-kaji-bikô (本朝鍛冶考, 1796) and Kokon-kaji-bikô (古今鍛冶備考, 1830), sees the etymological origins of “Rai” in context with the swordsmiths school in the Yamato period. At the time of the Yamato state, people were basically divided into three social groups, the uji (氏, clans or kin groups), be (部, occupational groups), and yatsuko (奴, servants or slaves). That means each be group was responsible for a specialized task and named that way and this name turned later into a clan, and even later into a real family name. And the theory now quotes the be group of the Kumebe (来目部・久米部) as possible origin of the character “Rai.” The Kumebe were professional warriors under the command of the powerful Ôtomo (大伴) and when it was later “time” to use the be name or parts of the be name as family name, “Kumebe” (来目部) was abbreviated to “Ku” (来), i.e. “Rai.” For example the clan name “Ôtomo” was later abbreviated to “Tomo” (伴) and so on. And as the Kumebe were professional warriors, it is safe to assume that they had certain swordsmiths working for them, and so the theory is not too far-fetched. However, we are speaking of Yamato and maybe Nara times, so a lot of time passed until the emergence of the Rai school of swordsmiths.

And the seventh and last theory has nothing to do with any immigration and also does not base on etymological assumptions. It says that when Rai Kunitoshi (来国俊), Kuniyuki´s supposed son and Kuniyoshi´s supposed grandson, climbed Mt. Hiei (比叡山) northeast of Kyôto and looked down on Lake Biwa, the sailing ships heading towards him reminded him one day of the character “Rai” and this was when he decided to sign with this character. This theory matches at least with the extant works because no blade predating Kunitoshi is signed with the prefix “Rai.” Also true is that the character for “Rai” really looks like a sailing ship in front view with its bow and fully blown sail (see picture below). But Kunitoshi was and is not the only one noticing this similarity and so this theory is probably nothing more than a nice anecdote.

And since we are on the subject, I want to introduce a blade of a meikan-more Rai smith, i.e. of a Rai smith whois not found in the meikan records, namely of Rai Kunikiyo (来国清). It is dated Meitoku four (明徳, 1393) and dates thus to the very end of the Nanbokuchô period. One year later the Ôei era (応永, 1394-1428) started, what means in historic terms Muromachi period. So this is probably one of the latest dated Rai works known and comes from a time when the school gave up its predominance and left the field to its offshoots like Ryôkai, Nobukuni, Enju, or Chiyozuru. Nothing to do with the main topic I know but I thought he blade is nevertheless of interest.

Picture 2: tantô, mei: “Rai Kunikiyo – Meitoku yonnen hachigatsu-hi” (来国清・明徳二二年八月日, “on a day of the eighth month Meitoku four [1393]”), nagasa 26.3 cm, only a hint of a sori, hira-zukuri, mitsu-mune, relative wide mihaba, thin kasane, dense ko-itame mixed with some ô-hada, ji-nie, a little bit of utsuri, chû-suguha which is a bit wider and mixed with hotsure on the ura side, rather wide nioiguchi in ko-nie-deki and with sunagashi, sugu-bôshi with a ko-maru-kaeri

Last year, Iiyama Yoshimasa (飯山嘉昌) forwarded in a brief article (Tôken-Bijutsu 677, June 2013) the theory that the famous “bird of prey catching a monkey” (môkin-hoen no zu, 猛禽捕猿図鐔) tsuba of Shimizu Jingo (志水甚吾) (picture 1) depicts actually an eagle rescuing a monkey rather than catching him. When the June magazine arrived last year, I just skimmed through the text as I was quite busy at that time and I even forgot to reply to an inquiry from a fellow enthusiast who asked me if the article is on the eagle motif in general or on Jingo´s eagle interpretation in particular. Now just a few days ago, I stumbled by chance over Itô Sanpei´s (伊藤三平) comment on Iiyama´s article in his highly interesting blog which made me curious and so I reread the article. And as it is really exciting to get a complete new view on a well-known motif, I thought I better share Iiyama´s find with my readers.

Picture 1: môkin-hoen no zu tsuba, attributed to Shimizu Jingo

 Apart from the discussion that this tsuba is actually a work of Nishigaki Kanshirô (西垣勘四郎) – the present owner, the Tôkyô National Museum labels it as work of Jingo, Itô Mitsuru (伊藤満), the author of the excellent Higo books says it’s a work of Kanshirô – all publications quote the tsuba´s motif as mentioned above, i.e. “bird of prey catching a monkey.” Iiyama now saw in an art show on TV a report on the Kangi´in´s (歓喜院) Shôtendô (聖天堂) which was designated as kokuhô in July 2012. The temple is located in Menuma (妻沼) in Kumagaya (熊谷市) in Saitama Prefecture and the Shôten Hall holds a panelling into which the motif “eagle and a monkey” (washi to saru, 鷲と猿) is carved (picture 2). The carvings are attributed to the semi-legendary early Edo-period sculptor and carpenter Hidari Jingorô (左甚五郎). Striking is the similarity of this carving to the motif of the tsuba and now things get interesting. The Shôten Hall´s carving is namely described as follows: “Motif of an eagle rescuing a monkey who fell from a tree into a raging stream … The monkey stands for the hard to control human earthly/carnal desires and the eagle for Shôten (聖天) – also called Kangiten (歓喜天), the patron saint of the temple and Shôten Hall – who rescues us from these desires.” Shôten is generally considered to be the Japanese Buddhist form of the Hindu elephant-headed god Ganesha, but is also identified with the Shôkannon-Bosatsu (聖観音菩薩), the Bodhisattva Avalokiteśvara who embodies the compassion of all Buddhas.

Picture 2: carving of the Shôten Hall

And when we now take a closer look at the tsuba, we see it as Iiyama and Itô write in a different light, namely that we are not facing a like so often described “fierce and determined eagle standing for the austere bushi of the Sengoku period,” but a calm eagle with a closed beak, without any claws, grasping the more grateful than scared monkey right at the shoulders, who is about to drop him off gently onto the ground. Compared to the carving, at which the artist created in the context of the temple an allusion to the deity Shôten, the new interpretation of the tsuba´s motif makes pretty much sense. And so Iiyama suggests that the motif should be renamed to “ôtori saru o sukuu” (鷲救猿), i.e. “eagle rescuing a monkey.”

