National TreasureLong sword signed Yasutsuna (celebrated Doujigiri Yasutsuna)

Save Image

image 全画面表示

IIIF Manifest

  • 太刀　銘安綱 (名物童子切安綱) 附 糸巻大刀 梨地葵紋散蒔絵大刀箱
  • By Houki Yasutsuna
  • 1 piece
  • L80.0 Curvature2.7
  • Heian period/10-12th century
  • Tokyo National Museum
  • F-19931

The number of extant works by the swordsmith Yasutsuna is comparatively large. Yasutsuna lived in Hôki (present-day western Tottori Prefecture) during the Heian period (794-1185). The Edo-period (1615-1868) sword manual Kyôhô Era Handbook of Famous Works (J. Kyôhô meibutsuchô) records the legend that this sword was used by the great warrior Minamoto Yorimitsu to bring down the monstrous Shuten Dôji of Mt. Ôe in Tanba, thus earning the epithet of "Dôji-slaying Yasutsuna" (J. Dôjigiri Yasutsuna). The legend of the Shuten Dôji-either a demon or a highwayman-is thought to date to the Muromachi period (1392-1573).

Warlord Toyotomi Hideyoshi (1536?-1598) and shoguns Tokugawa Ieyasu (1542-1616) and Tokugawa Hidetada (1579-1632) all owned this sword. It was later bequeathed to Matsudaira Tadachika (1661-1728), the lord of Echizen (present-day Okayama), and then kept in the Matsudaira family of the Tsuyama region (modern northeastern Okayama).

Pieces

Loading