The courtly steel of Kamakura Kyōto. From the mid-Kamakura period the Rai school rose to become the most prosperous of the Yamashiro lineages — its aesthetic devised by Rai Kuniyuki and perfected by his son Kunitoshi, the first to sign with the character 来. Its hallmark is a luminous, tightly forged jigane laden with ji-nie and clear nie-utsuri, tempered in a calm, crystalline suguha. In Rai Kunitsugu — "Kamakura Rai", counted among the Ten Great Disciples of Masamune — the school drew the vigorous Sōshū manner into its refined Kyōto idiom.
The The Yamashiro Rai School (来), active 1250–1370 in Yamashiro Province across 73 documented smiths: 10 Kokuhō (National Treasures), 66 Jūbun, 81 Jūbi, 116 Tokubetsu Jūyō, 706 Jūyō.
Phase 1 · The Yamashiro Rai School (来) · 1250 – 1370
Kunimitsu (國光) — Mainline · 1326-1351. Kokuhō, Jūbun, Jūbi, Tokujū, Jūyō. The dated works of Rai Kunimitsu (来国光) run from Karyaku 1 (1326) to Kan'o 2 (1351), carrying the Rai school of Yamashiro from the close of the Kamakura period into the early Nanbokucho period. By the prevailing tradition he is transmitted as a son of Rai Kunitoshi, by some accounts a pupil, and the published sources observe that the smith with the most surviving works in the school is Kunimitsu himself. Their constant judgment reaches further: he is "the most versatile smith of the Rai school, the one with the widest working range"[[c:1]]. The notes enumerate that range: beyond the traditional true suguha of the Kyoto line, there are works on a suguha base mixing ko-gunome and ko-choji, works in suguha with a slight ko-midare tendency, works in a notare tone mixed with gunome, and works whose midare is dominated by gunome, spread across tachi, tanto and ko-wakizashi of equally varied form.
His most numerous work is the wide, robust osuriage katana, unsigned yet keeping the deep, evenly arched curvature the published record calls wazori, the chu-kissaki often a little extended. On these blades the temper is a chu-suguha or hiro-suguha within which ko-gunome and ko-choji stand apart; ashi and yo enter thickly, and the nioiguchi runs deep, bright and clear. Ko-nie adheres richly, kinsuji and fine sunagashi pass through the ha, and the boshi is sugu with a komaru turnback. The conspicuous presence of gunome within the suguha is the recognition point the sources state outright, the feature that separates his hand from Kunitoshi and Kuniyuki; of one such katana the NBTHK writes that these features "clearly manifest the characteristic traits of Rai Kunimitsu."
The jigane is constant beneath all of his manners: a tightly packed ko-itame under thick, dust-fine ji-nie, with fine chikei woven in and a nie-utsuri standing in the ji, the steel bright and clear. Here and there a softer patch of hada appears, the so-called Rai-hada, which the record treats as a tell of the school rather than a fault. On the Karyaku 2 dated tanto the notes describe the nie-utsuri near the fukura taking on a yubashiri-like appearance, entering as though drooping down toward the tempered edge, an aspect frequently encountered not only in his work but throughout the Rai group.
His tanto carry the two poles of the range most plainly. The small ones with uchizori, often bearing the simple, skillful suken and gomabashi carvings the record calls most frequent in his work, follow the father so closely, down to the hardening over the machi, that they pass at first sight for Kunitoshi; a slender suguha blade of this class is read as early work. The large ones run wide, sunnobi and nearly without sori, and on them he tempers his midare, notare mixed with gunome or gunome-dominant patterns, in nie a step stronger than on his tachi; these, the sources write, resemble the work of his junior fellow pupil Rai Kunitsugu, being "tinged with the color of the Soshu tradition and filled with bold spirit"[[c:2]]. The tanto dated Karyaku 2 (1327) shows the manner already formed, and the largest of the class is the meibutsu Aratami Rai (新身来). The signatures follow the forms: "on tachi the mei is comparatively small"[[c:3]], cut low on the tang toward the mune, while on tanto a bold three-character mei is placed below the mekugi-ana; his character for Rai, the record adds, is cut in a form differing from that used by Kunitoshi. A chronology of the mei is established: those of the Karyaku and Gentoku years have a softness, the enclosing kuni component characteristically rounded, while those of Jowa and Kan'o harden and the enclosure turns angular. The long working span and these changes of style and signature sustain an argument for a first and a second generation, which the Kokon Kaji Meizukushi divides around Gentoku to Kenmu and around Koei; yet the single-generation view remains strong, and the published sources leave the question as one that should await further study.
Set beside his father, the judges' formula is exact: compared with Kunitoshi he yields a little in the point of dignity, but gives the impression of surpassing him in force[[c:4]]. His nie runs somewhat stronger, and the chikei in the ji together with the kinsuji and sunagashi in the ha lend the work its vigor. Beside Rai Kuniyuki he lacks the elder smith's expansiveness: the yakiba sits a shade tighter, ashi crowd in, and the boshi tends toward a point. The wide midare tanto can pass at a glance for Rai Kunitsugu, and there the record draws the line in a single sentence: against Kunitsugu his hardening sits a touch lower, and in the sharp boshi with its thrusting tendency[[c:5]] the individuality of this smith can be discerned. Even his standard suguha can momentarily suggest the Enju offshoot; of one such blade the notes say it can at first glance be confused with Enju, but on careful examination proves a step superior. With Kunitsugu he carries the Soshu-tinged manner that closes the Rai mainline into the Nanbokucho period.
Fujishiro grades him Sai-jo saku, and 268 designated works stand on record: three National Treasures and twenty-one Important Cultural Properties, preserved as patrimony in museums, shrines and long-held collections, with twenty-three Juyo Bijutsuhin and 215 blades in the Tokubetsu Juyo and Juyo tiers beneath them. Signed and unsigned works survive in nearly equal numbers, the tachi mostly osuriage and mumei, the tanto largely ubu and signed. Sixty-one blades carry recorded provenance, and the roll is of the first rank: a tachi the record calls "a tachi worn by Ieyasu, treasured in the Tokugawa house together with the Honjo Masamune"[[c:6]]; heirlooms of the Kishu, Owari and Mito Tokugawa, the Date of Sendai, the Maeda of Kaga, and the Kuroda, Shimazu, Asano, Hosokawa, Ikeda and Satake houses, with pieces from the Imperial Family; among the Hon'ami appraisals that follow them is an origami of Genroku 3 (1690) by Hon'ami Kotsune valuing one Owari Tokugawa blade at 500 kan. Holders recorded against his blades today include the Tokyo National Museum, the Kyoto National Museum, the Tokugawa Art Museum, the Sano Art Museum and the Seikado Bunko Art Museum. For the private collector he is not wholly beyond reach: blades in the Tokubetsu Juyo and Juyo tiers remain in private hands and one appears on the market from time to time, though for a name of this rank such an appearance is infrequent, and an event when it comes.
Kunitoshi (國俊) — Mainline · 1288-1319. Kokuhō, Jūbun, Jūbi, Tokujū, Jūyō. The published sources open Rai Kunitoshi's record with a single settled fact: he was "the first smith of the Rai line to crown his name with the character Rai, and all who followed took the practice from him"[[c:1]]. Traditionally the son of Rai Kuniyuki, he worked in Kyoto at the close of the Kamakura period. Dated blades open in the Shoo and Einin eras, fall silent for a time, then resume in Showa and continue through Bunpo, Gen'o and Genko; a tachi of Showa 4 (1315) in the Tokugawa Art Museum bears the age inscription seventy-five (七十五歳), and a work of Genko 1 (1321), cut at eighty-two, stands near the end of his production. This run of dated pieces is the backbone of the late Kamakura Rai chronology.
His hand is the Rai mainline at its most refined. The tachi are slender or of standard width with a pronounced taper, the curvature koshi-zori, turning to a rounded wa-zori on shortened blades, and the point small or medium. On this body he burns a chu-suguha or hoso-suguha in ko-nie with ko-choji and ko-gunome mixed in; ashi and yo enter well, at times slanting toward the nakago in the Kyoto manner the published sources call kyo-sakaashi. Nijuba appears in places, fine kinsuji and sunagashi run through the ha, and the nioiguchi is tight and bright; the boshi turns in a calm ko-maru, the tip lightly swept. The judgment the published sources attach to the whole is consistent: "a refined and calm manner that is Kyoto work through and through"[[c:2]].
The jigane carries as much of the attribution as the hamon: a tightly knit ko-itame with thick, often dust-fine ji-nie, fine chikei, and a nie-utsuri standing clearly over it; one Juyo appraisal adds that "the refinement of the jigane in particular deserves special mention"[[c:3]]. Here and there the larger, softer patches the texts call Rai-hada (来肌) intrude, and on tanto the hada may flow toward masame in places, both accepted as marks of the school rather than flaws. The packed ko-itame, the fine nie over it and the standing utsuri are what the appraisals return to whenever an unsigned blade is settled on his name.
Nearly half of his published record is tanto: the sources state again and again that where the two-character Kunitoshi left a single example, the meibutsu Aizen Kunitoshi, Rai Kunitoshi left many. These are hira-zukuri and mitsu-mune, of standard width or slightly elongated, with the quiet uchi-zori of the late Kamakura period; the suguha may take a shallow notare, the kaeri of the ko-maru boshi often runs down long, and the hamachi is frequently hardened in. Carving is habitual, a katana-hi with a slender koshi-bi or suken set beside it, or bonji over gomabashi, the added side groove being a practice "peculiar to Rai work"[[c:4]]. Suguha rules him, yet a small choji group stands at the opposite limit. Its representative is a National Treasure tachi, and a kodachi raised at the 27th Tokubetsu Juyo session, slender, high in koshi-zori, mixing large-lobed choji with the nie thick in the ha, is called "the most flamboyant range of work in his oeuvre"[[c:5]], "just evoking Niji Kunitoshi"[[c:6]]. That evocation is the heart of the school's classic question, whether the two-character Kunitoshi and the three-character Rai Kunitoshi are one smith or two. The combined dated works run from Koan 1 (1278) to Genko 1 (1321), some forty years and no strain for a single career, and counted back from the age inscription of seventy-five, the lone dated Niji blade falls at age thirty-eight. In recent years, the sources write, re-examination of the workmanship and the signature forms has brought the same-smith view toward acceptance, prompting a rethink of the two-smith position, and the choji blades above are read as key material on his side of the divide. The signatures hold further scholarship: the Gen'o pieces turn cursive enough that the notes weigh his old age against a second generation; rare works add the Minamoto surname; and on a Genko 2 folded-signature katana once worn by Shimazu Narinobu, the character kuni is cut in the manner of his pupil Rai Kunitsugu, read as one of the rare cases of the pupil signing in the master's name, the third such example known.
