Evolution of Jikishinkage-ryū Densho

This article summarizes research by Karukome Yoshitaka (軽米克尊), published in full as:

Karukome Yoshitaka. 2020. Jikishinkage-ryū no kenkyū (直心影流の研究). Kokusho Kankōkai (国書刊行会).

The book can be purchased from amazon.co.jp (opens in a new tab).

Two tables Karukome (2013) assembles provide documentary core of his dating arguments for Kashima-shinden Jikishinkage-ryū.

They show that both the Matsumoto-as-founder attribution and the Kashima-shinden divine-origin colophon are absent from the founding-era densho and first appear with the eighth head, Naganuma Kunisato (長沼四郎左衛門国 郷), in 1764, in the document that is one of the two core artifacts of my own research on the school.

At the bottom of this page you can find a summary of tables in Karukome Yoshitaka, Jikishinkage-ryū ni kansuru kenkyū (直心影流に関 する研究), doctoral dissertation, University of Tsukuba, 2013, in translation with some analytical commentary.

Further densho analysis builds on these tables:

• Comparing the Heihō zakki (1708) to the Mokuroku kudensho (1764): Karukome’s comparison of the content of the two transmission documents.
• Analysis of Jikishinkage-ryū Densho Commentary: the Waseda University densho holdings, with the cursive commentaries and small-character notes read using the NDL’s OCR models.
• Yamada Ippūsai Mitsunori: Ippūsai’s training in Yagyū Shinkage-ryū and his return to Jikishin Seitō-ryū, and what that mixture of influences left in the school’s techniques and teachings.

The “Kashima-shinden ⟨nth⟩ generation” colophon — the claim that the art descends from the Kashima deity Takemikazuchi — appears in only three documents, all from Kunisato (1764) onward:

1. The 1764 mokuroku kuden-sho (Naganuma Kunisato)
2. The 1822 menjō uragaki (Naganuma Sukesato)
3. The 1852 senshi kyojō of the Matsuoka to Kusumi Jikishin-ryū sub-line.

The colophon and its associated claim are absent from every founding-era densho, including those of Ogasawara (1670/73), Kamiya (1663), Takahashi (1679/83), Yamada (1686).

Karukome notes that the 1852 senshi kyojō, though it carries 鹿島神 伝, post-dates Kamiya’s 1663 densho by roughly two centuries and that its branch (which calls itself Jikishin-ryū but diverges after Kamiya: as Matsuoka Inota’yū, Matsuoka Shichirōbee, Matsuoka Jirōtayū, Imahori (opens in a new tab) Kichinosuke, Kusumi Junzaburō) most plausibly picked up the 鹿島神伝 label through later contact with Jikishinkage-ryū — so even the apparent exception is a late borrowing, not early evidence.

The primacy of the Kashima association is a set of documentary additions made by Naganuma Kunisato in the mid-eighteenth century, contemporaneous with the doctrinal cluster of additional koto (matters) he added to the formal curriculum. These include:

相尺・留三段・切落・吟味

My 2026 mokuroku-centric analysis discusses these further.

These are absent from Yamada’s Heihō zakki and it is reasonable to assume that the proto Jikishinkage-ryū of Ogasawara, Kamiya, etc. do not likely include them as explicit teachings. This is attested to by cross school analysis as well, where we see kiri-otoshi discussed in the Soto-mono Taryū (外物他流; “External Matters, Other Schools”) but other koto above not being present in densho such as those of Hikita Kage-ryū from 1766.

The 20th century revival Kashima Shin-ryū, based on Kunii Zenya’s early practice of Jikishinkage-ryū, Nen-ryū, and jūjutsu, includes these Naganuma koto in its writings, and goes much further to reify the Kashima influence through Matsumoto Bizen no Kami and beyond, much further back in time.

Kata Timeline

Examining earlier densho of the art in terms of their kata catalogues, we see that in fact early generations of JSKR had much of the broader Shinkage-ryū kata curriculum in its teaching. These were modified and condensed over time. The true connection to Kashima is likely through the Shintō-ryū of Bokuden, as portions of its teachings (such as nanatachi, described below) were believed to encode gokui of Shintō-ryū.

