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武者修行 musha shugyō Warrior Training

武者修行 (musha shugyō), the warrior's road through the provinces to train in arms, followed here from the Edo war tales to the English knight-errantry.

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Japanese Scroll of Warrior Training (mushashugyō) — Calligraphy by Eri Takase
Warrior Training武者修行musha shugyō

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Abstract

武者修行 (musha shugyō) is, in the Japanese dictionaries, a warrior's travel through the provinces to train in the martial arts, and today also going to another place or abroad to hone a learning or a skill. Its earliest use known here is in a collection of tales of 1596, and in the chronicles that followed it names a warrior on the road who joins a battle or finds a lord, while the military chronicle Kōyō gunkan 甲陽軍鑑, put in order before 1621, calls the journeys of the sword masters Kamiizumi Nobutsuna 上泉信綱 and Tsukahara Bokuden 塚原卜伝 by another name, 兵法修行, and an Edo encyclopedia of 1830 files both names under one heading. Edo writers defined the journey by its motives in 1764 and lamented what it had become in 1839, the novels of Kyokutei Bakin 曲亭馬琴 put it before the general reader, and the dictionary Genkai 言海 of 1889–91 gave it one sense; the likeness that carries the word beyond the warrior is in print by 1888. English took it into a Japanese-English dictionary in 1896, set it beside the European knight-errant by 1904, and rendered it training in warriorship in the books on Zen of Suzuki Daisetsu 鈴木大拙.

Overview

The sense. デジタル大辞泉 gives two senses: 《１ 武士が武芸の修行のために諸国を巡って歩くこと。２ 学問や技芸の修行のため、よその土地や外国へ行くこと。》, 1. a warrior's going about the provinces to train in the martial arts; 2. going to another place or abroad to train in a learning or an art [1]. 精選版 日本国語大辞典 gives the first only, 《武士が諸国を回って、武術の修行・鍛錬をすること。室町末期から江戸初期にかけて盛んに行なわれた。》, a warrior's going round the provinces to train and temper himself in the martial arts; widely practiced from the end of the Muromachi period to the beginning of the Edo, with its earliest example from a book of 1596 [1]. 改訂新版 世界大百科事典, in the article by 中林信二, says it was in vogue at the end of the Sengoku period and the beginning of the Edo, and again at the end of the Edo, that it is also called 〈廻国修行〉, training by going round the provinces, that men went in search of employment and, it seems, to spread their schools, and that it had a covert role as well, surveying the provinces' lie of the land, defenses and customs, 《隠密的な役割もあった》, a role it thinks was greatest in the Sengoku period, 《とくに戦国時代にはこの性格が大きかったと思われ》 [1]. 日本大百科全書, in the article by 渡邉一郎, names Tsukahara Bokuden and Kamiizumi Nobutsuna as the representative figures of the provincial men of arms who went up to Kyoto to win the name 天下一, first under heaven, says that in the Sengoku period men went round the country on 武者修行 and joined wherever there was fighting, tells of its decline after the 元禄 years (1688–1704), when bouts between schools fell away, and of its revival, and says that at the end of the Edo period the domains named lodgings for these travellers, 修行者宿, in their castle towns [1]. ブリタニカ国際大百科事典 adds, 《現代では他の土地に入って技芸を磨くこともいう》, today it is also said of going into another place to polish an art [1]. JMdict, the dictionary most English-language tools draw on, has two entries: 武者修行, traveling about to gain skill in combat, and 武者修業, samurai drill; knight errantry [2]. The English knight-errant, set beside the word since the dictionaries of the 1900s, is a wandering knight; a knight who traveled widely in search of adventures, to exhibit military skill, to engage in chivalric deeds, etc. [3]. The two share the road and the showing of skill; the Japanese word names a training, which the knight's quest does not, and nothing in the Japanese definitions read answers to chivalric deeds; and the Dictionary.com definition does not carry the second Japanese sense, the stay elsewhere to hone a learning or an art.