The contrast with Niji Kunitoshi is the standing formula of his appraisals: against a grand body with ikubi point and a flamboyant choji-dominated midare, the three-character works set a slender or standard build, a suguha or suguha with small-patterned midare, and a gentle effect overall, so the two hands can be told apart even while the one-smith question stays open. His other neighbors lie within the school. His calmest, largest tanto are read first toward Rai Kunimitsu before the dignity of the work, "a grade higher"[[c:7]], settles the attribution on Kunitoshi. His pupils Rai Kunimitsu and Rai Kunitsugu carried the school through the end of Kamakura, and the line between master and pupils is fine enough that the meibutsu Yuki Rai Kunitoshi, a tanto recorded in the Meibutsucho, is itself said at first sight to suggest Kunimitsu and Kunitsugu.
For a master of this rank he is unusually approachable. Fujishiro grades him Sai-jo saku; four of his blades are National Treasures and nine are Important Cultural Properties, with twenty-one Tokubetsu Juyo and one hundred thirty-seven Juyo beneath them, one hundred fifty-eight blades across those two tiers. Signed work is abundant, one hundred thirty-three signed against fifty unsigned here, which is why his chronology can be written at all. Eight blades are locked in the National Treasure and Important Cultural Property tiers and will never trade, among them the kodachi of Futarasan Shrine at Nikko; the Tokugawa Art Museum holds the age-75 tachi, and other works rest with the Tokyo National Museum, the Nezu Museum, the Sano Art Museum and the Kurokawa Institute. Fifty-one blades carry recorded provenance: Toyotomi Hideyoshi, the shoguns Tokugawa Hidetada and Iemitsu, the Owari and Kishu Tokugawa, the Maeda, the Uesugi, the Shimazu of Kagoshima and the Sanada of Matsushiro. Yet thirty-three works are recorded in private hands and many more sit in the tradeable Juyo tiers, so a suguha tanto or tachi by Rai Kunitoshi, late Kamakura Yamashiro work in its purest form, remains a goal a serious collector can actually reach; the choji blades and the dated pieces stand effectively beyond the market.
Kuniyuki (國行) — Mainline · 1259-1260. Kokuhō, Jūbun, Jūbi, Tokujū, Jūyō. Rai Kuniyuki was, in the words the published sources return to again and again, the de facto founder of the Rai school of Yamashiro, working in the mid Kamakura period. None of his own blades carries a production date, but the two-character Kunitoshi, transmitted as his son, left a tachi dated Koan 1 (1278), and on that footing the published sources affirm the usual reckoning that places Kuniyuki around the Shogen and Bun'o years. He stands at the head of the line the late-Kamakura Yamashiro tradition would be built upon, and his signed tachi survive in comparatively large numbers while a single reliable tanto is all that is known, exactly as for that same Kunitoshi.
The shape of his tachi is not one thing. The published sources describe a range that runs from slender, orthodox builds to broad, powerfully made blades, with the point typically tied off in an ikubi manner. The signed, ubu pieces keep a high, wheel-like curvature and a small point of real grace; the great mass of the surviving work is o-suriage and unsigned, wide in the body with a thick kasane, and even after shortening it holds a deep wazori and a weighty, dignified bearing that reads at once as mid Kamakura.
The jigane is the constant. It is a finely forged ko-itame, at times carrying itame, mokume and a little nagare-hada, worked until it is dense and refined; over it the ji-nie lies thickly in minute particles, fine chikei enter, and a nie-utsuri rises that in places shades toward a midare-utsuri. The steel is strong and clear, and the bright, refined forging that the connoisseur reads as Rai-hada is the first thing the eye should settle on. This is the calm, lustrous jigane on which everything else is staged.
Over that jigane Kuniyuki tempers a wide, suguha-toned ha rather than the full choji of contemporary Bizen. Into it he mixes ko-choji, ko-gunome, small midare and squared-off elements, so that the temper is complex and changeful without ever becoming a clamorous midare; ashi and yo enter densely, often as the Kyoto-style saka-ashi, the nioiguchi runs deep and bright, ko-nie attaches thickly, and kinsuji and sunagashi move through the body of the ha. At the crests of the undulations small tobiyaki and yubashiri sometimes gather into a kiji-mata or gan-mata figure, and muneyaki may appear above. It is a temper of restraint and activity at once, the activity carried in the nie rather than in the height of the pattern.
The boshi is where his hand is most easily misjudged. It is not a plain ko-maru. A ko-maru is indeed the most frequent turnback, but it is most often drawn out by hakikake, the brushed nie of the point continuing the work of the ji below; the published sources describe a boshi that vigorously brushes[[c:1]] and that turns back in a small round with a slightly pointed tendency[[c:2]]. In many blades it falls into a midare-komi with a pointing tip[[c:3]], at times genuinely pointed, at times burned through in a yakizume manner. A reading that names only the small round and the irregular turnback misses the swept tip that is in fact the dominant feature, and for recognition the hakikake belongs in the first rank of his boshi traits beside the ko-maru itself.
For a founder of his rank the named histories are heavy. A signed Tokubetsu-Juyo tachi descended in the Kuroda family of Chikuzen and carries an origami of Genroku 14 (1701) by Hon'ami Kochu[[c:4]] valuing it at one thousand kan, with Goto fittings on its tachi mounting; another o-suriage blade passed through the Shimazu family of Satsuma; signature variants are read against a piece formerly in the Ogasawara collection, and his blades reach into the Tokugawa houses as well. His work numbers a National Treasure and many Important Cultural Properties, and within the published catalogues his Tokubetsu-Juyo and Juyo entries together run to roughly a hundred, a count that places him among the very highest of the koto Yamashiro masters and makes a freely tradeable example a genuine rarity.
Kunitoshi (國俊) — Mainline · 1278-1288. Kokuhō, Jūbun, Jūbi, Tokujū, Jūyō. A single dated work anchors the two-character Kunitoshi in time: a tachi inscribed in Koan 1 (1278), designated an Important Cultural Property and preserved in the Tokyo National Museum. Its maker, Kunitoshi of Yamashiro, cut his name in two characters only, without the character Rai, and the published sources accordingly call him Niji Kunitoshi, the two-character Kunitoshi, to part him from the smith who signed Rai Kunitoshi in three. He is traditionally recorded as the son of Rai Kuniyuki, and of the Rai mainline he stands closest to his father, down to details of forging and carving that the designation records trace from one hand to the other. He worked at the school's grand mid-Kamakura moment, and whether he and the three-character Rai Kunitoshi are one man or two remains the classic question of the Rai school, carried in nearly every published entry as an open verdict.
The hand the published sources describe as typical is the most flamboyant in the Rai mainline. His blades run wide in mihaba with little taper from base to point, the kasane thick, the curve a deep wa-zori, the point a compact, stout ikubi-kissaki. Over this powerful build he burns a choji-dominant midare in ko-nie-deki, so showy that the records repeat the verdict of the old books that it "resembles the Bizen Ichimonji"[[c:1]]. Ashi and yo crowd into the ha, sunagashi and kinsuji stream through it, and yubashiri plays at the heads of the yaki. Patches of muneyaki lie along the back, a feature one entry names a habit of the Rai hand[[c:2]]. The Kyoto marks are stated just as plainly: the nie within the ha is markedly strong, the stated point of difference from Bizen; the utsuri that rises is, as a rule, a nie-utsuri; and the ashi, chiefly on the wearing side, slant back toward the nakago, opposite to the Bizen direction, the so-called kyo-sakaashi (京逆足).
The jigane is in his father Kuniyuki's manner, an itame of comparatively large texture with a tendency to stand, under ji-nie laid thick and fine chikei, the steel bright. Beside the usual nie-utsuri a midare-utsuri rises on occasion; one Tokubetsu Juyo entry notes a midare-utsuri accompanied by a dark band as a rarity otherwise confirmed on signed works of Rai Kunitoshi and Ryokai, so that even his exceptions stay inside the school. On the flamboyant works the boshi runs in midare-komi, sweeps in hakikake, and often finishes near yakizume with considerable force, while the calmer works settle into a quiet ko-maru. Most blades carry bo-hi, and on more than one the groove at the koshimoto holds a suken in relief, a carving the published sources point out exists in the same form[[c:3]] on work of Kuniyuki.
Signed works are comparatively few, and nearly all of them are tachi. The published record long repeated that his tanto came to "merely one piece"[[c:4]], the meibutsu Aizen Kunitoshi, an Important Cultural Property, until a second signed tanto was recognized at the 61st Juyo session and later raised to Tokubetsu Juyo, its signature judged on the close likeness of the character for Kuni to the dated Koan 1 tachi. It is on the signed blades that a second, quieter register concentrates: a chu- or hiro-suguha with ko-choji and ko-gunome over a tight ko-itame with dust-fine ji-nie, the boshi a calm ko-maru. The sources read a shu-mei tachi from the Kishu Tokugawa house as showing "a workmanship close to Kuniyuki"[[c:5]], judge the ubu tachi of the Owari Tokugawa "hardly different from Rai Kunitoshi"[[c:6]], and call a signed tachi in true suguha "precious material"[[c:7]] should the one-smith theory be argued. The scholarship turns on exactly this. The dated examples of the two signatures span Koan 1 to Genko 1, about forty years, no impossible working life for a single smith; counted back from the Rai Kunitoshi tachi dated Showa 4 (1315) with an age of seventy-five, the same man would have been thirty-eight in Koan 1. Against this the Kaifunki draws the line another way: "the two-character Kunitoshi was Kuniyuki's heir and died young; Rai Kunitoshi was the second son, and from him the cutting of the character Rai began"[[c:8]]. The most recent designation entries record that re-examination of workmanship and signatures has lately revived the one-smith view, prompting, in their words, a reconsideration of the two-smith position.
