Tegai Kanenaga I

Tegai Kanenaga I (also read Kanenaga, born Heisaburo) was the founding swordsmith of the Tegai school — one of the Yamato Go-ha (five great schools of Yamato tradition) — active during the Shoo era (1288–1293) at Tengatsumon (Tenkaimon), the western gate precinct of Todai-ji Temple in Yamato Province. The Tegai school is the largest and most prolific of the five Yamato schools, with more surviving works than any other Yamato lineage and the greatest breadth of government cultural designation: one National Treasure, six Important Cultural Properties, and nine Important Art Objects — sixteen pieces in total, the highest count among Yamato-tradition smiths.

The Tegai school's sugata is characterized by moderate koshi-zori (sometimes called kyo-zori), chu-kissaki or naka-kissaki, thick kasane with hira-niku, high shinogi, and broad shinogi-haba — a sturdy, assertive silhouette embodying the martial austerity of Yamato-den.

The jihada is fundamentally itame mixed with masame (the defining Yamato texture), but Kanenaga I's jihada is distinctively well-forged ko-itame that shows less pronounced masame than other Yamato smiths. Ji-nie covers the steel evenly in a characteristically tight Tegai surface. The hamon is chu-suguha incorporating kuichigai-ba (crossing temper lines), hotsure (fraying), niju-ba (double temper line), and occasional sunagashi — a repertoire that became the school's artistic signature and was transmitted through successive generations. The boshi is shallow with a ko-maru return.

His masterwork, the National Treasure tachi signed Kanenaga (Seikado Bunko Art Museum, Tokyo), is the benchmark piece for the school, recorded in the WANDER Kokuho database. The meibutsu (famous piece) "Konoha-gashiwa Kanenaga" — listed in the Kyoho Meibutscho — is the school's most celebrated blade, praised for its elegant sugata and exemplary Tegai surface texture.

Kanenaga I stands as the progenitor of the most historically significant and widely represented lineage within the Yamato tradition, and his sixteen nationally designated works make him the most comprehensively recognized smith of Yamato-den.