Whilst doing some research on the meibutsu Ô-Kanehira (大包平), more on this later, I was once again confronted with the datings of early smiths. Many of the famous early smiths and school founders were frequently dated in pre-Edo period sword documents to eras like Ei´en (永延, 987-989). But going back that far is problematic because the transition from the 10^th to the 11^th century AD marks just the forming of the fully developed nihontô as we know it today. And by “fully developed” we speak of a single-edged blade in shinogi-zukuri with a deliberately added sori (i.e. not a sori which is caused by hardening). So late Heian would probably be better to date extant blades of the early smiths concerned. Experts assume that these early datings are mostly simply based on hearsay or on any early nengô which sounded appropriate for the author. These early datings would not be such a big deal if not later authors dealt with them in different ways. For example, a Muromachi-period author who was going to compile a meikan record had extant and dated blades and more recent records of sons, grandsons or students of famous smiths which did not comply at all with the early datings of earlier publications. So he had basicall three different options: Correcting the supposed nengô arbitrarily to a nengô more suitable with extant works and more recent records, keeping the old era and causing a gap of 200 or more years between an ancestor and his sons or students, or filling the gap with invented descendants and students. Well, from a historical point of view, all three approaches are problematic and maybe the best solution would have been the second approach with additional comments like “handed-down date is no longer tenable because …” The worst is of course the third approach and the first approach can cause significant problems too when namely later chroniclers were facing the old and initial records and the already corrected data of some predecessors. This resulted namely often in double-listings.

Another common practice of chroniclers was to justify very early nengô by claiming that the smith in question made swords for a certain high-ranking person or emperor of his time or that a person from then high-society wore a blade by this smith. And this brings us to Kanehira because my aforementioned research was about finding out who owned the Ô-Kanehira before the Momoyama-era Ikeda family (池田). For further details on the Ikeda and their relation to the meibutsu, please see Satô, The Japanese Sword p. 94ff. Well, Satô already points out that the previous history of the Ô-Kanehira is uncertain and so this article (with reference to Mamiya Kôji´s article published in Tôken-Bijutsu 483, April 1997) should serve mere as demonstration of how difficult and confusing cross-checking historic sword refereces can be. We know today that most pre-Edo period sword publications are more or less transcriptions of earlier documents whereat each copy was usually enlarged with comments. So it takes a chronological approach and we have to start with the earliest extant sword publication which is the Kanchi´in-bon mei-zukushi (観智院本銘尽) from Ôei 30 (応永, 1423). Therein we read:

Picture 1: The entry of the Kanchi´in-bon mei-zukushi.

泰兼平

河内國住人、ほうしやうのふところ太刀を作、
後には後鳥羽院の御つるぎかまのは
きりとがうせられ、又うたいしやうけの
御時つねにかりはゑ御出之時、御箱に
入るる間、箱丸とがうす、其後、さいみやうじ
どのの御時うつしおかれ、ふところのつるぎど
がうす、ころれはとうひょうえのぜぶ國吉
がさく也、ふところ太刀、ふところつるぎ
かくへちなり。

Immediately noticeable is that the Kanchi´in-bon mei-zukushi quotes Kanehira (包平) with the characters (兼平) and that it uses the character (泰) for “Hata” (秦) (more on this Hata later). Then it reads that he was a resident of Kawachi province and that he made the futokoro-tachi (ふところ太刀) of Hôshô (ほうしやう). Futokoro-tachi means in this context “beloved sword” and must not be confused with the small and hidden futokorogatana (懐刀). And “Hôshô” is the Sino-Japanese reading of the characters for “Yasumasa” (保昌) and refers to the mid Heian noble and poet Fujiwara no Yasumasa (藤原保昌, 958-1036). Then we read that this beloved sword of Hôshô or Yasumasa respectively came eventually in the possession of the abdicated emperor Gotoba (後鳥羽院, 1183-1198), although it is possible that actually the abdicated emperor Toba (鳥羽院, 1103-1156) was meant, who nicknamed it “Kama no ha-kiri” (釜歯切). Kama no ha is a pot with an extra wide rim so it seems that the sword cut through such a thing. Then we learn that the sword was owned by the Udaishô family (うたいしやうけ). “Udaishô” or “Udaishôgun” (右大将軍) was another name of Minamoto no Yoritomo (源頼朝, 1147-1199). Each time Yoritomo was spending time on his hunting grounds, he put the sword in a special box (hako, 箱) and stored it away and so it got the nickname “Hakomaru” (箱丸). Later the sword was owned by lord Saimyôji (さいみやうじ), i.e. Hôjô Tokiyori (北条時頼, 1227-1263) who ordered the smith Tôhyôe no Jô Kuniyoshi (とうひょうえのぜぶ國吉) to make copy of the sword. “Saimyôji” (最明寺) is the posthumous Buddhist name of Tokiyori and with the smith, Awataguchi Kuniyoshi is meant. So the original was still called futokoro-tachi and the copy futokoro-tsurugi (ふところつるぎ).

Now lets tackle the next reference, the Ôseki-shô (往昔抄) from Eishô 16 (永正, 1519). The entry therein is insofar precious because it comes with a drawing of a nakago which is signed “Buzen no Kuni Kanehira” (備前国包平). Please note that the character for “Kuni” is not just abbreviated in this drawing because Kanehira actually signed that way, seen in the picture to the right which is the mei of the Ô-Kanehira. So the Ôseki-shô writes next to the tang:

Picture 2, left: The entry of the Ôseki-shô; right: mei of the meibutsu Ô-Kanehira

峯角ニ小肉アリ、鈩横、帯面剣二ツ長クヤリ、八幡大菩薩ト剣ノ上ニアリ梵字二ツ有
右御太刀今出川殿様御上洛之時、持是院公性ニ下サレシ御剣也、包平ハ河内住ニテ候
然ルニ此太刀ハ備前と在之不限包平ニ他国ヘ行テ打ツ事類多在之物、根元ハ
備前カチ也、後河内ニ住スト云々

The blade has a kaku-mune with ko-niku, kiri-yasurime, shows two long (su)ken on the haki-omote and bonji over the characters of Hachiman-Daibosatsu and another (su)ken on the ura side. When lord Jizei´in (持是院), i.e. Saitô Myôjun (斎藤妙純, ?-1497), proceeded to Kyôto, he was presented with this sword by the noble Imadegawa family (今出川). Then it is stated that Kanehira lived in Kawachi province but that this tachi was made when he was in Bizen and that the smith worked also in other regions. And finally it is written that Kanehira was originally a Bizen smith and that he moved later in his career to Kawachi.

Picture 3: The entry of the Genki-gannen tôken-mekiki-sho.

