Fine Japanese Calligraphy

The Art of Master Japanese Calligrapher Eri Takase

Visa, Mastercard, AmEx, PayPal accepted
Home › Library › Philology › Jujitsu

柔術 jūjutsu Jujitsu

柔術 (jūjutsu) names the old Japanese art of fighting without weapons, followed here from an Edo book that read it yawara to the English jiu-jitsu.

X Facebook
Japanese Scroll of Jujitsu (jūjutsu) — Calligraphy by Eri Takase
Jujitsu柔術jūjutsu

Original art by Master Calligrapher Eri Takase

All Fonts ›

Abstract

柔術 (jūjutsu) is the name of the old Japanese martial art of attack and defense without weapons, or with a short one, and in the sources read here it begins as a written name for an art spoken of as やはら, yawara, a word a kana book of 1647, 悔草, weeds of regret, already uses when its author wishes he had yawara, seizing and the staff; the 日本国語大辞典's earliest yawara is of about 1665, and its earliest 柔術 is in 本朝武芸小伝, lives of the masters of the martial arts compiled by Hinatsu Shigetaka 日夏繁高 and printed in 1716, which heads its tenth volume 柔術 in its table of contents, and opens the volume by quoting a book it calls 拳法秘書: what the present age calls 柔術 is this; the 武備志 calls it 拳, with the ruby ヤハラ, yahara, the old spelling of yawara, beside 柔術; three books of 1759, 1762 and 1770, read at the page, write 柔術 and read it やはら, two of them setting it beside 劔術 read けんじゆつ, kenjutsu; one of 1786 reads 柔 with a Sino-Japanese ruby, and Hepburn's dictionary of 1867 enters jū-jutsz and yawara as synonyms, neither marked as a word of books. The 1716 book's own story of the art's beginning has 陳元贇, a newcomer to Japan, tell three masterless samurai at a temple in Edo of an art of seizing men in Ming China, which he had seen but did not know, and the three work it out themselves; a book dated 1843 has him teach it to them and calls that the beginning of 柔術 in Japan; the earliest known English running text with the word, in the Internet Archive's full-text search, is of Yokohama in 1884, the yawara or jiu-jitsu, an art once favourite and coming back into vogue as a show; a Japanese writer in the American journal Science wrote jū jitsu in 1886; in 1888 a paper Kanō Jigorō 嘉納治五郎 signed with the Reverend T. Lindsay gave Jiujutsu and Yawara as the art's two names most widely known and used; in 1889 Kanō took 柔術 as the general name for now, because it was the name most widely known; and in 1894 The Japan Weekly Mail printed jujitsu. How Kanō named his art 柔道 (jūdō) to set it apart from the disrepute of 柔術, and how 柔道 became the general name in Japan, is told in the history of 柔道; English kept the older name for the art, as jiu-jitsu and jujitsu.

Overview

The sense. The name of a martial art, in the standard language. デジタル大辞泉 defines it as 《徒手で打つ・突く・蹴る・投げる・組み伏せるなどの方法によって相手を攻撃し、また防御する日本古来の武術。やわら。》, a martial art of old Japan, attacking and defending against an opponent bare-handed, by striking, thrusting, kicking, throwing and pinning; yawara [1]. 精選版 日本国語大辞典 gives the same art without weapons, adds strangling and locking the joints, and closes on the same word, やわら; its note on the word says that in the early modern period the art also went by 体術, 和 (read やわら), 小具足 and 捕手, and names among its schools 小栗, 制剛, 関口新心, 渋川, 起倒, 楊心 and 天神真楊 [1]. ニッポニカ, in the article by 渡邉一郎, defines it in Kanō's words, 《無手或(あるい)は短かき武器をもって、無手或は武器をもっている敵を攻撃し、または防禦(ぼうぎょ)する術》, the art of attacking or defending, bare-handed or with a short weapon, against an enemy bare-handed or armed, and gathers under the one name three groups: throws, chokes, holds and locks (和術, 体術); seizing and binding (小具足, 捕手); and striking (拳法, 白打) [1]. 百科事典マイペディア alone among them says when the name came into common use: the art was called 鎧組, 小具足, 腰の廻り, 捕手, 和術, 体術, 柔術 and more, 《江戸中期以後〈やわら〉または柔術と通称されるようになった》, from the middle of the Edo period it came to be called, in common, yawara or 柔術; it names no witness [1]. JMdict enters 柔術, じゅうじゅつ, jujitsu (martial art); jiujitsu; jujutsu, and the noun やわら, written 柔ら, 軟ら, 和ら or 柔, judo; jujutsu [2].