The words. 武者 (musha) is 《武芸に携わることを任務とする人》, one whose duty is the martial arts, a warrior [4]. 修行 (shugyō), read with the 呉音, is in the 日本国語大辞典 first putting into practice, a sense it finds in the Chinese 漢書, and then a Buddhist word: to practice the Buddha's teaching, and, in a further Buddhist sense, 《主として托鉢して諸国を歩くこと。巡礼。行脚。》, chiefly, going about the provinces begging alms; pilgrimage; travel on foot; the same dictionary gives as a later sense 《芸術、武道などを練磨するために、諸国をめぐり歩くこと》, going round the provinces to polish an art or a martial way [5]. Its old kana is しゆぎやう, and so the prints of the 1600s and Bakin's novel rubied the word, as the record below shows. The word is also written 武者修業. 修業 is another word, read しゅぎょう, its second character ‥ゲフ in the old kana, learning and acquiring a scholarship or an art [6], and the デジタル大辞泉 notes that 修行 in the sense of training in a learning or an art is also written 修業 [5]. The two spellings stand side by side in the sources from the Edo period on, sometimes on one page, as below; neither is an error.

The text in English. English has no word of its own for it. The Japanese-English dictionaries first described it, travelling about different places for acquiring skill in fencing or other military arts (1896); then set the European figure beside it, the knight-errant (1904, 1918); and the books on Zen and the martial arts gave practising warriorship (1938) and training in warriorship (1959 and after), all set out below. JMdict gives traveling about to gain skill in combat and, for the second spelling, samurai drill; knight errantry [2].

The historical record

The word and its other name

1596, Gizan kōkaku 義残後覚, a collection of tales. The national catalogue of early books, 国書データベース, gives the work to Guken 愚軒 and dates it to 文禄 5 (1596); it is known in manuscript copies, none of which is dated [7]. Its third book opens with the story of a master of the half-bow: 《備後の住に今枝有無之丞親重と云士ありそのほまれ度々におよふ事近國に志れりされハ幼少より半弓にすきて稽古する事よのつねならす年を追て鍛錬せしかハ究竟の上手になれり生年廿七のとし武者修行にいてゞ勢州にいたりぬ》, there was a warrior of Bingo named 今枝有無之丞親重, whose renown was known again and again in the provinces near; from childhood he loved the half-bow and practiced beyond the ordinary, and training year after year he became a consummate master; in his twenty-seventh year he set out on 武者修行 and came to Ise [8]. He is received by the governor of Ise, and the story goes on to a bout on an open field with the governor's master of the halberd [8]. The 日本国語大辞典 gives this sentence as the word's earliest example [1]. Here a man trained at home sets out at the height of his skill to be tested on the road.

Completed 1604, printed 1622, Shinchōki 信長記, Oze Hoan 小瀬甫庵's life of Oda Nobunaga 織田信長. The 日本国語大辞典 dates it completed in 慶長 9 (1604) and printed in 元和 8 (1622) [9]. In the print of 1622, in the fighting in Kyoto when the Miyoshi attacked the shōgun, warriors whom the chronicle names 《武者修行ニ出テ折節有合タルカ幸也トテ先懸ノ勢ニ加》, had gone out on 武者修行, and happening to be there, took it for good fortune and joined the forces of the vanguard [10]. The warrior on the road is a man of arms at large who joins a battle where he finds one.

Before 1621, Kōyō gunkan, the military chronicle of the Takeda house. The 日本国語大辞典 says that it passed through the hands of Obata Kagenori 小幡景憲, who put it in order, before 元和 7 (1621); its oldest print is of 明暦 2 (1656) [11]. In it, the swordsman Kamiizumi Nobutsuna, called 上泉伊勢, asks leave of his lord Takeda Shingen 武田信玄 to travel, having set up a school of his own: 《新陰流とたて、兵法修行を仕り度候奉公いたすにおいては信玄公へ注進申べく候、奉公にてはなく修行者に罷成候と申上る故、御いとま被下也》, he said that, having set up the Shinkage school, he wished to go on 兵法修行; that should he take service he would report it to Lord Shingen; that this was not service, he was become a 修行者, a man in training; and so his leave was granted [12]. Of Tsukahara Bokuden: 《兵法修行仕るに、大鷹みもとすへさせ、のりがへ三疋ひかせ、上下八十人ばかり》, when he went on 兵法修行, he had a great hawk carried on the fist and three spare horses led, and some eighty men high and low [12]. The same book uses 武者修行 of a warrior who comes into Nobunaga's pay: 《山上道及と申大剛の侍元来東上野衆也久敷牢人仕り、諸國を武者修行仕る武士、信長へめし出され、一万貫下さるゝも》, a warrior of great valor named 山上道及, of the eastern Kōzuke band, long a masterless man, a warrior who went through the provinces on 武者修行, was called up by Nobunaga and granted ten thousand kan [12]. In the three passages read here, the road of the two sword masters is 兵法修行, training in the art of arms, and 武者修行 is the masterless warrior's, which ends in a lord's pay.

