Introduction
The Taiaki (太阿記; “Record of the Taia [sword]”) is one of the three sword-and-Zen writings attributed to the Rinzai monk Takuan Sōhō (沢庵宗彭, 1573–1645), alongside the Fudōchi Shinmyōroku and the Reirōshū. It expounds the “master” (名人) of swordsmanship in Chan terms, taking its title from the legendary sword Taia (太阿) — here a figure for the mind itself. Attribution to Takuan is traditional (the received texts hedge it as 「稱せらるゝ」, “said to be”), and the tradition that it was given to Ono Tadaaki of Ittō-ryū is contested on chronological grounds.
The translation below made from the kanbun as printed in 武術叢書 (Bujutsu sōsho), ed. 国書刊行会, 1915 (NDL 945805) (国書刊行会 (Kokusho Kankōkai, ed.) 1915), which sets the Taiaki with an Edo-period vernacular commentary (和解). We provide the base text (本文), a reading (読み下し), and an English rendering; the Notes draw on that edition’s own glosses where they settle a reading or a term. Uncertain points are flagged.
Note: The phrase 一口吸盡西江水 does not occur in the Taiaki — see the West River piece (opens in a new tab).
A note on how the two Takuan translations on this site relate to the Tsuki no Shō: the contacts run at different depths, and the asymmetry is itself evidence of stratification. The Fudōchi Shinmyōroku — addressed to Munenori, whose oral teaching the Tsuki no Shō records — interlocks with that text entry by entry: a shared section title (心の置所 ↔ 心のおく所之事), shared technical vocabulary (程, 拍子合, 神所), and a shared gāthā carrying a collatable variant (電光影裏／影中斬春風). The Taiaki’s contacts, by contrast, are lexical and topical only — the common Chan sword-panegyric register (殺人刀・活人剣, 魔外, the Han Gaozu exemplum) with no entry-level correspondence. A letter addressed into the tradition’s own teaching line meshes with its commentary apparatus; a general treatise merely shares its idiom. The asymmetry is what the traditional addressee claims would predict, and supports them from the textual side.
The Text
The opening
蓋兵法者、不爭勝負、不拘強弱、不出一步、不退一步、敵不見我、我不見敵、徹天地未分陰陽不到之處、直須得功。
Kedashi heihō wa, shōbu o arasowazu, kyōjaku ni kakawarazu, ippo o idezu, ippo o shirizokazu, teki ware o mizu, ware teki o mizu, tenchi imada wakarezu in’yō itarazaru no tokoro o tesshite, tadachi ni subekaraku kō o u-beshi.
“Now, the [true] martial art: it does not contend for victory or defeat, is not bound by strong or weak; it advances not a step, retreats not a step; the enemy does not see me, and I do not see the enemy. Penetrating through to the place where Heaven and Earth are not yet divided, where yin and yang have not yet arrived, one directly attains its working.”
Notes. 敵不見我・我不見敵. The commentary is emphatic that 我 here is the True Self (真我の我), not the ego-self (人我の我): the True Self is 「天地未分以前・父母未生已前の我」 — the self prior to the division of Heaven and Earth, prior to one’s parents’ birth — i.e. the Buddha-nature (仏性), formless and deathless, present in self and other, in beasts, plants, all things. “I do not see the enemy” is not literal blindness (“見て見ぬ処これ妙なり,” it glosses) but not-seeing with the ego-self. This 真我/人我 distinction is the doctrinal hinge of the whole text.
The person of thorough penetration — the life-giving sword
夫通達人者、不用力殺人、用刀活人。要殺卽殺、要活卽活。殺々三昧、活々三昧也。
Sore tsūdatsu no hito wa, chikara o mochiite hito o korosazu, katana o mochiite hito o ikasu. Korosan to yōseba sunawachi koroshi, ikasan to yōseba sunawachi ikasu. Setsusetsu-zanmai, katsukatsu-zanmai nari.
“The person of thorough penetration does not use force to kill; he uses the sword to give life. If he must kill, he kills at once; if he must give life, he gives life at once. It is the samādhi of killing-killing, the samādhi of enlivening-enlivening.”