The words. 柔 (jū) is soft, supple, yielding; 術 (jutsu) is a technique or an art, the suffix of 劔術 (kenjutsu), the art of the sword, and of 居合術 (iaijutsu), the art of drawing it. 柔術 is read じゅうじゅつ, in the old kana じうじゅつ [1]. やわら, in the old kana やはら, is a native word: 日本国語大辞典 gives it as a noun formed with the suffix ら, softness, then gentleness, and in its third sense 柔術, with its earliest example from about 1665 [3]; a kana book of 1647 has it earlier, as the record below sets out. So the art had a native name, yawara, the soft, and a Sino-Japanese one, jūjutsu, the art of the soft, and both are written with 柔. What the two characters mean is plain. The question this history follows is which name the characters 柔術 stood for, when the Sino-Japanese reading came into use, and how English took the word.

The text in English. Hepburn's dictionary of 1867 glosses 柔術 the art of wrestling, or of throwing others by sleight, with yawara as its synonym, and his second edition of 1872 keeps the gloss [4][5]. English has no word of its own for the art; it borrowed the Japanese, and spelled it many ways: jiu-jitsu in 1884, jū jitsu in 1886, Jiujutsu in 1888, jujitsu and Jujutsu in 1894, as the English section below sets out. JMdict gives jujitsu, jiujitsu and jujutsu [2].

The historical record

1647, 悔草, weeds of regret. A kana book of counsel on how to live, in short entries, by 井上小左衛門, printed in Kyoto by 吉野屋 in 正保 4; the National Diet Library's copy is the first edition, by its item record [6]. One entry closes, in the words the full-text search gives and the page shows from やはら on, 《我なとは。やはら取手や棒などをあらまほしとくゆる》, as for the likes of me, I regret it, wishing I had yawara, seizing, the staff and such, with the ruby とりて beside 取手 and ぼう beside 棒 [6]. Yawara is written in kana and listed with seizing and the staff. This is the earliest yawara for the art read here, eighteen years before the dictionary's; the passage was pointed out by 老松信一 in 1970, who prints the year as 1947 for 正保 4 [7]. 老松 also quotes the preface 関口柔心 wrote in 1631 to his school's book, 《余嘗テ命ニ従ヒ東武ニ適ク，時ニ世ヲ挙ゲテ柔ヲ称スル者有リ》, I once went to Edo under orders; at that time there were people everywhere who professed 柔, which he reads as many in Edo then naming their art 柔, as the 関口 school did; that preface is not read here [7].

About 1665, 浮世物語, a tale of the floating world. 日本国語大辞典's earliest example of yawara for the art is from this kana book of the 1660s: 《居合・やはら・兵法なんど幼きより手馴れさせ》, iai, yawara, the art of the sword and the like, made familiar to him from childhood [3]. The word is written in kana and sits in a list of a samurai's arts. The book is not read here; the line is the dictionary's quotation.

1716, Hinatsu Shigetaka 日夏繁高, 本朝武芸小伝, lives of the masters of the martial arts. The book's preface is dated 正徳 4 (1714), its postface the same year, and its colophon 《享保元年季冬吉旦》, the twelfth month of 享保 1, with its publishers 茨木多左衛門 and 鷦鷯摠四郎 [8]. The copy read here, the 国文学研究資料館's, is a later impression from the 1716 blocks: bound after its colophon is the list of an Osaka bookseller, 文金堂 河内屋太助, whose titles include books of the 1800s [8]. Its table of contents gives the ninth volume to 小具足, with 竹内中務大夫 and 荒木無人齋, and the tenth to 柔術, with three men, 水早長左衞門信正, 梶原源左衞門直景 and 關口八郎右衞門氏心 [8]. In the body, the tenth volume opens under the heading 拳, the fist, in kana prose cut at full size in the same columns as the Chinese of the rest [8]:

