活人剣 katsujinken Life Giving Sword

Life Giving Sword in Japanese is 活人剣 which is read katsujinken

活人剣, read katsujinken: the sword that gives life, a sword used to preserve life rather than to take it.

It is one half of a seven-character Zen saying, 殺人刀活人剣, the sword that kills, the sword that gives life, and it has always been the half people wanted on a wall. The pair is already a proverb in the earliest Chan records, where one master says of another that he has the sword that kills but not yet the sword that gives life; the Blue Cliff Record fixed it as the rule of high antiquity and the pivot of the present day, and the Gateless Gate put it in verse.

In Zen the two swords are one teacher's two hands, what he takes from a student and what he gives, and a master must have both. In Japan the line went to war: a Takeda house rule glossed the samurai's sword with it, a captain shouted it as he charged, and Yagyū Munenori, the shōgun's sword-master, made the two halves the titles of his two books of the sword and explained the pair as the sword that kills one evil man so that ten thousand may live.

Tea rooms took the giving half alone, and one connoisseur wrote in disgust of a scroll from which a dealer had cut the killing word. Life Giving Sword is the translators' English, Hiroaki Sato's first and then William Scott Wilson's and Thomas Cleary's. Its other half, satsujinken, is offered on its own.

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

Your scroll is brushed when you order it and completed within 1 to 3 business days. It ships by USPS Priority Mail from Master Takase's studio in Washington State, boxed and ready to hang, with a printed page giving the art's English, romaji and Japanese.

Sending it as a gift? Tell us when you order and we will include your message.

Shipping is calculated at checkout from your address; within the United States it is $13 to $22. We ship worldwide, and any import charges for your country are shown at checkout before you pay.

Every order is covered by our 30-day money-back guarantee. If your scroll arrives damaged, or we made an error, we replace it or refund you in full, including shipping. Refund policy

Master Japanese Calligrapher Eri Takase brushes your scroll by hand when you order it. Each scroll bears her red seal, 英利, and her signature.

The scrolls are 12 1/4" W × 43" H (31 × 109 cm) with real silk borders and Japanese paper that are layered so the scroll hangs straight and will not warp over time. The scrolls themselves are made by Sankō (株式会社三幸) in Gifu prefecture, which has been making high quality scrolls since 1947, and we have worked with Sankō for over two decades.

Eri Takase was born and raised in Osaka, Japan, and holds the rank of Shihan, the highest rank in Japanese calligraphy, from the Bokuteki-kai and the Bunka-shodo. About Master Takase