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Dragon Tales
Keppan:
The Blood Oath
by Dave Lowry
“Now, we’ll start this band of robbers and call it Tom Sawyer’s Gang. Everybody that wants to join has to take an oath, and write his name in blood.”
—Mark Twain, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Ever since Hollywood discovered the martial arts as a medium for attracting viewers, audiences for TV programs and movies have been entertained with all sorts of fanciful plots which involve the hero gaining admittance into a secret school of fighting art, a task at which he succeeds only after enduring some sort of test of his commitment and resolve.
It is always a period of initiation and he must prove himself worthy of the tradition he is about to enter. The master is always reluctant to teach him, the art is ever so secret and rare, and so this process tends to be mysterious and arduous, dramatic and frequently painful.
The truth is, in the case of most classical martial koryu [classical martial arts, systems begun before the beginning of the “modern” Meiji era (1868)], invariably a bit less theatrical In the first place, the typical aspirant to a school of martial art in the feudal age was, almost without exception, a member of the samurai or warrior class. Non-warriors, farmers, merchants, artisans; these people had little time to pursue the exacting and exhaustive study of fighting on a battlefield and of course, they would have had little reason to want to. Non-martial fighting arts, e.g, karate, kung-fu, etc., have virtually no place in the scheme of combative skills in Japan. Fighting in that country during the feudal period was considered to be the work of professional men-at-arms. These were men employed by feudal lords as a kind of standing army. Therefore, it was to the advantage of those lords, or daimyo, to retain martial arts teachers among their vassals. The preponderance of martial koryu were attached in one way or another, to specific daimyo or powerful military families. So, if you were a young man of the samurai rank retained by say, the house of Suzuki, then you would automatically go for martial training to the ryu that was under the auspices of the Suzuki clan. You didn’t have to sit out in the rain for days waiting to get his attention. Or mutilate yourself as a sign you had been accepted.
In some cases, however, a martial ryu may have been more or less independent of its headmaster, even if he was a retainer of a particular daimyo, may have had his lord’s permission to accept whatever students he liked. When an aspirant martial artist approached a master with whom he had no formal connection requesting admission into the master’s system, he would, if at all possible, bring a letter of introduction, or shokai. The shokai would have been written by someone known to and trusted by the master, attesting to the character and aptitude of the would-be student. Even if this letter was presented and accepted, it was not uncommon for the student to be put off in one way or another.
Masters in the classical martial ryu had their own personalities, of course, just like the rest of us. And when you stop to think about it, someone who devoted the majority of his waking hours in training in ways to shorten the lives of others by violent means could be expected to have his share of behavioral quirks. These men could be obtuse in accepting a new pupil. Everyone is surely aware, in one form or another, of the story of the master who accepted a student only to have the student perform cooking and cleaning tasks. When the student was thus engaged, the master would sneak up and fetch him a whack with a stick, appearing at odd times and always trying to catch the student off his guard. Eventually, so the story goes, the student learns that the increased awareness he learns through this training is a kind of mastery itself. It’s a nice story and perhaps may have some basis in historical fact. But the truth is, the warrior in the era of Sengoku (“Warring States” period) needed to acquire skills that would keep him alive on the battlefield, in fights that could come at any time. Unlike the practitioner of Zen Buddhism, who could kill a decade or two in seeking enlightenment, the warrior needed at least an introduction to the practicalities of a combative art rather quickly. And so instruction in a martial art was at least begun with the students’ being accepted into the ryu, in most cases.
Before beginning his training, however, it was common for this student to be required to sign an oath of allegiance to the ryu. It is very difficult to convey the seriousness with which these oaths were undertaken. We live in a world in which individuals routinely swear to tell the truth in courts of law and go right on to tell the most outrageous of falsehoods. We live in an increasingly non-secular world in which the idea of pledging fealty to some higher being (or even, in the case of marriage vows and such, to one another) is quaint at best. In order to understand just how serious these oaths were, one must understand first that nearly all martial ryu had deep and strong connections with their own, particular deities, mostly Buddhist, some of Shinto origin. These were supernatural patrons of the ryu and it was to them that one made his oath.
In some ryu, this oath was a written one and the prospective member was required to sign his name in his own blood. This is the meaning of the word keppan: a blood oath. He pricked his finger or sometimes his inner arm and with the blood drawn, signed the pledge. The pledge itself is referred to as a kisho or a kishomon. The particulars of these oaths varied from ryu to ryu. Often they were secret, their exact contents a part of the vow itself. One, dating from the early 18th century, which has been published many times, though, is probably typical. The kishomon of the Shibukawa ryu of jujutsu reads: “Now that I will receive your training, I swear that without your permission. I will not demonstrate nor instruct, not even the most minor detail to anyone, not even to my own family. Should I behave in a way as to break this pledge, I am resolved to face the punishments of all the gods of the country, and to receive the anger of the great martial deity Hachiman.”
