Thou shalt not shorten me

Uesugi Kenshin (上杉謙信, 1530-1578), one of the most prominent military leaders of his time, felt one day for whatever reason compelled to have one of his Ichimonji blades shortened. The Ichimonji school emerged in Bizen province around the beginning of the Kamakura period. This province gave rise to many excellent master smiths since the late Heian period. Those early smiths are referred to as the Ko-Bizen School (古備前, lit. “early Bizen school”). From the middle Kamakura period the Ko-Bizen smiths were joined by the Osafune school (長船) which flourished until the end of the Muromachi era. But in this long tradition, the Ichimonji school with their congenial masterworks marked undoubtedly the culmination of all Bizen smiths. One trademark of the Ichimonji school was that their blades were mostly signed just with the character for “one” (jap. ichi, 一) and this is also the origin for the name of the school: “Ichimonji” means “character (for) one” or in the wider sense just “line” or “stroke.”

Thus one day Kenshin brought the blade to the house polisher of the Uesugi family who should carry out the shortening. He asserted that he will set about doing this as soon as possible and because it was already late in the evening, he stored the blade in the sword drawer (katana-dansu, 刀箪笥) and went to bed. Exhausted by the hard work he felt asleep quickly but had a strange dream in the middle of the night. There was a beautiful princess crying heartrendingly, begging the polisher not to hurt her. At the next morning the polisher (togi-shi, 研師) started his work as usual but he was not able to forget the unsettling dream. Towards the end of his work day, it was time for the Ichimonji of Kenshin and he started to file off the end of the tang. But as it was again rather late, he put aside the blade in the drawer unfinished. Again the princess appeared in his dream, this time the more desperate and under tears she beseeched the polisher: “Please stop hurting me!” In his dream he asked her name. “I am called Tsuru and I know that it is your order but please stop hurting me!”

Right at the next morning he went to the person responsible for the swords of the fief (on-koshimono, 御腰物) to tell him about his strange dream and to ask for advice. With frightening they found out that both of them had the same dream and they agreed that it has something to do with the Ichimonji blade in question. It was decided that works on the blade should rest until their lord Uesugi Kenshin had returned to the fief. As not to evoke any harm, he then decided that the blade should be left as it is and called in henceforth Himezuru-Ichimonji (姫鶴一文字).

There was a sword appraiser (kantei-ka, 鑑定家) called Hosoya (細屋) working for the Uesugi family who had studied under the Hon´ami family in Edo. Ten years after Kenshin´s death he compiled an oshigata collection of the blades in the possession of the Uesugi family in which the Himezuru-Ichimonji is mentioned in the following way:

Himezuru-Ichimonji nari. Jōjō, hyakkan, mine Ichimonji nari. Yakiba ō-midare nari.

(姫つる一文じ也。上々、百貫、美禰一文字也。やきば大乱也。)

“Himezuru-Ichimonji. Of highest quality, worth 100 kan, signed^*1 ´Ichimonji´. Pattern of the tempered edge in ō-midare (large waves).”

The Himezuri-Ichimonji is nowadays preserved in the Yonezawa City Uesugi Museum (Yonezawa-shi Uesugi-hakubutsukan, 米沢市 上杉博物館, Yamagata Prefecture) and is designated as jūyō-bunkazai. It is interesting that the depiction of the tang in the oshigata collection of the Amiya family (Amiya Oshigata, 網屋押形) shows only three of the now four peg holes and that the tang is in addition 2 cm longer as the present one. That means that the blade was shortened later regardless of Tsuru´s pleading.

However, Kenshin transmitted this sword to his heir Kagekatsu (景勝, 1556-1623) who was actually the son of his older sister because Kenshin himself had no children. Another sword which went from Kenshin to Kagekatsu is the famous Yamatorige-Ichimonji (山鳥毛一文字), lit. “mountain bird plumage Ichimonji,” called after its very flamboyant temper line reminding on the magnificent and dense plumage of a mountain bird. In the sword records of the Uesugi family the characters for the blade´s nickname are also quoted with their Sino-Japanese reading Sanchōmō.

Kagekatsu was as Kenshin a renowned sword connoisseur and compiled a list of the 35 best treasure swords of his collection, called Kagekatsu Kō Ote Erabi Sanjūgo Koshi (景勝公御手選三十五腰). Also interesting is that Kenshin had both Ichimonji blades mounted with identical koshirae (see picture below). Such an uchigatana-koshirae without tsuba is called aikuchi (合口).^*2 In this chapter we learned that high-ranking bushi wore up to the Muromachi period koshigatana as companion swords (sashizoe, 差添え) to their tachi. Experts assume that Kenshin and other contemporary warriors wore quite long uchigatana as sachizoe to their tachi which were mounted without tsuba and thrusted through the belt like koshigatana. The reason for this practice are probably to be found within the permanent changes of turbulent Sengoku era: When the actual war sword – the tachi – was handed over to sword carriers in the camp, a higher-ranking general or military commander was then still able to call upon a “full” long sword in a case of emergency.

jūyō-bunkazai Himezuru-Ichimonji, mei: “Ichi,” nagasa 71.5 cm, sori 2.0 cm, shinogi-zukuri, iori-mune, relative broad mihaba, koshizori, chū-kissaki, three mekugi-ana (one of them plugged)

kokuhō Yamatorige-Ichimonji, mumei, nagasa 78.3 cm, sori 3.2 cm, shinogi-zukuri, iori-mune, deep koshizori, funbari, ikubi-kissaki, ubu-nakago

The two mountings, those of the Himezuru-Ichimonji on bottom, and of the Yamatorige-Ichimonji on top. Both mountings are designated together with their blades as jūyō-bunkazai or kokuhō respectively.

 

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^*1 The term mine (美禰) mentioned here, in some places at this oshigata collection written with the characters (見禰), is somewhat unclear in this context because it stands for the back of a blade mine (峰・嶺) or mune (棟). In the usual syntax of describing swords in earlier years, the signature is mentioned at this very place and so this part was translated as “signed ´Ichimonji´.”

^*2 At such a mounting, the collar of the hilt (fuchi, 縁) meets (au, 合う) directly the mouth of the scabbard (koiguchi, 鯉口).

Fireflies and Swords?

Let´s stay at the turmoils of the early Nanbokuchō period. In the third month of Kenmu three (建武, 1336), four months after the battle at the Hakone pass, Ashikaga Takauji was stuck on Kyūshū. To this place he was driven by Nitta Yoshisada and Kusunoki Masashige after entering Kyōto, losing the capital just after a short time. The some thousand men of Takauji met the superior army of the Godaigo alliance at the back of Tatara (多々良浜, Hakata Bay, present-day Fukuoka Prefecture), at the same place where once the Mongols arrived. The emperor-loyal alliance was led by Kikuchi Takeshige´s (菊池武重, 1307-1338) younger brother (菊池武時, ?-1341), followed among others by Aso Korezumi (阿蘇惟澄, 1309-1364), the then head of the Aso family. The Aso were as the Kikuchi loyal to the emperor since oldest times.

Right at the beginning of the fightings, the alliance was able to disturb Takauji´s battle formation and split the army. For a moment, it seemed that victory was theirs. But then, a force north wind sprang up and covered Taketoki´s warriors in a huge sand cloud, robbing completely their sight. In addition, many men went over to the ebeny, and this was the disastrous end for the alliance and the victory for Takauji. Takauji was able to use this „tactic of conversion“ because except of the Kikuchi and Aso, most other members of the rather loose alliance held a wait-and-see policy and where not all for Godaigo´s plans. Aso Korezumi – his older brother Korenao (惟直) died in this battle – was able to return wounded to his lands at the foot of Mt. Aso of the same name. His ō-dachi by Rai Kunitoshi (来国俊) with a blade length of more than one meter suffered strongly from the mowing movements Korezumi faced his enemies. Totally exhausted he lied down and was fast asleep, having a strangle dream. A swam fireflies (hotaru, 蛍) – very atypical for this time of the year – came flying along, sitting down on the blade of his Rai Kunitoshi. The entire sword glowed in the dark of the night. Korezumi slept deeply until next morning. Surprised about the dream he immediately unsheathed his sword, but he couldn´t believe his eyes: all chips and cuts of the cutting edge (so-called ha-kobore, 刃毀れ) were gone! As head of the Aso family, Korezumi held also the office of high-priest (daigūshi, 大宮司) of the Aso Shrine (Aso-jinja, 阿蘇神社, present-day Kumamoto Prefecture), and so the sword was kept there as family treasure over generations under the name Hotarumaru (蛍丸).

In 1931, the Hotarumaru was submitted by baron Aso Tsunemaru (阿蘇恒丸), the then head of the family, to the Ministry of Cultural Affairs and was designated as national treasure. After the end of World War II, the sword was lost in the course of the sword hunt of the occupying forces. There are rumours that the blade is still in a unknown private collection in Japan but it is more likely that it was destroyed just like many thousand other swords.

Fortunately we have a drawing of the blade (see picture 28). It was published in the Shūko Jisshu (集古十種), a 85-volume catalogue over ten categories (jisshu, 十種) of antiques (shūko, 集古), commissioned in the twelfth year of Kansei (寛政, 1800) by Matsudaira Sadanobu (松平定信, 1759-1829), the then daimyō of Shirakawa.

The notes at the side of the picture read:

“Higo no kuni, Aso-daigūshi Korezumi Hotarumaru-tachi no zu” (肥後国阿蘇大宮司惟純螢丸太刀圖), “Picture of the tachi Hotarumaru of the Aso high-priest Korezumi from Higo province” (Note: Here, a different character for “sumi/zumi” was used; → compare 澄 and 純).

“Sōchō 4 shaku 5 sun – haba 1 shaku 2 bu – nagasa 6 sun 8 bu” (惣長四尺五寸　幅一寸三歩　長六寸八歩), “Entire length ~ 136.6 cm (the blade length measures 101.3 cm), blade width ~ 3.9 cm, length of the (smaller) hi ~ 20.6 cm”

“Einin gonen sangatsu-ichinichi” (永仁五年三月一日), “first day of the third month Einin five (1297)”

In this context, I would like to introduce another blade by Rai Kunitoshi which is designated as national treasure too. Except of the blade length, it has a very similar shape (sugata, 姿) as the Hotarumaru. This sword is signed with Kunitoshi´s civilian name Magotarō (in the form “Rai Magotarō saku,” 来孫太郎作) and bears the date “Shōō gonen mizunoe-tatsu hachigatsu jūsannichi” (正応五年壬辰 八月十三日, “13th day of the eighth month Shōō five [1292], year of the dragon”). So it was forged just five years before the Hotarumaru. The elegant sugata, the hi which is cutted centrally on the shinogi-ji running through the entore tang and its end before the kissaki, as well as the smaller hi towards the base of the blade – all those elements are identical on both blades.

The smith Kunitoshi belonged to the Rai school in Yamashiro province. Traditionally, he is dated to the Kōan period (弘安, 1278-1288). There are works extant which are signed either with Rai Kunitoshi or just with Kunitoshi, and because these blades are somewhat different in workmanship and shape, it is unclear if there were two generations Kunitoshi.

