, prior to adulthood known as Miyamoto Bennosuke or Miyamoto Musana, was a famous Japanese swordsman. He is believed to have been one of the most skilled swordsmen in history. Musashi, as he is often simply known, became legendary through his outstanding swordsmanship in numerous duels, even from a very young age. He is the founder of the Hyoho Niten Ichi-ryu, or Nito Ryu style of swordsmanship and wrote Go Rin No Sho, The Book of Five Rings, a book on strategy, tactics, and philosophy still studied by martial artists, businesspeople, and others even today.

Biography

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Birth

Much of Miyamoto Musashi's early life is shrouded in mystery; his early life is fairly well-documented, but the sources conflict. His place and date of birth are uncertain. The most generally accepted possibility is that his elder brother, Shirota, was born in 1578 (dying in 1660), and Musashi himself was born into a samurai family called the Hirata, in the village of Miyamoto (in present-day Mimasaka, Okayama (then Sakushu, west of Kyoto), in the province of Mimasaka. Banshu village has been suggested as another possible birthplace. His family owed allegiance to the Shinmen clan; Musashi later alluded to this relationship in the formal introduction to the Go Rin No Sho, that his full name was Shinmen Musashi no Kami Fujiwara no Genshin.

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Tue, 14 Oct 2008 15:14:00 -0500
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Japan Today: Japan News and Discussion

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