Plum branch in hand -
Happy New Year I'm going to congratulate
Old acquaintances …
Shiki
This epigraph means that this is the first material that I wrote in the new 2019 year, and it is a kind of congratulation to all visitors of the VO site, because it is about … beautiful! And the beautiful is always pleasing and pleasing to the eyes, heart and mind. And just tsuba is one of such pleasant things, in my opinion. We will start a new year and a new thousand materials on this site with its history …
Well, so be it -
I will surrender my fence for today
Soloist nightingale.
Issa
Man is a child of nature in everything. The whole way of his life is dictated by the natural and geographical conditions of his habitat and that is why the aborigines of Australia wear loincloths, and the Eskimos and Chukchi wear trousers with fur inside. "If you are lazy, - say the Chinese, this wheat, and if you are hardworking - grow rice!" However, the same Japanese grow rice not because they are so hardworking, just in their natural geographic environment, no other culture will simply feed them, because 75% of their territory is mountains, and plains occupy less than 25% of the territory and in these 20 the bulk of the country's population lives and 80% of the rice is produced! The country was constantly shaken by earthquakes in the past, nothing has changed now: annually up to 1000 noticeable soil vibrations occur here. Only in Tokyo there are 1, 5 earthquakes a day with a magnitude of 2 and above points every day. And we also add tsunamis, typhoon hurricanes, a harsh climate - hot, humid and stuffy in summer, windy and cold in winter, so it's just hard to live there. However, despite such difficult conditions of the natural-geographic environment, the Japanese consider their land to be the Land of the Gods and the best place to live on earth!
Over the many millennia of their history, the Japanese have created a truly unique culture on this land, not only original, but also very high. But again, very, very specific, if we again turn to the conditions of their habitation.
Anyway, if there is a culture, then you can be interested in it, you can get to know it and you can study it. So, for example, more than a year ago, here, on "VO", a series of four materials entitled "Japanese sword: deeper and deeper …" was published, which told about this original and, let's say, purely national Japanese weapon. The last material ended with the words that “the Japanese sword is a whole story, one can plunge into it for a long time and … very deeply. But we will finish our "immersion" on this for now. " But now a year has passed, and we again return to this interesting topic. Only now it will not be about the Japanese swords themselves, but about such an important part of them as the tsuba. However, there was also about tsubah *, but in the summer of 2015, and since that time, a lot of water has flowed under the bridge, and a lot of new information has appeared. So it makes sense to return to this topic at a new level. In those two articles, the main source of illustrations were photographs provided by Antiques Japan. In the new series, these will be photographs of tsub from the collections of various museums around the world, including such as the Metropolitan Museum in the United States and the National Museum in Tokyo.
Ken sword, V century Found in Kumamoto Prefecture. Length 59.7 cm. Received by exchange from Tokyo National Museum in 1906. (Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York)
Well, we will have to start from the very beginning. And the very beginning is … the era when all Japanese swords were straight, because in this form they were borrowed from China, which was a model for the then Japanese in everything. In the photo you see a sword that was discovered in one of the most famous early mounds in Japan - Edo Funuma Kofun, which is located in Kumamoto Prefecture, on the island of Kyushu, in southern Japan. The mound, which was first excavated in 1873, has yielded many rare finds, including jewelry, crowns, dress shoes, armor pieces, mirrors and several swords, all of very high quality.
Swords from this period are extremely rare and show the earliest stage in the development of the Japanese sword. This blade was donated to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1906 as part of an art exchange with the Imperial Museum in Tokyo organized by Dr. Dean Bashford, who was the Metropolitan Museum's honorary curator of weapons and armor at the time. In 1965, the remaining finds after excavations were officially designated as "National Treasures", that is, items that have the highest rating of any cultural property in Japan. They are now in the collection of the Tokyo National Museum.