Picture top: Drawing of the Shūko Jisshu, bottom (not true to scale and vertically mirrored): kokuhō tachi, mei: “Rai Magotarō saku – [kaō] Shōō gonen mizunoe-tatsu hachigatsu jūsannichi,” nagasa 77.3 cm, sori 3.9 cm, shinogi-zukuri, iori-mune, deep sori, funbari, ubu-nakago (in the possession of the Tokugawa Museum, Nagoya)

The thousand spears of the Kikuchi

We are in the turmoils of war of the Nanbokuchō period, this time on Kyūshū. The death of Emperor Godaigo in 1339 does not mean automatically the end of the dispute between the Northern and Southern Dynasties and also the shōgun Ashikaga Takauji – who just recently came to power – was confronted with a confusing constellation of rivalling families. Kyūshū and the northeastern provinces have always been hard to bring under a central power like the Yamato court of the bakufu, and the policy was so far as to leave the local hegemons as far as possible “independent” and install a kind of superordinated controlling body. One such a controlling body which existed since the Nara period was the office of Dazaifu (大宰府) in Chikuzen province which controlled the foreign trade and the relationship ti the mainland.

When the Minamoto came to power in 1185, the Dazaifu office was replaced by the so-called “Defense Commissioner of the West” (Chinzei-bugyō, 鎮西奉行). When about hundred years later to Mongols invaded Kyūshū the bakufu felt constrained to extend this office and thus the office of the “General Governor of the Western Garrisons” (Chinzei-tandai, 鎮西探題) was installed. Such offices were the key for a supremacy on Kyūshū and each imperial dynasty tried to appoint one their men to this post. But in addition to Dazaifu, there was another force active in this region, namely the “Supreme Commander of the Conquering of the West” (seisei-taishōgun, 征西大将軍), enacted by the imperial court during the Heian period. Emperor Godaigo appointed in 1336 one of his sons, Prince Kanenaga (懐良親王, 1329-1383), to the post of seisei-taishōgun, with the mission to keep under control the Kyūshū-based supporters, followers, and relatives of the Southern Dynasty to which Godaigo belonged. In this task he was supported by the local emperor-loyal military governors of the Kikuchi (菊池) and the Aso (阿蘇) clan.

The next two decates were a constant back and forth between the Northern and Southern Dynasty. In the fourth year of Enbun (延文, 1359),^*1 Prince Kanenaga faced an upcoming attack of the Ashikaga, represented by Shōni Yorinao (少弐頼尚, 1293-1371) who switched to the side of the bakufu some years earlier. Kikuchi Takemitsu (菊池武光, 1319-1373) and other generals were mobilized and an army of about 40.000 men took position on the northern coast of River Chikugo (筑後川), faced with an alliance of about 60,000 warriors. The fightings were very brutal and records say that altogether 26,000 men were killed on both sides.

Kikuchi Takemitsu and his allies were vitctorious and this secured the supremacy of the Southern Dynasty on Kyūshū for about ten years. A vidid insight into the fierceness of this conflict gives us some 500 years later the historian and poet Rai San´yō (頼山陽, 1780-1832):

Uma kizu-tsuki, kabuto yaburete ki-masumasu furuu. (馬傷冑破気益奮)

Teki o kiri, kabuto o tori, uma o ubatte-noru. (斬敵取冑奪馬騎)

Ya o kōmuru koto, harinezumi no gotoku, mokushi saku. (被箭如蝟目眥裂)

[…] Kirai kasui ni waratte, katana o araeba, (歸來河水笑洗刀)

Chi wa hontan ni hotobatte, kōsetsu o haku. (血迸奔湍噴紅雪)

“On wounded horses, the armour broken, but not more than ever! The enemey is killed, his helmet is taken off, and his horse is taken. Pierced by arrows they look like hedgehogs, the skin around the corners of the eyes is torn open and bleeding. […] The river sounds like roaring laughter when they were cleaning their swords in it on the way back home. The blood ran down in streams so that the glacier turned red later this year.”

This river where they had cleaned their swords was later nicknamed Tachiarai-gawa (太刀洗川, “Swordcleaning/Swordcleaner River”) the the near village was also called Tachiarai (太刀洗).^*2 With one of the last strophes of this long poem – it contains altogether 36 – I want to turn to the legend of the thousand spears. In this line, the poet San´yō refers to Takemitsu´s father Kikuchi Taketoki (菊池武時, 1272-1333):

Junkoku no ken wa daifu yori tsutou. (殉國劍傳自乃)

“So he receives the sword of his father with which the latter already gave his life for his land.”

In the third year of Genkō (元弘, 1333), Taketoki attacked on secret orders from Godaigo the then acting Chinzei-tandai Hōjō Hidetoki (北条英時, ?-1333) in Hakata. However, the plan became known before and Taketoki and one of his sons died in the arousing fightings. But before his death he assigned Takeshige (武重, 1307-1338) as his successor and detached him from the front line to their home lands so that he was able to pull the strings of the Kikuchi family. Theoretically, a retreat would have been possible by Taketoki but he decided to fight for the emperor and this loyalty is indicated in San´yō´s line.

Two years later there was another turning point in Godaigo´s tries to restore the power of the imperial court when suddenly Ashikaga Takauji turned against him. Godaigo ordered straight away that this “issue” should be approached by Nitta Yoshisada directly in Kamakura. Kikuchi Takeshige belonged to the army of Yoshisada, having the prestigious post of the vanguard. With his 1,000 men he encountered on the Tōkaidō close to the Hakone Pass (箱根峠, about 50 km west of Kamakura) Takauji´s younger brother Tadayoshi (直義, 1306-1352) who commanded an army of about 3,000. One year earlier Takeshige was posted in the 64-men command of the musha-dokoro (武者所) which had the supervision of the troops protecting the Imperial Palance in Kyōto. This means he and his men were not armed with heavy equipment like ōdachi (大太刀) or naginata.

But Takeshige was not frightened because the Kikuchi family was renowned for their unconventional methods in the warding-off of the Mongols. Thus he ordered his men to mount their tantō blades on two metres measuring bamboo poles to attack with the “ersatz spears” from within the bamboo thicket. Tadayoshi´s warriors were highly perplexed of this so-far unknown tactics and had to retreat with great difficulties. This is the origin of the term Kikuchi-senbon-yari (菊池千本槍, “The Thousand Spears of the Kikuchi”). But it has to be mentioned that the spear (yari, 槍) was at that time not the common weapon for a warrior which would be decisive for the outcome of a battle. Thus some consider Takeshige´s tactics at Hakone decisive or rather important for the later introduction of the yari as the common weapon of the infantry.

However, in the end Ashikaga Takauji came off the winner of the subsequent battle at Minatogawa which we were talking about in chapter 9. Back in his home province of Higo and basing on the mentioned experiences in battle, Takeshige invited based swordsmiths from the Enju school (延寿) from Yamato province to his lands to forge him short (about 15 to 20 cm blade length) and robust yari in the form of tantō blades with an elongated tang (see picture below). Much later in the history of Japan, the Kikuchi-senbon-yari had been rediscovered as a symbol for a loyalty to the emperor and the imperial court. Namely during the resistance movement against the bakufu around the periods of Kaei (嘉永, 1848-1854) and Ansei (安政, 1854-1860), royalists started with cutting off the tang of old handed-down kikuchi-yari from about the time of Takeshige and to mount them symbolically as tantō. And that is a factor why unshortened spears of that kind with an ubu-nakago are so hard to find nowadays.

kikuchi-yari

Also the blades of the later daggers of the naval officers go back to the shape of the kikuchi-yari. For example commander Matsuo Keio (松尾敬宇, 1917-1942) – who participated in the submarine attacks on the port of Sydney in May 1942 – noted that he faced his enemies with a kikuchi-yari which was handed-down in his family since generations. An interesting sidenote, the propaganda film Kikuchi-senbon-yari Sydney-tokubetsu-tokkōdai (菊池千本槍シドニー特別特攻隊, “The Thousand Spears of the Kikuchi and the Suicide Attack Unit Sydney”) towards the end of World War II was produced under the leadership of the author Kikuchi Kan (菊池寛, 1888-1948), a namesake of Takeshige.

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^*1 This is the 14^th year of Shōhei (正平) according to the counting of the Southern Dynasty.

^*2 The present-day community Tachiarai-machi (大刀洗町) uses another character at the beginning but the name goes nevertheless back to this village and the nickname of the river.

The lost writing-box lid

The following story is about Kuniyoshi (国吉), the master of Tōshirō Yoshimitsu of whom we read about in the last but one story. Kuniyoshi is traditionally dated around the Hōji era (宝治, 1247-1249) and like his student Yoshimitsu he was first and foremost famous for his superior tantō blades. One day he was visited by a noble old man in his forge in the Awataguchi district in north-eastern Kyōto. The stranger was well-dressed but especially the walking stick attracted the attention of Kuniyoshi. It was namely a so-called hatozue (鳩杖), lit. “dove cane,” which was awarded by the imperial court to meritorious followers when the reached the age of eighty. This walking stick was decorated with a dove head at the handle. The choice of a dove goes back to the observation that those birds never choke on their food. And this was wished to very old persons too because death of choking is one of the biggest killer at this age.

“A noble person,” thought Kuniyoshi and bowed deeply. The old man mentioned the reason for his visit with a quiet voice: “I need a 2 shaku 3 sun (~ 69.7 cm) measuring ceremonial sword (ken, 剣). Money is no object.” “Your wish is my command. It might take 37 days for sure until the sword is finished.” The man just nodded at him and left.

Kuniyoshi arranged an exact timetable because by no means he wanted to disappoint the old man. The other thing he was kind of nervous was that he never forged such a long ceremonial sword. “Normal sized” ken measured commonly less than 2 shaku (~ 60.6 cm). As mentioned, he forged mostly tantō, followed by long and curved tachi. But after all, he succeeded and the sword turned out to be a masterwork.

After the 37 days the man came as agreed, again with his dove cane. Kuniyoshi handed him over the sword and the customer examined it thoroughly. “Excellent! It was for sure not an easy task to forge this blade.” As a payment he gave Kuniyoshi the lid of a writing-box with a staple of 100 gold pieces on top of it. The smith was very pleased with the extremely generous payment, bowed to the ground as deep as possible, and thanked the old man.

Some days later the high priest of the Sumiyoshi shrine (住吉神社) was just at checking the treasure chamber of the shrine. He noticed that the lid for a very precious writing-box was missing. He looked for it but was not able to find it. He called for all priests under his command so that they could look for the lid together but – as if bewitched – the lid had disappeared even the treasure chamber was locked. So they saw no other option as to prey for an oracle about the whereabouts of the lid.

And really, one of the three deities^*1 to whom the Sumiyoshi shrine was dedicated, answered: “The first step is to visit a certain Awataguchi Kuniyoshi.” This was kind of puzzling but the master swordsmith was no stranger in Kyōto. Kuniyoshi flinched when the priests explained him the facts. He told them from the old man who ordered a long ceremonial sword and payer 100 gold pieces, handed-over on a writing-box lid. And when he showed the lid to the priests, it was really the one missing from the treasure chamber. Kuniyoshi told them also about the dove cane and the priests agreed that it must had been an incarnation of one of the three Sumiyoshi deities.

