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Japanese swords were often forged with different profiles, different blade thicknesses, and varying amounts of grind. Wakizashi and tantō, for instance, were not simply scaled-down versions of katana; they were often forged in a shape called hira-zukuri, in which the cross-sectional shape of the blade becomes an isosceles triangle. [130]
A Japanese sword authentication paper (origami) from 1702 that Hon'ami Kōchū certified a tantō made by Yukimitsu in the 14th century as authentic. The Hon'ami clan, which was an authority of appraisal of Japanese swords, rated Japanese swords from these artistic points of view.
At least three Japanese terms (budō, bujutsu, and bugei) are used interchangeably with the English phrase Japanese martial arts. The usage of the term budō (武道) to mean martial arts is a modern one: historically the term meant a way of life encompassing physical, spiritual and moral dimensions with a focus on self-improvement ...
shōtō (小刀, lit. small sword) – any type of Japanese short sword, the smaller in a pair of daishō. Commonly a wakizashi . sori ( 反り , curvature) – curvature of the sword measured as the greatest perpendicular distance between the back edge ( mune ) and the chord connecting the back edge notch ( munemachi ) with the point of the blade.
Wazamono (Japanese: 業 （ わざ ） 物 （ もの ）) is a Japanese term that, in a literal sense, refers to an instrument that plays as it should; in the context of Japanese swords and sword collecting, wazamono denotes any sword with a sharp edge that has been tested to cut well, usually by professional sword appraisers via the art of tameshigiri (test cutting).
Sanjō Munechika's pieces, together with those of Yasutsuna from Hōki Province, consist of some of the oldest curved Japanese swords and mark the start of the old sword (kotō) period. [53] Sanjō school's sugata is characterized by a much narrower upper area compared to the bottom, small kissaki, torii-zori and deep koshi-zori.
After the sword's owner, Susanoo, was banished from heaven by the reason of killing one of Amaterasu's Attendants and destroying her rice fields, he descended to the Province of Izumo where he met Ashinazuchi, an elderly man who told him that the Yamata no Orochi ("Eight-Branched Serpent"), who had consumed seven of his eight daughters, was coming soon to eat the last one: Kushinada-hime.
A tsurugi (剣) or ken (剣) is a Japanese sword. The word is used in the West to refer to a specific type of Japanese straight, double-edged sword used in antiquity (as opposed to curved, single-edged swords such as the katana). [1] In Japanese the term tsurugi or ken is used as a term for all sorts of international long, double-edged swords.