拳法秘書曰今世に所謂柔術(ヤハラ)是也武備志に是を拳(ケン)といふ古是を手搏(シユバク)と云

The 拳法秘書 says: what the present age calls 柔術 is this; the 武備志 calls it 拳; of old it was called 手搏. The ruby beside 柔術 is ヤハラ, yahara, the old spelling of yawara, and the 1920 typeset edition of the book prints the same ruby [8][9]. The 武備志 is a Chinese book on war of the Ming dynasty, by 茅元儀, completed in 1621 [10]; the 拳法秘書, the secret book of 拳法, is not identified here, and the print does not mark where its quotation ends. The section goes on with the art's beginning. Lately, 近世, a man called 陳元贇 (the ruby reads チンゲンヒン) came to Japan, 我國に來り, and lodged at the 國正寺, a temple in Azabu 淺府 in Edo, where three masterless samurai, 福野七郎右衛門, 磯貝次郎左衛門 and 三浦與次右衛門, lodged too; 元贇 told them that in the Great Ming, 大明, there was an art of seizing men, and that though he did not know the art he had seen its techniques; the three, hearing of it, worked out the techniques themselves and mastered them [8]. Then: 《凡柔(ヤハラ)のおこりは右三人より傳りて諸方にあまねし此術の理は柔にして敵とあらそはす》, in all, yawara had its beginning in these three, and passed from them everywhere; the principle of this art is to be soft and not to contend with the enemy, with 柔 alone glossed ヤハラ [8]. The entries that follow are in Chinese. In the first, the monk 制剛 comes to 水早 and says 《君雖精武術柔術不及吾》, though you are expert in the martial arts, in 柔術 you do not match me, and teaches him [8][9]. In the third, 關口 《自少年好刀槍及柔術各得其神妙》, from his youth loved the sword, the spear and 柔術 and mastered each, and 《凡柔心之柔術古今無比之者》, the 柔術 of 柔心, the name he took later, had no equal then or since; the first of these sentences is the 日本国語大辞典's earliest example of 柔術 [1][8]. Then, in kana in the same block, at full size: 《近代澁川伴五郎といふ柔術の達人あり是關口氏業の傳受を得たり》 (in the forms of the 1920 typeset; the cursive does not decide between 澁 and 渋), lately there is a master of 柔術 called 澁川伴五郎, who received the transmission of 關口氏業 [8]. In this book 柔術 is the heading the compiler gives a volume and his word for the art in the entries of 梶原 and 關口, as in the monk's words in the entry of 水早 [8][9]; where the book glosses it, it reads the characters yawara.

The same book, in its entry on 林崎甚助重信, writes the art of drawing the sword 拔刀 and gives it the ruby イヤヒ, iyahi, a spoken form of iai, as the history of 居合道 sets out [11]. In the two places read, the compiler writes a Sino-Japanese name for the art and reads it with the art's native one.

From 1720, a school's own scrolls. 湯浅有希子 and 志々田文明, reading the documents of the 諸賞流 of Morioka, write that the school 《「和」と書いて「やわら」と読む》, writes 和 and reads it yawara, and list scrolls of the school with 和 in their titles, dated from 1720 to 1747 [12]. The dates are theirs, and the scrolls are not read here. A school could write the native name with another character than 柔.

1759, 1762 and 1770, three books. The National Diet Library's full-text search of its digitized books returns 柔術 first, among items it dates, in three books of the 1750s to 1770s, each read here at the page for the ruby [13]. In 滑稽雌黄, comic drafts, by 桂井蒼八, of 宝暦 9 (1759): 《かれ劔術(けんじゆつ)柔術(やはら)を稽古するもの》, those who practice the sword and yawara [14]. In 世間母親容気, the characters of mothers in the world, by 南圭梅嶺, of 宝暦 12 (1762), a character who went to Osaka on business 《柔術(やはら)の上手へ弟子入して》, became the pupil of a master of yawara, and took the middle licence (the words as the full-text search gives them, the ruby read at the page) [15]. In 一子相傳極秘巻, the secret scroll passed to one son, by 半田山人, of 明和 7 (1770): 《何程劔術(けんじゆつ)柔術(やはら)の達者なりとも》, however expert in the sword and in yawara [16]. In 1759 and 1770 the same phrase gives 劔術 a Sino-Japanese ruby and 柔術 a native one. In 1759 and 1762 the middle kana of the ruby is faint, and its first and last are や and ら [14][15].

1786, Santō Kyōden 山東京伝, 指面草. In this comic book of 天明 6, 柔術 carries a ruby beside 柔 alone, a Sino-Japanese one, じ followed by kana read as う or ゆう, not with certainty, and none beside 術 [17]. It is the first book read here to read 柔術 as a Sino-Japanese word. These are the first four dated items the full-text search returns for 柔術, oldest first, read for their ruby; they are not a census of the period, and a 柔術 printed without ruby says nothing about how it was read [13].

