The empi blog (opens in a new tab) lists two license catalogs Ogasawara issued. We summarize some of that research below and examine two of the philosophical concepts presented.
Ogasawara-Yoshiharu line:
Heading: Shin-no-shinkage-ryū heihō mokuroku (真之心陰流兵法目録) — “Shin-shin-kage-ryū strategy catalogue,” with the inner title repeating as Shin-no-shinkage heihō mokuroku.
This is a Kanbun 10 (1670) issuance from Ogasawara Genshin Yoshiharu to Kobayashi Ichirōemon, held in the Fujita Seiko Bunko at the Odawara City Library. (Ogasawara Genshin Yoshiharu 1670)
The list:
- 圓相 (ensō; the circle) — with the gloss 不行不帰不留 (“not going, not returning, not abiding”)
- 圓飛 (enpi; here written with 圓/”circle” rather than the usual 燕/”swallow”)
- 參學 (sangaku; the three studies)
- 一刀両断 (ittō-ryōdan; one-cut severing)
- 右轉左轉 (uten-saten; right-turn left-turn)
- 長短一味 (chōtan-ichimi; long-and-short, one flavor)
- 五輪擱 (gorin-…; five-rings — the final character is unusual, “to place/set”)
- 和ト (waboku / wa-…; harmony-)
- 秘勝 (hishō; secret victory)
- 八重垣 (yaegaki; the eightfold fence)
- 按車 (ansha; pressing-wheel)
- 五関一劔 (gokan-itsu-ken; five-barriers-one-sword)
- 丸橋 (maruhashi; round bridge)
- 天狗集 (tengu-shū; the tengu collection) — “(remainder omitted).”
Attribution line: “From Ogasawara Genshin Yoshiharu (小笠原玄信義晴) to Kobayashi Ichirōemon, Kanbun 10 (1670). (Odawara City Library, Fujita Seiko Bunko.)”
The 不行不帰不留 note for ensō becomes a part of later 18th century mokuroku in their koto/gokui sections, while mention of enpi/empi and sangaku disappears by the time of Naganuma Kunisato. Waboku, hishō and yaegaki are kata preserved in contemporary Yagyū Shinkage-ryū. It is interesting to see them listed here, without an explicit kuka set being mentioned.
Tengu-shū is the name used in Kyushu lines of Hikita Shinkage-ryū, corresponding with the idea of Ogasawara and Hikita interacting (through a common teacher and possibly later in life).
From the empiken.blogspot.com article:
- In other examples there are minor differences (e.g., 天狗所 instead of 天狗集).2. This line uses 円 in enpi. The enpi kata set is in a different menjo called the Inka-maki, which also contains according the researcher, explanations of marubashi.
- Other mokuroku he issued include Utten Satten.
Harigaya Line
Heading: 鹿嶋大明神 / 神信影流 — “Kashima Daimyōjin / Shin-shin’ei-ryū.” Placing the Kashima deity at the head, like the kami-charter in similar documents from Katōda Shinkage-ryū:
The list:
- 遠備 (enbi / ombi) — see the author’s note below; this is enpi in disguise
- 一刀 (ittō; one-sword)
- 右切左切 (usetsu-sasetsu; right-cut left-cut)
- 長短一身 (chōtan-isshin; long-and-short, one body)
- 九加 (kūka; the nine additions — i.e. kūka / 九箇)
- 逆風 (gyakufū; against-wind)
- 和卜 (waboku)
- 多方切 (tahō-giri; many-directions cut)
- 當蓮 (tōren; reading uncertain)
- 必勝 (hisshō; certain victory)
- 水砂輪 (suisharin; water-sand-wheel — uncertain)
- 捻入 (nen’nyū; twisting-in)
- 剣割 (kenwari; sword-splitting)
- 悉定 (shitsujō; complete settling — uncertain)
- 天狗書 (tengu-sho; the tengu writing) — “(rest omitted).”
Attribution: “From Yamamori Budayū to Kōno Satayū, Kashima Daimyōjin Shin-shin’ei-ryū Mokuroku, Kanpō 3 (1743). Kanazawa City Kinsei Shiryōkan, Kōno Bunko.”
The author’s note is genuinely illuminating and worth translating in full, because it’s an internal etymology:
Enbi (遠備) is explained, in the inka scroll, under the heading ‘On Enpi Hassō’: ‘The en of enpi is the en of endonkai (円頓戒, the perfect-sudden precepts), meaning to be perfectly/completely furnished.’ Since it says this, originally — like the Shin-no-shinkage-ryū — it must have used the character 円 (en, ‘circle/perfect’). Also, although the mokuroku has no maruhashi (丸橋), the inka scroll contains an explanation of the training method for maruhashi.
The correspondence to the parent list is now explicit down to the disguised forms: this Harigaya-line 遠備 = the parent’s 圓飛/燕飛 (enpi), 長短一身 = the parent’s 長短一味 (chōtan, “one body” vs. “one flavor” — a meaningful variant of the same form), 九加 = kyūka, 和卜 and 天狗書 shared.
The same shared Shin-shinkage front — enpi, ittō(-ryōdan), chōtan, kūka, waboku, tengu — runs through the Harigaya/Sekiun line too, which is the Katōda house’s proximate parent. That is the transmission the Katōda mokuroku hangs on, now visible in the line that actually reached Kurume via Nakamura Gonnai.
Sudden Precepts
The author’s Buddhist etymology of en relating to endonkai (円頓戒), the Tendai perfect-sudden precepts, informs the religious substrate of the name.
The “circle/enpi” that opens these lists carries an esoteric-Buddhist gloss in the inka tradition, even as the mokuroku head invokes the Kashima kami. The same Shintō-Buddhist doubling you noticed on the Katōda source documentss charter is here in the technical vocabulary itself.
This then ties back to the Shugendō origins of Aisu Kage-ryū.
Past, Present, Future
In writings of Kamiya Denshinsai, the empi blog author notices a theme emerge, which is that the initial teachings represent the past, present and future (過去・現在・未来).
The empi blog lists the future as the third and fourth. However, the older arrangement of hōjō combined the second and third kata smoothly together – which is why the name utten satten may be omitted in these earliest artifacts. What we think of as the third kata may not have been called out separately until the fundamental arrangement of the kata was developed. I tend to assign past to hassō, present to ittō-ryōdan and utten-saten, and future to chōtan-ichimi, with ittō-ryōdan and utten-saten combined as in the current habiki practice.
Later Densho
In Jikishin Seitō-ryū transmission of Tahakashi Danjōzaemon to Yamada Heizaemon in Enp=o 7 (1679), we see the arrangement hassō, ittō-ryōdan, utten-saten, chōtan-ichimi. They are followed by enren-toren (圓連 刀連) and tairen (体連), which are notes as being conveyed by oral transmission. This shows an example of enren listed directly after chōtan-ichimi, but it does not mean that it was the fifth kata of the set we practice today called hōjō, just that it was adjacent in the curriculum in that grouping of three.1
End Notes
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Today in the Seito-ha, a kata called enren is performed at the end of the tō-no-kata set, which is not listed here. ↩
References
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