Prefaced 1625, printed 1646, Taikōki 太閤記, Oze Hoan's life of Hideyoshi. The 日本国語大辞典 dates its preface to 寛永 2 (1625) [13]; the copies read here are of 正保 3 (1646) [14]. Of 新九郎, Ise Shinkurō, whom the same book, in a passage it opens with 或曰, some say, calls 《小田原家之元祖早雲》, Sōun, the first ancestor of the house of Odawara, that is Hōjō Sōun 北条早雲: 《春関東さして武者修行に出けるか》, in spring he set out on 武者修行 for the Kantō; he resolved to serve the lord of Suruga, 《大守に事へんと思ひ》, and in time became 《長享二年十月伊豆國韮山之城主》, in the tenth month of 長享 2 (1488), lord of the castle of Nirayama in Izu [14]. In another chapter, 《龍興自国を去てより。武者修行之為関東に下り》, after 龍興 left his own province, he went down to the Kantō for 武者修行, the print sets the ruby むしや beside 武者 and しゆぎやう beside 修行 [14]. The road ends in service and a castle.

A telling of 1542, in the Muromachi-dono nikki 室町殿日記. The historian Shimokawa Ushio 下川潮, in a study of the word printed in 1918, says in his first sentence: 《普通に之を武者修行と云ひ、又兵法修行とも云ふ》, it is commonly called 武者修行, and also called 兵法修行 [15]. He takes as the earliest written 武者修行 he had seen a passage of the Muromachi-dono nikki, in which one 山内源五兵衛 comes out of the Chūgoku region on 武者修行 in 天文 11 (1542): 《これ余輩が今日迄見たる中、武者修行なる文字を以て書きあらはされたるものゝ初見とす》, this I take to be the first, among what I have seen to this day, written with the characters 武者修行 [15]. The year is that of the event the book tells. The book is a compilation by Naramura Naganori 楢村長教, which the national catalogue lists without a date of composition, among manuscript copies of which one is dated 延宝 5 (1677) and another 貞享 5 (1688) [16]; its own date is not settled here. Shimokawa finds the practice under another name earlier still, in the 明応 years (1492–1501), when the archer 日置彈正 is told 《日本を弓修行して》, going through Japan on 弓修行, training in the bow [15].

Prefaced 1714, printed 1716, Honchō bugei shōden 本朝武芸小伝, Hinatsu Shigetaka 日夏繁高's lives of the masters. The preface is dated 正德甲午 (1714), and the editors of the typeset of 1915 give the book as printed in 享保 元 (1716) [17]. Of Obata Kagenori, who, the book says, had been placed in attendance on the young lord Hidetada: 《十六歲の時武者修行の志有て、玄關にて髻を切てかけ落す》, at sixteen, with the will to go on 武者修行, he cut off his topknot in the entrance hall and ran away; he wandered from place to place, 《所々遊歷し》, and came back to fight at Sekigahara in 1600, 《慶長五年關原陣の時》 [17].