Notes. This is the Chan 殺人刀・活人剣 (setsunintō / katsujinken, “death-dealing blade / life-giving sword”; a stock pairing in the Blue Cliff Record and Linji records), recast as paired samādhi. The Yagyū corpus operationalizes the same pairing: the Tsuki no Shō’s 水月之活人刀 (p. 24) defines the held-stance sword as 殺人刀 and the stance-less place as 活人剣 — inherited, per its own record citation, from Sekishūsai’s 没滋味手段口伝書 — and the Heihō Kadensho’s two scrolls take their very titles from the pair. The commentary glosses 不用刀殺人: those who face such a person “freeze of themselves and become dead men” (すくんで己と死漢となる), so there is no need actually to cut — the giving-of-life is to handle the opponent (あひしらうて) and simply watch, without killing.
Discrimination without discriminating
不見是非而能見是非、不作分別而能作分別。蹈水如地、蹈地如水。
Zehi o mizushite shikamo yoku zehi o mi, funbetsu o nasazushite shikamo yoku funbetsu o nasu. Mizu o fumu koto chi no gotoku, chi o fumu koto mizu no gotoshi.
“He does not see right-and-wrong, yet perceives right-and-wrong perfectly; he makes no discrimination, yet discriminates perfectly. He treads water as though it were ground, and treads ground as though it were water.”
Notes. The commentary’s simile: a bright mirror set out reflects each thing exactly as it is (きつかとうつす), yet being no-mind (無心) it holds no judgment “this is this, that is that.” So too the swordsman whose “one-mind mirror” (一心の鏡) is clear: right-and-wrong is “seen without seeing.” 蹈水如地 — only one who has “forgotten both water and ground” (地水ともに忘れたる体の人) reaches this.
Freedom nothing can touch
若得此自由、盡大地人不奈何他。
Moshi kono jiyū o eba, jindaichi no hito mo kare o ikan tomo sezu.
“If he attains this freedom, then [though] all the people of the whole earth [come at him], they can do nothing to him.”
The work of it — in all four postures
悉絕同侶、欲得這箇麼。行住坐臥、語裡默裡、茶裡飯裡、工夫不怠、急着眼、窮去窮來、直須見。
Kotogotoku dōryo o tatsu. Shako o en to hossuru ya. Gyō-jū-za-ga, gori-mokuri, sari-hanri, kufū okotarazu, kyū ni manako o tsuke, kiwame-sari kiwame-kitatte, tadachi ni subekaraku miru-beshi.
“He cuts off all companions utterly. Would you attain this? — Then in walking, standing, sitting, and lying; in speech and in silence; at tea and at rice, let your effort never slacken; fix the eye sharply, probe it away and probe it back, and see it directly.”
Notes. 悉絕同侶 — “cuts off all companions” — echoes the West River kōan’s 不與萬法為侶 (“not a companion to the myriad dharmas”), the question Layman Pang put to Mazu. 這箇 (“this”) the commentary simply glosses as “what was stated above.” The 行住坐臥 (four dignified postures) / 語黙 / 茶飯 formula is the Chan “at all times, in all activities.”
Teacherless wisdom, effortless function
月積年久、而如自然暗裡得灯相似、得無師智、發無作妙用。
Tsuki tsumi toshi hisashiku shite, jinen ni anri ni tomoshibi o uru ga gotoku aini-te, mushi no chi o e, musa no myōyū o hassu.
“As months pile up and years grow long, it is as if of itself one found a lamp in the dark: one gains the teacherless wisdom (無師智) and gives rise to the effortless wondrous function (無作妙用).”
Notes. 無師智 — “the root wisdom no teacher transmits” (師匠もつたへぬ根本の智, per the commentary). The Tsuki no Shō states the same terminus in house idiom at Seikōsui no koto (p. 42): 此心ノ受用ヲ 得テハ、師匠ナシト云ナリ — “having the use of this mind, one is said to be without a teacher.” 無作妙用 — ordinary people’s activity is all 有作 (contrived, toilsome striving); the adept’s ordinary doings as they are are 無作 (uncontrived).
Why it is named Taia
正與麼時、只不出尋常之中、超出尋常之表、名之曰太阿。此太阿利劔、人々具足、箇々圓成。明之者天魔怕之、昧之者外道欺之。
Shō-yomo no toki, tada jinjō no naka o idezushite, jinjō no hyō o chōshutsu su. Kore o nazukete Taia to iu. Kono Taia no riken, ninnin gusoku shi, koko enjō su. Kore o akiramuru mono wa tenma mo kore o osore, kore o kuramasu mono wa gedō mo kore o azamuku.
“At just such a moment — without stepping outside the ordinary, one yet transcends the ordinary. This is named Taia. This sharp sword Taia is complete in every person, perfectly realized in each. One who clarifies it, even the deva-māra fears; one who dims it, even the heterodox deceive.”
