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宮本武蔵 miyamoto musashi Miyamoto Musashi

This is a philological study of the name 宮本武蔵 (Miyamoto Musashi), following its two words from a village and a province through the swordsman's own letters, the stage and the novel, and into English.

Japanese Scroll of Miyamoto Musashi (miyamoto musashi) — Calligraphy by Eri Takase
Miyamoto Musashi (miyamoto musashi)

Miyamoto Musashi (miyamoto musashi) on a traditional Japanese Scroll by Master Eri Takase.

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Abstract

宮本武蔵 (Miyamoto Musashi) is the name of the swordsman and painter Miyamoto Musashi 宮本武蔵 (about 1584–1645), and it is made of two names that were not his own to begin with: 宮本, a surname most sources take from the village his family lived in, and 武蔵, the name of a province used as a personal name, without the governorship it would imply. He went by it in his dealings with the Hosokawa house of Kumamoto in the 1640s, while his book on strategy is signed with another surname, Shinmen; the earliest printed book known to name him, in 1666, glosses the characters みやもとむさし and calls him a master of the painter's brush. The stage then wrote him 宮本無三四 and gave him a revenge plot and an adoptive father named Miyamoto to account for the surname, a story a biographical dictionary of 1891 took for his life and the first English print of the name, in 1875, translated. The reading Takezō is first reported in 1909, and Yoshikawa Eiji 吉川英治's novel of 1935–39 made the re-reading of 武蔵 as Musashi a scene.

Overview

The sense. A personal name, the family name first. The dictionaries head it みやもと‐むさし and define the man: デジタル大辞泉 《江戸初期の剣術家。播磨あるいは美作の人。名は玄信。号、二天。…水墨画にも長じた。著「五輪書」》, a swordsman of the early Edo period, from Harima or Mimasaka; his name 玄信, his art name 二天; … he also excelled at ink painting; author of the 五輪書; 精選版 日本国語大辞典 adds 《名は玄信のほか、政名、義恒などが伝わる》, besides 玄信, the names 政名 and 義恒 are handed down, and 《絵画や彫刻にもすぐれ》, he also excelled at painting and carving; the ブリタニカ entry calls him 《江戸時代初期の剣客，画家》, a swordsman and painter of the early Edo period [1]. A name has no senses to lay beside an English word's. What it carries is a person, and which person an English reader has met under it has changed with the century: the avenger of a revenge story in 1875, a painter in 1879, the founder of a sword school, the author of a book on strategy from 1974, the hero of a novel from 1981.

The words. 宮本 is a surname, and three accounts of it stand in the sources. The first is a village: the memorial society's biography of 1909 says he 《父の氏を受けて新免と稱し、又在名により宮本ともいへり》, took his father's surname and was called Shinmen, and from the name of his village was also called Miyamoto, and quotes a village headman's report of 1689 that father and son settled as masterless samurai in 宮本村 and 《遂に落付て在名を以て宮本を氏とせし》, at last settled there and took Miyamoto, the village's name, as their surname [2]. Which village is disputed, one in Mimasaka or one in Harima, as the dictionaries say [1]. The second is his mother's house: ブリタニカ 《母の家を継ぎ，宮本武蔵義恒または玄信 (政名?) と名のった》, he succeeded to his mother's house and called himself Miyamoto Musashi Yoshitsune or Harunobu (Masana?) [1]. The third is the stage's, an adoptive father named Miyamoto, and it is fiction (§ The historical record). 山川 adds 《名字は「新免」も用いた》, he also used the surname Shinmen [1]. 武蔵 is a common name, 通称 (百官名) in the Japanese Wikipedia's words [3]: the name of a province, taken as a personal name. The 1909 book, correcting his own school's habit of writing 武藏守, governor of Musashi, says 《決してその國守に任ぜられたるにはあらざることは、碑文位牌等に守の字無きにて知るべし》, that he was never appointed governor of the province is known from the absence of 守 on the stele and the mortuary tablet [2]; his book on strategy nevertheless signs 新免武蔵守藤原玄信 [3]. The reading is musashi, glossed beside the characters in 1666 [4]. The reading Takezō for the same two characters is reported from 1909 on, with no source named [2][5], and in Yoshikawa's novel it is the hero's name as a youth, until a monk tells him to read his name Musashi [6]. The typeset witnesses before the Second World War write 武藏; 武蔵 is the post-war form of the same character, and the design writes 蔵.