Prefaced 1705, printed 1784, Shisen kibun 四戦紀聞, Negishi Naotoshi 根岸直利's accounts of four battles. The national catalogue dates its preface to 宝永 2 (1705) [18]; the print read here is of 天明 4 (1784) [19]. A warrior named 淺井半助 tells his lord: 《愚臣先年諸州ヲ武者修行シ濃州ニ在シ時ハ稲葉伊豫守通朝ニ仕ヘシ故ニ信長ノ軍旅ヲ倩々監ミケルカ》, some years ago I went through the provinces on 武者修行, and when I was in Mino I served 稲葉伊豫守通朝, and so I watched Nobunaga's army closely [19]. The journey took in service under a lord, and with it a knowledge of another lord's army.

Prefaced 1780, Sekiyado denki 関宿伝記, Imaizumi Masachika 今泉政隣. The national catalogue dates its preface to 安永 9 (1780) [20]; the manuscript copy read here is dated 寛政 5 (1793) by the National Diet Library [21]. Of Sōun again, here 伊勢新九郎氏茂: 《乱世ノ事ナリケレハ武者修行セント諸國ヲ廻リ武将ヲ択ヒ仕立身セハヤト志ス》, the age being one of disorder, he resolved to go round the provinces on 武者修行, to choose a commander, serve him and rise [21].

Edo: what the journey was for

1764, Kenjutsu fushiki hen 剣術不識篇, Kimura Kyūho 木村久甫, a swordsman's dialogues. The preface is dated 明和 元年 (1764) [22]. Asked why, when many swordsmen travel the provinces and fight other schools, none of them makes a name, the master answers: 《國修行武者修行の事二つ有るべし》, in 國修行, 武者修行, there must be two kinds. One travels to meet a famous teacher and learn his mastery, and such a man, fighting other schools, takes no joy in winning and 《負けたるを悅とす》, rejoices to lose; the other is the man 《他國他流を打て名を揚んと欲する者》, who would beat other provinces and other schools and make his name, and 《勝ちたる時は悅び、負けたる時は怒り》, rejoices when he wins and rages when he loses [22]. The book defines the word by the two motives and judges between them.

1830, Kiyū shōran 嬉遊笑覧, Kitamura Nobuyo 喜多村信節's encyclopedia of customs. The dictionaries date it to 文政 13 (1830) [23]. In its book on the arts of war, under the heading 武者修行, it gathers three passages [24]. From the 室町日記, the warriors whom a lord gathers, 《牢人または武者修行にまかり出て暫くの間方々に滯留〔し〕ける武士》, masterless men, or warriors who had gone out on 武者修行 and stayed a while here and there. From the 羽尾記, a warrior of Kōzuke who 《古郷を去て兵法修行に出る》, left his home and went out on 兵法修行. And from the 海上物語, printed in 明暦 2 (1656), the man whom the placard on his coat names 無雙權之助, Musō Gonnosuke, who went 《西國かたへ兵法修行に罷下り候》, down to the western provinces on 兵法修行; the compiler notes that he came to Miyamoto Musashi 宮本武蔵 at Akashi to try his art and, by the account he cites, became his pupil [24]. An encyclopedist of 1830 files the two names under one heading, as one practice.

1839, Kenpō ryakki 剣法略記, Kubota Sugane 窪田清音. The preface is dated 天保 10 (1839) [25]. Under the heading 《武者修業のことゆへ》, on 武者修業, the text begins 《古は武者修行といふことを、人々つねに心にかけてせしことなり》, in the old days men kept 武者修行 always in mind and did it, and says that its truth was to see and hear 《國々の風俗國主城主の樣子士卒の强弱和不和兵器のたしなみかた》, the customs of the provinces, the state of their lords and castle-holders, the strength or weakness of their soldiers, their harmony or discord, and the care of their arms, and to take the measure of the land; while the 修行者 who come every year in his own day learn only 《劍の手わざのかたはし》, a scrap of the sword's handwork [25]. Both spellings stand on the one page. What the encyclopedia calls a covert role, surveying the provinces [1], this book of 1839 gives, without the word covert, as the old truth of the journey.