Of course the story spread like wildfire and the “fact” that even a deity ordered a sword by Kuniyoshi contributed greatly to the fame and subsequently to the business of this smith. Another famous blade of Kuniyoshi is the Nakigitsune (鳴狐, see picture below), lit. “howling fox.” The blade is at the one hand especially precious because it bears a complete signature of Kuniyoshi, including his honorary title (Sahei no Jō, 左兵衛尉), and on the other hand because it is an important mosaic piece for the studies on the chronological develompent of the uchigatana (打刀). The uchigatana was a shorter sword worn at the beginning of its emergence by lower ranking soldiers, at a time when high-ranking mounted bushi still wore the bow as main weapon on the battlefield. Regarding swords, those high-ranking warriors wore a tachi combined with koshigatana (腰刀). The latter was used for self-defence in hand-to-hand battle or – when there was enough time – for committing seppuku.

The koshigatana was also worn in peaceful times, thrusted through the belt of civlian garments, and increasing in length over the years. Roughly simpliefied, the uchigatana was later adopted by high-ranking warriors as their main sword and from the middle to the end of the Muromachi period, it was paired with the shorter wakizashi (脇指) to the well-known daishō sword pair (大小). Now there are several theories about the exact processes of this development or rather from which sword developed from which kind of sword. The Nakigitsune-Kuniyoshi is insofar very interesting because it shows that high-ranking bushi – only a person of this status was able to afford a blade of the quality level of a Kuniyoshi – ordered already at the end of the Kamakura period blades which were considerably shorter than the tachi and clearly longer than the koshigatana.

The Nakigitsune-Kuniyoshi was handed-down within the Akimoto family (秋元), the daimyō of the Tatebayashi fief (館林) in Kōzuke province. The first generation which was entrusted with the government of this fief was Akimoto Nagatomo (秋元長朝, 1546-1628), a retainer of the Usesugi family. But it is not recorded when the sword came into the possession of the Akimoto family.

jūyō-bunkazai Nakigitsune, mei: “Sahei no Jō Fujiwara Kuniyoshi” (左兵衛尉藤原 国吉), nagasa 54.1 cm, sori 1.4 cm, hira-zukuri, mitsu-mune, sakizori, ubu-nakago

 

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^*1 The three are: Sokotsutsu-o no mikoto (底筒男命), Nakatsutsu-o no mikoto (中筒男命), and Uwatsutsu-o no mikoto (表筒男命), altogether known as Sumiyosh-sanjin (住吉三神).

 

Gō Yoshihiro

In this chapter I would like to introduce two blades of the last of the sansaku, Gō Yoshihiro. According to tradition, Yoshihiro was a retainer of the Momonoi family (桃井) which ruled the Matsukura (松倉) district (gō, 郷) of Etchū province. On the basis of this local context, Yoshihiro is also called Matsukura-gō (松倉郷) or just Gō (郷), whereas the latter term was also written with the character (江) from the Edo period onwards which reads Gō too. Yoshihiro is dated to the Kenmu era (建武, 1334-1338). He was one of the so-called “Ten Students of Masamune” (Masamune no jūttetsu, 正宗の十哲), but this list has to be treated with caution because there are dated blades extant by some of those swordsmiths listed which do not match with the artistic period of Masamune. For the sake of completeness, I quote this list, but there are also varying lists going round. So is sometimes Kongobyōe Moritaka (金剛兵衛盛高) from Chikuzen province instead of Rai Kunitsugu or Sekishū Naotsuna.

Gō Yoshihiro (郷義弘) 
Etchū Norishige (則重) 
Bizen Nagayoshi (Chōgi) (長義) 
Bizen Kanemitsu (兼光) 
Hasebe Kunishige (長谷部国重) 
Sekishū Naotsuna (石州直綱) 
Chikuzen Samonji (筑前左文字) 
Yamashiro Rai Kunitsugu (来国次) 
Mino Shizu Kaneuji (志津兼氏) 
Mino Kinjū (Kaneshige) (金重)

Unfortunately there are no dated or signed blades extant by Gō Yoshihiro and soon the saying came up that “you can never see a ghost or a Gō.” This saying alludes to the numerous ghostly sightings in many places but in the end there is hardly anyone who personally witnessed them. But it is firmly believed that they exist, like blades of Gō. The first blade to be introduced is designated as national treasure and bears the gold-inlayed signature (kinzōgan-mei, 金象嵌銘) “Tenshō jūsan, nigatsu-hi – Gō – Hon´ami suriage kore + seal (kaō, 花押)” (天十三二月日　江　本阿弥磨上之, “Gō blade, shortened by the Hon´ami family on a day of the second month Tenshō 13 [1585]”). And the back side of the tang bears the kinzōgan-mei of the previous owner of the blade: “shoji Inaba Kan´emon no Jō” (所持稲葉 勘右衛門尉).^*1

Inaba Kan´emon no Jō (?-1598) – his first name was Shigemichi (重通), Kan´emon is his common name (zokumyō, 俗名) and Jō his honorary title title (shōgō, 称号) – belonged once to the cavalry unit (called uma-mawari-shū, 馬廻衆) which was assigned for the protection of Oda Nobunaga when he was on horseback on the battlefield. After the death of Nobunaga, Inaba became a retailer of Hideyoshi, once again as uma-mawari, and fought for him in the twelfth year of Tenshō (1584) at the Battle of Komaki and Nagakute (Komaki-Nagakute no tatakai, 小牧・長久手の戦い). For his military achievements in this battle he was rewarded with lands in Kawachi province. From the first year of Bunroku (文禄, 1592) until his death he was stationed in Nagoya Castle (名護屋) in Hizen province from which Hideyoshi started his campaigns to Korea.

Lehend says that Tokugawa Ieyasu bought this Gō Yoshihiro from him for 500 kan. The date and the exact circumstances are not recorded but it must had been after 1585 because the kinzōgan signature mentiones explicitely that Inaba Kan´emon no Jō (Shigemichi) was then still its owner. It is possible that the blade was damaged during the Battle of Komaki and Nagakute and had to be shortened. However, in the fifth year of Keichō (1600) – right before the Battle of Sekigahara . Ieyasu learned that Ishida Mitsunari, whom he allowed to retreat to his lands to Sawayama before, was going to make a new army in the west. Thus he entrusted his second son Yūki Hideyasu his favourite baton of command (saihai, 采配) and the Gō of Inaba Shigemichi as cheering symbols for his task to hold certain eastern areas for him.

After the victory of the Tokugawa side, the blade remained in the possession of Hideyasu. Together with the Dōjigiri-Yasutsuna and the Ishida-Masamune it became one of the three most valuable treasure swords of the Echizen-Matsudaira family (越前松平), the founder of which was namely Hideyasu. Afterwards all three blades went eventually into the possession of the Tsuyama branch of the Matsudaira. As the name suggests, the nickname Inaba-Gō (稲葉江) under which the blade is mentioned in the Kyōhō Meibutsu Chō, goes back to its former owner, Inaba Kan´emon no Jō Shigemichi.

kokuhō Inaba-Gō, mei: “Tenshō jūsan, nigatsu-hi – Gō – Hon´ami suriage kore + kaō – shoji Inaba Kan´emon no Jō,” nagasa 70.9 cm, sori 2.03 cm, shinogi-zukuri, iori-mune, elongated chū-kissaki, broad mihaba, ō-suriage-nakago

Another blade of Gō Yoshihiro bears a quite poetic nickname, namely the so-called Samidare-Gō (see picture below). Samidare (五月雨) is the continuous, early summer rain which heralds the rainy season tsuyu (梅雨) in the fifth month of the lunar calendar. The Kyōhō Meibutsu Chō says that the name of the blade goes back to its tempering which looks like the veil of mist (kiri, 霧) hanging over the country in the days of the samidare. In addition, also the order of owners is recorded in the Kyōhō Meibutsu Chō, starting with Hon´ami Kōsa (本阿弥光瑳, 1576~1637). Kōsa was the great-grandson of Taga Takatada who was introduced in the last chapter and the cousin and later adopted heir of Hon´ami Kōetsu (本阿弥光悦, 1558-1637). When Kōetsu died, Kōsa succeeded as head of the Hon´ami family but he died just eight month afterwards. And so Kōsa´s son Kōho (光甫) followed which we got to know in the chapter on the Ōtenta-Mitsuyo.

jūyō-bunkazai Samidare-Gō, mumei, nagasa 71.8 cm, sori 1.5 cm, shinogi-zukuri, iori-mune, broad mihaba, shallow sori, chū-kissaki, ō-suriage nakago

The next owner after Kōsa was Kuroda Nagamasa, followed by Tokugawa Iemitsu. According to traditions of the Owari branch of the Tokugawa family, Iemitsu presented the blade on the 21^st day of the ninth month Kan´ei 16 (寛永, 1639) to Mitsutomo (光友, 1625-1700), the second generation Owari-Tokugawa. The sword record (Tōken- Shutsunyū Chō, 刀剣出入帳) of this family notes also the monetary value of the blade, namely 5,000 kan, and that there was once a mounting too when it was recorded as present.

Mitsutomo was an excellent fencer and studied the art of swords-manship of the Shinkage-ryū (新陰流) under Yagyū Ren´yasai Yoshikane (柳生連也斎厳包, 1625-1694), who on the other hand was a retainer of the Owari branch of the Tokugawa family.^*2 On a sidenote: One of the most favourite swords of Yagyū Renya´sai was a 1 shaku 4 sun (~ 42,4 cm) measuring wakizashi in katakiriba-shinogi-zukuri – a shape where one side of the blade is forged with a ridge line and the other side not – made by the “house smith” of the Yagyū, Hata Mitsuyo (秦光代).^*3 When Ren´yasai was one night surprised by an assassin, he drew this short sword and killed the enemy with one single cut. On the basis of this incident the blade got the nickname Oni-Hōchō (鬼包丁), lit. “devil´s kitchen knife.”

The successors of the Tokugawa mainline gave the Samidare-Gō in 1944 to the Tokugawa Museum in Nagoya which was erected nine years before. This museums contains among others the treasures and the collection of the Owari-Tokugawa branch. The sayagaki of the shirasaya reads:

(五月雨郷　御刀　無代　長弐尺参寸七分　元禄十二卯年七月廿五日 尾張中納 言殿御遺物) “Samidare-Gō mito – mudai – chō 2 shaku 3 sun 7 bu – Genroku 12 usagidoshi shichigatsu nijūgonichi – Owari Chūnagon–dono go-ibutsu”

“Sword Samidare-Gō – priceless (lit. “without monetary assessment”) – length 71,8 cm – Genroku twelve (1699), year of the hare, seventh month, 25^th day – from the bequest of Lord Owari Chūnagon”

The inscription “Lord Owari Chūnagon” refers to Tokugawa Tsunanari (徳川綱誠, 1652-1699), Iemitsu´s son and third generation of the Owari-Tokugawa branch.

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^*1 Shoji (所持) means “owner,” “in possession of…”

^*2 Mitsutomo succeeded even as 6th grandmaster of the Shinkage-ryū main line.

^*3 The characters for his name are also read as Mitsushiro.

