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正射必中 seisha hitchū The Correct Shot Surely Hits

正射必中 (seisha hitchū) is a maxim of Japanese archery, that an arrow shot correctly will surely hit. The National Diet Library's full text has it in print from 1942, but the Record of Rites, a Chinese classic, already held the thought. This study follows it through archery and calligraphy to the teachers who warned that a hit is not always a correct shot.

Japanese Scroll of The Correct Shot Surely Hits (seisha hitchū) — Calligraphy by Eri Takase
The Correct Shot Surely Hits正射必中seisha hitchū

Original art by Master Calligrapher Eri Takase

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Abstract

正射必中, read seisha hitchū, is a maxim of Japanese archery, kyūdō: shoot by the correct method and the arrow surely hits; the one dictionary read for this history that has it, Weblio's 実用日本語表現辞典, defines that sense and notes a second life as a business motto, while 正射 in the general dictionaries read is frontal fire or orthogonal projection, never correct shooting [1][2]. The thought is old: the Record of Rites says that only when the will is correct and the body straight can one speak of hitting, the philosopher 揚雄 wrote settle, then release, and the release surely hits, a Ming archery manual glossed in Japanese and printed in 1802 promised the hit to whoever kept to its methods, and a Qing manual on holding the brush, as an Edo lord copied it, read the Rites' line as the mind correct, the brush correct [3][4][5][6]. In Japan the archery master 本多利実 (1836–1917) said it in his own words in a book printed after his death, in 1923; his pupil 碧海康温 set out the school's aim in 1937, with the hit the conclusion of correct shooting; and the four characters are in the National Diet Library's full text by 1942, with the archery federation's first manual of 1953 asking what they mean [7][8][9][10]. My reading, signed below, is that the maxim is a modern name for an old teaching and a direction for practice, not a promise: the same teachers who taught it also taught that a hit does not prove the shot was correct.

Overview

The sense. No general dictionary read for this history has a headword 正射必中, nor its pair 能射必中, nor the other written form 正射正中; JMdict has none of the three [2][11]. The one dictionary read that has the four characters is Weblio's 実用日本語表現辞典: 「正しい射法で射れば矢は必ず的に当たる」という、弓道の理念・心構えを示す語, a word expressing an ideal and attitude of kyūdō: "shoot by the correct method and the arrow will surely hit the target", and it adds that it is also used as a motto meaning act correctly and the results come of themselves, of a business that thinks of its customers rather than chasing sales [1]. The All Nippon Kyudo Federation's own page says the same in its words: 弓道には正射必中という言葉があります。これは正しい射法で射られた矢は、必ず中るという意味です, in kyūdō there is the phrase 正射必中; it means that an arrow shot by the correct method will surely hit [12]. The reading is せいしゃひっちゅう [1].

The words. 正射, as the archers use it, is correct shooting, shooting by the correct method; that sense is in no general dictionary read for this history. The デジタル大辞泉 gives 正射 as 弓などを正面から射ること, shooting a bow or the like from straight in front, and, in mathematics, orthogonal projection; the 日本国語大辞典 gives 弓や銃砲などを正面から発射すること, firing a bow or a gun from straight in front, with its earliest example from a war book of 1913, and the same mathematical sense [2]. 必中 is 必ず命中すること, surely hitting, with the example 一発必中, one shot, a sure hit; the 日本国語大辞典's earliest example is from a novel of 1963, but the word is classical Chinese, as the sources below show [13][4][14]. The maxim's pair, 能射必中, puts 能射, skilled shooting, in place of correct shooting; the federation's first manual put the two side by side in a question [10].

What follows. The historical record reads the Chinese classics the maxim restates, the Ming manual and the calligrapher's reading that Edo Japan had, the Heki school's own books, 本多利実 and his school, the four characters in print and the federation's manual, the warning taught beside the maxim that a hit is not proof of a correct shot, and where the attributions to particular masters come from. 正射必中 in English follows the renderings. A reading is mine.

The historical record

The classics: correct first, then the hit

The four characters are not classical. A search of the Chinese texts at Wikisource, of the Buddhist canon at CBETA and of the Kanseki Repository returns no 正射必中 [15]. The thought, and the word 必中, are classical.

