Taisha-ryū appears in kan 1 of the Gekiken Sōdan (img 095, printed pp. 170–171), positioned between Kubo-ryū and Shinkan-ryū in the Kage cluster, and in the Honchō Bugei Shōden among Kamiizumi’s disciples. The orthography is unstable across the volume — たい捨流, タイ捨流, and 體捨流 all occur — and Mikami flags the instability himself. (Mikami Genryū 1790)
一、タイ捨流は丸目藏人に出づるといふ。〔…〕目藏人大夫と同人か別人か未詳。流名も體捨流なるべけれども、片假名に書く事傳受也といふ。
“Item. Taisha-ryū is said to issue from Marume Kurando (丸目藏人). Whether he is the same man as 〔Maru〕me Kurando-dayū (丸目藏人大夫) or a different one is undetermined. The school-name too ought presumably to be written 體捨流 (“body-discarding school”), but writing it in katakana is said to be a matter of transmission (片假名に書く事傳受也).”
Mikami places Marume in the Kamiizumi line and in Kyoto service. From the Shinkan-ryū entry immediately following:
一、心貫流は、上泉武藏守信繩の門人、京都西の岡に住せし丸目藏人と云ふ北面の士〔の〕弟子に奧山左衞門大夫と云ふ者あり。此者、師傅を變じて更に心貫流を立て世に傳へしといふ。
“Item. Shinkan-ryū (心貫流, also written 心拔流): a disciple of Marume Kurando — a student of Kamiizumi Musashi-no-kami, a hokumen no shi (北面の士; guardsman of the retired emperor’s northern quarter) resident at Nishi-no-oka in Kyoto — named Okuyama Saemon-dayū (奧山左衞門大夫) altered what his teacher transmitted, established Shinkan-ryū in its place, and passed it on.”
So the Sōdan gives: Kamiizumi → Marume Kurando (Taisha-ryū) → Okuyama Saemon-dayū (Shinkan-ryū), the last founded by explicit alteration of the transmission (師傅を變じて). The Honchō Bugei Shōden independently lists 丸目藏人大夫 in its kan 1 roster of Kamiizumi’s disciples, alongside Yagyū Munetoshi, Hikita Bungorō, Nagawa Yazaemon, and Jingo Izu-no-kami — the same roster the Gekiken Sōdan gives in its own Kamiizumi entry. (Hinatsu Shigetaka 1716)
Mikami adds, from an informant: 丸目藏人、球摩の人にて有りしと云ふ — Marume Kurando is said to have been a man of Kuma (球摩/球磨, in Higo).
The school circa 1790
Mikami’s information here is first-hand, from a chance meeting:
先年、人吉侯の臣に宮原忠太夫と云ふ者、武者修行と稱し諸國遍歷せしに逢ひて、一夜擊刀の談をなせし事あり。其時、此流の事聞きしに〔…〕
“Some years ago [I] met one Miyahara Chūdayū (宮原忠太夫), a retainer of the lord of Hitoyoshi (人吉侯) who was travelling the provinces on musha-shugyō, and spent an evening in conversation on swordsmanship; on that occasion [I] heard about this school.
Teachers reported current: at Hitoyoshi, Kaga Keikichirō (加賀慶吉郎), said to be highly skilled. The school is also numerous in Hizen-Saga (肥前佐賀に此流多し), where Kawachi Gun’emon (河內軍右衞門), Takayanagi Heidayū (高柳平太夫), Tsuru Tomodayū (鶴友太夫), and Yokoo Yagobee (橫尾彌五兵衞) are named as those chiefly propagating it at present.”
Excursus: the two Marume
Searching the Bujutsu Sōsho volume for 丸目 returns seven occurrences for Marume, and they resolve into two distinct men who founded two unrelated schools. Only one is the Taisha-ryū founder – the other appears more often, and in more treatises:
Marume Kurando (丸目藏人 / 丸目藏人大夫) — the Taisha-ryū founder. Attested in the Honchō Bugei Shōden kan 1 disciple roster (img 011) and in the Gekiken Sōdan kan 1 (img 095). Characteristics: a named teacher (Kamiizumi Musashi-no-kami); a known region (Kuma in Higo, with the school’s later base at Hitoyoshi and Saga); a court-guard office (hokumen no shi); a named disciple who founded an offshoot (Okuyama Saemon-dayū, Shinkan-ryū). He appears in two treatises.
Marume Mondo-no-shō (丸目主水正) — founder of Ichiden-ryū (一傳流), a battōjutsu school. Attested in the Honchō Bugei Shōden (img 045), the Bujutsu Keifu Ryaku (img 064), and the Bujutsu Ryūso-roku (img 081), in every case within the battōjutsu section beside Hayashizaki Jinsuke, Tamiya, Nagano Muraku-sai, and Katayama Hōki-no-kami — never in the Kage/Shinkage material.
丸目主水正者、不知何許人、自壯年好刀術、達拔刀之妙旨、臨機應變無出其右者、潛稱一傳流。
“Marume Mondo-no-shō — what place he was from is not known. From his youth he loved swordsmanship, attained the essential principle of battō, and in adapting to circumstance none surpassed him. He styled [his school] Ichiden-ryū. His transmission runs: Marume Mondo-no-shō → Kunitoshi Yaemon (國利彌右衞門) → Asayama Kuranosuke (淺山內藏助) → Unno Ichirōemon Hisanaga (海野一郞右衞門尙久) → Kaneda Genbee Masatoshi (金田源兵衞正利). The Bujutsu Ryūso-roku identifies the result explicitly: 是れ則ち淺山一傳流と云ふ — this is what is called Asayama Ichiden-ryū.”
The two men have different given names, different provinces (Higo vs. unknown), different arts (kenjutsu vs. battōjutsu), different teachers (Kamiizumi vs. none recorded), different schools (Taisha-ryū vs. Ichiden-ryū), and different sections of the reference works. Yet three conditions make inadvertent merger easy:
- Asymmetric attestation. The battōjutsu Marume appears in three treatises, the Taisha Marume in two. Anyone scanning lineage tables for the surname finds the wrong man more often than the right one.
- A vacant origin. Mondo-no-shō’s entry opens 不知何許人 (“no one knows where he was from”) and has him found a school with no teacher named. That is precisely the shape of a biography into which a better-documented namesake can be imported to supply the missing pedigree — a Kamiizumi teacher and a Higo province are exactly what the entry lacks.
- A near-identical name form already flagged in the sources. Mikami himself asks whether 丸目藏人 and 丸目藏人大夫 are 同人か別人か未詳. If a compiler is already uncertain whether two forms of the same name denote one man, the further step to absorbing 丸目主水正 requires no additional confusion.
One must be cautious not to ascribe to Ichiden-ryū (or Asayama Ichiden-ryū downstream of it) a Kamiizumi pedigree by way of its founder’s surname — the battō line inheriting the Shinkage descent that belongs to the Taisha line. Nothing in these sources asserts that; the point is that a later compiler might read these men together, as has happened in other cases we examine.
