Musashi's Monkey Design Part 1

Not by Musashi, but Mu Qi, a Chinese painter
of the Song Dynasty. 

I have a particular fondness for gibbons, so I was very pleased to be able to add another piece to a mystery that has puzzled me for quite a few years now - what is that strange sword fitting, attributed to Musashi, shown in Victor Harris's Go Rin No Sho?

Miyamoto Musashi's artwork is well known - but as with any artist, many of his works are far more familiar to us than others.

His paintings, especially of the shrike sitting on a branch, are often reproduced and, of course, his tsuba design has become extremely popular with manufacturers of reproduction swords. A quick search on google will produce an overwhelming number of these. However, there are many of his works that are far less well-known.

Elusive or exclusive? 
Many of these are in private collections or small municipal museums, and are, in many cases, not on permanent display or not available for public viewing at all.

Perhaps this is a good thing - it may aid the preservation of fragile works, and is, to some extent, a carry-over of the original use and purposes of these works of art. Many works are owned and kept by temples and shrines, and are still used as part of their devotional practices. The yearly Gion festival in Kyoto features large wheeled floats that are decorated with Gobelin tapestries and many other extremely valuable artworks of various ages and provenances. (Within the last few years, the older tapestries have been replaced with replicas, but still, for hundreds of years, these 17th century tapestries were paraded around the city on a yearly basis, suffering the vagaries of the rain, heat and high humidity). This is art being used, as part of life, and it may, in many ways, be better than the preservation of objects in the sterile setting of a museum, as part of the heritage industry.

(Of course, I am also a greedy consumer of that heritage industry, and welcome the chance to see art in the comfortable and accessible setting of a museum, removed from the location and context for which it was originally designed.)

But some works remain elusive. Art collecting in Japan still partakes of the exclusive, the secretive, and the elitist. There is nothing wrong in this per se, but it does make it a world of closed doors and hidden treasures. However catching a glimpse of these can be a pleasure in itself.

Musashi's Monkey
Of all of Musashi's works, perhaps the most elusive has been one of the first I ever saw. This was one of several examples of koshirae (sword fittings) he designed; a monkey stretching for the moon.  The original - and for a long time, the only - pictures I had seen of this piece were, as I mentioned above, in Victor Harris's Go Rin No Sho, but despite being good quality photographs, they didn't really show the piece clearly, and it was quite difficult to imagine what it looked like. The two photos actually show two different pieces of a set, a top view of the monkey, and of the kurigata, but neither is easy to identify if you are not familiar with this sort of thing.

Reaching for the Moon
The theme is a familiar one in Japanese art - a long-armed monkey (a gibbon, really) reaches for the reflection of the moon in pool. Although it is not exactly common, it is also not especially unusual as a theme for sword fittings. Here is an example from the Boston Museum of Fine Arts:

Hakuin Ekaku

The theme comes from Buddhism, and thus from China, and has been popular a popular one with artists. Even without the moon, gibbons have been a popular theme - Mu Qi, the Chinese painter, set the bar very high with the painting shown at the top of this post; Hasegawa Tohaku's gibbons are also very fine - he surely saw Mu Qi's work as it is owned by Daitokuji Temple in Kyoto - Tohaku lived and worked in the city - and a little later, Hakuin Ekaku brushed some playful versions that have become some of the best known illustrations of the story.

The story was popular in the Zen tradition - the symbolism is clear, and can be elaborated in detail, but simply stated, it represents the futility of desire: the monkey is reaching for an illusion, a reflection of the truth. As soon as it touches the water, the reflection will be gone. No matter how hard it tries, it can never grasp the truth (in this way).

Kano Minenobu

An older version of the story makes the dangers more apparent. One night, upon waking, a monkey noticed the reflection of the moon in the pool far below. Thinking that the moon had fallen in and they would all be plunged into permanent night-time darkness if it sank, the monkeys organised a chain to reach down and grab it. Alas, the branch broke, and they fell in and drowned.

For an artist to depict this theme requires a little humility - it can apply to so many areas that it is difficult not to see something of oneself in the monkey... after all most of us are striving for the baubles of life, believing they will give us happiness. Perhaps it this aspect of personal identification that has most artists'  monkeys looking so cute.

