Miyamoto Musashi Audiobooks

Undefeated in 62 duels, Musashi set it all down in The Complete Book of Five Rings

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Who is Miyamoto Musashi?

Miyamoto Musashi, born around 1583 and dead by June 1645, was a Japanese swordsman, strategist, artist and writer whose legend rests on a unique double-bladed style and an undefeated record across 62 duels. Japan reveres him as a kensei – a sword saint – and he founded the Niten Ichi-ryu school of swordsmanship. He is believed to have been a friend of Mizuno Katsunari, a Tokugawa shogunate general, fighting alongside him at the Battle of Sekigahara, the Siege of Osaka and the Shimabara Rebellion.

Only in his final years did Musashi set down what he knew. The Book of Five Rings addresses his martial art in concrete terms – the character of his school and its wider significance – while Dokkodo, The Path of Aloneness, compresses his life’s philosophy into a few aphoristic sentences. Both documents were bequeathed to Terao Magonojo, his most important student, seven days before his death. The Miyamoto Musashi Budokan training centre in Okayama Prefecture now stands in his honour.

Miyamoto Musashi in audiobooks

Strategy classics have found a second life in audio, and Musashi’s is the original article. The Complete Book of Five Rings gives listeners the swordsman’s teaching entire: concrete, unsentimental instruction from a man who tested every idea in 62 duels and lost none. It is a text of short, deliberate statements rather than flowing narrative, which suits the format well – a passage absorbed on the commute can be turned over for the rest of the day. UK listeners who arrive for the samurai legend tend to stay for the discipline: a philosophy of practice, timing and self-command that travels far beyond the duelling ground.