Author: Oscar Ratti & Adele Westbrook
Pub: 1973 by Charles E. Tuttle Co.
Pages: 483
TABLE OF CONTENTS PREFACE INTRODUCTION: The Martial Ethos Definition of Bujutsu and Its Specializations The Qualification "Martial" (Bu) and the Exponents of Bujutsu The Qualification "Martial" (Bu) and the Art of War The Military Tradition in the History of Japan Origins of Bujutsu
Back Cover:
Secrets of the Samurai is the definitive study of the
martial arts of feudal Japan, explaining in detail the weapons, techniques,
strategies, and principles of combat that made the Japanese warrior a formidable
foe. Beginning with a panoramic survey of the tumultuous early struggles of
warlords contending for political ascendancy, the work outlines the relentless
progression of the military class toward absolute power In addition to
illustrating actual methods of combat, the authors discuss in detail the crucial
training necessary to develop a warrior's inner power and to concentrate all has
energies into a single force. Secrets of the Samurai is the essential text for
anyone with an interest in Japanese combat techniques, weaponry, or military
tradition.
Oscar Ratti and Adele Westbrook met at Columbia University in
New York, where he was doing graduate work in classical languages and she
studying philosophy. Both share a longtime interest in the thought and rituals
of ancient civilizations. Experts on the Japanese warrior arts and ethos, they
are also the authors of Aikido and the Dynamic
Sphere.
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PREFACE
The Japanese experience in, and contribution
to, the theory and practice of individual combat, armed and unarmed, is
certainly among the most ancient, sophisticated, and enduring ever recorded. One
need only consider the present worldwide popularity of jujutsu, judo, karate,
aikido, kendo, kyudo, and so forth, which are essentially modern adaptations or
derivations, to appreciate the continuing influence of ancient Japanese methods
of combat. The ancient martial arts were developed and refined during an
extended period of direct experimentation on the battlefields of pre-Tokugawa
Japan; later, during the centuries of absolute isolation which generated the
proper conditions, they were thoroughly revised and ultimately ritualized into
transmissible patterns of exercise and technique. The effectiveness of the
modern adaptations is attested to by the fact that they have deeply influenced
and, in many instances, almost completely replaced other national methods of
combat practiced for sporting purposes and as part of the utilitarian and
practical training programs of military and police forces.
The present
work is a survey of the major specializations of the martial experience, known
in feudal Japan as martial arts, or bujutsu. These arts are presented in terms
of the persons directly or indirectly involved with, or subjected to, this
systematic violence (part 1); the particular weapons and techniques which
assigned to each martial art its position and relative importance within the
body of bujutsu teachings, here termed the doctrine of bujutsu (part 2); the
factors of inner control and power as well as strategies and motivations, which,
when compared to the above-mentioned elements, were considered by the ancients
as being of equal (if not greater) significance, due to their importance in
implementing the various combat methods (part 3).
Any inquiry into the
history, instruments, and strategic functionality of the martial arts of feudal
Japan is bound to encounter serious and often seemingly insurmountable obstacles
in the selection of basic reference material as well as in the interpretation of
the terms employed therein. In this work, terminology should present no
difficulties, for in the Index the terms most frequently used in the martial
arts to define and illustrate their functional characteristics are listed along
with the number of the page on which each term appears for the first time in the
main text and where its meaning is briefly explained and/or illustrated.
Decidedly more difficult to resolve are doctrinal problems- that is, problems
arising from conflicting references (direct and indirect, ancient and modern, in
both the original language and in translation) to the specializations of the
Japanese experience in the ancient art of combat.
Among the direct
sources of information used in the compilation of this book are translations of
records contained in scrolls (makimono) and manuscripts belonging to masters and
representatives of particular schools of the martial arts, whose founders were
courageous enough to defy the age-old Japanese custom of secrecy and
exclusiveness in order to add the results of their experience, as Yamashita
phrased it, to "the common stock of knowledge" of the entire human race. Direct
information of particular value to any study of armed bujutsu is also provided
by a review of the huge collections of weapons and armor available in the major
museums and art galleries of the world, as well as items of interest held by
private collectors. Indirect sources of information on bujutsu in general would
include the Japanese classics, religious and philosophical texts and treatises,
and poems and chronicles of the nation-primarily works which concern themselves
with aspects of the national culture other than the military but contain oblique
and often highly illuminating references to the specializations of bujutsu. All
these sources are equally vital because they integrate, confirm, or modify one
another, thus helping the student of bujutsu to determine their respective
degrees of re-liability, historical authenticity, and, consequently, their
usefulness to any program of research and interpretation. In carrying out such
research, it becomes evident that the doctrine of the Japanese martial arts is
heir to that failing common to every doctrine devised by man; that is, the
further back one's historical research is carried, the harder it becomes to
distinguish fact from fiction. The Japanese chronicles of antiquity are
particularly susceptible to animistic and mystical interpretations of events,
and this tendency-still very much in evidence in the records of disciplines of
combat which have emerged during the last century-is further compounded by the
highly individualistic approach of each master to the theory and practice of
armed and unarmed combat. This approach is clearly exclusivistic and unilateral,
being centered primarily upon the merits and virtues of this or that
representative or founder of a particular school, with only a few obscure
references to those techniques or methods of combat which made them
famous.
When confronted with the wealth of available written records
concerning the schools of unarmed combat (presumably issued in the seventeenth
and eighteenth centuries), each extolling a particular school of bujutsu or a
particular master, the modern observer is often forced to ask himself a question
similar to that posed by a famous translator of Lao-tzu's Tao Te Ching, in
relation to the various philosophical schools active during a particular period
of Chinese history: "May it not be the case that some of these schools were very
much alike but each had to put up a different 'slogan' in order to be an
independent school, since in the Warring States period, so much was to be gained
by this claim?" (Lau, 50). This particular approach to the problems of combat
(adopted by many ancient and modern teachers of bujutsu, and so reflected in
chronicles of the martial arts) is historically misleading because it
presupposes an initial originality at the root of each school, as well as a
widespread and individualistic type of excellence which is very rare in any
culture and must have been particularly unusual in the highly conformistic and
restrictive world of feudal Japan. Numerous warriors, after all, had trained in
many different schools of bujutsu, and almost all the masters of those schools
had done exactly the same thing before opening their own centers of
instruction-which would implicitly negate a basic prerequisite of strict
originality: isolation. Such an approach, moreover, makes any attempt to produce
a syncretic and anthological study of the martial arts extremely difficult,
because it presents a kaleidoscopic collection of arts, each pulling
centrifugally away from any concept of basic unity. The aim of the present
study, therefore, is to establish a platform of observation from which the
martial arts of feudal Japan may be analyzed as expressions of a strongly
unified and conformistic culture and, consequently, as methods of combat which,
notwithstanding obvious differences in their choice of weapons, produced great
similarities in their bodies of techniques and, above all, an almost identical
conception of those inner factors and activating motivations which made those
techniques relevant and effective in combat. This global and syncretic approach
to the study of bujutsu is necessitated by the current abundance of specialized
presentations of the individual martial arts and, in particular, of those
derived from ancient bujutsu, which, as indicated earlier, have made such names
as jujutsu, judo, karate, aikido, and kendo famous the world over. The authors'
aim has been primarily that of restoring a certain balance between the
specialized knowledge of each martial art and the comprehensive knowledge of
them all, even if only from a historical standpoint. The twin dangers which we
have recognized and sought to avoid were those of overspecialization (an
exaggerated emphasis upon only one expression of the Japanese experience in the
art of combat) and superficial eclecticism (a dispersive and necessarily diluted
exposition of them all). It is our hope that a general knowledge of all the
martial arts will help to deepen and expand the reader's understanding of
each-the way a detail, for example, becomes even more significant when observed
within that larger, richer, and more harmonious context of which it is but a
part.
Those of us interested in the evolution of that experience in the
art of individual confrontation throughout its many forms and specialized
manifestations must inevitably seek to relate the parts to the whole. Thus a
syncretic approach to bujutsu, intended to provide a general framework within
which to comprehend clearly its various components, underlies and motivates the
present study in its entirety.
In synthesis, for those readers
particularly interested in bujutsu, it is to be hoped that this introductory
study will satisfy an immediate need and constitute a broad foundation for
further studies of the ancient Japanese martial arts, or at least provide a
panoramic background for those already in existence.