So what does Musashi's monkey look like? I will post pictures in part 2.

(N.B. although I use  the terms interchangeably here, the 'monkey' is really a gibbon - and gibbon's are not actually monkeys. I know this, and it would have annoyed the hell out of me in years gone by, but as it is usually translated as monkey, I will let it pass.)

Ryozen Historical Museum - Ryoma and the Shinsengumi

Ishi-chan, the museum mascot.
What have things come to!?

At last I got round to visiting the Ryozen Museum.

I had put it off for a long time as I had heard that a lot of the information about the exhibits was in Japanese and I'd always felt it was a bit pricey for what I was likely to get out of it.

Now that my Japanese is better and my background knowledge of the period has also improved, I felt ready to brave it.

The museum is on the far eastern edge of Kyoto, tucked behind the scenic Higashiyama tourist trail, up a fairly steep slope. It's not difficult to find, but you aren't likely to pass that way by chance, unless you have a thing for graveyards and instinctively head away from the crowd.

It was an interesting visit, but there are a few caveats for anyone interested in going themselves. Firstly, the museum is dedicated to the Bakumatsu Period, which is comparatively little known amongst non-Japanese, even among those with an interest in Japanese history - it features a large cast of characters, some of whom are quite famous (while others, equally important, are not) who were involved in a complex series of events that developed and came to fruition in a remarkably short period of time.

Not surprisingly, most of the sources are in Japanese, but even those in English (some of which are excellent) can be confusing, reflecting the chaotic nature of the period itself. The museum concentrates on several of the big names and big incidents (the Ikedaya, the Shinsengumi, the death of Sakamoto Ryoma), but it has lots else besides, including artifacts belonging to or associated with some people I had never heard of.

This would not be problematic if there were explanations in English, but unfortunately, this is not the case. Not that I'm complaining - one shouldn't expect there to be, but visitors beware. As in most museums, the items on display have the title in English, but the explanatory text is only in Japanese. What is a pity, however, is that there is no catalogue. I would have been happy to buy one and work my way through the entriesat my leisure - in real time, it required a bit more time  and patience on the part of my companions than they were willing to give, so rather than bore them stupid as I peered at the explanations, making notes and sketches, I resolved to come back on my own next time.

The items on display were quite mixed, including swords, armour, banners, letters, paintings and photographs - enough physical memorabilia to be interesting to those who would have trouble reading Japanese, but perhaps not so interesting if you really didn't have a clue who the Kondo Isami or Sakamoto Ryoma were. However, I was glad of the chance to see them.

Kondo's armour: http://www.ryozen-museum.or.jp/

Kondo Isami's practice bokuto (wooden sword) and keikogi (practice jacket) with the embroidered skull on the back, were interesting to see - the bokuto itself was fairly standard in size, although the wood looked quite dense, but the tsuba was unusual in its thckness, this must have altered the balance quite a bit, and may have been a means of increasing the weight of the whole thing, or a matter of balance. There was also one of the heavy bokuto the Tennen Rishin Ryu (practiced by Kondo and Hijikata) sometimes use, as a hands-on exhibit which the public are allowed to touch and feel the weight of (it was fixed so it couldn't be swung, so it wasn't really possible to get a proper feel for what it would be like to wield it) - it felt extremely heavy. Also on display were Kondo's mail armour jacket and Hijikata Toshizo's sword. This was interesting - despite the generally received opinion that shorter swords were handier when it came to action (as expressed by Ryoma, among others) it was fairly long, and broad in the blade, with a long tsuka (hilt). The sword he favored later (by Izumi no kami Kanesada) is in the Hijikata Museum in Saitama (and is, indeed, shorter) but this one is similar in length to one Kondo mentioned in a letter in which he wrote about Hijikata's swords {this sword is 2 shaku, 6 sun, 9 bu (81.5cm): the one mentioned in the letter was 2 shaku, 8 sun (84.8)}. Also on display were the swords of Katsura Hayonosuke, one of which was used to kill Ryoma (and which I wrote about in a previous post).

This shows the two dioramas - from the museum
pamphlet.