The Meaning of Archery chapter of the Record of Rites says it as a sequence [3]:

内志正，外體直，然後持弓矢審固；持弓矢審固，然後可以言中。

The will within correct, the body without straight: then he holds bow and arrow steady and sure; holding bow and arrow steady and sure, then one can speak of hitting. The same chapter: 射求正諸己，己正而後發, the archer seeks correctness in himself; correct in himself, then he releases, and if he misses he seeks the cause in himself, not in the man who beat him [3]. Mencius has the same sentence, 仁者如射：射者正己而後發, the humane man is like the archer: he makes himself correct, then releases [16].

揚雄 (53 BC–AD 18), in the 法言, his book in the manner of the Analects, takes the archer's sequence for the whole of self-cultivation and ends on 必中 [17][4]:

修身以爲弓，矯思以爲矢，立義以爲的，奠而後發，發必中矣。

Cultivate yourself as the bow, straighten your thoughts as the arrow, set up righteousness as the target; settle, then release, and the release surely hits. Of the classical sentences read for this history, this is the nearest to the maxim: the correctness is the archer's own, and the sure hit follows from it.

The other classical 必中 is a condition the other way round. The 淮南子: 弓矢不調，羿不能以必中, if bow and arrow are not tuned, even 羿, the legendary archer, cannot be sure of hitting [14]. And in Qing China the scholar 李塨, in his 學射錄, spelled the Rites' sequence out as a chain: 必志正而後體直，體直而後審固，審固而後可中, only when the will is correct is the body straight; only when the body is straight is the hold sure; only when the hold is sure can one hit [18]. Whether his book reached Japan is not asked here.

Edo Japan: a Ming manual, a calligrapher, and the Heki school

The Ming archery manual 射學正宗 of 高穎 reached Japanese archers in a commentary in Japanese, 三浦竹渓's 射學正宗國字解, prefaced 1729 and printed in 1802 with additions by 平瀬光雄, as the National Institute of Japanese Literature's record gives it [19]. Its first part is called 捷徑門, the gate of the short road, and the commentary explains the name: if the learner follows the straight road of the five methods, then, in the 1802 print [5],

弓ヲ習フ者スク道ニ因テ稽古シ。ヨコシマナル射カタニ迷ハスハ。早クハ三月遅クハ一年ニハ必覺ヘテ中ルヿアランナレハ。其功ハナハタ捷キニ非スヤ。

if one who learns the bow trains by the straight road and is not led astray by a crooked way of shooting, then in three months at the soonest and a year at the latest he will surely learn it and hit; is that not a quick result? The promise is a hit that follows from keeping the method, in Japanese print by 1802.

The same line of the Rites came to Japan as a calligrapher's. 松浦静山 (1760–1841), lord of Hirado and a swordsman who took the name 常静子 in 1808 and then wrote his 剣談, his talks on the sword [20], copied into it a passage from 戈守智's 執筆圖, a Qing manual on holding the brush, as the 1915 print of 『武術叢書』 gives it [6]:

書之爲藝、通於射乎、禮內志正、外體直、然後持弓矢審固、持弓矢審固則射中矣、此誠懸心正筆正之論也、心正筆正則運用無勿正矣、故初學書者執筆爲先

Is not the art of writing akin to archery? The Rites: the will within correct, the body without straight, then he holds bow and arrow steady and sure; holding bow and arrow steady and sure, the shot hits. This is 誠懸's saying, the mind correct, the brush correct; with the mind correct and the brush correct, every movement is correct. So the beginner at writing puts the holding of the brush first. 誠懸 is the courtesy name of the Tang calligrapher 柳公権, whose answer to the emperor, that the use of the brush lies in the mind and that when the mind is correct the brush is correct, the 日本大百科全書 calls famous [21]. 静山 adds that the passage reaches the sword too: 則射中と云ひしは、以上のこと其如くなれば、擊ちては外れず、斫れば切るゝなり, where it says "the shot hits", it means that if all this is so, the strike does not miss and the cut cuts [6]. For a house of the brush this is the maxim's other ancestor: a calligrapher read the archer's sequence as his own, and a swordsman read the calligrapher.