It is also intended
to provide the basis for another type of research, linked to the problem of
human violence as systematically exercised in those practices man has found
difficult to discard along the path of his evolutionary history. This type of
research enters the domain of ethics, of those moral justifications which
supposedly influence man's actions and (within the context of bujutsu) will
determine his behavior in combat against his fellowman. Unfortunately,
considerations and analyses of the morality of the martial arts (viewed as being
of primary significance by those masters who have pro-vided interesting and
varied solutions to the moral dilemma a man had to confront and resolve in
combat) will, of necessity, be somewhat limited in this work, since its central
subject is their historical background, their weapons and techniques, their
strategies and phases of application-those factors and elements which made them
extremely effective within the immediate and utilitarian reality of combat. The
observations on the ethical implications of bujutsu which the authors have
included in the text form the foundation for an ensuing volume (tentatively
entitled Budo: The Way of the Warrior) which will deal almost exclusively with
the motivations, ethics, and metaphysics of those arts which, throughout their
long and bloody history, have seemed truly noble and worthy in a universal or
comprehensive sense in only a comparatively few, exceptional
instances.
As will become apparent from a cursory glance at the Table of
Contents, this study embraces a variety of martial arts and covers an extensive
period of Japanese history. Consequently, it revolves around and upon an immense
amount of material which had to be considered, interpreted, and presented
systematically if a more illuminating doctrine than the one available today were
to be developed. It is not the authors' intention to provide a definitive answer
to all the problems of doctrinary interpretation found in the vast amount of
literature on bujutsu, or to engage in a doctrinary monologue of their own
which, however expressive or novel, would still, by its very nature, be
unrelated to and radically different from that dialogue in which the "common
stock of knowledge," mentioned by Yamashita in his analysis of the secretive
approach to bujutsu, is enriched through the active contributions of many
individuals. In fact, the studies and opinions of many authors who have written
about bujutsu, both ancient and modern, have provided the initial basis for this
syncretic approach to the martial arts (as clearly evidenced by the extensive
use of direct quotations, often from works presently relegated to undeserved
oblivion, notwithstanding their value as pioneer attempts in the exploration of
this particular aspect of an alien culture).
In this context it will
doubtless be useful for the reader, wishing to retrace our steps through the
ofttimes confusing maze of the doctrine of bujutsu and personally refer to the
sources of information we have used in preparing this work, to understand the
"key" to the system of quotation and referral we have adopted. This system is,
first of all, generic and comprehensive, as expressed through the lists of books
collected in the Bibliography of this study and arranged in alphabetical order
according to the names of those authors whose works have been invaluable in
providing a first, panoramic view of bujutsu. But this system is also specific
and specialized, as expressed through the many direct quotations which appear
throughout the text, extracted selectively from the works of those authors whom
we consider invaluable sources of information concerning particular aspects of
bujutsu. The reader who wishes to explore any of these particular aspects will
find, at the end of each quotation, in parenthesis, the name of the author and
the number of the page in his book or article which contains the passage quoted.
The reader may then turn to the Bibliography for details concerning the edition
to which we are referring. For 'example, the first quotation in the section
entitled "The Military Tradition in the History of Japan" is followed by
parentheses which contain the name "Hearn" and the number "259." The reader who
refers to the Bibliography under the alphabetical listing of "Hearn, Lafcadio"
will find the title of the book from which the quotation was extracted: "Japan:
An Interpretation," plus details of publication, "Tokyo: Charles E. Tuttle Co.,
1962." There are, however, a number of authors who have written more than one
pertinent book on the subject of bujutsu. In those cases where more than one
book is listed, each work has been assigned a number, and this number appears in
the Bibliography within brackets and as a superior number after the author's
name within the parentheses which follow the pertinent quotation in the body of
the book. Quotations from the three studies on bujutsu by Edward Gilbertson, for
example, are identified by the name of the author with in parentheses at the end
of each quotation in the text, then by a superior number 1, 2, or 3 after the
name (depending upon which study is being referred to), and finally by the page
number within that particular study. This will provide the reader with the
necessary "key" to the bibliographical listings of Gilbertson's works.
Throughout the book Japanese names are given in the order customary in Japan,
family name followed by personal name.
It would be highly gratifying if,
spurred by the present study, other students of bujutsu were encouraged to
overcome any narrow or sectarian barriers of doctrinal, scholastic, or
organizational isolation and exclusiveness which might be separating them from
one another, and plunge courageously into the study and analysis of records,
manuscripts, and current practices relative to the Japanese arts of combat. The
resulting dialogue or debate would enable them to share their experiences and
findings with others, thus furthering the development of a more comprehensive
perspective. But a dialogue, as Socrates pointed out, can only begin to
stimulate the interest by starting at a certain point and at a certain
moment-which is exactly what the present study, in its own way, from its own
platform of observation, and with its own method, has set out to
do.
Finally, it is the authors' fond hope that this book may prove as
stimulating to the reader as its production was to them, especially when they
surveyed the multiform landscape of an ancient culture and the often tragic but
brave attempts of its subjects to cope, in their own way, with the demands of a
harsh reality. Confronted as we are today with social and political turbulence,
living under the moment-to-moment threat of nuclear catastrophe, all studies of
man's experience in the art of violent confrontation have acquired a particular
relevancy. Almost everyone seems to agree that we must attempt to determine
whether man will be forever trapped by his apparently constitutional inclination
to employ any method, however lethal, to ensure his dominance over his
fellowmen, or whether he may-in time-be capable of ritualizing and then,
ultimately, transforming that pattern. In this endeavor, thoughtful studies of
man's past, with all its pitfalls and bloody errors, may prove to be a necessary
and valuable factor in the final equation.
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INTRODUCTION
The
Martial Ethos
Definition of Bujutsu and Its Specializations
The long
history and complex tradition of the Japanese art of combat is embodied in a
variety of forms, methods, and weapons, each of which constitutes a particular
specialization of that art. Each specialization, in turn, is known as a jutsu, a
word which may be translated as "method," "art," or "technique" and is
indicative of the particular way or ways in which certain actions are performed.
Historically, each art or method has developed certain procedures or patterns
which set it apart from the procedures and patterns of other arts. In the
context of the Japanese art of combat, therefore, a specialization consists of a
particular, systematic method of using a specific weapon.
Very often, a
specialization of combat was identified by the name of the weapon used by its
practitioners. An example of this system of identification would be kenjutsu-
that is, the art (jutsu) of the sword (ken). However, a combat method could also
be identified by the particular, functional way of using a weapon in order to
achieve an opponent's subjugation. Among the specializations of the art of
unarmed combat, for example, jujutsu identifies the art (jutsu) of suppleness (
ju) -- that is, the art of using suppleness in a certain technical way in order
to defeat an opponent. Frequently, a main specialization of combat would produce
subspecializations, many of which, through constant refinement, effectively
improved upon the original method to the extent of substituting for it entirely,
thus becoming independent specializations of combat in and of themselves. In
such a case, the subspecialization would generally be identified by the name of
its main feature. Kenjutsu, the art of the sword, for example, was further
refined into a deadly specialization known as iaijutsu-the art (jutsu) of
drawing (iai) and simultaneously cutting with the sword; it was also the matrix
for nito-kenjutsu, the art (jutsu) of fencing with two (nito) swords (ken).
Finally, a specialization could be identified by the name of the master who had
devised his own particular style of fighting or by the name of the school where
this particular style was taught.
The specializations of the Japanese art
of combat which are of particular relevance to this study are those which were
developed and brought to the highest degree of systematic perfection during the
feudal period of Japanese history. This period embraces a span of approximately
nine centuries, from the late ninth and early tenth centuries to the nineteenth
century-more precisely, to the year of the Meiji Restoration (1868), when, in a
manner characteristically Japanese, the feudal era was declared formally closed.
During the centuries of dominance by the Tokugawa (1600 to 1867), the
specializations of the art of combat inherited from the previous ages of turmoil
were thoroughly polished and perfected by a system of study surprisingly modern
in its methods of experimentation and observation; at the same time, new
specializations were devised and applied to help resolve the eternally
precarious problems of combat. The era of comparative peace forcefully imposed
by the Tokugawa, in fact, actually made it possible for many masters of the art
of combat to delve quite deeply into the mysteries and techniques of violent
confrontation and to test their findings within the repressed, hence extremely
virulent and explosive, reality of individual combat (large-scale battles being
few and far between).
In the doctrine of the Japanese martial arts we
find long lists of combat specializations. They are usually divided
systematically according to the particular views of the author discussing them.
