Tsukahara Bokuden

The Hundred Rules of War Tsukahara Bokuden

A book by a veteran Samurai to young warriors who had not tasted battle. The man known as a sword saint, Tsukahara Bokuden 1489-1571, composed this work seventy-five years before Miyamoto Musashi's Book of Five Rings. Bokuden studied Tenshin Shoden Katori Shinto School and later founded the Kashima Shinto School of sword fighting. This book, which consists of a hundred songs, was transmitted to Samurai who had not yet fought in battle. In the early 1600s a forward was written by the Zen Priest Takuan Soho. Later the eighth Tokugawa Shogun Yoshimune added an introduction. This is the first English translation of this work and it is presented beside the original Japanese brush script. The English will be on the facing page. According to the afterward, for several generations this document was only transmitted to only one other person.