A copy of the kishomon of the Katori Shinto ryu appears in the second volume of The Deity and the Sword, written by Otake Risuke and the late Donn Draeger. It prohibits gambling and hanging out in “disreputable places” and forbids “crossing swords” with members of other schools until certain licenses of proficiency have been granted. In the Katori-ryu, this oath is taken under threat of retaliation by Marishiten-son, the “Goddess of the Pole Star,” who is also a patron deity of many branches of the Shinkage ryu. (Incidentally, not all martial ryu demanded blood oaths or even the taking of pledges at all. The Shinkage-ryu, for example, did not require new member to pledge loyalty, reasoning that if one was of such character as to even be considered for membership, he would be worthy of it and there would have been no need to have him make a formal pledge of his conduct.)
The oath taken by a student of a martial ryu during the classical period in Japan, then, was a matter, in some significant ways, of putting his soul on the line. It was a ritual undertaken with deadly earnestness. It was in no way a mere formality. Neither, it is important to note, always a sign that he was at that point, considered a member of the ryu. Even after signing such a pledge, there was often a period where the trainee was still tested, still considered to be taught on a kind of probationary basis. This period has been called te hodoki or “hands tied.” The different ryu were very clever in the ways they approached this. They might teach a student fragments of the curriculum, not necessarily in order. Vital teachings might be omitted or they might be arranged in such ways that they didn’t make sense. Only after the student has fully earned the trust of the master is he formally admitted to the ryu. In other instances, formal admittance to a ryu is signalled by the teaching of some apparently insignificant skill. In at least one ryu, there was a ritual of etiquette which was taught after a certain level of proficiency had been gained. The ritual is not complicated nor “secret” in the sense that it imparted any special ability. But it was a sign to other members that the person who knew it was ready to be indoctrinated in the more esoteric aspects of the art.
Today’s student of the modern budo, especially those students with a fondness for the mystical--and those who wish there were higher standards in the martial Ways--may lament the passing of the blood oath as a prerequisite for beginning training in their own arts. Some budo dojo do have a pledge of sorts that new members are required to sign, although these lack the promise of supernatural retribution if the promises made are not kept. But, aside from the problems encountered in thousands of would-be karateka or aikidoka engaging in do-it-yourself phlebotomies--the blood oath of the koryu was indicative of an approach to teaching and learning the classical martial arts that differs distinctly from the manner in which the martial Ways are propagated now.
During Japan’s feudal period, the martial arts were handed down on a one-on-one basis for the most part. Then too, the master was dealing with a rather select group in the first place. The warrior had a specific interest in acquiring the skills the master offered. He was not apt to “lose interest” or to go on to other activities that might tempt the modern practitioner. And so the training could be somewhat intense by our standards. The oath was symbolic of this kind of commitment
The leaders of the budo of today, however, made a deliberate change in this approach to practice and teaching. Since the budo like karate or aikido were meant to benefit society in general and were not confined to a single social class as the koryu had been, to limit membership would have been counter-productive. (This is not to say, however, that early budo masters accepted every person who wanted their instruction. Karate’s Funakoshi Gichin limited his classes to college students and professional people like doctors and lawyers, since he felt they could best understand the philosophical principles of his art. Jigoro Kano demanded the original members of his Kodokan swear to him that they would continue to support the precepts of his judo throughout their lives. Even after Ueshiba Morihei’s aikido dojo were opened to the general public, he confined his instruction principally to those be considered worthy of learning.)
Rather than depend upon select, deeply dedicated individuals to carry on their arts, budo sensei allowed many, many students to train with them, with the understanding that most of those students would never reach any level of competence before dropping out. What the sensei would be left with was a refined core of higher level adepts who would be capable of taking over roles of teaching and leadership when their time came. Under such an approach, the insistence upon an oath would have been impractical because of the numbers of students involved. It would have been unreliable because many budo trainees, especially those not of Japanese ancestry, did not share the religious beliefs that were common in the koryu. They would have felt no particular compulsion to honor some deity they had never heard of.
The sensei in today’s modern budo dojo may yearn for the revival of a blood oath, especially when he sees how many of his students drop out or fail to take a serious interest in their training. In the modern budo, however, dedication cannot be insured by kishomon or keppan. The sincerity of the budoka is more difficult for him to prove in some ways. In others, though, oath or no oath, he must prove himself exactly the same way as those in the koryu did generations ago; by an incessant and lifelong commitment to practice.
Copyright © 2002 Tengu Press and Wayne Muromoto. All rights reserved.