If
we look carefully at post Meiji Restoration (1868) accounts of
Sekiguchi Yagoemon Ujinari’s Sekiguchi Shinshin-ryu, for example
in the Bugei Ryu Ha Dai Jiten (BRHDJ), etc., we can see that the
lineages provided are somewhat suspect. In those accounts, after
the Battle of Okehazama (in 1560), members of the Sekiguchi
clan, who were members of the Lord’s Guard and of the Council of
Elders (as chief retainers, and castle lords) for the Imagawa
clan, either died on the field of battle or fell into ruin and
went into hiding, and many of the Imagawa generals disappeared.
“After this, the genealogy is unclear again. However, of the
Sena clan, Sekiguchi Gyobu Shoho Ujihiro committed suicide after
Okehazama, so the only Sekiguchi with any importance left alive
up until the Tensho era (1573-1592) was Tsukiyama Gozen,
Ujihiro’s daughter and the wife of Matsudaira Motoyasu.”
It
has been said that within the various branches of Sekiguchi-ryu,
the so-called founder of the jujutsu branch that was so famous
after the Meiji Restoration, Sekiguchi Yarokuemon Ujimune [Kishu
(Wakayama) Tokugawa], was also responsible for creating the Iai
portion of the curriculum when founding Sekiguchi-ryu. However,
there are many points that are vague and unclear in these
biographies.
Even though it is uncertain whether Sekiguchi Gyobu Shoho
Ujihiro even had a son, if his son was Geki Ujiyuki, then the
family line continuing with Tsukiyama Gozen’s son, Nobuyasu, and
his wife, Princess Kano, as it is written in the BRHDJ, is
implausible. This mistake is further compounded by the fact that
Nobuyasu’s wife was actually Princess Toku, and Princess Kano
(also known as Princess Kame) was Tsukiyama Gozen’s daughter,
and Nobuyasu’s sister. She married Okudaira Nobumasa.
There are also many problems with subsequent descriptions, as
the document cannot be considered very reliable if looked at
with the common sense of a historian (the BRHDJ has as many
mistakes as are found in some rural genealogies that were
written without much serious effort). Doing a simple comparison
of dates shows that the time period when Yarokuemon Ujimune and
Yagouemon Ujinari (who is recorded as the mysterious Ujimune’s
nephew) are alive, do not add up.
Consequently, I feel that referring to the connection to the
Tokugawa family that was formed through the historically famous
Tsukiyama Gozen should be disregarded. It is more useful to
emphasize the connection that was formed between Tokugawa Ieyasu
and Ujinari, as shown by Sekiguchi Shinshin-ryu’s sacred object
being Mt. Kunou, the incarnation of Mt. Atago.
What we know for sure is that the founder of Sekiguchi
Shinshin-ryu temporarily moved from Suruga to Mikawa, and when
he returned to Suruga he founded the style. Therefore, Sekiguchi
Shinshin-ryu began in Suruga, and seems to have spread from
there to Edo, and then to the whole country.
Sekiguchi Ujihiro’s daughter, Tsukiyama Gozen, was Tokugawa
Ieyasu’s first wife. It was from the time after the fall of the
Imagawa family that Sekiguchi Shinshin-ryu was born, due to the
fact that Tsukiyama’s daughter, Princess Kano was a member of
the Tokugawa family. In addition to this, Tsukiyama’s mother was
a member of the Ii clan and in their protective custody, so
Shinshin-ryu spread to the Ii family as well.
(Note) As an aside, it is unclear whether Sekiguchi Geki was the
same person as the one in Musashi province around the Tensho era
(1573-1592)?
The Birth of Sekiguchi-ryu
1. Shinshin-ryu
2. Kishu Sekiguchi-ryu
3. Even assuming that the Kumamoto Sekiguchi-ryu Iai sword art
is the same, is Edo Shinshin Sekiguchi-ryu older? Is Kishu
Sekiguchi-ryu older?
These
are the subjects to be dealt with, but it seems to me that
Sekiguchi-ryu Iai was founded in Suruga first, and that the
jujutsu portion came afterwards and completed the Kishu Tokugawa
Sekiguchi-ryu. We need to use reliable documents, such as the
“Aristocratic Lineage”, the “Kanei Era Samurai Families’
Genealogies”, and the “Imagawa Genealogy”, to examine the role
played by the Sekiguchi family.
Mikawa Ashikaga Nagauji’s grandson, through his second son, was
Kuniuji, and he was the founder of the Imagawa line. Kuniuji’s
second son was Sekiguchi Jirou Tsuneuji, but his line ended with
him. However, the fifth son, Sekiguchi Gorou Tsunekuni’s line
did continue on, and this became the main line of the Sekiguchi
family. The seventh head of the family, and Lord of Hanasaki
Castle, was Sekiguchi Ecchunokami (Gyobu Daiho) Ujiroku. In
1560, he died during the fighting which occurred after Oda
Nobunaga’s surprise attack at the battle of Okehazama. At the
time he was a member of Imagawa Yoshimoto’s Lord’s Guard (as a
member of the Council of Elders). At the battle of Okehazama
there were around 3 other people going by the name of Sekiguchi.