1843, Gekken sōdan 擊劒叢談, Minamoto Norinaga 源德修. The preface is dated 天保 14 (1843) [26]. Of Kamiizumi Nobutsuna, after the shōgun's victory: 《御勝利の後天下武者修行し、兵法新陰軍法軍配天下第一の高札を諸國に打納め》, after the victory he went on 武者修行 through the realm, and posted in the provinces placards proclaiming his sword art of Shinkage and his art of war first under heaven; of Itō Ittōsai 伊藤一刀斎: 《諸國を武者修行して名有る者と勝負するに、一度も負たる事なし》, he went through the provinces on 武者修行 and fought men of name, and never once lost [26]. Where the Kōyō gunkan called Kamiizumi's road 兵法修行 [12], this book calls it 武者修行.

The 1850s. The 日本大百科全書 tells of the lodgings for travelling swordsmen that the domains named in their castle towns at the end of the Edo period [1]. A retainer of Saga sent by his domain in 1853 on a two-year journey of 劍術修業 through the Kantō and beyond kept a diary of it, printed in 1979, which records such lodgings and schools that declined bouts with other schools [27].

What is not a source: Musashi's own words. Miyamoto Musashi's Gorin no sho 五輪書, of about 1645 [28], tells his journey in its preface: 《其後國々所々に至り、諸流の兵法者に行逢ひ、六十餘度迄勝負をするといへども、一度も其利を失はず、其程年十三より二十八九までの事也》, after that I went to province after province and place after place, met men of arms of every school, and fought more than sixty bouts, and never once lost the advantage; this was from my thirteenth year to my twenty-eighth or twenty-ninth [29]. The preface does not use the word 武者修行. The journey is his. Of the sources read here, Shimokawa's study of 1918 counts it among the 武者修行 made to spread a school of one's own, quoting the 擊劒叢談: 《自己の開きたる流派を天下に弘めん目的にて武者修行したるは同書に其比宮本武藏自流を弘めんとて九國に經歴し云々と見ゆるが如き即ち是なり》, those who went on 武者修行 to spread over the land a school they had founded are such as the same book shows: "at that time Miyamoto Musashi, to spread his own school, travelled through the nine provinces" [15]; and a modern one, Tokitsu (2004), set out below, gives the journey the name.

The popular word

1807–11, Chinsetsu yumiharizuki 椿説弓張月, Kyokutei Bakin's novel. Printed in 文化 4–8 (1807–11) [30]. 《武者修行する猛者は國〻の神社へ首級手向るものもあり》, among the hardy men who go on 武者修行 there are some who offer heads at the shrines of the provinces, with the ruby むしやしゆぎやう beside the word [31]. In Bakin's novel the warrior on the road is a figure the reader is expected to know. The national catalogue lists Edo works with the word in their titles from 1772, 女武者修行, among them Bakin's own 武者修行木斎伝 of 1806, and with 武者修業 from 1802 [32].

1889–91, Genkai, Ōtsuki Fumihiko 大槻文彦's dictionary. 《むしや-しゆぎやう（名）武者修行　武士ノ諸國ヲ遍歴シテ、武術ノ修行鍛練ヲナスコト。》, a warrior's going through the provinces to train and temper himself in the martial arts [33]. One sense: the journey and the training.

The figurative sense

From 1888. The Japan Weekly Mail of 18 February 1888, in its column of translations from Japanese papers, renders an article of the 朝野新聞 on the Japanese who cross the Pacific to America as seekers after learning and lead a beggar-like life abroad; their conduct, it says, recalls Buddhist believers who beg their way on pilgrimage, a practice handed down, it says, by Chinese scholars, 《somewhat in the fashion of musha shugyo》, the word left in Japanese [34]. In Japanese print, a story in the 山陰学林雑誌 of April 1888 sets the word beside the pupils of a teacher who, sure that no one can match their tongues, go about looking for an opponent: 《當の敵求むるを矢張武者修業の夫れならて》, seeking a worthy opponent, not, after all, that of a 武者修業 (the library's text layer, which prints ならて, read here as ならで, not; the issue is served on the library's premises only, so no leaf was read) [35]. After it the likeness is marked as one: 武者修行的, like a 武者修行, in the 女学雑誌 in 1889; 一種の武者修行, a kind of 武者修行, of the mendicant 虚無僧 in 1904 and of students touring to practice preaching in 1922; and 云はゞ學問の武者修行, so to speak, a 武者修行 of learning, of medieval European students moving between universities, in 1953 [35]. The earliest unmarked use among the snippets read is of 1938, 商賣の武者修行, the 武者修行 of trade, in a shopkeepers' magazine, and in 1963 a baseball player's 海外武者修行, 武者修行 abroad [35]. None of the dictionaries read dates the second sense: the 日本国語大辞典 gives the first sense only, and the デジタル大辞泉 gives the second without an example [1].

