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剣道 kendō Kendo

剣道 (kendō) is the name of Japanese fencing, followed here from an Edo school's license and the popular prints to school ordinances and into English.

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Japanese Scroll of Kendo (kendō) — Calligraphy by Eri Takase
Kendo剣道kendō

Original art by Master Calligrapher Eri Takase

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Abstract

剣道 (kendō) names Japanese fencing, practiced today in armor with bamboo swords, and the word is far older than the name: the two characters stand together as a book title in the Han imperial catalogue, an Edo school of the sword wrote 劔道 on a license of 1816, and a series of popular prints, a board game and a tale of the 1840s and 1850s wrote it for a swordsman's art, a print of the series and the tale with the reading けんだう, kendau. Through the Meiji period the art's ordinary names were 剣術 (kenjutsu) and 撃剣 (gekiken, gekken), while a sword master wrote 剣道 for the art in 1884, editors took it up from the late 1890s and school clubs after an early case in 1901, and a manual of 1894–95 is the earliest read here to set a moral 道 against the technique, 術, in a martial art's name. The Ministry of Education's rules took the word last: its ordinance of 1911 wrote 擊劒, its own lecturers called the art 剣道 at the Ministry's first course for teachers that year, the Dai Nippon Butokukai's rules renamed the art 剣道 by 1914, as Sakaue reads them, and in 1919 the association told its branches to use the name, and the Ministry wrote 劍道 in its higher-school rule of 1919 and changed 擊劍 to 劍道 in the normal- and middle-school ordinances of 1926. Two dates told online are wrong at the leaf: 1911 for the first official 剣道, and 1920 for the Butokukai's change.

Overview

The sense. A standard word, the name of a modern martial art and sport. デジタル大辞泉 defines it as 《日本の武道の一。面・籠手・胴・垂などの防具を着装し、決められた相手の部位を竹刀で打ったり突いたりして勝敗を争う競技。》, one of Japan's martial ways: a contest in which, wearing armor for the head, forearms, trunk and waist, the players strike or thrust with bamboo swords at set places on the opponent and compete for victory [1]. 精選版 日本国語大辞典 gives two senses: first, 《＝けんじゅつ（剣術）》, the same as kenjutsu, citing a Japanese-English dictionary of 1886; second, 《特に、運動競技の一つとしての剣術をいう。防具を身につけ竹刀を使ってする競技。》, in particular, swordsmanship as a sport: a contest fought in armor with bamboo swords, its earliest example from Akutagawa Ryūnosuke 芥川龍之介, 1923–27 [1]. JMdict gives kendo; Japanese martial art using bamboo swords [2]. The English word is the Japanese one, borrowed with the art.

The words. 剣道 is read けんどう; in the old kana its ending is ‐ダウ, けんだう [1]. 剣 is the sword, which Hepburn's dictionary gives alone as a two-edged sword [3]; 道 is a road, a way, and by extension a teaching or the course of an art. Beside it stand 剣術 (kenjutsu), with 術, a technique or art, the ordinary Edo word, and 撃剣 (gekiken, also read gekken), striking with the sword, the common Meiji word for fencing in armor with bamboo swords. The national dictionary of 1889–91, 言海, enters 擊劍 and 劍法 each as another word for 劍術, as the National Diet Library's full-text index shows them, and on its page 325 passes from けんたうし to けんだん with no けんだう between [4]. The forms 劍, 劔 and 劒 are one character written three ways, and the witnesses below use all three. What the two characters of 剣道 mean is plain. The question this history follows is when 剣道 stopped being one word for the sword art among several and became its name, and what the 道 was said to mean when it did.

The text in English. The Meiji bilingual dictionaries enter 剣道 as another word for 剣術. Hepburn's dictionary, in the 1888 printing of its third edition of 1886, the edition the 日本国語大辞典 cites for the word: KENDŌ ケンダウ 劍道 n. The art of fencing. [3]. Brinkley's dictionary of 1896: Kendō, けんたう, 劒道, n. The way or art of fencing. Syn. KENJUTSU., its kana printed without the voicing mark, as throughout the dictionary [5]. Inouye's of 1909: Kendō (劍道), n. The art of fighting; fencing. [6]. English prose borrowed kendo from 1910, as far as the Internet Archive's full-text search shows, and it glossed it fencing and the art of fencing long before it said the way of the sword, which the Internet Archive's full-text search first shows in 1936. JMdict keeps the borrowed word [2]. How English took the name is the subject of the English section below.

The historical record

The first century AD, the Book of Han 漢書, its catalogue of books, 藝文志. Among the books on the skills of war, after archery and fowling and before hand-fighting and football, the imperial catalogue lists 《劍道三十八篇》, 劍道, in thirty-eight sections [7]. The catalogue defines the class: 《技巧者，習手足，便器械，積機關，以立攻守之勝者也》, the skills are training the hands and feet, handling weapons and building up devices, so as to win in attack and defense [7]. The book is lost and only its title survives. A Japanese edition of 1882, 漢書評林, prints the line as 劔道三十八篇, and its commentator, Yan Shigu 顔師古, adds no note on what the title meant [8]. Here 劍道 is the name of a manual of the sword among the arts of war, not a Japanese word.

