Death of a Samurai Legend

Miyamoto Musashi played with time. In 1612 he fought a duel with Sasaki Kojiro, the ‘Demon of the Western Provinces’, on an island in the Straits of Shimonoseki. Kojiro arrived on time; Musashi arrived hours late, carrying a long wooden sword he had just carved from an oar. 

Angry and insulted, Kojiro rushed at him. The tip of Kojiro’s sword sliced through Musashi’s headscarf, but didn’t break skin. Musashi’s blow knocked Kojiro flat. A second blow killed him.

Musashi used the same tactic to defeat two Yoshioka family swordsmen. Next time, the new clan leader arrived early with 100 men. Musashi leapt out from behind a tree, crying ‘Did I keep you waiting?’ and cut the leader down with one blow.

He won his first duel aged 13 in 1596; by the time he was 30 he was undefeated in over 60 contests. His life thereafter was peripatetic: he taught his philosophy of swordsmanship; he painted; he designed castle defences and temple gardens. And he wrote the Book of Five Rings (1645), an exposition of fighting art and Buddhist philosophy.

Death gave him fair warning. After three years of terrible abdominal pain, Musashi died on 13 June 1645. At the end, he took up brush and ink to write his precepts for life. He called them ‘The Way of Walking Alone’.