Certain authors, for example, make a clear distinction between those
specializations formally practiced by the Japanese warrior (bushi) and those
which he despised because they were practiced by the members of other,
"inferior" classes within the rigidly stratified hierarchy of the Japanese
nation. Other authors divide them into armed and unarmed categories according to
the predominance of mechanical or anatomical weapons as the primary instruments
of combat.
In order to give the reader a panoramic view of the warrior's
specializations in the art of individual combat, we have endeavored to list in
chart 1 as many as possible of the various jutsu we have discovered in the
doctrine. The only attempt we have made to classify them at this time is by
dividing them into two major groups-armed and unarmed-subdividing the former
into three categories according to the importance and prestige traditionally
assigned them within the culture of feudal Japan. We have not attempted to
provide a specific translation of each name used in the Japanese doctrine to
identify a particular specialization of bujutsu or one of its possible
subspecializations, since many different names may be used to identify the same
basic method of combat. We have therefore deemed it advisable to leave the task
of proper identification to those sections in part 2 wherein they will be
examined individually. It is obvious that the Japanese nomenclature presents an
initial set of problems in identifying these jutsu, since so many of the names
imply or refer to concepts and functions of a rather complex and esoteric
nature-to the extent of defying attempts to establish a clear identification in
English without a preliminary examinations of these concepts and
functions.
The entire body of these specializations, the generic art of
combat, is most often termed bujutsu. This word is the phonetic rendering of two
Chinese ideograms, (bu) and (jutsu). Even in the earliest records of the
Japanese nation, bu was employed to denote the military dimension of its
national culture, as differentiated from, for example, the public dimension (ko)
or the civil dimension (bun), both of which were related primarily to the
functions of the imperial court. Bu thus appears in the composites buke and
bumon to identify "military families," as differentiated from the kuge and kudo
(ku being a phonetic variation of ko) which referred to "public nobles." Bu also
appears in bushi, "military nobles," and in buke seiji, "military rule," both
being neatly differentiated from bunji and bunji seiji, "nobles" and "civil
government." Even after the military class, upon accession to national power,
had become mired in its own bureaucracy, the original semantic associations with
bu remained to a considerable degree. As one scholar points out:
In
contemporary parlance, the Tokugawa shogunate was a particular instance of buke
seiji or bumon seiji, that is, "military government." In general, that
expression meant government by soldiers, or at least by officials whose titles
implied military command. It suggested the philosophic sense of a government
which relied for its control on force or the threat of force. (Webb,
5)
Combined with jutsu, which, as indicated above, may be literally
translated as "technique," "art," or "method," bu is used to represent the idea
of military technique or techniques (the plural being implied by the context in
which it is used), military arts, or military methods. Since the military aspect
of Japanese culture was almost entirely dominated by the figure of the Japanese
feudal warrior (the prototype of the fighting man, known as a bushi or samurai),
the term bujutsu was, and to a great extent still is, employed to denote the
techniques, arts, and methods of combat developed and practiced primarily (if
not exclusively) by the members of the military class. By semantic implication,
then, the term bujutsu identifies the martial arts of Japan.
There were,
of course, other terms employed by the doctrine of these arts in an attempt to
express as clearly and as specifically as possible their nature and purposes.
The word bugei, for example, is one of these-formed by the combination of the
ideogram (bu: military, martial) and the ideogram (gei: method, accomplishment).
Bujutsu, however, seems more particularly related to the technical nature and
strategic functionality of these arts, to the instrumental "how," or way, in
which these techniques of combat achieved their purposes, while bugei appears to
be a more generic and comprehensive term, including and implying technically
quite specialized forms of bujutsu as well as various
subspecializations.
The word bujutsu, then, is used in the Japanese
doctrine of the art of combat to represent all those specializations of the
general art of combat practiced by the Japanese fighting man, or professional
warrior of Japan, as well as by various members of other social classes who
practiced any of the individual combat arts. Bujutsu, we wish to emphasize, is
particularly related to the practical, technical, and strategic aspects of these
arts, as indicated by the use of the ideogram for technique. When these
specializations are intended as disciplines with an end or purpose of a more
educational or ethical nature, "technique" becomes "way" (do), meaning the
"path" toward a spiritual rather than purely practical achievement.
The
criteria used by the authors in deciding whether a specialization should be
included in this study were as follows: it must have occupied a position of
traditional importance in Japanese feudal culture; it must have been
strategically relevant in and to individual combat; and, finally, it must have
been widely known and practiced. The specializations fulfilling all three of
these requirements are examined in part 2 after a preliminary study of the armor
which influenced so many of the weapons and techniques used in the various arts.
The order followed in presenting the various martial arts assigns a position of
priority to archery, spearmanship, swordsmanship, horsemanship, and swimming in
armor, since the main protagonist of Japanese history, the warrior or bushi,
practiced these arts on a professional basis. The discussion of these
specializations, which are termed "major martial arts," will then be followed by
an examination of other arts, termed "minor martial arts," such as the art of
the war fan and that of the staff; which were also considered traditional as
well as strategically important and were quite popular with the members of
various other classes of Japanese society. Finally, we will examine several
specializations of the art of combat which do not fulfill all three of the
criteria listed above and, therefore, are termed "collateral arts of combat."
The science of firearms (bojutsu), that of fortification (chikujojutsu), and
that of field deployment (sen-jojutsu) are excluded from this study because they
are related more specifically to the art of war-to the art of collective rather
than individual combat.
All these major, minor, and collateral
specializations of bujutsu are classified as armed because they were based
predominantly upon the use of mechanical weapons or assortments of weapons,
which distinguished them from those specializations of the art of combat in
which the primary weapon was a part or parts of the human body. The un-armed
specializations will be examined in part 2.
In addition to an analysis of
the historical background, the discussion of each art includes a study of its
characteristic factors, such as the weapons employed, the particular techniques
or ways of employing them, the mental attitude adopted in order to face combat
with confidence, and the type of power or energy needed to use those weapons
properly-all the factors that blend in forming the art and guarantee its
strategic efficiency in combat as well as its significance as a contribution to
the theory of combat.
The authors have divided the above-mentioned
factors into two categories: the first includes factors such as the weapons and
the techniques of each specialization, which may be qualified as outer or
external because they are easily perceivable; the second embraces factors such
as mental control and power, which may not be as visually (or immediately)
impressive as the factors in the first category but which determine, from
within, the degree of efficiency of both the weapons and the techniques. This
second category of factors, therefore, contains the inner or interior factors of
bujutsu. In the study which follows, the outer factors are examined in part 2
and the inner factors in part 3. The main reason for treating these factors
separately is that while the weapons and techniques of bujutsu differed to a
certain extent in structure and functionality from one specialization to
another, the mental attitude and the power needed to control them from within
appear to have been substantially identical. Hence, it was decided to illustrate
these inner factors separately and as a systematic whole, avoiding a repetition
of concepts and ideas which are basically uniform throughout the various
specializations. Even so, particular references are made to the ways in which
these inner factors were interpreted and applied in the most important
specializations.
In part 3, our aim is to present a unified and
systematic view of certain theories propounded by a number of ancient masters of
bujutsu-theories which, by and large, appear only in a fragmented fashion in the
doctrine and are generally interpreted in an exclusivistic sense by the adepts
of each specialization. The theories of the major strategies of combat and the
principles of their application are also illustrated so as to unify them within
a systematic whole and avoid having the particular character of one confuse or
blur a panoramic view of all.
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The Qualification "Martial" (Bu) and
the Exponents of Bujutsu
The extensive and general use of the
qualification "martial" by Western authors when discussing the art of combat
(although admittedly based upon Japanese records) can be misleading. We may be
easily led to falsely assume, for example, that the warrior (bushi) of feudal
Japan, the prototype of the martial man, was the sole originator of these arts
or that he alone practiced them. "Martial" is, of course, etymologically related
to Mars, the Roman god of war, and consequently to war, warriors, military
pursuits, and soldiers. By implication, this assumption could also lead us to
qualify the specializations of the art of combat as arts of war, thus relating
them more to the battlefield and to mass involvements of men and materiel than
to individual confrontations. Neither of these assumptions, however, would be
quite correct. To begin with, the Japanese warrior of the feudal era was not the
sole practitioner of bujutsu, nor was he, by any means, the sole originator of
its specializations. His predominant identification as the Japanese fighting man
par excellence may be traced back, with a certain degree of accuracy, to 1600,
when the military clan of the Tokugawa rose to power and, by forcefully
organizing all the other major clans into a separate class with separate duties,
rights, and privileges, extolled and elevated its members, de jure et de facto,
above the members of all the other social classes. Before 1600, however,
Japanese history provides abundant evidence that, during the ages of the
original clans (uji) and the court nobles or aristocrats (kuge) in Nara and
Kyoto, the distinction between such as the clansman-farmer, artisan, and
merchant (including the clansman-priest) and the clansman-fighter was apparently
not as clearly delineated as it was to become during the feudal era.
