The Intangible Warrior Culture of Japan: Bodily Practices, Mental Attitudes, and Values of the Two-Sworded Men from the Fifteenth to the Twenty-First Centuries
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The Intangible Warrior Culture of Japan: Bodily Practices, Mental Attitudes, and Values of the Two-sworded Men from the Fifteenth to the Twenty-first Centuries. Anatoliy Anshin Ph.D. Dissertation UNSW@ADFA 2009 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This thesis would not have seen the light without the help of more people than I can name individually. I am particularly grateful to Professor Stewart Lone, UNSW@ADFA, and Professor Sandra Wilson, Murdoch University, for their guidance and support while supervising my Ph.D. project. All of their comments and remarks helped enormously in making this a better thesis. A number of people in Japan contributed significantly to producing this work. I am indebted to Ōtake Risuke, master teacher of Tenshinshō-den Katori Shintō-ryū, and Kondō Katsuyuki, director of the Main Line Daitō-ryū Aikijūjutsu, for granting interviews and sharing a wealth of valuable material during my research. I thank Professor Shima Yoshitaka, Waseda University, for his generous help and advice. I would like to express my infinite thankfulness to my wife, Yoo Sun Young, for her devotion and patience during the years it took to complete this work. As for the contribution of my mother, Margarita Anshina, no words shall convey the depth of my gratitude to her. 1 CONTENTS Acknowledgements…………..…………………………………………………….……1 Contents…………………………..……………………………………………………...2 List of Illustrations……………………………………………………………………….5 Conventions……………………………………………………………………………...6 List of Author’s Publications…………………………………………………………….8 INTRODUCTION……………………………………………………………………….9 CHAPTER I The Fundamental Elements of Pre-Tokugawa Bushi Intangible Culture 1.1 The Warrior Etiquette………………………………………………………….…35 1.2 Regulation of Violence Through Bodily Etiquette………..……………………...40 1.3 The State of Constant Alertness…………………………………………….…….43 1.4 The Cult of the Blade………………………………………………………….….50 CHAPTER II Bushi Martial Skills Prior to the Tokugawa Era 2.1 The Society of Will………………………………………………………….……57 2.2 Martial Skills of the Pre-Tokugawa Bushi and the First Formalized Schools of Military Arts………………………………………………………………………59 2.3 Philosophical Doctrines of Shintō-ryū…………………………………………...73 2.4 The “True Warrior”: Between Good and Evil……………………………………78 CHAPTER III Bushi Martial Skills in the Tokugawa Era 2 3.1 Military Arts Schools: The Quantity and the Quality…………………………….85 3.2 Warriors, Skills, Schools: Narrow Specialization and Social Discrimination……88 3.3 The Dissonance Between Means and Goals: The Birth of a Cultural Phenomenon……………………………………………………………..91 3.4 The Introduction of Safe Training Equipment and Free Sparring in Swordsmanship……………………………………………………………………96 3.5 Proliferation of Inter-School Matches and Employment of the “New Schools” at Domain Colleges………………………………………………………………...101 3.6 Proliferation of Extra-Long Bamboo Swords and Criticism of Bakumatsu Swordsmanship by Renowned Contemporary Swordsmen……………………...105 3.7 900 years of Sword Skills: A Comparative Perspective………………………...111 3.8 The “Practical Swordsmanship” of the Tokugawa Era…….……………………115 3.9 Some Exceptions Among Military Arts Schools………………………………..117 3.10 The Bushi Intangible Culture and the New Methods of Training……………...119 CHAPTER IV Reviving the pre-Tokugawa Warrior Culture in Bakumatsu Japan: Musha Shugyō of Yamaoka Tesshū 4.1 Existing Studies of Yamaoka Tesshū……………………………………………123 4.2 Yamaoka Tesshū’s Development: Military Training……………………………129 4.3 The Scholarship, Thought, and Religion of a Bakumatsu Swordsman…………131 4.4 Foreign Pressure and Swordsmanship Training in Edo…………………………133 4.5 The “Virtuous Spear” of Yamaoka Seizan………….…………………………...136 4.6 The Bakufu Military Institute…………………………………………………...139 4.7 The Beginning of the Quest for Pre-Tokugawa Swordsmanship..……………...144 4.8 The Innermost Secret of “No-Opponent” and the Establishment of Mutō-ryū………………………………………………………...……………….150 4.9 Back to the Past: Between Ittō-ryū and Mutō-ryū………………………………157 CHAPTER V The “Life-Giving Sword” of Yamaoka Tesshū and The Bloodless Surrender of Edo Castle 3 5.1 The Historiography of the Bloodless Surrender of Edo Castle…………………164 5.2 Finding the Right Messenger: The Bakufu’s Attempts to Approach the Imperial government………………………………………………………………………165 5.3 Swordsman Yamaoka Tesshū as the Shōgun’s Messenger……………………...167 5.4 Yamaoka-Saigō Meeting in Sumpu……………………………………………..171 5.5 The Historical Meaning of the Yamaoka-Saigō Meeting in Sumpu…………….179 5.6 Revisiting Yamaoka Tesshū’s Role in the Bloodless Surrender of Edo Castle…185 5.7 Yamaoka Tesshū’s Career After the Bloodless Surrender of Edo Castle………..188 5.8 The Legacy of Yamaoka Tesshū………………………………………………...190 CHAPTER VI Distorted Modern Images