Season 11, Episode 13: The Life and Times of Miyamoto Musashi

The Edo Period witnessed a remarkable transformation in the lives and lifestyles of the samurai. As I hope it has become apparent by now, the samurai did not occupy a static place in Japanese history, but had already undergone several permutations. The humble beginnings of the warrior class are present in its name - samurai comes from a term which meant “one who serves.” Being a samurai during the Heian Period meant following kuge officers into battle on behalf of the Emperor. After the rise of Taira Kiyomori and the subsequent Gempei War, the samurai began to be more directly involved in governance. During the early years of the Muromachi Period, being a samurai meant fighting on behalf of your preferred candidate for Tenno, and during Sengoku Jidai it meant fighting for a regional daimyo in hopes of obtaining great rewards for your service or even perhaps obtaining an opportunity to usurp your daimyo.

After the nation was politically reunified at the end of the Azuchi-Momoyama Period, there was no longer a great need to keep a bunch of warriors on staff in case your neighbors invaded or were weak enough to be invaded. Outside of the occasional small-scale intra-clan struggle for succession, the war was over; the Tokugawa Clan had won. We’ve already discussed at some length the transition undergone by some of the ronin left in the aftermath of the Siege of Osaka, but some unemployed samurai chose not to become artisans or administrators. Some continued their devotion to the way of the warrior, as they understood it, and found new opportunities in passing their knowledge to the next generation. Miyamoto Musashi was one such ronin who not only became a martial arts teacher, but actively sought to hone his skills as a warrior through fighting duels.

Born in 1584, Musashi was a product of both Sengoku Jidai and Azuchi-Momoyama. He claimed that his father was Shinmen Munisai, a famous master swordsman in his own right who earned his living training warriors in the Shinmen Clan. Whether Shinmen Munisai was truly the father of Miyamoto Musashi remains something of a historical debate, as some sources indicate that Munisai died in 1580, four years before Musashi’s alleged birth year. Regardless, it seems to have been accepted in his time that his father was a famed sword fighter, and certainly Musashi would build upon that legend.

The high point of Munisai’s career came when he was invited by newly-minted shogun Ashikaga Yoshiteru to demonstrate his sword prowess against Yoshioka Kenpo, the founder of the Yoshioka-ryu sword-fighting style around 1545. The two men fought with bokkens, wooden katanas, and were given three rounds to prove their skill. Munisai won two out of the three rounds and was awarded a title by the shogun which named him as “unrivaled under the sun.”

This duel is believed to be the primary origin of a rivalry which developed between Munisai’s descendants and the Yoshioka Clan. Yoshioka Kenpo’s fortunes continually declined afterward, culminating in a final embarrassment, according to traditional accounts, in which he was struck by a stick carried by an actor engaging in a Noh performance. This was an accident, but Kenpo felt ashamed that he was unable to defend himself from being struck by some lowly actor, and he killed that actor during a performance at the shogun’s residence in Kyoto. He was afterward pursued as a criminal because using a weapon in the shogun’s house without permission was a crime and, after killing many of his pursuers, was killed fairly ignominiously.

Shortly after his victory, Munisai was hired by the Shinmen Clan to train their warriors, and was allowed to use their name. Almost twenty years later, in 1584, the man who would come to be known as Miyamoto Musashi was born, likely in a village in Chugoku named Miyamoto where he claimed to have acquired his name. He credits his father with not only training him in swordplay, but also in the use of a jitte, or sword-breaker, a tool which would later become common among law enforcement. Also called a jutte, this weapon’s is shaped like a handle under a capital letter J without its top cross bar. It is used as a parrying tool which could gain control of an enemy’s weapon.

Miyamoto Musashi is said to have fought his first duel in the year 1597 at the tender, formative age of 13. A samurai named Arima Kihei posted a public challenge in a village near where Musashi was staying. Musashi wrote his name on the notice and thus the challenge was accepted. His uncle intervened, begging Arima Kihei not to go through with the duel, but Kihei insisted that he would only back out of this fight if Musashi publicly apologized. When Musashi showed up, it seems like Kihei was expecting an apology when instead the young man charged at him with a quarterstaff, unleashing a savage battle cry which startled his opponent.