1816, a license of the Abe school 安部立. A first-grade license of the school, a scroll now in the library of Nippon Sport Science University, has as its inner title 《安部立劔道 手數組之次第》, the Abe school's 劔道: the order of its sets of forms, then three sets of forms with the sword and short sword, and 《右者初段也他見免之》, the above is the first grade, with a closing formula on its being seen by others, 他見 [9]. It ends with a lineage of three teachers of the house of Murayama 村山, with their seals, and is dated 《文化十三暦丙子 六月廿六日》, the twenty-sixth day of the sixth month of 文化 13, 1816 [9]. Of the titles with 剣道 in the national catalogue of early books, it is the oldest dated one read here, and it is a school's own word for what it taught. The national catalogue of early books lists many more transmission books of the same school with 剣道 in their titles, some dated in the catalogue to the seventeenth century; a catalogue title is a cataloguer's until the book is read, and they are not quoted here.

The late Edo period, 劔道獨稽古, 劔道 for practice on one's own. A woodblock picture book, its frontispiece title 劔道獨稽古 beside a picture of a bearded, craggy head, with a youth with a sword on the facing page [10]. Its table of contents is headed 劍道獨稽古 目録, and its first items are 《一兵法根元之事》 and 《一劔術三ヶの要》, the root of 兵法 and the three essentials of 劔術; the colophon reads 劔道獨稽古畢 [10]. The book is undated, and the national catalogue calls the edition late Edo. The title says 剣道 while the contents say 劔術.

About 1845–46, Utagawa Kuniyoshi 歌川国芳, 本朝劔道畧傳, brief lives of our country's swordsmen. A series of woodblock prints of heroes with the sword, the kabuki favorites and the heroes of Bakin's 八犬伝 among them, signed by Kuniyoshi and published by 上総屋岩蔵; on the sheet read here, 幡随長兵衛, the cartouche reads 本朝劔道畧傳, with the reading beside it, ほんちやう けんだう りやくでん [11]. The British Museum's record of the series dates it about 1845–1846 [12]. A popular print, sold to readers of the theater and the novels, put 劔道 in its title and told them to say kendau.

About 1847–52, 武芸達人双六, a board game of martial adepts. A sugoroku whose squares are heroes of the martial arts; on one, Shirai Gonpachirō 白井権八郎, as the sheet names the kabuki swordsman, is 《因幡鳥取の人にして美男なり剣道の達人にて》, a man of Tottori in Inaba, handsome, a master of 剣道, its sword character in a cursive that the scan does not settle between 劔 and 剣, given here as the library's text layer reads it [13]. The National Diet Library dates the sheet between 弘化 4 and 嘉永 5, 1847 to 1852.

1858, 岩見重太郎実記, the true record of Iwami Jūtarō, part 2. A popular tale of a legendary swordsman, printed from woodblocks. It writes 劔道 three times on two scans, each time with the reading けんだう beside it: 《重太郎劔道上達の由を申聞》, he told him that Jūtarō had advanced in 劔道; 《中國探題元就公の劔道の師範》, the master of 劔道 to Lord Motonari, commissioner of the Chūgoku region; and 《宍戸家に於て劔道鍛錬の士を撰み》, in the house of Shishido they chose men trained in 劔道 [14]. In the print, the board game and the tale read here, of the 1840s and 1850s, 剣道 is the art of a hero's sword, a word of story rather than of the schools' daily practice.

1884, Negishi Shingorō 根岸信五郎, 撃剣指南, a guide to gekiken. A sword master titles his book 撃剣 and writes in its preface, in Chinese: 《本邦古来有劒道無劒書、固非無劒可書、劒者不待書而傳也》, our country has had 劒道 from of old but no books of the sword; not that nothing of the sword could be written, but the sword is handed down without waiting for books; that since the Restoration 《講劒道者、寥々如晨星》, those who practice 劒道 are as few as stars at dawn; that 《近時劒道復興》, of late 劒道 has revived, with practice in padded helmets and bamboo swords to be found everywhere; and 《余因論述劒道、名曰擊劒指南》, so I have set out 劒道 and named the book 擊劒指南 [15]. The same author names his book with one word and the art with the other.

1887, Iguchi Matsunosuke 井口松之助, 柔術剣棒図解秘訣, the secrets of jūjutsu, sword and staff, illustrated. Under the heading 《○極意ノ辨》, on the deepest teaching, the author warns against taking the martial arts for a way to win fights and build strength, and tells a story: two swordsmen are asked what their training is for; one says to beat others, the other not to be beaten; a third, hearing of it, says that both speak only of winning and losing, and 《予ハ然ラス劍道ヲ学ンテ身ヲ修メン事ヲ圖ル》, I am not so: I study 劍道 to cultivate myself; and the author approves him [16]. The thought that the sword art serves the cultivation of the self is here in a popular manual, as a swordsman's saying, before any institution took up the name.