Ken sword with a vajra style hilt. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York)
The next sword, which is shown here in the photo, has been preserved downright perfectly and it is also a typical (although not quite) Japanese sword ken. That is, he has a typical straight blade, the length of which is 30.6 cm, and the length of the handle is 9.7 cm. Another thing is interesting, namely, that his handle has no guard at all. Moreover, in itself it is clearly unusual and this is true, since it represents the symbolic weapon of the gods - the vajra. And it was precisely its shape that made it such a suitable object for use as a sword hilt (ken), although swords with such hilts are an extremely rare example of combining esoteric Buddhist practice and the Japanese sword. The blade dates from the late Heian or early Kamakura periods (late 12th to early 13th century), and the gilded copper vajra handle was most likely made at the beginning of the Nambokucho period (mid-14th century). In Buddhist iconography, the sword represents the protection of religious teachings from lies and evil. It is a symbol of intelligence and, therefore, the victory of spiritual knowledge, which opens the way to enlightenment. In combination with the handle of the vajra, it denotes the sword of wisdom (e-ken), one of the main attributes of one of the deities of Hindu origin - Shingon Fudo, which was assimilated into the Japanese Buddhist pantheon in the 9th century. In the school of esoteric Buddhism, Shingon Fudo is a manifestation of the Supreme Buddha (Dainichi Nyorai), who appeared to fight against evil and protect righteous deeds. Therefore, it is possible that this ken was created for use in the Shingon ritual dedicated to Fudo. Fudo images often appear in the decoration of Japanese armor and weapons. He is usually shown surrounded by flames, and holding a sword pointing upwards in his right hand, and a rope (kenshaku), with which he binds and nullifies evil, in his left hand.
Vajra Bell and Vajra (British Museum, London)
Later, the sword acquired its characteristic curved shape, that is, in fact, it turned into … a saber. But again, according to tradition, we call this Japanese "saber" a sword, just like the straight swords of the Vikings, which had one blade and a beveled edge. Well, it has already become a tradition, however. Well, the result of all the Japanese experiments with their single-edged swords was their very special design. The European sword was made "for life" and it was impossible to disassemble it, since the blade shank was riveted. The Japanese sword was collapsible. That is, all the details of its handle from the blade (blade shank) were easily removed after removing a special fastening pin (wedge) - mekugi.
The blade of the Japanese sword katana, signed by the master Masazane **, year 1526.
Sword length 91.8 cm; blade length 75, 1 cm (Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York)
Shank of the Masazane sword with signature. The hole for the mekugi is clearly visible. (Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York)
And such a device turned out to be very convenient. To one and the same blade, it became possible to have several handles and tsub at once! That is why, by the way, there are so many of them. After all, their number in the world is an order of magnitude greater than the number of Japanese swords in the same museums! And the reason is simple. The family sword has been passed down from generation to generation. But the fashion changed, and the old mount was removed from the sword and a new one was ordered. Well, after 1876, when the massive sale of Japanese swords began, not all collectors, and just lovers of curiosities, could afford to buy a sword. But tsubu … why not buy it, and the Japanese masters immediately began to make tsuba en masse and sell them to Europeans, copying the most "commercial" samples.
Tanto Blade, signed by Kunitoshi, c. 1315-1316. Length 34.6 cm; blade length 23.8 cm); weight 185 g (Metropolitan Museum, New York)
The peaceful Edo era also affected the traditions of the Japanese "swordmakers". The blades began to be decorated with images, which had not been observed before, and the same tsubas became rich and refined, while at the very beginning they were a purely technical detail and nothing more.
Early tsuba ***, approx. III - VII centuries Bronze, gold. Length 7.9 cm, width 5.8 cm, thickness 0.3 cm. Weight 36.9 g (Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York)
Tsuba, approx. III - VI centuries. Iron. Length 9.2 cm, width 8.9 cm, weight 56.7 g (Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York)
* We remind you that there are no declensions in the Japanese language, so it seems to be necessary to write "in tsuba" everywhere. For example, E. B. Skralivetsky in his book “Tsuba - Legends on Metal. SPb., LLC "Atlant" Publishing House ", 2005, this word does not decline anywhere. But … why should we follow the norms of a foreign language when we speak and write in our own? Personally, it seems to me that this is wrong. It is necessary to write the way it is accepted by the norms of the Russian language and follow our linguistic tradition.
** Masazane was a "sword master" at the end of the Muromachi period in Ise (in present-day Mi Prefecture). Belonged to the Sengo Muramasa school. This sword has a characteristic hardening line, made in the form of aya-suguha-da ("curved grains"). The blades with ayya-suguha-da pattern have been the trademark of the famous Hasan School of Swordsmen since the 14th century. This sword is the only known example of a blade with this design, made by a swordsman who did not belong to this school. The sword is in perfect condition, signed and dated, and has an extremely rare grain pattern, a combination of important qualities rarely found in a single sword. On the front side there is an inscription ("Masazane did it"), and on the back the date is August 12, 1526.
*** This tsuba comes from a mound (kofun) in Shioda, in the Japanese province of Bizen, and is one of the first tsuba in Japan. She came to the United States through an exchange of objects between the Imperial Museum (later the Tokyo National Museum) and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1905–1906.