Another interesting part was the model corner - there were two scale models - one showed the attack on the Ikedaya, and the other Ryoma's death. They were both very nice models (complete with figures) and made it much easier to envisage these two incidents as they might have been. There was also a '3d' film explaining the death of Ryoma... it was really a narrated walkthrough of the model, but I didn't have time for that.

It seems that the exhibits change from time to time, but I suspect the more interesting and well-known ones remain fairly constant. Overall, recommended for history buffs, but if you're not so familiar with the period, you might find better places to spend your time.

More on Vagabond

I hadn't meant to write about this, but somehow I found myself doing it. I think I have mentioned Inoue's marvelous Vagabond before, but it's one of those things you can't have too much of. 

Of all the swordsmen of Japan, Miyamoto Musashi is probably the one who has caught the imagination most strongly: the subject of plays, novels, non-fiction, several TV series and movies, and of course his own writing continues to sell well to this day.

And, like many figures from the past, our knowledge of Musashi is colored by these many fictional renditions of the character. While western audiences often dwell on the violence of his life, impressed by his record of victories in duels, the Japanese view is more nuanced, and tends to take personal development as its major theme. The most famous example of this approach is the novel Musashi by Yoshikawa Eiji, originally released in serialised form in the 1930s. Musashi is depicted as a young man looking to develop his skills to become the strongest swordsman in the country. The depiction shows a driven, single-minded, yet chivalrous character, who grows as he learns from the pain and sacrifices involved in the pursuit of his dream. His childhood friend, Matahachi acts as a foil to Musashi – a kind of everyman who follows his whims, doesn’t have the strength of character to suffer for his dreams, and tries to achieve success without achievement. The contrast between the two is clear, though many will see as much of Matahachi in themselves as Musashi.

Tsuruta Koji as Sasaki Kojiro

The other major character who sets Musashi in relief is the swordsman Sasaki Kojiro – and the novel uses the readers knowledge of their climactic duel to create an ongoing tension between the two characters. Although a consummate swordsman, he appears as a man who has arrived, and is confident of his position and worth. Cool and assured – he displays no doubts when it comes to his art, wielding his sword with a cold, arrogant precision. (I must admit to liking Tsuruta Koji's portrayal of his character in the Samurai Trilogy starring Mifune Toshiro far better than Mifune's Musashi).

This rendition of Musashi has been the predominant one for many years. It has been a pleasure, therefore, in the last ten years or so, to see a powerful reworking of Yoshikawa’s themes in the hands of one of the premiere contemorary manga artists, Inoue Takehiko.

As a medium, manga is broad and multi-faceted, with all the variation one might expect of such a popular and widespread art form. At its best, it combines the depth of graphic novels with the continuity and addictiveness of a long running TV series. Vagabond, Inoue’s manga based on Yoshikawa’s novel, currently runs to 33 collected volumes, with about 200 pages per volume.

Not only is the art several cuts above the norm in manga - he started in pen and ink but later shifted to brush - and in his larger public works has extended the range of this individual form of ink painting - ichinin: ippa (one man: one style) indeed - but the story continues to hold and fascinate a huge readership (22 million copies have been sold worldwide!!). One of his major innovations is his reworking of the Kojiro character, giving him an extensive backstory and portraying him far more sympathetically than in the original novel.

From Inoue's book 'Water': Kojiro fights his way out of the aftermath of Sekugahara

The artist’s strong identification with his characters has also been the cause of problems. In an interview for the NHK documentary Professional no Ryugi (September 2009), he revealed how difficult it has been for him to continue with the darker sides of the story, and as the series moved towards its conclusion and the ultimate death of Kojiro, he seems to have stalled, unable to continue.

In the meantime, he has busied himself with other works, including a series of cards called ‘Smiles’, proceeds from which are going to help the victims of the Tohoku earthquake, and a large (more than 5m long) folding screen for Higashi Honganji Temple in Kyoto, as one of the events commemorating the 750^th anniversary of Shinran’s death. It is good to see such a powerful and popular artist involved in projects beyond the immediate world of manga (not to denigrate the medium...and he is currently continuing to produce another story, Real, about wheelchair basketball) - his traveling exhibition The LAST MANGA Exhibition was a ground breaking extension of manga to a museum context, telling the story of the last day of Musashi’s life, which was so popular that many people couldn’t get tickets to see it when it was first on...

