The Action-Packed Life Of Japan’s Greatest Duelist, Miyamoto Musashi

Birth of a Legend

  (Miyamoto Musashi fighting Tsukahara Bokuden, painted by Yoshitoshi  (1839–1892), [Public Domain] via Creative Commons)

Around 1584 CE, a boy was born into the Hirata family of samurai in the village of Miyamoto, located in the Harima Province of Japan. The boy’s father, Miyamoto Munisai (or Shinmen Munisai), was considered to be one of Japan’s greatest swordsmen, and he ran the village’s local dojo. With such a skilled parent, many would have expected that the boy would grow to be skilled with a sword. Yet, few could have predicted the unprecedented martial prowess that the newborn child would soon show the world. The boy’s name was Miyamoto Musashi, and he would later claim to have fought in over sixty duels, many of which ended in the death of his opponents.

Although Musashi is best remembered for being the undefeated “Alexander the Great” of dueling, he was also a bit of a renaissance man. Besides being a duelist, he joined the military and fought in around six battles. He also was an artist who painted, sculpted and carved. As another occupation, he became a foreman or supervisor and worked in construction. Yet, his greatest contribution to his legacy was his writing career.

When he was around twenty-two (perhaps, 1606 CE) he produced his Writings of the Sword Technique of the Enmei Ryu (Enmei Ryu Kenpo Sho), which was his first known written work on swordsmanship. In addition to this, near the end of his life, he also wrote the Thirty-five Instructions on Strategy (Hyoho Sanju Go). All his earlier writing, however, were surpassed by the book he wrote in the years preceding his death in 1645—The Book of Five Rings, or Go Rin no Sho.

Nevertheless, Musashi’s careers in literature and construction are not why most readers are here, reading this article. No, the most interesting and dramatic events in Miyamoto Musashi’s life came about because of the decades he spent wandering Japan as a traveling duelist.

Sun Tzu and the Art of War

A Violent Golden Age

(Soldiers from the Ming Dynasty Departure Herald, from the Jiajing reign period in China (1522-1566 AD), [Public Domain] via Creative Commons)

The centuries spanning the Spring and Autumn Period (8th-6th century BCE) and the Warring States Period (6th-3rd century BCE) saw the onset of an incredible amount of human innovation and thought. On one hand there were military advancements in China, such as the crossbow (introduced around the 5th-4th century BCE) and cavalry (made professional in China soon after the crossbow). On the other hand, texts of philosophy, religion and strategy were written that are still widely admired to this day. The number of great minds that operated during the Warring States Period is simply baffling. There was Confucius and his philosophical successors, notably Mencius and Hsün Tzu. Also prevalent were the major Daoist (or Taoist) intellectuals like Lao Tzu and Chuang Tzu. Later, there were the philosophers of authoritarianism and legalism, such as Lord Shang and Han Fei Tzu. Also present was the religious wildcard, Mo Tzu, who preached universal love and told of a personified Heaven that punished evil and rewarded good. Nevertheless, during this highly congested time period filled with so many geniuses, there lived a military strategist who would surpass all others in popularity and fame (except, perhaps, Confucius and Lao Tzu)—he was Master Sun, better known as Sun Tzu.

The Unlikely Man Who Popularized The Stories Of King Arthur—Geoffrey of Monmouth

(Painting of King Arthur by N.C. Wyeth (1882–1945), from Sir Thomas Mallory, [Public Domain] via Creative Commons

In 12th-century Britain, a peculiar churchman, historian and teacher named Geoffrey of Monmouth launched the mystical tale of King Arthur and the magician Merlin on its path to world acclaim with the debut of his book, The History of the Kings of Britain. Though the adventures of King Arthur and his chivalrous knights were eventually accepted and admired in Britain, the road to acceptance was rough. Geoffrey of Monmouth’s writing was initially widely criticized in the British scholarly world, but it found quick admirers in medieval French literature and poetry. Later, the tales of King Arthur sluggishly crept back to Britain, only becoming truly mainstream after the 16th century with the help of literary masters such as Shakespeare, Wordsworth and Tennyson.

Saint Augustine (c. 354-430)

A Wayward Son Who Became One Of Christianity’s Most Influential Figures

  (Saint Augustine, painted by Antonio Rodríguez (1636 - 1691), [Public Domain] via Creative Commons)

Augustine was born in 354 CE to a Roman family living in Algiers. His mother was a Christian, and it is thought that his father converted to the religion on his deathbed. Suffice it to say, Augustine was exposed to Christianity from a young age. As a child, Augustine was made a catechumen—a person learning about Christianity before baptism—but he decided not to go through with it, and sought spiritual enlightenment elsewhere.

Homer: The Obscure Legend And His Epic Tales

  (Statue of Homer, photographed by Rufus46, via Creative Commons (licensed CC 3.0), cropped and edited)

All around the world, and in almost every country, countless educated people have heard of, or read, the famous works by the ancient Greek poet, Homer. His two masterpieces, The Iliad and The Odyssey, are widely considered to be the first two works of ‘Western’ literature. In addition to that, Homer (along with his possible contemporary, Hesiod) was one of the first Greeks to drag the gods of Olympus down from their obscure mountain and make the deities relatable and personified with emotions in ways that the average person could understand. The poet’s works would go on to be preserved, edited and translated into numerous languages, serving as a core component of literary education—and it is still taught in schools, today. Yet, except those general truths, much about Homer remains a mystery. Who was he? When did he live? Was Homer one man or many? To these questions, historians can only shrug their shoulders and hypothesize.