The text in English. A personal name has no entry in the Meiji bilingual dictionaries, and the name came into English another way: in a Tokyo monthly's translation of the revenge story in 1875 [7], in a lecture on painting in 1879 [8], in a missionary's retelling of the story in parts from 1887 [9], and in Nitobe's Bushido in 1900 [10]. Books written in English kept the Japanese order, Miyamoto Musashi; books that turned every Japanese name to Western order wrote Musashi Miyamoto, as Ōkuma Shigenobu's history did in 1909 [11] and as the title of the 1954 film did in America [12]. The book on strategy reached English in 1974 [13] and the novel in 1981 [14]. JMnedict gives 宮本武蔵 みやもとむさし, Miyamoto Musashi (1584-1645) [15]. The English Wikipedia lists among his other names Shinmen Takezō [16], a combination that comes from the novel, whose young hero is 新免無二斎の子武蔵(たけぞう), Takezō, son of Shinmen Munisai, in ニッポニカ's summary [1]; Shinmen is the surname of his treatises, and Takezō the reading first reported in 1909.

The historical record

1640, his statement to the Hosokawa house, as the 1909 biography prints it. A 口上書 of 寛永十七年二月, the second month of 1640, closing 宮本武藏; the house's own record of that August pays 宮本武藏 his allowance [2]. This is the name the domain used for him and he used with it.

1645, his letter to three elders of the house, as the 1909 biography prints it. Dated the thirteenth of the fourth month, signed 宮本武藏玄信, and in it he calls himself 古今之名人, a master of past and present [2]. The surname and the common name, then his given name.

1643–45, his book on strategy. The 五輪書 names its author 新免武蔵守藤原玄信 [3]. In his own writing on his art he is Shinmen, and 武蔵守.

1654, the stele at Kokura. Raised by his adopted son nine years after his death, it is titled 新免武蔵玄信二天居士碑 [3]. The monument writes Shinmen.

1666, 恵中 Echū, 海上物語, a book of moral tales. The earliest printed book known to name him. Among stories told aboard a ship, the second volume brings in 《此前宮本武蔵と云兵法者あり》, some time ago there was a master of arms called Miyamoto Musashi, the characters glossed みやもとむさし; he fought sixty-odd bouts from the age of sixteen and won them all, and he defeats a challenger the book calls 無双権之助 [4]. The book then says 《畫筆の名人》, a master of the painter's brush, glossed ぐハひつ, and tells how his lord ordered a Daruma from him, how it came out poorly, and how he rose at night, said the picture had failed because he had not brought his art of arms into it, and painted it again, splendidly [4][17]. The colophon reads 寛文六丙午年弥生上旬, the first third of the third month of 1666 [4].

1670, the same book retitled 海上問答. The catalogue records 海上問答 as a retitled edition [4]; its third volume carries the passage, 《宮本武蔵といふ兵法者有》 and 《畫筆の名人》, and an illustration of the bout whose cartouches read みやもとむさし and むさう権之助 [17].

1716, 日夏繁高 Hinatsu Shigetaka, 本朝武芸小伝, lives of the masters of arms. 《宮本武藏政名者播州人、赤松庶流新免氏也》, Miyamoto Musashi Masana was a man of Harima, of the Shinmen, a branch line of the Akamatsu [18]. The given name 政名 enters here; his own school's papers do not use it [3].

1737, the kabuki 敵討巌流島. First staged at Osaka in the summer of 元文2 and known by the common title 宮本武蔵 [1]. From here the stage owns the name.

1815 to 1865, the stage and the prints: 宮本無三四. A booklet of 1815 on the actor Shikan 芝翫 lists his roles, among them 《英勇記に宮本無三四》, Miyamoto Musashi in the 英勇記 [19]; Kuniyoshi 国芳's print of 1852 is titled 三勇士・宮本無三四 [20]; Yoshitoshi 芳年's of 1865, 和漢百物語 宮本無三四 [21]. The spelling 無三四 keeps the sound and drops the province. The script of 敵討巌流嶋 in 1862 gives the plot that explains the surname: the murdered fencer's son 友次郎 《熊本の家中宮本武右衛門が養子と成て実父の無念を晴さんと宮本無三四と名乗り》, became the adopted son of Miyamoto Buemon of the Kumamoto house and, to avenge his real father, took the name Miyamoto Musashi [22].

1889, 大槻文彦 Ōtsuki Fumihiko, 言海, a dictionary. It defines 二刀流 as a school that uses 《大小ノ二刀ヲ、左右ノ手ニテ》, the long and the short sword, one in each hand, and 《宮本無三四ニ始マルト云フ》, said to begin with Miyamoto Musashi, in the stage's spelling [23].