In
the ages preceding the consolidation of the country into the rigidly stratified
society of the Tokugawa-which made the passage from one class to another among
commoners (heimin) extremely difficult and the admission of a member of another
class to the military class (buke) almost impossible-the demarcation lines
between classes were not strict. Until the very end of the fifteenth century, as
Cole points out in his study of Kyoto during the Momoyama period, "almost any
man of ability could carve a career by himself" (Cole, 58).
The decree
disarming all commoners and the militant clergy, issued in the seventh month,
eighth day of Tensho (1588) by Nobunaga's successor, Hideyoshi, provides the
clearest and most telling proof that many commoners had not only possessed
weapons such as bows and arrow, spears and swords, but had evidently been quite
well versed in their use. "The possession of... implements of war," the decree
candidly admitted, "makes difficult the collection of taxes and dues and tends
to foment uprisings." Thus did Hideyoshi move to deprive all other classes of
those martial options his own class had found so effective. Throughout the
centuries which led to the absolute predominance of the military class, in fact,
its right to rule was often hotly contested, particularly by the militant orders
of Buddhist priests and monks, who finally had to be slaughtered en masse during
the Ashikaga (Muromachi) and Momoyama periods before they could be discounted as
effective opponents.
The assumption that the members of the military
class were the sole practitioners and interpreters of bujutsu is even less valid
in relation to those minor methods of combat which involved the use of wooden
instruments such as the staff (or even the human body itself) as primary weapons
of combat; Numerous methods of using these weapons flourished during Japan's
feudal era, particularly after the establishment of the Tokugawa military
dictatorship. Schools of martial arts frequented by the samurai often included a
number of these arts in their training programs, but there is also ample
evidence in the doctrine of bujutsu that they were practiced with equal fervor
and dedication by members of other classes as well. Even a poet, the famous
Basho, is said to have been skilled in the handling of the staff (bo), and
countless hermits, abbots, and philosophers, as well as commoners of every
class, could use their fans or pipes with flair and deadly accuracy-even against
swords. In certain cases, these people were recognized as being the originators
of particular specializations of the art of combat which even the warrior found
impressive enough to include in his own program of military preparation. The
skill of certain religious sects in the use of fists and feet is amply recorded
not only in Chinese chronicles but also in manuscripts written by Japanese
masters who claimed to have studied their methods of unarmed combat in
China.
Actually, even in relation to those martial arts which, by law,
warriors alone could practice - such as swordsmanship (kenjutsu) and
spearfighting (yarijutsu) -- we find evidence that members of other classes
practiced and applied them against the warrior himself, although he alone had a
legal right to possess and use such weapons. Many of these illegal users were
obviously outcasts from the military class. But many were not, and these often
formed the backbone of such groups as the famous bands of professional fighters
hired by merchants to protect shipments in transit from attack by bandits or to
guard warehouses, or the groups of professional bodyguards hired by patrons who
needed and could afford the cost of protection, or the leagues of guardians
hired by farmers to safeguard crops at harvest time. These fighters were not
recruited only from among the rejects of the military class (although, quite
naturally, these men were a primary source of material for mercenary fighting).
During the decline of the Tokugawa, for example, "The Tokaido's Number-One
Boss," Jirocho of Shimizu (1820 -- 93), who controlled the gambling underworld
there, belonged to the merchant class. The origins of the jovial Ishimatsu,
however, one of his lieutenants, whose violent death at the hands of assassins
after a prolonged sword fight in the forest cost the latter dearly, were so
obscure that they were not even recorded. Going back even further in time to the
more rigidly controlled period of the early Tokugawa era, the famous Chobei of
Banzuiin, chief of the Otokodate in Edo, was a chonin (townsman), not a military
retainer.
To top
The Qualification "Martial" (Bu) and the Art of
War
As indicated in the previous paragraphs, the adjective "martial" is
semantically linked to military endeavors and, therefore, to the primary
function of the military as a class: the waging of war. In this sense, could we
say that all the specializations of the art of combat qualified as arts of war?
It is obvious, from even a cursory glance at the various specializations and
subspecializations listed in our introductory chart, that not all of these
methods could be used effectively on the battlefield; consequently, the
all-inclu-sive qualification "martial" is either inaccurate or else rests upon
foundations not directly related to practical effectiveness solely within the
broad dimensions of general warfare. Early chroniclers of bujutsu, after all,
had made a distinction of sorts when they listed the following specializations
of the art of combat as the exclusive arts of the warrior, hence as arts of war:
archery, spearmanship, swordsmanship, horsemanship, fortifications, and use of
firearms and military seamanship (which included swimming). Among the methods of
unarmed combat used by the warrior in a subsidiary manner, the same chroniclers
mention the art of suppleness, or jujutsu. A substantial number of
specializations are omitted from these military records-a fact that should not
surprise us, since from the standpoint of a warrior, the art of the war fan
could hardly be com-pared to archery, nor the art of the wooden staff to the
science of firearms. Why, then, this determination so apparent in the general
doctrine of bujutsu, and so widely displayed by almost all masters of arts and
disciplines of combat, to use the adjective "martial" (bu) to qualify all these
methods?
At least a partial answer, we feel, may be provided by an
examination of the importance assigned by the Japanese to the military tradition
in the history of their country. Before we proceed to discuss these traditions
in the following paragraphs, however, we must briefly reiterate that the art of
war as strategies involving large numbers of men in massive confrontations on
the battlefield is not a part of this study. Our primary concern here is
individual combat-the art of direct and personal confrontation between two (or a
few) men and the weapons, the techniques, and the attitudes used therein. We
shall not plunge into the doctrinary debates concerning the degree of
sophistication of the Japanese art of war, which, in the opinion of certain
authors, was rather rudimentary. Brinkley, for example, while describing the
individual warriors of Japan as composing "the best fighting unit in the Orient,
probably one of the best fighting units the world ever produced," added in the
same paragraph that "it was, perhaps, because of that excellence that his
captains remained mediocre tacticians" (Brinkley', 172). Repeated references may
be found in ancient treatises on warfare to the high level of development of the
art of war in China and to its major theorists, such as General Sun-tzu, who
repeatedly emphasized the social, massive character of combat in war and the
absolute predominance of masses and logistics in defeating an enemy. But in the
centuries preceding the Momoyama period (1568 -- 1600), Japanese armies were
still "made up of small, independent bands of soldiers who fought more as
individuals than as units of a tactical formation" (Wittfogel, 199). This was
the way the Japanese warrior of one clan fought against the warriors of another
clan; this was the way he fought against the Koreans during the first, legendary
invasion of the Asiatic mainland; and this was the way he faced the invading
Mongolian hordes in 1274 and 1281. The individual character of the art of war
was still very much in evidence in the colossal confrontations at Sekigahara,
witnessed by William Adams (1564 -- 1620), and at Osaka Castle in 1615. "Feudal
Japan," Wittfogel concludes, perhaps a trifle sweepingly, "like feudal Europe,
failed to develop the art of war" (Wittfogel, 199).
The individual
character of the art of war in feudal Japan, so romantically emphasized in
national sagas and by chroniclers of the age, actually facilitates our study of
the particular specializations of bujutsu, for it allows us to adopt the
individuality of direct, personal confrontation as our primary term of
reference. In turn, the matrix of our study of all the possible applications of
bujutsu will be the man-to-man encounter- whether on the battlefield or in the
streets of a teeming city, whether on a lonely mountain road or in a temple, or
even within the confines of a man's home. And this will also facilitate our
inclusion of all the weapons, techniques, and attitudes devised to resolve the
problems of individual confrontation.
To top
The Military Tradition in the
History of Japan
The extensive use of the qualification "martial" in the
doctrine is explained by the extraordinary, some authors would say excessive,
importance assigned by the Japanese even today to their military tradition, to
the function of the military class in shaping the destiny of the nation, and to
the ethics adopted by this class to justify its existence and policies. This
importance is based upon the fact that, when we refer generically to the martial
experience of Japan, we refer to one of the longest and most ancient
involvements of a nation in such a dimension. As Lafcadio Hearn aptly pointed
out, "About the whole of authentic Japanese history is comprised in one vast
episode: the rise and fall of the military power" (Hearn, 259).