What is often called tō-nokata (韜之形) today is listed in Naganuma-ha as jū-no-kata (ten forms). In addition to the left-right pairing of Ryūbi (龍尾), Menkage (面影; often read as omokage), Matsukaze (松風), and Hayafune (早船) there are also a set of four kata called Teppa (鉄 破) and two final practices. The first is called Kyokushaku (曲尺; carpenter’s square, also read kanejaku) and is a single kata, while the second called enren (圓連) is written in the 1800 densho as having two associated practices, tōren (刀連) and tairen (体連), as already in the 1679 list of 圓連・刀連・体連 (Yamada Ippūsai). Karukome lists them together as a section of three practices.¹

The Kage-ryū stratum: empi, tengushō, nanatsu-dachi

Karukome reconstructs the Shinkage forms present from Kamiizumi’s time (after Ōmori 1991, Katō 2003, Yagyū Toshinaga 1957). The strata and their named techniques are as follows:

• Enpi (燕飛) group — 6 tachi + 2 appended (附随) tachi: Enpi (燕飛), Sarumawashi (猿廻), Yamakage (山陰), Tsukikage (月影), Uranami (浦波), Ukifune (浮舟), Shishi-funjin (獅子奮迅), Yamakasumi (山霞).
• Tengushō (天狗抄) group: Kasha (花車), Akemi (明身)〔reading uncertain〕, Zentai (善待)〔uncertain〕, Tebiki (手引), Ranken (乱剣), Nigusoku (二具足), Uchimono (打物), Futari-gakari (二人懸).
• Nanatachi (七太刀) group: Kyochi-no-Shishi (踞地獅子), Tenkan (転換 / 天関), Yōhatsu (容髪), Kote-giri (籠手截 / 小手切), Chijiku (地軸), Meigetsu-no-Kaze (明月之風), Engan (燕雁).²

Attribution

Karukome, following published sources cited in his work, summarizes:

• Enpi and tengushō originate in Aisu’s Kage-ryū (陰流) — Kamiizumi is said to have perfected Aisu’s Sarutobi (猿飛) into Enpi, and tengushō was Aisu Ikō’s selection, secret-transmitted (秘伝) by Kamiizumi.
• Sangaku (三学 / 参学, 5 tachi), marobashi (転), nanatsu-dachi (七太刀, possibly based on Shintō-ryū), sappōken/katsujinken — devised by Kamiizumi.
• Kuka (九箇, 9 tachi) — disputed (Yagyū Toshinaga: Kamiizumi’s selection; Katō: Aisu transmission); Karukome leaves it “unknown.”

Kamiizumi’s 1566 Kage-mokuroku carried four sets — enpi, nanatachi, sangaku, kuka — so the seven-sword set was foundational, not peripheral. Sorted by origin, the curriculum is a synthesis of the heihō sandai genryū plus Kamiizumi’s own work:

• Kage-ryū (陰流, Aisu) → enpi and tengushō
• Shintō-ryū (新當流, Bokuden’s Kashima line) → nanatachi (七太刀)
• Kamiizumi’s own → sangaku (参学) and marobashi (転)
• mixed / various schools → kuka (九箇)

On the Yagyū account, the source-stream sets were not kept at the front. Enpi was originally the first tachi (初太刀) in Kamiizumi’s day, but in the Yagyū house the Kage-ryū enpi and the Shintō-ryū nanatachi came to be revered as carrying gokui content and were progressively taught only after the sangaku and kuka. Tengu material went fully secret (秘中の秘) and nanatachi tended to be absorbed or repositioned rather than catalogued. That is why it is so seldom written about.

Its seven kata comprise a genuine Shintō-ryū thread in the Shinkage-ryū line descending to Jikishinkage-ryū. Bokuden’s and Izasa’s Shintō-ryū descending from the Kashima-Katori complex, and absorbed by Kamiizumi as documented synthesis.

So, Naganuma Kunisato was not inventing a Kashima association, but emphasizing that narrow thread (as compared to the bulk of the early Shinkage-ryū curriculum) over the influence of the Aisu Kage-ryū of Aisu Ikō.

Matsumoto Bizen-no-kami was Bokuden’s Shintō-ryū teacher, so placing him in the formal Jikishinkage-ryū lineage was a political act or possibly an effort to further distinguish Jikishinkage-ryū from Yagyū Shinkage-ryū in the Edo period.