1891, 大日本人名辞書, a biographical dictionary. Headed ミヤモト ムサシ 宮本武藏, with the note 《武藏一に無三四に作る》, 武藏 is also written 無三四; it gives him the boyhood name 七之助, then 《後友次郎と改め最後に武藏とす》, later changed to 友次郎, and last to 武藏, and makes him 《加藤淸正の臣宮本武藏衞門の養子》, the adopted son of 宮本武藏衞門, a retainer of Katō Kiyomasa [24]. The boyhood names and the adoptive father are the revenge play's; the dictionary has taken the stage for the record.

1899, 勝海舟 Katsu Kaishū, in a Zen anthology. 《宮本武藏といふ人は、大層な人物であつたらしい、劍法に熟達して居つた事は勿論の話だが、それのみならず書畫にも堪能だと》, this Miyamoto Musashi seems to have been a great man; that he was a master of the sword goes without saying, but he was also accomplished at calligraphy and painting [25].

1909, the memorial society's biography. The book that sets the documents against the plays gives the surname from the village, the common name without the governorship, and the reading: 《武藏の幼名はもとはタケゾウと唱へしを、後にムサシと改唱したりといふ》, it is said that 武藏, his name as a boy, was first pronounced Takezō and later changed to Musashi [2]. It is the earliest known statement of the reading, and it is reported, といふ.

1915, 沼波瓊音 Nunami Keion, in a book of reminiscence. 《普通宮本武藏と云ふのはこの產地を呼ぶのであります》, the usual "Miyamoto Musashi" names him by this birthplace, and 《武藏と云ふ名ももとは『たけざう』であつたのを、後に『むさし』と云ふやうになつたと申します。自ら改唱したのか、人が云ひ出したのか判然しませぬ》, they say the name 武藏 too was first "Takezō" and later came to be said "Musashi"; whether he changed the reading himself or others began it is not clear [5].

1935–39, 吉川英治 Yoshikawa Eiji, 宮本武蔵, a novel serialized in the 朝日新聞 [1]. The lord of Himeji gives the young hero his surname, 《以後は、姓も宮本と名乗るがよかろう》, from now on call yourself Miyamoto, and the monk Takuan 沢庵 his reading: 《名も、武蔵(たけぞう)よりは、武蔵(むさし)と訓まれたほうがよい》, your name, too, had better be read Musashi than Takezō [6]. The novel turned the 1909 tradition into the hero's rebirth, and 山川 says it 《青年剣豪の武蔵像を一般に定着させた》, fixed the image of Musashi as a young swordsman in the public mind [1].

What is not a source. The boyhood names 七之助 and 友次郎, the adoptive father Miyamoto Buemon and the murdered father of the revenge plot are the stage's, and the dictionary of 1891 is their first witness in a reference book, not a record of the man. The given name 政名 is first found in 1716. The reading Takezō has no witness older than 1909, and the 1909 book names none.

The name in English

1875, The Far East, Tokyo. An article headed Miyamoto Musashi. Translated from the Japanese. tells the revenge story: the boy Hichinosuke, son of the fencer Yoshioka Tarozayemon, is taken in by Miyamoto Buzayemon, takes the name, and at last calls out to his father's murderer, Sasaki Ganriu: Hark ye! I am Yoshioka's second son, and at this day Miyamoto Buzayemon's adopted son. My name is Miyamoto Musashi [7]. The earliest English print of the name known, and it is the stage's Musashi, with the stage's explanation of the surname.

1879, W. Anderson, a paper on Japanese art read to the Asiatic Society of Japan. Among the famous men who painted as amateurs, beside generals, emperors and priests, the swordsman Miyamoto Musashi [8]. The painter reaches English four years after the avenger.

1887, Walter Dening, Japan in Days of Yore. The notice of the series announces its third and fourth volumes: The Life of Miyamoto Musashi, in addition to being a history of fencing, is one of the most remarkable vendetta stories that have been handed down to us [9].

1900, Nitobe Inazō, Bushido, the Soul of Japan. On the end of the vendetta under the criminal code: The knight errantry of Miyamoto Musashi is now a tale of the past [10]. Still the revenge play's man.

1909, Ōkuma Shigenobu, Fifty Years of New Japan. About the same time Musashi Miyamoto invented the two-sworded style [11]. The book puts Japanese names in Western order, and here the name turns round.