In a separate Imagawa samurai family line, a member of the Sena
clan, Sekiguchi Gyobu Shoho Ujihiro, was Imagawa Yoshimoto’s
brother-in-law. As recorded in an entry in “Tennouji
Yasoutatsu’s Tea Ceremony Diary” (April, 1557), it appears that
the commander named Sekiguchi Gyobu was the same person as
Ujihiro. Ujihiro was not at the battle of Okehazama, but it
appears that he was in the capital, waiting for Yoshimoto, and
eventually committed suicide in 1562.
In the entry for Sekiguchi-ryu, the BRHDJ asks whether Ujihiro’s
son, Geki Ujiyuki, really existed. He is doubted to have existed
because it is not recorded in any genealogy that Tsukiyama Gozen
had siblings. However, even if he did exist, he would be
connected with the Kishu Sekiguchi-ryu, while Sekiguchi Yagoemon
Ujinari’s Shinshin-ryu could have been connected with
Ecchunokami Ujiroku’s main line. If that’s the case, and we use
the Shinshin-ryu scrolls to count backwards, then he would have
been a boy of 15 or 16 at the time of the Battle of Okehazama.
To expand on this a little further, according to Sekiguchi
Yagoemon Ujinari’s Shinshin-ryu scrolls, Ujinari was the first
Soke of the ryu, Hattori Mitsuyasu was the second, and the third
was an Imperial Soldier named Yamada Saburo. On April 2, 1649,
Saburo initiated Yoshida Hachiro into the secrets of the ryu.
During the latter half of the Edo period (1603-1867), people, on
average, received Menkyo Kaiden when they were over the age of
30. Therefore, 3 generations before Yamada Saburo would mean
that Ujinari was born around 100 years before, in 1551. In 1560,
when the Battle of Okehazama takes place, he would have been 9
years old, but if he was born a little earlier, in the 1540s for
example, then his participation in the Battle of Okehazama
becomes possible. Because of this, it is entirely conceivable
that he was a member of the family line of Sekiguchi Ecchunokami
Ujiroku (an Imagawa retainer and member of the Council of
Elders), or even a member of one of the other Sekiguchi family
lines.
According to the BRHDJ, Sekiguchi Geki Ujiyuki, who served
Princess Kano (she married Okudaira Sadamasa at 17 years of age.
Okudaira died defending Nagashino Castle, during the Battle of
Nagashino in 1575), and Yagouemon Ujinari were around the same
age, thus making it unlikely that one was the other’s grandson.
The Matsudaira-Izuminokami and Shinshin-ryu
Matsudaira-Izuminokami
is a family line within the Ogyu-Matsudaira family, as recorded
in the Matsudaira genealogy dating from the end of the Muromachi
period (1336-1573). Tokugawa Ieyasu’s lineage shows that he was
a descendant of Nagachika, who was Chikatada’s second son.
Chikatada’s eldest son was Norimoto, and he was the founder of
the Ogyu-Matsudaira line. The daughter of Ieyasu’s grandfather,
Kiyoyasu, married into the Ogyu-Matsudaira family, so there was
always a strong relationship between the two.
Shinshin-ryu was popular elsewhere until the end of the Tokugawa
period, but it is unclear as to if and when a member of the
Izuminokami family created Shinshin Sekiguchi-ryu Iai. It is
also unclear when instructors for the Izuminokami started
teaching all of the Izuminokami vassals Yagyu Jyubei
Mitsuyoshi’s line of Shinkage-ryu, Yoyu Kenjutsu, or Kokki-ryu.
However, the oldest family among the Izuminokami retainers was
the Imai clan. The next oldest was the Suzuki clan, of which my
ancestor was a member, and the secret teachings of Shinshin-ryu
were transmitted to him at the end of the Edo period, just like
those of the Yagyu-ryu. Thus, it is thought that for the
Matsudaira-Izuminokami, Shinshin-ryu Iai was considered just as
important as Yagyu-ryu.
Izuminokami family members even had powerful and influential
positions within the Tokugawa Shogunate, as hereditary members
of the Shogun's Council of Elders and the Chief Ministry among
others, and it is known that since the Momoyama period
(1568-1603), Shinshin-ryu was already recognized as a nobleman’s
kenjutsu.
Although Sekiguchi Yagouemon Ujinari was not an instructor to
the Shogun, nor to one of the Three Tokugawa Families, his dojo
in Edo did serve the Shogunate and was patronized by the vassals
of some powerful Daimyo.
Since Sekiguchi Yarokuemon Ujimune’s branch of the ryu served
the Kishu Tokugawa during the Kanei era (1624-1643), all of
Kishu Sekiguchi-ryu’s documents and oral transmissions were able
to be announced after the Meiji Restoration, and thus that
branch was widely known after the Shogunate fell.
After the Tokugawa Shogunate was overthrown, this style was
almost lost because the Bishu, Kishu, and Higo domains supported
the Imperial Army. Thus, it is much more important to carry on
the sword techniques of Shinshin-ryu, than try to answer all the
questions surrounding its founding.
(Note) The eighth Soke, Suzuki Sukejiro Sensei was from a
samurai family in the Nishio domain. He went into hiding after
the Meiji Restoration and worked as a groundskeeper in Mino Mugi
Junior High School.
Sept. 10th, 1987