Our next source is the Genki-gannen tôken-mekiki-sho (元亀元年刀劔目利書) from the first year of Genki (元亀, 1570). This source tells us the following:

秦包平、同御宇、永延以来
河内国住人或備前住秦ノ字ヲハ不打ト云柄
身サキ細也切ヤスリ峯モハ方モメンヲトル柄身先
少丸シ銘太刀ハ目貫穴ヨリ上ニ打刀ハ下ニ打
保昌懐太刀造之後ニ鳥羽院之御剣釜歯
ト号、其右将相伝之常ニ狩場ヘ出御之時
被入御簾之間之号ニ簾丸又最明寺殿被写
置作者藤兵衛國吉也、是太刀ヲハ懐剣ト号
セラル、包平作懐太刀也、國吉作ヲハ懐剣と号ス

Hata Kanehira, active during the reign of emperor Ichijô (一条天皇, 980-1011, r. 986-1011) and from Ei´en onwards. Note that the entry states dô-gyo´u (同御宇), lit. “same reign”, which refers to the previous entry. Then we read that he was a resident of Kawachi and of Bizen but that he did not sign with “Hata” when in Bizen province. His tangs taper from both the mune and ha side, show kiri-yasurime, and a somewhat roundish nakago-jiri. Tachi are signed above the mekugi-ana and katana below of the mekugi-ana, whereat katana refers here probably to koshigatana or similar smaller sized blades. One blade was the beloved sword of Fujiwara no Yasumasa with came then in the possession of the abdicated emperor Toba who nicknamed it “Kama no ha”. Then the same legend with Minamoto no Yoritomo follows but with the difference that the sword was stored away behind a bamboo screen (misu) and was thus caled “Misu-maru” (簾丸). And later on, Hôjô Tokiyori had Awataguchi Kuniyoshi make a copy of the sword which was called futokoro-ken and the original of Kanehira futokoro-tachi. So without a few exceptions, the Genki-gannen tôken-mekiki-sho follows faithfully the Kanchi´in-bon mei-zukushi.

 And last I want to introduce the data of the Kokon-mei-zukushi (古今銘尽) published in Manji four (万治, 1661). This work first separates Ko-Bizen Kanehira and Kawachi Kanehira strictly in its genealogy section but only to address later on both smiths again in one the the same entry. So in the first volume which deals basically with genealogies we find Kanehira in the Ko-Bizen genealogy in an individual entry next to Nobufusa (信房). In this entry he is listed with the nengô Jôhô (承保, 1074-1077), Jôryaku (承暦, 1077-1081), Eihô (永保, 1081-1084), Ôtoku (応徳, 1084-1087), Kanji (寛治, 1087-1094), and Kahô (嘉保, 1094-1096). And the other Kanehira is introduced several pages earlier along the Kawachi section but just with the comment yoko-yasuri (i.e. kiri-yasurime) and his successors being Arikuni (有國), who was originally from Yamato province, Arinari (有成), and Aritsuna (有綱) (see picture 4).

Picture 4: The genealogic entries from the first volume of the Kokon-mei-zukushi. Left the Ko-Bizen entry, right the Kawachi entry.

In volume 2 both Kanehira appear side by side in the section about smiths of the same name working in different provinces and not being the same persons. Then later in volume 2 we find some details on the Kanehira from Kawachi province. The entry in question reads:

秦包平　一条院の御宇河内國後に備前に住す永延の比より慶長
八年迄六百十五年

Hata Kanehira, active during the reign of emperor Ichijô, lived in Kawachi province but moved later to Bizen, from around Ei´en onwards which is about 615 years in Keichô eight (慶長, 1603) [i.e. when the data for the Kokon-mei-zukushi was copiled before it was pubished about sixty years later.]

So according to this entry, we are talking about the same smith who started in Kawachi but moved later in his career to Bizen province. An entry in volume 4 deals with the workmanship of Kanehira and in this entry, both smiths are again separated, but read it for yourself:

Picture 5: The entry of the fourth volume of the Kokon-mei-zukushi.

一、包平　永延比　太刀の姿ほそく切先つゞまやかに庵丘鍛
柾目いかにもこまか也。地色黒く。紫色あり。小乱刄を焼
いかにま小足なり。地ざかひ沈て見ゆる也。刄をひろく、沸
を焼たるもあり。備前國包平と打たるを河内鍛冶と
いふ事如何。古備前なるべし。二字銘の包平は河内國
秦包平なるべし。出来やう廣直刄に沸多し。腰本を
乱刄にうつくしく焼て尋常也。来國行などに似たり。
地色も赤く紫色あり。刄色白し、備前包平は刄色も
そと青み有て上白し。沸の心もこまか也。能々心を付て
見べし

“Kanehira: Around Ei´en. His tachi-sugata is slender, tapers, and shiows an iori-mune. The kitae is a fine masame and the steel is blackish bit also purple. He tempered a ko-midareba with ko-ashi and the nioiguchi is rather subdued. The ha is white and shows nie. He signed with “Bizen no Kuni Kanehira” but it is also said that he was a Kawachi smith, but works signed that way are from the Ko-Bizen smith. All niji-mei must be attributed to Hata Kanehira from Kawachi province. He tempered a hiro-suguha with plentiful of nie and usually a midareba at the base. This interpretation is similar to Rai Kuniyuki. The steel is reddish and purple and the ha is white but the ha of Bizen Kanehira is more blueish white. The nie are also finer and he [Bizen Kanehira] has to be regarded as superior.”

What is my conclusion? Well, this is a case where not just one odd document forwards a different theory and all others are in unison about the origins of a certain smith. Here we have too many ambiguous entries on the basis of which we just can´t rule out one approach or the other. That means everything is possible, i.e. that Kanehira moved from Bizen to Hata in Kawachi province, that he originated in Kawachi and moved to Bizen and gave up there signing with “Hata,” or that we are facing two completely different smiths. Also I can´t say for sure of the Ô-Kanehira was the futokoro-tachi owned by Fujiwara no Yasumasa as it is suggested by some experts. But the Tôkyô National Museum which owns the blade today dates it to the late Heian period and says 12^th century. So not middle Heian and close to Yasumasa. I hope though that I was able to illustrate how hard it can be to rely on old references and that sometimes like here you have to stop at a certain point because you can´t squeeze out more information from them. And now imagine how much work it was to compile my Index of Japanese Swordsmiths where I tried for the first time to bring in line all this data by keeping at the same time as much original content as possible. Sometimes it needed just a keyhole surgery, but sometimes three patients were lying side by side with their bodies opened and you just don´t know which organ to transplant where.

Picture 6: tachi, kokuhô, mei “Bizen no Kuni Kanehira saku”, meibutsu Ô-Kanehira, nagasa 89,2 cm, sori 3.5 cm, motohaba 3.7 cm. Please note that this blade has a thin kasane and weighs despite its length just 1.35 kg (usually tachi with such a nagasa weighs around 2 kg).

Well, Akasaka-tsuba need no introduction as they are so predominant when it comes to iron sukashi-tsuba, and most of you are probably also aware of the theories on their origins. So I want to touch these origins rather briefly as the main topic of this article is the Akasaka area itself. My aim is to give the reader as good as possible an idea of how the area where the Akasaka-tsuba artists worked looked like in the Edo period, thus the many images.

