The Lone Samurai

by William Scott Wilson

  There were exceptions certainly, and Kato Kiyomasa (1562–1611), who was commander of Kumamoto Castle just before the Hosokawa, believed that any warrior who studied poetry would soon become “feminized.” He famously declared that anyone who studied the dancing in Noh drama should commit suicide. But the ideal had been established long before, and most daimyo dabbled in poetry, tried their hands at art—or at least collected it—and participated in the tea ceremony as it came into vogue. These men considered such artistic activities not just as pastimes, but as actually legitimizing their positions of power. Imagawa Ryoshun (1325–1420), one of the most powerful and cultured daimyo of his time, put the matter quite clearly in his “Regulations.” His very first sentence proclaims: “If you do not know the Way of culture, in the end you will be unable to grasp victory in the Way of the martial.” He later states:

  It is written in the Four Books and the Five Classics [of Confucian learning] and in the military writings as well, that one will be unable to govern if he is lacking in the study of literature. In the same way that the Buddha preached the various dharmas in order to save all sentient beings, we [warriors] should rack our brains and never abandon the Two Ways of the Cultural and Martial [bunbu ryodo].

  It was the Hosokawa clan that took this ideal to its extreme. Tadatoshi’s father, Tadaoki, or Sansai (1563–1645), was a veteran of many campaigns, famous for his front-line courage and armor innovations. As a child, he was, from time to time, left to the care of his servants in a poor section of Kyoto, where, as his father intended, he learned self-sufficiency and frugality. With an ingenuity rare for the son of a daimyo, he could repair his own clothing and, later, show workers how best to shape the huge stones for castle battlements. Yet he was also a master of the tea ceremony, becoming one of the seven chief disciples of the great tea innovator, Sen no Rikyu; and commissioned black raku tea bowls from the famous potter, Chojiro. Tadaoki was a poet and a painter as well as a master of lacquerware who created exquisite works of extraordinary craftsmanship.

  Tadaoki’s father, Fujitaka, or Yusai (1534–1610), became the head of his fief at the age of twenty, participated in over fifty campaigns throughout his career, but was also well known as a poet and scholar of the Kokinshu, the classic anthology of poetry compiled by Ki no Tsurayuki about the year 905. As was typical of the man and of the Hosokawa in general, Tadaoki, when his castle was being attacked in 1600, feared for the loss of the notes and books he had collected on the Kokinshu over the years. A delegation of aristocrats who carried a message of this concern to his attackers was allowed to enter the castle and take out the manuscripts for safekeeping. As they left the castle, Yusai handed them a poem in gratitude:

  These words I bequeath:

  the seeds of the heart,

  in this unchanging

  world both past

  and present.

  The Hosokawa family’s aptitude for balancing the literary and the martial, however, went back even farther. It was first demonstrated by its progenitor, Hosokawa Yoriharu, in about the year 1335. At an archery contest in honor of the emperor Godaigo, Yoriharu demonstrated almost unbelievable skill. Then, putting down his bow and taking up brush and ink, he composed a poem for the monarch, who was looking on in amazement. This level of skill in both the arts of war and the arts of peace would distinguish the Hosokawa clan for generations to come.

  When Musashi met Tadatoshi at the poetry circle in Kyoto, he encountered a man whose interests were as broad as his own. Tadatoshi had been an avid swordsman from the time he was young, and at this point was intensely studying the Yagyu Shinkage-ryu, having been initiated into this style by Munenori himself. He had even received a certificate from the Yagyu—a blank sheet of paper indicating that “with a blank sheet of paper, the mind of the martial artist is transmitted.” Three years younger than Musashi, Tadatoshi had heard all the details about the fight at Ganryu Island, and had nothing but respect for the man who had bested the instructor to the Hosokawa. Like his father and grandfather, Tadatoshi was a man of letters and was interested in several of the arts. Interestingly, he also concerned himself with garden design, and the garden that he established in Kumamoto in 1632, the Suizenji, is still considered today one of the most beautiful in all of Kyushu.

