Eri's Choice · VD3B
Eri's Choice is a design that does not keep strictly to one style; it is Master Takase's own artistic choice.
二天一流 niten ichiryū Two Heavens One Style
The Niten school, the two-sword school of Miyamoto Musashi, which the Book of Five Rings teaches.
by Master Eri Takase
Born and raised in Osaka, Japan, Eri Takase received the rank of Shihan, master, from two calligraphy societies, the Bokuteki-kai and Bunka-shodō, and won best-of-category awards in all-Japan national competitions. She has created calligraphy for people around the world for more than thirty years, and with your order she will be creating calligraphy for you.
In a ritual as old as calligraphy itself, Master Takase prepares the ink, meditatively rubbing the ink stick against the stone until it reaches the perfect consistency for the paper. Then, properly loading the brush with ink, she brushes your scroll. And only when the scroll is just right and meets her approval, she signs it and affixes her seal, completing your original scroll.
12 1/4" × 43" (31 × 109 cm) Japanese Scrolls
The scrolls have woven damask borders and special layered Japanese paper (washi), designed to last generations by a scroll maker in Gifu, Japan, with whom we have worked for over two decades.
Gift-Ready
Your scroll arrives boxed, with a printed insert describing the words in detail.
Sending it as a gift? Add your message at checkout and we will include it with the insert.
Ships in 1-3 days from Washington State
Your scroll is brushed when you order it and completed within 1 to 3 business days.
Your scroll ships from Master Takase's studio in Washington State. Shipping is calculated at checkout. We ship worldwide.
30-day money-back guarantee
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.
Explanation
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.
It is in English print by 2004, and word for word in a translation 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 that name the school call it 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. Outside the copies of the five scrolls, the earliest dated text read to call the school 二天一流 is a postscript of 1666 by his pupil Terao Kumanosuke Nobuyuki; his five scrolls of 1643–45 use both 二天一流 and 二刀一流 but survive only in copies, the oldest dated one in the sources read, of 1667, so who first gave the school that name is disputed.
Learn More About These Words
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.
