二天一流 niten ichiryū Two Heavens One Style

二天一流 is the name of Miyamoto Musashi's school. 二天, two heavens, is Musashi's own Buddhist sobriquet, so in Japanese it is the Niten school, as one says the Yagyū school. 一流 is one word, a school.

The English title reads the four characters one at a time.

The English is David K. Groff's, from his The Five Rings of 2012. 二天一流 literally means "Two Heavens One Style" and is composed of the kanji 二 (read ni) meaning "two", 天 (read ten) meaning "heaven, sky", 一 (read ichi) meaning "one", and 流 (read ryū) meaning "style".

The licences under Musashi's name call his school 円明流, Enmei, and his memorandum of 1641 calls it 二刀, two swords; 二天, two heavens, was his own Buddhist name, Niten Dōraku. His five scrolls of 1643–45 use both 二天一流 and 二刀一流 and survive only in copies made after his death; an epitaph of 1721 names the school 二天一流, and who first gave it that name is disputed.

We want you to be as happy with the meaning as you are with Master Takase's art. To learn more, visit Philology of 二天一流.

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