On the same page 静山 records a dissent. In 1817 林述斎, head of the shogun's Confucian academy, was shown one or two ancient plain wooden bows at 静山's house and said [6][22]:

古の武夫の射に妙有りしは、必ず射法の有りしにも非ず、其遠きに中り小を貫く等、皆其精心の所然なり、今も蝦夷の人丸木弓を以て飛禽を射る、射て必ず中る

That the warriors of old shot wonderfully was not necessarily because they had a method of shooting; hitting at a distance and piercing the small were all the work of their concentrated mind. Even now the people of Ezo shoot flying birds with plain wooden bows, and when they shoot they surely hit. The sure hit, for him, came from the mind, not from a method.

The Heki school's own transmission books, the archers' 伝書, put the hit first. The 四巻之書, printed in 1894, reads [23]:

弓の本地と云は中て矢早を本とす當世は遊興までを稽古して本眞實の義は薄し

The essence of the bow is to hit and to shoot fast; the present age practices it even as play, and the true meaning is thin. The scholars 松尾牧則 and 入江康平 quote further 伝書 to the same effect, 弓は中りを第一とする儀なり, the bow is a matter in which the hit comes first, and they write that the old schools held the hit to be the life of shooting [24].

本多利実: the teaching in his own words

本多利実 (1836–1917) was an archer of the 竹林派 branch of the Heki school who taught at the Imperial University and opened his own hall, as the 日本人名大辞典 gives it [25]; the school named after him, 本多流, was named by his pupils, as 松尾 and 入江 write [24]. In 1889 he still put the hit plainly as the aim. 松尾 and 入江 quote his manifesto of that year, from its reprint: 如此種々数は有りといえども，帰する処弓を引て矢を飛ばし的中せしむるに止まるのみ, for all these many kinds, what it comes to is only drawing the bow, sending the arrow and making it hit [24].

The reason for the hit he gave in lectures. His lectures of 1900, taken down by a student and reprinted in 1997, say: give the bone-method and the spirit everything, and in reason the arrow must hit; a shortcut also hits, and that is base [26]. The plainest form is in his book 『弓道講義』, printed in 1923, six years after his death [7]:

されば己を正しうして骨法(規矩)に違はない樣にして置きますれば、期節が來ると同時に自然立派に離れて參ります、即ち佛法にて成佛と申す所で弓では的に中ると申すことで、中りは即ち成佛で御座ます、此事は射法輯要と申す本にも御座います、そうなると中らぬ事は殆んど無いと申して宜しい位で御座…

So if you make yourself correct and keep to the bone-method, the rule, then when the moment comes the release comes of itself, finely; what Buddhism calls attaining Buddhahood is, in the bow, hitting the target: the hit is Buddhahood. This is in the book called 射法輯要 too. And then one may say you will hardly ever miss. The 射法輯要 he names is a 竹林派 transmission book; the National Institute of Japanese Literature lists it with no image at any holder, so its words are known here only by 本多's report [27]. Later in the book he names the place it all turns on [28]:

離れ口が十分であつて少しの障りがなかつたならば的中せずといふことはありません

If the release is full and without the least hindrance, there is no such thing as not hitting. His the hit is Buddhahood sentence was already in print in 1914, in 高橋信太郎's 弓術捷径, in nearly the same words [29]. And 本多 also warns that a hit proves nothing: in the same book, as the library's full text gives it, he writes that beginners who shoot by rote often hit, and that a practiced archer often loses to them [30].

1937: the school's aim, in a pupil's words

In 1937 the geologist and archer 碧海康温, who had learned the bow from 本多 in the university's archery club [31], wrote the section 本多流弓道 in the third volume of 『弓道講座』. He gives the school's aim as three things, 正射, 善中, 品位, correct shooting, the good hit, and dignity; says the hit sought is the good hit that results from correct shooting, not merely striking the target; says the school is ashamed of a hit made by mistake, and still more of boasting of a good shot that missed; calls the hit the root of the bow and the conclusion of correct shooting; and sets the summit of the school's shooting beside 揚雄's line, quoting it whole [8]. The triad is 碧海's statement of the school's aim, in 1937, and where the section can be read he does not mark it as his teacher's words, though elsewhere in the same section he does mark 本多's [8]. 松尾 and 入江 in 1990 give the triad to the school [24]; later books give the sentence about the hit to 本多 himself, 桜井保之助 in 1981, and 五賀友継 in 2021 [32][31].

