a means of acquiring status. Lacking scholarly pretensions, rural martial
artists emphasized mastery of technique and physical prowess, which they
tested in competitive matches. In the early 1800s, when rural-trained fencers
finally appeared in Edo (modern Tokyo), they easily defeated men of samu-
rai status who had been trained in Confucian theory (or Zen), ceremonial
decorum, and prearranged pattern exercises (kata). Thereafter established
martial art lineages that had emphasized theory or mental training became
subjects of ridicule, while new lineages that taught competition (uchikomi
keiko [157]) flourished. The abandonment of theory accelerated with the
ever more frequent arrival of foreign ships. Suddenly practical application
(jitsuyô [158]) became more important than mental training or moral de-
velopment. The Tokugawa government gave its stamp of approval to this
change when it decreed that competition alone would be taught at Kôbusho
[159], the military training school it established in 1856.
Kubota Seion [160] (1791–1866), one of the directors of the Kôbusho,
amply illustrates late Tokugawa attitudes toward religious influences on
martial arts. Kubota authored more than a hundred treatises on all aspects
of military strategy and martial arts. He edited and wrote the preface for
Bukyô zensho[161] (Complete Works on Military Education, five volumes)
published by the Kôbusho in 1860. He is credited with having trained more
than three thousand samurai soldiers. More than any other writer, he can
be seen as representing the prevailing military views of government officials.
According to Kubota, any martial art instructor who said that the founder
of his lineage was initiated into religious secrets, or had learned his skills
through an inspirational dream, or had been taught by mountain demons
(tengu [162]), or had mastered his art through Zen training was simply a
liar preying on the religious sentiments of gullible students.
Of course, conventional morality and its religious framework was too
much a part of martial arts (and of everyday life) to be so easily abandoned.
Many martial artists persisted in religious practices and mental training. Of
these traditionalists, none became better known than Yamaoka Tesshû [163]
(1836–1888). Yamaoka gained fame for his heroism during the brief civil war
of 1868 that overthrew the Tokugawa regime and for his political role in the
new Meiji government, first as a councilor and later as one of the emperor’s
chamberlains. A natural athlete, in 1856 Yamaoka became an assistant fenc-
ing instructor at the Kôbusho. His approach to martial training changed com-
pletely, however, when in 1863 he lost a match to Asari Yoshiaki [164], the
head of the same Nakanishi lineage of fencing mentioned above. Yamaoka
became Asari’s student, and at Asari’s urging undertook an intense regimen
of meditation practice under the guidance of several prominent Zen teachers.
Yamaoka continued his training for the next seventeen years until, in 1880,
he attained certification both in Zen and in the Nakanishi lineage. By that496 Religion and Spiritual Development: Japan