Ancient Inscription On Sword

[Carlo Giuseppe Tacchini]

Sorry to bother but this might be of great interest to me. It seems this sword has been hunearthed in Japan and bearing the inscription "100 times fold". I'm skeptic but the inscription is too tempting. So here I am with a chinese text regarding a possibly Japanese chokuto.

 

Might anybody give me some translation of any part of what is hereunder ? Info about the blade welcomed as well of course even if she seems familiar to me...

God bless :

[John A Stuart]

I tried;

中平五月丙午造作文刀頁練清釖上(16)(17)宿下辟不

John

[Peter Bleed]

Not sure of the inscription, but I really doubt that this blade will survive another polish.

Peter

[Bugyotsuji]

Can you provide the original source, Carlo? Perhaps the Chinese explanation will tell us more.

[SteveM]

You can find the sword here

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T%C5%8Ddaijiyama_Sword

and you can see it if you look at the Japanese entry for the above page

https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%9D%B1%E5%A4%A7%E5%AF%BA%E5%B1%B1%E5%8F%A4%E5%A2%B3

 

I would say the interpretation of the writing on the sword is still the subject of research, so I wouldn't take the wikipedia entry as the definitive definition. 

 

Some discussion here too, in the middle of the following page. These two historians are doing a word-by-word analysis of the inscription. I should say that they are speculating on the various meanings of each kanji: for example the first two kanji 中平 likely refers to the Chinese era name (see below), but the date has been obliterated, perhaps deliberately. So the scholars are speculating on why that occurred, and that perhaps the reading of 中平 with the following 五月 gives a clue. The thinking is that the pronunciation of these characters together might have some alternative, political meaning, rather than just being simple date. Likewise, 百 they speculate to mean a location name, rather than the number of times the steel was folded. Anyway, if you are keen to have a try, you can find the discussion here (Japanese only).

http://f-kowbow.com/ron/lekishi23/lekishi23.htm

 

https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E4%B8%AD%E5%B9%B3

 

I should say the consensus is that the sword was made in China and brought to, or gifted to Japan/Wa.

[John A Stuart]

What it boils down to, is that it is a magical formula for calling upon heavenly strengths (horse of fire and made under a certain star) to make it special, no? John

[SteveM]

Hmmm - the scholars don't mention that. They are discussing whether some of the kanji were deliberately removed, and if so, why, and what meaning the remaining kanji had for the owners. Like I said, it seems they prefer to place the sword and the inscription in its historical context, and so they are leaning towards a political interpretation rather than a mystical one. 

[Carlo Giuseppe Tacchini]

Steve, you nailed it, thanks.

 

It took quite a few years but I finally have pictorial evidences of what I didn't find on due time when ​I wrote in my essay

 

Quote...

"A sword dated to this period and similar to the one in fig. 2 bears extremely important inscriptions showing Chinese characters used to write at least a few Japanese words. This linguistic evidence is still highly debated and need further studies. This blade is identical to continental specimen and might be an imported one with inscriptions added later. Another possibility is that a Korean immigrant might have made this sword as Korean linguistic elements are also found in the same inscription15. 

​... unquote.

 

Seems that nothing has improved about the meaning of the inscription from then. I've now a better starting point.

 

Many thanks to everybody. I'll update this thread if anything more definitive and academic would pop up.