Empi and Tengushō

Tracing the strata of kata forward through Karukome’s comparisons:

At Ogasawara’s Shin-shin’in-ryū (真新陰流, Shin no shin’in heihō mokuroku 1670):

• Enpi survives, but written Enpi/Enpi 圓飛 — Karukome reads this as an oral-transmission spelling drift on the sound “enpi” (the same drift that produces 猿飛 in a Kamiizumi-to-Hikita mokuroku). Whether 圓飛 denotes the full six-plus-two set or only the lead tachi is undetermined.
• Of the sangaku five, three survive — Ittō-ryōdan (一刀両断, written 一刀両段 in Shinkage), Uten-saten (右転左転, from 右旋左転), Chōtan-ichimi (長短一味).
• *Tengushō is listed in reorganized form as “Tengu-shū” (天狗集) absorbing a *kuka technique gyakufu (逆風), plus a set called Gorin-ran (五輪攔) kaboku (和卜) and yaegaki (八重垣) from kuka.
• Nanatsu-dachi and marobashi (転) names are not confirmed; shinmyōken (神妙剣) is present.

At Kamiya’s Jikishin-ryū (直心流): the densho form-names distill down to four — Hassō (八相), Ittō (一当), Jūtan-ichimi (重端一身), Uten-saten (右天左天). Three of these correspond, in variant graphs, to Ogasawara’s sangaku trio (一刀両断・右転左転・長短一味); 八相 has no equivalent in the Shin-shin’in-ryū mokuroku and first appears at this Jikishin-ryū stage — Karukome and Sakai conclude the 八相 form arose with Kamiya (Karukome Yoshitaka and Sakai Toshinobu 2013). The 発・破 (happa) annotations on 八相 enter one stage later, from the Jikishin Seitō-ryū documents onward. Neither enpi nor tengushō is among the named forms at this stage. Notice the kanji variants between Jūtan-ichimi and Chōtan-ichimi, and the shortened Ittō.

In the later Jikishin Seitō-ryū and Jikishinkage-ryū: the core becomes Hōjō (4), jū-no-kata (tō-no-kata), and kodachi. The Hōjō names descend from the surviving stratum — Ittō-ryōdan, Uten-saten, Chōtan-ichimi from the sangaku three, plus Hassō-happa (八相発破) carrying forward Kamiya’s earlier Hassō. Empi and tengushō, as named forms, at this point are absent.

On the documentary record, the empi/tengushō stratum was the Kage-ryū inheritance carried (as 圓飛, and as redistributed tengu material) into Ogasawara’s Shin-no-shinkage Hyohō, then dropped from the named curriculum at the Kamiya distillation, so that mainstream Jikishinkage-ryū retains only the sangaku-derived Hōjō names.³

Karukome’s “absent” judgments are absences from specific extant catalogues (the 1670 and 1663 mokuroku), not proof of non-practice. Tengushō in particular was secret-transmitted (秘伝) at the Shinkage stage on Yagyū Toshinaga’s account, and a mokuroku is a catalogue that need not enumerate hiden (秘伝) material.

The Tengu-shū and Gorin-ran may have survived later in part as oral teachings, gokui, or later informed the koto listed in later densho.

License Structure

Ishigaki Yasuzō, writing from the Nomi-ha, gives the line’s own account of how its licenses developed (Ishigaki Yasuzō (石垣安造) 2001). Up to the sixth head, Takahashi Danjōzaemon (whom he calls Takahashi Jikiōsai 高橋直翁斎), the heihō mokuroku (兵法目録; catalogue of the art) was the highest transmission and served as the license of mastery; there was no separate document by that name. In the time of the seventh head, Yamada Ippūsai, the three grades of kirigami (切紙; cut-paper license), mokuroku (目録; catalogue) and menkyo (免許; license of mastery) were fixed (p. 285). The difference between mokuroku and menkyo, he writes, lay in whether the holder’s character had been formed in accord with the inner teaching of the school. The documentary record complicates this a little, since Karukome’s tables include a Jikishin Seitō-ryū menjō (直心正統流免状) issued by Takahashi in 1683 (Table A below). The menkyo itself, in the form Ishigaki issued as seventeenth head, is a single large circle — he calls it the circle of ichi-ensō (一円相; the one circle) and of the clear mirror — above the line 鹿嶋神傳直心影流極意秘伝令免許者也 (pp. 287–289).

After the Meiji Restoration the order changed again. In January 1882 Nomi Teijirō (野見鍉次郎), fifteenth head in Ishigaki’s line, with the agreement of the retired Sakakibara Kenkichi, created a new first license, the reiken scroll (霊剱之巻), given before the kirigami after one to three years of training. It held eight items, three drawn from the mokuroku (ginmi, te no uchi and metsuke) and five added (p. 22). The reiken of the 1819 and 1857 commentaries (Yamada Ippūsai) was a doctrine; Nomi made the word the name of an entry license.