The prose before the four characters

Others said it in prose in the same decades. An essay on archery as a pastime, in a magazine of 1912 and reprinted in 1920 says that an arrow released by the correct method accords with the reason of hitting even when it misses, and that in fact, shot correctly, the arrow must hit [33]. In 1928 the archer 根矢鹿兒 wrote, as 五賀友継 quotes him, 正しき射法ならば的に中るに違いない。的に中らないというのは射法に欠点があるからである, if the method is correct, the arrow is bound to hit; not hitting means there is a fault in the method [31].

The four characters, and the federation's question

The other written form came first in the National Diet Library's full text. In 1936 the archery teacher 桑村常之助 set 正射正中, correct shooting, correct hit, as a head in the margin of his handbook [34]. The pair 能射必中, the skilled shot surely hits, is in a 1940 report on the imperial tournament for the empire's 2,600th year, which says the skilled shot's sure hit goes without saying, but that a hit alone is not enough [35]. 正射必中 is in the full text by December 1942, in the women's archery report of 體力, the fitness magazine of the Osaka Gas company's association, where it stands after a list of names as a heading or a cheer [9]. Searched oldest first on 30 September 2026, the library's full text returns 177 books and issues for 正射必中, 23 for 正射正中 and 6 for 能射必中 [36]; the counts are of one instrument, not of use in the language.

After the war the maxim is the federation's. A schools' physical-education journal of 1952 calls 正射必中 the great principle of kyūdō [37]. The All Nippon Kyudo Federation's first manual, 『弓道教本』 of 1953 puts the question we say 正射必中, or 能射必中; what does it mean? [10]. Its answer has not been settled. Today the federation's page glosses the first of its three ideals, 真, truth, with the maxim, which it defines as これは正しい射法で射られた矢は、必ず中るという意味です, this means that an arrow shot by the correct method surely hits: ｢真｣ の弓は偽らない, the bow of truth does not lie, and the target is a teacher that tells the archer whether the shot was correct [12].

A hit is not proof

The teachers who taught the maxim also taught the other half of it: a hit does not prove the shot was correct. A 1979 memoir by the archery club of the old Saga Higher School remembers its teacher 江口善次 teaching 正射必中 together with a hit is not necessarily a correct shot [38]. The federation's own manual says it in 1978, in its third volume: what is generally called a hit is possible without correct shooting [39]. 本多's beginners who hit by rote are the same point, fifty years earlier [30].

And the masters disagreed about the hit itself. 阿波研造 (1880–1939), the teacher of Eugen Herrigel, is quoted by 松尾 and 入江 from his own teaching of 1925: 千射万中，果して何の得る処あらんや, a thousand shots, ten thousand hits: what, in the end, is gained by it?; and from a talk of 1926: 中ることを目的とするのは鳥獣の射, to aim at hitting is the shooting of birds and beasts [24]. Yet in 1933 he said that to disregard the hit altogether 射の意味を誤解するの甚しいもの, misunderstands the meaning of shooting gravely [24]. The scholars' conclusion is the maxim itself: また正射は必ず的中する（正射必中）という原理の共通理解のもとに的中について論じなければ誤解を生じる, and unless the hit is discussed on a shared understanding of the principle that correct shooting surely hits (正射必中), misunderstanding results [24]. 五賀友継 in 2021 calls it 正射であれば自ずと矢は的に中るはず（正射必中）という論理, the logic that if the shot is correct the arrow is bound to hit the target of itself (正射必中), and shows the scoring systems of the 1930s, which marked the spirit and the form and set the hit aside, running against it [31].