1889–91, 言海, the national dictionary. Ōtsuki Fumihiko 大槻文彦's dictionary has no entry けんだう, while it enters 擊劍 and 劍法 as other words for 劍術 [4]. Hepburn's dictionary had entered it three years before as the art of fencing [3]. The word was in print and in a foreigner's dictionary, and not yet in the national one.

1894 and 1895, Kumamoto Jitsudō 隈元実道, 武道教範, a manual of the martial way. A teacher of a school of his own, the 振氣流, writes, on the names of the arts, 《古來漢文ニ認メタル傳書ニハ劍道柔道並ヒニ之ヲ稱ス而メ兼テ道義ヲ意味スル塲合ハ柔道ト云ヒ單ニ技藝ヲ指稱スル塲合ハ柔術ト云ヘリ》, the transmission documents written of old in Chinese call them 劍道 and 柔道 alike; where the moral way is meant as well, it is called 柔道, and where only the technique is meant, 柔術 [17]. In the one-volume edition of 1895 the part on the sword is titled 振氣流短柄劍術, the short-hilted 劍術 of the Shinki school, and its first chapter is titled 劍道 and begins 《夫れ、劍道は、我か先王の遺法なり。》, 劍道 is the law our ancient kings left us; it roots the art in the morality that the imperial ancestors established when they founded the country, and says: 《道義は、劍道の淵源なり。劍道は、道義の精華なり。》, morality is the source of 劍道; 劍道 is the flower of morality [18]. It is the earliest source read here to set a moral 道 against the technique, 術, in a martial art's name, and it is a moral and national claim, sixteen years before the Ministry's course and twenty-four years before the Butokukai's renaming.

The 1890s and 1900s, editors and school clubs. Kinoshita Hideaki 木下秀明, in the study of the change from 撃剣 and 剣術 to 剣道, finds editors putting 剣道 in the titles of books and magazine articles from about 1897, among them an article of 1898 by the late Kawada Kageoki 河田景興, which the magazine 運動界 printed under the title 「剣道」; school clubs renaming themselves 剣道部, the Fourth Higher School in 1901 as an early case, and most schools by about 1921 [19]. Book titles show the change by decade. Among books in the National Diet Library's catalogue, in the 1890s fifteen titles carry 撃剣 and none 剣道; in the 1910s thirty-eight carry 剣道 and five 撃剣 [20]. The army kept 剣術: its manual of the sword of 1915, 剣術教範, and its reprints account for many of the 剣術 titles from the 1910s to the 1930s [20].

1909 to 1914, the Dai Nippon Butokukai 大日本武徳会. The national association of the martial arts, founded in 1895, printed master titles in 道, 剣道範士 and 剣道教士, in its journal from 1909; named its school's major 「剣道又は柔道」 in 1912; and by September 1914 its rules for masters called the arts 「剣道」「柔道」, as Sakaue Yasuhiro 坂上康博 sets out; he argues that the association had renamed 剣術 and 柔術 by then, and that the usual account, which dates the change to 1 August 1919, is inexact for these two arts [21].

1911, the Ministry of Education's ordinance, and its own lecturers. The ordinance gazetted on 31 July 1911 allowed middle schools to teach the sword and unarmed fighting as part of gymnastics, and its words were 《擊劒及柔術ヲ加フルコトヲ得》, 擊劒 and 柔術 may be added [22]. At the Ministry's first course for teachers of the sword, held that year, the course's lecturer on the theory of physical education, Nagai Michiaki 永井道明, told the teachers, as the National Diet Library's full-text index shows the course's printed lectures of 1912: 《決して之を一邊の藝術としたくない從つて柔術とか劍術とか言ふ名は避けたい》, I do not want them to be a mere art, so I would avoid names like 柔術 and 劍術; a name, he went on, is a guest that expresses the thing, so let them be called 劔道 and 柔道 (the index's text reads 桑道, an error for 柔道), a great way and a great principle, through which to build a fine body and spirit [23]. At the same course Negishi, its lecturer on the theory of the sword, said that a Ministry ordinance had lately added 劔道 and 柔道 to the middle schools' regular subjects, though the ordinance he meant had written 擊劒 and 柔術 [23][22]. Kinoshita judges that Nagai's proposal played the most important part in the change, and that the Butokukai's act of 1919 ended it [19].

1913, two words in one year. The Ministry's gymnastics syllabus of January 1913 kept the ordinance's word: 《但シ中學校及師範學校男生徒ニアリテハ擊劒及柔術ヲ加フルコトヲ得》, in middle schools and for the boys of normal schools, 擊劒 and 柔術 may be added [24]. In March the Tokyo Higher Normal School 東京高等師範學校, recruiting students for its course in gymnastics, asked in the official gazette that each recommendation mark in red 《體操、柔道、劒道ノ何レヲ主トスルカ》, which of gymnastics, 柔道 and 劒道 the candidate takes as his main subject [25].

1915, Takano Sasaburō 高野佐三郎, 剣道, kendō. The sword teacher, in a book titled with the word, writes, as Kinoshita quotes him, that 剣道 had come into use in the last twenty or thirty years, that people no longer said 剣術 or 撃剣 as before, but 剣道 [19].