Above the menkyo stood the gokui kaiden-sho (極意開伝書), a written exposition of the gokui that the mokuroku passed on only orally, given to a menkyo holder so that the teaching would not be transmitted wrongly. Ishigaki insists on 開伝 (kaiden; opening the transmission) rather than the 皆伝 (complete transmission) of other schools and of sword novels: in Jikishinkage-ryū a menkyo holder already has the whole of the school, and the kaiden-sho adds explanation, not rank (pp. 290–291).

References

The sources cited on this page are collected in the site source register.

Table A — founder named in each densho (Karukome tbl. 1–5)

Line / school	Densho (伝書)	Date	Author	Founder as stated
Shin-shin’in-ryū (真心陰流)	Shin no shin’in heihō mokuroku (真之心陰兵法目録)	Kanbun 10 / 1670	Ogasawara Genshinsai	none stated
Shin-shin’in-ryū	Shin no shin’in heihō menjō (真之心陰兵法免状)	Kanbun 13 / 1673	Ogasawara Genshinsai	self (“found the art himself”; the text cites a crossing to a foreign court — 異朝渡 — i.e. the China-study motif)
Jikishin-ryū (直心流)	Gunpō hikiri-sho narabini nittō mokuroku (軍法非切書幷入唐目録)	Kanbun 3 / 1663 (copy 1835)	Kamiya Denshinsai Naomitsu	self (studied fifteen schools, founded Jikishin-ryū)
Jikishin Seitō-ryū (直心正統流)	Jikishin Seitō-ryū menjō (直心正統流免状)	Tenna 3 / 1683	Takahashi Danjōzaemon Shigeharu	Kamiya Denshinsai
Jikishin Seitō-ryū	Jikishin Seitō-ryū heihō mokuroku (直心正統流兵法目録)	Enpō 7 / 1679	Takahashi Shigeharu	Kamiya Denshinsai (colophon: 元祖神谷氏伝信)
Jikishin Seitō-ryū	Heihō zakki (兵法雑記)	Jōkyō 3 / 1686	Yamada Mitsunori	Kamiya Denshinsai (called 直心元祖 / 一流ノ祖)
Jikishinkage-ryū (直心影流)	Jikishinkage-ryū mokuroku kuden-sho (直心影流目録口伝書)	Hōreki 14 / 1764	Naganuma Kunisato	Sugimoto/Matsumoto Bizen-no-kami (杉本備前守紀政之), styled 鹿島神伝元祖 — with Kamiya still listed as 元祖神谷氏伝心

Reading. Ogasawara and Kamiya name no predecessor (each presents himself as originator). Takahashi (sixth) and Yamada (seventh) both name Kamiya Denshinsai as the founder — “the Jikishin progenitor.” The Sengoku figure Sugimoto/Matsumoto Bizen-no-kami enters as ryūso only with Kunisato’s 1764 mokuroku kuden-sho, with “six persons omitted” (六人略) bridging Sugimoto to Kunisato. So Matsumoto-as-founder begins, on the documentary record, with the eighth head.

Table B — presence of the 奥書「鹿島神伝」 colophon (Karukome tbl. 1–6)

Line / school	Densho	Date	Author/issuer	鹿島神伝 colophon
Shin-shin’in-ryū	真之心陰兵法目録	1670	Ogasawara Genshinsai	—
Shin-shin’in-ryū	真之心陰兵法免状	1673	Ogasawara Genshinsai	—
Jikishin-ryū	軍法非切書幷入唐目録	1663 (copy 1835)	Kamiya Denshinsai	—
Jikishin-ryū	Jikishin-ryū densho senshi kyojō (直心流伝書剪紙許状)	Kaei 4 / 1852	Kusumi Junzaburō	「鹿島神伝」 (no generation number)
Jikishin Seitō-ryū	直心正統流免状	1683	Takahashi Shigeharu	—
Jikishin Seitō-ryū	menjō uragaki (直心正統流免状裏書)	Bunsei 5 / 1822	Naganuma Sukesato (亮郷)	「鹿島神伝十代」
Jikishin Seitō-ryū	直心正統流兵法目録	1679	Takahashi Shigeharu	—
Jikishinkage-ryū	兵法雑記	1686	Yamada Mitsunori	—
Jikishinkage-ryū	直心影流目録口伝書	1764	Naganuma Kunisato	「鹿島神伝」 (and 鹿島神伝元祖 杉本備前守紀政之)

End Notes