Against the Ichimonji, the smiths his work most resembles, he is told by his own marks: the strength of the nie within the ha, the utsuri rising as a nie-utsuri, and the kyo-sakaashi slanting toward the nakago. One Juyo entry states the position from inside the school, placing him in a working range that, within the Rai school, can pass among the showy productions of the Ichimonji and Osafune. His place in the lineage is double. Upstream he is the nearest of the Rai smiths to Kuniyuki, sharing the standing itame, the muneyaki and the carving in the groove; downstream his calm signed suguha flows directly into the refined manner of the three-character Rai Kunitoshi. Brother, father or the same man's earlier self, he is the bridge over which the school's grand mid-Kamakura style passes into its late-Kamakura refinement.
Fujishiro grades him Sai-jo saku, the highest rank. Ninety-four designated works stand on record: twenty-one Tokubetsu Juyo and fifty-two Juyo, seventy-three blades in those two tiers together, with thirteen Juyo Bijutsuhin and the Important Cultural Properties above them, among the last the Aizen Kunitoshi and the dated Koan 1 tachi of the Tokyo National Museum. The meibutsu Torikai Kunitoshi, a kodachi of one shaku nine sun nine bu listed in the Meibutsucho, passed to the Owari Tokugawa after the death of Tokugawa Ieyasu and is held by the Tokugawa Reimeikai Foundation. The provenance roll is substantial: twenty-six blades carry recorded histories through the Owari and Kishu Tokugawa, the Maeda, Hosokawa, Uesugi, Date, Asano, Yamauchi, Hachisuka and Matsudaira houses and the Imperial Family, one Owari blade entering the registers as a Suruga Tokugawa distribution piece ranked in the house's highest group (仁壹ノ廿), with Hon'ami origami of Genroku and Hoei attached to others. His Important Cultural Properties are patrimony, preserved in the Tokyo National Museum and in long-held collections, and of the remainder the recorded whereabouts run heavily to institutions and old families. For the private collector the realistic field is the Tokubetsu Juyo and Juyo tier, some sixty blades that can in principle change hands; in practice they are held far more often than they are traded, and a two-character Kunitoshi coming to market is a rare event, standing at the very top of the field when it does.
Kunitsugu (國次) — Mainline · 1311-1327. Kokuhō, Jūbun, Jūbi, Tokujū, Jūyō. On the *tanto* recorded in the Meibutsu-cho as the Torikai Kunitsugu (鳥養国次), the NBTHK writes that the work of Rai Kunitsugu shows "the strongest *nie* of *ji* and *ha* within the whole Rai school"[[c:1]], and that single judgment carries the essence of the smith. The published sources place him at the very end of the Kamakura period, his activity reaching into the first years of Nanbokucho, where he stands beside Rai Kunimitsu, his slight senior, as one of the two masters who bring the Rai mainline to its close. His genealogy is unsettled across the published record: the usual account makes him a pupil of Rai Kunitoshi, one account a cousin of Rai Kunimitsu, others the son of Kunitoshi or Kunimitsu's younger brother. From of old he has been counted among the Ten Brilliant Pupils of Masamune (正宗十哲) and carries the name "Kamakura-Rai"[[c:2]], a name the published sources explain by the manner of the work itself.
That manner is a *hamon* the earlier Rai never showed: a *midare*-dominant temper of *notare* mixed with *gunome*, the *nie* thick and bright, *kinsuji* and *sunagashi* sweeping through the *ha*, *yubashiri* drifting along the *habuchi*. The *kitae* sets thick *ji-nie* over *itame* and weaves in frequent *chikei*, in places standing slightly. The recurring verdict of the published sources is that this is a workmanship "strongly shaped by the influence of Soshu-den"[[c:3]], and the comment of Honma recorded against another of his Juyo Bijutsuhin *tanto* holds the same line, that within the Rai school the *nie* of his *ji* and *ha* is conspicuously strong. Even an absence points the same way: compared with general Rai work, his *ji* shows fewer of the soft *rai-hada* patches typical of the school. The *boshi* of this register runs *midare-komi* or with a pointed tendency, often swept with *hakikake*.
Beneath the Soshu color the *jigane* stays Rai. The forging in his finest pieces is a packed ko-itame, the *ji-nie* fine and thick, *chikei* entering finely, and a pale *nie-utsuri* rising over the *ji*, the anchors that keep the work Kyoto. His most numerous surviving class is the wide *osuriage mumei* *katana*, often in a deep *wa-zori* with the *chu-kissaki* extended. On these blades a *suguha*-toned base mixes ko-gunome and ko-choji; *ashi* and *yo* enter long, thick and without pause; the *nie* sits deep into the *ha*, *kinsuji* and *sunagashi* run, and *nijuba*-like *yubashiri* plays at the edge. The deciding point is stated outright in the published sources: where the *ji* and *ha* are unusually bright and the *nie* strong, "if one fixes on the point that the *nie-ashi* stand out within the *ha*, an attribution to Rai Kunitsugu is judged proper"[[c:4]]. One Juyo *katana* is described as reading "just as though the *midare* he tempers on his *tanto* had been rendered on a long blade"[[c:5]].
His signed work is nearly all *tanto* and ko-wakizashi; the published sources repeat that surviving *tachi* are scarce, and that *ken* and *yari* survive only in the rarest examples. The *tanto* are signed below the *mekugi-ana* at the center of the *nakago* with a large, thick-chiseled three-character *mei*, while the slender signed *tachi* with high *koshizori* carry an elongated, finely chiseled, smaller signature that the NBTHK reads as his early hand, valued for showing the change of his manner over time. A minority of works keeps the older Rai style unaltered, a quiet *suguha* with ko-choji, the *nie* at ordinary strength; the *tanto* handed down in the Uesugi house is called "a calm register that holds faithfully to the Rai tradition"[[c:6]], and such work is noted as extremely rare for him. Dated pieces are nearly absent: the *ken* of Karyaku 2 (1327) is his earliest surviving date, worked, as with other smiths of the period, in Yamato-den; a *tanto* of Shokei 1 (1332) also survives, and Gentoku dates are known only from the old sword albums. On the tradition that he studied under Masamune the NBTHK itself is careful: since Kunimitsu too at times shows the same *nie*-strong manner, it writes, to affirm the pupil legend from the style alone would be "premature"[[c:7]].
The comparison that fixes his place is drawn against Rai Kunimitsu. Kunimitsu also left *midare* work beside his traditional *suguha*, but in his case, the published sources observe, the *suguha* far outnumber the *midare*, and "Kunitsugu is the opposite"[[c:8]]. One Juyo text goes further, judging that he carries the *nie* even beyond the *nie*-emphasized *midareba* of his senior, a manner the earlier Rai never had. Among the forebears of the line, Kuniyuki, Niji Kunitoshi, Rai Kunitoshi and Kunimitsu, he is the one who retains the least of the traditional Kyoto style, which is exactly why the old Masamune-pupil account drew attention. The judges also leave him room: various atypical pieces (変り出来) are acknowledged within his work, and his few signed *tachi* differ among themselves. With Kunimitsu he carries the Rai mainline to its close in early Nanbokucho, and the Kamakura-Rai name marks his position as the school's Soshu-facing edge.
Fujishiro grades him Jo-jo saku. One of his blades is a National Treasure and four are Important Cultural Properties, patrimony preserved wholly outside the market; beneath them stand fourteen Tokubetsu Juyo and forty Juyo, fifty-four blades in those two tiers, out of sixty-five designated works on record, twenty-nine of them signed against thirty-six unsigned. The Torikai Kunitsugu itself was certified Juyo Bijutsuhin in 1933. The provenance roll is of the first rank: the published sources single out the famous *tachi* handed down in the former shogunal house and in the Maeda house; another *tachi*, recorded in the Tokugawa Jikki, was presented by the shogun Tokugawa Tsunayoshi to Yanagisawa Yoshiyasu in Genroku 15 (1702); a *katana* passed from Matsudaira Nobuyasu, Ieyasu's eldest son, to his retainer Hiraiwa Chikayoshi; and *tanto* descended in the Uesugi, Asano, Okubo, Nabeshima and Ikoma houses and in the Yamauchi of Tosa, whose blade went to the shogunal house as a memorial gift in Kyoho 5 (1720). Of recorded whereabouts today, examples rest in the Tokyo National Museum, the Sano Art Museum and the Hikone Castle Museum. For the collector the picture is that of a major Rai master whose designated works are held far more often than they move: a *mumei* *katana* or *wakizashi* of the Juyo tier appears from time to time, a signed *tanto* only rarely, and a piece of the order of the Torikai Kunitsugu can only be awaited as an event.
Ryokai (了戒) — Mainline · 1288-1305. Jūbun, Jūbi, Tokujū, Jūyō. Ryōkai of Yamashiro Province founded the Ryōkai school, one of the Rai offshoots of the late Kamakura capital, and worked in the same years as Rai Kunitoshi: his surviving dated blades carry the era names Shōō, Einin, Kagen and Engen. The old account makes him a son or a pupil of Rai Kunitoshi, but the published sources note that the dated pieces place him almost level with Kunitoshi, so that he reads more naturally as a fellow disciple (aitedeshi); and if the 'two-character Kunitoshi' and Rai Kunitoshi are taken as different men, Ryōkai would instead be the son of the two-character Kunitoshi. Either way his is the Rai Yamashiro hand softened a degree, and the published record fixes the difference precisely, noting that with him 'the ji and ha can feel somewhat less forceful'[[c:1]] than Kunitoshi's. He is Jō-saku in Fujishiro's grading, the head from whom the Ryōkai line descends.