The word in English

1888, Hepburn. J. C. Hepburn's Japanese-English and English-Japanese Dictionary, in its fourth edition, has no entry between MUSHA-KUSHA and MUSHI [36].

1896, Brinkley. An Unabridged Japanese-English Dictionary: 《Musha-shugyō, むしやしゆぎやう, 武者修行, n. Travelling about different places for acquiring skill in fencing or other military arts; the person so travelling.》 [37]. The journey, and also the man who makes it, a sense the Japanese dictionaries read here do not give.

1900, Shimada. Y. and A. O. Shimada's New Pocket Japanese-English Dictionary, revised by Arthur Lloyd: 《Mushashugyō, むしやしゆぎやう, 武者修行, n. Travelling about from place to place for acquiring skill in fencing; the person so travelling about.》 [38]. Brinkley's wording, narrowed to fencing.

1900, Nitobe, not a rendering. Nitobe Inazō 新渡戸稲造's Bushido, closing its passage on what it calls 《these institutions of suicide and revenge》: 《The knight errantry of Miyamoto Musashi is now a tale of the past.》 [39]. Musashi is set here among the tales of vendetta, and the word 武者修行 is not on the page.

1904, Satow. Ernest Mason Satow and Ishibashi Masakata's English-Japanese Dictionary of the Spoken Language, in its third edition, revised and enlarged by E. M. Hobart-Hampden and H. G. Parlett, under Knight-errant, in a note the book sets in square brackets: 《The "otokodate," also called kyōkaku (俠客), of Old Japan, who made it their business to protect the weak and helpless, correspond more or less closely to the European knight-errant. Samurai who travelled about for the purpose of exhibiting their military skill were called mushashūgyō (武者修業).》 [40]. The European figure is matched first to the otokodate, and the travelling samurai is set beside it, with the motive of exhibiting skill.

1909, Inouye and Ōkuma. Inouye's Japanese-English Dictionary, under Musha: 《武者修行, travelling about to exhibit one's military skill; a travelling fencer.》 [41]. The same year the English version of Ōkuma Shigenobu 大隈重信's Fifty Years of New Japan: 《though the Mushashugyō (knight-errantry, or practice of visiting every place of the country to seek adventures) still prevailed, it was pursued in only a formal manner, and degenerated into a display of ability in sham-fighting》 [42], the complaint of 1839 in a Meiji statesman's English.

1910, Papinot. E. Papinot's Historical and Geographical Dictionary of Japan: 《Musha-shugyō, 武者修行. At the time of the prosperity of the bushidō, a great number of fencing schools were established, whose graduates spread over the provinces to place their learning at the service of the daimyō: they were called musha-shugyō.》 [43]. The men themselves named by the word, and the journey given as a search for service.

1918, Takenobu. Takenobu Yoshitarō 武信由太郎's 『武信和英大辞典』, in the copy read, which the National Diet Library catalogues as the ninth 版 of 大正 7 (1918), under musha: 《武者修業 knight-errantry. ¶ 武者修業者 a knight-errant; a travelling fencer.》, and under shugyō (修行): 《武者修行 knight-errantry.》 [44]. In the dictionaries read, the equation knight-errantry enters a Japanese-English dictionary here, under both spellings, with Inouye's travelling fencer for the man; JMdict's 武者修業, samurai drill; knight errantry, carries it today [2].

