The Lone Samurai: The Life of Miyamoto Musashi - Softcover

Wilson, William Scott

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1590309871 ISBN 13: 9781590309872

Verlag: Shambhala, 2013

Inhaltsangabe

An expert on samurai history paints a vivid, multi-faceted portrait of feudal Japan and Miyamoto Musashi—the legendary swordsman who wrote the classic martial arts treatise, The Book of Five Rings
 
Born in 1584, Miyamoto Musashi was the legendary samurai known throughout the world as a master swordsman, spiritual seeker, and author of the classic book on strategy, The Book of Five Rings. Over 350 years after his death, Musashi and his legacy still fascinate readers worldwide, inspiring artists, authors, and filmmakers.
 
In The Lone Samurai, respected translator and expert on samurai culture William Scott Wilson presents both a vivid account of a fascinating period in feudal Japan and a portrait of the courageous, iconoclastic samurai who wrestled with philosophical and spiritual ideas that are as relevant today as they were in his time. For Musashi, the way of the martial arts was about mastery of the mind rather than simply technical prowess—and it is this path to mastery that is the core teaching in his Book of Five Rings. This special volume includes supplemental material on Musashi’s legacy as a martial arts icon, his impact on literature and film, and the influence of his Book of Five Rings.

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William Scott Wilson is the foremost translator into English of traditional Japanese texts on samurai culture. He received BA degrees from Dartmouth College and the Monterey Institute of Foreign Studies, and an MA in Japanese literary studies from the University of Washington. His best-selling books include The Book of Five Rings, The Unfettered Mind, and The Lone Samurai, a biography of Miyamoto Musashi.