The hand the published descriptions assign him is a quiet one. Over a packed itame or ko-itame, often flowing toward masame and standing a little open, fine ji-nie adheres thickly and fine chikei enter, and a whitish shirake-utsuri stands in the ji. The temper is a calm chū- or hoso-suguha, mixing here a small ko-chōji, ko-gunome or ko-midare, with ko-ashi and yō entering, sometimes a Kyoto-style reverse ashi along the edge. Its distinguishing mark is the nioiguchi: it tightens and grows austere, and in places clouds into urumi, that moist, soft quality the published sources name again and again as a Ryōkai point. The judges set the contrast with the parent Rai exactly, writing that compared with Kunitoshi 'the nioiguchi is one degree tighter and the activity within the temper lonelier, breaking in places into urumi'[[c:2]]. The boshi closes sugu into a ko-maru, often brushed with a little hakikake.
The ji is where the school turns from Rai toward Yamato. The forging carries masame mixed into the itame, the published record observing that the jihada 'shows more masame tendency than in Rai Kunitoshi' and takes on a whitish cast, and the shirake-utsuri that rises with it is the first thing that separates a Ryōkai blade from its parent: where Rai keeps a clear, bright midare- or jifu-utsuri, Ryōkai stands a paler, drier shirake. On the finest tachi the steel shows ko-itame in a piled manner with chikei and a faint jifu-utsuri, the Kyoto refinement still legible beneath the school's drift; on the plainer katana the grain flows openly toward masame and the utsuri whitens further. Fine kinsuji and sunagashi run within a tight, bright nioiguchi, faint hotsure and kuichigai-ba fray the habuchi, and the boshi keeps to its ko-maru.
His work survives in two registers of the one manner. The signed pieces are slender ubu tachi and tantō, the mei a boldly cut two-character Ryō-kai set toward the mune above the first mekugi-ana; the tachi keep a high koshizori toward a small kissaki, the tantō run in uchizori with a thick kasane, the typical late-Kamakura Kyoto tantō, several carved with bonji and suken on the omote and gomabashi on the ura. Of one such tantō the published sources write that, complete in every part, it is 'altogether elegant'[[c:3]], a work that 'may well be called a representative work of Ryōkai'[[c:4]], adding that 'the signature too is of the archetypal type'[[c:5]]. The second register, and the bulk of the designated record, is ōsuriage mumei katana given to him on the hand: the wa-zori and Kyoto air recall Rai at first glance, but the tightening, sinking, clouding nioiguchi, the flowing masame and the shirake settle the attribution to Ryōkai. A small number of collaborative dated blades signed with his son Hisanobu also survive, the work close to the father's suguha, signed examples of the son being very rare.
The distinction the judges draw most often is the one against Rai itself, for the school stands so close to its parent that the two are confused at sight. The published record states it plainly: Ryōkai 'is often mistaken for Rai Kunitoshi'[[c:6]], the attribution then settled not by any single feature but by the softer ji and ha, the masame in the jihada, the whitish utsuri and the clouding line, since 'the nioiguchi has an urumi quality, and the ji carries more masame than Rai Kunitoshi'[[c:7]]. His own grounded tells separate him from the sister Enju school as cleanly: where Enju turns the boshi in a large, deep o-maru, Ryōkai closes sugu into a small ko-maru, and his suguha clouds into the urumi that Enju leaves bright. Downstream the Ryōkai name ran for several generations, his son Ryō Hisanobu next, and by the Nanbokuchō and Muromachi eras a Kyushu branch had formed, the Chikushi Ryōkai of Bungo and Buzen descended from the Kyoto line.
Ryōkai is a smith of real standing whose designated work can still be encountered, though sparingly. Of his blades on the official record, five are Important Cultural Properties, among them the famed Akita Ryōkai tantō; four are Tokubetsu Jūyō and eighty-eight Jūyō, ninety-two across the Tokujū and Jūyō tiers. The Important Cultural Properties are patrimony, held and studied rather than traded, and most of the designated blades, signed or attributed, are kept in long-held public and private collections, among them the Tokyo National Museum, the Sano Art Museum and Monobe Jinja, with prewar Jūyō-Bijutsuhin pieces recorded against the Maeda and other houses. One tachi preserves a tradition that it was 'a sword worn by Miyamoto Musashi'[[c:8]], and his blades pass through the Isahaya, Date and Maeda families. Of the works whose whereabouts are recorded, only the Tokubetsu Jūyō and Jūyō tier reaches the market, and then rarely; a signed ubu Ryōkai tachi or tantō in particular is among the scarcer things a collector of Kyoto Kamakura work will meet, coming to hand only with patience.
Mitsukane (光包) — Mainline · 1303-1306. Jūbun, Tokujū, Jūyō. Mitsukane of Yamashiro, active at the end of the Kamakura period, is recorded as a pupil of Rai Kunitoshi and, in the NBTHK's recurring phrase, "a smith apart within the Rai school"[[c:1]]. Tradition gives him a Bizen chapter as well: he is said to have gone to Osafune and studied under Nagamitsu, and on the order of events the published sources are precise, observing that "most transmitted records state that he first studied under Nagamitsu and afterwards entered the school of Rai Kunitoshi"[[c:2]]. He lived and worked at Tozu in Omi, whence the name Tozu Rai (戸津来), and by the legend the texts repeat in nearly every designation he withdrew to forge at the Konpon Chudo, the central hall of Enryaku-ji on Mt. Hiei, whence the name by which he is best known, Chudo Rai (中堂来). He signed with the two characters Mitsukane alone, never crowning the signature with the character Rai. About scarcity the record is emphatic: "examples encountered are extremely few; there are no tachi, only tanto"[[c:3]], and the signed work is confined to tanto.
The build announces him before the steel does. His tanto are hira-zukuri with mitsu-mune, somewhat elongated and often a little wide in the mihaba, with *uchizori*, and the published sources fix the construction in a standing formula, naming "the thick kasane and sturdy construction"[[c:4]] together with a *boshi* "whose roundness is large and whose kaeri returns wide, deep and long"[[c:5]] among the features to see. The oldest commentary in the corpus already treats both points as his habit, writing that "there is rather more variation within the ha than in his teacher Rai Kunitoshi, and the kaeri of the boshi is as a rule long"[[c:6]]. The hamon itself is a *suguha* in the manner of his teacher, though one designation adds that he "burns a suguha wider than Kunitoshi's"[[c:7]]. Into the quiet line mix *ko-midare*, a feeling of *ko-choji* or *ko-gunome*, and *kuichigai-ba*; *ashi* and *yo* enter, the *nioi* runs deep, *ko-nie* lies thickly, and *kinsuji* and fine *sunagashi* work through a *nioiguchi* that stays bright and clear.
The *jigane* is the declared tell, and the NBTHK states it almost verbatim across the later texts: the jigane of this smith "has as its special quality that the ji-nie is laid on exceptionally thickly so that it looks strong, and the loose, weak texture called Rai-hada is in general rare in him"[[c:8]]. The kitae is a finely packed *ko-itame*, mixing flowing hada toward the ura or along the edge and a touch of larger hada at the koshimoto; the *ji-nie* sits dust-fine and thick, a *nie-utsuri* rises, and the steel is bright. One designation widens the contrast to the whole school, finding that "the jigane is stronger and clearer than that of Rai Kunitoshi or Rai Kunimitsu"[[c:9]] and naming that strength a point to see. The old kantei literature reached the same judgment in its own words: the NBTHK quotes the Edo text Nyote-hikisho (如手引抄) to the effect that, compared with Kunitoshi, the color of his ji is bluer and clear to the bottom, the nie fine and vivid, "like the nie of Awataguchi Yoshimitsu"[[c:10]]. Horimono appear on a few pieces, *gomabashi* paired with a stout *koshi-hi*, or a *suken* on the omote with *bonji* on the ura.
Against this suguha mainstream the texts set exactly one exception, rehearsed in nearly every designation: "there exists one single work that burns a midare-ba led by gunome, of a kind that underwrites the theory that he was Nagamitsu's pupil"[[c:11]], the meibutsu Midare-Mitsukane[[c:12]], an Important Cultural Property whose deki at first sight recalls Bizen. The oldest text in the corpus names the Bizen teacher as Kagemitsu rather than Nagamitsu, judging works of this group "almost the image of Kagemitsu, though stronger than Kagemitsu in the nie of ji and ha"; the later texts settle on Nagamitsu. The surviving record divides as well by signature. The signed pieces are slender *nijimei* tanto in a fine suguha, while the broad wide-suguha examples are the larger unsigned works, among them a *sunnobi* wakizashi carrying not a signature but a *shu-mei*, the Hon'ami house's red-lacquer attribution reading Mitsukane with Hon'a and a *kao*, whose deki the NBTHK judges "an accomplishment surpassing even the signed Mitsukane"[[c:13]]; the document of its old scabbard records that the fifth shogun Tsunayoshi presented it in Enpo 8 (1680) to mark his son Tokumatsu's move to the Nishinomaru of Edo castle.
In kantei he stands as the strong pole of the Rai school. Where the school's quiet suguha can ride on a soft, loose jigane, his carries nie laid on thickly over a tight ko-itame; where his teacher's tanto are slender, his run thicker in the kasane and a little longer in the body; the suguha is wider, the movement within it greater, and the boshi rounder, its kaeri deeper and longer. The literature reaches past his own school for the comparison, likening the fineness and vividness of his nie upward to Awataguchi Yoshimitsu rather than across to his Rai fellows. The texts name no pupils and no continuing line, and his manner closes with him; what remains is a small, coherent body of tanto in which, as the published sources put it of the best examples, the typical manner of Chudo Rai Mitsukane is displayed to the letter.