1938 and 1959, Suzuki. Suzuki, who wrote in English as D. T. Suzuki, in the first edition of his book on Zen and Japanese culture, as a fragment of its text shows, writes 《the swordsmen call it musha-shugyo, "practising warriorship."》 [45]. In the edition of 1959: 《This practice is known among the monks as angya, "traveling on foot," whereas the swordsmen call it musha-shugyō, "training in warriorship." I do not know how early this practice started among the swordsmen, but we read about the founder of the Shinkage-ryū traveling all over the country.》 [46]. He gives the custom as one the swordsmen learned from the Zen monks [46]. No Japanese source read here says that the swordsmen took the practice from the Zen monks, though the second half of the word is the Buddhist 修行 [5].

1964 to 2004, the books on the martial arts. Sasamori Junzō and Gordon Warner, This Is Kendo (1964): 《The samurai word for this custom of visiting various dojo was mushashugyo, a term which might well be translated as knight-errantry.》 [47]. Donn F. Draeger, Classical Budo (1973): 《One Zen custom used by the classical warrior and adopted by the exponents of the classical budo forms is musha-shugyo, a kind of "austere training in warriorship."》 [48]. Tokitsu Kenji, Miyamoto Musashi (2004): 《the practice of musha shugyo (traveling for improvement) became customary among warriors. Some men traveled with the idea of finding a liege lord, others to improve their art, and still others for both purposes. This last was the case for Musashi during a certain period of his life.》 [49]. The English Wikipedia's article opens Musha shugyō (武者修行, training in warriorship) is a samurai warrior's quest or pilgrimage, and says that it 《was inspired by Zen monks》 [50]; that is the same account as Suzuki's, given as fact.

Today. JMdict gives traveling about to gain skill in combat and samurai drill; knight errantry [2]. The design is sold as Warrior Training. The word names more than training: in 武者修行 the training is a journey through the provinces, and that road is what this history's gloss keeps.

A reading

The sources read here give the word one shape across four centuries: a man trained at home goes out on the road to be tested, and the road leads somewhere, to a bout, a battle, a lord's pay or a castle [8][10][12][14][19]. The earliest uses are of that road and not of the sword masters; in the passages of the Kōyō gunkan read here the journeys of Kamiizumi and Bokuden are 兵法修行 and the word itself belongs to a masterless warrior who ends in Nobunaga's pay [12], and it is the later books, of 1714 and 1843, that put the word 武者修行 on Kamiizumi, Obata and Itō [17][26]. The Edo writers who defined it judged it: two motives, one to learn and one to win a name (1764), and an old purpose of reading the provinces against a present of mere technique (1839) [22][25]. Bakin and the gesaku made the traveller a figure everyone knew [31][32], and from there the word could be lent to a student abroad, first as a likeness and then without one [34][35]. English met it as a description, then as the knight-errant, and in Suzuki's books as a Zen discipline; the knight-errant answers to the road and the display of skill, and the Zen account to the hardship, but neither comes from the Japanese sources read [37][40][46].

I read 武者修行 as the word for training that has to leave home to be finished: what is learned at home is put to the test of strangers, on their ground. A buyer who hangs these four characters hangs that road, whether it is the warrior's through the provinces or the scholar's abroad; the word holds both, and which one the scroll means is the buyer's to say.

Notes

Japanese Scrolls by Master Calligrapher Eri Takase

Japanese Scroll of Warrior Training (mushashugyō) in a block font by Master Japanese Calligrapher Eri Takase
武者修行VB6CBlock
Japanese Scroll of Warrior Training (mushashugyō) in a cursive font by Master Japanese Calligrapher Eri Takase
武者修行VC4BCursive
Japanese Scroll of Warrior Training (mushashugyō) in Master Japanese Calligrapher Eri Takase's own style (jiun)
武者修行VD4BJiun
Japanese Scroll of Warrior Training (mushashugyō) in a semi-cursive font by Master Japanese Calligrapher Eri Takase
武者修行VS5CSemi-Cursive