Kihei drew his wakizashi to defend himself, but Musashi knocked him to the ground and proceeded to brutally beat the man to death. A few years later, in 1599, Musashi departed from his home and began his Musha Shugyo, a traditional warriors’ pilgrimage. This manner of samurai walkabout was typical of young warriors of the samurai middle class, who were not born into an influential or powerful clan. The warrior was expected to hone his skill and prove his mettle by journeying far away from the safety of his family or school. He would be expected to seek employment in various odd jobs like being a bodyguard or mercenary, and some even found permanent employment with powerful daimyo during their Musha Shugyo. As for Miyamoto Musashi, he gravitated toward dueling.

Individual fighting among the warrior class was fairly common and not always lethal. The scene in the film Seven Samurai where the master swordsman character Kyuzo cuts a bamboo stick and uses it to demonstrate his superior speed nonlethally against a rather brutish peer was a common way for the samurai during Azuchi-Momoyama and all throughout the Edo Period to demonstrate their blade mastery without shedding any blood. If you’ve seen the film, however, you know that the master’s opponent thinks that the fight was a draw, they proceed to fight with their swords, and the foolish man is killed by the master. Certainly not all of these duels were nonlethal affairs.

According to some later accounts, Miyamoto Musashi fought in the western army at the battle of Sekigahara. However, contemporary sources make no mention of this, and I would mark it as a likely fabrication. Paperwork from the period was far from perfect, so it is certainly possible that Musashi was there, likely fighting on behalf of one of the Chugoku daimyo, but we have no definitive confirmation of this.

Throughout the first decade of the 1600s, Musashi busied himself with travel and fighting duels. By 1611, he had become fairly well-known as a duelist and had traveled to Kumamoto Domain which is in Higo Province on western central Kyushu. He stayed in a Zen Temple called Myoshinji where he practiced zazen meditation. During his stay, he met a samurai named Nagaoka Sado, who was a vassal of Hosokawa Tadaoki, the daimyo of Kokura Domain in nearby Buzen Province. We have discussed Hosokawa Tadaoki previously - he was the husband of Hosokawa Gracia, the daughter of Akechi Mitsuhide.

The particulars are somewhat disputed, but through some sequence of events, a duel was arranged between Miyamoto Musashi and a famous sword instructor named Sasaki Kojiro. Far from being some greenhorn braggart, Sasaki Kojiro, whose nickname was “The Demon of the Western Provinces,” was a famous teacher with a flourishing school and many devoted disciples. Whether the duel was Musashi’s idea or Sado’s or Kojiro’s or even Tadaoki’s depends on the source. We can be reasonably certain about a few things which the sources agree upon: the duel was arranged to take place on April 13, 1612 on Ganryu Island, which lies in the Shimonoseki Strait between Kyushu and the western tip of Chugoku. 

Although the Hosokawa Clan, who hosted this duel, had forbidden spectators from attending, the usually quiet island was soon packed with people eager to witness the duel. The fight was scheduled to take place in the early light of the morning, around eight a.m. in modern time. While Sasaki Kojiro arrived on time and prepared himself, Miyamoto Musashi was nowhere to be seen. Kojiro and the Hosokawa attendants waited for several hours until finally a messenger was dispatched to the place where Musashi was staying. Supposedly he overslept, but nonetheless took the time to eat a large, full breakfast before finally departing for his duel.

The story goes that while he was on the ferry to Ganruyjima, he realized that he had forgotten his longsword. He thus took a spare oar in the boat and carved it into a bokken or wooden sword, likely using a tanto dagger or wakizashi short sword to do the carving. When he finally arrived on Ganryujima, he was greeted by an infuriated Sasaki Kojiro, who drew his sword dramatically and threw its scabbard into the ocean. This was a common gesture among duelists which indicated that they were prepared to fight to the death. Musashi, with characteristically wry wit, commented that Kojiro must not be very confident in the outcome of  this duel if he was willing to throw away such a fine scabbard.