Tōshirō Yoshimitsu

In the last chapter we read about the ascribing of monetary values to blades and smiths where also the name Tōshirō Yoshimitsu was mentioned. This swordsmith belonged to Kyōto´s Awataguchi school and is traditionally dated to the Shōgen era (正元, 1259-1260). He is considered as one of the most outstanding representatives of the Awataguchi school and was regarded with Masamune and his student Gō Yoshihiro as one of the “Best Three Smiths” (the so-called sansaku, 三作) during the Edo period. In the Kyōhō Meibutsu Chō he is represented with 16 blades which places him in terms of quantity on the third place in this work.^*1

The following legend took place at the time shortly after the warded-off invasion of the Mongols, that means at the end of the 13^th century, when the reconstruction of the Tamon hall (Tamon-dō, 多聞堂 or 多門堂) had begun. The hall was destroyed by fire with the Kurama temple (鞍馬寺) in the first year of Daiji (大治, 1126). The temple complex of Kurama lies about 15 km to the north of Kyōto and was founded in 770 or 796 – according to the particular tradition – on the mountain of the same name for the protection of the imperial capital. The temple houses a wooden statue of the deity Bishamonten (毘沙門天) which is designated as national treasure. Another name of Bishamonten is Tamonten (多門天 or 多聞天), and this was the origin of the name of the hall where the statue was once placed.

For the reconstruction a great many of iron nails were needed. Many of the temples in Nara, for example the Tōdaiji (東大寺) or the Kōfukuji (興福寺) maintained smiths of their own who made swords or halberds for the warrior monks (sōhei, 僧兵) but also tools like saws, axes, planes, and all the bits and pieces like naisl for the maintenance of the temples.

The Kurama temple did not have own smiths and so the master builder sent errand boys to the near Kyōto to give orders to the corresponding craftsmen. Among those errand boys was a young man who was sent to the swordsmith Tōshirō Yoshimitsu, back then already famous for his tantō, to pick-up pre-ordered nails. Many times he had to commute between the Kurama temple and Kyōto but so he had the chance to watch how the master forged his blades. To own such a tantō one day, this was the greatest wish of the young man. One day he mustered up the courage to ask the smith: “Master Tōshirō, I have to commute between the Kurama temple and Kyōto every day. This is a bad and dangerous route full of highwaymen and robbers. Could you please forge me a tantō that I am able to defend myself? In return I will bring you wood for firing the forge for free as long as the construction works on the Tamon hall are going on.” The smith knew of the dangerous routs to Kyōto and moved by the honest request of the young man he accepted. From that day forward he brought him daily new wood even it was raining or snowing and even when there were nails to pick-up. After three years the Tamon hall was finished but not the tantō for the hard-working errand boy.

Emphatically he reminded Tōshirō Yoshimitsu of his primise but he just boldly brought a piece of steel in the length of a dagger out of the forge, replying tersely: “I only came so far.” He hammered three or four times on the piece of steel and put it aside. The young man was protesting: “I struggled with my part of the agreement for now three years. It´s s shame that you not even thought about fulfilling your part of the agreement…” Yoshimitsu realized that he was wrong and said: “Well, when you come back tomorrow your tantō will be finished.” And indeed, the smith handed him over a beautifully forged blade when the young man visited the forged on the next day.

One of his errands brought the man into an area called Ichinohara (市原野) which is about three kilometres to the south of the Kurama temple. Already the monk Kyōsan (慶算, 1138-1213) of the local Miidera (三井寺) complained about that the area stopped being save for a long time.

It is unknown of the young man had known of Kyōsan´s complaints but on the way back he had to shelter from a approaching storm under a cedar. It did not take long and he fell asleep when a huge spider came lowering down from a branch of this tree. The spider saw the man as prey and spinned him with her spider threads. But when she tried to pull him up the tree, the tantō draw itself and cutted the young man out of the deadly cocoon. The spider repeated this gruesome game persistently several times until a mounted vassal of the Isshiki family (一色)^*2 passed by from his pilgrimage to the Kurama temple. He jumped from the saddle, drove away the spider, and freed the young man; but he was immediately fascinated by the tantō with its magical powers. The spider´s prey had not noticed what was going on in his deep sleep and so the warrior told him in what danger he was all the time. And then he broached the subject of the tantō: “I know of no man who owns such a dagger. Is it all right with you when I show it to my lord Isshiki and informing him from the whole incident?” The young man consented and quickly they rode both to Kyōto. The lord was astounded and decided spontaneously to give him 1.000 hiki (疋) for the tantō. 1.000 hiki was equivalent to 10 kan, that converts to 2,5 ryō. We have read in the chapter about Ishida Mitsunari´s Masamune that the average annual salary of a simple hanshi was about 3 ryō. And so the offer of the lord must had surely exceed the salary of the errand boy. The deal was made and the Isshiki lord called the blade of Yoshimitsu Kumokiri-Tōshirō (蜘蛛斬り藤四郎, lit. “spider cutter/ spider slayer Tōshirō”).

Now to a different legend about a blade of Yoshimitsu. After the decisive battle at the Minatogawa (湊川) in Kenmu three (建武, 1336), the attempt of emperor Go-Daigo (後醍醐, 1318-1339) to give all the political power back to the imperial court had finally failed. Go-Daigo´s most loyal retainer was Kusunoki Masashige (楠木正成, 1294-1336) who – facing his near death – committed seppuku away from the major battlefield. One of the military leaders who caused the downfall of Kusunoki was – according to the late Nanbokuchō-period epos Taiheiki (太平記) – a certain Ōmori Hikoshichi Morinaga (大森彦七盛長, exact dates unknown). Overwhelmed by the rewards and promotions after this achievement he enjoyed life to the full where he was especially attached to the sarugaku play (猿楽)^*3 and women (he was widely known as lecher).

When he was on the way to the spring festival of the Konrenji (金蓮寺, Iyo province) in the fifth year of Ryakuō (暦応, 1342), he encountered a beautiful young lady standing at the riverbank. Hikoshichi could not resits and asked her for fun if he should carry her on his back over the river. Unexpectedly she flirtatiously looked at him and climbed on his back without blushing. Hikoshichi´s father was a hunter from Tosa province and so he was used to carry deer or wild boards home on his back, compared to that young lady was so to speak like a feather. But when Hikoshichi had entered the river for some metres she became heavier and heavier with every step. He turned his head to see what wa going on but saw that she had turned into an about two metre measuring demon with bloodshot eyes, a huge mouth, and two horns.^*4 Hikoshichi tried to get rid off the demon but the latter grabbed him on his topknot and pulled him into the air. By heavy resistance he eventually managed it not to be pulled higher and both fell into a muddy rice field.

Hikoshichi´s servants had watched the entire scene and when the rushed to help they saw that the demon had stolen the life energy of their master. He had an open-mouthed, blank, and expressionless look, and the demon shouted down from the heaven: “I am Kusunoki Masashige´s spirit of vengeance! The matter at the Minatogawa is not yet clarified…”

Back then the fear of spirits of vengeance of persons who died in mysterious circumstances or who died a violent death was omnipresent and so Hikoshichi askes the priests of his lands to hold a posthumous requiem mass to appease the spirit of Masashige. Once again it has to be mentioned that there are several versions of this legend going round, and according to the dramaturgic inerpretation of a later Nō or Kabuki version, the story is set in different areas of the country or the identity of the spirit of vengeance is a different one. In addition, Kusunoki Masashige was later turned into an ideal of an emperor loyalist, and Ōmori Hikoshichi came out quite badly in Edo-period performances.

On another day some itinerant monks were touring this region, asking with their sarugaku play for some alms. Hikoshichi visited one such performance but he was bored that there were neither young nor beautiful women to be found in the countryside. He sat nevertheless down behind the „best choice“ as suddenly a fierce storm came. Everybody tried to find shelter from the cloudburst and when the young woman in front of Hikoshichi stood up and turned around, she had turned into a demon which stretched its hand out to grab the tantō he had girded. But Hikoshichi was able to react, turned to the side, draw the dagger, and cut the demon in the hand. He yelled and escaped through a gap between the dark clouds. After this incident Hikoshichi became depressive and lethargic and went to bed earlier and earlier. The servants were concerned about his condition and tried to obtain informations on the demon so that they were able to help him. They concluded that it was maybe either the spirit of vengeance of Kusunoki Masashige or of his daughter Chihaya-hime (千早姫), coming back to earth to get back the tantō which was stolen by Hikoshichi after Masashige´s suicide.

And so additonal guards were positioned every night in front of Hikoshichi´s bed-chamber but this of course did not represent a permanent solution. One of the retainers had the idea to ask a Zen priest to spend all night long in zazen meditation in front of the bed-chamber because it was told that spirits of vengeance were afraid to near to persons in such a state of mind. After the exchange of some alms a priest was willing to do as suggested and so also the demon had to switch to “plan B.” Turned into a spider he lowered himself from the roof at midnight and tied together the topknots of the sleeping guards with his spinning thread. Now turned into female demon again he went to Hikoshichi´s bed, grabbed him on his neck, and flew with him into the jet-black night sky.

Tied to each other the guards lost valuable time when they heard shortly afterwards an impact at the roof. The eldest in the group ordered a young vassal of Hikoshichi to climb the roof with a torch and he should find – more death than alive – their lord, giving the death rattle: “The demon has stolen my dagger. This is a serious disgrace for a warrior and it does no longer make any sense to live on…” The young man still tried to cheer him up but Hikoshichi was already dead. Suddenly a loud laughter could be heard from the sky and an object fell down in the garden of the residence. Carefully they approached and in the light of the torches they saw a skull to which the tantō was bound with a rope. The men agreed that thus must be the skull of Kusunoki Masashige and that the spirit of vengeance had now retaliated.

The tantō in question was a work of Tōshirō Yoshimitsu and went later into the possession of the Ashikaga-shōgun. There the piece was highly regarded under the name Hōchō-Tōshirō (包丁藤四郎). Hōchō means actually “kitchen knife” and is used for a broad tantō blade.^*5

But with 2 cm in width, the Hōchō-Tōshirō is a rather slender tantō. The name goes back to another connection with the aforementioned term, namely to hōchō-dō“ (包丁道) or hōchō-shiki (包丁式), the “way or respectively the rite/method of the kitchen knife.” This way/method describes the strongly ritualized art of cooking or preparation where a fish is divided only by the ose of a kitchen knife and two long chopsticks (manabashi, 真魚箸). Once the famous cook Taga Takatada (多賀高忠, 1425-1486) is said to have carved a crane with this tantō of Tōshirō Yoshimitsu, thus the nickname Hōchō-Tōshirō.

Later the blade went to Toyotomi Hideyoshi and subsequently to Uesugi Kagekatsu, Tokugawa Hidetada, Ieyasu, and finally to Yorinobu (徳川頼宣, 1602-1671), Ieyasu´s tenth son and founder of the Kii branch of the Tokugawa family. Later it remained family-owned by the Tokugawa but suffered a fire damage when parts of Edo Castle were burned in the third year of Meireki (明暦, 1657).