Akasaka was and still is a district of Edo or Tôkyô respectively, located in north of present-day Minato-ku and to the southwest of the Chiyoda-ku (see picture 1), but let´s go very back to where everything began. From local histories we learn that the area in question was cultivated for the first time in Eiroku ten (永禄, 1567) and a village called Hitotsugi (人継村, later written with the characters [一ツ木村]) was founded there but the whole region around the fishing-village Edo was rather unsettled. Ieyasu had made Edo Castle his stronghold after being offered eight Kantô provinces by Hideyoshi in 1590 and started to largely rebuid the castle three years later. Things were finally pushed after he won Sekigahara and decided to establish the Tokugawa-bakufu in Edo but the castle should be completed until 1636 and the time of his grandson Iemitsu. Back then, we are largely talking about the late Genna (元和, 1615-1624) and subsequent Kan´ei era (寛永, 1624-1644), town houses and warrior residences and a little later the houses of merchants and craftsmen mushroomed there and Akasaka turned gradually into an urban district. This initial urban Akasaka district is referred to as “Moto-Akasaka” (元赤坂) and forms still today a Tôkyô district of the same name. Incidentally, the name “Akasaka” appears for the first time in Meireki three (明暦, 1657). But even though Edo was gradually blossoming, the early Tokugawa-bakufu was struggling with a problem, namely that the new capital was so to speak too bushi-weighted. The art world was hesitant going there and cultured people from the old capital Kyôto called the Edo-residents “eastern barbarians” (azama-ebisu, 東夷) and the activities in the new capital were regarded with suspicion. And when the bakufu had stabilized and Edo had taken shape around Keian (慶安, 1648-1652) to Kanbun (寛文, 1661-1673), the lack of influental persons from art and culture who refused to leave Kyôto was still not solved. So the Tokugawa government responded by forced displacements and “offers” which came close to blackmail. For example, the Gotô main line first refused to go to Edo but was eventually “convinced” in Kanbun two (1662), and in the 1675 chronicle Enpeki-kenki (遠碧軒記) we read: “Once, no one from the Gotô family went to Edo, because they had for this duty their clerk Shôzaburô (庄三郎).” Anyway, the bakufu agenda of turning Edo into the new political and cultural capital of the country succeeded around early Genroku (元禄, 1688-1704).

Picture 1: Present-day Akasaka district in the very center of the map (© 2014 Google, ZENRIN)

Picture 2: Present-day Akasaka district as seen via © Google Earth.

Now to the district itself. The area to the south of Moto-Akasaka was called Akasaka-Tamachi (赤坂田町), or just Tamachi district. Its eastern boundary was the sotobori (外堀), the outer moat of Edo Castle. By the way, the present-day Sotobori-dôri follows basically this outer moat and that is also where it has its name from. To the north there was as mentioned the Moto-Akasaka district and the outer Akasaka-gomon Gate (赤坂御門), also known as Akasaka-mitsuke (赤坂見附). The bridge to the Akasaka-gomon Gate was actually a dike and interrupted the moat, and its southern continuation was also used as reservoir (tameike, 溜池). Leaving the castle grounds via the Akasaka-gomon Gate (see picture 5) and turning left, i.e. south, one passed successively the first, second, third, fourth, and fifth Akasaka-Tamachi district. Right opposite to third and fourth district was the Hie-jinja (日枝神社). By Ieyasu´s definition of the outer moat, the Hie-jinja was now on the grounds of Edo Castle but his son Hidetada had moved the castle´s limits back a bit so the people could worship there.

“Akasaka” means literally “Red Slope.” Leaving Edo Castle via the Akasaka-gomon Gate and turning right, i.e. heading north to the Yotsuya district, one had to negotiate a slope to the east of which the Edo residences of the Kishû Tokugawa family were located. Because of this, the slope got the name “Kinokunizaka” (紀伊国坂, lit. “Kii Province Slope”). Today there are basically three explanations for its second name “Akasaka.” One says that madder  grew on top of the hill of which red dye was made. The hill itself was called Akaneyama (赤根山). This name means literally “Red Root Hill” but has its etymoligical roots in the Madder (akane, 茜). And so the slope to the Akaneyama was called “Akasaka,” “Red Slope.” The other explanation is that the name goes back to the red dyed silk hung up along the slope by local dyers. And the third explanation is based on the fact that the Kinokunizaka consisted to a large extent of red soil.

Picture 3: 1. Kinokunizaka, 2. Akasaka-gomon Gate, 3. Hie-jinja, 4. tamaike reservoir. Please note that the initial name of the area or village respectively, i.e. Hitotsugi, was still used for the district two districts west of the second Tamachi district. The third Akasaka-Tamachi district where the Akasaka school was located is marked in red.

Pictuere 4: The same places as they look today. The red line marks (to its right) the Akasaka-Tamachi districts (© Google Earth).

Picture 5: Leaving Edo Castle via the Akasaka-gomon Gate. The houses to the very left belog to the first and second Akasaka-Tamachi district. Picture predates Meiji 14 (1881).

Picture 6: View up to the Akasaka-gomon from an early Meiji-era photo.

Now let us take a look on the area as seen on ukiyoe, namely from Utagawa Hiroshige´s (歌川広重, 1797-1858) series One Hundred Famous Views of Edo (Meisho Edo Hyakkei, 名所江戸百景). Picture 7 shows a woodblock print titled “The Paulownia Garden at Akasaka” (Akasaka kiribatake, 坂桐畑) and we see Paulownia trees, the tamaike, and on the opposite shore the Hie-jinja. So Hiroshige was actually standing right in the third or fourth Akasaka-Tamachi district, the district where the Akasaka tsuba workshop was located, when making sketches for this woodblock print. Picture 8 is titled “Kinokuni Hill and Distant View of Akasaka and the Tameike Pond” (Kinokunizaka Akasaka Tameike enkei, 紀ノ国坂赤坂溜池遠景) and we have here basically the same view as in picture 5. Picture 9 is by the second generation Hiroshige (1829-1869). It is titled “View of the Paulownia Trees at Akasaka on a Rainy Evening” (Akasaka kiribatake uchû yûkei, 赤坂桐畑雨中夕けい) and is not always included in the One Hundred Famous Views of Edo. There is the theory that it was a replacement print for “The Paulownia Garden at Akasaka”. Here the view is north towards the Akasaka-gomon Gate but seen from the very same spot as at the first generation. It is nice to see that the Municipal Garden Office of Tôkyô had Paulownia trees planted along the Sotobori-dôri so that the original Edo-period view was kept “as good as possible” (see picture 10).