Inoue working on his Shinran piece. From www.flow-er.co.jp/shinran/

...but I do hope he manages to finish the Vagabond series.

Information Rich

Advertising for the Ikeda-ya on Sanjo Street

Japan, and particularly Kyoto, it seems, is an extremely information rich environment: walking through the streets, on odd corners, outside temples or next to bridges, you can often see information boards or stone markers to inform passers-by of the historical importance of each location, as well as a huge number and variety of notices everywhere concerned with more immediate details of everyday life.

For non-Japanese, however, the difficulties of accessing this information (which means reading Japanese), makes the experience quite different - there is so little you can actually understand, and much of that is without a familiar context , even if you have some knowledge of the history, that many give up even trying. It's enough to discourage even a well-developed sense of curiosity.

But over the years since I came here, the accessibility of information, both in Japanese and English, has improved enormously. This is partly due to the advance of technology, and the proliferation of on-line sources, but also to the increasing presence of information at street level.

You can just see the sword cuts in the dark area

Recently, I have been involved in some research that has made me look more closely at the city itself. I have been surprised by the richness of information available to those with a little persistence, and also by how much interesting history is attached to places I have passed on an almost daily basis with, totally unaware.

One such that particularly piqued my interest are the sword cuts on one of the bronze finials of Sanjo Bridge.

The finials themselves (giboshi) are, all save one, the originals from when Hideyoshi had the bridge built in 1590, as indeed are some of the stone pillars (on the south side) on which the bridge stands. Another one of these pillars is now outside Starbucks at the northwest end of the bridge. Civil engineering has never been a particular interest of mine but, like almost any subject, the more you look into it, the more interesting it becomes.

Of course, what I was really interested in were those sword cuts. They date, apparently, from the famous Ikedaya incident which occurred just along the street in 1864. I used to work in the building just next to the site of the incident, which was, in those days, marked by a small stone pillar in front of a pachinko parlor. This was in the days when the British Council and Japan Research Foundation libraries, and one or two bookshops, together with the occasional article in Kyoto Visitors Guide constituted the bulk of my research resources, and I was pretty happy to find out that I was working right next to the Ikedaya, site of one of the most famous engagements of the Bakumatsu period.

For those of you unfamiliar with it, this was when the Shinsengumi, a para-military force supporting the ailing government, mounted a surprise attack on a group of pro-Imperial plotters, many from the Choshu Domain, who were meeting at the inn. The battle itself lasted for a couple of hours, and eventually involved some 60 or so people. At first, however, the Shinsengumi members were outnumbered - 9 of them, under their leader Kondo Isami, attacked the plotters, who numbered about 30. Later reinforcements equalled the numbers. Largely confined to the Ikedaya inn itself, the fighting spilled onto the streets as the plotters tried to escape. Some, it seems, made it as far as Sanjo Bridge, hence the scars on the bridge. It was a hard fought battle, but the Shinsengumi lost only 3 men (2 of whom died of their wounds), compared to 8 on the other side, and more than 20 taken prisoner.


For anyone who wants to have a look for themselves, the sword marks are on the second post from the west, on the south side.

And the Ikeda-ya? Now it is an izakaya, with the front made up in period style. A notice-board in front gives an account of the affair, and you can often see interested groups of tourists stopping outside to read. It is, of course, in Japanese.

Go Grrrls - Ishida Mitsunari, the Musical

The Takurazuka Revue is not really my cup of tea, but the poster looks dramatic.

For those of you who don't know, Takurazuka is an all female affair - playing to almost permanently packed houses, composed of devotees and wannabees. Like much of Japanese theatre, it is an institution and a way of life. There is a continual procession of new plays, many of them set in romantic European settings, with the rather odd combination of platinum blond wigs and Japanese faces (not to mention the cross-dressing and moustaches). In this poster, they look the best I have seen them - although a little 'manga-chic'.

