On the “Demonization” of Sengo Muramasa Blades

Abstract

The article focuses on a popular superstitious belief that has developed around the name of a famous swordsmith Sengo Muramasa 千子村正, namely the fabulous “curse” of his blades and the demonization of his person. The mythologized image had overshadowed a real school of swordsmiths active in the 16th – 17th cc.; the core of the school was formed by the first three and partly the fourth generations, and the periphery – by numerous smiths of the second and third plans. Muramasa I (初代 shodai) lived in Ise Province in the late Muromachi period; his blades were particularly sharp and well-forged, and therefore highly valued as practical weapons. However, a lack of reliable historical sources about his life, except for the preserved dated blades, caused significant discrepancies concerning the history of the Sengo Muramasa school and the identification of its generations. The superstition of the “demonic” curse of the Muramasa blades was formed among the samurai class at the turn of the 16th – 17th cc. as a result of their malevolent role in the fate of Tokugawa Ieyasu and several of his close relatives. Later, in the mid Edo period, the superstition of the “unlucky” nature of the Muramasa blades became widespread throughout Japanese society, and was also reflected in traditional Japanese art, literature and drama. In the 20th c. when Japanese swords gained worldwide popularity, the story of the “demonic Muramasa” spread far beyond Japan.