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.
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.
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 is 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-inclusive qualification “martial”
