Victor Harris - the original Book of Five Rings

 

Perhaps the best cover of any version of Gorin no Sho - and the picture is one of Kuniyoshi's depictions of Musashi.



Published by Overlook Press in 1974, this was the first translation of Musashi’s work into English, and for a long time, the only one. One might occasionally pick up fragments in other works – I am particularly reminded of one story in an illustrated book on samurai in my secondary school library, a story about a fan-wielding master of saiminjutsu who managed to persuade Musashi that he was carrying a sword). It has been around for so long, certainly in my life, that it has become part of the landscape. The phrases it used, even the title itself – A Book of Five Rings (Scrolls of the Five Elements would be more accurate, but it doesn’t have quite the same ring) have become familiar. Other translators may have chosen to alter some of these classic formulations, sometimes for better, sometimes for worse, but the shadow of the original continues to hang over them. It is not easy to assess. But this is escaping the issue. Does it deserve respect for more than its merits as a forerunner in this genre?

 

First, it should be noted how well it has stood up in the forty-five years since it was first published. Victor Harris (who died in 2017) was an experienced kendoka, an expert on the Japanese sword (President of the Token Society of Great Britain), and head of the Japanese Department of the British Museum. He was deeply involved in this field. For all that, A Book of Five Rings was a relatively early work. Would he have liked to change anything? I have no idea, but I have read that he would sometimes refer to Musashi in his teaching, so I am sure his understanding and appreciation of the work deepened and matured over the many years since he first worked on the translation.

 

Despite the fact that I no longer use it as my translation of choice, it is still a good choice for anyone interested in Musashi’s writing, although its strengths as a book (at least in the original version) perhaps weigh stronger than the absolute qualities of the translation. Compared to all the subsequent works, it is better set out as a book – the care given to the layout and spacing of the text makes it exceptionally easy to read and consult; the front matter, although not extensive, is relevant (especially for those days when very few in the west had heard of Musashi). It is clear and well-written, and despite being somewhat dated (Musashi ‘scholarship’ has come on a lot since those days) provides a good overview of the standard view of Musashi’s life and significant duels. There is a slip in the general historical background when he confuses his shogunates, but this is a minor detail (and shouldn’t be used to judge what is a serious and well-considered work.) It has atmosphere, and this is something that is often overlooked – it shouldn’t be. There is also a good choice of art and photographic references – most of the subsequent translations have followed his lead on this – including some difficult-to-find pictures which are rarely seen elsewhere.

 

There are weaknesses, but these are not fatal flaws. Chief among these is the writing style, which has a tendency to be somewhat opaque. I do not necessarily feel that translations should read as if the writers were our contemporaries – given Musashi’s background and class, (and style in the original) there is a degree of terseness that is not easy to preserve in English, but in this work, the meaning is not always as clear as it might be. I feel that there is a lack of authority, perhaps because of the author’s lack of grounding in the technique (although he was a serious kendo practitioner and was later involved in older styles of Japanese sword arts, kendo and kenjutsu are different animals), as if he didn’t quite understand the finer points of the techniques he was writing about. I hesitate to say it, especially in view of his continued involvement in the field and obvious facility with the language, but it looks to me as if he was unsure of what it was Musashi was saying in some places. This is natural enough, especially in descriptions of sword technique, but translation is also an act of imaginative creation: as a writer, the translator attempts to reimagine the meaning of the words and translate their message with reference to the wording and style of the original as necessary. I feel as if Harris sometimes gives more weight to the words than to the meaning, with the result that something that is quite clear in the Japanese is suddenly open to a range of interpretations in English. But this is the translator’s art – any translation may be more or less successful at this. Some of his successors have made more informed decisions, better decisions I feel – but they also had something to work with, as Harris did not.

 

Yes, it still stands on its own merits. For anyone serious about looking into Gorin no Sho, I would recommend other versions as well, or perhaps primarily, and if your Japanese is up to it, versions in Japanese, preferably in both the modern and original Japanese. The language Musashi uses is not generally difficult (although a few sections might prove problematic) and the Japanese certainly gives a more visceral feel to the work. But if this is a step too far at the moment, you won’t go far wrong with the Victor Harris translation – a book to inform and inspire.

