"With a Pure Heart" E-Book

Daniel Bürgin

• Herausgeber: Books on Demand
• Kategorie: Lebensstil
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 76

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2023

Beschreibung

An exciting search for traces of the pro­venance of a katana from the Taima-school, which was forged in the early 14th century. Three hundred years later, it came into the possession of Terao Naomasa, a high-ranking samurai and vassal of Tokugawa Yoshinao, the first lord of Owari.

Leseprobe

Terao Naomasa’s Taima-katana

Table of Contents

PRELIMINARY REMARKS

SIMPLIFIED ILLUSTRATION OF A JAPANESE BLADE AND ITS TECHNICAL TERMS

TERAO NAOMASA’S TAIMA-KATANA AND ASSOCIATED

ITOMAKI NO TACHI KOSHIRAE

A KATANA OF THE TAIMA SCHOOL, KAMAKURA PERIOD (1192-1333)

DETAILS OF THE TAIMA KATANA

TERAO NAOMASA, SAMURAI OF THE EARLY EDO PERIOD

TERAO NAOMASA’S RELATIONSHIP WITH THE FIRST

DAIMYŌ

OF OWARI

TERAO AND HIS TAIMA-KATANA

–

OMOI YOKOSHIMA NASHI

– WITH A PURE HEART

NAOMASA’S SCANDALOUS INCIDENT AT THE EDO RESIDENCE OF TOKUGAWA YOSHINAO

TERAO’S DEATH

TERAO’S ADOPTED SON NAORYŪ AS A SYMPATHISER OF THE

KAKURE KIRISHITAN

, THE “HIDDEN CHRISTIANS“

TERAO NAOMASA’S RELATIONSHIP WITH THE LEGENDARY SWORDSMAN MUSASHI MIYAMOTO

THE KATANA AS AN ART SWORD

ATTACHMENTS

SCHEMATIC VISUALISATION FOR A BETTER UNDERSTANDING OF THE TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS

NBTHK’S TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS FOR THE TAIMA-KATANA AND

KOSHIRAE

TECHNICAL TERMS (SIMPLIFIED) OF AN

ITOMAKI NO TACHI KOSHIRAE

NBTHK

OSHIGATA

OF THE TAIMA KATANA

TERAO’S LETTER OF 18 FEBRUARY 1650, ADDRESSED TO ŌSAWA GORŌDAYŪ

MUSASHI’S LETTER TO TERAO NAOMASA

JAPANESE ERAS

GLOSSARY OF JAPANESE TERMS USED

LITERATURE SOURCES

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Preliminary remarks

All names are written according to Japanese rule, where the surname precedes the first name. A glossary with explanations of the Japanese terms that regularly appear is inserted at the end of this book.

Simplified illustrations of a Japanese blade and its technical terms

Itomaki no tachi koshirae of Terao Naomasa’s Taima-katana

A katana of the Taima school, Kamakura period (1192-1333)

The sword once belonged to the samurai Terao Naomasa and dates from the late Kamakura period.

like the majority of Japanese swords from the Heian (794-1192) to the Nanbokuchō (1333-1392) periods, it was shortened during its long life a few hundred years ago from the nakago, the sword tang, to a length of just under 70 cm.

In 1990, the katana, together with its koshirae, its sword mount, was classified as a juyo tōken, an “important sword“, by the NBTHK,1 the “Society for Preservation of Japanese Art Swords”. The blade has been attributed to the Taima school of the ancient Yamato province, which was one of the gokaden,2 the five main classical traditions of Japan’s sword making. Its smiths produced swords for the sōhei, the warrior monks of the Taima temple in Nara. The school was originally located in the Katsuragi district of the same name, at the western end of the Nara basin.

Zaimei, signed Yamato swords, especially those of the Taima school, are very rare. Most blades are mumei, unsigned masterpieces.

Japan’s great Buddhist temples exercised powerful authority until the late 16th century and maintained their own well-trained armies of sōhei. Their influence and involvement in Japan’s politics was a thorn in the side of the bushi, the rising warrior caste.3 Towards the end of the Sengoku period, the bloody “time of the warring states” (approx. 1467-16034), Japan’s first two unifiers, Oda Nobunaga, followed by Toyotomi Hideyoshi, broke once and for all the political power of the great temples. Many swords of the monastic armies were destroyed during this time. The clever and politically-skilled Hideyoshi enacted the katanagari law in 1588. Translated, it means “sword-hunting”. It was an edict ruling that only the warrior caste could carry long swords. He had the blades collected from peasants and monk warriors and melted them to contribute to the casting of the Great Buddha in Nara (which he justified in the edict, among other things, on the grounds that it would be of advantage in the disarmed’s next life). The gesture was ingenious. Although the great temples had their weapons removed, the swords had not been stolen for use by the warriors but re-donated in the form of statues. The message to the clergy was clear. Take care of people’s religious welfare, not politics.