Picture 7: Akasaka kiribatake (1856)

Picture 8: Kinokunizaka Akasaka Tameike enkei (1857)

Picture 9: Akasaka kiribatake uchû yûkei (1859)

Picture 10: South view along the Sotobori-dôri. The red dot marks the entry to the Hie-jinja (© Google)

But let me come back to the Akasaka school. In Bunsei seven (1824), the bakufu appointed the scholar Hayashi Jussai (林述斎, 1768-1841) as head of the project of the topography of Musashi province and the urban era (machikata, 町方) of Edo. With this project, all present historical reference materials were examined and consolidated. It contains among others the position and orientation of the city, its history of origins, its dimensions and area, the number of taxable households, the guardrooms, sewers, bridges, drains, the landowners, and so-called “old-established families” (kyûka, 旧家). This very detailed information is of paramount importance for studies on feudal Edo, and the original is preserved in the National Diet Library (Kokuritsu-kokkai toshokan, 国立国会図書館). The third district of Akasaka-Tamachi was tackled in the seventh month of Bunsei ten (1827) and the compiled document bears the signatures and stamps of each local myôshu (名主, taxable landowner). And from this document we learn that at the time of its compilation, the tsuba craftsmen Hikojûrô (= the 8^th generation Tadatoki, 忠時) was living there, i.e. in the third Akasaka-Tamachi district, and that his family was old-established. Further we learn that the Akasaka-Tamachi districts were developed southwards, that means the first district right outside of the Akasaka-gomon Gate was, as the name already suggests, the first Akasaka-Tamachi district.There were 72 houses in the third district: 3 belonged to landowners, 8 to houseowners (Hikojûrô Tadatoki was one of them), 27 were rented, and 34 were rented as shops. Another house owner and kyûka was for example the dyer (kon´ya, 紺屋) Seizaemon (清左衛門), who moved there from Kaga province during the Manji era (万治, 1658-61) taking over a vacant dyer´s trade. At the time of the compilation of the document, the Seizaemon family was able to look back to eight successive generations just like the Akasaka family. By the way, the info on the Akasaka family reads as follows: “The former background of his [Hikojûrô´s] ancestor Shôzaemon (庄左衛門) is unknown but from around Kan´ei, first-class sukashi-tsuba were made from there, the Akasaka district, which are signed ´Akasaka Shôzaemon Tadamasa´ (赤坂庄左衛門忠正). This Shôzaemon died in the third year of Meireki (1657), year of the rooster, from illness. The second generation succeeded the name and signed in the very same way. The hird generation was called ´Shôzaemon Masatora´ (庄左衛門正虎), the fourth generation ´Hikojûrô Tadamune  (彦十郎忠宗), and the fifth generation ´Hikojûrô Tadatoki´ (彦十郎忠時). From the fifth generation onwards, the fourth generation´s first name ´Hikojûrô´ became the hereditary first name of the family which carried out the profession of tsuba craftsmen uninterruptedly from their ancestor to the present eighth generation. Tsuba which are called ´Akasaka-tsuba´ since earliest times and those which are signed ´Bushû-jû Akasaka Tadatoki´ or ´Akasaka Hikojûrô Tadatoki´ are their works.

To conclude, I want to go back again to the very beginning of the Akasaka school and the developments of early Edo. When talking about the origins of Akasaka-tsuba, one name appears inevitably: Kariganeya Hikobei (雁金屋彦兵衛). The reason why I bring him into play right at this point is the aforementioned founding of Edo. Kariganeya Hikobei was supposedly from Kyôto, and we have several indications that he was running an antique shop. It is said that he moved to Edo and started from new in the Akasaka district where he employed tsuba artists to make for him iron sukashi-tsuba on the basis of his sketches. The most obvious theory, which is forwarded in several documents, is that the first Akasaka generations were these tsuba artists but we don´t know for sure if this Kariganeya Hikobei was a real historic person or just a later fabrication by “Akasaka-affine” persons to draw a connection to Kyôto, the old cultural capital.

Let me introduce a sketch (or maybe it is an actual oshigata) of a sukashi-tsuba published in Yamane Yûzô´s (山根有三, 1919-2001) Konishi-ke kyûzô – Kôrin-kankei-shiryô to sono kenkyû (小西家旧蔵・光琳関係資料とその研究, “Studies on Kôrin-related Reference Materials from the Heirloom of the Konishi Family”) (see picture 11). Incidentally, Yamane was an art historian who specialized in the painters Hasegawa Tôhaku (長谷川等伯, 1539-1610), Tawaraya Sôtatsu (俵屋宗達), Ogata Kôrin (尾形光琳, 1658-1716), and the Rinpa school. The tsuba in question (see picture 1 in the following) was labelled as “after a sketch of Kôrin” and because it appears in the Konishi documents right next to sketches and patterns by Ogata Kôrin, we have here a strong circumstancial evidence for the theory that the roots of Akasaka-tsuba were in Kyôto. The painter Kôrin was the second son of the wealthy Kyôto draper Ogata Sôken (尾形宗謙) whose trade was namely called “Kariganeya” (雁金屋), had also the same name as Kariganeya Hikobei. The then high artistocracy of Kyôto was their customer, for example Yodogimi (淀君, 1567-1615), Hideyoshi´s concubine, or Tôfuku-mon´in (東福門院, 1607-1678), Tokugawa Hidetada´s daughter and wife of Emperor Go-Mizunoo (後水尾天皇, 1607-1678). But also the flourishing Kariganeya business run by the Ogata family was unable to follow the agenda of the bakufu and closed its gates in Kyôto in Genroku ten (1697) and moved to Edo.

Picture 11: Sketch labelled “after a sketch of Kôrin.”

So maybe Hikobei was a young and ambitious member of the Ogata family or employee at the Kariganeya who shared the – probably volitional – fate of Gotô Shirôbei to be one of the first to check things out in the new capital. There in Edo he worked as a representative of the business and was responsible for acquiring local clients and forwarding their orders to Kyôto. As there was a kind of gold-rush mood in young Edo, it is not hard to imagine that Hikobei was looking for something at the side, and as he was mostly surrounded by bushi back then, tsuba were the obvious option. So maybe he either asked likeminded and “adventurous” Kyôto-based tsuba artists to join his business idea, or hired local tsuba artists which had moved there earlier.

So I hope I was able to give you a basic idea of how the neighborhood looked like where the Akasaka masters worked throughout the Edo period. And when you take again a look at picture 5, this is about what the 9th and last Akasaka generation Tadatoki was seeing on a walk. From the extant data we can namely calculate that he was in his early or mid 80s when the Tokugawa-bakufu ended in 1868.

My dear readers. This blog is now almost a year old and I hope I was able to provide some interesting and/or new insights into the world of Japanese swords and sword fittings. For those who want to support this blog and me a little, I have set up a donate button at the very bottom of the page. This new feature will have no influence on the length, quality and intervals between articles. It is, as mentioned, just for those who want to say thank you, either for a helpful entry or for the site as a whole, as I am investing every week a considerable (working) time into this blog finding interesting stuff and presenting it in a comprehensive form. So if you want to support your blogger by buying him a coffee or beer, or maybe even a Japanese book for new input;), this is your chance. Thank you very much for your attention and assistance! I will be back Monday with an article on the origins of Akasaka-tsuba.