Sanada Maru - a family of strategists

Sakai Masato in the leading role as Sanada Nobushige (i.e. Yukimura)

The beginning of every year sees  a new year long historical drama series starting on the state sponsored TV channel NHK.

Although these annual series, collectively known as Taiga drama, are of variable quality, and tend not to be strictly historically accurate, they can offer interesting interpretations of the period they deal with, putting some imaginative flesh on the historical bones of the situation.   

This year, with Sanada Maru,  it is the turn of the Sanada family, whose best known member, Sanada Nobushige (more commonly known by his fictional name, Yukimura) is the star of this series. The title, Sanada Maru is the name of the defensive position or fort constructed by Sanada Nobushige for the defense of Osaka castle during the Winter campaign of 1614-15

Setting

The Sanada clan was a fairly small clan in the scheme of things, but is famous for its pivotal role in the Siege of Osaka (1615) which, despite the eventual Tokugawa victory, was a close run thing. Unlike some of the larger, more famous families, the Sanada, by and large, were content to look after their own affairs and attempt to maintain their own territory. They successfully defied the Tokugawa on several occasions and managed to thrive despite the difficult situation they found themselves in after the deaths of Takeda Katsuyori and Oda Nobunaga. All of this required some nifty footwork, and Sanada Masayuki (Nobushige’s father)’s ability to manipulate and respond to the changing political landscape is central to these early episodes.

The Sanada Family

The interaction between the two Sanada brothers, Nobushige and his older brother Nobuyuki, is one point of interest. Although it was Nobuyuki who would ultimately thrive, he is usually little mentioned in accounts of the Sanada family until after the pre-Sekigahara split (engineered by his father to ensure that one branch of the family would survive no matter who won the confrontation between Tokugawa Ieyasu and The Toyotomi loyalists.

Nobushige and Nobuyuki (Oizumi Yo)

Sanada Maru depicts them as being close, but of differing temperaments – the intuitive Nobushige and the careful, thoughtful Nobuyuki. ‘Put you two together and you’d make a complete person’, says their father.  Of course, it is Nobushige who will later go on to win fame as the successful defender of Osaka castle (in the winter campaign) against the forces of the Tokugawa coalition, and only narrowly missing taking Tokugawa Ieyasu’s life and changing the course of history.

Kusakari Masao as Sanada Masayuki

And what of Sanada Masayuki? Both in reality and as depicted in this drama, he was an unusual man. Overshadowed in the public mind by the deeds of his son, Nobushige, he seems to have possessed an unusual degree of strategic acumen, some of which appears to have been passed down to him and which he, in turn, passed on to his sons. (Although Nobuyuki is not famous for his military record, he proved a very effective administrator, being promoted into a higher level fief as a result of his efforts).

Why this is so fascinating is that the great tacticians and strategists of history are usually brilliant individuals, not the result of a process designed to teach them strategy. In Japan, as well, the majority of outstanding leaders did not succeed in passing their abilities on to their children, and those that rose to power often did so largely by their own efforts. Sengoku Japan shows us a whole host of leaders that emerged unexpectedly to become powerful players in the conflicts of the time, Oda Nobunaga, Toyotomi Hideyoshi, Tokugawa Ieyasu, Takeda Shingen, Uesugi Kenshin…but the Sanadas were, from the start, a different proposition.

Both China and Japan boasted schools of strategy, (or generalship, which might be a more accurate description – from what we can tell, much of their content involved lower levels of organisation of troop movements and logistics, rather than what we think of as battlefield tactics) but we have very little knowledge of how this was taught and how it was meant to be learned (not necessarily the same thing). A look into this process, fictional and impressionistic as it may be, gives us a chance to muse on how such knowledge was passed down – the apprenticeship of generalship.

Sanada Masayuki (National Diet Library)

As he appears on the small screen, Masayuki is shown as keeping his focus on aims while disregarding appearances.  Thick-skinned, he has an appreciation for the realities of war, and the lengths that are necessary to keep his family and followers safe, while maneuvering to establish a degree of independence. The drama shows rather well the dark arts of manipulation and treachery  that he is not afraid to use. He makes it clear that both reasoning and intuition are necessary for war. But despite his cold calculation, his warmth of character makes him very different from Kuroda Kanbei, the subject of the Taiga drama of 2014, and another of the premier gunshi of the era, and whose son, Kuroda Nagamasa, although a powerful and capable general, did not have his father’s gift for strategy.