A
panoramic survey of the events through which that power expressed itself with
varying degrees of subtlety for almost nine centuries is found in chart 2 (p.
44) and in greater detail in part 1. Down through the centuries, then, the
innermost fiber of the Japanese nation was imbued with the warrior's particular
ideas, ethics, and sense of mission. These elements, which spurred the bushi to
act on the stage of history, were rooted in a firm belief in Japan's divine
origins, in the determination to confirm that belief by force of arms, even if
it meant death, and in that code of behavior which demanded unquestioning
obedience to the commands of one's immediate superior, who constituted the link
with the divine past and thus would know the ways in which to successfully
fulfill the mission implicit in those distant origins. For centuries these
truths, as well as the way of life they represented, were inculcated into the
Japanese character, seeping down to all levels of society and coloring every
stage of the national development. It was a process of relentless indoctrination
from above, both conscious and un-conscious, which began in earnest at the end
of the Nara period, with the emergence of the warrior clans whose services
proved invaluable (although ultimately costly) to the feuding clans of the court
nobles (huge) and the emperor (tenno) during their bitter power struggles. The
bushi brought with them their simple ideas of excellence, translated concretely
into personal loyalty to one's immediate superior, and a readiness to fight and
die without the slightest hesitation. These ideas, according to generally
accepted historical records, contrasted vividly with the highly sophisticated
and introspective patterns of the culture of Nara.
The contrast and
resulting friction was ultimately resolved through force of arms. Many
aristocratic clans were totally destroyed, and the few nobles who survived were
deprived of any effective influence, being restricted to the representational
precincts of the imperial court, together with the emperor. Also destroyed were
the huge monasteries and libraries which contained the essence, the distillation
of Heian culture: its scriptures, its records, and its works of art. By 1600,
the slate had been almost wiped clean. From that point on, the Way of the
Warrior flowed both brutally and subtly into the consciousness of the entire
population: the farmer, a large portion of whose rice crop would be appropriated
by the retainers of the local daimyo, or provincial lord, looking up from his
hoeing to gaze at a group of samurai, their weapons glinting in the sun as they
ran rhythmically alongside a palanquin bound for Edo; the chance traveler who
paused by the side of the road, a silent witness to a duel, often to the death,
between two swordsmen; the surging, excited populace at the festivals held at
various times during the year, staring wide-eyed at the martial arts
demonstrations which were often a focal point of such festivals. In thousands of
incidents, both minor and of great social significance, the drama of a
potentially lethal confrontation between one man and another was restaged again
and again, until this particular form of human experience was burned almost
indelibly into the Japanese soul.
Actually, during the Tokugawa period,
the traditions of the military class, under the guise of a continuation of
ancient culture, so thoroughly conditioned the national character that Western
observers of the age were led to describe the Japanese people as being
"naturally addicted to wars." The intensity of warfare and civil strife in Japan
astounded even those observers who, it must be remembered, came from a Europe
which was not at that time (nor had ever been) a haven of peace. Griffis, in a
paper presented to the Asiatic Society of Japan in 1874, noted how endemic
warfare had been in Japan, indicating that war was considered "normal" and peace
the "exceptional condition of its inhabitants" (Griffis, 21). The same author
also emphasized the contrast between the delight the Japanese took in calling
their country the Land of Great Peace and, for example, the names of streets in
Edo-names such as "Armor," "Helmet," "Arrow," "Bow," and "Quiver," all related
to implements of war. In his analysis of the Japanese character, Brinkley wrote
as follows':
Hidden beneath a passion for everything graceful and
refined, there is a strong yearning for the pageant of war and for the dash of
deadly onset; and just as the shogun sought to display before the eyes of the
citizens of his capital a charming picture of a gentle peace, though its setting
was a framework of vast military preparation, so the Japanese of every era has
loved to turn from the fencing-school to the arbor, from the field of battle to
the society of rockery and the cascade, delighting in the perils and struggles
of the one as much as he admires the grace and repose of the other.
(Brinkley', 11)
Did the military class succeed in completely saturating
the national psyche with its particular interpretation of the national spirit (
Yamato-damashii), in imposing its values upon the rest of the country, in
freezing history at that stage of national development which historians identify
as feudal? The answer to these questions can be provided only by a study of the
post-Meiji history of Japan, beginning in 1868. This study should reveal whether
the military tradition and the influence of the warrior class had been
terminated or only curtailed with the restoration of power to the emperor. In
this context, there seems to be general agreement among Japanese and Western
historians that no nation could be expected to emerge unscathed from centuries
of the relentless conditioning undergone by Japan during her feudal era. No one
has expressed this point better than Reischauer.
The two centuries of
strictly enforced peace under the watchful eye and firm hand of the Edo
government have left an indelible mark upon the people. The bellicose,
adventurous Japanese of the sixteenth century became by the nineteenth century a
docile people looking meekly to their rulers for all leadership and following
without question all orders from above. (Reischauer', 93 -- 94)
The
people had become thoroughly conditioned to look "instinctively" to the military
leaders of the land for guidance and to assume that, because of their position,
these leaders "were always honest and sincere." The same author concluded as
follows: "Seven centuries of domination by the feudal military class has left
patterns of thought and behavior which have not been easy to discard in recent
times and which will not be easily erased even today" (Reischauer',
55).
The protagonist of that which Hearn considered "the whole of
authentic Japanese history," the warrior of feudal Japan, had achieved a
position of such importance, therefore, that his influence was not (probably
could not be) eliminated, even after the military dictatorship of the powerful
feudal barons was officially abolished in 1868 and society had been given a
wider and firmer base through a massive educational effort intended to provide
the foundations for the expertise necessary in an industrialized and highly
competitive era. However, in the uncanny way in which a firmly entrenched
traditional power structure often manages to survive the dawn of a new day by
assuming various disguises or, more frequently, by broadening its base of
support among all classes of people so that more citizens begin to identify with
it, so did the military class manage to survive in Japan. The power of the
Tokugawa clan and their allies was severely curtailed by the efforts of other
powerful clans of warriors, including the Choshu and Satsuma clans, which were
to provide the "new" Japan with the nucleus of an Imperial Army and Navy
destined for greater glories and greater disasters in the decades to follow. The
Restoration was, in effect, a ritualistic "changing of the guard," with waves of
new warriors from the provinces advancing upon the capital where they jostled
and finally dislodged the older, privileged class of warriors from their
entrenched positions. Significantly, we are told by Yazaki (300) that the
Kapakkan Rireki Mokuroku, or directory of government officials for the Council
of State (Dajokan) held in 1867 -- 68, listed the following percentages by
lineage in its composition: 78.9% belonging to the warrior class, 18.1% to the
higher class of daimyo, 1.8% to the ancient imperial court recently restored
(along with the emperor) to power, and 0.7% to the commoners.
It was this
"new" leadership, then, which was to guide the nation in the liberated times of
the modern age. In order to accomplish their task with the utmost efficiency,
they embarked upon a fantastically intense effort to expand the traditional
loyalty concept from the narrow confines of the clan to the wider horizon of the
entire nation, enlarging the focus of unquestioning obedience to one's immediate
superior and feudal lord to include blind and absolute fealty to the emperor.
Kurzman noted that "if a man would willingly die for his lord, a person of
mortal heritage, they reasoned, then his loyalty to the Sovereign, descendant of
the Sun Goddess, could be nurtured to similar extremes" (Kurzman, 41).
Accordingly, after the Meiji Restoration:
In classrooms and army
barracks, the young Japanese was taught to glory in Japan's military traditions.