There was another tantō blade called Hōchō-Tōshirō in the possession of the Tokugawa family, which is actually quite broad (see picture below). And the Kyōhō Meibutsu Chō lists in the chapter “Fire Damages” (shōshitsu no bu, 焼失之部) also a tantō with the nickname Hōchō-Tōshirō. However, it is not fully identified if this entry refers to the former blade mentioned above but it is very likely because the second, broader one is designated as jūyō-bijutsuhin and does not show any hints of a fire damage or re-tempering. Either the names were mixed-up over time or just both blades were called the same way Hōchō-Tōshirō.

jūyō-bijutsuhin Hōchō-Tōshirō, mei: “Yoshimitsu,” nagasa 21.8 cm, hira-zukuri, iori-mune, broad mihaba, thin kasane, tang slightly shortened

 

Finally, let´s stay briefly at Yoshimitsu. One of his most famous blades – the so-called Hirano-Tōshirō (平野藤四郎, see picture below) – is today owned by the imperial family (gyobutsu, 御物). The names goes back to the tradition that once Kimura Shigegori (木村重茲, ?-1595), a vassal of the Toyotomi family, bought the tantō from the very rich merchant Hirano Dōsetsu (平野道雪, his first name can also be read as Michiyuki) and presented it later to Hideyoshi. From Hideyoshi the piece went to Maeda Toshinaga who gave it later to the Tokugawa-shōgun Hidetada. The latter on the other hand presented it to Maeda Toshitsune (前田利常, 1594-1658) who was married to Hidetada´s daughter Tamahime. At the end of the Edo period the Maeda family donated the tantō to emperor Meiji.

gyobutsu Hirano-Tōshirō, mei: “Yoshimitsu,” nagasa 30.1 cm, uchizori, hira-zukuri, mitsu-mune, relative thick kasane

 

 

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^*1 He is only “beaten” by Masamune with 39 and Sadamune with 19 blades.

^*2 This would match because the Isshiki family was founded by Ashikaga Yasuuji´s (足利泰氏, 1216-1270) son Kōshin (公深, ?-1330) when he was appointed as administrator of the Isshiki fief in Mikawa province. But the other point is that Kōshin must had stayed in Kyōto at that time because Isshiki is about 100 km to the east of the capital – to far from riding there so easily to show the lord a tantō.

^*3 A forerunner to the later Nō play.

^*4 In another version of the legend Hikoshichi sees the horns in the reflection on the water surface.

^*5 Famous for this nickname are two very broad tantō of Masamune which are both called Hōchō-Masamune.

Kannagiri and Daihannya-Nagamitsu

We have just read in the last chapter that the Hyūga-Masamune was originally called Katada-Masamune. This has nothing to do with this chapter but should serve as bridge to the protagonist of the following legend who was a certain bushi called Katada Matagorō (堅田又五郎). Katada was a place on the southwestern tip of Lake Biwa,^*1 who was an important traffic junction and a fishing centre at all times. The Ōnin War (Ōnin no ran, 応仁の乱) which broke out in the first year of Ōnin (応仁, 1467) in Kyōto soon spilled over into the neighboring provinces (Katada is about 20 km linear distance to Kyōto). The lords of the numerous smaller fiefs in this area used the turmoils of the war to get the local supremacy. The most outstanding of this so-called Katada-shū (堅田衆) or Katada-shoji (堅田諸侍) called groups was Katada Hirosumi (堅田広澄), a vassal of Hideyoshi who was in the controll of lands worth 20,000 koku.

Katada Matagorō lived somewhat earlier, around the end of the Ōnin War which lasted ten years. He was one day on the way at the foot of Ibukiyama (伊吹山) in Ōmi province, accompanied by a carpenter. It was already late and to avoid walking in the dawn, they stepped on it. But it didn´t help and at falling night they where middle of nowhere in a gloomy wood. Without warning the carpenter turned into a horrifying figure and attacked Matagorō with his teeth bared. Matagorō was surprised for a second but drew his sword – a blade of Bizen Nagamitsu (備前長光) – and thrusted at the creepy carpenter, or at least what was left of him. Matagorō was lucky that he had his sword thrusted through the belt and not wearing it over the shoulder like it was common for travellers.

With a metallic “pling” the blade cut in half the plane (kanna, 鉋)^*2 the carpenter had raised as defence and suddenly the monster vanished into thin air. Due to this incident, Matagorō called his sword Kannagiri-Nagamitsu (鉋切り長光), lit. “plane-splitter Nagamitsu.” This incident quickly made the rounds and eventually reached the Rokkaku family (六角),^*3 castellans of Kannonji (観音寺城) and military governors of southern Ōmi province, who without forder ado ordered the confiscation of the sword. The exact circumstances of the involuntary handing-over or why a simple bushi bore a blade of the famous swordsmith Nagamitsu are not known. However, records of the Rokkaku family say that the piece became at the latest in the Eishō era (永正, 1504-1521) the favourite sword of Rokkaku Ujitsuna (六角氏綱, 1492-1552).

Ujitsuna had no son and heir and so Yoshikata (義賢, 1521-1598), the eldest son of his older brother Sadayori (定頼, 1495-1552) had to succeed as head of the family as was the law at those days. And consiquently the Kannagiri-Nagamitsu went into his possessions. Some years later Yoshikata felt ill and once again, no one of the fief´s physicians was able to cure him. A worried vassal of the family visited a fortuneteller (uranai-shi, 占師) who said: “I see that the illness of your lord has something to do with a certain Matagorō and that he is under a curse of a killed carpenter. To solve the curse, one has to die for the sick person and further, the sword has to be offered to the Hyakusai tempe (百済寺, which lies to the east of Lake Biwa).”

The hard lot was assumed by Namazue Sadaharu (鯰江定春), lord of Namazue Castle (鯰江城) of the same name. Sadaharu came from a branch of the Rokkaku family and amid countless praises and expressions of thanks he was buried alive at the temple grounds of the Hyakusai! But the fortuneteller was to be right because Yoshikata´s condition was better and better every day after this gruesome ceremony.

At that time, the tension of impending war grew in the air and one of the main routs to Kyōto leaded through the southern part of Ōmi province. The political and military power of the Ashikaga shōguns was now completely destroyed and a kind of power vacuum had arosen in the course of which Oda Nobunaga saw his opportunity of attaining a supremacy. With Ashikaga Yoshiteru (足利義昭, 1537-1597) – which he installed later as “puppet shōgun” – he marched towards Kyōto in the eleventh year of Eiroku (永禄, 1568), opposed by the army of Yoshikata. But resistance was futile, the castle of Kannonji was besieged and surrendered, and Yoshikata was able to escape to the mountain region of Kōga (甲賀) in the southeast of Lake Biwa.

It is likely that the Kannagiri-Nagamitsu went into the possessions of Nobunaga when Yoshikata surrendered the castle because some years later, on the 24^th day of the sixth month of Tenshō seven (天正, 1575), he presented it together with a famous tea bowl called Shūkō (周光) to his vassal Niwa Nagahide (丹羽長秀, 1535-1585) who served him loyal since his youth. From Nagahide the sword went under not nearer defined circumstances to Gamō Ujisato (蒲生氏郷, 1556-1595), lord of Aizu-Wakamatsu Castle (会津若松城) in northern Japan. Another possibility how the sword could have came to Ujisato would be the following: Ujisato´s father Katahide (賢秀, 1534-1584) was castellan of Ōmi´s Hino Castle (日野城) and a retainer of Rokkaku Yoshikata who was back then in control of the lands around Kannonji Castle where also Hino Caste was located. When Yoshikata holed up in the mountains of Kōga, his retainer Katahide was not willing to surrender Hino without resistance to Nobunaga.

Well, Nobunaga sent thereupon Katahide´s brother-in-law Kanbe Moritomo (神戸盛友) (who was adopted into the Gamō family) as negotiator and Katahide finally gave up. Maybe Nobunaga gave Moritomo the Kannagiri-Nagamitsu as a kind of bribe and attempt of persuasion. The common tradition of the passing on of the Kannagiri-Nagamitsu says that the sword went from Ujisato to Toyotomi Hideyoshi who presented it to Tokugawa Ieyasu, who on the other hand bequeathed it to his son Hidetada. But things were somewhat different. When the third Tokugawa-shōgun Iemitsu (家光, 1604-1651) visited Ujisatos´son Tadasato (忠郷, 1602-1627) in his residence on the 14^th day of the fourth month Kan´ei one (寛永, 1624), he received as a welcome gift a tachi of Bungo Yukihira, a wakizashi of Sōshū Sadamune (相州貞宗), and the Kannagiri-Nagamitsu. Additionally it should be said that Tadasato´s mother Furihime (振姫) was the third daughter of Ieyasu, i.e. the aunt of Iemitsu. And so the Kannagiri came into the possession of the Tokugawa family.

Iemitsu´s sister Tamahime (珠姫, 1599-1622) was married to Maeda Toshitsune who was already introduced in the chapter about the Ōtenta-Mitsuyo. Their daughter Kametsuru married in Kan´ei three (1626) Mori Tadahiro (森忠広, 1604-1633), son of Mori Tadamasa (森忠政, 1570-1634). Tadahiro was installed successor of Tadamasa and future lord of the Tsuyama fief. As a wedding present Tadahiro received a wakizashi of Taima Kuniyuki (当麻国行) and the Kannagiri-Nagamitsu. But their luck did not hold because Kametsuru died four years after the wedding at the age of 18, and Tadahiro only three years later with 30, even before his father Tadamasa. So Tadahiro´s younger brother Nagatsugu (長継, 1610-1698) became the official successor of Tadamasa. Nagatsugu was granted with a very long life and when he retired in the second year of Enpō (延宝, 1674) he presented the Kannagiri-Nagamitsu together with a calligraphy to Ietsuna (家綱, 1641-1680), the son of Tadamitsu and the fourth Tokugawa-shōgun.

Shortly thereafter, in the ninth month of Enpō six (1679), the sword got an appraisal (origami, 折紙) of the Hon´ami family designating it a monetary value of 25 gold pieces. The sword was handed down from shōgun to shōgun until the end of the Edo period and already the work Hon´ami Kōetsu Oshigata (本阿弥光悦押形) published in the eighth year of Keichō (慶長, 1603) notes “shōgun ni te” (将軍ニ而, lit. “at the shōgun[´s place]”). That means also that the oshigata of the blade was drawn in the residence of the shōgun. But at the time of the big Kantō earthquake from 1923 the sword was together with the Konotegashiwa-Kanenaga in the residence of the Mito-Tokugawa branch in Edo´s Mukōjima district (向島) and suffered therefore a fire damage (yake-mi, 焼け身) which meant the loss of its tempering.

The then head of the Mito-Tokugawa family, marquis Tokugawa Kuniyuki (徳川圀順, 1886-1969) immediately informed the owner of the blade – the 17^th shōgun prince Tokugawa Iemasa (徳川家正, 1884-1963) – and asked him to let him the blade. Three weeks later Iemasa agreed and by intercession of Kuniyuki, it received in 1949 the status of jūyō-bunkazai even it had no longer its original tempering.