Whose maxim: the attributions

Two masters are given the four characters in later books. 寺嶋広文, teacher of the University of Tokyo's archery club, wrote of 正射必中 and 本多流 in 1969 and 1976, and in 1976 gave 正射必中, with 飛, 中, 貫, flight, hitting, piercing, as summing up 本多's way of shooting [40]. 桜井保之助's 1981 book on 阿波研造 carries the same phrase into 阿波's training under 本多's teaching [32]. The Japanese Wikipedia's article on 阿波 says his teaching was to practice thoroughly the natural release, bow and body as one, and 正射必中, citing a paper of 2016 [41]. Neither attribution is a witness for the four characters in either master's mouth: in what was read for this history, 本多's own words state the teaching without the four characters, and 阿波's own words, as 松尾 and 入江 quote them, set the hit aside more than they promise it [7][24].

Today: the dōjō, the office and the comic

The phrase left the dōjō. In the CiNii database, articles in business magazines from 2018 to 2020 carry 正射必中 in their titles, a sales magazine's serial among them [42], and the Weblio entry gives that use beside the archer's [1]. The Japanese Wikipedia's summary of the comic 男坂 has a character throw the phrase back, as a verb, at the archer who once said it to him: お前は正射必中していない, you are not shooting true [43].

正射必中 in English

Onuma, 1993. The English begins, in the books searched for this history, with Onuma Hideharu's Kyudo: The Essence and Practice of Japanese Archery, written with Dan and Jackie DeProspero: kyudo makes a distinction between shooting that is merely skillful (noshahichu) and shooting that is correct and right-minded (seishahichu), and, in a dialogue at the end, Skillful shooting is always accurate, but so is correct shooting. Instead of watching the target you should watch the archer [44].

Shaw, 1998. Scott Shaw's The Warrior Is Silent repeats the pair: Simply shooting an arrow skillfully is known as noshahichu, as the Internet Archive's full-text index gives it [45].

Wikipedia. The English Wikipedia's article on kyūdō says that in certain schools to shoot correctly will result inevitably in hitting the target, and gives seisha hicchū (正射必中), "true shooting, certain hitting" [46].

Chouchan, 2018. Jérôme Chouchan's Target: Business Wisdom from the Ancient Japanese Martial Art of Kyudo carries the maxim into business in English: Kyudo has a particular teaching: 'Right shooting always results in a hit', as the full-text index gives it [47].

A reading

I read 正射必中 as a modern name for an old teaching. The thought is the Record of Rites' and 揚雄's: make yourself correct, then release, and the hit follows. Edo archers had it in a Ming manual, an Edo lord copied a Qing calligrapher's reading of it as the mind and the brush, and 本多利実 said it in his own words, that the release made from a correct self hardly ever misses and that the hit is the archer's Buddhahood. The four characters come later than all of them, in print by 1942 in the library's full text, and the federation asked what they meant in its first manual.

I read it as a direction, not a guarantee. The teachers of this teaching also taught the other half of it: a hit does not prove the shot was correct. 本多 watched beginners hit by rote. A teacher in Saga, as a former pupil remembered, taught a hit is not necessarily a correct shot alongside it, and the federation's manual says a hit is possible without correct shooting. What the maxim says is where to look. After a miss, at oneself, as the Rites has it; and before the shot, at the form rather than the target. That is a goal a dōjō can hang on its wall, and an archer can be held to.

For a house of calligraphy it says one more thing. The line of the Rites it rests on was read by a Qing writer on the brush as 柳公権's the mind correct, the brush correct, and a Japanese lord copied it into his talks on the sword. The maxim on a scroll is the brush saying of itself what the archer says of the bow.

The other written form, 正射正中, is in the library's full text six years earlier than this one and has a history of its own in this library. Both are the archers' own words, each with its witnesses above.

Notes

The counts. The figures for 正射必中, 正射正中 and 能射必中 are books and issues returned by the National Diet Library's full text, oldest first; they show which forms are in print and from when, not how often anyone said them.

Open, not pursued: the federation's 1953 answer to its own question (served only inside Japan); 本多's 1889 manifesto and his 1900 lectures in their first form (the one a reprint, the other not digitized); the 射法輯要 itself (no image at any holder); 碧海's 1937 section, the 1912 essay, 高橋 1914, 寺嶋 1969 and 1976 and 桜井 1981 at the page (served only inside Japan); the rest of the 1802 國字解 after its preface to the short road; the author of the 1912 essay; which run of 男坂 carries the scene.