1918 and March 1919, the Ministry. In April 1918 the Ministry gave the graduates of the Butokukai's school the right to a teacher's license in 《擊劍、柔術》 [26]. On 29 March 1919 its regulation for the higher schools wrote the new word: 《又劍道及柔道ヲ加フルコトヲ得》, and 劍道 and 柔道 may be added [27].

1919, the Butokukai's renaming. Nishikubo Hiromichi 西久保弘道, made vice-president of the Butokukai and head of its school in 1919, pressed at once to change the names, as Nakamura Tamio 中村民雄 sets out from the association's records: on 15 May the council agreed to rename the school 武術專門學校, the school of martial arts, as 武道專門學校, the school of the martial way; the Ministry approved; and the branches were then told that 剣術, 柔術 and 弓術 would be called 剣道, 柔道 and 弓道, with 武道 as the name for them all, while the other arts kept 術 [28]. The Ministry's approval stands in the official gazette of 2 August, dated 《大正八年八月一日》, 1 August 1919: 《私立大日本武德會武術專門學校ヲ私立大日本武德會武道專門學校ト改稱ノ件認可セリ》, the renaming of the private Dai Nippon Butokukai school of martial arts as the private Dai Nippon Butokukai school of the martial way is approved [29]. The association's own rule of the same day, as the compilation reprints it from its journal of September 1919, changed 「武術」 to 「武道」 in the rules it lists and renamed the school [28]. Sakaue, in 2018, finds the arts' new names in the association's rules five years earlier [21]; writing in 1990, he called the Ministry's change of 1926 the fulfilment of what the Butokukai had asked for since 1919 [30].

1925, Shimokawa Ushio 下川潮, 剣道の発達, the development of kendō. The Butokukai's own history of the art, six years after the renaming, says that lately the name 劒道 had replaced 劒術, and then: 《然れども劒道と云ふ名稱は決して最近に至りて使用し始められたるにあらず其の起源は遠く支那の古代にあり》, yet the name 劒道 was by no means first used lately; its origin lies far off, in ancient China; it cites the Han catalogue's 劒道三十八篇 and calls it 《恐らく劒道と云ふ文字の使用せられたる起源なるべし》, probably the origin of the use of the characters 劒道 [31]. It gives three Edo witnesses: a record of bouts held before the shogun in 1634, the Abe school's transmission book of 1667, and a writer of the Bunsei era (1818–30); it says that in the Edo period the word was very rare and 劒術 the ordinary name, and that 《劒道の文字が多く用ゐらるゝに至りしは實に近く日清日露兩役以來の事》, the characters 劒道 came into common use only lately, since the wars with China and with Russia [31]. The 1634 record is a diary printed in 1889 in 陸軍歴史, a history of the army, issued by the Army Ministry: 《今該時ノ日記ヲ得タレハ左ニ錄ス》, having now obtained a diary of the time, I set it down below, under the heading 《三代將軍家光公御代寛永十一甲戌年九月廿二日於吹上上覽所劔道立合之面々左之通リ》, in the reign of the third shogun, Lord Iemitsu, on the twenty-second day of the ninth month of 寛永 11, 1634, the 劔道 bouts at the viewing place in the Fukiage garden were as follows [32]. The diary is not named, and the heading speaks of the reign of the third shogun, Lord Iemitsu, as a later hand would; whether that wording is the diary's or the compiler's, the page does not show, so its 劔道 is not a witness of 1634.

1926, the normal schools and the middle schools. On 22 April 1926 the Ministry amended the rules for normal schools: 《「擊劍及柔術」ヲ「劍道及柔道」ニ改ム》, for 擊劍 and 柔術 read 劍道 and 柔道 [33]. On 27 May it amended the middle-school ordinance in the same words, writing 擊劒 [34], and on the same day revised the gymnastics syllabus of 1913, which now read 劍道及柔道 where it had read 擊劒及柔術, and added a caution: 《劍道及柔道、競技等ニ在リテハ特ニ禮節ヲ重シ徒ニ勝敗ニ捉ハルルカ如キコトアルヘカラス》, in 劍道, 柔道 and contests, courtesy is to be especially valued, and there must be nothing like being needlessly caught up in winning and losing [35]. Sakaue, in 2025, sets the order out: the higher schools in 1919, the first 剣道 in school law, the normal schools on 22 April 1926, the middle schools on 27 May, and 剣道 compulsory in middle schools from 1931 [36]. The encyclopedias' sentence that the name was first used officially in the syllabus of 1926 [1] is true of that syllabus; the higher schools' rule of 1919 and the normal schools' of April 1926 came before it.

What is not a source. The Han title 劍道三十八篇 is the oldest place read here where the two characters stand together, and it was attached to the Japanese word only in 1925, after the name had won, as a pedigree [31]; nothing read here from before 1925 draws on it. The 1634 bouts before Iemitsu rest on a heading of later wording [32]. The Japanese Wikipedia says that 剣道 was first used officially in law in 1911, when it was taken into the middle schools' regular subjects [37]; the ordinance of 1911 writes 擊劒 [22]. The English Wikipedia says that the Butokukai changed the name of gekiken to kendō in 1920 [38]; the Ministry's approval of the renaming of the Butokukai's school is dated 1 August 1919 [29], the old name the association replaced, in Nakamura's account from its records, was 剣術 [28], and 擊劍 was the Ministry's word, in 1911, 1913 and 1918 [22][24][26].