As a transition I want to compare the tang of the Kannagiri-Nagamitsu with the national treasure blade Daihannya-Nagamitsu (大般若長光) which is the subject of the next episode. Depicted on the next page (see picture below) one can see the identical position of the signature as well as of the uppermost, original mekugi-ana.

kokuhō Daihannya-Nagamitsu, mei: “Nagamitsu,” nagasa 73.6 cm, sori 2.9 cm, shinogi-zukuri, iori-mune, deep koshizori, funbari, broad mihaba, ikubi-kissaki, ubu-nakago at which only the very tip of the tang was altered slightly

Tang of the Daihannya-Nagamitsu top and of the Kannagiri-Nagamitsu bottom. Please note the matching position of the signature and the uppermost mekugi-ana.

The Daihannya-Nagamitsu appears in historical records the first time when it went from the 13^th Ashikaga-shōgun Yoshiteru to Miyoshi Nagayoshi ging (三好長慶, 1523-1564, his first name can also be read as Chōkei). The balance of power of late Sengoku-period Japan were far away from being settled and when Yoshiteru was installed as shōgun in Tenbun 15 Tenbun (天文, 1546) after the forced abdication of his father Yoshiharu (義晴, 1511-1550), he was with eleven years de facto under control of the regent (kanrei, 管領) Hosokawa Harumoto (細川晴元, 1514-1563). All these actions took place outside of Kyōto but later Yoshiharu conclude agreements with the Hosokawa regent that he was allowed to return to Kyōto where the Ashikaga shōgun had ruled before. So far so good but Miyoshi Nagayoshi – actually a vassal of Hosokawa Harumoto – switched sides and deserted to of Yoshiharu´s enemies. As a result new fightings broke out, Miyoshi was victorious but spared Yoshiharu´s life with the intention that he was now in control of the then shōgun instead of Harumoto. So it is likely that the sword came into the possession of Miyoshi Nagayoshi in the course of this new distribution of power.

Later the sword came to Oda Nobunaga, probably when the Miyoshi family was driven out of Kyōto in 1568. At the Battle of Anegawa (Anegawa no tatakai, 姉川の戦い) which took place two years later, it was Tokugawa Ieayu who distinguished himself and so Nobunaga rewarded him with the Daihannya-Nagamitsu. In 1575 there were new fightings, this time around the besieged castle of Nagashino (Nagashino no tatakai, 長篠の戦い), which was held successfully against the outnumbering Takeda army by the then only twenty year old Okudaira Sadamasa (奥平貞昌, 1555-1615) – a retainer and son-in-law of Ieyasu. For this glorious act which contributed to the victory of Nobunaga and Ieyasu he received from the latter the Daihannya-Nagamitsu and Oda Nobunaga allowed him to use the character „Nobu“ of his name whereupon Sadamasa changed his name to Nobumasa (信昌).

Nobumasa passed on the sword to his fourth son Tadamasa (忠明, 1583-1644). Tadamasa´s mother was a daughter of Ieyasu and when he was adopted 1588 into the Tokugawa family, he received the family name Matsudaira (松平), the former family name of Ieyasu before he used the name Tokugawa. Later the sword was transferred to this Matsudaira branch which was in control of the Oshi fief (忍) in Musashi province. But for financial reasons the Matsudaira had to part from certain pieces of the family property in the Taishō era (大正, 1912-1926), among them the Daihannya-Nagamitsu. It was bought by the politician and statesman Count Itō Miyoji (伊東巳代治, 1857-1934). After the death of the latter it was once more auctioned off by the relatives and bid when to the Imperial Museum (Teishitsu Hakubutsukan, 帝室 博物館) – the present-day Tōkyō National Museum – for the then unbelievable high price of 50.000 Yen. In 1951 the sword received the status of a national treasure. Of course there was a lot of talk about the price the museum paid but it was originally a price too which gave the sword the nickname Daihannya.

It all started with the daizuke (代付) called practice that from the late Muromachi period onwards, a certain monetary value was assigned to smiths and their works. The publishing of such lists was of course connected to the sword presents mentioned in the last chapter and helpet to weigh which sword could be presented to whom and on which occasion. Blades received origami papers from the Hon´ami family, the official sword appraisers of the Shōgunate, and there was a separate list for swordsmiths how much their blades are worth. Such an assessment list was the Shokoku Kaji Daizuke no Koto (諸国鍛冶代付の事, “Assessment of Swordsmith from the Various Provinces”) published in the 19^th year of Tenshō (天正, 1591). In this work blades by Sanjō Munechika, Awataguchi Tōshirō Yoshimitsu (粟田口藤四郎吉光), Awataguchi Kunitsuna, and Bungo Yukihira were valued with 100 kan, followed by Masamune with 50 kan, and Sōshū Sadamune (相州貞宗) with 30 kan. For the Daihannya-Nagamitsu, the unbeliavable value of 600 kan (in Japanese pronounced as roppyaku-kan, 六百貫) was estimated! Because this value was so unrealistic it was jokingly compared with the 600 volumes of the “Large Sūtra on the Perfection of Wisdom” (Daihannya-kei, 大般若経) because “600 volumes” reads also as roppyaku-kan. And so the blade got its nickname Daihannya. This shows how important the holding of Nagashino Castle was for Ieyasu that he rewarded Nobumasa with this most valuable blade.

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^*1 Today, Katada is not longer an independent village but was 1967 incorporated to the city of Ōtsu (大津).

^*2 This was not a plane with wooden chest and slanting cutting edge but a so-called yari-kanna (槍鉋, lit. “spear plane”) which is – as the name suggests – shaped like a spear. It is used with carving movements to plane wood.

^*3 The Ōmi-based branch of the Minamoto family bore also the family name Sasaki (佐々木). Later this branch was split up into four further branch families: the Rokkaku, Kyōgoku (京極), Ōhara (大原), and Takashima (高島). So the Rokkaku family is sometimes also referred to as Sasaki-Rokkaku family.

Ishida Mitsunari and two Masamune less

In the last chapter we have read that Hosokawa Yūsai handed over his beloved Yukihira sword because he was besieged by Ishida Mitsunari, but Mitsuhira too lost two famous swords in the course of the turmoils before and during Sekigahara. Mitsunari has always been an ally of Toyotomi Hideyoshi, and when the latter had himself installed as kanpaku regent (関白) in the 13^th year of Tenshō (天正, 1585) due to an adoption of the noble family Konoe (近衛), he appointed Mitsunari as one of his Five Commissioners (go-bugyō, 五奉行) who were charged with governing the capital city of Kyōto and the surrounding areas. The other four – all of them being strong supporters of Hideyoshi´s former lord Oda Nobunaga – were Asano Nagamasa (浅野長政, 1547-1611), Natsuka Masaie (長束正家, 1562?-1600), Maeda Gen´i (前田玄以, 1539-1602), and Mashita Nagamori (増田長盛, 1545-1615).

Eleven years later the invasion of Korea had begun and when Hideyoshi´s health declined arpidly from the fifth month of Keichō three (慶長, 1598), he gathered the most imprtant daimyō of the country in his Fushimi Castle to arrange matters of his still underage heir Hideyori (秀頼, 1592-1615). He installed a commission of five guardians (go-tairō, 五大老) consisting of Tokugawa Ieyasu, Maeda Toshiie, Mōri Terumoto (毛利輝元, 1553-1625), Ukita Hideie, and Uesugi Kagekatsu (上杉景勝, 1555-1623), who should continue Hideyohi´s policy until the full age of Hideyori. Here too it applies that too many cooks spoil the broth but Hideyoshi had no other choice because an exclusion of one of the major daimyō of that time would have made things even worse. Three months later Hideyoshi died and Ishida Mitsunari´s rash, arbitrary, and unauthorized actions only a couple of days later overturned the go-tairō and go-bugyō constellation which was doomed to fail from the start. Also Katō Kiyomasa (加藤清正, 1587-1611) and Fukushima Masanori (福島正則, 1561-1614), both famous generals in the Korea campaign and old vassals of Hideyoshi felt betrayed and when above that all an attempted murder of Mitsunari on Ieyasu leaked out, all the daimyō involved wanted to see the agitator dead. Mitsunari fled in a cloak-and-dagger operation – disguised as a female and hidden in a woman´s sedan – out of Ōsaka Castle and went, you may not believe it, directly to Ieyasu who then stayed at Fushimi Castle. Ieyasu spared him and was even prepared to mediate between Mitsunari and his pursuers. He suggested that Mitsunari should retreat to his castle in Sawayama (佐和山)^*1 in Ōmi province and assigned his own son Hideyasu as escort.

As a sign of gratitude he gave Ieyasu a sword of Masamune which had the nickname Kirikomi-Masamune (切込正宗) because of its numerous battle marks (kirikomi, 切込). According to legend he said: “Lord Ieyasu, you are circumspect, of a sharp mind, and consider carefully every word. Even if you are yet hardly over thirty years, you are able to accurately assess every behaviour and situation. A truly unrivalled warrior!”

Ishida Mitsunari himself got the blade as present from Ukita Hideie who on the other hand bought it – according to the Kyōhō Meibutsu Chō – for 400 kan (貫 = 100 ryō)^*2 from a certain Mōri Wakasa no Kami (毛利若狭守).^*3 For comparison, the annual salary of a simple vassal of a fief (hanshi, 藩士) without any office-related special payments was about 3 ryō. After Hideyasu received the sword of Mitsunari, he gave him the name Ishida-Masamune. He kept it for the rest of his life and later it came into the possessions of the Tsuyama branch of the Matsudaira family which was already mentioned in chapter one. Today it is designated as jūyō-bunkazai and is preserved in the Tōkyō National Museum.

jūyō-bunkazai Ishida-Masamune, mumei, nagasa 68.8 cm, sori 2.4 cm, shinogi-zukuri, deep sori, chū-kissaki, ō-suriage

As the title of this chapter suggests, Ishida Mitsunari owned once two blades of the famous, if not even the most famous of all swordsmiths – Gorō Nyūdō Masamune (五郎入道正宗), who is traditionally dated to the Kareki era (嘉暦, 1326-1329). The second pieces was a tantō which he presented to Fukuhara Naotaka (福原直高, ?-1600),^*4 the husband of his younger sister. But before we deal with this blade, I want to enlarge upon sword presentations we repeatedly read of in the last chapters. Why did a daimyō or other person feld compelled to part with a certain blade in his collection? The answer lies in the obligatory and semi-obligatory sword presentations, especially in the New Year´s celebrations held by the bakufu. At those celebrations, certain families had to donate certain things and in the same sense, specified presents were exchanged. When for example on the 17^th day of the first month the mato-hajime (的始), the first ritual test shootings of the archery dōjō in the year took place, the responsible persons and the participants of the evening ritual of the first shooting contest (kuji-mato-hajime, 籤的始) were presented with swords on the very next day. Other occasions where swords „had“ to be presented were the official New Year´s banquet in the residence of the shōgun, the so-called ōban (埦飯), the visi and the departure of the shōgun himself (onari, 御成), the succession as head of a family, the participation in a battle, the granting of a rank or title, as well as at special meetings, gatherings, and so on and so forth. Quasi the starting signal for the official calender of events of the Muromachi-period bakufu was the so-called “sword presentation of the three deputies”^*5 (on-dachi-kenjō no gi, 御太刀献上の儀) right after the New Year´s celebrations. For this purpose the rank or rather the condition (i.e. if signed, unsigned, shortened or unaltered) was exactly defined. As an example I would like to quote from the etiquette regulations of the Ōuchi family (Ōuchi Mondō 大内問答, published in Eishō six [永正, 1509]):

“Regarding sword presentations it has to be mentioned that such blades which became a katana by cutting-off the tang or tachi with no signature from the beginning are not suitable for a present of highest degree, that means for the shōgun. Each and every sword has to be examined carefully in advance for its usability as present. Regarding unsigned blades, they are not suitable for a large celebration but well suited for a common festival.”