Fifteen designated works stand on the official record: four Important Cultural Properties, among them the Midare-Mitsukane and a signed tanto transmitted in the Date family, three Tokubetsu Juyo, and eight Juyo, eleven blades in all in the Tokubetsu Juyo and Juyo tiers; five of the fifteen are signed, ten unsigned. The provenance recorded against them runs through the great houses of the Edo period. The meibutsu Kuwayama Mitsukane[[c:14]], an ubu mumei tanto listed in the Kyoho Meibutsu-cho, takes its name from Kuwayama Iga-no-kami Motoharu, passed to the third shogun Iemitsu, was granted by him to Maeda Toshitsune, and descended thereafter in the Maeda family; it stands today among his Tokubetsu Juyo. The shu-mei wakizashi descends from the Tokugawa main line. Of recorded whereabouts, his blades rest with the Tokyo National Museum, the Fukuyama Art Museum and the Kurokawa Research Institute, with one in private hands. The four Important Cultural Properties are patrimony, preserved where they are; the eleven blades of the Tokubetsu Juyo and Juyo tiers are what a collector could in principle encounter, and for a smith whose surviving examples the published sources themselves call extremely few, one reaching the market is a rare event.
Kuninaga (國長) — Mainline · 1329-1331. Jūbun, Tokujū, Jūyō. Kuninaga is the smith the published sources call Nakajima Rai, a pupil of Rai Kunitoshi who left Kyoto for Nakajima in Settsu and carried the Rai manner into the Nanbokucho period. The *Meikan* lists two generations of the name, the first about Gentoku at the close of Kamakura and the second about Shohei and Oan; only the three-character signature Rai Kuninaga is known, and almost no dated work survives. This entry holds the first generation together with the mumei Nakajima Rai attribution, and the judges are candid about how thin the line between the two generations is: of one signed tanto they write that its generation 「その代別についてはなお検討の余地がある」 (remains open to further examination).
The constant of his work is the *jigane*. Over a well-forged *itame* he mixes *mokume* and a flowing *nagare-hada*, the grain tending to stand a little, with thick *ji-nie*, frequent *chikei* and a quiet *nie-utsuri* rather than the bright reflection of the Kyoto mainstream. Upon it he sets a broad or medium *suguha* into which *ko-gunome* and *ko-choji* enter, with *ashi* and *yo*, *ko-nie* well adhered, and *kinsuji* and *sunagashi* running through. The *boshi* goes straight to a small *ko-maru*, or sweeps with *hakikake*. Most of the mumei katana carry a plain *bo-hi* cut through in *kaki-nagashi*. On the best of them the judges single out the steel itself, 「温潤でねばり気の感ぜられる地がねは見事である」 (the jigane, warm and with a felt tenacity, is splendid).
The judges fix his kantei in one recurring sentence. His work 「様式的には来国光に似るが、格調の面で聊か譲るところがある」 (resembles Rai Kunimitsu in style but yields a little in dignity), so a mumei blade that reads as Rai yet falls just short of Kunimitsu is given to Kuninaga. They also say plainly that this is a convention to be questioned. Of one o-suriage katana the commentary sets out the problem: 「やや技術が劣る直刃出来の作をそれに当てている事が、果して妥当なりや否やという問題に始まる」 (it begins with the question of whether it is right to assign him suguha works of somewhat lesser technique), and for the present it follows tradition. When the evidence is strong they commit, as with a katana of Kenmu-period vigour for which 「来派の中でも国長に鑑するのが最も妥当と言える」 (within the Rai school, an attribution to Kuninaga is the most appropriate).
Signed work is rare, and the first generation's rarer still: 「殊に初代と鑑せられるものは稀れである」 (pieces judged first generation are especially rare). The judges separate the generations by the chisel. On a signed tanto of slightly wide body they note that, unlike the second generation's thicker and rounder strokes, the first-generation signature is 「二代のやや太鏨で丸味あるものとは異って、やや細鏨で角張るこころがある」 (cut in a somewhat fine chisel with an angular feeling), and conclude 「初代銘である」 (it is a first-generation signature). A katana preserved with an orikaeshi-mei and a small wakizashi are judged first generation by signature and manner. A first-generation tanto, they record, is slightly wide with a little *sori*, *itame* mixed with *masame*, a *suguha*-toned temper with *ko-gunome* and a tight *nioiguchi*, the *boshi* straight to a small round.
A small signed group sits uneasily in this frame and is kept here with that question attached. One tanto is wide and extended with a thin *kasane*, its *ko-notare* mixed with *gunome* over a standing *itame*, and the commentary observes that it is 「一見、初代信国に近似した出来口を示している」 (at first glance close to the first-generation Nobukuni). Another tanto departs from the Rai tradition with a temper based on *midare*. A signed katana breaks its wide *notare* into *tobiyaki* and *yubashiri*, praised as 「来国光に迫る技術が明示された優品」 (a fine piece showing a technique approaching Rai Kunimitsu). The published sources describe the second generation's short blades in just these terms, yet for these pieces they stop short of naming a generation.
For the collector Kuninaga is a scarce name whose signed work is especially few. He has no National Treasures. Two *tachi* are Important Cultural Properties, one held at Sakurayama Shrine. His standing otherwise rests on 56 blades in the Tokubetsu Juyo and Juyo tiers, one of them a Tokubetsu Juyo katana, nearly all of them o-suriage mumei attributions. The provenance is distinguished. A small wakizashi judged first generation was, its scabbard records, 「十代将軍家治の指料であったことがわかる」 (the sidearm of the tenth shogun Ieharu), presented by the Owari house. A mumei katana appraised by Hon'ami Koyu was 「雲州松江藩主松平治郷(不昧)の遺愛の一口」 (a treasured blade of Matsudaira Harusato, Fumai, lord of Matsue). A tanto is recorded as 「西条松平家伝来」 (handed down in the Saijo Matsudaira house). The attributed katana come to market from time to time and reward a patient collector; a signed first-generation piece is a genuinely rare encounter.
Kuninaga (國長) — Mainline · 1345-1350. Tokujū, Jūyō. The second-generation Kuninaga carries the name of Nakajima Rai, the Settsu branch of the Yamashiro Rai school founded by a pupil of Rai Kunitoshi who left Kyoto for Nakajima. The *Meikan* places the first generation about Gentoku at the close of Kamakura and the second about Shohei and Oan, and it is the second, working in the wide, large-pointed shape of the Enbun and Joji decades, whom the designated record here documents. The judges reach that division from the blades themselves. Of a signed wakizashi whose every feature belongs to Nanbokucho, they reason that a pupil of Kunitoshi could not have made it, and conclude 「この脇指は二代の作である」 (this wakizashi is the work of the second generation). Of a tachi wide in body with a large point, a fully Nanbokucho form, they write 「二代来国長と鑑るべきであろう」 (it should be judged the second-generation Rai Kuninaga).
His kantei is fixed in a sentence the commentary repeats: his work 「様式的には来国光や時に来国次に似るが、格調の面で聊か譲るところがある」 (resembles Rai Kunimitsu, and at times Rai Kunitsugu, in style, but yields a little in dignity). The *jigane* is the first sign of the distance. Over a packed *itame* or *ko-itame* that flows toward *masame* near the edge, the grain stands a little, with thick *ji-nie* and fine *chikei*, a more provincial surface than the tight, bright steel of Kyoto.
On that steel he lays a broad *chu-suguha* that does not stay plain. *Ko-notare* and *ko-gunome* break into it, *ashi* and *yo* run in, *ko-nie* settles along the edge, and *sunagashi* and, on the finest pieces, *kinsuji* play through the *ha*. One mumei katana is praised for 「刃縁上の湯走りや刃中の足・葉、金筋・砂流しなど刃境や刃中に表した豊富な働き」 (the abundant activity along and within the edge, the yubashiri, ashi and yo, kinsuji and sunagashi). The *boshi* closes straight to a *ko-maru*, often brushed with *hakikake*; on the broad late katana it runs up toward a *yakizume* tendency.
The published sources draw the line between the generations in temper: the first was the *suguha* hand, while 「二代にはむしろ直刃の作は少なく乱れたものが多い」 (in the second, suguha work is rather rare and irregular tempers are many). The signed pieces, they note, are mostly tanto and small wakizashi, 「その有銘の作は、短刀、小脇指に多く」, broad and a little extended with a thin *kasane*, the three-character mei cut below the *mekugi-ana*, and their carving 「彫物も簡素ながら上手である」 (simple but skilful). The mumei register is the o-suriage katana of Enbun and Joji form.
Two signed wakizashi from the Hisamatsu house of Iyo Matsuyama define his summit. Of the first the judges write that it is 「同作中のみならず同名中の白眉である」 (the finest not only among his works but among all smiths of the name), adding that the first generation, represented by a *tachi* in the collection of Eirin-ji, falls short of the second in technique. The second, a Tokubetsu Juyo of the large Nanbokucho shape, breaks in its upper half into *choji* mixed with *tobiyaki* of a *yubashiri*-like feeling until it becomes *hitatsura*, with a *nie-utsuri* standing strongly on the *ji*. The commentary calls it 「来派の作としては異色な出来口を示している」 (an idiom unusual for a Rai work) and 「資料的にも頗る貴重な作である」 (a piece of great documentary value), recording that it was 「伊予松山久松家に伝来した一口」 (handed down in the Hisamatsu house of Iyo Matsuyama).
Fujishiro rates him Jo-jo saku. He has no National Treasures and no Important Cultural Properties; his record is 13 blades in the Tokubetsu Juyo and Juyo tiers, one Tokubetsu Juyo among them. Signed examples are few, and the two Hisamatsu wakizashi are the pieces by which the name is measured. The mumei katana with their Hon'ami attributions reach the market from time to time, while a signed second-generation wakizashi in his irregular temper is a rare and legible document of the Rai manner carried into Settsu.