The word in English

1886 to 1909, the dictionaries. Hepburn in 1886, the art of fencing [3]; Brinkley in 1896, the way or art of fencing, with kenjutsu as its synonym [5]; Inouye in 1909, the art of fighting; fencing [6]. Brinkley's way is the first gloss read here to give 道 a word of its own, and it stands beside art, as one sense.

1910, Lajpat Rai, "Education in Japan", The Modern Review, Calcutta. In an article based, its opening sentence says, on the reports of the Japanese Department of Education exhibited at the Anglo-Japanese Exhibition in London that year: Judo (the art of self-defence) and Kendo (fencing), military exercises of our samurai from the most ancient times in Japan, in particular, were encouraged, not merely as an accomplishment but as a help towards maintaining the national spirits [39]. Our samurai is the Ministry's voice, quoted. It is the earliest Kendo in running English prose known from the Internet Archive's full-text search. The Ministry's own English four years later, in its book for the Panama-Pacific Exposition, gives the same sentence with the ordinance's word: "Gekken" (fencing) and "Jūjutsu" (the art of self-defence), military exercises of our samurai from the most ancient times in Japan … [40].

Everyman's Encyclopaedia, a copy catalogued as 1913–14. The Internet Archive's copy of volume 7, catalogued as the first edition of 1913–14, has the entry Kendo (swordsmanship), art of using the Jap. military sword [41]. Its imprint leaf gives the first edition's date, 1913–14, and no other, but its articles cite the Finance Act of 1954, so the copy is of a later edition and is no witness for 1913–14; the first edition's own entry is not read here.

1919, The Illustrated London News. A demonstration of Kendo, fencing with a two-handed sword [42].

1931, The Golden Book of Tagore. A contribution from Japan to the homage to the poet glosses the names of the martial ways: Judo, the 'way of suppleness,' Kendo, the 'way of fencing,' Kyudo, the 'way of archery' [43]. It is the earliest English prose read here to gloss the -do of kendo as way, in the Internet Archive's full-text hits for kendo paired with fencing, judo, jiu-jitsu or samurai; Brinkley's dictionary had given the way or art of fencing in 1896 [5].

1936, the Los Angeles Times. A Sunday magazine feature on kendo's arrival in the United States: "It's called 'Kendo,'" volunteers an American-born Japanese youth … "It means 'the way of the sword.'" [44]. It is the earliest the way of the sword for kendo known from the full-text search, once hits in serials that the archive dates by their first volume are set aside.

1938 and 1959, D. T. Suzuki 鈴木大拙, Zen Buddhism and Its Influence on Japanese Culture. Paraphrasing a recent writer on the sword, whom the edition of 1959 names in its note as Takano Hiromasa, the book of 1938 glosses the word the way of the sword [45], and its enlarged edition of 1959, Zen and Japanese Culture, reads: In the Kendō ("the Way of the Sword"), what is most essential to attain besides its technique is the spiritual element controlling the art throughout [46].

1969 and 1978, Reinhard Kammer, Die Kunst der Bergdämonen, in English as The Way of the Sword. In an appendix on the Japanese names of swordsmanship: Although the word kendō appeared very early in China, it only came into use in Japan during the Tokugawa Period (1603–1867) and into common usage in the Meiji Period (1868–1912), the note for China citing the Han catalogue; the name was preferred, he suggests, because the art had taken on the dual character of a 'Way' and of a sport; and This term has been in official usage since 1926 [47]. The outline agrees with the witnesses read here, but for its last date: the Ministry wrote 劍道 in its higher-school rule of 1919 [27].

1973, Donn F. Draeger, Classical Budo. Draeger places the transformation of kenjutsu (sword art) into kendo (sword way) in the first half of the seventeenth century, and writes: Abe Gorodaiyu (fl. 1668) is the first man known to have used the word kendo. Kendo, or ken no michi, "the way of the sword," describes the teachings of his ryu, the Abe Ryu [48]. The earliest dates the Japanese sources claim are the bouts of 1634, whose 劔道 stands in a heading of later wording [32], and the Abe school's book of 1667, one of Shimokawa's three Edo witnesses [31], whose manuscripts are among the sources not seen below. Nothing read here shows the word in a source written in the first half of the century.

1993, Japan: An Illustrated Encyclopedia. kendō 剣道 (the Way of the sword). Japanese fencing based on the techniques of the two-handed sword of the samurai. Before the Shōwa period (1926–89) it was customarily referred to as kenjutsu or gekken. Kendō is a relatively recent term that implies spiritual discipline as well as fencing technique. [49]. The sentence on the Shōwa period holds for the middle schools' ordinance of 1926, not for the Butokukai, whose rules called the art 剣道 by 1914 and which told its branches to use the name in 1919, nor for print, where the word stands from the 1840s [21][29][34][11].

