Book Of The 5 Rings.pdf

THE BOOK OF

THE FIVE RINGS

THE BOOK OF

THE FIVE RINGS

THE BOOK OF FIVE RINGS

go rin no sho

Miyamoto Musashi

Transcribed to 1’s and 0’s by Slaegr the Anarch ..

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction ......................................... 4

The Ground Book ................................. 5

The Water Book ................................. 15

The Fire Book ..................................... 29

The Wind Book .................................. 44

The Book of the Void.......................... 53

INTRODUCTION

I have been many years training in the Way of strategy, called Ni Ten Ichi Ryu, and now I think

I will explain it in writing for the first time. It is now during the first ten days of the tenth month in the

twentieth year of Kanei (1645). I have climbed mountain Iwato of Higo in Kyushu to pay homage

to heaven, pray to Kwannon, [God(dess) of mercy in Buddhism. - Slaegr] and kneel before Buddha. I

am a warrior of Harima province, Shinmen Musashi No Kami Fujiwara No Genshin, age sixty years.

From youth my heart has been inclined toward the Way of strategy. My first duel was when I

was thirteen, I struck down a strategist of the Shinto school, one Arima Kihei. When I was sixteen I

struck down an able strategist Tadashima Akiyama. When I was twenty-one I went up to the

capital and met all manner of strategists, never once failing to win in many contests.

After that I went from province to province duelling with strategist of various schools, and not

once failed to win even though I had as many as sixty encounters. This was between the ages of thirteen

and twenty-eight or twenty-nine.

When I reached thirty I looked back on my past. The previous victories were not due to my

having mastered strategy. Perhaps it was natural ability, or the order of heaven, or that other schools’

strategy was inferior. After that I studied morning and evening searching for the principle, and came to

realise the Way of strategy when I was fifty.

Since then I have lived without following any particular Way. Thus with the virtue of strategy I

practise many arts and abilities - all things with no teacher. To write this book I did not use the law of

Buddha or the teachings of Confucius, neither old war chronicles nor books on martial tactics. I take

up my brush to explain the true spirit of this Ichi school as it is mirrored in the Way of heaven and

Kwannon. The time is the night of the tenth day of the tenth month, at the hour of the tiger (3-5 a.m.)

THE GROUND BOOK