1767 and 1843, the lineage books. Two later books on the martial schools are read here in their 1915 reprint [18]. The 日本中興武術系譜略 is a lineage chart which the reprint's editors describe as built on the 1716 book, with the swordsmen down to the 明和 years added, and date to a first printing of 明和 4 (1767), revised in 寛政 2 (1790), with the hedge 《如し》, it seems [18]. It files the three men and their successors under 拳法, and opens the section with the 1716 book's quotation in Chinese: 《拳法秘書曰、今世所謂柔術是也、武備志是云拳、又曰手搏》 [18]. The 武術流祖錄, a record of the founders of the martial schools, by 羽鳥耀清, which the editors call 新撰武術流祖錄, carries no date of its own: they write that it gives no year of writing or printing and follow the 國書解題 in dating it 天保 14 (1843), as the national catalogue of early books does [18][19]. It tells the story under the school of 福野: 《于時陳元贇と云者寓同寺、元贇三士に柔法を傳ふ、三士悅て修練す、其技各得其妙祕、是本朝柔術の始也云々》, at that time a man called 陳元贇 lodged at the same temple; 元贇 taught the three samurai the method of the soft; the three practiced it gladly and each mastered its secrets; this was the beginning of 柔術 in our country, closing on 云々, and so on [18]. Where the book of 1716 has 元贇 only having seen the techniques and the three working them out, the book dated 1843 has him teach them, and calls it the beginning [8][18]. The same page, p. 152, names the art of the schools of 制剛, 梶原, 關口 and 澁川 柔術, and that of 福野 柔法 [18].

1867, J. C. Hepburn, A Japanese and English Dictionary. The first edition enters 《JŪ-JUTSZ, ジウジユツ, 柔術, n. The art of wrestling, or of throwing others by sleight. Syn. YAWARA.》 (p. 161), and 《YAWARA, ヤハラ, 拳法, n. Wrestling. — wo toru. Syn. JŪ-JUTSZ.》 (p. 528) [4]. Hepburn marks a word used only in books, or obsolete, with †, and a colloquial word little used, or not of the Edo dialect, with ‖ (p. xii); neither entry is marked, while the entry above JŪ-JUTSZ, 柔順, is marked † [4]. His preface says the words were collected for the most part in the course of his own reading, or heard in use among the people [4]. So in 1867 both names are entered as current, each pointing to the other, and yawara is written 拳法, the word under which the 1716 book had quoted what the present age calls 柔術 [4][8]. The second edition of 1872 keeps the gloss and the synonym, as the history of 柔道 sets out [5].

1884, The Japan Weekly Mail, Yokohama, 24 May. An English weekly in Japan, on the fashion for athletic games: 《The yawara or jiu-jitsu, a once favourite mode of wrestling, is coming rapidly into vogue, together with single-stick or quarter-staff. The common sumo is quite different from the yawara, as the former is chiefly an exhibition of physical strength and muscular power, while the latter depends rather on the agility and dexterity of the wrestler. In olden times, the yawara was a favourite pastime of the samurai, and was much practiced as conducive to muscular suppleness as well as a means of self-defence in contests at close quarters.》 [20]. It describes an exhibition 《in the arena at Isezakicho》, in Yokohama, and names shime-ai, mutual strangling, as a branch of the yawara [20]. Yawara comes first and jiu-jitsu second, and the art is a show coming back into fashion.

1886, K. Mitsukuri, "The Intellectual Movement in Japan", Science. Writing from Tokyo on 23 April, a Japanese author tells American readers of a reaction, three or four years before, against all things European, when Confucian ethics, utai (a peculiar kind of singing, as he glosses it), cha no yu and the Ogasawara school of etiquette came back: 《Young men were seen on the street, carrying about fencing-apparatus,—a sight not seen since the old feudal days. Schools of jū jitsu (a kind of wrestling) sprang up into existence by dozens.》 [21]. The page prints jū jitsu, with a macron. The rest of the article is on the Romaji Society, 羅馬字会, whose spelling, he writes, is very much like that of Dr. Hepburn [21].