References

  1. 「正射必中」, 実用日本語表現辞典, at Weblio. https://www.weblio.jp/content/正射必中
  2. 「正射」, デジタル大辞泉 and 精選版 日本国語大辞典, at kotobank; kotobank has no headword 正射必中, 能射必中 or 正射正中. https://kotobank.jp/word/正射-545308
  3. 禮記, 射義, at zh.wikisource. https://zh.wikisource.org/wiki/禮記/射義
  4. 揚雄, 法言, 修身 (卷三), at zh.wikisource. https://zh.wikisource.org/wiki/法言/03
  5. 三浦竹渓, 『射學正宗國字解』, with additions by 平瀬光雄, the print of 1802 (preface dated 享和元年), 山口大学 棲息堂文庫, imaged by the National Institute of Japanese Literature, canvases 9–10. https://kokusho.nijl.ac.jp/biblio/300066360/9
  6. 松浦静山, 『剣談』 (常静子剣談), in 『武術叢書』, 国書刊行会, 1915, scan 212. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/945805/1/212
  7. 本多利実, 『弓道講義』, 大日本弓道会, 1923, scan 44, 第二編 第六章 會. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/970448/1/44
  8. 碧海康温, 「本多流弓道」, in 『弓道講座』 第三卷, 雄山閣, 1937, scans 28–57, snippet view, National Diet Library. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1905241
  9. 『體力』 (大阪瓦斯體位向上會), December 1942, the women's archery report, snippet view, National Diet Library. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1910515
  10. 日本弓道連盟, editor, 『弓道教本』 第1巻 (序論・射法篇), 1953, snippet view, National Diet Library. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/3452107
  11. JMdict, release 3.6.2 (the release file, searched October 2026): no entry for 正射必中, 能射必中 or 正射正中; 必中 (entry 1487610) is hitting the target.
  12. 全日本弓道連盟 (All Nippon Kyudo Federation), 「弓道の心」, read October 2026. https://www.kyudo.jp/howto/
  13. 「必中」, デジタル大辞泉 and 精選版 日本国語大辞典, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/必中-610925
  14. 淮南子, 兵略訓, at zh.wikisource. https://zh.wikisource.org/wiki/淮南子/兵略訓
  15. zh.wikisource full-text search, CBETA Online and the Kanseki Repository, searched for 正射必中, October 2026: no result in any. https://cbetaonline.dila.edu.tw/search/?q=正射必中
  16. 孟子, 公孫丑上, at zh.wikisource. https://zh.wikisource.org/wiki/孟子/公孫丑上
  17. 「揚雄」, デジタル大辞泉 and other dictionaries, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/揚雄-145877
  18. 李塨, 學射錄, 卷二, at zh.wikisource. https://zh.wikisource.org/wiki/學射錄
  19. 国書データベース, National Institute of Japanese Literature, the work record 射学正宗国字解 (享保一四序; 享和二年版). https://kokusho.nijl.ac.jp/work/32633
  20. 「松浦静山」, 日本大百科全書 (ニッポニカ) and other dictionaries, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/松浦静山-16635
  21. 「柳公権」, 日本大百科全書 (ニッポニカ), at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/柳公権-149601
  22. 「林述斎」, デジタル大辞泉 and 精選版 日本国語大辞典, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/林述斎-21103
  23. 関口源太, editor, 『四巻之書』, 1894, scan 9. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/859995/1/9
  24. 松尾牧則 and 入江康平, 「近代弓道の的中観についての一考察」, 『武道学研究』 23(2), 1990, pp. 167–168, read at the page images, at J-STAGE. https://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/article/budo1968/23/2/23_167/_article/-char/ja/
  25. 「本多利実」, デジタル版 日本人名大辞典+Plus, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/本多利実-1108840
  26. 入江康平, editor, 『本多利實弓道論集』 (弓道資料集 第11巻), いなほ書房, 1997, the reprint of 本多利実's lectures 『弓學講義』 (1900, taken down by 長谷部言人), snippet view, National Diet Library. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/12143462
  27. 国書データベース, National Institute of Japanese Literature, the work record 竹林派射法輯要 (no holding imaged). https://kokusho.nijl.ac.jp/work/3389057
  28. 本多利実, 『弓道講義』, 大日本弓道会, 1923, scan 81, p. 121, 第三編 第三部 第二章 一騎當千. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/970448/1/81
