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Muramasa村正

The oldest extant dated work of the name is of Bunki 1 (1501), signed Uemon-no-jo Muramasa (右衛門尉村正); from that anchor the published sources set the scheme of the name. Muramasa, the NBTHK writes, was the representative swordsmith of Ise Province in the late Muromachi period, resident at Kuwana, and the accepted reading recurs across the designation records: "the common view takes Bunki as the first generation, Tenbun as the second and Tensho as the third, and among them the one held to be the second is the most skilled, his works survive in the greatest number, and his signature characters are moreover fluent and skillful" (最も技術が優れ). Treated here is that second master, the Tenbun-era Muramasa, forty-one designated works on record; of one katana the judges write that "the Muramasa most widely known to the world as the finest of the line is this second generation" (最も上手で世に知られている村正はこれである). The old tale that he studied under Masamune the same sources reject as an unfounded tradition (不当); one text adds that no firm division of the generations is settled, and the older commentary counts Eisho together with Tenbun in the second master's span. First among his marks the sources place the matched temper. "The point at which the hamon of the omote and the ura align conspicuously is the characteristic of Muramasa" (表裏の刃文が目立って揃うところが村正の特色であり), one note states, "and the box-shaped hamon, and the point that the valleys of the midare come close to the cutting edge, are likewise things to see in this smith" (箱がかった刃文や、乱れの谷が刃先に近くなる点も同工の見どころである). His standard hamon is a midare of *gunome* and *notare* mixed with box-shaped elements, compound (*fukushiki*) *gunome*, pointed *togariba* and *yamagata* figures; the heads of the midare split, and the valleys press down toward the edge. The *nioiguchi* tightens, the *ko-nie* patchy, in *mura*, at times with a subdued cast; *sunagashi* runs frequently. The *boshi* is *midare-komi* or *sugu* with *ko-maru*, often swept with *hakikake* and pointed in feeling, the return deep. The forms that carry it are above all the hira-zukuri *tanto* and *sunnobi* ko-wakizashi with *mitsu-mune*, wide in *mihaba* and extended in length, the *sori* shallow; a smaller compact group has *uchi-zori*, and his *katana* are short, strongly *saki-zori* *uchigatana*. The *jigane* is *itame* mixed with flowing and *masame*-inclined grain, standing somewhat, with *ji-nie*, and often shows the whitish cast the descriptions repeatedly note, at times a faint *shirake-utsuri*. Beneath it sits the nakago: *ubu*, narrowing through its lower half into the fish-belly form the texts call *tanago-bara*, which "becomes especially pronounced from the second generation" (たなご腹も二代から殊に著しくなる), and bearing the large two-character mei cut with a thick chisel (太鏨), whose fluent, forceful strokes are themselves a mark of the second master; rare pieces carry the long signature Seishu Kuwana ju Muramasa saku (勢州桑名住村正作). Forty of the forty-one designated works are signed. The single *mumei* blade is the wakizashi styled Ageha (揚羽), read as a signature rubbed away long ago, with a tradition that it came to Hon'ami Kotoku as his *sashiryo*; one wakizashi keeps its faint two characters as a *soko-mei*, the ura gold inlay a title inscription of Okubo Tadahiro, not an attribution; and one *tanto* bears a later-added gold *tanzaku* reading Mukoku (夢告). Beside this flamboyant rule the corpus records a quiet register, *tanto* in medium or narrow suguha, of which the judges write that "this is the kind that aimed at works of the Rai school and the like, and it succeeds; now and then this occurs in his work" (来派の作などをねらったもので成功しており、間々同作にはこれがある); on *katana* it appears as large *gunome* and box-shaped figures at the base under a suguha-toned upper half, the two *yakiba* deliberately differing. A smaller register leans toward *hitatsura*, *tobiyaki* and temper along the back thickening until the blade reads as *hitatsura* in manner, called rare in his work by one text, a manner seen from time to time by another. There is also a corpus of spears, su-yari, omi-no-yari and the rare katakama-jumonji form, seven of the forty-one; the sources conclude that "he excelled also in the making of spears" (槍の製作にも長じていた); of one large-bodied example they write that it "should assuredly be called a celebrated spear" (蓋し名槍と称すべきである). A *katana* made jointly with Toshitsugu and Toshihiro also survives, Toshitsugu held an Odawara Soshu smith of about Kyoroku, prized by the judges for its documentary value. The record is unusually explicit about the company in which he is judged. "At first sight it can be confused with Sue-Seki works of the Kanesada sort" (一見すると末関の兼定等に紛れる), the notes say, elsewhere naming Kaneshiba; they find a likeness to the Shimada smiths, and of Heianjo Nagayoshi in Kyoto the judgment sharpens to "extremely close" (平安城長吉と酷似する), some relationship between the two being presumed. What parts him from all of these, in the judges' own listing, is the matched omote and ura, the box-shaped figures, the valleys pressing to the edge, the tight nioiguchi with its patchy nie, and the tanago-bara nakago under the thick-chisel mei. Within the school, Masashige and Masazane work in the same manner, and the nakago decides once more: the nakago-mune is cut angular on Muramasa where Masashige rounds it with full flesh. *Hitatsura* remains an occasional flourish over the one matched midare, never the rule of his work. Muramasa is rated Jo-jo saku in Fujishiro's grading; the second generation's designated record is forty-one works, all Juyo Token; the register holds no National Treasures and no Important Cultural Properties, so nothing of his is permanently sealed away. History thinned the signatures on its own. From the Edo period onward, the sources record, "legends circulated that the blades brought calamity upon the Tokugawa house, or that they would curse their owners, and for this reason many were rendered unsigned" (徳川家に祟るとか、持主に祟るなど云う伝説があって、その為に無銘となったものが多い), so that signed katana in particular are comparatively rare today. On the fate of the name the texts divide, some stating that after Tensho "the name lapsed, having met, it may be, the disfavor of the Tokugawa shogunal house" (徳川将軍家の忌避にふれてか名跡が絶えている), others that "the same signature continued in succession into the Shinto era" (同銘が相継ぎ新刀に及んでいる). No museum or shrine holding is recorded against his blades and no denrai roll attaches to them; on the record they have moved among private hands. A second-generation Muramasa, ubu and signed with the thick-chisel two characters over the tanago-bara nakago, comes to market only rarely, and the legend that effaced so many signatures has only added to the call for those that remain.

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