1888 and 1889, the general name, and Kanō's 柔道. A paper read before the Asiatic Society of Japan on 18 April 1888, signed by the Reverend T. Lindsay and by Kanō, is titled Jiujutsu (柔術), says that the word Jiujutsu may be translated freely as the art of gaining victory by yielding or pliancy, and on its second page: 《Jiujutsu has been known from feudal times under various names, such as Yawara, Taijutsu, Kogusoku, Kempo and Hakuda. The names Jiujutsu and Yawara were most widely known and used.》 [22]. It reads the 1716 book as giving accounts of Kogusoku and of Ken (拳), which is equivalent to Kempō (拳法), the two distinguished as the art of seizing and the art of gaining victory by pliancy [22]. In 1889 Kanō, before the Japan Education Society, said that 體術, 和 (with the ruby ヤハラ), 柔道, 小具足, 捕手, 拳法, 白打 and 手搏 were all one kind of 柔術, and: 《柔術ト云フ名稱ハ一番廣ク人ニ知ラレテ居リマスカラ從前ノ體術、和、小具足ナドヲ論ズルニ就テ今假リニ柔術ヲ其總名ト致シテ置キマセウ》, since the name 柔術 is the most widely known, in discussing the former 體術, 和, 小具足 and the like I shall for now take 柔術 as their general name, as his pupil's reprint of 1905 prints the lecture [23]. The Japan Weekly Mail reported Kanō explaining ju-jutsu, or ju dō, as he himself preferred to call it; and in the 1889 lecture Kanō said why he had not used the common word 柔術 for his own art: people thought of it as an art of dangerous things, choking and breaking the joints, and show booths had begun to charge admission to watch it beside sumō and acrobatics, so that the word had come to seem base, as the history of 柔道 sets out [5]. The exhibition of 1884 in a Yokohama arena was a show of that kind; the report does not say whether it charged admission [20].

1894, Kumamoto, the Mail and Morinaga. Kumamoto Jitsudō 隈元実道, a teacher of jūjutsu, wrote in 1894 that the old transmission documents called the art 柔道 where the moral way was meant as well and 柔術 where only the technique was meant, and in his edition of 1895 that one should say 柔道 across all the schools, adding that since the oldest scrolls write やわら, one may say that too, as the history of 柔道 sets out [5]. On 1 September The Japan Weekly Mail, in an account of a secret society in China taken from the Metropolitan papers, wrote that two men of Aizu 《were experts of jujitsu and cudgel-play》, and that a pupil of theirs threw down forty-six rioters in Nanking and 《afterwarded restored to life by the art of jujitsu》 all of them [24]. In the same weekly, on 15 December, H. Morinaga opened a serial, Sappō and Kappō; Esoteric Jujutsu, on the arts of making a man seem dead and of bringing him back: 《Jujutsu is a military art which was highly esteemed in the Feudal Ages of Japan, by which a person may, without using any weapon, or at best a small one, act on the offensive or defensive against others who do or do not use arms. But it is really in its nature an excellent means of physical exercise, for which reason it has come to be studied at the present day by amateurs, school-boys, and many others. The art has been known under several names—Kempo, for example, Jujutsu, Judo, Yawara, Kogusoku, Kumiuchi, etc.—all of which are nothing but different styles of one and the same thing.》 [25]. He reports the two opinions on its origin, the Chinese one through Chin Genbin, of the Ming and his three pupils, and the native one, which cites the Bujutsu Ryusoroku, the 武術流祖錄, for a school older than 元贇's coming; he holds that the art of his day should be understood as a special Japanese art … irrespective of the question whether the art received any aid from Chinese sources or not [25]. As Lindsay and Kanō had in 1888, a Japanese writer in English takes Jujutsu as the general name, now with Judo among its others.

1919 and 1922, 柔道 in place of 柔術. The Dai Nippon Butokukai called the art 柔道 in its rules by September 1914, its general change of 柔術 to 柔道 is dated by the scholarship to 1919, and the Ministry of Education wrote 柔道 in a regulation of that year; in 1922 Kanō told the police that formerly people had not said 柔道 but 柔術, now and then 柔道, but mostly 柔術 or yawara, as the history of 柔道 sets out [5]. In 1928 Kanō complained that once the Kōdōkan used the name, people began to call the old 柔術 柔道 as well [5].

