* Image is for illustrative purposes only.Sairen
西蓮
Description
Origin and Religious Name
Sairen, whose secular name was Kuniyoshi, was a swordsmith active in Chikuzen Province (present-day Fukuoka Prefecture) in the late Kamakura period. He entered the priesthood and took the religious name Sairen.
Lineage
He was the father of Jitsu'a and the grandfather of Sa (Ō-Sa), a representative smith of the Samonji school. He occupies an important position among the smithing lineages of Kyushu.
Hakata Dangisho and Activities
After the Bun'ei and Kōan campaigns (the Mongol invasions), he was attached to the Hakata Dangisho, an institution established to strengthen the defenses of northern Kyushu, and worked there as a swordsmith. Signatures are known that record his origin and religious name at length, such as "Chikuzen-no-kuni Hakata jūnin Dangisho Kuniyoshi Hōshi Sairen," and a work dated Bunpō 1 (1317) survives. He is also known as a master of the naginata.
Style
His tachi have an archaic dignity. The steel shows tightly forged itame with a flowing quality, and the hamon is based on suguha with soft, hazy nioi-guchi, conveying the antique refinement peculiar to the classical Kyushu school.
Reputation
He is positioned as the starting point of the Chikuzen smithing lineage that continues through Jitsu'a to Samonji, and he is transmitted today as an important figure in the history of Kyushu swordsmithing.