Other smiths
Echizen (越前) — Mainline · 1312-1317. Shodai Echizen Yasutsugu was born in Shimosaka-gō, Sakata District, Ōmi Province, where he styled himself Shimosaka Ichizaemon. He later moved to Echizen and entered the service of Yūki Hideyasu. In his early phase he signed "Higo Daijō Shimosaka," but between Keichō 10 and 11 (1605–1606) he was summoned to Edo, where he forged swords in the presence of both shoguns Ieyasu and Hidetada. In recognition of this distinction, he was granted the hollyhock crest (*aoi-mon*) and the character *yasu*, after which he adopted the name Yasutsugu. This direct patronage by the Tokugawa house placed him among the most politically elevated smiths of the early *shintō* period.
His forging is characteristically dense *itame-hada* mixed with *mokume*, exhibiting extremely fine *ji-nie* and well-entering *chikei*; overall the steel tends toward a dark tone, producing what is termed *Echizen-gane*. His *hamon* is typically based on a medium *suguha* or shallow *notare*, accompanied by linked *ko-gunome*; *ko-ashi* enter well, *nie* adheres thickly, and fine *kinsuji* and *sunagashi* appear in places. The *nioiguchi* frequently shows a *shizumi* tendency, lending a deep, savoury quality. His *bōshi* commonly rises in a *suguha* tone with a pointed tip in a *Jizō*-like manner, with vigorous *hakikake* and a long turnback. Notably, his finest works display a tightly forged *ko-itame* of excellent quality with a bright *nioiguchi*, departing from the more usual standing grain. His *horimono* are deeply cut and forceful, rendered in characteristic *kinai-bori*, with triad compositions of Fudō Myōō with the two *dōji* attendants appearing as a signature motif.
Shodai Yasutsugu occupies a foundational position in the Echizen tradition and among the official smiths of the Tokugawa shogunate. His works combine the powerful, dignified *sugata* of the Keichō era — wide *mihaba*, thick *kasane*, and elongated proportions — with a subdued depth of *nie* and surface activity that rewards close appreciation. His distinctive steel quality, intentional variation of tempering patterns, and superb sculptural carving together distinguish him as one of the preeminent smiths of early *shintō* swordmaking.
Ieyoshi (家能) — Mainline · 1469-1487. Smith of the Yamashiro Rai School.
Munenaga (宗長) — Mainline · 1394-1428. Smith of the Yamashiro Rai School.
Kuniyasu (國安) — Mainline · 1329-1331. Smith of the Yamashiro Rai School.
Kunizane (國眞) — Mainline · 1334-1370. Rai Kunizane is one of the smaller names of the Rai school of Yamashiro, transmitted in the swordbooks as a son or pupil of Rai Kunitoshi, the younger brother of Rai Kunimitsu and the elder brother of Rai Tomokuni, working in Kyoto from the close of the Kamakura period into the Nanbokuchō. His record is almost entirely a question of two faces, and the published sources state the genealogy itself with caution: the *Meikan* gives him the Shōwa era and lists separately a smith of the same name placed before Kenmu, while the commentary observes that the received descent appears strained in both its workmanship and its chronology, so that a first and a second generation must be assumed from the works themselves. He is, in the end, less a single documented hand than the connoisseurship convention by which a particular kind of refined Rai work has been preserved.
The characteristic Kunizane that a collector meets is the *ō-suriage*, *mumei* katana attributed to him from old times, and it is read first in the *jihada*. Over a well-forged *itame*, at times a tightly packed *ko-itame* mixing in *mokume* and flowing *nagare*, the grain tends to stand a little, thick *ji-nie* adheres in fine grains, *chikei* enter frequently, and on the *ji* a faint *nie-utsuri* or pale *utsuri* often rises. The published sources call this a steel that resembles Rai Kunimitsu yet, in their own words, is “similar to Rai Kunimitsu though falling somewhat short of him”[[c:1]], the standing grain and the quiet *nie-utsuri* marking the manner that carries the Rai *jigane* a step into the Nanbokuchō rather than holding to the bright, closely-packed Yamashiro *ji* of pure Rai.
Over that *jigane* he sets a *suguha*-toned line, broad or medium, into which *ko-chōji*, *ko-gunome* and a small *midare* enter. *Ashi* and *yō* work abundantly, *ko-nie* adheres well, the *habuchi* breaks into fine *hotsure* and at times a *nijūba* tendency, and *kinsuji* and *sunagashi* run through, the *nioiguchi* by turns tight and clearly bright. The *bōshi* runs straight to a small round, or enters *midare-komi* and sweeps with vigorous *hakikake*, on the more flamboyant pieces becoming pointed and flame-like. The decisive point of the attribution is one of degree, not of kind: the temper is the calm Rai register, but its *midare* appears in a smaller-patterned design than Kunimitsu's, and the published commentary turns that very observation into the rule, judging such a work to be “similar to Rai Kunimitsu though slightly lower in rank” and concluding that “within the group it is most appropriate to appraise it, as tradition has it, as the work of this smith”[[c:2]].
The other face is the signed work, and it is the rarer and more puzzling. Signed pieces are exceedingly few, chiefly *hira-zukuri* *wakizashi* and *tantō*, wide in *mihaba* and *sun-nobi* for their length, thin in *kasane* with a shallow *sori*, the typical Nanbokuchō shape, the three-character signature cut somewhat large below the *mekugi-ana*. Their forging is *itame* with *mokume*, flowing and slightly standing, with *ji-nie* well adhered, but their temper departs from the mainstream attribution: a *suguha* tone broken by *notare* and *ko-gunome*, the *nie* in places strongly thick, the edge running into *hotsure*, *uchi-noke*, a *kuichigai-ba* effect, *nijūba* and *yubashiri*. Several carry an “all-over” *hitatsura*-like temper that, in the published sources' phrase, shows “a burnt-looking manner approaching the workmanship of the Hasebe group”[[c:3]]. From this the commentary on the signed *tachi* and *wakizashi* concludes that “one is compelled to judge them works of the Nanbokuchō period”[[c:4]], and it is this gap between the calm mumei attributions and the flamboyant signed pieces that sustains the standing question of a first and a second generation of the name.
What sets the Kunizane attribution apart from its neighbours is exactly what the judges name, and they take care to draw it from his own work rather than from the comparand. He stands within the Rai school beside Rai Kunimitsu and Rai Kunitsugu, carrying the Yamashiro manner forward; his is the refined Rai *suguha* read as a step below Kunimitsu in rank and smaller in the pattern of its *midare*, the faint *nie-utsuri* on a slightly standing *itame* his recurring tell. One signed katana with a Hon'ami gold-inlay breaks instead into a *chōji-midare* mixed with *gunome*, the undulations tightly clustered and *muneyaki* intermingled, which the commentary reads as the Rai tradition of Kunimitsu and Kunitsugu carried with a forceful spirit; the *hitatsura*-leaning pieces, with *tobiyaki* and *yubashiri* gathering toward the *monouchi*, are where it locates his individuality. The attribution is therefore a careful one, made by stylistic level and bearing within the school rather than by a single inimitable trait.
For the collector he is an accessible Rai name with a quietly distinguished provenance. Fujishiro grades him Jō saku. He has no National Treasures and no Important Cultural Properties; his record runs entirely through the Jūyō rank, twenty-five blades in the Jūyō tier, most of them *ō-suriage* mumei katana bearing gold-inlaid Hon'ami attributions, the published sources calling several of these especially superior among works attributed to him and sound in both *ji* and *ha*. Signed examples are the prize and the scarcity, so few that the commentary on one Jūyō *wakizashi* calls it “exceedingly valuable material for understanding the workmanship of this so rarely signed smith”[[c:5]]. His blades carry good *nikuoki* and a documented descent through the daimyō houses, among them the Sakai of Maebashi and Himeji, one katana bestowed on Sakai Tadataka in 1745 as a gift marking the retirement of the eighth shogun Tokugawa Yoshimune and thereafter held by the family, with further pieces transmitted in the Nabeshima and Shimazu houses and examples now in the Ise Jingū Chōkokan, the Tokyo National Museum and the Tokyo Fuji Museum. Because all of his record sits in the tradeable tier, a Kunizane katana is not beyond reach in the way a Kunimitsu of the first rank would be; a signed piece, on the other hand, comes to light only seldom, a notable thing for a collector to encounter and a document of how the Rai school carried itself into the Nanbokuchō.
Noshin (能真) — Mainline · Early Muromachi. Smith of the Yamashiro Rai School.
Nobukane (信包) — Mainline · 1457-1460. Smith of the Yamashiro Rai School.
Kunisue (國末) — Mainline · 1352-1356. Smith of the Yamashiro Rai School.
Hisanobu (久信) — Mainline · 1304-1308. On a long-signed tachi dated Kagen 2 (1304) the smith cut his full name and personal title, Kuro-zaemon-no-jo Hisanobu, and that single inscription fixes much of what is known of him. Ryo Hisanobu, signing Ryo-Hisanobu, was the son of the founder of the Ryokai school of Yamashiro and the second generation of that line, working at the very end of the Kamakura period on the dated evidence of his surviving blades, the year-signatures Kagen, Tokuji and Engyo placing him almost level with his father at the turn of the fourteenth century. The Ryokai school stood among the recognized offshoots of the great Rai workshop of Kyoto, and the published sources describe Hisanobu as carrying his father's hand on with little change. He is rated Jo-jo saku in the reference texts, a high standing for so little-recorded a smith, and his work survives in a handful of designated blades, signed and attributed, by which his manner can be read.
His is the quiet Yamashiro suguha of the Ryokai line. Over a forging of itame or ko-itame that flows toward masame and stands a little open, the ji carries dust-fine ji-nie and the school's whitish shirake-utsuri, which on the slenderer blades rises in a straight band from the machi before spreading up the jigane. The temper is a calm chu- or hoso-suguha, or a suguha-cho mixing small ko-gunome with a few ko-choji and ko-midare, the nioiguchi tightening and clouding into urumi in places, with ko-ashi and yo entering, a faint fraying of hotsure along the habuchi and fine sunagashi, the boshi closing straight into a small ko-maru. The first Juyo tachi the published sources call an offering that well displays the characteristics of the Ryokai school, the phrase 「了戒一派の特色がよく表示された出来口」[[c:1]] standing as a fair summary of his hand.
