And Now For Something Completely Different - What Characters Are On Heianjo Tsuba?

[rkg]

Hi,

 

Does anybody have a link to or an article that provides descriptions for those goofy characters you seen Heianjo/other group pieces?  You know, like these:

 

 

They don't seem to be kanji (at least none of the tools I have recognize them), they don't look like sanskrit, so what are they?

 

I thought I had seen a table or an article somewhere in the distant past about these, but I can't find it now.

 

Any help appreciated

 

Thanks,

rkg

(Richard George)

 

[SteveM]

Stylized kanji characters, usually made to look like ancient Chinese seals. (Actually its often referred to as "seal script"). The one you posted is the seal script version of the character "本".  

[ROKUJURO]

TENSHO    http://www.beyondcalligraphy.com/seal_script.html

[rkg]

Steve,

 

Thanks for the hint!  I downloaded Markus's seal script book, and... its still confusing - for example, Markus's book has "hon" as being something completely different - is there more than one set of these characters?

 

 

Best,

rkg

(Richard George)

[SteveM]

As a handwritten script there will be variations. There are a few varieties of seal script in font libraries nowadays (tenshotai, insōtai, kissōtai, kointai). Strictly speaking, the bottom one doesn't look like tenshotai, but the character is most definitly 本.  

 

The top one on your post has an additional horizontal line on top, so I'm open to arguments that this is actually another character other than 本, but to me it looks like a stylistic variation. Having the whole thing to look at in its context might help remove any doubts. You don't see any similarity between the top character you posted and the one below? 

[John A Stuart]

The first seems to be 朱 to me. John

BTW, Steve's 本 looks like the second.