Another entry of the Muromachi-period Hōkō Kakugo no Sho (奉公覚悟之書, “Records about the Knowledge in the Civil Service”) dealing explicitely with blades for presentations reads:

“Famous blades suited for presentations are: Jinsoku, Sanemori, Masatsune, Tomonari, Yoshimitsu, Masamune, Kuniyoshi, Hisakuni, Yukihira, Munechika, Nobufusa, Arikuni, Kanehira, Kunitsuna, Norikuni, Kunitomo, Kunitsugu, Kiku-Ichimonji, and the like. In the case of attending an onari, two or better three representative blades by the above mentioned swordsmiths should be prepared.“

And the Sōgo ōzō Shi (宗吾大艸紙) written in the first year of Kyōroku (享禄, 1528) contains a detailed list of swordsmith´s names whose names and/or signatures are suitable for a present at an onari:

“Jinsoku (神息, Buzen), Amakuni (天国, Yamashiro), Sanemori (真守, Hōki), Munechika (宗近, Yamashiro, Sanjō school), Masatsune (正恒, Ko-Bizen), Nobufusa (信房, Ko-Bizen), Yukihira Kishindayū (行平紀新大夫, Bungo), Tomonari (友成, Ko-Bizen), Miike Denta (三池伝太, Chikugo), Hisakuni (久国, Yamashiro, Awataguchi school), Kuniyoshi (国吉, Yamashiro, Awataguchi school), Arikuni (有国, Yamashiro, Awataguchi school), Yoshimitsu Tōshirō (吉光藤四郎, Yamashiro, Awataguchi school), Kunitsuna (国綱, Yamashiro, Awataguchi school), Masamune (正宗, Sagami), Sadamune (貞宗, Sagami), Kunitoshi (国俊, Yamashiro, Rai school), Kanehira (包平, Ko-Bizen), Norikuni (則国, Yamashiro, Awataguchi school), Yasukuni (安国, province unknown), Kunitomo (国友, Yamashiro, Awataguchi school), signatures in the form of a 16-petalled chrysanthemum, Kunitsugu (国次, Yamashiro, Rai school), and the like. Blades by other smiths might be suitable too but it must be born in mind that they should be at least tachi.”

But back again to Mitsunari´s Masamune which was in the meanwhile in the possession of his brother-in-law Naotaka. Naotaka was a vassal of Toyotomi Hideyoshi and ruled a fief in Bungo province. According to this loyalty, he fought on Mitsunari´s, i.e. the western side at the Battle of Sekigahara, and together with Kakemi Iezumi (垣見家純, ?-1600) and Kumagai Naomori (熊谷直盛, ?-1600) – both long-standing vassals of Hideyoshi too – he was detached to support the strategically important Ōgaki Castle (大垣城, Mino province) which was then held by Itō Morimasa (伊藤盛正, ?-1623). Ōgaki was attacked by an alliance of several daimyō and Naotaka had to give up and surrender the castle. He asked if he is permitted to enter priesthood but because he was via his wife a relative of Mitsunari this was not granted and he had to commit seppuku. One of the attacking generals of the eastern army was Mizuno Katsunari (水野勝成, 1564-1651), who made sure that he got hold of Naotaka´s Masamune tantō at this occasion. Because Katsunari bore later the honorary title Hyūga no kami (日向守), this name was applied to the blade too and thus it is mentioned as Hyūga-Masamune in the Kyōhō Meibutsu Chō. According to tradition, the original nickname of the blade was Katada-Masamune (堅田正宗) but the exact backgrounds of this name are not known. However, the Hyūga-Masamune came later in the possessions of the Kii branch (紀伊) of the Tokugawa family. Today it is with its excellent Edo-period mounting preserved in the Mitsui Memorial Museum (三井記念美術館, Tōkyō) and is moreover designated as national treasure.

kokuhō Hyūga-Masamune, mumei, nagasa 24,8 cm, very shallow sakizori, hira-zukuri, ubu-nakago. The Kyōhō Meibutsu Chō notes that the two gomabashi (護摩箸) called grooves on one side of the blade were added on order or rather on the recommendation of Hon´ami Kōtoku (本阿弥光徳, 1554-1619), the ninth head of the Hon´ami family.

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^*1 The Sawayama fief was given to Mitsunari in Bunroku four (文禄, 1595) by Hideyoshi. It was worth 194.000 koku.

^*2 1 ryō (両) was the unit for one piece of gold of abut 16.5 g and was equivalent to 1 koku of rice.

^*3 It is assumed that this entry refers to Mōri Terumoto.

^*4 He is also listed with the name Fukuhara Nagataka (福原長堯).

^*5 The families of the Shiba (斯波), Hosokawa (細川), and Hatakeyama (畠山), together called san-shoku (三職) or san-kanrei (三管領).

The “demonic” Yukihira

This story ties to Hosokawa Yūsai, the daimyō mentioned in the last chapter who gave the Konotegashiwa-Kanenaga its name. His favourite sword was a work of the smith Yukihira (行平), who is traditionally dated to the Genkyū era (元久, 1204-1206) and worked on the Kunisaki peninsula (国東) of Bungo province on Kyūshū. His full name was Kishin Dayū (紀新大夫) and Yukihira was the name he used as a swordsmith and with which he signed his blades.

Once day he was visited by a strangely dressed young man. “Honourable smith, I come because I am bullied in my village and my relatives were banned from the village community. Therefore I ask you if you can forge me a sword with which I can take revenge.” “Well, an exclusion from the village community is a bad thing and so I will accept your order,” Yukihira replied, but realizing that the young man was of a strange appearance: he had short hair and a partly shaved head with a topknot, a hairstyle which were not in fashion until the Edo period.^*1 In addition he had crow feathers swen to his dress.

However, order is order and under serious hip pain the then already old swordsmith Yukihira started to work. He forged a 2 shaku and 7 sun (~ 81.8 cm) measuring tachi and when he realized that this should be one of his best masterworks he even forgot his pain for a while. The young man came at the pre-arranged time and date but because of Yukihira´s reduced working capacity, the blade was not completely finished but had only a first foundation polish. With many apologies he handed him over the sword but the young man didn´t matter about that. He shouldered the blade and went away. Yukihira shouted: “The sword does not even have a hilt?”, but the mysterious stranger did not hear his words.

Some days later the youngling came back to the smithy and said with a grin from ear to ear: “Your sword is excellent. I slaughtered all scoundrels without mercy! As I feel now relieved, I want to return the favour and offer my free services as an assistant.” Yukihira replied that he is not able to learn the craft of sword forging in such a short time but the uncanny young man had a very quick perception and soon forged, folded, and tempered an excellent blade only on the basis of the master smith´s oral instructions. No man can do that, that´s for sure.

At another day the “apprentice” came with a huge amount of shiny coins and said that Yukihira is free to buy all the best raw material he likes. But when he tried to head out to the next village to buy some stuff he was suddenly unable to get up. Well, the smith ascribed this to his hip complaint and so the young man got to work allone. He forged at lightning speed 66 blades, signing them all with “Yukihira,”^*2 and stored them in a cave at a mountain behind the smithy. Back again he said: “Master, you are old. It would be better if you stop working at all. Therefore I forged for you many shorter and longer blades which you can sell and live with the money free from worries for the rest of your life.” Yukihira was moved and thanked the young man in tears.

But the stranger continued: „When I took revenge back then with your sword the deity Brahmā (jap. Bonten, 梵天) appeared in front of me and reprimanded sharply that I should better hide three years for what I did. Thus I thought by myself it would be a good idea to spend this three years with you master and I thank you that you welcomed me in your smithy.“ Saying these words the youngling disappeared was never seen again. But as soon he was gone the hip complaints disappeared too. However, the smith was not too old to forge blades but he could do his living from the finished swords of his former assistant placed in the mentioned cave. When doind „sales talk“ the smith mentioned always proudly: “This sword was forged by a demonic god and it cuts exactly that way!” So the first two characters of his name “Kishin Daiyū” (紀新大夫) were sometimes replaced by (鬼神) which means “demonic god” but are also read as “Kishin.”

Yukihira himself leaded an obsessive way of life too because he was sent to exile several times. According to records of the former lord of Kishi (岸) where the smith was working, one time even for 16 years to Kōzuke province. The exact reasons for these punishments are not known and it is said that Yukihira forged even swords under another name in his place of banishment. One legend says that he killed an adversary even during proceedings of another banishment and that he was therefore deleted from the goban-kaji list (御番鍛冶)^*3 of emperor Gotoba (後鳥羽, 1180-1239). And the smithes of the Takada school (高田) from Bungo province told that Yukihira had an influence on the swordsmiths of the bakufu when he was banished to the village of Yui (由井) which is close to Kamakura.

Now back to Hosokawa Yūsai. Shortly before the Battle of Sekigahara Yūsai ruled with his about 500 men Tanabe Castle (田辺, Tango province) for the Tokugawa. When Ishida Mitsunari (石田三成, 1560-1600) deployed for the final move against Tokugawa Ieyasu, he layed siege to Tanabe with 15.000 men, among others under the leadership of his generals Onoki Shigekatsu (小野木重勝, 1563-1600) and Maeda Shigekatsu (前田茂勝, 1582-1621). Yūsai was less frightened of losing the castle or his live but that the continuation of the anthology Kokin Waka Shū (古今和歌集) on which he worked could be lost forver. One of his students was prince Hachijōnomiya Toshihito (八条宮智仁, 1579-1629), the younger brother of the then emperor Go-Yōsei (後陽成, 1571-1617). It was tried two times to talk Yūsai into surrendering via this connection because everybody realized that resistace was useless and a peaceful surrending of the castle the best way. But Yūsai was stubborn. The court definitely expected the death of Yūsai and because they did not want the loss of his, kokin-denju (古今伝授) called works on the epochal anthology, the officially issued an imperial order to hand out all the documents. Thus an envoy was sent to Tanabe which consisted of the aristocrats Sanjōnishi Saneeda (三条西実条, 1575-1640), Nakanoin Michikatsu (中院通勝, 1556-1610), and Karasumaru Mitsuhiro (烏丸光広, 1579-1638), who were famous poets themselves and therefore „in the trade“. Yūsai obeyed and surrended the castle two day before the Battle of Sekigahara after being besieged for two months. In the end Yūsai was relieved too that his kokin-denju continuation of the Kokin Waka Shū was in safe hands and presented for good measure Mitsuhiro with his beloved tachi of Yukihira.