Whilst working slowly but steadily on a project on Japanese swordsmiths schools, I would like to use this opportunity to write something on one of these schools on which info is very rare and which are usually left out in most publications. This time I want to talk about the Yakuôji school (薬王寺) from Mikawa province, a province which was not a “big player” when it comes to famous kotô era swordsmiths but which gained fame as it was the birthplace of Tokugawa Ieyasu. Mikawa (三河・参河, also called “Sanshû”, 三州・参州) was what is today eastern Aichi Prefecture, was located along the Tôkaidô, and bordered on Owari, Mino, Shinano, and Tôtômi. According to the records, the Yakuôji school was located in or around the town of Yahagi (矢作) in the provinces Hekikai district (碧海郡) (see picture 1). Before we continue I would like to point out that most of the information used for this article goes back to the studies of Kondô Hôji (近藤邦治) from the Gifu branch of the NBTHK, published in Tôken-Bijutsu 570 (July 2004). Also I would like to point out that I use “Yakuô-ji” for the temple, and “Yakuôji” without hyphen for the school.

Picture 1: The red dot marks where once Yahagi was located ( © 2014, Google, ZENRIN)

First of all, let´s take a look at the origins of the name of the school. “Yakuô-ji” means “Temple of Yakuô”, i.e. of the Bodhisattva Bhaishajya-rāja (jap. Yakuô-Bosatsu, 薬王菩薩), the Bodhisattva of medicine and healing. It is said that this name was used for the first time for a temple by the Nara-period Buddhist priest Gyôki (行基, 668-749). However, there are no pre-Heian records on Gyôki´s temple extant and the first document which mentions the existence of his Yakuô-ji is the Honchô-monzui (本朝文粋) which was compiled in the mid 11^th century. About two hundred years later, to be more precise in Kemu two (建武, 1335), the temple was destroyed in the course of the fightings of Nitta Yoshisada (新田義貞, 1301-1338) and Kô no Moroyasu (高師泰, ?-1351) at the Battle of Yahagi River. A document preserved in the local Shinmei-jinja (神明神社) from Tenshô 15 (天正, 1584) says that what was left from the Yakuô-ji was used right after the fightings to construct the Renge-ji (蓮華寺) which is located just about 2 km to the northwest of Yahagi. So according to this document, the Yakuô-ji lived quasi on as Renge-ji. But the records of the Renge-ji tell us something else, namely that the Yakuô-ji was rebuilt to the south of temple ruins in Kyôroku two (享禄, 1529) and that this new temple was renamed “Renge-ji.” However, it is rather unlikely that the ruins were left to lie fallow for two hundred years and then “out of nothing” it was decided to erect the Renge-ji through which also the former Yakuô-ji lived on. Also there is a blade extant which is dated Bunki two (文亀, 1502) and signed “Sanshû Yakuôji” (三州薬王寺) (see picture 2). That means the already about thirty years before Kyôroku two there were Yakuôji smiths which used the name of the initial temple in their signatures. Incidentally, it is not uncommon for relocated or rebuilt and thus renamed Japanese temples that their former name or a local “nickname” was for centuries continuously in use aside from the new name of the temple.

Picture 2: katana, mei: “Sanshû Yakuôji shu Shinsuke” (三州藥王寺　主真助, “made for lord Sinsuke”) – “Bunki ninen hachigatsu hi” (文龜二年八月日, “on a day of the eighth month Bunki two [1502]”), nagasa 69,1 cm, sori 2,0 cm

So far, so good, but what do the sword-related records say? From the Kotô-mei-zukushi taizen (古刀銘尽大全), the Honchô-kaji-kô (本朝鍛冶考), and the Kôsei kotô-meikan (校正古刀銘鑑) we gain basically two Yakuôji genealogies (see PDF below), namely one going back to Kaneharu (兼春) from neighboring Mino province who moved around Ôei (応永, 1394-1428) to Mikawa, and one going back to Nakahara Kunimori (中原国盛), who is said to be a descendant of Bizen Saburô Kunimune (備前三郎国宗) and who was active around Ôei too. The first smiths of these lineages who used the name “Yakuôji” in their signatures were the Eishô-era (永正, 1504-1521) Sadayoshi (貞吉), and the Shôchô-era (正長, 1428-1429) Suketsugu (助次), and this in turn is a further indication for the fact that the Yakuô-ji existed before Kyôroku two (1529) and that the erection or rebuilding of the Renge-ji did not mark the revival of the Yakuô-ji after two hundred years. The earliest extant dated blade from the Mino-based lineage is from Kaneharu and from Bunshô two (文正, 1467), i.e. not from Ôei as the genealogies suggest. As for Nakahara Kunimori, there is the theory that his family name “Nakahara” goes back to Bizen Saburô Kunimune´s temporary stay in Nakahara in Mikawa province. Others say that “Nakahara” was already Kunimune´s family name and that he actually stayed in Yahagi when forging in Mikawa province because there was no place called “Nakahara” in old Mikawa province. Another interesting thing is that all the smiths after Kunimori had names of famous Yamashiro smiths, i.e. Awataguchi Kunitsuna, Kuniyoshi, Yoshimitsu, and Heianjô Yoshinori. Similarily, we find two more famous name, Sadayoshi who bears the name of Sa Sadayoshi (左貞吉), and Sanemori, who bears the name of the famous Ôhara Sanemori (大原真守) from Hôki province who supposedly signed with “Ohara” (小原). Incidentally, there is a town called “Obara” written with the same characters which is located upstream of Yahagi River but it is unclear if we are talking here about the same place (it is not uncommon that place names had different pronunciations, e.g. “Aoe” was also pronounced and quoted as “Aoi”). So there is the chance that we are facing here one of the pretty common “genealogy embellishments,” i.e. schools and smiths tried to “pimp” their genealogy by referring to famous ancestors. But there are several signed Yakuôji blades extant and it is hard to imagine that most of them are gimei to support genealogic claims. So as so often, the two presented genealogies give basic clues and have to be taken with a grain of salt, although it seems, from the basis of extant signed blades, that the Mino-based Kaneharu lineage is more sound.

 YakuojiGenealogy

As mentioned, the sources point towards Ôei (応永, 1394-1428) as starting point of the Yakuôji school and we know that many of these smiths signed just with “Yakuôji”, that means without any individual smiths name. The most famous temple-affiliated swordsmiths where those of the Yamato Senju´in (千手院) and Taima (当麻) schools which also occasionally just signed with their school´s name which was also the name of the temple they were working for. It remains to be seen if the Yakuôji smiths belong to the same category of temple-affiliated swordsmiths (kônin-kaji, 候人鍛冶) as the Senju´in and Taima smiths. Also a religious background is possible as it was the case at the Gassan smiths (月山) who signed their swords with the name of the local holy mountain and used that name later even as family name. Well, at the beginning Muromachi period it was no longer common for temples to maintain swordsmiths but a religious background is not that off. We all know that long before praying for winning a battle or wealth for one´s family, people are first of all praying for recovery when they are ill and for health if they arent´t. As mentioned, Yakuô is the Bodhisattva of medicine and healing and so it is safe to assume that a temple where Yakuô is worshipped always has its followers, even if the temple was relocated and renamed. And a blade signed quasi “from the temple of the Bodhisattva of medicine and healing” has surely an auspicious connotation and goes well as a gift or lucky charm.