of the Bushi: Origins and Contemporary Exploitation 6.1 The Warriors and the Commoners: The Origins of Confusion Regarding the Violent Image of the Two-Sworded Man………………………………………..194 6.2 Social Limitations on the Commoners’ Possession and Wearing of Weapons and Training in Military Arts…………………………………………………………197 6.3 The Outward Likeness of Commoners and Bushi in the Bakumatsu Period……199 6.4 Bushi and the “Bellicose Samurai”: Violence and Misconduct in the Cases of Rōshigumi, Shinchōgumi, Shinsengumi, and Mimawarigumi…………………..201 6.5 The Cultivation of the Warrior Ethos Among the Commoners…………………209 6.6 Glamorized Violence: The Creation of the “Bellicose Samurai” in 20th Century Japanese Popular Culture………………………………………………………...210 6.7 Bushidō in the Service of Japanese Government and Business………………...215 6.8 Japanese Military Arts After the Meiji Restoration……………………………..219 6.9 Modern Distorted Memories of the Bushi Bodily Practices…………………….222 CONCLUSION……………………………………………………………………….229 APPENDIX ..…………………………………………………………………………241 ILLUSTRATIONS…………………………………………………………………….254 BIBLIOGRAPHY…………………………………………………………………….274 4 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Figure 1 The position of the long sword when sitting in seiza Figure 2 An artistic reminder of the correct way of handing the long sword Figure 3 Protecting the right thumb in the standing position Figure 4 Protecting the thumbs in the standing position Figure 5 Protecting the thumbs and the hands in the seiza sitting position Figure 6 An artistic reminder of tōin Figure 7 Artistic reminder of handling the long sword by gripping the hilt with the right hand and attaching the left palm to the back ridge of the blade Figure 8 The most probable way of receiving the bamboo sword that led to fatal consequences for the soldier of the imperial army in the sword engagement with Satsuma swordsmen during the Satsuma Rebellion of 1877 Figure 9 1868/3 negotiations between Katsu Kaishū and Saigō Takamori regarding the surrender of Edo Castle Figure 10 The sitting posture for drawing the long sword of modern iai practitioners Figure 11 The standing posture for drawing the long sword of modern iai practitioners Figure 12 The usual way of wearing the long and short swords in pre-Meiji Japan Figure 13 The iaijutsu at-the-ready sitting posture (iaigoshi) preserved in Tenshinshō-den Katori Shintō-ryū Figure 14 An artistic reminder of drawing the long sword (1) Figure 15 An artistic reminder of drawing the long sword (2) Figure 16 An artistic reminder of drawing the long sword (3) Figure 17 An artistic reminder of drawing the long sword (4) Figure 18 An artistic reminder of drawing the long sword (5) Figure 19 A Bakumatsu photo of Kawazu Izu no Kami showing off his long sword Figure 20 Nagasaki Bugyōsho Rokoku shisetsu ōsetsu no ezu (The reception of Russian missionary at the Nagasaki administrative office) 5 CONVENTIONS - Dates prior to the adoption of the Gregorian calendar by the Meiji government on 1 January 1873 are lunar; after that they are Gregorian. All dates are expressed in year/month/day format. The letter i means an intercalary month. For stylistic reasons, English month names are sometimes used for the months of corresponding number in the calendar, “May” for the fifth month, “June” for the sixth month, and so on. The conversion of Japanese horary hours is approximately correct for the seasons under discussion; however, one or two hours of leeway must be taken into consideration. The tables in Nojima 1987 were used for converting dates and time. - Japanese, Korean, and Chinese names are presented in traditional order, first name following surname. To avoid complication, I used the single most widely recognized form of a name to designate an individual at all phases of his or her life, even when this is historically inaccurate. - Ages of Japanese are given according to the inclusive Japanese method (kazoedoshi). - All measurements are converted into US units. - All translations from Japanese in the text and notes are mine except when otherwise is specified. - Titles of Japanese literary works appear in the original form. Their English translations are offered in parentheses immediately following the first mention of a title. The author’s name and date of writing or publication, if known, follow the English translation of the title. - Readings of Chinese titles, terms, and names are given in the Pīnyīn system. Dates are not given for titles of Chinese ancient classics. - Indian equivalents of Japanese names of Buddhist deities are given in parentheses with diacritical marks omitted. - Japanese historiography avoids using the term samurai when referring to Japanese warriors. This thesis follows the Japanese academic convention to use the term bushi instead. - The thesis employs the contemporary term tantō for Japanese daggers, and wakizashi for the Japanese short sword.1 - The term “pre-Tokugawa”