Sources not seen

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

References

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  2. 武者修行 (entry 1674420) and 武者修業 (entry 1498660), JMdict, at jisho.org. https://jisho.org/word/武者修行 · https://jisho.org/word/武者修業
  3. "knight-errant", Dictionary.com. https://www.dictionary.com/browse/knight-errant
  4. 「武者」, デジタル大辞泉, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/武者-641335
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  8. 愚軒『義残後覚』 巻三, 半弓長刀仕相之事: 『史籍集覧』, 明治26 (1893), scan 40, National Diet Library pid 769652; and the manuscript copy of the 肥前島原松平文庫, canvas 116, 国書データベース. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/769652/1/40 · https://kokusho.nijl.ac.jp/biblio/100224161/116
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  12. 『甲陽軍鑑』, 高坂弾正 著, 山田弘道 校, 1892–93: 品第卅三, p. 18, scan 126; 品第四十, p. 131, scan 184; 品第五十八, p. 274, scan 256. National Diet Library pid 899828. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/899828/1/126 · https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/899828/1/184 · https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/899828/1/256
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  19. 根岸直利 編『四戰紀聞』, 天明4 (1784), scan 8. National Diet Library pid 2568319. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/2568319/1/8
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  21. 今泉政隣『関宿伝記』, manuscript, 寛政5 (1793), scan 26. National Diet Library pid 2533393. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/2533393/1/26
  22. 木村久甫『劍術不識篇』, in 『武術叢書』, 1915: the preface, p. 363, scan 191; p. 368, scan 194. National Diet Library pid 945805. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/945805/1/191 · https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/945805/1/194
  23. 「嬉遊笑覧」, デジタル大辞泉, 精選版 日本国語大辞典, 日本大百科全書, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/嬉遊笑覧-52079
  24. 喜多村信節『嬉遊笑覧』, 1903: the preface, scan 1; 卷四上 武事, p. 476, scan 263. National Diet Library pid 992504. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/992504/1/1 · https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/992504/1/263
  25. 窪田清音『劍法略記』, in 『武術叢書』, 1915: the preface, pp. 444–445, scan 232; p. 473, scan 246. National Diet Library pid 945805. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/945805/1/232 · https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/945805/1/246
  26. 源德修『擊劒叢談』, in 『武術叢書』, 1915: the preface, p. 160, scan 90; 卷之一, p. 163, scan 91; 卷三, p. 183, scan 101. National Diet Library pid 945805. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/945805/1/90 · https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/945805/1/91 · https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/945805/1/101
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  29. 宮本武蔵『五輪の書』 序, in 『武術叢書』, 1915, p. 234, scan 127. National Diet Library pid 945805. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/945805/1/127
  30. 「椿説弓張月」, デジタル大辞泉, 精選版 日本国語大辞典, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/椿説弓張月-98702
  31. 曲亭馬琴『椿説弓張月』, 文化4–8 (1807–11), scan 72. National Diet Library pid 2557127. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/2557127/1/72
  32. 国書データベース, 国文学研究資料館, the works 女武者修行 (安永元, 1772), 武者修行木斎伝 (文化3, 1806) and 虚空太郎武者修業咄 (享和2, 1802). https://kokusho.nijl.ac.jp/work/761693 · https://kokusho.nijl.ac.jp/work/509182 · https://kokusho.nijl.ac.jp/work/967759
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  41. Inouye's Japanese-English Dictionary, Sanseidō, 1909, p. 1088. Internet Archive inouyesjapanesee00inou. https://archive.org/details/inouyesjapanesee00inou/page/n1097
  42. Shigenobu Okuma, "Culture and Education in Old Japan", in Fifty Years of New Japan, English version ed. Marcus B. Huish, vol. II, Smith, Elder, 1909, p. 132. Internet Archive fiftyyearsofnew02okumuoft. https://archive.org/details/fiftyyearsofnew02okumuoft/page/n143
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  46. Daisetz T. Suzuki, Zen and Japanese Culture, Bollingen Series LXIV, Pantheon Books for the Bollingen Foundation, 1959, p. 128.
  47. Junzo Sasamori and Gordon Warner, This Is Kendo: The Art of Japanese Fencing, Charles E. Tuttle, 1964, p. 68.
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  49. Kenji Tokitsu, Miyamoto Musashi: His Life and Writings, Shambhala, 2004, p. 36.
  50. "Musha shugyō", Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Musha_shugy%C5%8D

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 武者修行 (musha shugyō)," Takase Studios, 2026, https://takase.com/library/philology/musha-shugyo.