The duel commenced and the two men circled one another with their respective weapons. Musashi held his custom-made bokken while Kojiro’s choice weapon was a nodachi, a sword similar to the katana with its curved blade and single edge, but which was considerably longer. Kojiro’s particular sword was named “laundry-drying pole,” a reference to its impressive length. Because his opponent wielded a long nodachi while he only carried a crude wooden sword, it almost certainly would have seemed to observers that Kojiro had the upper hand.

What happened next must have been surprising for those who had gathered to observe. Both swordsmen rushed at one another, their weapons poised to give a fatal blow. Sasaki Kojiro raised his blade above his head preparing to deliver his signature strike - the Tsubame Gaeshi, or “swallow’s reversal.” This strike was either modeled after the movement of a swallow’s tail or was swift enough to hit a bird in mid-flight or perhaps a combination of both. However, when the dust settled, Kojiro was lying dead on the ground with his skull caved in by the carved-oar bokken and Miyamoto Musashi was unharmed.

The more legendary tellings of this account claim that Musashi’s headband had been cut by his opponent but that his enemy’s nodachi failed to actually harm him. While this is certainly very dramatic, the laws of physics strongly imply that it is highly unlikely. While Musashi was considered a great master of the sword, his actual fighting style seems to have revolved around screaming like a maniac and attacking with sudden overwhelming force. While this may not sound particularly elegant, it appears to have been effective.

The duel on Ganryujima became a famous story and was retold through kabuki. The truth behind this semi-legendary story, however, has proven extremely elusive. We can be reasonably certain that there was a duel on Ganryujima and that Musashi was the victor and that Kojiro died as a result. Perhaps Kojiro’s irritation at being made to wait for his opponent caused him to err during the actual fight, perhaps Musashi understood his opponent well enough to know that such a delay would distract him during the actual fight, or perhaps the whole thing was a fluke. Whatever the case, Musashi’s reputation as a skilled swordfighter now skyrocketed into the atmosphere and in response to demand from prospective students, he opened his own martial arts school.

Some later accounts claim that Musashi responded to Toyotomi Hideyori’s call to arms in 1614 and fought against Tokugawa forces at the Siege of Osaka. However, there is no documentation which proves this conclusively, and I’m inclined to believe that it is a later fabrication by overly-imaginative historians.

What is known for certain is that in 1615 he was employed by Ogasawara Tadanao, the daimyo of a large domain in Harima Province in eastern Chugoku. His primary duties during his time serving the Ogasawara Clan revolved around overseeing provincial construction. His later written works often compare the way of the warrior to that of the artisans, and it is often supposed that this was at least partially inspired by his time working as a foreman for the Ogasawara.

In 1621, it appears that Miyamoto Musashi had grown bored of supervising construction and decided to once again set up his own martial arts school. He opened this school in the city of Himeji, the home to Himeji Castle. The daimyo of Himeji was Honda Tadamasa, a fudai daimyo who seems to have been nonplussed by Musashi’s advertising campaign. In front of his new martial arts school, the famous duelist posted a sign which declared him to be the greatest swordsman in Japan. Honda Tadamasa instructed his vassal Miyake Gunbei to personally demonstrate for this upstart ronin that he was not, in fact, the greatest swordsman in the nation.

Gunbei came to the school and demanded to see Musashi. He was told to wait and continued waiting for over an hour before the famed duelist emerged to see him. When he complained about this rude treatment, Musashi replied that he did not realize Gunbei had come to fight and had been leisurely playing Go with a guest. He invited Gunbei to choose the weapons and, being mindful that he had only been sent to humble Musashi and not kill him, Gunbei chose bokken, cutting his own from a bamboo branch.

The duel itself was said to have been quick, with Musashi winning and Gunbei being forced to acknowledge that he was indeed the greatest swordsman in Japan. Dejected, but still alive, Gunbei returned to Honda Tadamasa and informed him of the result. There are a number of interesting similarities between this duel and the more famous match against Sasaki Kojiro at Ganryujima. Both men were kept waiting, seemingly on purpose, and it seems likely to me that Musashi’s real superpower may have been the ability to throw his opponents off their game by just being unexpectedly rude.