1959, Joseph L. Anderson and Donald Richie, The Japanese Film. Musashi Miyamoto (Miyamoto Musashi), released in America as Samurai [12]: the film of 1954 went abroad under another title, and the book gives its name in Western order with the Japanese title beside it.

1974, Victor Harris, A Book of Five Rings. Shinmen Musashi No Kami Fujiwara No Genshin, or as he is commonly known Miyamoto Musashi, was born in the village called Miyamoto in the province Mimasaka in 1584. "Musashi" is the name of an area south-west of Tokyo, and the appellation "No Kami" means noble person of the area [13]. The village account of the surname, stated as fact. Two errors: the province of Musashi was the country around Edo itself, not an area south-west of it, and 守, kami, is the title of a provincial governor, not noble person of the area.

1981, Charles S. Terry, Musashi, Yoshikawa's novel in English. Takuan's line: "Why not read the Chinese characters of your name as 'Musashi' instead of 'Takezo'? You can keep writing your name the same as before." The foreword by Edwin O. Reischauer: Yoshikawa's story begins with the youthful Takezo, later to be renamed Miyamoto Musashi [14]. The novel's reading became the English reader's biography.

Today. JMnedict gives Miyamoto Musashi (1584-1645) [15]. The design is sold as Miyamoto Musashi, which is the name as English writes it in Japanese order and in modified Hepburn; this history's gloss, Musashi of Miyamoto, reads the two parts, a surname from a place and a common name from a province. A rendering should keep the Japanese order the man and his house used, and should not add Takezō or Shinmen Takezō as names he bore.

A reading

I read the name on this scroll as the name other people gave him and he accepted. The documents in which he speaks for his art, the book and its colophons, the stele his son raised, sign Shinmen, 武蔵守 and 玄信: a lineage, a governorship he never held, a formal name. The documents in which he deals with a lord, the statement of 1640, the stipends, the letter of 1645, say 宮本武藏: the name of a place and the name of a province, the way a household writes a guest. It is the plainer name, and it is the one that lasted, because it is the one the world used. The earliest printed book known to use it already knew him as two men, the swordsman who won sixty bouts and the painter who could not paint a Daruma until he put his swordsmanship into the brush, and I take that pairing as the truest thing the early record says about him. The stage then did what the stage does. It kept the sound, dropped the province, wrote him 無三四, and needed a reason for the surname, so it gave him a father named Miyamoto; the dictionary of 1891 believed it, and the first English reader of 1875 read it as history. The reading Takezō is of the same kind, a tradition with nothing under it older than 1909, which Yoshikawa made beautiful: a young man who keeps the characters of his name and changes only how they sound. I hold it as the novel's gift, not the man's name. A buyer who hangs these four characters has the name the Hosokawa house wrote, the one he signed his letters with, and the one the earliest printed book already used.

Notes

Sources not seen

福田正秀「名前の変遷に見る宮本武蔵」, 『放送大学日本史学論叢』 3, 放送大学大学院歴史研究会, 2016, pp. 33–65 (National Diet Library bibliographic ID 027204673; CiNii https://cir.nii.ac.jp/crid/1520290884024011520): a study of the changes in his names, by a historian of Musashi, known here from its catalogue record only. It would settle when 宮本 first appears in documents of his own time and whether the reading Takezō has a witness older than 1909.

