Historical archive
Miyamoto Musashi — The Book of Five Rings
Written in a cave near Kumamoto at the end of a life of duels: four passages from the Water Scroll, translated by us.
五輪書 · Date: 1643–1645
The story of the text
According to the tradition recorded in Japanese sources, Musashi began the text in 1643 in the Reigandō cave, at the Unganzen-ji temple west of Kumamoto, and finished it shortly before his death in 1645. He called it simply “the five scrolls”: Earth, Water, Fire, Wind and Void. The autograph is lost; we read it through copies.
The Water Scroll is the technical heart of the book: how to look, how to hold the sword, how to train. It reads less like mysticism than like a coach’s notebook.
Source and rights
Original Japanese (1645): public domain. Japanese text as given in printed editions based on the early copies; spelling lightly normalised. Translations: WABUKAN. No modern copyrighted translation was used.
Passages: original and our translation
目の付様は、大きに広く付くる目なり。観見二つの事、観の目つよく、見の目よわく、遠き所を近く見、近き所を遠く見る事、兵法の専也。Set your gaze wide and large. There are two kinds of seeing, kan and ken: make the eye that perceives (kan) strong and the eye that merely looks (ken) weak. To see far things as if near and near things as if far is the essence of strategy.
Coaches today call it “soft focus”: watch the whole body, not the weapon.
敵の太刀を知り、聊かも敵の太刀を見ずと云ふ事、兵法の大事也。To know the enemy’s sword without looking at it in the least: that is the great matter of strategy.
今日は昨日の我に勝ち、あすは下手に勝ち、後は上手に勝つと思ひThink: today I beat the self of yesterday; tomorrow I beat those below me; later I beat those above me.
The order matters: first yourself, then weaker partners, only then stronger ones.
千日の稽古を鍛とし、万日の稽古を錬とす。能々吟味有るべきもの也。A thousand days of practice is called forging; ten thousand days of practice is called refining. Examine this well.
1,000 days is about three years; 10,000 days about 27. 鍛 and 錬 are both smith’s words.
Related
Sources
- 五輪書 — Wikipedia (ja) — ja.wikipedia.org
- The Book of Five Rings — Wikipedia — en.wikipedia.org
- Miyamoto Musashi, Gorin no sho — original text — www.miyamoto-musashi.org
Cite / use this content
You may quote and share this page with a link to WABUKAN. Suggested citation:
WABUKAN 和武館, «Miyamoto Musashi — The Book of Five Rings», https://wabukan.com/texto-gorin-no-sho (accessed 2026-10-30).
Translations on this page are by WABUKAN unless stated otherwise.