Notes. Taia (太阿) — one of the fabled ancient swords (with 干將・莫邪, forged in the Wu/Yue tradition); here the “sword” is the mind / original nature, “complete in every person.” 天魔 (deva-māra), 外道 (gedō, tīrthika/heterodox) — the compound 魔外 recurs in the Tsuki no Shō’s own kanbun 序 (pp. 3–5), where at Munetoshi’s bare-handed art 魔外乞命, “Māra and the outsiders beg for their lives”: shared vocabulary across the two sword-panegyric registers.
Master against master — the flower and the smile
或上手與上手、鋒鋩相交、不決勝負者、如世尊拈華、迦葉微笑。
Aruiwa jōzu to jōzu to, hōbō aimajiete shōbu o kessezaru mono wa, Seson nenge, Kashō mishō no gotoshi.
“When master meets master, blade-tips crossing yet victory undecided — this is like the World-Honored One holding up the flower, and Kāśyapa’s smile.”
Notes. 拈華微笑 — the Buddha silently held up a flower on Vulture Peak, and Mahākāśyapa alone smiled: the paradigmatic mind-to-mind transmission (以心伝心) and, by tradition, the origin of Chan. Two adepts who cannot be told apart meet like Buddha and Kāśyapa. 以心伝心 is also the term in which the Tsuki no Shō frames its own transmission — the naming preface’s 以心伝心の秘術 (p. 1, of Takuan’s intervention) and Munenori’s stated policy at 行間拍子 (pp. 39–40: 一心伝心ヲ契約…宗矩此かたの儀也). The nearest Yagyū development of the theme is in the Tsuki no Shō’s own naming preface (p. 1): 向ふまたかくのことく、我にひとしくあらん敵ニハ、勝負いかんとも心得かたし — “against an opponent who should likewise be my equal, how the match would go is beyond knowing.” (The tag 名人対名人 sometimes used for this theme is not attested in Shinkage-ryū writing — searched 2026-07-18 — and is avoided here as a school term.)
Mere quick-wittedness is not yet it
又或擧一明三、目機銖兩、是尋常靈利也。
Mata aruiwa ichi o agete san o akirame, mokki-shuryō, kore jinjō no reiri nari.
“Or again: raise one and he clarifies three; the eye weighs to the gram — [but] this is [only] ordinary sharpness.”
Notes. 擧一明三 alludes to Analects 7.8 (raise one corner, infer the other three). 目機銖兩 — the eye gauges weight to the last 銖 (the commentary: 10 絲 = 1 銖, 10 銖 = 1 分, 10 分 = 1 兩). Takuan’s point: even such acuity is 尋常 (commonplace), not yet the finished matter.
Cutting before it arises
若是此事了畢人、於一未擧、三未明以前、早截作三段、況顏々相對乎。
Moshi kore kono koto ryōhitsu no hito wa, ichi no imada agarazu, san no imada akiraka narazaru izen ni oite, hayaku kitte sandan to nasu, iwanya gangan aitai suru o ya.
“But one who has finished this matter utterly — before the one is even raised, before the three is even clarified — has already cut [the opponent] into three; how much more when they stand face to face!”
Never showing the point
如是人、終不露鋒錐、其疾也電光無通、其輕也急嵐無及。無這般手段、纔拈却着、擬却着者、便傷鋒犯手、不足爲好手。
Kaku no gotoki no hito wa, tsui ni hōsui o arawasazu, sono toki ya denkō mo tsūzuru koto naku, sono karuki ya kyūran mo oyobu koto nashi. Shahan no shudan nakushite, wazuka ni nenkyaku-jaku, gikyaku-jaku suru mono wa, sunawachi hō o yaburi te o okashi, kōshu to nasu ni tarazu.
“Such a person never reveals the point of his blade: in swiftness, lightning cannot reach him; in lightness, the sudden gale cannot overtake him. Lacking this capacity, one who merely grabs at it or hesitates over it only blunts his own point and wounds his own hand — not enough to be called a good hand.”
Notes. 纔拈却着・擬却着 — “the moment he grasps-at / hesitates-over [it]”; the commentary reads them as reaching to take up the sword and fumbling the placement — the self-defeating move of the un-finished.
Beyond words, beyond method
以情識莫卜度、無言語所可傳、無法樣所可習、教外別傳法是也。
Jōshiki o motte bokutaku suru koto nakare, gongo no tsutau-beki tokoro naku, hōyō no narau-beki tokoro nashi, kyōge-betsuden no hō kore nari.
