Nen'ami Jion
念阿弥慈恩
The monk-swordsman who founded Nen-ryū, oldest of the three great sources of Japanese swordsmanship
Description
Origins and Entry into the Priesthood
Nen'ami Jion (born around 1350; date of death unknown) was a swordsman and Buddhist monk active from the Nanboku-chō into the Muromachi period. His secular name is transmitted as Sōma Shirō Yoshimoto. He was born in Sōma in Ōshū (present-day Minami-Sōma, Fukushima Prefecture), the son of Sōma Saemon-no-jō Tadashige, who is said to have served Nitta Yoshisada. When he was five his father was killed, and he was carried off by his wet nurse to Musashi Province. At the age of seven he entered Shōjōkō-ji in Fujisawa, Sagami Province, and received the religious name Nen'ami.
Training and Awakening to the Sword
Drawn to swordsmanship from an early age, he is said to have gone up to Kyoto at ten and trained on Mount Kurama, where tradition holds that a mysterious stranger transmitted secret techniques to him. At sixteen he studied sword technique under the monk Eiyū of Jufuku-ji in Kamakura, and in 1368, at eighteen, while in retreat at Anraku-ji in Chikushi (present-day Kyushu), he is said to have grasped the principle of the sword in a dream. This awakening is regarded as the origin of Nen-ryū.
Vengeance and the Founding of Nen-ryū
After his training he returned to lay life as Sōma Shirō Yoshimoto and avenged his father, then took holy orders again under the name Jion. Thereafter he travelled the provinces transmitting his sword technique, which came to be known as Nen-ryū. In 1408 he is said to have founded Chōfuku-ji in Shinshū, where he was known as Nen Daioshō.
Nen-ryū among the Three Great Sources
Nen-ryū is counted as one of the "three great sources of martial method," alongside the Kage-ryū of Aisu Ikōsai and the Shintō-ryū of Iizasa Chōisai, and is generally held to be the oldest of the three. A distinctive feature is that it was transmitted not merely as swordsmanship but as a comprehensive martial curriculum including the chain-sickle, staff techniques, and methods of seizing an opponent.
Legacy
Jion is credited with fourteen eminent disciples, known as the "fourteen sages of Nen-ryū," among whom Chūjō Nagahide founded Chūjō-ryū. Chūjō-ryū passed in turn through Toda-ryū into Ittō-ryū, forming the headwaters of one of the principal lineages of Japanese swordsmanship. A separate branch transmitted to the Higuchi family of Maniwa in Kōzuke Province survived throughout the early modern era as Maniwa Nen-ryū and continues to be practised today. Seen from the perspective of sword culture, Jion was the first to organise the question of how a blade is actually to be wielded into a formal school, and later ages have called him the father of Japanese swordsmanship.