Interestingly, it is Kanbei’s sometime ward and vassal, Goto Motosugu, (who by some accounts bore an antipathy towards Kuroda Jnr.) who would be Sanada Nobushige’s staunchest ally in the defense of Osaka Castle. The Sanada family was also closely connected with that other famous gunshi, Yamamoto Kansuke, and Sanada Masayuki served alongside him as fellow members of Takeda Shingen’s general staff (Masayuki was the youngest of the three Sanada brothers serving Shingen). Kansuke himself, although a well-known figure to later generations, left so little concrete evidence of his life that many historians considered him a fictitious character greated by later chroniclers of the exploits of Shingen. It was only relatively recently that documents were discovered corroborating his existence.

With Sanada Maru, NHK has now based a Taiga drama on the lives of each of these three strategists; I'm hoping this will be the best.

For more on Sanada Nobushige: Wisdom from Samurai High School

For more on Kuroda Kanbei: see here for a little on what he was up to around the time of the Battle of Sekigahara plus the Musashi connection and here for a not very serious look at his management style

Ryoma – in the news again

Sakamoto Ryoma seems to exert an endless fascination on the Japanese public, and I have to admit that he seems one of the more likable characters of the Bakumatsu period. Recently a discovery was made which adds a little more historical evidence to his story – a mokuroku from the Hokushin Itto ryu which  attests to his skill in naginata. It does not seem to be a particularly high level qualification, but that does not, in itself, mean very much – other records could easily have been lost following his death. Before leaving Tosa for Edo, he studied the Oguri ryu under Hineno Benji, and documentation for this is held by the Kyoto National Museum.

Sakamoto swordsmanship scroll declared authentic

 NOV 9, 2015 

KYOTO – A swordsmanship scroll issued to legendary samurai Sakamoto Ryoma has been declared authentic by an expert at the Kyoto National Museum, confirming he was indeed a master swordsman.

Despite Sakamoto’s deadly reputation, his true prowess with the sword had often been debated by experts.

Born in 1836 (1835 on the Julian calendar) in what is known today as Kochi Prefecture, Sakamoto played a prominent role in modernizing the national government in the turbulent 1860s. He is often portrayed in novels and TV dramas and is considered a national hero.

The scroll, measuring roughly 18 cm wide and 2.7 meters long, recognizes the mastery of “the art of war using a long-handled sword in the Hokushin Itto-ryu style” and is dated the first month of Ansei 5, which may mean January 1858. It states that it was issued to Sakamoto by his master, Chiba Sadakichi.

Teiichi Miyakawa, head of the registration and image archives department at Kyoto National Museum and an expert in Sakamoto lore, confirmed the scroll’s authenticity, noting the presence of a Big Dipper, the school’s symbol, and its striking similarity to other images of the constellation on other scrolls issued by the school, then based in Edo, the old name for Tokyo.

“It is a document representing Sakamoto’s swordsmanship studies in Edo and proves the high skills of Sakamoto, who was known as a great swordsman,” Miyakawa said at a news conference Saturday at the Kyoto National Museum.

The roll, owned by the Actland history theme park in Konan, Kochi Prefecture, describes 21 types of swordfighting techniques and has a list of names that includes Chiba Shusaku, founder of Hokushin Itto-ryu, and Chiba Jutaro, a son of master Sadakichi.

Also on the list is Chiba Sana, a daughter of Sadakichi who was rumored to have been in love with Sakamoto during his stint at the Hokushin Itto-ryu dojo.

Actland Director Akio Kitamura said the scroll will be put on display at the museum starting Friday.

Japan Times

The Big Dipper (Hokuto Shichisei) was an emblem of the school. The Hokushin or North Star, from which the school's name derived, was the emblem of the Chiba Clan, and represented the Myoken Bosatsu, who is associated with both the Big Dipper and the North Star.