What is not a source. The national catalogue of early books, 国書データベース, lists seventy-eight works with 柔術 in their titles, twelve of them dated, the earliest 弥左衛門流柔術抜書, dated 延宝 3 (1675) [26]. That is a manuscript copy at the University of Tsukuba, from the library of the jūdō historian 桜庭武, the first of four short works bound in one volume of eight leaves; the title is on the volume's cover label, and the text, on images 3 to 7, ends on image 7 with the date and the signature 《延宝三乙卯 初春日 穂積氏 梛置彦左衛門尉 為勝》, as the catalogue's note gives them [26]. The copy itself is not dated; the catalogue's 在判 says the original was signed and sealed. Read here at its images, 3 to 7, in a cursive hand that no typeset or transcription serves, the text speaks of the art as 柔: 《柔と云ハ》, what is called 柔, 《柔理ニ叶》, accords with the principle of 柔, and the four of 《剛柔強弱》, hard, soft, strong and weak; it names schools such as 良移心当流, 直心流, 起倒流 and 新心流, and a man of the Kantō, 石川豊後; and in a passage on the art's name it writes, in kana, 《まろく人をやわらくると云ひ》, to say that it softens people, making them round [26]. At one place, closing an article on image 6, it writes what may be 柔術; but the same second character follows 名 on image 4, where 術 reads badly, so the reading is not settled here. Whether the text of 1675 writes 柔術 is still open, and the copy is a lead to a use of the word older than the 1716 book's, not a witness. None of the other titled works is read here. The national dictionary's earliest 柔術 is of 1716 [1].

The word in English

1867, Hepburn. JŪ-JUTSZ, in his own spelling of the kana ジウジユツ, the art of wrestling, or of throwing others by sleight, and YAWARA, wrestling [4].

1884, the yawara or jiu-jitsu. The earliest known English running text with the word, in the Internet Archive's full-text search, leads with yawara and gives jiu-jitsu second [20]. The spelling -jitsu renders a pronunciation of 術 that the kana of 1867 do not write; the sources read here do not say why.

1886, jū jitsu. A Japanese author in Science [21].

1888, Jiujutsu. The title of Lindsay and Kanō's paper, Jiujutsu (柔術), which gives Yawara as the other name most widely known [22]; The Japan Weekly Mail's report of it writes ju-jutsu [5].

1894, jujitsu and Jujutsu. jujitsu, in The Japan Weekly Mail of 1 September [24]; Jujutsu, Morinaga's, for the general name of the art [25].

1895, Lafcadio Hearn, Jiujutsu. The title of a chapter of Out of the East, which calls the art the old samurai art of fighting without weapons, the words of Lindsay's paper as the Mail reported it in 1888, as the history of 柔道 sets out [5].

1904 to 1910, jiu-jitsu, jujitsu, and the gentle art. An American manual of 1904, titled Jiu-jitsu, says Literally, it means the gentle art; Kanō's pupil Arima Sumitomo 有馬純臣 writes jujitsu in Tokyo in 1908, in a sentence he gives as Kanō's, the reason why I adopted the name judo instead of jujitsu; and in 1910 Lady Lawson reports Kanō telling her that the old word jūjutsu is in vogue only among foreigners and others whose knowledge of the art is derived from hearsay, while Japanese students say judō, as the history of 柔道 sets out [5]. So by 1910 English used the older name while Japanese practice had moved to the newer.

Today. The design is sold as Jujitsu, with the line the name of the Japanese martial art. This history's gloss gives the art as the dictionaries define it, attack and defense without weapons [1], and jujitsu is the first of the English forms JMdict gives [2]. The earliest jujitsu read here is of 1894 [24]; the Internet Archive's full-text search was queried for the form, but the dates it gives its items are too unreliable to say that none is earlier.

A reading

The dictionaries give 柔術 as the art's name and yawara as its other name [1], and the English accounts give jiu-jitsu as what the Japanese called it. The sources read here put the two names in a different relation. Yawara is in print first, in kana, in 1647 [6]. 柔術 begins, in what is read here, as a word on the page: the heading a compiler gave a volume in 1716, the word his text used for the art in the volume's entries, and, where his book glosses it, two characters read yawara [8]. The book of 1716 quotes another that calls 柔術 the present age's word for what a Ming book on war calls 拳, and reads it with the native name; the books of 1759 to 1770 read here wrote the same characters and read them yawara, and two of them read 劔術 kenjutsu in the same phrase [14][15][16]. The first Sino-Japanese ruby read here is of 1786 [17], and by 1867 Hepburn entered both names as current words, each the other's synonym [4]. So in the books read here from 1716 to 1770, the name the eye read as 柔術 was, for the ear, yawara, and jūjutsu is found beside it from the 1780s. When English running text met the art in 1884, in what the Internet Archive's full-text search shows, the paper put yawara first [20]; in 1888 Lindsay and Kanō gave Jiujutsu and Yawara as the two names most widely known [22], and in 1889 Kanō took 柔術 as the general name for now, because it was the name most widely known [23]; and in 1922 Kanō recalled that people had formerly said mostly 柔術 or yawara [5].