Let us come back to the local history. In Muromachi times, Yagami was a station of the Tôkaidô but but when the Hideyoshi-retainer Tanaka Yoshimasa (田中吉政, 1548-1609) was granted with the lands in Tenshô 18 (天正, 1590), he enlarged the local Okazaki Castle (岡崎城) and made it his main stronghold. Also he had the Tôkaidô improved and thus slightly relocated so that it goes now through his newly erected Okazaki castle town, making it the new local station of the main route instead of Yagami. But the Yakuôji smiths were in that area long before that time, i.e. the booming new castle town can´t be used to explain the origin of the school. Also the school predates Ieyasu´s conquering of Mikawa province in the 1560s and the establishment of his Mikawa-bushi (三河武士), a group of loyal retainers from Mikawa. Apart from that we have anyway no records that these Mikawa-bushi and their men wore and ordered specifically locally made Yakuôji blades.

Picture 3: Okazaki as station of the Tôkaidô by Utagawa Hiroshige (歌川広重, 1797-1858)

With all that in mind, let´s see what we can learn on the origins and affiliation of the school from extant blades. There are works in nie-loaden gunome-chô with tobiyaki which suggest a connection to the Sue-Sôshû style. Many blades have their tangs finished with characteristic kata-sujikai yasurime, a feature which is peculiar to Mino-Senju´in smiths. Others in turn show Muramasa characteristics like a tanagobara-style nakago. The vast majority of the extant and individually signed Yakuôji blades go back to the Suketsugu smiths (助次) what makes some experts think that the school actually started with the 1^st generation Suketsugu. And when we compare blades of the Suketsugu smiths which bear the prefix “Yakuôji” with blades which are just signed “Yakuôji”, we learn from the similarity in signature style (in particular the characters for “Yaku” and “ji”) that a certain amount of the latter go actually back to the hands of Suketsugu smiths (see picture 4). Anyway, most experts agree that the Yakuôji style is closest to the Sue-Seki style but interpretations in suguha-chô look more classy and show more Yamato characteristics.

Picture 4, signature comparison: Left two blades by Suketsugu, right a blade just signed “Yakuôji.”

Another interesting hint for possible affiliations of the Yakuôji school can be found in the Kôzan-oshigata (光山押形), namely an oshigata of a blade signed “Yakuôji Ôtomo Sukeyoshi” (薬王寺大友助吉) (see picture 5). Incidentally, the last character for “yoshi” was obviously somewhat weak what resulted in the listing of smiths like Ôtomo Sukeshichi (大友助七) or Ôtomo Sukehito (助士, also quoted as “Sukenori,” “Sukekoto,” or “Suketada”). Ôtomo was a neighborhood of Yahagi and according to the Bunka (文化, 1804-1818) and Bunsei era (文政, 1818-1830) local history Mikawa-sôshi-roku Yahagi-sonki (参河聡視録矢矧村記) by Kamo Kyûsan (加茂久算), a certain Ôtomo group of armor and swordsmiths was active in the western part of Yahagi until about Tenshô (天正, 1573-1592) and Keichô (慶長, 1596-1615) whose helmets were called “Yahagi-bachi” (矢矧鉢). Please not that “Yahagi” (矢作) is quoted in that reference with the characters (矢矧). So when we use the aforementioned oshigata of the Kôzan-oshigata as piece of evidence, than everything points towards that the Ôtomo smiths were a branch of the Yakuôji school.

Picture 5: From the Kôzan-oshigata.

Kondô now speculates in his article that the Ôtomo formed a major part of the Yakuôji school and that they used the Yakuô-ji or a fictitious (or bribed) monk in the temple´s administration as a way to sell sword blades at the side. The smiths´ guild had on the one hand certain privileges and also the permission to offer their works on the free market but on the other hand, they were strictly regulated and monitored so that they did not sell products at the side for which they did not have the license. But if this is true, it must had happened parallel to the actual swordsmiths like the Suketsugu family which fully signed their works and made them thus instantly retraceable. Well, Kondô brings into play the Nagasone school (長曽祢) of armorers which also made tsuba, harness, locks, small bells, or nails at the side and even signed them. But I guess they either had the permission to do so, or their sidelines were overlooked and tolerated as no swords, i.e. weapons were made. And in my opinion, we must not overlook the quality factor. All the Yakuôji blades presented by Kondô in his article are pretty high-quality or at least of decent quality. That means it needed a considerable amount of training and practice, even for an armorer, to turn out sword blades in that quality. So there must had been quite a “hidden enterprise” behind that business model just to sell sword blades at the side. But with the demand for swords throughout the Muromachi period we must bear in mind that the sword business was probably very lucrative. So if you were a (black)smith back then, temptation was surely great to make and sell sword blades at the side.

My personal opinion is that the Yakuôji school was founded by smiths emigrating from Mino province as a “mass exodus” from this center of sword production was a well-known phenomen of the Muromachi period. But as the Yakuô-ji was not one of those very influental and powerful temples, I doubt that smiths worked directly for it, so maybe the vicinity of the temple had some kind of infrastructure that made smiths settle after leaving their home town in favor of Mikawa. And yes, Mikawa and Yahagi were promising as the Tôkaidô passed through it. As for the Ôtomo armorer connection, this might be (if at all) a rather limited phenomenon as the meikan records list just Ôtomo Sukeyoshi and hardly any other blades apart the one depicted in the Kôzan-oshigata are known from that school/group. (However, this lack of data might go back to the under-the-counter sales suggested by Kondô.)

