Kantei
A short blade with a gilt habaki, displayed on a light cloth, with the tang on the left.

Kakidai, via Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 3.0

Takaichi · Bunpō · Sadaoki

Life and times

Little is known about Sadamune: what there is, is the school, its dates and a line in a Meikan.

On this page
  1. The Hōshō school
  2. Sadamune
  3. A local tradition

The Hōshō school

  • It is one of the five schools of the Yamato tradition, the 大和伝 (Yamato-den), with Senjuin, Shikkake, Taima and Tegai.
  • Sadayoshi's signature, “Takaichi-gun jūnin” (resident of Takaichi district), places the school south of the Nara basin, in present-day Kashihara.
  • The signatures of the school bear dates from the late Kamakura period: from the Bunpō (1317–1318), Genkō (1321–1323) and Karyaku (1326–1328) eras. The names begin with Sada: Sadayoshi, Sadakiyo, Sadaoki, Sadamitsu.
  • The school remains active in the Nanbokuchō and declines with the Muromachi period; after it come the blades called 末保昌 (Sue-Hōshō).

Sadamune

  • According to tradition, the founder of the school was Kunimitsu, around the Kōan era (1278–1288), of whom no work survives; that is why his son and pupil Sadamune, active around the Bunpō era (1317), is held to be the effective founder.
  • His full name, Hōshō Gorō Sadamune, and his signature, 保昌貞宗 (Hōshō Sadamune), would make Hōshō a surname. With Sadayoshi, he is one of the two most celebrated smiths of the school. His dates of birth and death are not known.
  • The NBTHK records that the Meikan gives Sadaoki, active around the Gentoku era (1329–1331), as the son of Sadamune, in Sadayoshi's line. It is an indirect piece of information, but it places Sadamune one generation earlier.

A local tradition

It is said that the Hōshō smiths used the water of the Soga shrine, near today's Masuga station, in Nara.