Ishida Mitsunari is the star of this production, although he is not one of the more charismatic characters from this period. Of course, he suffers from the usual fate of the loser, whose faults seem overwhelming when he is cast as the foil to Tokugawa Ieyasu in his successful bid for power, which culminated in the Battle of Sekigahara. Wheras Ieyasu was a cunning straegist and battlefield general, who had benefitted from his close association with Oda Nobunaga and had the sense to allow himself to take a subsidiary position to both his predecessors while preserving a degree of independence, Mitsunari's strong skills lay in his powers of administration. Although he could command close loyalties, he had made personal enemies of several of Hideyoshi's generals in Korea (for reporting them for mismanagement of funds), and was not, primarily, a military leader.

Despite Ieyasu's skill in intrigue and politicking, it was still a close run thing (as someone said of another decisive battle).

Like many westerners, my first exposure to him was in James Clavell's Shogun, where he is portrayed as a cruel, power-hungry despot, set on controlling the country. Japanese portrayals tend to be kinder, making him a loyal follower of Hideyoshi, well-meaning but ultimately out-matched. This story, cashing in on the current NHK Taiga drama, concerns the relationship between Mitsunari and  Chacha, who was to become Hideyoshi's mistress. The title: "A Beautiful Life - Ishida Mitsunari, his eternal love and loyalty".

It's not where you're looking but what you look at

This is section of a painting by Ryohei Yamashita..used for the cover of  a novel about (and entitled?) Bokuden

One of the challenges of studying a discipline in another language is understanding the multiple meanings that pertain to certain expressions. I have often found myself quite able to understand an expression in  a particular context, only to fail to realise its wider implications or, indeed, its more general meaning.

My teachers have always taken great pains in their explanations to me and other non-Japanese members of the dojo, but even so, explanations often fail to achieve the resonance that would be felt by a native speaker. This is even more true in the mysterious world of the intangible concepts that form an important part of higher level bujutsu.

An example of this is the term metsuke. This means where you look or what you look at, but it can often be reduced in meaning to a particular kind of looking or gaze, depending largely on the specific circumstances in which it is usually encountered by a student. In kendo, for example, enzan no metsuke is encouraged - abroad gaze that takes in everything... the opposite of tunnel vision.

However, even within that trope, there must be an awareness of what is important or relevant to the confrontation, and what is not. This kind of sight is what enables you to, eventually see through the enemy, to intuit his moves. To what extent this is a function of the conscious mind is a moot point - certainly, enzan no metsuke works on one level by allowing us to see movement that we may not be consciously aware of. On the other hand, a more precise awareness of where such movements begin, of what constitutes this kind of movement, is surely a necessity (or at least a big help) for developing higher level skills.

However, anecdotes are legion of those masters who had developed superlative ability, but were unable or unwilling to analyse the source of this ability, but instead taught only in the broadest of terms. This is what Kano Jigoro experienced when studying jujitsu - his teacher would repeatedly throw him but couldn't explain how he was able to do it.

Another example is the old cat's teacher in Neko no Myojutsu, who could not explain his skills. Similarly Kimura Kyuho, in his Kenjutsu no Fushikihen (The Unknown in Swordsmanship), concludes by saying that the root of this knowledge is unknown and unknowable.

My favorite story, however, is about Tsukuhara Bokuden.

In one 'friendly' duel he fought with wooden swords, he struck his opponent in the head, causing him to go deaf.

His opponent, far from being discouraged, was able to develop his skill to new heights, developing a fearsome concentration through this disability. Some years later, they fought a return match. Bokuden instantly realized his opponent was now of a near equal ability to himself. Putting up his sword as if the contest was at an end, he stepped back. His opponent, assuming the contest was over and that Bokuden had said as much, likewise put up his sword, bowed and turned to exit the field... at which point Bokuden smashed him over the head from behind. This blow caused his hearing to return, and he found he had lost the ability the had developed while he was deaf.

Clearly, his senses, especially those that fall into the intangible category of mukei, had been heightened by his plunge into deafness. Bokuden was quick to realise this, but as other anecdotes show, he was a master of the broader aspects of strategy as well, and was quick to utilise these when appropriate.