He came to believe that death on the battlefield for the emperor was the most
glorious fate of man and to believe in the unique virtues of a vaguely defined
"national structure" and an even more vague "Japanese spirit." Together the
government and army succeeded in a few decades in creating in the average
Japanese the fanatical nationalism already characteristic of the upper classes,
and an even more fanatical devotion to the emperor, which had been cultivated by
historians and Shinto propagandists and fostered by oligarchs around the
throne. (Reischauer', 129-30) This was possible, according to Mendel,
because of the vagueness of the Meiji Constitution concerning "the location of
political power"-a vagueness which the military, who had direct access to the
throne, promptly exploited. They assumed "special privileges" and largely
ignored the newly created civilian cabinet which was modeled upon Western
systems of government. This independence of action in matters of governing was
promptly dubbed "dual diplomacy," and its effects were to haunt the members of
the civilian cabinet, who were ultimately unable to steer into more peaceful
channels of national development the singular dedication of the military to
ideals of racially exclusive predominance. Members of the military class
continued to hold fast to the pursuit of a goal whose attainment they believed
their destiny and, by implication, the destiny of their country since time
immemorial. Eventually, members of every class in Japan began to feel fully
justified in calling that destiny their own. By the early part of the twentieth
century, this process of military identification on a nationwide scale had grown
to such an extent that the authorities had "even succeeded in convincing
these descendants of peasants, who for almost three centuries had been denied
the right to possess swords, that they were not a downtrodden class but members
of a warrior race. Japanese political and military indoctrination was indeed
thorough and spectacularly successful" (Reischauer', 130).
It had
also been successful during the Tokugawa period, when the military tradition
inculcated from above had elicited the desired responses from below. Repeated
attempts by innumerable commoners (heimin) throughout the entire feudal era to
rise to the privileged level of the warrior were noted in many records. Although
such ambitions were officially discouraged, the possibility of adoption into a
military clan did exist- many wealthy merchants being willing to part with
substantial sums in exchange for the right to have the insignia of a warrior
clan embroidered on their sleeves.
When the desired status itself was not
accessible, anything resembling it, however remotely, would serve to fulfill
most aspirations. All associations of commoners, whether farmers, merchants, or
artisans (even the clergy), were organized according to the vertical pattern of
the military class, a pattern which linked the ancient clan structure to the
contemporary period, thus imparting to it an aura of antiquity which, in Japan
(as in many other countries), made it divine.
Even before the Meiji
Restoration, the military tradition had permeated the whole of japanese life to
the extent of having lost its primary identification with a single class. That
it had become the sole tradition of every japanese subject was proven by the
fact that when the military class tried once again to seize power from the
emperor, the armies of "sword-wielding samurai" were crushed on the battlefields
by an imperial army whose ranks were filled with conscripts from every class,
including many farmers. The crushing of one of these rebellions, after 1868,
wrote Browne,
"signified much more than the collapse of feudal
opposition to the government and the new order. In the conflict the regular
soldiers like Hidenori Tojo and the con-scripts who had fought along with them
had shown that the valor and martial skill which had made the samurai elite such
formidable fighters could be found in all the levels of the nation."
(Browne, 17)
Thereafter, bowing to expediency, the leaders of the
military class gradually acknowledged that every Japanese subject was heir to
the tradition they had considered their own for so many centuries, and began to
exhort their fellow countrymen to think of Japan as a nation of warriors. At the
same time, they discovered new and effective ways of translating that tradition
into political patterns of conduct, which the nation adopted and applied with
irresistible zeal in such countries as Manchuria, China, Malaysia, and the
Philippines. These patterns endured without serious challenge until the
surrender of Japan on September 2, 1945, when it became apparent that the defeat
of the Japanese military effort had precipitated the collapse not only of a firm
belief in a particular government policy, but actually of the entire moral
universe of the Japanese nation. The identification between government policy,
subject to the vagaries of political and military convenience, and the morality
of the nation, which is of a more stable nature and has deeply rooted collective
interests to promote and defend, had become so absolute in Japan that defeat on
the battlefield left most Japanese "entirely disoriented" (Dore, 162). It seemed
incredible to them that such a fate could have befallen the heirs of a divine
past, a nation tracing its origins back to the dawn of human history, or that
the "way" (michi) of the race had not triumphed over all others, which, being
foreign, had automatically been considered imperfect.
Today, surveys of
many kinds-anthropological, sociological, political, and religious -- have
documented (and are continuing to follow) the astounding recovery of Japan from
the disastrous effects of World War II. The positive side of their tradition
helped the Japanese to "endure the unendurable" and to bravely face and survive
the occupation, to close their depleted ranks and rebuild an industry in
shambles, and to speedily reassume a position of prominence in the modern world.
The military virtues of the past were applied to reconstruction with the
intensity that had made the Japanese fearsome foes on the battlefield, making
them, in turn, skillful and tireless competitors in world markets.
But
the spirit of the bushi flickers restlessly in the dark recesses of the Japanese
soul. Dore, in his study of city life in Japan, has noted in detail the
tremendous difficulty encountered by the Japanese in attempting to shift their
concept of morality and traditional values from the social ethic of the country,
rooted in the feudal interpretation of reality as proposed and enforced by the
bushi, to an individual morality based upon a personal interpretation of reality
and a man's individual responsibility within it. Even today, the life of a
Japanese subject is dominated by society the way an enlisted man's life is
dominated by the army. Perhaps more than anywhere else in the world, the
compactness of Japanese society, like the protective but monolithic embrace of a
modern army (or of a military clan in days gone by), dictates from above and
from without that which is to be believed, the ways in which relationships are
to be structured, how individuals must behave in order to fulfill their
obligations. Duties continue to be emphasized, while rights are muted and still
seek concrete expression in new laws or customs and, above all, in a new
spiritual conviction of the individual's value and independence within the
group, originating from deep within that individual's being - a conviction which
will sustain him when his group and its leaders, in their historical evolution,
pass through the tragic crises which afflict all national groups. That spiritual
certainty does not necessarily have to agree with the external dictates of the
group, expressed in laws or customs, and may even be in opposition to
pronouncements made in the name of the group by the individuals in power. In
Japan, perhaps to a degree rarely encountered in other sophisticated cultures of
the past or present, "morality is not summoned up from the depths of the
individual" (Maruyama, 9), but is still to be sought elsewhere in society-thus
being easily identified with and supplanted by external power. It must be added,
in this context, however, that Japanese society is not (and has never been)
alone in confronting this problem.
Classic tradition, hence the military
tradition of the country, confronts the Japanese today. The artistic expressions
of that tradition are quite revealing. The fearless retainer of a feudal lord,
the much-heralded samurai, or the independent masterless warrior, the ronin,
still cut their way through a maze of evil with slashing swords in kabuki and in
countless adventure movies (chambara). Dore tells us that even today, in
neighborhoods such as Shitayama-cho, salesmen appear in samurai garb and shout
the virtue of their wares using the sharp jargon of the Tokugawa warriors. The
martial pattern of the feudal tradition can still be detected by Western
observers of the Japanese business world today in that particular relationship
between the employer on one side, with his paternalistic but authoritarian
attitude, and the employees in their orderly but feverishly dedicated ranks on
the other. It is reflected in the formation of colossal industrial complexes
which have elicited "both apprehension and envy" abroad, their combined power
bearing a striking resemblance to the prewar cartels (zaibatsu). In this
context, most analysts of Japanese industry, in fact, have come to realize that
the element which worked exceedingly well for the Japanese was their
time-honored "traditional approach" applied to industrial productivity. We are
told by De Mente, on page 51 of the March-April 1970 issue of Worldwide Projects
and Industry Planning, that surveys carried out by the Oriental Economist in
1968 and 1969 revealed that the largest corporations in Japan had never
relinquished the traditional management system, "but had actually strengthened
it over the past 10 years." This system remains, in essence, that which it has
been for centuries: a vertical clan system under the guidance of the patriarchal
leader, geared to operate smoothly and efficiently for the welfare of the
"clan." This ever-present awareness of the past in all forms of Japanese life,
according to Dore, "is not surprising in view of the recency of the feudal past
contrasting so clearly with the whole tenor of modern urban life" (Dore,
245).
This awareness cannot be expected to fade away or be replaced by a
less rigidly organized conception of man's loneliness in the heart of creation,
by an increased awareness of the self as a responsible agent capable of
individual decisions which might clash against the dicta of the clan, the house,
the family, or, finally, society, until that feudal tradition has been
reevaluated and redefined. "Real tradition," wrote Yves Montcheuil, "is
constitutive, not constituted" (Brown, 60). It grows as men evolve individually,
as well as collectively. It adapts to new circumstances of time, place, and
culture, and it stimulates new responses which themselves become a part of that
tradition. It does not force the present into the rigid mold of the past, nor
does it apply unyieldingly to the present values developed during an era which
constituted only a phase of the national development. A constantly enriched and
enriching tradition would not, in brief, impose a system of ethics developed and
accepted by the military clans of feudal Japan upon the whole country and,
progressively, upon the rest of the world under professed principles of
brotherhood and universal harmony within the human family (hakko-ichiu). That
system of ethics, that martial code, represented only one particular
interpretation of reality and of man's role in it. Even a cursory glance at
Japanese history, after all, provides ample evidence that other interpretations
predated and then coexisted with those of the military class-interpretations
which were less successful perhaps in teaching a man how to use a sword, but no
less admirable and often more useful in helping him to comprehend the true
dilemma of his existence.
