Ninja and Ninjutsu (2): Where Did Ninjutsu Come From?
Updated: 3 hours ago
The series at a glance
Where did Ninjutsu come from? (this part)
The question of where Ninjutsu came from has three kinds of answers: what historical research knows, what is told in the traditions of the Bujinkan (the international martial arts organization founded by Dr. Masaaki Hatsumi, in which we train), and old theories that still circulate online. In the first version of this series I mixed them up. Here I keep them apart.
What research knows
Ninjutsu has no single founder or year of birth. What is documented is shinobi activity from the 14th century onward and a special development in Iga and Koga. Prof. Yamada Yuji, a historian at the International Ninja Research Center of Mie University in Japan, mentions several elements that came together there: mountainous terrain that is hard to control, communities that defended their independence, a tradition of Shugendo and proximity to the center of power in Kyoto.
Shugendo (修験道) is a Japanese religious tradition of mountain asceticism. Its practitioners are called yamabushi, "those who sleep in the mountains". They trained in fasting, exposure to cold and heat, meditation and long walks to sacred peaks, in order to acquire spiritual powers and protect their communities. According to the Encyclopedia of Shinto of Kokugakuin University, Shugendo was linked to the Buddhist schools Tendai and Shingon, and at its sacred sites both the Shinto gods (kami) and the Buddhas were worshipped. Its traditional founder, En no Ozunu, was revered by both of its main branches.
To this was added knowledge that came from the continent. The thirteenth chapter of The Art of War, the classical Chinese military treatise attributed to Sun Tzu, on the use of spies, is quoted in the Ninjutsu treatises themselves. But as I wrote in the article Ninpo and Ninjutsu: What Is the Difference? (in Hebrew), one must distinguish between Chinese influence and Chinese origin. Ninjutsu did not arrive in Japan as a finished system. Ideas from the continent were absorbed and reworked within a Japanese reality of wars and survival.
An old theory: the mountain monks
In the first version I cited a 1965 article from the journal of the American intelligence agency's research center (CIA). According to it, Ninjutsu grew out of a sect of mountain monks (yamabushi) that was persecuted by the authorities and turned to guerrilla warfare. The article tried to describe the shinobi as an ancient intelligence service and relied on what was available in English at the time, mainly popular literature. Today it is not a source one can rely on.
Current research does not dismiss the link to the mountain monks, but puts it in proportion. The Shugendo tradition was strong in Iga and Koga, and Yamada counts it among the factors that shaped the shinobi. That is far from the claim that a single sect of monks invented Ninjutsu.
What is told in the Bujinkan tradition
Hatsumi writes in his book Essence of Ninjutsu (1988) that his teacher, Takamatsu Toshitsugu (1889–1972), also said that the origin of Ninjutsu is obscure. Takamatsu listed several versions: that it originated in the "age of the gods", that it came from China in the Tang dynasty (618–907), that it originated in a clan of pirates in Shiga Prefecture, or that it was born in the internal wars between the 14th and 16th centuries.
The lineage documents of Shinden Fudo-ryu, one of the nine traditions of the Bujinkan, also give a Chinese origin from the Tang period. Shinden Fudo-ryu itself is a tradition of bujutsu (the martial arts of the warrior class), not of Ninjutsu; more on that below. I bring its story because it is a detailed example of Takamatsu's version according to which the knowledge came from China. In the first version of the series I presented it as the story of the birth of Ninjutsu, and that was a mistake.
According to a summary by Sean Askew, a Bujinkan teacher who trained in Japan for more than a decade, studied Japanese and history at Sophia University in Tokyo and researches the history of the Bujinkan traditions, the story combines documented history with the school's own tradition. The documented part: the Buddhist monk Jianzhen (in Japanese, Ganjin) was born in Guangling, today's Yangzhou in eastern China. After five failed attempts to cross the sea, he set out for Japan in 753, on the sixth attempt, together with the Japanese envoy Otomo no Komaro. In the spring of 754 he reached Nara and taught the Buddhist rules of discipline at Todai-ji temple and later at Toshodai-ji temple. The part that comes from the school's tradition is that Ganjin taught Chinese boxing at the imperial court, that following this a teacher named Li Yi was invited from China, and that his student, the nobleman Urabe Kanesada, developed a fighting method centered on kyojitsu, the interchange of truth and falsehood. Askew himself notes that these parts are based on the school's documents only.
Another traditional story links the beginning of Ninjutsu to Minamoto no Yoshitsune (1159–1189), a famous general of the Genpei War, who according to legend studied as a child with the monks of Mount Kurama near Kyoto. This is a legend to which many schools in Japan have linked their beginnings, and it has no historical documentation.
An important clarification: which traditions are Ninjutsu
Shinden Fudo-ryu and Gyokko-ryu are traditions of bujutsu, not of Ninjutsu. Of the nine traditions of the Bujinkan, only three are Ninpo traditions, that is, shinobi traditions: Togakure-ryu, Gyokushin-ryu and Kumogakure-ryu. I list all nine traditions in part four. In the previous version I wrote by mistake that Gyokko-ryu is a Ninjutsu system.
How to weigh all this
Lineage stories are a central part of every Japanese martial tradition, and they teach us what the tradition thought of itself. But they are not independent documentation. Some of the Bujinkan lineages are disputed by researchers. In my view it is right to present the tradition with respect but also with honesty, and to say explicitly when we are dealing with what we received from the tradition and when with what can be verified.
What shinobi literature says about itself is found in one especially important source: the Bansenshukai, an encyclopedia of shinobi teachings written in 1676. That is the subject of the next part.
Sources
Itakura Kimie, interview with Prof. Yamada Yuji: Que sait-on réellement des ninjas?, Nippon.com, 2023.
Masaaki Hatsumi, Essence of Ninjutsu: The Nine Traditions, Contemporary Books, 1988, p. 19.
Sean Askew: Origins of the Shinden Fudo Ryu.
CIA Center for the Study of Intelligence, Studies in Intelligence, vol. 9, no. 2 (1965).
Japan Tourism Agency, multilingual explanation database: Shugendo and the yamabushi.
Kokugakuin University, Encyclopedia of Shinto: Shugendo.
Japan Tourism Agency, multilingual explanation database: Toshodai-ji temple and the monk Ganjin.
About Sean Askew: Inside Ninjutsu, The Next Chapter: Sean Askew's New Endeavors.
Comments