Mon - the gateway

A quick sketch I did the other day - a typical mon in Japan

The gateway (or gate), which is called mon in Japanese, is an inescapable part of the landscape, both in the city and in the countryside. Perhaps it is not odd that such a powerful architectural feature should have become part of the conceptual landscape of the culture, but the way in which it has done so is quite different from what the simple words in English might suggest.

The image of a gate where I grew up, is essentially rural – the traditional five-bar gate so common in the countryside of southern England springs to mind – and even where it occurs in the town, it was usually in the context of a garden or back yard. Of course, there was also the school gate, and had I lived in a more industrial area, no doubt the factory gates would also have figured in my consciousness. But all of these are similar in respect to their essential character… they are barriers, but semi-permeable ones. They have bars, but you can see through them. They may be strong, but even so, they are not solid.

The mon, on the other hand, has a massive quality to it. Like the city gates of medieval Europe, they announce their presence at the same time as denying entry. They are markers as well as barriers, indicating the way in and denoting the passage between two worlds.

Despite their strong presence, their role may be largely symbolic, and other, more convenient points of access are used in the comings and goings of everyday life. They may not even be, as the western gate tends to be, the main point of entry in an encircling wall or fence. Sometimes, and this is especially so in the case of shrine gates (torii) they are simply free-standing, with no attached structures. The entrant is perfectly free to walk around instead of through the entrance-way.

This symbolic function exists on several levels.

From their role as the gateways to temples, the term has taken on the meaning of school, and thus someone who studies under a teacher might be known as a monjin or monsei (literally, gate + person, meaning one who has passed through the gate); to join a school was known as nyumon (to enter the gate); to be expelled from a school was known as hamon (breaking the gate).

Indeed, learning itself took on the mon as a concept. Not only did students have to pass through the gate to begin study, but successive stages had their own gates, and higher teachings were barred from those who had nor entered, with more or less elaborate ceremonies and swearing of oaths as part of the process.

This is something that is mentioned both by Miyamoto Musashi and Yagyu Munenori in their most well-known writings, and points to the prevalence of the practice. Munenori is at some pains to explain that the concept shows that skill is not the same as the methods we use to achieve it. After entering the gate, we proceed further within the temple. The gate is not to be mistaken for the temple itself. In the same way, the forms that are used in studying a fluid, ever-changing art are not the art itself, but a way to develop that art.

Musashi, went further, declaring he had no use for gates (and thus presumeably) for teaching structured in levels that had to be passed through before going on to the next body of teaching. He likened the process to passing through the mountains… although you may enter through one gate, you may emerge from another – passing through, you come to the entrance again - who is to say which is the more advanced teaching?

Actually, Musashi’s comment is likely a criticism of the Yagyu approach – his principal patron in later life, Hosokawa Tadaoki, had trained in that style As the Yagyu had become official instructors of the Shogun, the family’s services were in high demand, and they were required to teach a range of pupils, of lesser or greater ability, despite their often high status. No doubt this required some ordering of their curriculum, and the appointment of subsidiary instructors – not everyone could expect to be taught by the instructor to the shogun – resulting in a somewhat standardized curriculum. On the other hand,  Musashi remained essentially a free agent throughout his life.

Instinctively, I tend to follow Musashi’s opinion on this, but at the same time, I have found the concept of a gate as an entryway from one way of seeing things to another, or the first technique in the process of developing a difficult stage of a skill is an apt and useful concept. Seeing these as gates that open out onto to another area of experience or skill is a metaphor I had not internalized before my time in Japan; I don’t think I have been specifically taught using this metaphor, but Musashi’s use of it must have resonated quite deeply as I have found certain specific techniques or skills fit the idea perfectly. I suppose the equivalent concept in English would be a ‘first step’. You can actually see this reflected in book titles… textbooks with the title “xxx Nyumon” are the counterpart of “First Steps in xxx”.

Still, somehow, the image of a gateway seems more resonant than that of a first step. From my own experiences, I can see how apt the concept can be – it represents the searching for a way out of a learning plateau and into a new period of growth. In this sense, sometimes the way out is quite specific and the gate, with its opening onto new vista’s serves very well. However, for some reason, this seems to be distinctly a mon and not a western gate.

Perhaps it is just my latent romanticism coming through.