New member and 1st tsuba

Well this is my first entry into Tsuba collecting and 1st post on the board. I am far away from owning a Nihonto katana so I am starting small :)A large iron late Edo (Mito Shoami circa 1750) octagonal tsuba of a dragon in the rain over stormy seas done in takazogan, takabori, and keibori. 8.16 cm x 7.67 cm x 3.8 mm. Purchased from Nihonto.US

Steven Gold

Welcome ?,

Nice start. Love Dragon tsuba of any kind.

Don't forget to sign your posts.

Mark G.

Steven,

And because you were deeply moved, your first reaction was to post in the Nihonto section and not in the Tosogu section

Ok, I'll move it

Edit to add: good one and well done

That dragon is a specific type of dragon. Do you know its' significance? Is it auspicious? John

Hi,

I don't know the significance of the dragon. Unfortunately I do not have any additional information other then what is listed. If anyone can add any input that would be greatly appreciated. I like the aesthetics which the primary reason for the purchase.

Steven

???? Oh! I actually know this one! Not the tsuba the dragon.

The most familiar type of Japanese dragon is the Tatsu or Ryu, which is a descendant of a primitive three-toed variety of Chinese dragon. Japanese dragons are traditionally associated more with the sea than rain. This is because Japan is less vulnerable to drought-related disasters as compared to China. Therefore they didn't feel the same need to pray to rain-releasing dragons.

The Ryu originated from Buddhist religion and is one of the four divine beasts from Japanese mythology (the other three being the phoenix, turtle and kirin. Kirin is the Japanese unicorn). It is frequently the emblem of the Emperor or the hero.

The Ryu rules water. There is a story of how Ryu (or Ryu-jin, the most well-known dragon in Japanese legend) summons a storm by howls, and then transforms into a tornado. The tornado is called "Tatsu-maki" in Japanese. Tatsu is the kanji (Japanese calligraphy) meaning "dragon". Maki means "roll".

Sui Riu is a rain-dragon, which when in pain causes

red rain, coloured by its blood.

Fuku Riu is the Japanese Dragon of Good Luck. Likely to be depicted as "ascending" since an ascending dragon is a sign of good luck in Eastern culture.

Thank you for that explanation

We recently had reason to research the combination of dragon menuki and phoenix (Ho-o) tsuba for our build, and came upon this

http://www.onmarkproductions.com/html/dragon.shtml

Seems a pretty decent explanation. Cheers