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

References

  1. 「宮本武蔵」, 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, 日本大百科全書 (ニッポニカ), ブリタニカ国際大百科事典 小項目事典, 山川 日本史小辞典 改訂新版, 旺文社日本史事典 三訂版, 歌舞伎・浄瑠璃外題よみかた辞典, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/宮本武蔵-139643
  2. 宮本武蔵遺蹟顕彰会 編『宮本武蔵』, 金港堂書籍, 1909, pp. 13, 17, 19, 72, 106 (scans 30, 32, 33, 60, 77). National Diet Library pid 992019. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/992019/1/32
  3. 「宮本武蔵」, Wikipedia (Japanese), revision of 24 September 2026, sections 名前 and 芸術家としての武蔵. https://ja.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?oldid=111135917
  4. 恵中『海上物語』, 2 vols., 寛文六年 (1666), vol. 2, scans 63, 67 and the colophon at scan 81; the copy of the 江戸川乱歩文庫, 立教大学, at the 国書データベース, 国文学研究資料館, DOI 10.20730/100297626. https://kokusho.nijl.ac.jp/biblio/100297626/63 · the work record, which lists 海上問答 as a retitled edition: https://kokusho.nijl.ac.jp/work/126534
  5. 沼波瓊音『乳のぬくみ : 思ひ出の記』, 平和出版社, 1915, scans 105–106. National Diet Library pid 904872. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/904872/1/106
  6. 吉川英治『宮本武蔵』, 地の巻, serialized in the 朝日新聞 from 1935; the text of 吉川英治歴史時代文庫, 講談社, 1989, at 青空文庫. https://www.aozora.gr.jp/cards/001562/files/52396_49781.html
  7. "Miyamoto Musashi. Translated from the Japanese.", The Far East: A Monthly Illustrated Journal, vol. 6, no. 9, Tokei, 31 March 1875, scans 290–300. Internet Archive thefareastvol.618745. https://archive.org/details/thefareastvol.618745/page/n290
  8. W. Anderson, "A History of Japanese Art", Transactions of the Asiatic Society of Japan, vol. 7 (1878–79), p. 373. Internet Archive in.ernet.dli.2015.70893. https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.70893
  9. Walter Dening, Japan in Days of Yore, vol. 1, The Hakubunsha, Tokyo, 1887, the notice of the series. Internet Archive japanindaysofyor00denirich. https://archive.org/details/japanindaysofyor00denirich
  10. Inazo Nitobe, Bushido, the Soul of Japan: An Exposition of Japanese Thought, Leeds & Biddle, Philadelphia, 1900, p. 85. Internet Archive bushidosouljapa00nitogoog. https://archive.org/details/bushidosouljapa00nitogoog
  11. Shigénobu Ōkuma, "Culture and Education in Old Japan", in Ōkuma Shigenobu, comp., Fifty Years of New Japan, English version ed. Marcus B. Huish, vol. 2, Smith, Elder & Co., London, 1909, p. 132. Internet Archive fiftyyearsofnew02okumuoft. https://archive.org/details/fiftyyearsofnew02okumuoft
  12. Joseph L. Anderson and Donald Richie, The Japanese Film: Art and Industry, Grove Press, New York, 1959. Internet Archive japanesefilmarta007231mbp. https://archive.org/details/japanesefilmarta007231mbp
  13. Miyamoto Musashi, A Book of Five Rings, tr. Victor Harris, The Overlook Press, Woodstock, N.Y., 1974, p. 7.
  14. Eiji Yoshikawa, Musashi, tr. Charles S. Terry, foreword by Edwin O. Reischauer, Kodansha International, Tokyo, 1981; the edition of 1995 at the Internet Archive, EijiYoshikawaMusashi. https://archive.org/details/EijiYoshikawaMusashi
  15. JMnedict, Electronic Dictionary Research and Development Group, 「宮本武蔵」, at jisho.org. https://jisho.org/search/宮本武蔵%20%23names
  16. "Miyamoto Musashi", Wikipedia (English), revision of 21 September 2026. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?oldid=1375986800
  17. 恵中『海上問答』, 3 vols., 関口市兵衛, 寛文10 (1670), vol. 3, scans 7, 9, 10. National Diet Library pid 2552698. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/2552698/1/7
  18. 日夏繁高『本朝武芸小伝』, 1716, in 国書刊行会 編『武術叢書』, 1915, scan 42. National Diet Library pid 945805. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/945805/1/42
  19. 暁鐘成 編, 蘆洲 画『芝翫節用百戯通』, 1815, scans 30 and 38. National Diet Library pid 2533883. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/2533883/1/38
  20. 一勇斎国芳「三勇士・宮本無三四 美作・備前」, from the series 江戸錦今様国尽, 1852. National Diet Library pid 1309643. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1309643
  21. 一魁斎芳年「和漢百物語 宮本無三四」, 1865. National Diet Library pid 1311787. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1311787
  22. 『三升蒔画巵 敵討巌流嶋』, a kabuki script, 1862, attributed by the catalogue to 桜田治助三世, scans 113 and 115. National Diet Library pid 2541346. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/2541346/1/113
  23. 大槻文彦 編『言海』, 1889, s.v. にとうりう, scan 459. National Diet Library pid 992954. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/992954/1/459
  24. 経済雑誌社 編『大日本人名辞書』, 1891, s.v. ミヤモト ムサシ, scans 579–580. National Diet Library pid 779853. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/779853/1/579
  25. 中川愛氷 編『禅学断片』, 文学同志会, 1899, scan 17. National Diet Library pid 823212. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/823212/1/17

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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.

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