Chiba Sano

As mentioned in the article, Ryoma was enrolled at the dojo of Chiba Sadakichi, the brother of Chiba Shusaku (who founded the style) and father of Jutaro, with whom Ryoma was apparently good friends, and Sano, to whom Ryoma was engaged (in a matrimonial sense). Although he later married Oryu, who saved his life in Kyoto, alerting him to the attack on the Teradaya and so allowing him enough time to prepare to repel the attackers and escape(for a first hand account, see here).










Ryoma was pragmatic when it came to his sword skills (and much else, it seems). He favored a short sword as being easier to wield in the close fighting that was common in those days, he also carried a Smith and Wesson revolver. This sword, made by Mutsu no kami Yoshiyuki, will shortly be on display at Kyoto National Museum as part of an exhibition of swords. As you can see from the picture below, it has very little curve, as was common in the swords of that period.

Ryoma's Yoshiyuki

He also owned several other swords, including a short sword which is currently on display (for the first time in 86 years) in the Ryoma Museum in Kochi.

Ryoma to be shown for first time in 86 years

October 18, 2015

By NAOMI NISHIMURA/ Staff Writer

KOCHI--Long out of the public eye, a “wakizashi” (short Japanese sword) that belonged to renowned mid-19th century samurai Sakamoto Ryoma will be displayed here for the first time since being shown in Tokyo in 1929.

The sword, whose blade is 52.3 centimeters long, will be featured at the Sakamoto Ryoma Memorial Museum here from Nov. 1 to Jan. 3 as part of an exhibition now under way.

Ryoma (1835-1867) played a key role in the transfer of power from the Tokugawa Shogunate to the Meiji government in the closing years of the Edo Period (1603-1867). The wakizashi was said to be a favorite of the fabled samurai.

After Ryoma's assassination in Kyoto in 1867, the sword was passed down to the Sakamoto family’s seventh head, Yataro. Yataro's third son, who is currently living in Hokkaido, has kept possession of it over the years. However, among the public, its whereabouts was unknown for many years though its existence was known through photos and other means.

In June this year, a member of the Sakamoto family living in Kochi donated a collection of materials to the Sakamoto Ryoma Memorial Museum. In the materials, Yukie Maeda, 57, a senior curator, discovered the list of exhibits Yataro wrote to present the 1929 exhibition. Part of the program read, “This sword is one that Ryoma particularly loved.”

The sword was also shown at an exhibition in Kyoto in 1916. The program for the exhibition read, “This sword was carried by an infant.”

“The process in which this sword reached Ryoma is unknown. But there is a possibility that he always had the sword with him since his childhood,” Maeda said.

The sword contains the kanji characters of “Katsumitsu,” “Munemitsu” and “Eishoninen Hachigatsu Kichijitsu” in its “nakago” portion, which is the inside of the hilt. Katsumitsu and Munemitsu are names of talented sword craftsmen of Bizenosafune (current Okayama Prefecture), a major production area of Japanese swords in medieval Japan. Eishoninen Hachigatsu Kichijitsu implies “a lucky day in August 1505.”

The ongoing exhibition, which includes about 80 items, is titled, “Ryoma no Yoki Rikaisha ‘Sakamotoke-Kazoku no Kizuna’ ” (Bond of Sakamoto family that understands Ryoma well).

http://ajw.asahi.com/article/behind_news/social_affairs/AJ201510180031

Miyamoto Musashi, A Life in Arms

A review of William De Lange's account of the life of Miyamoto Musashi.

Of all Japanese swordsmen, Miyamoto Musashi is the best known, and his life story has been told in one form or another any number of times, both in print and on the screen. Many of these retellings have been coloured by Yoshikawa Eiji’s fictional account, a blend of fact, creative interpretation and fiction, which continues to exert its influence, and this is despite the years that have passed and the increased availability of documentary evidence of various aspects of Musashi’s life.

Much more of this is available in Japanese than in English, although in the past ten years or so, there have been a couple of notable works in English which sought to dig deeper into his life, and although both of these took some trouble to use historical sources, the Yoshikawa story was floating there as a shadow in the background – a kind of template from which to begin.