While we don’t know exactly when he began crafting what would become his signature sword-fighting style, we can be reasonably certain that it was sometime between 1604 and 1630. This new fighting style involved using both the katana and wakizashi at the same time, holding one blade in each hand rather than holding one weapon with both hands. The short sword would be used to parry and the longsword to attack, though this is of course a general simplification. Musashi named the style “Niten Ichi-ryu,” which means “two heavens, one way.”

A few years after his duel with Gunbei, Musashi once again took up traveling and wandered for a long time, staying for short periods in Edo until eventually ending up back in Kyushu. In 1630, he visited Kumamoto Domain in Higo Province at the invitation of the daimyo of Kumamoto Hosokawa Tadatoshi. By this time, Musashi’s skills as a duelist were starting to make him somewhat famous, and Tadatoshi in particular wanted to see him demonstrate his Niten Ichi style against the Hosokawa Clan’s in-house swordmaster.

This swordmaster had been trained in Yagyu Shinkage-ryu, a style which had been created in 1565 at the height of Sengoku Jidai. It is still taught in dojos throughout Japan and is one of the oldest of swordfighting styles. The swordmaster faced off against Musashi but failed to strike him after several rounds. Tadatoshi himself, also trained in Yagyu Shinkage-ryu, likewise faced off against the famed duelist and also could not manage even a single blow against the two-sword style.

In the mid-1630s, Musashi came to northern Kyushu with his adopted son Iori who had agreed to serve the daimyo Ogasawara Tadazane. A few years later, the Shimabara Rebellion was launched and many of the clans of Kyushu called up their warriors to fight the uprising. While many warriors served with distinction in this campaign, Miyamoto Musashi’s contribution was less than stellar. In the only clearly documented account of his serving in battle, Musashi was struck by a rock thrown by one of Shimabara’s defenders and knocked off his horse. If he made any other actual contributions to the battle, they have been lost to history.

As the 1630s came to a close and the 1640s began, Musashi was in his mid-50s and fully ready to retire. In his middle years he had drifted toward artistic pursuits and at least one of his ink paintings survives today bearing the image of a bird called a shrike perched on a branch. He had also been working on his own treatises about strategy, combat, and swordsmanship.

The best known of these works was completed just before his death in 1645. He was sixty-one years old and had already been suffering from neuralgia for several years prior when he finally succumbed to an illness which, from its descriptions, is believed to have been lung cancer. His final work was a book called Go Rin No Sho, which means, “The Book of Five Rings.”

An enduring work whose popularity rivals Sunzi’s “The Art of War,” “The Book of Five Rings” is roughly equal parts philosophy, advice, practical tips, and encouragement to learn its contents through practice. It was widely read upon its completion and survives to this day. Older English translations are freely available online through archive.org and other places if you’d like to give it a read. If you decide to buy a version from your local bookstore, I would only caution you to research the translator before buying. A few decades back, some people decided that The Book of Five Rings was actually about business strategy and decided to tweak the language accordingly. While Musashi insisted that his book was applicable to all forms of martial fighting, I see no reason to believe that his opinion of mercantile pursuits was any different than the average samurai.

In his seminal work, Miyamoto Musashi claimed to have fought over 65 duels and won every time. Toward the end of his life, however, he also came to regret the rather violent life he had led and wished he had lived as a man of peace instead. He was survived not only by his famous books, but also by his Niten Ichi-ryu fighting style, which continues to be taught to aspiring swordfighters today. In 2000, on the anniversary of his death, the Miyamoto Musashi Budokan was officially opened in Ohara, the official birthplace of Musashi. A large building with a distinctively swooping roof which looks a little like two sword slashes, this dojo houses six separate floors suitable for practicing martial arts of every stripe, both weapon-centric and empty-handed. Its purpose is to bring the various styles of Japanese martial arts together where they can be practiced and preserved as cultural treasures for future generations. A fitting tribute to a man whose legacy is etched in martial arts, in spite of any regrets he harbored at the end of his life.

Next time, we will explore the world of ronin who decided to wander beyond the boundaries of Japan and traveled to strange foreign shores to make their own mark upon history.