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From Chapter One:
The Way of the Sword: Banshu to Ganryu Island
First strike
O ne morning in 1596, just outside the village of Hirafuku in the province of Banshu, Arima Kihei, a swordsman of the Shinto-ryu, sat waiting for a formal apology. This was to be delivered by a thirteen¬year-old boy, Miyamoto Bennosuke, the local gaki daisho, or “commander-in-chief” of every ruffian in the area, and the chief instigator of every outrage in Hirafuku.
Kihei had arrived in the area a few days earlier, put up a simple bamboo fence, and erected a placard announcing in large gold letters that he would accept a match with anyone willing to enter a contest of skill with him. Why he chose to come to such an out-of-the-way place as Hirafuku is uncertain. He may have heard that a master of the sword and the jitte, a certain Hirata Munisai, lived not too far away, and hoped to attract his attention.
He was, however, to be disappointed. It was a young Bennosuke, rather than the seasoned Munisai or any other wandering swordsman, who noticed the placard. On his way home at the time from a calligraphy lesson, Bennosuke took out his brush and ink, smeared over the gold letters of Kihei’s sign and, in a fit of bravado, wrote, “Miyamoto Bennosuke, residing at the Shoren-in, will give you a match tomorrow.”
When Kihei returned to the spot and saw this bit of vandalism, he responded by sending a disciple to the Shoren-in, where the youngster Bennosuke lived with his uncle, the priest Dorinbo. As Kihei’s disciple informed the priest that his master wished to accept the challenge from this Bennosuke, the priest turned ashen and explained that Bennosuke was only thirteen and that his challenge was just an adolescent prank. When informed of this, Kihei magnanimously sent a message to Dorinbo that he understood, but would need a formal apology from the boy in order to clear his honor. The priest readily accepted these terms.
So the following morning Kihei sat waiting for the priest and the boy to set the matter right. A number of villagers who had heard of the incident also gathered, probably to witness and enjoy the humiliation of this wayward child who was always causing so much trouble.
But as Dorinbo and Bennosuke approached, people noticed that the latter was carrying a six-foot staff. Then, to everyone’s surprise, just at the moment the apology was to be made, instead of bowing in humility, Bennosuke charged. Kihei was not expecting this and may have been caught off guard, but he was a practiced swordsman. Dodging the blow, he unsheathed his sword and took a stance. Surely the onlookers must have thought that the brash young challenger had no chance at all. But after a few exchanges, Bennosuke suddenly threw down his staff and grappled with Kihei. He then picked the swordsman up bodily and threw him down headfirst. Recovering his staff, he beat Kihei to death and returned home.
Long before writing The Book of Five Rings, Bennosuke would become known as Miyamoto Musashi.
In that book he refers to this match quite simply: “From long ago in my youth, I set my mind on the martial arts, and had my first match when I was thirteen. My opponent was a martial artist of the Shinto¬ryu, Arima Kihei, whom I defeated.”
But another record, the Tanji hokin hikki, provides insight into Bennosuke’s mental attitude at the time of the match: “At this point [Bennosuke] thought, ‘I was unbeaten by the enemy because I gave no thought to my life. I simply walked in and struck.’ ”
This attitude would inform his psychology for the rest of his life and become one of the main undercurrents of The Book of Five Rings.
His “enemy,” Arima Kihei, was most likely one of the many shugyosha of that period; a sword practitioner who perfected his skills and enhanced his reputation by wandering through the provinces of Japan engaging in combat—often mortal—with other swordsmen. A shugyosha took disciples or established his own style or school, but also always hoped to be noticed by the local lord, who might offer him an official position as sword instructor to his clan. The life of the shugyosha was by no means an easy one. It involved a long list of rigorous ascetic practices: in his travels, the shugyosha was exposed to cold and hot weather, often sleeping in the mountains and fields with little shelter from the wind and rain; he bore hunger without carrying money or rations for his travels; he walked through the most inaccessible places and was always in danger of losing either his reputation or his life in a chance match along the way.
Of the unfortunate Kihei himself, almost nothing is known, but he may not have been the most exemplary of shugyosha. One account, the Sayo gunshi, published in Hyogo Prefecture in 1926, relates: “There was a certain Arima Kihei who gambled and acted outrageously. Although an accomplished swordsman of the Shinto-ryu, in town he was despised as though he were a snake or scorpion.”
His style, the Shinto-ryu, was that of the legendary Tsukahara Bokuden, a master swordsman of a generation earlier; but the word “Shinto-ryu” may indicate any number of styles or substyles. There were, and still are, the Katori Shinto-ryu, the Kashima Shinto-ryu, and the way of the sword
Bokuden’s style as well. All of these came from the eastern provinces at that time and were offshoots of one basic tradition. (Interestingly, there was also an Arima Shinto-ryu created by a certain Arima Yama¬to no kami, and it may be that Kihei was either a member of that family or a disciple of the school.)
Nothing else is clear: only that Kihei was killed by the thirteen-year¬old Bennosuke (it should be noted in Kihei’s defense that, according to some accounts, Bennosuke had the stature of a young man three or four years older).
For his part, Bennosuke coolly returned to the Shoren-in to continue his studies in calligraphy, Confucianism, and Buddhism under the loose—and perhaps, after this turn of events, timid—direction of his uncle Dorinbo. He also studied some painting, probably on his own; when he departed the temple for good, he left a painting of the Zen patriarch, Daruma, presaging his emergence some thirty-five years later as one of Japan’s finest india ink painters. But, for the three years following the match, he lived now at the Shoren-in near Hirafuku, and now with his sister, Ogin, in the village of Miyamoto, close to the provincial border in Sakushu. Finally, in the early spring of 1599, he deeded all of his family’s possessions—weapons, furniture, and family tree—to his sister’s husband, Yoemon, and walked out of Miyamoto and up into the hills with one of his friends. At Kama Slope, having been presented with Bennosuke’s staff as a keepsake, his friend turned back to Miyamoto and obscurity. Bennosuke—who from this point became known as Miyamoto Musashi— walked out of obscurity and on to become Japan’s most famous and singular swordsman.
Origins
There is nothing particularly remarkable about the low mountains and hills between the villages of Hirafuku and Miyamoto. In the late 1500s, the area contained scattered farming villages dotted with houses and fields and, in Miyamoto, a river of no very great size. Yet while the landscape was generally one of peace and tranquility, if a traveler climbed the Kama Slope, as Musashi did on his departure, he would come out onto a pass in the middle of the mountains. This was the highway between Harima (Banshu) and Mimasaka (Sakushu), which during the ensuing Edo period (1603–1868) was part of the road used for the sankin kotai, the journey to Edo (Tokyo) taken by the...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Shambhala
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2013
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 1590309871
• ISBN 13: 9781590309872
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 304
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
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