Miyamoto Musashi

Miyamoto Musashi (c. 1583 to 13 June 1645) was a Japanese swordsman, strategist, artist, and writer, remembered as a kensei, or sword saint, of Japan. Details of his early life are difficult to verify, but Musashi wrote in The Book of Five Rings that he was born in Miyamoto, a village in Harima Province. An early biography, Niten Ki, supports 1583 as his birth year. His full name and title, as he gave it, was Shinmen Musashi-no-Kami Fujiwara no Harunobu, and he was also known by names including Shinmen Takezō, Miyamoto Bennosuke, and Niten Dōraku, his Buddhist name.

Musashi came from a martial household. His father, Shinmen Munisai, was an accomplished martial artist and a master of the sword and jutte. Musashi’s own fighting life began early. In The Book of Five Rings, he testified that his first duel took place when he was still 12 or 13, against Arima Kihei, a swordsman of Kashima Shintō-ryū. He won. At 16 he defeated Tadashima Akiyama of Tajima Province, and at 21, in Kyoto, he defeated several students of a famous sword fighting school. In 1599, at age 15 or 16, he left his village.

He became known through stories of his unique double-bladed swordsmanship and an undefeated record in 62 duels. Musashi founded the Niten Ichi-ryū, also called Nito Ichi-ryū, style of swordsmanship. One of his most famous contests was against Sasaki Kojiro on Ganryu Island, scheduled for 13 April. According to the prevailing account, Musashi arrived late, remained composed under Kojiro’s taunts, and had carved an oar into a wooden practice sword during the boat trip to the island. The duel ended when Musashi struck Kojiro fatally. The episode was later dramatised in the 1956 Inagaki Japanese film Samurai III: Duel at Ganryu Island.

Musashi’s life also touched the military world of his age. In 1600, he served in Kuroda Yoshitaka’s army on the Eastern side and fought in the Battle of Ishigakihara and the Siege of Fuka Castle against Ōtomo Yoshimune’s army from the Western side. Historical debate remains over whether he saw action at Sekigahara or Ishigakihara, though modern Japanese historians generally agree that Musashi favoured the Eastern Army. It is believed that he was a friend of Mizuno Katsunari, a Tokugawa shogunate general, and that they fought together as part of the Tokugawa Army in the Battle of Sekigahara, the Siege of Osaka, and the Shimabara Rebellion.

In his final years, Musashi wrote The Book of Five Rings and Dokkōdō, or The Path of Aloneness. Both were bequeathed to Terao Magonojō, his most important student, seven days before Musashi’s death. The Book of Five Rings explains the character of his Niten Ichi-ryū school in concrete terms, setting out both his practical martial art and its broader meaning. The Path of Aloneness gathers the ideas behind it in short aphoristic sentences. That severe clarity helps explain why a line such as “In order to become who you want to be, you need to sacrifice who you are” still fits the figure remembered in his honour at the Miyamoto Musashi Budokan training center in Ōhara-chō, Mimasaka, Okayama Prefecture.