The jigane is the foundation of the recognition. Across every one of his blades the whitish shirake-utsuri stands in the ji, the inherited Ryokai tell that separates the line from the Rai parent, in whose work it is essentially absent. The itame leans toward masame, the Yamato-ward drift of this Rai offshoot, so that the surface stands and flows where the packed Rai ji stays smooth, ji-nie clinging dust-fine and an occasional chikei running. In the ha the calm suguha shows minute work, ko-ashi and yo entering thickly on the best pieces, the nioiguchi clouding softly, an occasional tobiyaki or yubashiri drifting across, a little nijuba showing low on one kodachi. On his finest attributed tachi the published sources praise the abundant ashi and yo, the good nioiguchi and the finely worked ji together, judging it a particularly fine example among his attributed work with the words 「同工極め中にあって特に優品といえる」[[c:2]].
The small body of his designated work divides into two registers. The first is his rare signed survivals, ubu tachi and kodachi carrying a three-character Ryo-Hisanobu toward the mune above the mekugi-ana, and the one long-signed dated tachi giving the full personal name; one tachi is carved with bonji and suken on the omote and bonji and gomabashi on the ura, the late-Kamakura Kyoto manner. The published sources call the signed kodachi precious as one of the few in-mei works of this smith, ubu and well preserved, its hand recalling the father, 「作風は父了戒を想わせるような出来口」[[c:3]]. The second register is mumei blades attributed to him on the same reading, one an ubu mumei tachi of well-made ko-itame, one an osuriage mumei katana slightly high in the shinogi. Signed work is described again and again as extremely few, which is why his year-signed and dated pieces carry such documentary weight, one of them called of very high reference value as one of the scarce in-mei works of this smith, 「数少ない同工の有銘の作として資料価値は頗る高い」[[c:4]].
The kantei is drawn against two near neighbours. The first is Rai Kunitoshi, the parent of the line, against whom the published sources resolve one of his mumei katana directly: the ko-gunome, hotsure and other changes at the ha-border of his fine suguha read a degree quieter and lonelier than Kunitoshi, the calm narrow line still showing minute activity, the verdict 「来国俊に比してやや蕭然たるもの」[[c:5]], with the boshi running straight into a settled ko-maru, so that the Hisanobu attribution is correctly affirmed. The masame and shirake more marked, the nioiguchi tighter and the whole calmer, these are the points that part him from Rai. The second neighbour is the father himself, from whom Hisanobu is separated less by any feature than by the signature, since signed work of the son is rarer still; a plain Hisanobu suguha is at a glance easily taken for the father's, and a soft Rai Kunitoshi for either of them. His single most consequential blade is the dated tachi that, by giving his personal name, established his zokumyo as Kuro-zaemon and through it showed that an earlier nationally designated tachi, once read as the father's sole work, is in fact a joint work of father Ryokai and son Hisanobu.
Hisanobu has no National Treasures and no Important Cultural Properties of his own, and none of his recorded blades is locked permanently out of private hands; his standing is that of a scarce but genuinely collectable name. Five of his blades are on the official designation record, all at the Juyo tier, and the published sources lean on his year-dated work and on outside documents to fix his place, the Tokuji 3 naginata in the Tokugawa Art Museum carrying the inscription 「了戒子息久信作」 that confirms him as Ryokai's son. No provenance owners are recorded for his designated blades, whose whereabouts of record run to private collections across several prefectures. A signed Hisanobu, ubu and with its mei intact, is among the scarcer things a collector of late-Kamakura Yamashiro work could hope to encounter, coming to light only from time to time and prized as documentary evidence as much as for itself; a mumei tachi or katana attributed to him appears a little more readily, and it is on these, with their shirake-utsuri and clouding suguha read against the quieter Rai line, that his hand is most often met. The published sources close on one such mumei blade as a calm fine suguha that yet shows minute work, 「静閑な細直刃ながらも微細な働きをみせる」[[c:6]], a deep and savoured offering, which is as fair a verdict on the smith as on the blade.
Kunihide (國秀) — Mainline · 1345-1350. Of the works that survive under the name of Rai Kunihide, almost all that carry a genuine signature are spears. The published sources count only two such signed yari and have seen no securely signed tachi, so that the smith is known in the main through greatly shortened, unsigned katana later appraised to him. He stands among the rarest of the Rai hands of Yamashiro, transmitted as the son or disciple of Rai Kunitsugu, said to have taken the appellation Rai Hikotaro (来彦太郎), and placed by the reference works around the Jowa era (貞和) of the Nanbokucho period. The picture is complicated by a second smith of the same name whom the meikan assign to the close of Nanbokucho around the Shitoku era (至徳), and by a Kamakura-period Kunihide of the Awataguchi line; clarifying his manner and dividing the first generation from the second are named in the published record as questions for future study. He is, in short, a documented but lightly attested late-Rai master, recognized more by the company he keeps than by his own surviving signatures.
His characteristic hand departs from the plain Rai suguha. Over the temper line he keeps a suguha base, but breaks it: gunome enter, with choji and, on the broader katana, ko-choji and the occasional togariba (尖り刃), the midare in places tightening into a complex small pattern. Long, thick ashi reach into the ha, yo are mixed in, the nioi runs deep and the nie attaches thick, sometimes coarsening to a rough nie-kobore, with kinsuji and sunagashi throughout and, along the habuchi of the largest blades, uchinoke (打のけ) and small yubashiri (湯走り). The nioiguchi stays bright and clear, and the boshi runs straight into a ko-maru, brushed with hakikake (掃きかけ) and turning back only slightly. It is a hand that holds the Rai brightness and the Rai steel while carrying more disturbance in the edge than the school's quiet straight temper, and that added midare is what most distinguishes his katana from an ordinary Rai blade.
The jigane is the Rai inheritance kept intact. He forges an itame, on the finest blades a ko-itame, that tends to flow and on occasion to stand a little (肌立ち), with mokume mixed in; over it the ji-nie adheres thickly in fine particles and the chikei (地景) enter, fine and frequent. On the signed spears the jigane leans further toward masame and nagare and carries a nie-utsuri (沸映り), a faint reflection standing in the steel. This is the Kyoto jigane of the Rai school carried into the wide, extended Nanbokucho body, and on the unsigned katana it is precisely the combination of that refined, nie-laden itame with the bright, busier ha that the judges read as Rai before narrowing the attribution to Kunihide. The work is sound in both ji and ha, and the published sources call the strongest of these blades a particularly superior example among those appraised to him.
His surviving record divides cleanly into two kinds of object. The first is the signed yari, hira-sankaku (平三角) in section with a conspicuously long kerakubi in the Nanbokucho manner, a broad groove cut on the flat, and a large three-character signature on the tang. On these the masame-leaning jigane carries the nie-utsuri, the suguha breaks into ko-gunome with hotsure along the habuchi, and the nioiguchi is bright; the published sources stress that genuine signed work runs almost entirely to these spears and that, with so few extant, the signature itself is the prize, observing that a Nanbokucho yari is in any case scarce, that 「南北朝期の槍はごく少ない」[[c:1]] and that works by this maker are themselves rare. The second kind is the greatly shortened unsigned katana, wide in the body with a chu-kissaki carried long, sometimes an o-kissaki, the period plain in the shape; these make up the larger part of the designated record. The one signed tachi stands apart from both: it bears a finely chiseled two-character signature, Kunihide, set toward the mune, which as the published sources note carries 「一般の来物のように「来」の字を冠していない」[[c:2]], and on the strength of its wide, extended form it is appraised to the Rai Kunihide rather than to the Awataguchi homonym.
Within the school he is placed just below his master, and the distinction is drawn with unusual precision. A wide unsigned katana of his calls Rai Kunitsugu to mind at first sight, the working range so close that the resemblance is the starting point of the appraisal; but on close examination it is judged that 「一見、来国次を想わせるものがあるが、総体に格調の点で聡かそれに譲るところがあり」[[c:3]], and on that small remove in dignity (格調) the blade settles to Kunihide of the same lineage. His own affirmed traits carry the contrast: the suguha base broken by gunome (互の目) and choji (丁子), the bright nioiguchi, the hakikake boshi and the nie-laden itame are what set his katana apart, not any single missing feature, and the traditional attribution is found convincing on those positive terms. Reading the other way, because his securely signed work is almost all yari and no certain signed tachi survives, a plain Rai straight temper can in turn be mistaken for his, which is why the wide Nanbokucho sugata and the added midare matter so much to the judgment.
For a collector the arithmetic is stark and is best stated plainly. The whole of his designated record on the official rolls amounts to seven blades, all at the level of Juyo, with none yet raised to the Tokubetsu Juyo tier and none on the higher rolls of designated cultural property; he is rare rather than canonical, a connoisseur's name rather than a museum's. None of the seven carries a recorded line of provenance, so there is no daimyo roll to recite, and the genuine signed survivals, the two yari, are documentary anchors more than things likely to circulate. What a patient collector might realistically encounter is one of the shortened unsigned katana appraised to him, and even those come forward only rarely, a Rai attribution of real interest when one does. The published sources, noting that 「在銘の現存するものが少なく」[[c:4]] and that the division of the generations remains unsettled, make the point themselves: this is a Rai master glimpsed at the edge of the record, his hand surer than his biography, and an example bearing his name is among the quieter rewards of attention to the late Yamashiro tradition.
Kunimune (國宗) — Mainline · 1319-1321. Smith of the Yamashiro Rai School.
Kunitake (國武) — Mainline · 1319-1321. Smith of the Yamashiro Rai School.
Kuniyasu (國安) — Mainline · 1329-1331. Smith of the Yamashiro Rai School.
Mitsushige (光重) — Mainline · 1331-1360. Smith of the Yamashiro Rai School.
Naga (長) — Mainline · 1362-1368. Smith of the Yamashiro Rai School.