1998, G. Cameron Hurst III, Armed Martial Arts of Japan. Of the Tokugawa period's texts on the martial arts, which seldom name an art with 道: The same was true for fencing—kendō was not used; and later, The word kendō—"the way of the sword"—is modern, and of the Tokugawa swordsmen and a way: It is simply that they rarely used the term [50]. Of the word as written, it is an error: the Abe school's license of 1816 and the print, the board game and the tale of the 1840s and 1850s use it [9][11][13][14]. Of the schools' ordinary names it holds, as Shimokawa said in 1925: in the Edo period the word was very rare, and 劒術 the common name [31].

2015, Alexander C. Bennett, Kendo: Culture of the Sword. The word "kendo" itself only came into popular use around 1920. Early usage of the designation kendō was popularized by a swordsman of the Chikuzen domain, Abe Munetō (1624–93), in his 1667 document outlining his school; and In 1919, the Dai-Nippon Butokukai officially changed the terminology for the martial arts by adopting the suffix -dō (way) in place of -jutsu (techniques), its vice-president Nishikubo announcing that kenjutsu would be called kendō, while The MOE, however, did not officially change its terminology until 1926 [51]. Its note on the change of names sends the reader to Kinoshita's study [51][19]. The renaming of 1919 agrees with the gazette [29], and the book of 1667 is of the same school and year as Shimokawa's [31]. Popular use around 1920 comes after the book titles of the 1910s, thirty-eight with 剣道 against five with 撃剣 [20], and after Takano's remark of 1915 that people no longer said 剣術 or 撃剣 [19]; and the Ministry's terminology changed in its higher-school rule of 1919, before its ordinances of 1926 [27][33][34].

Today. The design is sold as Kendo, with the line Kendo, the way of the sword. This history's gloss gives what the dictionaries say the word names, the Japanese art of fencing with bamboo swords [1][2]. The way of the sword is what the two characters say, 剣 sword and 道 way; as a gloss of the name it stands in English, as far as the Internet Archive's full-text search shows, from 1936 [44]. Before that, the English read here said fencing and the art of fencing, Brinkley's dictionary the way or art of fencing in 1896, and Tagore's book the way of fencing in 1931 [3][5][39][43]; Kumamoto in 1895 and Nagai in 1911 put into its 道 morality and a great principle, more than a road [18][23].

A reading

The story usually told is that the Butokukai turned 剣術 into 剣道 in 1919, or that the Ministry did in 1926, and that the art changed its name when it became a way [47][51][38]. The sources read here tell it from the other end. The word was in a school's license in 1816 and in a series of popular prints, a board game and a tale of the 1840s and 1850s, a print and the tale glossing it kendau for a public that knew the swordsmen of the theater [9][11][13][14]. A sword master used it for the art in 1884 while he titled his book 撃剣 [15], and Hepburn's dictionary entered it two years later [3]. The national dictionary did not [4], and the Ministry's ordinances went on writing 擊劒 until 1926 [22][24][34]. In between, the word moved by many hands: editors from the late 1890s, school clubs after an early case in 1901, a national school in the gazette in 1913, book titles by the 1910s [19][20][25]. The Butokukai's rules had renamed the art by 1914, and in 1919 the association told its branches to use the name; the Ministry, whose own lecturers had said 剣道 in 1911, put it in its rules last, from 1919 to 1926 [21][28][23][27][33][34].

The 道 had meanings put into it on the way. In 1887 a swordsman in an anecdote studies 剣道 to cultivate himself [16]; in 1894–95 the teacher of a school of his own makes it the flower of the imperial morality [17][18]; in 1911 a theorist of gymnastics wants a name worthy of a great principle [23]; in 1926 the Ministry asks that courtesy be especially valued in contests, and winning and losing not be pursued needlessly [35]. I read 剣道 as an old, half-literary word for the sword art that the late Meiji and Taishō periods chose as a name because 道 could carry whatever they wished the art to be, and the Han title as a pedigree found for it afterwards [31]. A buyer who hangs these two characters hangs a word older than its official use by a century, which the Edo prints wrote for a hero's art, which the schools of the twentieth century filled with morality and courtesy, and which English, since 1936, has called the way of the sword.

