Originally Posted by
George Kohler
I am not that familiar with the Shinkage-ryu lineages, but in the book metioned above the kanji for both were different. One was called "Divine Shadow" and the other was called "New Shadow." Also, the kanji used for "shadow" were both different.
Dr. Friday discusses the different ways of rendering "Shinkage" in one of his books. According to him, Kamiizumi used several different sets of characters to write "Shinkage" at various times, occasionally using shin/new, shin/sincere, shin/divine, kage/silhouette, kage/indebtedness. (Legacies of the Sword, 29-33). He also lists a number of different students of Kamiizumi who started their own schools, at least a couple of whom used the "Shinkage" name, but he doesn't include the kanji, so I can't tell which (if any) of them adopted some of the other variations. I don't see the name Koshu or Ryuken anywhere on the family tree that Dr. Friday provides, but the tree does not go past the name of the founder in the case of many of the branches. Or the name could just be staring me right in the face and I'm missing it.
David Sims
"Cuius testiculos habes, habeas cardia et cerebellum." - Terry Pratchet
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