With my first article in the new year and back from my holiday, I want to take a look at some Japanese sayings still in use which have their roots in sword-related vocabulary. Some of the sayings might not be that common and I would be happy if someone (native speaker) can come up with a few more. So please enjoy the following list which is in alphabetical order:

daijôdan ni furikabutte (大上段に振りかぶって) – Literally “to raise the sword in the overhead position,” which is regarded as the most aggressive position in swordsmanship, it means also “fearless,” “daring”, “keen” or “reckless” and the like.

denka no hôtô o nuku (伝家の宝刀を抜く) – This term means literally “to draw the precious family treasure sword.” As the literal translation suggests it is today either used to say “to use extreme methods” or to “one´s last resort”, or also to say “to play/pull one´s trump card.”

fuda-tsuki (札付き) – see origami-tsuki

futokoro-gatana  (懐刀) – The futokoro-gatana (written with the characters [懐剣] also pronounced as kaiken) referred to a plainly mounted tantô worn in the belt or hidden (mostly by women) in the fold (the futokoro) of a kimono.  Due to this wearing close to the body when it can easily and swiftly be drawn in case of an emergency, the term was soon applied to a confidant or right hand man, or also to a secret advisor.

ittô-ryôdan ni suru (一刀両断にする) – Literally “cutting in two with one sword stroke”, this saying means also “to use decisive (drastic) measures” or “to make a clear decision.”

jigane ga deru (地鉄が出る) – Literally “the steel appears,” for example when a blade is polished so often that the shingane appears or the jigane shows more unrefined areas. As a saying, it means “to reveal one´s true character.”

kaitô ranma o tatsu (快刀乱麻を断つ) – Literally this term means “to cut through felted hemp threads with a sharp blade.” The saying is about equivalent to the English “to cut the Gordian knot.”

kireaji ga ii (切れ味がいい) – This term means literally “having a good/sharp cutting edge” or just “sharp.” But it is also like the ambigious English word “sharp” in the context of “sharp tongue”. “ For example, kireaji no ii bunshô o kaku (切れ味のいい文章を書く) means “to write in an incisive style.”

menuki-dôri (目貫通り) – Literally this term means “menuki avenue”. Menuki are, when on unwrapped tantô same-covered hilts, are the most eye-catching of all sword fittings so a menuki avenue refers to the most eye-catching place of a town or the center of its main street. But there is also another explanation of the etymological origins of this saying, namely by the term iki-uma no me o nuku (生き馬の目を抜く), “to steal a living horses eye” with the meaning is “sharp practice,” “to catch a weasel asleep”. However, it is unclear how this saying (menuki in the meaning of “eye stealing/pulling” in the context of being swift or sneaky) explains the use of the menuki in menuki-dôri to refer to the most eye-catching place of a town or the center of its main street.

mi kara deta sabi (身から出た錆び) – This saying means literally “rust from the sword blade itself” and refers to a blade which keeps rusting due to improper or no maintenance. It is nowadays used to refer to the natural consequences of one´s act, to reap what you sow, to get what one deserves, or to pay for one´s mistakes.

moto no saya ni osameru (元の鞘に収まる) – This term referred originally to the fact that each sword is different in terms of sori (and shape) and requires an individually made saya. Literally the saying means “fits like the original saya” if a blade fits by chance into another saya. Nowadays the term is used to refer to an old love which is renewed or when a married couple reconciles after a time-out.

mukashi no tsurugi, ima no na-gatana  (昔の剣今の菜刀) – This saying means literally “once a sword, now a vegetable knife” and refers to a once outstanding person or thing has turned into a John Doe or to something that just lies around and collects dust respectively. The English pendant to this saying would be “Hares may pull dead lions by the beard.”

namakura (鈍) – This character means originally “dull sword” but was also used to refer to a good-for-nothing or coward. But it also has pretty much the same ambiguous meaning as the English “dull”, although in this context mostly the on´yomi “don” of this character is used.

nuitara saigo (抜いたら最後) – This term means literally “drawing the sword because this is the end” and is like the English “as if there were no tomorrow.”

nukisashi-naranu (抜き差しならぬ) – This term means “unable to either draw or resheath one´s sword.” So the saying is used to expressed “to be in a jam” and it is though to go back to the “problem” with a too rusty sword: Did it rust in the saya, you can´t draw it, and did it rust out of its saya, you can´t resheath it.

origami-tsuki (折紙付き) – Literally this term means just “(blade) comes with an origami”. It is now used to say that something comes with a guarantee, or applied to a person that he or she is recognized. But also a person with a bad reputation can be referred to by a saying from the sword world, namely fuda-tsuki (札付き), i.e. “(blade) comes just with a fuda (and not with a regular origami).” Please refer to my book The Honami Family for further details on the differentiation of origami and fuda.

saigo no dotanba de (最後の土壇場で) – This term means “at the last elevated area” and referred to place of execution (dotanba, 土壇場) where also swords were tested on criminals. As saying it means “at the very last moment” or “at the eleventh hour,” i.e. the last chance of a delinquent to say something standing or lying tied up on the elevated earth mound before the executioner did his job, testing a sword blade at the same time.

saya-ate (鞘当て) – Literally “hitting saya”, this term refers to the (inevitable) duel resulting from hitting saya of inattentive samurai passing each other. Today the term is used to refer to a rival in general or a rival in love, with the context in mind that hitting someone´s saya, intentionally or unintentionally, ended always in a duel or at least in rivalry.

seppa-tsumaru (切羽詰まる) – This term means “tight like a seppa” and refers to “be at one´s wits end”, “to be cornered”.

shinken ni (真剣に) – Literally “with a real sword” (not a bokken or a shinai), this term means just “seriously” or “in all seriousness.”

shinogi o kezuru (鎬を削る) – This term means literally “to scrape your shinogi” and referred to a fierce sword duel as a Japanese swordsman usually tries to parry an opponents blade with the shinogi or the mune and not with the cutting edge of his sword. Nowadays the term shinogi o kezuru is used in general to a fierce fight where sparks fly.

sori ga awanai (反りが合わない) – This term means “the sori of a sword does not match (with a certain saya)” as each sword has a different curvature and shape and needs thus an individually made scabbard. So sori ga awanai means today “to be unable to cooperate”, “they cannot agree,” or “they fight like cat and dog.”

tantô-chokunyû (単刀直入) – This term means literally “entering (the enemy lines) alone an just with one´s sword.” It is now used to express things like “to speak buntly,” “to ask point-blank”, “without beating about the bush” and the like.

tsuba-zeriai (鐔迫り合い) – The term means “to push each others sword guard,” that means a sword duel has gone close combat and the duellists standing tsuba to tsuba, both trying to push forward. So this saying stands for two opponents or competitors at the moment right before the decisive move for one of them to win.

tsuke-yakiba (付け焼き刃) – The term means literally “add a tempered edge”, namely to a dull or crudly made blade, i.e. when a swordsmith improved such a dull or crudly made blade by attaching a new cutting edge of higher-quality steel. As a saying the term refers to “overnight knowledge,” “pretension,” “affectation,” or someone “semi-skilled.”

yaki-naoshi (焼き直し) – As we know, this term refers to the process of retempering a blade which had lost its hardened edge for whatever reason. The verb “to retemper” is yaki-naosu (焼き直す). But the term means also “plagiarism,” “imitation” and “copy”, or “to imitate,” “to copy” or “to crib” in its use as verb.

yari ga futte mo (槍が降っても) – Literally “even though it is raining spears”, this saying means “no matter what happens.”