Considering the great significance assigned by
the Japanese people to their military tradition, then, the qualification of
"martial" (bu) so freely attributed to almost all the specializations of the art
of combat in the doctrine of bujutsu finds its own semantic justification. It
was much more selectively applied during the feudal era, when the warrior
generally used it in reference to those arts which were his professional
prerogative or when he extended it to include other arts still rather strictly
correlated to the former. Its use increased with the progressive expansion of
the military tradition among all classes of Japanese subjects and their striving
toward total identification with it. It is undeniable that the feudal warrior
played the major role upon Japan's national stage. It was, after all, the
warrior who used those methods of combat, often with con-summate skill, as he
strove to rise to power in the face of an armed and equally deter-mined
opposition. It is also true that, consequently, he was the indirect activator of
an intense interest in bujutsu on the part of members of other classes of
Japanese society, who were forced to learn his methods or invent new ones if
they wished to compete with him for even a semblance of political influence, to
challenge his position of exclusive privilege or merely to defend themselves
against his excesses or his inability to protect them from lawlessness. For not
always, nor in every part of the country, was the warrior capable of totally
imposing his interpretation of law and order. In such instances, citizens were
forced to rely heavily upon themselves and their civil organizations in an
effort to safeguard their lives and property.
The bushi, however,
remained the main practitioner of bujutsu, since whenever he was exposed to new
methods of combat intended to minimize or reduce his own military power, he was
forced to learn them in the interests of self-preservation. The most notorious
example of this necessity was provided by his involvement with the population of
the Ryukyu Islands. It was in these islands-according to a predominant theory in
the doctrine-that he learned how inadequate his armor and his array of
traditional weapons (which had hitherto won the respect of enemy warriors in
Korea) could prove to be, when pitted against the bare hands and feet of a
peasant sufficiently desperate and properly trained in the ancient Chinese
techniques of striking. These methods, said to have originated in the distant
reaches of Asia (India, China, Tibet), helped men to develop their capacities
for hitting or striking with hands, feet, and other parts of the
body.
The bushi was, therefore, caught in an uncontrollable spiral of
escalation. He had to practice traditional methods of combat and continue to
learn new ones-in a manner similar to the modern military establishment, which
keeps devising new methods of destruction, even though these soon become
obsolete, which, in turn, necessitates the development of even more destructive
methods, ad infinitum. In any case, as noted earlier, after the sixteenth
century the bushi alone had the legal right and enough time to practice and
perfect various forms of bujutsu. The main schools of the martial arts were
usually directed, in fact, by masters of arms attached to a clan, or by
unattached warriors who had been granted permission to teach (for a fee) by the
lord of the district. These schools kept records of their students and methods,
thus providing a continuity in the process of expansion and development of
certain arts which other schools, more removed from the military dimension, did
not possess-such a lack often resulting in the disappearance of certain schools
and methods, which have left us only fragmented references to indicate that they
ever existed.
Finally, modern disciplines of unarmed combat, which have
become famous under their Japanese names the world over, were developed by
masters who acknowledged their indebtedness to the bujutsu of the ancient
military class of Japan. Actually, and with only a few exceptions, these masters
seem to take great pride in linking themselves and their innovations in the art
of combat to a tradition that has an indefinable and irresistible charisma
derived from its very antiquity. Even in those few cases where modern masters
point out the differences between their methods and others (both ancient and
modern), differences which make their methods unique and therefore a
contribution to bujutsu rather than merely repetitions of its ancient theories
and practices, their position within a well-defined, traditional stream of
evolution is, by implication, unmistakably clear. The only and, indeed, rare
cases of a clear break with this tradition occur when the basic premises of
bujutsu as arts of combat, as arts of war and violent subjugation, are denied
and their techniques transformed into arts of pacification and harmless
neutralization. This subject, however, requires a further, detailed exploration,
which the authors hope to undertake in a subsequent volume.
To top
Origins
of Bujutsu
The authors of books and treatises dealing with the Japanese
martial arts, as well as almost every important master of the ancient and modern
disciplines and methods of combat derived from them, have all presented their
views on the subject of the primary sources, the first systematic presentation
of techniques, and so forth in an effort to provide a satisfactory answer to the
question: How, when, and where did bujutsu begin?
The history of Japan in
general and the doctrine of the martial arts in particular do not provide us
with definite or precise answers to this question. Both the historical records
of the Japanese nation (employing the Chinese system of calligraphy) and the
more specialized manuscripts of the various schools of bujutsu refer to a
variety of practices and methods which were ancient and codified long before any
actual records were kept. Chinese writing is said by most historians to have
been introduced into Japan in the sixth century, probably together with the
first Buddhist texts. By that time, Japan had already evolved through the pre-
and protohistorical periods, such as the Jomon, Yayoi, and Asuka, which
culminated in the formation of a political organization revolving around the
Heijo capital, Nara (710 -- 84), with its resplendent imperial
court.
These periods of development, which preceded the Heian period (794
-- 1185), were to see the emergence and eeventual consolidation of one of the
most ancient social units in the history of mankind: the clan. In many history
books, in fact, these periods are referred to as the age of the original clans
(uji) and of hereditary titles (kabane, or ski). These units emerged from a
nebulous "age of the gods" (kami-no-yo) and from an imperfectly known blending
of tribes, some of which had apparently emigrated from the Asiatic mainland or
from islands of the south, while others are considered to have been the original
inhabitants of the islands of the Japanese archipelago. Indirect references in
Japanese records would seem to indicate the existence of two major tribes: the
first included the clans of the emperor and the nobles (kobetsu), known as the
Imperial Branch, while the second included the Divine Branch, or clans of other,
less specified subjects (shimbetsu). Both groups of clans claimed the same
divine origins, tracing these back to two divinities, Izanagi and Izanami, but
the kobetsu tribes reportedly coalesced "when the sun came into being," while
the shimbetsu tribes took shape "when the lower forces of nature were evolved"
(Brinkley', 5). According to a prevalent school of thought, it seems that "the
invaders of Japan, in the sixth century before the Christian era, found the
islands already inhabited by men of such fine fighting qualities that mutual
respect grew out of the struggle between the two, and the vanquished received in
the new hierarchy a position little inferior to that assumed by the victor"
(Brinkley', 182 -- 83). Below these two major groups of noble tribes was the
"mass of the people" forming the Foreign Branch (bambetsu). Every clan belonging
to a particular tribe seemed to embrace both direct and indirect (lateral and
collateral) descendants from the same ancestors, and their original bond was,
accordingly, one of blood. Like the ancient Chinese clan (tsu), the Japanese uji
developed its kinship ties into territorial bonds which were primarily related
to the countryside and villages in a certain vicinity. Al-though the clan had a
strict relationship to (almost an identification with) rural groups of people
descended from common ancestors, its basic pattern of structure and
functionality was quite smoothly and effectively adapted to town and city life,
where it blended with, and reinforced, other forms of organizations, such as
professional guilds and corporations. Kinship and territoriality, whatever their
basis, seem also to have found their primary spiritual expression in a religious
cult centered upon a clan's ancestors and upon the latter's origins. Each clan,
therefore, worshiped its own deities (uji-kami) and strove to impose them upon
others, as appears evident from the progressive encroachment and eventual
primacy of the solar cult of the Yamato clan.
In structure, each clan
consisted of a central, dominating house or family, which gave the clan its
name, and various affiliated units known as tomo or be. Other categories of
subjects also appear, confusedly, in the records, between those two classes of
clansmen and the serfs or slaves known as yakko at the very bottom of the ladder
(who bore no family name). All were subject to the power of a headman
(uji-no-osa), who was the absolute and undisputed leader and master of the clan.
