Legacies of the Sword-The Kashima-Shinryu and Samurai Martial Culture

(from cover)

Western scholars and educators are generally far less familiar with the samurai in his original-and, ostensibly, primary-role as warrior and master of arms than in his other functions as landowner, feudal lord, literateur, or philosopher. Yet any attempt to comprehend fully the samurai

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without considering his military abilities and training (bugei) is futile. Even during the peaceful eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, when the samurai had long since left the battle field, he never ceased to see himself as a warrior. Although the samurai as a class were abolished in the nineteenth century, their military skills and values continue to be taught at dozens of schools (ryuha) throughout Japan. The classical bugei practiced today are a living legacy that continues to propagate the beliefs and tools of a warrior class that disappeared more than a century ago. By studying the bugei, historians can recover much about the manner in which samurai acquired their convictions and physicals abilities, thereby enriching our knowledge of late medieval and early modern warrior education and affording new insights into samurai culture.

With verve and wit, Karl Friday combines the results of nearly two decades of fieldwok and archival research to examine samurai martial culture from a broad perspective: as a historical phenomenon, as a worldview, and as a system of physical, spiritual, and moral education. Legacies of the Sword is the first attempt by a Western scholar trained both in bugei and in Japanese studies and historical methodology to discuss this major and compelling component of Japanese culture. It presents a case study of the Kashima-Shinryu, one of the oldest of the extant samurai training organizations, and was written in close collaboration with its current headmaster, Seki Humitake. The volume illuninates the extaordinary complexity of the bugei and the manner in which various physical, technical, psycohological, and philosophical factors merge to produce a coherent art that guides the lives of those who practice it.

Legacies of the sword will find an appreciative audience among those interested in trditional Japanese education systems or warrior culture, general readers interested in traditional Japanese education systems or warrior culture, general readers inrterested in the role of martial arts in Japanese culture, and practitioners of Japanese martial arts who want to better understand the cultural background of their traditions.

Kark Friday is associate profesosr of Japanese history at the University of Georgia.

Seki Humitake is the nineteenth-generation headmaster (shihanke) of the Kashima-Shinryu and professor at the Institute of Biological Sciencess at the University of Tsukuba.

Contents

List of Illustrations
Foreword Preface
1 Introduction
2 Heritage and Tradition
Ryuha and the Origins of the Bugei
The Kashima Grand Shrine and Takemikazuchi-no-Mikoto
The Three founders
The Students of Kamiizumi Ise-no-kami and the Shihanke Line
The Kunii House and the Soke Line
The Kashima-Shinryu as an Organization
3 The Philosophy and Science of Combat
Shinbu and the Martial Way
The Framework of the Art: The Fivefold Laws and the Eight Divine Coordinates
Applied Constructs
4 The Martial Path
Kata and Patern Practice
Historical Problems and Criticisms of Kata and Pattern Practice
The Kashima-Shinryu Kata
Texts and Written Transmission
Meditation and the Integration of Body, Mind, and Spirit
Epilogue
Appendixes
Historical Texts
Appendix1: Tkhe Kashima-Shinryu hyoho denki
Apendix 2: The Kunii-ke keizu
Appendix 3: The Kashima-Shkinryu menkyo kaiden mokkuroku
Kashima-Shinryu Organization
Appendix 4: Constitution of the Kashima-Skhinryu Federation of Martial Sciences
Appendix 5' Constitution of the Kashima-Shinryu Federation of North America
Notes, bibliography, Index

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