  So their conversation that day in Kyoto likely ranged over a number of topics, and the two men must have recognized each other as Seekers of the Way who had a great deal in common. Tadatoshi, as the circumspect leader of a highly esteemed clan, would no doubt have then corresponded a number of times with his brother-in-law, Ogasawara Tadazane, to find out more about who this swordsman really was. Musashi was fifty-seven at this time; Tadatoshi, fifty-four.

  A PLACE IN THE SEATING ORDER

  In 1640, then, Hosokawa Tadatoshi sent one of his most diplomatically skilled retainers, Iwama Rokubei, to Kokura with a message inviting Musashi to reside at Kumamoto.2 The retainer was to express Tadatoshi’s intentions and inquire into the expectations and conditions that Musashi would have if he were to make the move. Musashi was well known to be somewhat eccentric, and Iwama realized he would need to put his heart and soul into this mission.

  Initially, Musashi was shocked at the invitation. To reside on the Hosokawa fief was in itself an honor, but Tadatoshi seemed to be offering much more: friendship and an official sanctioning of Musashi’s sword style, which Musashi was now calling the Niten Ichi-ryu. Thus he sent back a response to Tadatoshi in a statement carried by his intermediary, Sakazaki Naizen:

  Concerning your inquiry about my situation through the services of Master Iwama Rokubei, it is difficult to apologize enough for sending a verbal statement, but I bring these things to your attention with this note.

  —I have never held an office up to this time. I am already on in years and recently feel that I am sick. For this reason, I have no aspirations. If it turns out that I should stay [in Kumamoto], it would be enough if I were given the position of wearing proper armor and leading a single horse when my lord himself rides out. I have no wife or child and my body is old, so I entertain no thoughts about house or household goods.

  —Since I was young, I have gone out on the battlefield six times. On four of those occasions, there was no one on the field before me. This fact is widely known and there is also proof. Nevertheless, I do not bring this up to plead for a position.

  —As to the make-up of arms, how they are appropriately used on the battlefield, and, according to the occasion, the way of regulating the province, I have set my mind on these things since my youth and have trained diligently. Thus, if Your Lordship has any questions, I will humbly speak out.

  February 1640

  Miyamoto Musashi

  Terms were quickly arranged, and Musashi left for Kumamoto in the spring of that year—but not without an ambiguous omen concerning his fate. In accordance with what he had written about his health to Tadatoshi, as he left Kokura, he erected a juzo, a sort of grave marker that one could put up while one is still alive, on Mount Tamuke, near Kokura Castle. Years later, in 1654, Iori and Shunzan, Musashi’s instructor in Zen, erected a stone monument—now called the Kokura Hibun3—to him on this same spot.

  Musashi was given an allowance for seventeen men and an annual stipend of two hundred koku of rice. His status was that of a guest, but his place in the seating order at meetings was equal to the head of a large military group. For his residence he was given land at the old Chiba Castle in Kumamoto.

  There have been writers who have made critical remarks about these terms, especially the relatively low stipend of two hundred koku, stating that this was not much considering Musashi’s status as a swordsman. But the conditions that were provided for Musashi were far better than he had requested, and the honor given him in terms of the seating order was surprisingly high. He was, after all, not a retainer but a guest, and his stipend was outside the fief’s ordinary wage system. Musashi had lived his whole life in simplicity and he would insist on that ideal to the end. Just days before dying, he
wrote “The Way of Walking Alone,” his final words of advice to his students and disciples. Among the items in this short work are

  Do not ever think in acquisitive terms.

  Do not harbor hopes for your own personal home.

  Do not be intent on possessing valuables or a fief in old age.

  Again, like the haiku poet Matsuo Basho, Musashi was an artist and his goals were not those of the common run. There is certainly no indication that he was anything but pleased with his new situation.

  Indeed, Musashi seemed to thrive in Kumamoto, despite the fact that his health was on the decline. He was able to set up a dojo, take in a number of talented disciples, and devote himself to other pursuits for which he would become as well known as he was for his swordsmanship. Before looking into those pursuits, however, we should return briefly to his relationship with Hosokawa Tadatoshi.