The nakago of this katana was inscribed with a shumei, a red lacquer seal, which assigns the blade to the Taima school. Without this attribution, the sword could pass as a work of the Sōshū tradition and its smith Yukimitsu. Sōshū’s swordsmiths had been influenced by those of the Yamato province. like the majority of Taima blades, it most likely never possessed a signature, or it was lost at the time of the shortening of the nakago.

This katana was engraved with a kiritsuke mei,5 an “additional engraving” of three characters on the sword’s tang. – omoi yokoshima nashi – “With a pure heart”. On the reverse side, the nakago shows another inscription: – Terao shi, “Sir6 Terao”. It is the name of a high-ranking samurai, who was a retainer of the first daimyō, lord, of the Owari province (present-day Nagoya). The name and the additional engraving were added in the early Edo period (1603-1868).

The Taima-katana comes with an old itomaki no tachi koshirae, a formal sword mount made, with its sheath decorated with a pattern of gold flakes embedded in clear lacquer dating from the same period.

A detailed technical description of the sword and its metallurgical activities according to the NBTHK can be found in the appendix of this book.

Details of the Taima katana

Terao Naomasa, samurai of the early Edo period

The tang’s engraving reveals the name of one of the many owners of the Taima-katana: Terao Naomasa.7

Establishing the provenance of antique nihontō, Japanese swords, is often impossible. However, if an outstanding provenance is secured, such blades are found in museums or sometimes in significant private collections.

The Ministry of Education and Culture has classified Japan’s historically most important swords as juyo bijutsuhin („important art objects“), juyo bunkazai („important cultural objects“) or kokuhō (national treasures). The works of these three categories cannot be exported from the country. However, blades of equal quality whose illustrious former owners are no longer identifiable remain in the market. Nihontō were family heirlooms since early times. Ieyasu (1543-1616), the first Tokugawa Shōgun, is said to be responsible for the famous saying, “the sword is the soul of the samurai”. In shintōism, Japan’s animistic faith, nihontō are animated; they embody a kami, a deity. Therefore, tantōs, daggers, were often given as auspicious gifts of protection for births and weddings of daughters; or a katana was carried as a protective deity during a high-ranking woman’s perilous travel.

With the end of the Edo period in the late 19th century, the samurai class had abolished itself and, with them, the feudal system. They owned titles and privileges, but over the previous two centuries, the wealth had shifted to the merchants, especially the rice dealers. As a result, many members of the warrior class became impoverished and, from the Meiji period (1868-1912) onwards, were forced to sell their family treasures over decades to come. Only when it was inevitable to do otherwise did former daimyōs and other samurai families part from their blades. Before such happened, they sold every thing else. First, paintings, porcelain, precious lacquerware, then individual sword ornaments, later the magnificent koshirae, ornate mountings for a sword, and finally – if there was no other option left – the family heirlooms that had been guarded for centuries: the swords.

If such masterpieces needed to be sold, the famous clans often prevented out of shame that anyone could trace the blades back to the previous owner. Possible clues and documents relating to ownership were destroyed. Such is the reason that a large number of excellent nihontō remain without provenance. Certain hidden hints suggesting former owners can sometimes still be discovered. unfortunately, in most cases, their historical possessor can no longer be established. The best of these provenance-missing blades are equal in quality to those classified by the Japanese Ministry’s system into the abovementioned three categories. These swords can even be exported from the country after obtaining the necessary papers from the Agency of Cultural Affairs; they simply lack the history of their life.

In the case of the described Taima blade a research opportunity arises, as it reveals an owner’s name from the Edo period.

*

luckily, one can find some historical information about Terao Naomasa. He was born at the be ginning of the Edo period, probably in the year Keichō 9 (1604), and died in the year Keian 3 (1650). His mother was Saeomon Asaba. Apart from her name, no other information has survived. His father, Terao Masatoshi (*? –?), served Matsudaira Tadayoshi (1580-1607), the fourth son of the first Tokugawa Shōgun Ieyasu, as well as Ieyasu’s ninth son, Tokugawa Yoshinao (1600-1650) when the latter was still a child.

Naomasa was the firstborn; his childhood name was Kogenta and later Saumasuke before he was called Naomasa.8 The samurai leaves small traces in Japan’s long history thanks to his relationships with historical figures. They form an imperfect trail to his identity.