The mysterious swords of Muramasa could bring the Tokugawa family to ruin -- so said a rumor that has continued for about 300 years since the reign of Tokugawa Yoshimune (1684-1751), the eighth shogun of the Tokugawa shogunate. Recent research has set about debunking that rumor.
The weapons made by the swordsmith Muramasa were forged in the 16th and 17th centuries in Kuwana, Ise (present-day Mie Prefecture). What made the swords notorious was the "curse" that caused the deaths of or injuries to Tokugawa Ieyasu (1543-1616), his grandfather, father and son.
The records of the incidents are contained in the Tokugawa Jikki, which was authorized by the Edo shogunate as an official history book of Tokugawa family. In the final days of the Tokugawa shogunate, anti-shogunate forces, including Saigo Takamori, dared to possess Muramasa swords.
Historical studies into the cursed blades have advanced, spurred on by a special exhibition revolving around Muramasa's swords held at the Kuwana City Museum in 2016, which museum curator Ryu Sugimoto said was "most likely the first of its kind in the nation."
Japanese swords were produced in various parts of the country during the Muromachi period (1336-1573), when they were increasingly exported to China and used in domestic battles that were becoming more prevalent.
"Muramasa was an up-and-coming swordsmith at the time," Sugimoto said.
Thanks to their relatively low price and high quality, Muramasa swords became widespread among samurai warriors in areas of central Japan. For this reason, many Muramasa swords that remain are not of the artistic katana type used for gifts but tanto short swords made for practical use.
Ieyasu's grandfather and lord of Okazaki Castle, Kiyoyasu Matsudaira, was assassinated by a retainer in 1535 as he led his army to the neighboring Owari area.
"There is the possibility that the sword used to assassinate him was a Muramasa original," said Fumihiko Hara, chief researcher at the Nagoya Castle research center who has investigated Muramasa-related legends. "But almost all other legends involving Muramasa are completely fabricated."
According to historical records from the early Edo period (1603-1867), Ieyasu's father, Hirotada, died of illness as an assassination attempt failed. Ieyasu himself was not injured in any way except for a small knife injury that he suffered while being held hostage by a neighboring feudal clan. A Muramasa sword was used to behead Ieyasu's son Nobuyasu to help relieve his suffering when he committed ritual suicide, but it doesn't mean a Muramasa caused his suicide.
Shifting blame
Hara particularly notes the ritual suicide involving Nobuyasu. Nobuyasu is said to have plotted a coup to bring down his father, conspiring with the band of samurai warriors in his local Mikawa region, now eastern Aichi Prefecture.
But Hara interprets the incident as follows: "It was nothing more than an internal feud between the father and son that would have happened to any feudal lord family during the warring period. However, this fact became an inconvenient incident in the Edo period, as Ieyasu was deified and the loyalty of the Mikawa samurai band was regarded as absolute. Therefore, a legend was created to put the incident's blame on the cursed sword for the incident."
The tales of the cursed Muramasa blades are said to have been created by the eighth shogun Yoshimune and his closest aides.
Yoshimune was promoted from the Kii domain, now Wakayama Prefecture, then one of the three branches of the Tokugawa clan. He became the eighth shogun because there was no direct heir in the Tokugawa family line.
Yoshimune and his close aides are known to have pushed ahead with the deification of Ieyasu and the Tokugawa shogunate, such as prohibiting the use of Aoi no Mon (the Tokugawa family emblem) by anyone other than those in the family.
A book titled "Ochiboshu," published around 1728, contains a story about Ieyasu ordering all Muramasa swords to be discarded, saying they were "inauspicious."
Although Hara regarded this as the start of the legend of the cursed Muramasa blades, he says the order to discard them was not true because a Muramasa was among the belongings Ieyasu left behind. It could be the result of "information from the people around Yoshimune who wanted to spread a history convenient to the Tokugawa shogunate," he added.
The false rumor coupled with the sharp drop in demand led to a halt in Muramasa sword production in Kuwana from the mid-Edo period.
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