The ryuha, origin of menkyo and the bakufu

[Fred27]

In the Edo-period there were alot of bureaucracy as I understood it, and nearly every aspect of life were top-governed by the Bakufu. Had this bureaucracy, (either the Tokugawas or earlier bakufus), anything to do with widespread practice of creating and issuing of licenses from a ryuha to individual warriors? Or was the issuing of licenses simply something that was logical and "caught on" among the other ryuha ? I can imagine in the warring era a full license from any bujutsu-school would have made good credentials for a warrior looking for employment and/or wishing to open his own dojo in a Daimyos province.

And on the same subject: Were there ever any sort of bakufu-body charged with making sure there weren't any frauds or simply unqualified warriors with licenses from the various provinces MA-schools? Like bullshido except goverment sanctioned

[Josh Reyer]

Well, only talking about Yagyu Shinkage-ryu, Kamiizumi Ise-no-Kami and Yagyu Munetoshi were issuing licenses in the 1500s, before the bureaucracy really took off (not that there wasn't bureaucracy at that time). But given that "inka" was a common term for menkyo kaiden at that time, I suspect the real influence on menkyo and licenses was Buddhist practices, particularly Zen, of passing down knowledge and authority.

[Fred27]

But given that "inka" was a common term for menkyo kaiden at that time, I suspect the real influence on menkyo and licenses was Buddhist practices, particularly Zen, of passing down knowledge and authority.

I hadn't even considered buddhist influences

[Sukeyasu]

Yes, the ryuha system basically originated in the Buddhist temples when the collapse of the Ritsuryo regime sent thousands of artisans formally employed by the national government to find work under private authority, i.e. temples and influential landowners. The artisans became lay priests and adopted hierarchies that mirrored temple organization, which included the issuing of documents to signify doctrinal authority. Among the first ryuha were the Noh 'za' of the Yamato and Omi areas as well as the Ikenobo School of ikebana, founded in the 1400s, whose name actually refers to the title of the priest responsible for arranging flower offerings at the temple altar.

[Karl Friday]

In the Edo-period there were alot of bureaucracy as I understood it, and nearly every aspect of life were top-governed by the Bakufu. Had this bureaucracy, (either the Tokugawas or earlier bakufus), anything to do with widespread practice of creating and issuing of licenses from a ryuha to individual warriors? Or was the issuing of licenses simply something that was logical and "caught on" among the other ryuha ? I can imagine in the warring era a full license from any bujutsu-school would have made good credentials for a warrior looking for employment and/or wishing to open his own dojo in a Daimyos province.

And on the same subject: Were there ever any sort of bakufu-body charged with making sure there weren't any frauds or simply unqualified warriors with licenses from the various provinces MA-schools? Like bullshido except goverment sanctioned

The short answer here is no. The shogunate never got involved in licensing martial art schools. That's one reason there were so many of them--no gov't controls to keep people from establishing new ones. It's also the reason there is so much confusion surrounding terms like "soke." William Bodiford had a post on this a couple of years ago; it's worth a re-look.

[Karl Friday]

Yes, the ryuha system basically originated in the Buddhist temples when the collapse of the Ritsuryo regime sent thousands of artisans formally employed by the national government to find work under private authority, i.e. temples and influential landowners. The artisans became lay priests and adopted hierarchies that mirrored temple organization, which included the issuing of documents to signify doctrinal authority. Among the first ryuha were the Noh 'za' of the Yamato and Omi areas as well as the Ikenobo School of ikebana, founded in the 1400s, whose name actually refers to the title of the priest responsible for arranging flower offerings at the temple altar.

Let's be careful here, the ritsuryo system never actually collapsed; it remained the foundation of gov't in Japan until the Meiji period. Of course, the mechanics of gov't evolved a long way away from the letter of ritsuryo law. That process began already in the 8th century.

More to the point, the privatization of arts and manufacturing you're talking about here began in the early Heian period (I discussed this in some detail, in my Samurai, Warfare & the State book), so it seems like a pretty big stretch to connect this phenomenon directly to the appearance of the ryuha system of instruction 500 years later.

[Fred27]

I see. Thank you Mr. Friday

[Sukeyasu]

Perhaps I should have said the later ryuha *modeled* their licensing practices on those used by the artists contracted to temples during the Heian Period. Since they worked on temple grounds, these sculptors, painters, musicians--what have you--were required to take on Buddhist titles and at least nominally participate in the temple hierarchy. The sculptor Unkei, for example, received both the titles Hogen and Hoin for providing statuary during the rebuilding of Kofukuji and Todaiji. He was active in the early 1200s, not too far removed from the establishment of the first artistic and, later, martial ryuha. I *don't* think it is too far of a stretch to say that the iemoto system's obsession with ranking and licenses was a direct evolution from precedents established by lay-priest artisans of eras before.

Sorry for the late reply, but the shutdown and all ...

[kokumo]

In her work Allegories of Desire, Susan Blakely Klein makes a convincing case that the pattern of licensing, the association of access to proprietary materials such as commentaries to specific types of licensing, and a number of other key features common among bugei ryuha can be traced back at least as far as the 13th century Shingon priest and poet Fujiwara Tameaki. There is a strong argument that these systems are modelled on esoteric rites of initiation found in both Shingon and Tendai Buddhism.

FWIW, inasmuch as the Zen sects were initially promulgated under Shingon and Tendai auspices for specific demographics, the line back through to the older sects seems applicable there as well.

In other words, the precedents of the laymen are derived from the lay-priests, whose practices are derived from precedents of the priests....

My $.02.

Fred Little