The 1716 book also says what the 柔 of the name meant to its compiler: the principle of this art is to be soft and not to contend with the enemy [8]. What 術 meant against 道 is another question, which belongs to the word 柔道: some Edo schools already wrote 柔道 for a teaching above the technique, and the distinction reached the name in print from Kumamoto's manual of 1894, as its history sets out [5]. The books read here for 柔術 set it beside 劔術 and among the martial arts, 武術, and do not take that question up [8][14][16].

I read 柔術 as the written name of an art whose own name was yawara: the word of compilers and of print, which speech took up beside yawara, and which, once Kanō had named his art 柔道, gave way in Japanese to the newer name while English kept it for the art. A buyer who hangs these two characters hangs the name the Edo books wrote and their readers read yawara, and the word English met in Meiji Yokohama and took into the language as jiu-jitsu.

Notes

Japanese Scrolls by Master Calligrapher Eri Takase

Japanese Scroll of Jujitsu (jūjutsu) in a block font by Master Japanese Calligrapher Eri Takase
柔術OB2ABlock
Japanese Scroll of Jujitsu (jūjutsu) in a cursive font by Master Japanese Calligrapher Eri Takase
柔術VC3BCursive
Japanese Scroll of Jujitsu (jūjutsu) in Master Japanese Calligrapher Eri Takase's own style (jiun)
柔術VD3BJiun
Japanese Scroll of Jujitsu (jūjutsu) in a semi-cursive font by Master Japanese Calligrapher Eri Takase
柔術VS3CSemi-Cursive

Sources not seen

A reader with access to any of these is invited to write to Takase Studios at Tim@Takase.com.

