Shuriken Blog 1

I’ve decided to spread information about shuriken through a blog. I know this is going to get stolen and abused, like many of my photos of my collection have, but hopefully people who want true knowledge will use this properly. Since secrets-of-shuriken is down this will probably be the best, and only accurate source of information about shuriken. I’ll post on on variety of shuriken whenever I feel like it basically, maybe make a video about it too, I’m not too sure. Today I’ll start with the word shuriken itself and maybe cover one variety.
Shuriken are part of a group of weapons called totekibuki 投擲武器, meaning objects thrown at enemies. The first usage of totekibuki in text as a weapon was in the Heike Monogatari and Gikeiki which recorded soldiers using ishinagejutsu 石投げ術 which is the throwing of stones. Ishinagejutsu later came to be called 礫 meaning pebbles, though the rocks used were actually 4.5 cm across and nearly 1 cm thick, later on the stones used were actually iron stone and called tetsutsubute 鉄礫. These arts formed the basis of throwing technique but the thrown items were still crude and unrefined.The next step in the evolution of shuriken would come from the oldest of Japanese martial arts, kyuujutsu 弓術 , the use of bow and arrow. When a bow was broken the bowman would throw his arrows at the enemy, but there is not enough power behind the arrows to do much damage. This gave rise to the uchine 打根, which means striking source. Other terms for uchine are futoya 太矢, meaning big arrow or 投矢 nageya which means throwing arrow, also the term tetsukiya 手突矢 was used meaning hand thrust arrow. Negishi ryu states this is the mother of shuriken, while the father is uchimono. Uchimono, 打ち物, are any daggers or swords thrown as a weapon, basically the first tantogata shuriken, though they could be swords of any size as recorded in the Jouzan Kidan and Osaka Gunki. These are the seeds that lead us to what we now know as shuriken.
The word shuriken is usually written 手裏剣 hand, inside, sword. This meaning implies anything blade capable of being hidden in the hand is a shuriken. The first record of this usage was in the Hiyori no Ki, which describes the Gosannen no Eki, or Later Three Year war(though it actually lasted 4). The text describes “shuriken ni utsu” which means strike with a shuriken. In Japanese generally it’s disrespectful to say throw shuriken, meaning to use the term nage from the verb nageru, to throw. Normally we say uchi, meaning to strike, it implies a different ideology to the attack. The alternate writing method could be 手理剣 hand justice sword、手利剣 hand benefit sword、修理剣 cultivate justice sword 、手離剣 hand released blade(this is used in Mouen Ryu Shuriken), 修利剣 cultivate benefits sword, and 四 寸鉄刀 4 sun iron sword all still read as shuriken. Another term used was shiriken, 尻剣, which meant butt sword. Of course there were other words that didn’t have the similar pronunciation such as onken 穏剣 unseen or not present sword also pronounced onken is 隠剣 meaning hidden sword, anken 暗剣 meaning dark sword, daken 打剣　meaning striking sword, touken 投剣 meaning throwing sword, gekiken 撃剣 meaning striking sword, fusatsuken 不殺剣 which is very interesting because it describes shuriken as non-killing sword. Also 三不過剣 sanbukaken which is three no passing swords, I don’t know exactly what that means.
This took a little longer than expected to write. I assume I’ll also get an account at blogspot or some other thing like wordpress and share this information. Please though if you want to use this ask me. There was a lot of research put into this and if you want me to continue sharing this information I would prefer it if we kept it out of the hands of frauds. The truth is as dangerous as it is helpful.