TOJUTSU or KENJUTSU

taken from http://www.uoguelph.ca/~kataylor/94jjsa.htm

A. *Technically* a "ken" and a "to" are different things (the former, a twin-edged straight blade, the latter a single-edged curved or straight one), but in practical usage Japanese really doesn't distinguish the two. One reason it doesn't, probably has to do with the fact that the Japanese stopped making or using tsurugi (the native Japanese reading for the character "ken") more than a thousand years ago. Words referring literally or metaphorically to sword usage employ "ken" and "to" pretty much interchangably. So do names for sword styles and techniques; they also throw "tachi" and "ha" [blade] into this mix, even though these too are *technically* different things.

The main reason that "kenjutsu" rather than "tojutsu" or "toho" won out as the standard appellation for swordsmanship is probably mostly aesthetic. First, "ken" is a much more attractive character than "to". Second, a katana is essentially a utilitarian device--a weapon--whereas a tsurugi has deeper and more spiritual (and mystical) connotations. Tsurugi were used by the divinities to create and pacify Japan; katana were and are used by men to fight with. In other words, "kenjutsu" and "kendo" are more poetic--both visually and connotatively--than "tojutsu".

(The interesting exception to this characterization is the use of "ken" or "to" in reference to wooden swords: "bokken" is usually held to be a less classy word than "bokuto". The probable reason here, though, is phonetic and peculiar to these particular compounds: Japanese aesthetics usually holds double consonant sounds to be rougher and less refined than alternative words or pronouciations--cf. "Nippon" vs. "Nihon", or "yappari" vs. "yahari".)

Standardization, of course, is an interesting phenomenon. As I've noted repeatedly (here and elsewhere), there really WAS none prior to modern times. In Tokugawa period and earlier sources swordsmanship is referred to as "kenjutsu," "kendo," "kenpo," "hyoho" (also read as "heiho"), "tojutsu," "toho," "gekken," "gekishi no jutsu," and several other names, with no apparent distinction of form or content. (The prevailing term during the Tokugawa period seems to have been "hyoho" ["heiho"], BTW.) It's only in this century that "kenjutsu" and "kendo" have emerged as the more-or-less standard terms.

Standardization of *orthography* for terms is even more complicated, since the whole idea of "correct spelling" seems to have been a Western import. Certainly medieval and early Tokugawa period Japanese paid little attention to consistency in their choice of characters to write words. They seem to have conceptualized words--even borrowed Chinese compounds--primarily in terms of sounds, rather than written characters, and were fascinated by the implications of (what Western linguistics would call) homophones. Thus while to modern (Western-style) linguists, a sound written with different characters represents entirely different words, premodern Japanese saw them all as somehow related--intertwined. They saw, for example, a relationship between "kami" (meaning "divinity"), "kami" (meaning "up"), "kami" (meaning "paper"), and "kami" (meaning "governor"); in the traditional Japanese view, these are all variations of the same word, rather than different words that are pronounced similarly--as Western linguistic thinking would describe them. The same thinking was applied to Chinese-borrowed words and characters--the various characters used to write "shin" ("heart," "divine," "true," "center," "straight," "wick," etc.), for example. Even more interesting in this regard is the way Chinese-borrowed words could be conflated with native Japanese ones--the most interesting example in the context of this forum is the character "bu" (martial), which the premodern Japanese associated with the native Japanese word "musuBU" ("to give birth," "to bring forth," "to bring together")...

Karl Friday, University of Georgia, USA

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