This interesting figure seems to have played a predominant role in determining
the direction and function of clan life. Originally a military leader, as
indicated by the references to an invasion from continental Asia, he seems to
have subsequently evolved into a hierarchical representative of, and link to,
the divinity. As military skill, following the natural process of specialization
of functions and roles in an age of settlement, was increasingly delegated to
sub-leaders, the particular capacity to contact the gods, reveal mysteries, and
appease the forces of heaven through invocations (norito) and an intricate
liturgy (matsuri) became the primary role and function of the highest clan
leaders and, to a supreme degree, of the emperor. This religious character, it
should be noted at this point, eventually became one of the most salient
expressions of power and privilege. Every clan which was later allowed to
develop, regardless of its particular raison d'etre, found its highest
justification and strength in the mystical powers of its leaders. A pattern of
vertical, mystical supremacy was also apparent in those groups of people with
special professional skills, such as earthenware-makers (suebe), carpenters
(takumibe), and masons (ishizukuri-be), whether they endeavored to function
alone or, as was more frequently the case, attached themselves to the major
clans of the nobles. In the first case, the members of these professional guilds
looked upon their own leaders as the repositories of an awe-some professional
knowledge, divinely inspired, which the leaders generally monopolized. In the
second case, they and their professional leaders looked upon the clan headman,
uji-no-osa, as the exclusive repository of an even more comprehensive type of
knowledge, whose overtones of divine inspiration made it doubly potent
politically. The most noted examples of the persistence to the present day of
this mystic concentration of power are swordsmiths and masters of martial arts
who refer, in their practices and teachings, to secret rituals and forms
directly or indirectly related to the meta-physical dimensions of man's
existence. This element will appear over and over again as an important factor
in the evolution of bujutsu.
The clan, as a primary social unit, had
achieved self-sufficiency through the cultivation of its own rice paddies and
the production of its own artifacts, textiles, agricultural instruments, and,
naturally, weapons. From the very beginning, the history of these clans was not
one of peaceful coexistence. The archaic weapons found in the mounds and dolmens
of the period from 250 B.C. to A.D. 560 indicate that, as was true during every
other national age of formation, warfare was the predominant condition. By 600,
these weapons were quite highly developed. Chinese records, compiled at the
court of the Sui dynasty on the basis of testimonials given by Japanese envoys a
century before the first written classic of the Japanese nation came into
existence, related that "bows, arrows barbed with iron or bone, swords, cross
bows, long and short spears, and armor made of lacquered hide constituted their
warlike equipment" (Brinkley', 105).
Historians are still searching for
other, more illuminating references to the five original kobetsu clans: the
Otomo, the Kumebe, the Nakatomi, the Imibe, and the Mononobe, which are
mentioned in the early records of the nation together with the clan of Emperor
Jimmu, the Yamato. Eventually, this clan gained supreme but by no means
unchallenged ascendancy over all the others. From its central hierarchy and from
its descendants came the emperors who were to be titular heads of the nation,
while its cult of the sun goddess, Amaterasu, overcame and absorbed all the
other cults in the hitherto simple polytheistic worship of the age which is the
root of Shinto, the indigenous religion of Japan. Every major clan had its own
cohorts of warriors, but three clans in particular seem to have been concerned
with the art of combat and, therefore, with its traditional specializations. The
Otomo, for example, were referred to as Great Escorts, the Kumebe as Military
Corporations, and the Mononobe as Corporations of Arms, while the Nakatomi and
the Imibe were linked to more specifically religious and political functions. It
is not clear whether these military clans and their affiliated "corporations"
(be) were independent units (as the feudal clans emerging from the provinces
centuries later proved to be) or simply branches of the imperial clan through
which it carried out its policies of expansion and centralization of power.
Given the gradual but relentless consolidation of power by the Yamato clan, the
second thesis seems more plausible. The very existence and specific compactness
of these early military clans, however, clearly implies the existence of strong
opposition and competition among various militant forces, in addition to the
resistance provided by the alien Ainu at the ever receding frontiers.
The
clan, then, was the sum of the Japanese soul. Seligman, in fact, qualified the
Japanese subject as being, throughout his long history, "essentially a clansman,
with all the group feelings which a clan organization implies" (Seligman, 129).
In such "group feelings" many historians find the first roots of a human
commitment to force as the primary instrument for imposing a new social entity,
as well as for preserving the primacy of that social form. This commitment to
the use of arms in developing the earliest structures of Japanese society seems
to have been particularly intense-to the extent of actually relegating all the
other features of their national psyche to a subordinate position even when the
necessity for fighting in defense of clan interests ceased to be an overriding
one. In his observations concerning the Japanese character, Seligman wrote that
"fighting came to him so naturally that when, as was generally the case, there
was no outside enemy, clan fought against clan and district against district, so
that the greater part of Japanese history, at least up to the Tokugawa times, is
a series of civil wars" (Seligman, 129). The facility with which the Japanese
resorted to armed and unarmed violence became identified, in the eyes of Western
observers as well as in the eyes of the Japanese themselves, with his nature,
with his interpretation of man's role in reality, with his tradition. St.
Francis Xavier (1506 -- 52) was among the first Westerners to define them as
"very warlike," and centuries later, even such an aesthete as Okakura Kakuzo
(1862 -- 1913) still referred to them as "fierce warriors."
After the
seventh century, with the adoption of the Chinese system of political
centralization and recognition of the imperial court as the nucleus of an
expanding and homogeneous nation, all clans provided soldiers for a unified army
through a system of general conscription which, although widely despised, was
the only possible answer to constant engagements at the frontiers with tribes of
aborigines who were retreating reluctantly before the steady advance of the new
empire throughout the archipelago. Conscription on a massive basis could hardly
have been a permanent system at this time, however, since the clan subjects who
were asked to fight were also (for the most part) the clan farmers who produced
the only means of subsistence the new nation possessed. Sustenance through
conquest, after all, had been possible only where the conquered peoples had
riches to surrender or advanced systems of production that could be made to
operate for the conqueror. There is little evidence to prove that, in archaic
Japan, the local aborigines were such a people. The Japanese clansmen were
confronted, generally, with nomadic tribes whose agriculture was quite primitive
and who relied heavily upon their rude farming and hunting methods for
fulfillment of their daily needs-as did most nomadic tribes of northern Asia.
The only riches available, then, must have been the land itself. Thus, it seems,
the massive military organizations which emerged from the records of this age
were intrinsic parts of a massive colonizing effort which maintained a strong
identification between the Japanese soldier and the Japanese farmer-both often
being (as was true of the Roman legionnaires) one and the same.
If such
an assumption appears reasonable enough in relation to large numbers of clansmen
bearing arms, it also appears reasonable to infer from the records the existence
of a smaller but more stable line of military succession based on heredity. At
the frontiers, for example, a military organization of officers and veterans was
maintained to insure the conditions essential to expansion in a militarily
administered territory: continuity and professionalism. The origins of the
feudal warriors who imploded from the provinces back into the center of
political power in the sixteenth century are considered by most historians to
have been in these military organizations. Tightly knit groups, they were led by
officers whose entire lives were devoted to arms and arts of combat such as
kyujutsu, yarijutsu, kenjutsu (using the long tachi), and jobajutsu-arts which
were ancient even in the tenth century, when the rise of the military class
clearly began.
It would appear, then, that bujutsu actually began to take
shape with the early Japanese clansman and has followed him in one form or
another ever since. Any attempt to further probe the origins of bujutsu would
encounter the infinitely more difficult question of the origins of that fighting
biped-man himself. That which appears incontrovertible, even in times as ancient
as those of the original uji, is the clannish nature of bujutsu-the feeling of
total commitment to the theories and practices of combat adopted by a specific
social unit, to the exclusion (often violently expressed) of those adopted by
other social units. This was a pronounced characteristic during the feudal ages
of Japan, not only within the military class, which, after all, was
intrinsically clannish, but also in all those other classes whose members
organized themselves in guilds or corporations according to the vertical
hierarchy and structure of the archaic clan. Even religious orders in Japan,
although supposedly removed from the harsh com-petition and the exclusivism of
mundane affairs and inspired by the universal simplicity of Buddhist
brotherhood, generally repeated the clan pattern in their religious or
para-religious organizations. This pattern is still very much in evidence in
almost all modern clubs and organizations where ancient as well as modern forms
of bujutsu are practiced in Japan. And, perhaps due to Japanese domination of
these arts (at least at the highest levels), this clannish tendency is often
found even in Western clubs where these arts are taught.
If we are to
arrive at a correct and comprehensive understanding of all the major and minor
specializations of the martial arts, we must examine in somewhat greater detail
the nature, history, and role of the various classes of subjects who appear
inextricably linked to bujutsu after its emergence during the age of the clans,
and who contributed to its development and evolution throughout the ages that
ensued.
excerpted from ©2001 by Ben Holmes