Notes

Japanese Scrolls by Master Calligrapher Eri Takase

Japanese Scroll of Kendo (kendō) in a block font by Master Japanese Calligrapher Eri Takase
剣道VB3CBlock
Japanese Scroll of Kendo (kendō) in a cursive font by Master Japanese Calligrapher Eri Takase
剣道VC3BCursive
Japanese Scroll of Kendo (kendō) in Master Japanese Calligrapher Eri Takase's own style (jiun)
剣道VD4BJiun
Japanese Scroll of Kendo (kendō) in a semi-cursive font by Master Japanese Calligrapher Eri Takase
剣道VS3DSemi-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. 「剣道」, デジタル大辞泉, 精選版 日本国語大辞典, 改訂新版 世界大百科事典, 百科事典マイペディア and others, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/剣道-60951
  2. 剣道, JMdict, at jisho.org. https://jisho.org/word/剣道
  3. J. C. Hepburn, A Japanese-English and English-Japanese Dictionary, third edition, 1886, printing of 1888, Maruya, Tokyo, p. 289. Internet Archive japaneseenglishe00hepbuoft. https://archive.org/details/japaneseenglishe00hepbuoft/page/n330
  4. 大槻文彦『言海』, 1889–91, p. 325, scan 234. National Diet Library pid 992954. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/992954/1/234
  5. F. Brinkley and others, An Unabridged Japanese-English Dictionary, Sanseidō, Tokyo, 1896, p. 637. Internet Archive cu31924082117288. https://archive.org/details/cu31924082117288/page/n668
  6. Inouye's Comprehensive Japanese-English Dictionary, Sanseidō, Tokyo, 1909, p. 796. Internet Archive inouyesjapanesee00inou. https://archive.org/details/inouyesjapanesee00inou/page/n805
  7. 『漢書』 卷30, 藝文志, 兵技巧, at Wikisource. https://zh.wikisource.org/wiki/漢書/卷030
  8. 凌稚隆『漢書評林』, 鈴木義宗 点, 1882, 巻之30, scan 22. National Diet Library pid 774634. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/774634/1/22
  9. 『安部立劔道手數組之次第』, 文化13 (1816), scroll, 日本体育大学図書館, canvases 4 and 15, 国書データベース, 国文学研究資料館. https://kokusho.nijl.ac.jp/biblio/100375680/4
  10. 『劔道獨稽古』, woodblock, 東武 田中勇勝軒 藏版, late Edo, 筑波大学附属図書館, canvases 5, 6 and 33, 国書データベース, 国文学研究資料館. https://kokusho.nijl.ac.jp/biblio/100305134/5
  11. 歌川国芳『本朝劔道畧傳』 幡随長兵衛, woodblock print, 上総屋岩蔵, scan 1. National Diet Library pid 1305493. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1305493/1/1
  12. Honcho kendo ryaku den 本朝剣道略傳, British Museum record AN00460584, date about 1845–1846, at ukiyo-e.org. https://ukiyo-e.org/image/bm/AN00460584_001_l
  13. 〔武芸達人双六〕, 弘化4–嘉永5 (1847–1852), scan 1. National Diet Library pid 1310598. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1310598/1/1
  14. 『岩見重太郎実記』 2編, 1858, scans 12 and 20. National Diet Library pid 8942757. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/8942757/1/12
  15. 根岸信五郎 著, 渡辺昇 閲『撃剣指南』, 1884, preface, scans 4–5. National Diet Library pid 859928. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/859928/1/4
  16. 井口松之助『柔術剣棒図解秘訣』, 魁真楼, 1887, scan 21. National Diet Library pid 860046. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/860046/1/21
  17. 隈元実道『武道教範』 第3編 振気流練体柔術, 振気館, 1894, p. 2, scan 4. National Diet Library pid 860495. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/860495/1/4
  18. 隈元実道『武道教範』, 武揚館, 1895, p. 155, scan 91. National Diet Library pid 860496. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/860496/1/91
  19. 木下秀明「「撃剣」「剣術」から「剣道」への移行に関する史的考察」, 『体育学研究』 51(1), 2006, pp. 33–48, at pp. 34–37, 44 and 46–48. https://doi.org/10.5432/jjpehss.51.33
  20. National Diet Library Search, books whose titles carry 剣道, 撃剣 or 剣術, counted by decade of publication for this history, one edition one record. https://ndlsearch.ndl.go.jp/
  21. 坂上康博「日露戦中・戦後の大日本武徳会：戦時下の動態、武術事業の変化と「剣道」「柔道」への名称変更、イデオロギー的機能」, 『一橋大学スポーツ研究』 37, 2018, pp. 21–35. https://doi.org/10.15057/30092
  22. 『官報』 8432, 31 July 1911, 文部省令第二十六號, scan 4. National Diet Library pid 2951789. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/2951789/1/4
  23. 杉山清作 編『心身鍛練』, 1912, the lectures of 永井道明 and 根岸信五郎, known from the full-text search's snippets. National Diet Library pid 939631. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/939631
  24. 『学校体操教授要目』, 文部省訓令第一號, January 1913 (the month as 木下, reference 19, dates it; this printing carries no date), 宝文館, scan 5. National Diet Library pid 905461. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/905461/1/5
  25. 『官報』 178, 6 March 1913, 東京高等師範學校 notice, scan 9. National Diet Library pid 2952276. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/2952276/1/9
  26. 『官報』 1697, 2 April 1918, 文部省告示, scan 2. National Diet Library pid 2953810. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/2953810/1/2
  27. 『官報』 1994, 29 March 1919, 文部省令第八號, 高等學校規程 第十八條, scan 5. National Diet Library pid 2954108. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/2954108/1/5