Tomokuni (倫國) — Mainline · 1334-1370. Rai Tomokuni is handed down as the son of Rai Kunitoshi and, on one account, the younger brother of Rai Kunizane, which sets him within the second great generation of the Yamashiro Rai school and makes him a near kinsman of Rai Kunimitsu. He is a minor master of that house, and the chief fact of his record is its scarcity. The published sources report no tachi under his name, only a handful of short tanto and small wakizashi, and even those are few, so that almost the whole of his designated body is mumei carried to him by old appraisal. From what survives the sources read two Tomokuni, an earlier hand in the circle of Kunitoshi and a second working in the Nanbokuchō period to whom most existing blades are assigned, and they ask whether that second smith is the Tomokuni recorded under the Bunna era of the old sword registers, leaving the question open to further study. He is thus less a documented individual than a name read off a small group of late Rai blades, and the interest of those blades lies in how they part from the rest of the school.
That parting is stated plainly. The published sources say his work differs somewhat from Kunitoshi[[c:1]], the mihaba broad, the kitae a ko-itame standing stronger than is usual among the school's makers, and the temper a notare-toned midareba in place of the calm suguha that is the Rai hallmark. Every one of his blades carries that notare base mixed with gunome, here and there small gunome, deep in nioi with the nie well applied, and into the habuchi run ashi and yo, kinsuji and sunagashi, with drifting yubashiri and detached tobiyaki, and muneyaki burning along the back. The nioiguchi is bright. The shape fixes the period at a glance, a wide, thin, sun-nobi hira-zukuri of shallow sori that the texts read at once as Nanbokuchō work, with the one o-suriage piece cut down to a wakizashi. His is a worked, nie-laden ha set on a Rai jigane, and that combination, more than any single feature, is what a Tomokuni blade looks like.
The jigane beneath the temper is what keeps the name. The kitae is an itame, on the finest tanto a ko-itame closely packed, with ji-nie adhering well and on one blade thick, chikei entering and a faint nie-utsuri standing on two of them. The steel neither whitens nor sinks as a northern jigane would; it holds the clear, nie-covered surface of Yamashiro work, and the published sources read the school in it directly. The boshi answers the disturbed ha, running in as a midare-komi or, on the broadest blade, sweeping straight with hakikake and pointing faintly before a long return, while the small ko-maru turns close the quieter pieces. The horimono keep the school habit, with gomabashi and a suken, koshi-bi and soe-hi, twin grooves and a katana-hi cut on these small blades. On each blade the judgment closes in the same terms, that the shape shows the Nanbokuchō period and the ji and ha show the Rai school, so that on one wakizashi the sources find the school's traits present and the Tomokuni attribution sound[[c:2]].
The rarity of his signed work is the spine of the scholarship. Because so little is signed, the published sources build the second-generation reading on style rather than on inscriptions, and the argument turns on the same departures that mark his hand. On one tanto they observe that the wide mihaba, the ko-itame jigane unusually strong for the school, and the notare-toned midare carry a strain that connects to Nobukuni[[c:3]], and reason from exactly this difference that a distinct second generation may stand behind the name, perhaps the Bunna-era Tomokuni of the registers. The form keeps to the small end of the koto range. The two signed pieces and four mumei among the Juyo blades are short tanto and wakizashi, never the tachi the older Rai masters are known by, and the one signed example wears a shu-mei rather than a chiselled signature. He is, in short, a smith reconstructed by appraisal, the most exactly knowable thing about him being the manner itself.
That manner places him at the school's Nanbokuchō edge, where the Rai line opens toward the Sōshū-influenced styles of the day, and his brother stands at the same edge. On the broadest blade the published sources turn to Rai Kunizane, handed down as Kunitoshi's pupil or as his son and Tomokuni's elder brother, and note that some of Kunizane's signed work takes on a hitatsura cast and comes near to Hasebe[[c:4]]. Tomokuni's own departure runs the same direction without going so far, his stronger hada and his notare midare reaching toward Nobukuni while the Rai ji holds him to Kyoto. What sets him apart within his own house is therefore positive and grounded in his blades: a kitae that stands where the school's lies flat, a midare where the school keeps suguha, and a nie-deki activity of kinsuji, sunagashi, tobiyaki and muneyaki richer than the quiet Rai temper. It is by these, not by any borrowed Soshu resemblance, that a wide Nanbokuchō blade is returned to Tomokuni rather than read past him.
Almost the whole of his record is mumei attributed to him by old appraisal, and his connoisseurship standing reflects a sound but modest hand, rated Jo-saku with a Toko Taikan valuation in the middle range. A small group of his blades has reached the Juyo rank, and beyond them a scatter of works survives only in the research record, two of them held by the Tokyo National Museum and the Kurokawa Research Institute while the rest stay in private hands, with no daimyo provenance preserved among them. The published sources single out the best of the Juyo pieces for the soundness of both ji and ha, calling the broadest wakizashi an elegantly finished sword without flaw in ji or ha[[c:5]]. A Tomokuni is not a National Treasure held forever beyond reach, but neither is it a sword that comes readily to market. The surviving body is small, most of it is held rather than traded, and a signed example is rarer still, so that a private blade by this name is among the less common things a collector of the Rai school could expect to encounter, met with patience rather than sought to order. For a student of how the Yamashiro line bent toward the new Nanbokuchō manner without leaving its own ji behind, his few wide, nie-laden blades are the place where that turn can actually be seen.
Arimitsu (有光) — Mainline · 1368-1375. Smith of the Yamashiro Rai School.
Hakusan (白山) — Mainline · 1387-1389. Smith of the Yamashiro Rai School.
Haruyuki (春行) — Mainline · 1394-1428. Smith of the Yamashiro Rai School.
Hidetsugu (秀次) — Mainline · 1334-1338. Smith of the Yamashiro Rai School.
Hisakuni (久國) — Mainline · 1319-1321. Smith of the Yamashiro Rai School.
Ieyoshi (家能) — Mainline · 1394-1428. Smith of the Yamashiro Rai School.
Kunihide (國秀) — Mainline · 1332-1334. Smith of the Yamashiro Rai School.
Kunihisa (國久) — Mainline · 1332-1334. Smith of the Yamashiro Rai School.
Kunitsugu (國次) — Mainline · 1312-1317. Smith of the Yamashiro Rai School.
Mitsusada (光定) — Mainline · 1387-1389. Smith of the Yamashiro Rai School.
Munemitsu (宗光) — Mainline · 1338-1342. Smith of the Yamashiro Rai School.
Muneto (宗遠) — Mainline · 1329-1331. Smith of the Yamashiro Rai School.
Muneyoshi (宗能) — Mainline · 1469-1487. Smith of the Yamashiro Rai School.
Naoyoshi (直能) — Mainline · 1504-1521. Smith of the Yamashiro Rai School.
Naoyoshi (直能) — Mainline · 1429-1441. Smith of the Yamashiro Rai School.
Naoyoshi (直能) — Mainline · 1532-1555. Smith of the Yamashiro Rai School.
Nobumasa (信正) — Mainline · 1345-1350. Smith of the Yamashiro Rai School.
Nobumasa (信正) — Mainline · 1390-1394. Smith of the Yamashiro Rai School.
Nobumasa (信正) — Mainline · 1492-1501. Smith of the Yamashiro Rai School.
Nobuyoshi (宣能) — Mainline · 1444-1449. Smith of the Yamashiro Rai School.
Nobuyuki (信行) — Mainline · 1394-1428. Smith of the Yamashiro Rai School.
Norikane (則兼) — Mainline · 1368-1375. Smith of the Yamashiro Rai School.
Norinaga (則永) — Mainline · 1299-1302. Smith of the Yamashiro Rai School.
Noriyoshi (徳能) — Mainline · 1429-1441. Smith of the Yamashiro Rai School.
Noriyoshi (徳能) — Mainline · 1492-1501. Smith of the Yamashiro Rai School.
Ryokai (了戒) — Mainline · 1308-1311. Smith of the Yamashiro Rai School.
Sadayoshi (定能) — Mainline · 1469-1487. Smith of the Yamashiro Rai School.
Sadayuki (定行) — Mainline · 1429-1441. Smith of the Yamashiro Rai School.
Shigeyoshi (重能) — Mainline · 1457-1460. Smith of the Yamashiro Rai School.
Tomotsuna (友綱) — Mainline · 1368-1375. Smith of the Yamashiro Rai School.
Tomotsuna (友綱) — Mainline · 1394-1428. Smith of the Yamashiro Rai School.
Tsuneyoshi (恒能) — Mainline · 1469-1487. Smith of the Yamashiro Rai School.
Yasumitsu (安光) — Mainline · 1441-1444. Smith of the Yamashiro Rai School.
Yoshisada (能定) — Mainline · 1394-1428. Smith of the Yamashiro Rai School.
Yoshisada (能定) — Mainline · 1444-1449. Smith of the Yamashiro Rai School.
Yoshitoshi (能世) — Mainline · 1469-1487. Smith of the Yamashiro Rai School.
Yoshitsugu (吉次) — Mainline · 1469-1487. Smith of the Yamashiro Rai School.
Yoshitsugu (能次) — Mainline · 1429-1441. Smith of the Yamashiro Rai School.
Yoshitsugu (能次) — Mainline · 1469-1487. Smith of the Yamashiro Rai School.
Yoshitsugu (能次) — Mainline · 1492-1501. Smith of the Yamashiro Rai School.
Yoshitsugu (能次) — Mainline · 1521-1528. Smith of the Yamashiro Rai School.
Yoshiyuki (吉行) — Mainline · 1381-1384. Smith of the Yamashiro Rai School.
Yoshizane (能眞) — Mainline · 1338-1342. Smith of the Yamashiro Rai School.
Yoshizane (能眞) — Mainline · 1429-1441. Smith of the Yamashiro Rai School.
Yoshizane (能眞) — Mainline · 1469-1487. Smith of the Yamashiro Rai School.
Yoshizane (能眞) — Mainline · 1521-1528. Smith of the Yamashiro Rai School.
Yukihide (行秀) — Mainline · 1394-1428. Smith of the Yamashiro Rai School.
Yukimune (行宗) — Mainline · 1469-1487. Smith of the Yamashiro Rai School.