Yamato-Kōriyama Castle

Yamato Province, where Yamato-Kōriyama Castle is located, is a sacred place of the most fundamental significance in the history of Japanese swords. The Yamato-den is said to have the oldest lineage of the five traditions, and its practitioners were the sword-smith groups of the Yamato Five Schools, who were active based at the shrines and temples of Nara. The five schools are Senjuin, Taima, Tegai, Shikkake and Hōshō, and each produced high-quality swords in association with a famous temple or shrine of Nara. The Taima school is said to have set up its workshops near Taima-dera, and the Tegai school near the Tegai-mon (Tegai Gate) of Tōdai-ji. The style of Yamato swords is built on straight hamon (suguha). It is known for works of dignified quality with restrained changes in the hamon but substantial jigane (ground steel). In contrast to the elegance of the Bizen-den and the boldness of the Sōshū-den, the world of Yamato swords might be called the beauty of stillness. It expresses the essence of Yamato as a land where Buddhist spirituality and the way of the warrior intersect. The Yanagisawa Bunko, located in the Bishamon-kuruwa of the Kōriyama Castle ruins, holds books and paintings handwritten by successive lords of the Yanagisawa family, who ruled the Kōriyama domain. Yamato-den swords are still studied by contemporary swordsmiths as models of technique and as the origin of the Japanese sword. Visiting the Kōriyama Castle ruins and standing in the land of Yamato while feeling the deep ties between the temples and shrines of Nara and sword culture, one touches the root of the history of the Japanese sword with an emotion matched by nothing else.