  28. 中村民雄 編著『史料近代剣道史』, 1985, document 〔八〕 and the editor's account, served on the library's premises only; known from the full-text search's snippets. National Diet Library pid 12146839. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/12146839
  29. 『官報』 2098, 2 August 1919, 文部省告示第二百三號, scan 2. National Diet Library pid 2954211. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/2954211/1/2
  30. 坂上康博「大正期における大日本武徳会：その政治的・軍事的機能の検討を中心として」, 『体育史研究』 7, 1990, pp. 37–51, at pp. 44–45. https://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/article/taiikushi/7/0/7_37/_pdf
  31. 下川潮『剣道の発達』, 大日本武徳会, 1925, scan 11. National Diet Library pid 1017872. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1017872/1/11
  32. 陸軍省総務局 編『陸軍歴史』, 陸軍省, 1889, p. 71, scan 488. National Diet Library pid 988906. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/988906/1/488
  33. 『官報』 4096, 22 April 1926, 師範學校規程 amended, scan 4. National Diet Library pid 2956247. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/2956247/1/4
  34. 『官報』 4126, 27 May 1926, 文部省令第二十四號, scan 1. National Diet Library pid 2956277. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/2956277/1/1
  35. 『改正学校体操教授要目』, 文部省訓令第二十二號, 27 May 1926, 都村有為堂, scans 5 and 39. National Diet Library pid 752692. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/752692/1/5
  36. 坂上康博「戦前の学校武道法制に関する新事実：1919～31年の高等学校・中等学校における体操科の剣道・柔道」, 『武道学研究』 58 (supplement), 2025, p. S_29. https://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/article/budo/58/Supplement/58_58.S_29/_pdf
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  38. "Kendo", English Wikipedia, revision of 18 August 2026; the 1920 sentence first carried by the revision of 5 July 2010. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?oldid=1369973912
  39. Lajpat Rai, "Education in Japan", The Modern Review 8, Calcutta, September 1910, pp. 296ff. Internet Archive dli.calcutta.09809. https://archive.org/details/dli.calcutta.09809/page/n286
  40. Department of Education, Japan, Education in Japan: Prepared for the Panama-Pacific International Exposition, 1915, Tokyo, 1914, p. 47. Internet Archive cu31924023433117. https://archive.org/details/cu31924023433117
  41. Everyman's Encyclopaedia, vol. 7, J. M. Dent, London, a later edition (its imprint leaf gives only the first edition's date, 1913–14; its article on income tax cites the Finance Act of 1954), "Kendo", read in the text layer. Internet Archive in.ernet.dli.2015.462062. https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.462062
  42. The Illustrated London News 154, 7 June 1919, read in the Internet Archive's full-text search windows. Internet Archive sim_illustrated-london-news_1919-06-07_154_4181. https://archive.org/details/sim_illustrated-london-news_1919-06-07_154_4181
  43. The Golden Book of Tagore: A Homage to Rabindranath Tagore from India and the World, Calcutta, 1931, read in the Internet Archive's full-text search windows. Internet Archive dli.csl.8463. https://archive.org/details/dli.csl.8463
  44. The Los Angeles Times, 12 January 1936, Sunday magazine, read in the Internet Archive's full-text search windows. Internet Archive sim_los-angeles-times_los-angeles-times_1936-01-12_55. https://archive.org/details/sim_los-angeles-times_los-angeles-times_1936-01-12_55
  45. Daisetz Teitaro Suzuki, Zen Buddhism and Its Influence on Japanese Culture, Eastern Buddhist Society, Kyoto, 1938, read in the Internet Archive's full-text search windows. Internet Archive zenbuddhismitsin0000dais. https://archive.org/details/zenbuddhismitsin0000dais
  46. Daisetz T. Suzuki, Zen and Japanese Culture, Bollingen Series LXIV, Pantheon Books, New York, 1959, revised and enlarged second edition of the book of 1938, p. 126 and its note 30. Internet Archive zenjapanesecultu0000suzu. https://archive.org/details/zenjapanesecultu0000suzu
  47. Reinhard Kammer, The Way of the Sword: The Tengu-geijutsu-ron of Chozan Shissai, translated by Betty J. Fitzgerald, Arkana, London, 1986, the translation first published 1978, from Die Kunst der Bergdämonen, Otto-Wilhelm-Barth Verlag, 1969; Appendix 1, p. 94.
  48. Donn F. Draeger, Classical Budo, The Martial Arts and Ways of Japan, vol. 2, Weatherhill, New York and Tokyo, 1973, pp. 68 and 81.
  49. Japan: An Illustrated Encyclopedia, Kodansha, Tokyo, 1993, "kendo", p. 772.
  50. G. Cameron Hurst III, Armed Martial Arts of Japan: Swordsmanship and Archery, Yale University Press, New Haven and London, 1998, pp. 11–12 and 79.
  51. Alexander C. Bennett, Kendo: Culture of the Sword, University of California Press, Oakland, 2015, pp. 20, 126 and 243.
  52. 『大日本武徳会武道専門学校一覧』, 1927, scans 5 and 36. National Diet Library pid 1465808. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1465808/1/5

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 剣道 (kendō)," Takase Studios, 2026, https://takase.com/library/philology/kendo.