Perhaps this is not surprising as the story is so well-known, and Yoshikawa himself researched the subject quite deeply… of course, as a novelist, he was more interested in the story than in strict historical accuracy, but in tying together the available accounts, favouring those that fitted his story while ignoring those that didn’t, he created a work that has become common background knowledge and a starting point for almost everyone in the field.

A new biography, Miyamoto Musashi, A Life in Arms by William de Lange, comes at Musashi’s life from a different perspective. Based directly on historical documents, it gives us us quite a different picture of Musashi’s life. De Lange has already published two volumes giving translations of two of the principal source documents on Musashi’s life,(reviews here and here) but this is something different. Drawing on these, as well as numerous other sources, he builds up a new version of the swordsman’s story, enlarging here, filling in there, and covering much ground that will be totally new for many.

In any work of this kind, much must be left to the judgement and imagination of the writer, and de Lange handles the details and conflicting storylines drawn from these sources with assurance, weaving them together to form a narrative that is both fresh yet also faintly familiar. Parts of the story do, indeed, form some part of the familiar tale – Musashi’s visit to Kyoto and the duels with the Yoshioka family, the visit to the spear wielding monks of Hozoin and the duel with Sasaki Kojiro – but it adds detail to these and fleshes out Musashi’s time after this in far greater detail than most accounts – I found the information on his time in the Akashi/Himeji region and his relationship with various small lords of the area particularly interesting, showing the degree of fame and influence he had obtained at a reasonably young age, and also lending ammunition to the opinion that he was fighting on the side of the Tokugawa forces both in 1600 and 1615 (although more direct evidence of this is also presented) as all these daimyo were firmly in the Tokugawa camp.

 

Meiji Period portrait of Musashi prepared
for battle. Shimada Bijutsukan, Kumamoto

The story that emerges is, in many ways, more nuanced than previous tellings. We see Musashi as a man in some demand, a swordsman who has built a reputation, partly through his service on the battlefield and the connections he made in military campaigns, but who remains determined to retain his independence. Building on his connections, including his father, with whom he stayed close until the latter’s death, he became well-known and sought after, teaching and providing a variety of other services in the military line, including looking after the heir to Lord Ogasawara during the Shimabara campaign. He was well respected, that much is certain, and mixed with the high and mighty, but like a well-respected academic who refuses tenure, he never entered permanent service.

It is the part of the biographer to offer his/her own views and insights into the motivations of his subject, although it is understood that these are, to some extent, interpretation, not fact. In this case, de Lange was working from documents that provided little or no direct indication of Musashi’s inner life, and so he has had to apply his own interpretation more liberally than would be necessary  for many other subjects. Some of these are quite insightful and provide a fresh and interesting take on the subject. He deals in some depth with Musashi’s relationship with his father, and speculates that Musashi’s refusal to become a feudal vassal owes much to the effect this state had on his father, who was ordered to execute one of his own students for a minor lapse in protocol. The subsequent sense of shame and guilt, he suggests, overshadowed the rest of his life, and engendered in Musashi a determination not to make himself beholden to any such authority himself.

At other times, although perhaps necessary for the sake of the narrative, the mixture of facts drawn from historical documents and feelings placed in the mind of the protagonist can be a little jarring, and momentarily calls into question the line between the two. Those familiar with the author’s previous books will be aware that there are plenty of contradictions between these (and other, later) accounts, and although the author has generally steered a good course between them, in this account he chooses those which suit the narrative, rather than arguing the case for his choice; if you are familiar with some of these other possibilities, their omission can, at times, seem rather glaring, but what the book sacrifices in terms of completeness, it gains in clarity. This is a minor point, however, and the well-referenced text generally clarifies the sources of most of the information.

Given the choice to rely so heavily on historical accounts. it is not surprising that the book sometimes feels a little sparse, despite its 159 pages of text and another 95 of back matter – it is not the author’s place to embroider the evidence too heavily – but that is a small price to pay for a book that lays out this hard-to-come-by information so clearly. It is certainly a valuable book, and one that has grown on me with subsequent readings. True, there are one or two places where I would question the author’s interpretation, but that does not lessen it’s value, and I would whole-heartedly recommend it to anyone with more than a passing interest in the area.