宮本武蔵 miyamoto musashi Miyamoto Musashi

宮本武蔵 is a name each reader meets through a different door. Some know the swordsman of the duels, or the founder of the school of two swords. Some know the strategist, or the young hero of Yoshikawa Eiji's novel. Others know the painter in ink. An old book of tales puts the two masters together. A picture of Daruma he painted for his lord came out poorly. He said he had left his art of arms out of the brush, and he painted it again. Which Musashi is yours.

The name joins 宮本, most often explained as the name of the village his family lived in, to 武蔵, the name of a province used as his common name without the governorship it would imply; he went by it with the Hosokawa house of Kumamoto in the 1640s, and signed the book he wrote on strategy with another surname, Shinmen.

We want you to be as happy with the meaning as you are with Master Takase's art. To learn more, visit Philology of 宮本武蔵.

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