  LAST BOUTS

  Before Musashi came to live with the Hosokawa, a man by the name of Ujii Yashiro had been dispatched by the Yagyu clan to Kumamoto, where he became personal instructor to the Hosokawa. Not long after Musashi’s arrival, however, a match between the two swordsmen was secretly arranged by order of Lord Tadatoshi. Contrary to the usual arrangements for such bouts and suggesting the level of Tadatoshi’s sensitivity, there was to be no judgment of winning or losing from either side, and even the lord’s personal retainers were kept at a distance. Both men were to use wooden swords, and there were to be three bouts.

  The result was predictable: Because he no longer fought to make an indisputable statement and because he was in the presence of Lord Tadatoshi, Musashi did not strike with strength, but only controlled Ujii’s technique, not letting him move at will. Greatly surprised, Tadatoshi took up a wooden sword and engaged in a bout with Musashi himself, but he was able to get no further than had Ujii. The goodnatured lord exclaimed that he had heard a great deal about Musashi’s reputation, but had never thought that he was this strong! Although Tadatoshi had always treated Musashi as a respected teacher, from that time on, he began practicing the Niten Ichi-ryu himself, and in due time inherited its teachings.

  Musashi’s last bout was held this same year with a retainer of the Hosokawa clan, Shioda Hamanosuke. Hamanosuke had served the Hosokawa since the time of Tadaoki and excelled in the techniques of staff and take-down. He instructed the clan’s warriors and received a stipend that was enough to support five men. This bout, too, had been arranged by Tadatoshi. Hamanosuke wielded his usual six-foot staff and Musashi carried a short wooden sword.

  During the match, Hamanosuke swung his staff every time he found a chance, but the tip of the staff was invariably checked by Musashi’s short sword. As in the bout with Ujii, Musashi’s opponent was unable to make any advance at all, while Musashi himself made no move to put the man out of the contest. Finally, Musashi said, “Hamanosuke has no way of beating me, but if he can get within six feet of me, I’ll consider the victory his.”

  Infuriated, Hamanosuke threw away his staff and went to grapple with the swordsman. And yet, despite Hamanosuke’s expertise in this area, he was repeatedly maneuvered to the side by Musashi and was never able to get close enough to apply his skills. At this, Hamanosuke understood that he had been truly beaten. He bowed, set aside his own style, and asked to become Musashi’s disciple.

  Musashi, however, realized that Hamanosuke’s techniques with staff and take-down were superb, and so he instead requested that the man teach them to his own disciples. Today these techniques are included in the Musashi style. Musashi was fifty-seven years old at that time. Hamanosuke lived on to teach the next generation of Hosokawa men, finally passing away when he was well past the age of seventy.

  THE THIRTY-FIVE ARTICLES OF THE MARTIAL ARTS

  As mentioned earlier, Tadatoshi was not only an enthusiastic martial artist, but a highly educated man, and it was likely from both of these standpoints that he was taken with the eccentric Musashi. The Hosokawa clan had long been considered one of the most cultured daimyo families in both the arts and literature, and one of the most sophisticated in governance and diplomacy. Thus it should not be surprising that Tadatoshi appreciated Musashi and put great stock in his abilities, beckoning him to his inner circle to discuss governmental matters, and often inviting him into his presence. Musashi, too, by the time he entered Kumamoto, was not only a famous martial artist but a “man of taste,” superbly accomplished in the arts of painting and sculpture.

  Tadatoshi seems to have relied on Musashi’s judgment in areas beyond military affairs and governance. The daimyo, for example, once asked the swordsman if he had noticed any men of special ability among his samurai. Musashi said that he had noticed one, but that he did not know the man’s name. When the warriors were brought out for inspection, Musashi identified the man, whose name was Toko Kinbei. This seemed strange because to all others, Kinbei appeared to be a perfectly run-of-the-mill retainer who had never stood out from the crowd. When Tadatoshi looked quizzically at Musashi, the latter asked Kinbei if he practiced any special discipline beyond the usual martial arts. Kinbei replied only that he slept every night with a sword suspended tip-down just over his head, and that this helped him to be resolved about the fine line between life and death and to be unwavering in the service of his lord. Tadatoshi was once again amazed at Musashi’s perceptive observation.