This sword was then known under the name Kokindenju-Yukihira and is nowadays designed as national treasure (see picture below). It remained uninterruptedly in the possession of the Karasumaru family until it was passed over the the aristocrat marquis Nakayama Takamaro (中山孝麿, 1853-1919) in 1894. When his family put the sword up for auction in June 1929, Hosokawa Moritatsu (細川護立, 1883-1970) – the then head of the Hosokawa family in 16^th generation, president of the NBTHK and grandfather of the later prime minister Hosokawa Morihiro (細川護煕, geb. 1938) – bought it right away and was happy that the sword was once again a family property.

kokuhō Kokindenju-Yukihira, mei: “Bungo no Kuni Yukihira saku” (豊後国行平作), nagasa 79.9 cm, sori 2.9 cm, shinogi-zukuri, iori-mune, ko-kissaki, deep koshizori, funbari, ubu-nakago in kijimomo shape

Mounting of the Kokindenju-Yukihira which goes probably back to the time of Yūsai.

 

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^*1 This kind of hairstyle with partly shaved head (sakayaka, 月代) and topknot (chonmage, 丁髷) is the typical samurai hairstyle as we know it from pictures and movies.

^*2 Whereas he signed the character in semicursive style (gyōsho, 行書) but Yukihira signed always in block letters (kaisho, 楷書).

^*3 When Gotoba abdicated in 1198 he invited the best swordsmiths of the country as so-called ban-kaji (番鍛冶, lit. “rotating smiths” or “smiths on a rota basis”) to his residence. The goal of this “study group” was to create a perfect sword blade.

Tegai Kanenaga and the Bodhisattva Monju

If one goes from the western gate of the Great Buddha Hall (daibutsuden, 大仏殿; within the grounds of the Tōdaiji, 東大寺) about one kilometre to the north, you reach the Shingon temple Hannya-ji (般若寺, picture below). This temple was erected in 645 by Soga no Himuka (蘇我日向)^*1 and was completely destroyed and rebuilt several times in the course of history, the last destruction was in World War II. In the year 1267, the sculptor Zenkei (善慶) and his son Zenshun (善春) made for the main hall of the Hannya-ji a gilded 4,8 m high statue of the Bodhisattva Monju (文殊菩薩).

The Hannya-ji in Nara.

Because of this magnificent statue – which flooded the entire main hall with golden light during sun exposure at open temple doors – the Hannya-ji became soon the center of the Monju followers of the entire country. In 1324, an additional statue was donated to the temple, namely a Monju riding on a lion (monju-bosatsu-kishi-zō, 文殊菩薩騎獅像, see picture below). The large, older statue was destroyed by a fire in 1490 but the one with the riding Monju is still extant and was transferred during renovation work in 1667 to the main hall in place of the former one. Originally the monju-bosatsu-kishi-zō stood in the hall where the sutras were stored (kyōzō, 経蔵). Monju was not chosen coincidentally as statue motif for the Hannya-ji. Monju (skrt. Mañjuśri) is regarded as bosatsu (the Japanese word for Bodhisattva) of wisdom (jap. hannya 般若, skrt. prajñā) and plays among others an important role in the Hannya-Sūtra. The deity is depicted holding a scroll of the Hannya-Sūtra in the one hand and a sword in the other. This sword is the so-called “sword of wisdom” (chiken, 智剣) with which Monju cuts off the veil of delusion of man. And our next story start with this Monju statue.

It is the transitional period between the eras Kōan (弘安, 1278-1288) and Shōō (正応, 1288-1293), not long after the second invasion of the Mongols. In the district in front of the Tegai gate (more about this later), the swordsmith Kanenaga (包永) was forging diligently all day long. Kanenaga was a passionate follower of Monju and so he went with flowers and incense on the seventh day of the eighth month to the Hannya-ji to celebrate the (monju-e, 文珠会).^*2

When he was kneeing in front of the statue, doing his prayers, and looking at the sword in Monju´s hand, he suddenly became aware its meaning as „sword of wisdom“. At that time he took it upon himself to create a sword which should be of equal rank and quality to the sword of wisdom of his favourite deity. From then on, he always prayed to Monju for becoming a master swordsmith when making a pilgrimage to the temple.

And one day when Kanenaga was praying as always in front of the statue, the form of a youngling appeared in front of him who on the spot demanded: “If you forge a sword for me, I will fulfill your wish!” The smith accepted and bowed deeper as usual, but when he got up again, the young man had vanished. “This must had been Monju´s envoy,” Kanenaga said to himself and returned hurriedly to his smithy to start with the preparations for the new “commissioned work.” First he hang-up a sacred shimenawa, looked in and near Nara for the best charcoal, and selected the finest pieces of tamahagane (玉鋼).^*3 He fired the forge and started to work like a man possessed, constantly reciting the protective mantra on-arahashana (唵悪尾羅吽佉佐洛) which should ensure the help and protection of Monju.

Sparks flew and soon the sword took shape. After the first foundation polish Kanenaga saw that it was his best sword and after the blade was finished, he returned to the Hannya-ji to wait for the mysterious young man. He came promptly, gratefully accepted the ordered sword, and vanished again. But from the same evening, mysterious murders happened in Nara. An unidentified person randomly killed peoples passing by and the bodies found the next morning were all killed with a single sword stroke. Thus it was soon assumed that the murder must own an exceptionally sharp blade. When some eyewitnesses mentioned that the phantom had a juvenile stature, the swordsmith begun to wonder. Was his mysterious customer a real person of flesh and blood and not Monju´s envoy? He reproached himself badly and went once more to the Hannya-ji.

This time he wanted to pray for the people of Nara but in secret he wanted to see if something was wrong with Monju´s statue. When he entered the gloomy main hall he saw that the sword in the statues hand was not reflecting the light as usual. But Kanenaga put that down to the special lighting conditions of that evening and did his prayers as usual. Next morning when the first monk entered the hall for the Buddhist service he was frightened because three eggs were skewered on Monju´s sword!^*4 He got closer carefully and took the sword with clammy, trembling hands, to examine it. After removing the hilt, he saw the fresh signature „Kanenaga“ on the juvenile and unrusty tang. The swordsmith Kanenaga was of course no stranger in Nara back then and so he was called to the abbot for a clarification of “facts.” The smith told the abbot the whole story of the mysterius youngling and the sword he ordered and that he thought he was an envoy of Monju because he was praying that hard to the Bodhisattva just before it all began.

But the following night no more murders happened and the phantom had disappeared. It was like Monju had personally taken away the sword from the murder and put it as an evidence for his act in the right hand of the statue dedicated to him. This story spread like wildfire with the result that even more people made a pilgrimage to the Hannya-ji to bow to express their gratitude for warding off harm from them. Out of relief that everything turned out well, the Hannya-ji presented Kanenaga with a painting of Monju by the T´ang-Chinese painter Lín Feng (琳峰) and allowed him to use the name of the deity in the form Monjushirō (文珠四郎).

So far this legend but let´s go back to the aforementioned Tegai gate. Kanenaga – who is traditionally dated to the Shōō era (正応, 1288-1293) – is considered as founder of the Tegai school (手掻) of swordsmiths whose name derives from the name of the district which lies in front of the Tegai gate (Tegai-mon, 転害門, see picture below).^*5 The Tegai gate is the entrance to the temple area of the Tōdaiji. The district, Tegai-machi, was written as the gate with many different characters. The most common were 手貝町, 天貝町, 手蓋町, 輾磑町, 転害町 and 手掻町. The variation (転害町) goes back to the time when the deity Hachiman (八幡) walked through the gate on his way to the Tōdaiji and said to the assembled crowd: “You all present today should stop killing living beings. For that I will change (tenjiru, 転じて) future disasters (saigai, 災害) for the better” → (転害門) te(n)gai-mon, lit. “gate of the changed disasters.” The writing (手掻門) which is also used by the Tegai school goes back to the following tradition: When the monk Gyōki (行基, 668-749) invited a Brahman monk to Nara, he welcomed him at the gate in question and was waving to him as it is usual in Japan, that means with the palm facing downwards. This looked like Gyōki was scratching ka(ku) (掻) with his hand te (手) and thus it became the “gate of the scratching hand.”

Tegai Gate

The writing form (碾磑) which means “millstone” is derived from a certain millstone of agate which was once imported from Korea. Traditions say that the stone was positioned in the eastern area of the Tōdaiji close to the dining hall, which is quite close to the Tegai gate and so it is assumed that this writing of the gate´s name goes back to the millstone being positioned there in early times.

Now I would like to introduced a meibutsu blade which goes on Tegai Kanenaga´s account, namely the so-called Konotegashiwa-Kanenaga. Konotegashiwa (児手柏) is the Chinese Arborvitae or Biota (Platycladus orientalis) whose leaves are shaped like the hand of a child (ko no te, 児の手). And the name of the sword goes back to the daimyō Hosokawa Yūsai (細川幽斎, 1534-1610) who alluded with it to a poem of the Man´yō Shū which reads:

Nara-yama no konote-gashiwa no futamen ni, ka ni mo kaku ni mo nejike-hito no tomo. (奈良山の児手柏の両面に、かにもかくにも佞人の友。) “Like the leaves of the konote-gashiwa of the Nara-yama, the same on both sides, in this or in that way are the flatterers!”^*6

Unfortunately, the blade – which was in the possession of the Mito-Tokugawa family (水戸徳川) – suffered a fire damage (yake-mi, 焼け身) at the big Kantō earthquake from 1923 so that the original hardening got lost. This hardening/tempering and as a consequence thereof the pattern of the tempered edge (hamon, 刃文) gave its name to the blade because it is interpreted completely different on each side. Today we only know a drawing of the original form of the hamon, published in the Tsuguhira Oshigata (継平押形, see picture below).^*7

Drawing of Kanenaga´s konote-gashiwa in the Tsuguhira Oshigata. The term konotegashiwa had naturalized later for a sword with two different temper lines designs on both sides.

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^*1 The Korean monk Ekan (慧潅) brought in 629 a statue of the Hannya deity to Japan and erected a provisional temple for her. 25 years later, Soga no Himuka replaced this construction by a “real” temple as an appeal for the healing of the sick emperor Kōtoku (孝徳, 596-654, r. 645-654). This act didn´t helped much because Kōtoku died in the same year. The first mentioning of the name „Hannya-ji“ is found in a document of the Shōsō´in repository (正倉院, Nara) and dates to the 14^th year of Tenpyō (天平, 742).

^*2 The Monju-e is a special form of the Buddhist Day of the Dead (hō-e, 法会), where explicitely Monju´s name is recited.

^*3 The raw steel of which the Japanese sword is made.

^*4 It was believed that the three eggs were a sign of Monju with which he called attention to himself. The number of three refers to the so-called “Shaka triad” (shaka-sanzon, 釈迦三尊), a group of three Buddhist images composed of Shakyamuni flanked to the left and right by the Bodhisattva Monju and Fugen (普賢, skrt. Samantabhadra). In this triad Buddha stands for the goal of enlightenment, Monju for the wisdom, and Fugen as Bodhisattva of Buddhist practice, the only two ways to achieve this enlightenment.

^*5 The neighboring district is still today called Kanenaga-machi (包永町).

^*6 At the konote-gashiwa it is hard to tell what is the upper and what the under side of its leaves.

^*7 A collection of drawings of the treasure swords of Tokugawa Hidetada, made by the swordsmith Ōmi no kami Tsuguhira (近江守継平) who worked in Edo.