  29. 高橋信太郎, 『弓術捷径』, 木田吉太郎, 1914, snippet view, National Diet Library. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/951395
  30. 本多利実, 『弓道講義』, 大日本弓道会, 1923, scans 47–48, as the National Diet Library's full text gives it. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/970448/1/47
  31. 五賀友継, 『近代における弓道の形成に関する歴史的研究』, doctoral dissertation, University of Tsukuba, 2021, p. 160, p. 301 and p. 348, read at the page images. https://tsukuba.repo.nii.ac.jp/records/2002662
  32. 桜井保之助, 『阿波研造 : 大いなる射の道の教』, 1981, snippet view, National Diet Library. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/12254449
  33. 「趣味の上より見たる弓術」, 『国民雑誌』 3(3), February 1912, and as 「弓術の趣味」 in 『石油時報』 494, February 1920 (pid 1620339), snippet view, National Diet Library. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1539533
  34. 桑村常之助, 『弓の教へ方と習ひ方』, 日本之弓道社, 1936, p. 135, scan 80. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1258248/1/80
  35. 大日本雄弁会講談社, editor, 『紀元二千六百年奉祝昭和天覧試合』, 1940, snippet view, National Diet Library. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1245273
  36. National Diet Library Digital Collections, full-text search sorted by date, oldest first, run 30 September 2026 on 正射必中 (177 items), 正射正中 (23) and 能射必中 (6). https://dl.ndl.go.jp/search/searchResult?keyword=正射必中
  37. 『学校体育』 5(2), February 1952, snippet view, National Diet Library. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/6026881
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  39. 全日本弓道連盟, 『弓道教本』 第3巻 (続射技篇), 1978, snippet view, National Diet Library. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/12145864
  40. 寺嶋広文, 『本鷹の矢』, 1969 (pid 13898229), and 『本多流始祖射技解説』, 生弓会, 1976, the chapter 正射必中と本多流, snippet view, National Diet Library. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/12141865
  41. 「阿波研造」, at ja.wikipedia, the revision read October 2026 (104661017), citing 魚住孝至 2016. https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/阿波研造
  42. CiNii Research, search for 正射必中, October 2026: 34 records, among them 竹内心作, 「正射必中! ソリューション提案奮闘記」, 『近代セールス』, a serial of 2018–2020, and 『日経ビジネス』, October 2018. https://cir.nii.ac.jp/all?q=正射必中
  43. 「男坂」, at ja.wikipedia, the summary of the story, the revision read October 2026 (106434073). https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/男坂
  44. Onuma Hideharu with Dan and Jackie DeProspero, Kyudo: The Essence and Practice of Japanese Archery, Kodansha International, Tokyo, 1993, p. 2 and the closing dialogue, read in the text layer.
  45. Scott Shaw, The Warrior Is Silent: Martial Arts and the Spiritual Path, Inner Traditions, 1998, as the Internet Archive's full-text index gives it (the scans are lent, not open). https://archive.org/details/warriorissilentm0000shaw
  46. "Kyūdō", at en.wikipedia, the revision of 23 June 2026 (1360815535). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyūdō
  47. Jérôme Chouchan, Target: Business Wisdom from the Ancient Japanese Martial Art of Kyudo, LID, 2018, as the Internet Archive's full-text index gives it (the scans are lent, not open). https://archive.org/details/targetbusinesswi0000chou

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, edited it and approved it for publication, 2026-10-08.

Not yet reviewed.

Cite as: Tim Jackowski and Ten, "Philology of 正射必中 (seisha hitchū)," Takase Studios, 2026, https://takase.com/library/philology/seisha-hitchu.