  Years later, when he was employed in the repairs of Edo Castle, this Kinbei was appointed supervisor of the Hosokawa group of workmen. At one point, his subordinates took stones from a setting done by another clan and fit them into their own setting. Kinbei was accused of the crime, and a Tokugawa official tortured him horribly for it on a daily basis. Kinbei continued to calmly declare his own innocence, and he was finally released. The figure he had cut while enduring torture, however, had not gone unnoticed, and he was considered extraordinarily manly and heroic. Musashi had not been amiss in his assessment of the man.

  Added to Musashi’s other skills was the thorough education that he had somehow given himself in literature and in writing itself. With very few exceptions, most of the top-notch martial artists who had established their own styles could neither read nor write, and those who could were not sufficiently educated to write about the styles they had established. This job was usually left to either Buddhist priests or later disciples. Thus Musashi was far above the majority of his peers in his literary abilities as well.

  Within a year of his coming to Kumamoto, Musashi was asked by Tadatoshi to write down the essence of his style. This he did in a short work entitled The Thirty-five Articles of the Martial Arts, which he presented to Tadatoshi in February of 1641.

  The work, which actually contains thirty-six articles, is a tersely worded treatise on the fundamental principles of Musashi’s Niten Ichi-ryu, barely covering fifteen pages of modern Japanese print.4 It is now considered to be the outline or prototype for The Book of Five Rings, and its basic premises will be covered later in a discussion of that book. Its headings—such as Movement of the Feet, Use of the Eyes, and The Three Initiatives—are much the same as in Musashi’s masterpiece, but the explanatory paragraphs lack the detail of the later work. The arrangement of the contents is also somewhat different. In the opening paragraph of The Thirty-five Articles, he wrote,

  Having trained myself daily in the Two Heavens, One Style, I now take brush to paper. Though the sequence is inadequate and the words difficult to express, in the following I have written out my general understanding of the sword of the martial arts, into which I have always put great effort.

  Despite Musashi’s apologetic phrase that “the sequence is inadequate and the words difficult to express,” Tadatoshi was overjoyed at receiving this small book, and felt that he had obtained one of the great treasures of his life. The next step would be to officially sanction Musashi’s style and to place it under the full patronage of the Hosokawa clan, much as the Yagyu Style had come under the patronage of the Tokugawa. Sadly, this was not to be.

  AN END AND A BEGINNING


  On 17 March 1641, about one month after receiving The Thirty-five Articles, Tadatoshi passed away from an illness. He was just fifty-five years old, and his death was a blow for people from Kumamoto to Edo. This was a man who was well respected, a trusted advisor to the shogun Iemitsu, and on friendly terms with the powerful Nabeshima and Kuroda clans in the neighboring provinces. He was also on intimate terms with the famous Zen priest, Takuan Soho; with Ishikawa Jozan, the eccentric literati poet who created the Shisendo hermitage in Kyoto; and with the scholar, Hayashi Rasan. All of these men wrote notes to the Hosokawa family expressing their grief at the passing of this educated and cultured man.5

  The Hosokawa clan chronology (Hosokawa-ke nenpu) states that “Lord Tadatoshi was a famous general, proficient in both the military and literary arts. He excelled in the Six Accomplishments.”

  One of Tadatoshi’s greatest “accomplishments” was the art of the sword. To have had Musashi as an advisor and sometime companion in the last two years of his life must have been a happiness for him beyond compare. For Musashi, Tadatoshi had been an incomparable friend. For a while after his lord’s death, Musashi stayed in his room with the door closed and mourned the passing of the man who had been closer to him than anyone else at any point during the fifty-eight years of his life. In due time, he opened his door and reentered the world, but it would not be as it had been. Nor would Musashi be as he had been. While still teaching his disciples as before, he now directed his life toward concentrating more on the arts: the tea ceremony, Noh recitation, poetry, and, above all, painting.