“Do not measure it with the calculating mind. There is nothing in words that can transmit it, no form or method that can be learned. This is the Dharma of special transmission outside the teachings (教外別傳).”
Notes. 情識 = the discriminating ego-mind; 卜度 = to reckon/guess. 教外別傳 (one of Chan’s “four phrases”): “outside the teacher’s teaching there is a separate self-awakening, a Dharma self-attained” (師の教への外に別に自悟して自己自得の法あり). The Tsuki no Shō records the same stance as house policy: 惣別、目録ニハシルサジト、ヲシヱノ通ナリ — “in general the mokuroku, per the teaching, were not to be written down” — with Munenori pledging 一心伝心 over written transmission (pp. 39–40).
The great function keeps no rule
大用現前、不存軌則、順行逆行天莫測、是什麼道理。
Daiyū genzen shite kisoku o sonsezu, junkō gyakukō ten mo hakaru nakushi, kore somosan no dōri zo.
“The great function manifests (大用現前) and keeps no fixed rule; going with or going against, Heaven itself cannot fathom it — what principle is this?”
Notes. 大用現前・不存軌則 is the pointer to Case 3 of the Blue Cliff Record (碧巌録). 軌則 = a fixed standard or code; the great function “pervades all ten directions, not a hair’s breadth missed,” and so holds to no set rule.
The White-Marsh chart
古人曰、家無白澤圖、無如是天怪。
Kojin iwaku, ie ni Hakutaku-zu naku[nba], kaku no gotoki no tenkai nashi.
“An ancient said: ‘Where there is no White-Marsh chart in the house, there are no such uncanny portents.’”
Notes. 白澤 (Hakutaku; Ch. báizé) — a mythical omniscient beast; its image (白澤図) was pasted at gate and pillar to ward off monsters and calamity. The commentary turns it inward: one posts the chart because one believes monsters exist; one who holds that there are no monsters does not post it — and that is no-mind (無心). Stop projecting the uncanny, and it is not there.
One sword pacifies the realm
若人鍊得至這箇道理、一劔平天下。學之者莫輕忽。
Moshi hito neri-ete shako no dōri ni itaraba, ikken tenka o tairagu. Kore o manabu mono, kyōkotsu suru nakare.
“If a person, through refining, reaches this principle, then with a single sword he pacifies the realm (一劔平天下). Let those who study this not take it lightly.”
Notes. The commentary likens 一劔平天下 to the Han founder (漢の高祖, Liu Bang) pacifying all-under- Heaven — “this one sword has stood, plain to see, from before the empty aeon to today. What sword is it? Lift your eyes and look.” The identical topos anchors the Tsuki no Shō’s kanbun 序 (pp. 3–5): 漢高提三尺剱、平天下、開炎運四百年基 — “Gaozu of Han, lifting a three-foot blade, pacified the realm” — the Taiaki commentary and the 閑長老 preface reaching for the same exemplum.
太阿記終 — Here ends the Taiaki.
Methods and Sources
The translation is a machine translation from the primary text using Claude Opus 4.8 (Anthropic) with refinements by Claude Fable.
The base text is the Taiaki kanbun as printed in 武術叢書 (Bujutsu sōsho, 国書刊行会, 1915; NDL 945805), corrected against that witness. Because the text is kanbun throughout, each passage is given in three layers — base text (本文), reading (読み下し), and English — and the Notes draw on the edition’s own Edo vernacular commentary (和解) where it settles a reading or a term.
Writing conventions follow house style:
- uncertain or supplied readings are marked 〔…〕;
- graph-level OCR emendations are noted per section;
- readings still requiring confirmation against the physical witness carry an HTML comment in the base-text file.
Source Text
- 武術叢書 (Bujutsu sōsho), 国書刊行会, 1915 (NDL 945805), where the Taiaki is set with an Edo vernacular commentary (和解). Base readings and glosses above follow that edition; other witnesses (e.g. the 巧芸社 Zenshū v.5, 1929; and modern annotated editions by Ichikawa Hakugen, Kōdansha 1994, and Chikuma Gakugei Bunko 2023) carry minor orthographic variants.
- This translation is original, made from the kanbun; it is not drawn from any published English or modern-Japanese version.
Notes
A few characters in the source are printed as gaiji or are faint — 教 in 教外別傳 (printed unclear), and the 靈利/靈唎 orthography at “Mere quick-wittedness” (尋常靈利). The renderings above follow the commentary’s sense; anywhere a variant edition differs, prefer the critical text. The section divisions and headings are editorial (mine), for readability — the original runs continuously.
References
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