References

  1. 「柔術」, デジタル大辞泉, 精選版 日本国語大辞典, 日本大百科全書 (ニッポニカ, 渡邉一郎), ブリタニカ国際大百科事典 小項目事典, 百科事典マイペディア, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/柔術-77051
  2. 柔術 (entry 1335430) and 柔ら (entry 2709280), JMdict, at jisho.org. https://jisho.org/word/柔術 · https://jisho.org/word/柔ら
  3. 「柔ら」, 精選版 日本国語大辞典 and デジタル大辞泉, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/柔ら-649977
  4. J. C. Hepburn, A Japanese and English Dictionary; with an English and Japanese Index, 1867, preface signed Shanghai, May 1867, pp. v–vi, xii, 161 and 528, scans 5–6, 9, 89 and 273. National Diet Library pid 1735285. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1735285/1/89 · https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1735285/1/273
  5. 典 Ten, "柔道 · jūdō · judo, the martial art Kanō Jigorō founded in 1882", Philology, Takase Studios, 2026. https://takase.com/library/philology/judo
  6. 井上小左衛門『悔草』, 正保4 (1647), 京都 吉野屋, the first edition by the item record, scan 72. National Diet Library pid 2539934. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/2539934/1/72
  7. 老松信一「竹内流腰の廻り創始にみる初期柔術の生成過程」, 『武道学研究』 2 (2), 1970, pp. 18–23, p. 22. J-STAGE. https://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/article/budo1968/2/2/2_18/_article/-char/ja
  8. 日夏繁高『本朝武芸小伝』 (干城小傳), 享保元年 (1716), 茨木多左衛門・鷦鷯摠四郎 版行, a later impression, the copy of the 国文学研究資料館, canvases 11, 164, 165, 166 and 169. 国書データベース. https://kokusho.nijl.ac.jp/biblio/200005446/164 · https://kokusho.nijl.ac.jp/biblio/200005446/169
  9. 日夏繁高『本朝武芸小伝』, 大日本武徳会本部, 1920, pp. 116–118, scans 10, 126, 127 and 128. National Diet Library pid 927114. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/927114/1/126
  10. 「武備志」, 改訂新版 世界大百科事典, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/武備志-1201968
  11. 典 Ten, "居合道 · iaidō · the way of drawing the sword", Philology, Takase Studios, 2026. https://takase.com/library/philology/iaido
  12. 湯浅有希子・志々田文明「新渡戸家文書にみる諸賞流和」, 『武道学研究』 53 (1), 2020, pp. 21–54, pp. 24 and 53. J-STAGE. https://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/article/budo/53/1/53_2002/_article/-char/ja
  13. National Diet Library Digital Collections, full-text search for 柔術, all items, sorted oldest first. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/search/searchResult?keyword=柔術
  14. 桂井蒼八 作, 月岡雪鼎 画『滑稽雌黄』, 宝暦9 (1759), scan 59. National Diet Library pid 2533844. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/2533844/1/59
  15. 南圭梅嶺『世間母親容気』, 宝暦12 (1762), scan 41. National Diet Library pid 2554478. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/2554478/1/41
  16. 半田山人 著, 北尾重政 画『一子相傳極秘巻』, 明和7 (1770), scan 27. National Diet Library pid 2554807. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/2554807/1/27
  17. 山東京伝『指面草』, 天明6 (1786), scan 21. National Diet Library pid 8929535. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/8929535/1/21
  18. 国書刊行会 編『武術叢書』, 1915, 緒言 p. 2 and pp. 120–121 (日本中興武術系譜略) and p. 152 (武術流祖錄), scans 4, 70 and 86. National Diet Library pid 945805. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/945805/1/4 · https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/945805/1/70 · https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/945805/1/86
  19. 羽鳥耀清『武術流祖録』, 天保14 (1843), the work record. 国書データベース, 国文学研究資料館. https://kokusho.nijl.ac.jp/work/482280
  20. The Japan Weekly Mail, Yokohama, 24 May 1884, p. 481. Internet Archive yokohama-japan-weekly-mail-1884.5.24. https://archive.org/details/yokohama-japan-weekly-mail-1884.5.24/page/n4
  21. K. Mitsukuri, "The Intellectual Movement in Japan", Science 7 (172), 21 May 1886, pp. 450–453. Internet Archive sim_science_1886-05-21_7_172. https://archive.org/details/sim_science_1886-05-21_7_172/page/n1
  22. T. Lindsay and J. Kano, "Jiujutsu (柔術). The Old Samurai Art of Fighting without Weapons", Transactions of the Asiatic Society of Japan 16, read 18 April 1888, pp. 192–193. Internet Archive in.ernet.dli.2015.70902. https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.70902/page/n221
  23. 嘉納治五郎「柔道一班並ニ其教育上ノ價値」 (1889), reprinted in 有馬純臣『柔道大意』, January 1905, appendix pp. 2–3, scan 91. National Diet Library pid 860055. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/860055/1/91
  24. "The Ko Lao Hwui, a Secret Society in China", The Japan Weekly Mail, Yokohama, 1 September 1894, p. 250. Internet Archive jwm-bound-1894.7-12. https://archive.org/details/jwm-bound-1894.7-12/page/n257
  25. H. Morinaga, "Sappō and Kappō; Esoteric Jujutsu", chapter 1, The Japan Weekly Mail, Yokohama, 15 December 1894, p. 683. Internet Archive jwm-bound-1894.7-12. https://archive.org/details/jwm-bound-1894.7-12/page/n690
  26. 国書データベース, 国文学研究資料館, the works with 柔術 in their titles; among them 弥左衛門流柔術抜書, dated 延宝三, the copy of the 筑波大学附属図書館 (789.2-N26, 桜庭文庫), imaged; the text at images 3–7 (the article closing on image 6, the passage on the name on image 4, the date on image 7). https://kokusho.nijl.ac.jp/work/4419530 · https://kokusho.nijl.ac.jp/biblio/100305495/3 · https://kokusho.nijl.ac.jp/biblio/100305495/6
  27. 「享保」, Japanese Wikipedia, revision 111055098. https://ja.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?oldid=111055098
  28. 足立賢二「竹内流における“最古の柔術”“柔術の源流”言説の生成と前景化」, 『スポーツ人類學研究』 22, 2020, pp. 1–24, p. 9. J-STAGE. https://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/article/santhropology/2020/22/2020_01/_article/-char/ja

Authors

Tim Jackowski (Systems Architect, Takase Studios, LLC) · 典 Ten (Anthropic Claude Opus 5.5, Takase Studios, LLC)

AI written · Ten wrote the history. Tim Jackowski commissioned it and answers for it.

Not yet reviewed.

Cite as: Tim Jackowski and Ten, "Philology of 柔術 (jūjutsu)," Takase Studios, 2026, https://takase.com/library/philology/jujutsu.