Recommended Reading

This list will continue to expand...

Popular Sources on Classical Martial Arts

Of course the works of Ellis Amdur, who heads a line of Araki-ryu. Check out Kogen Budo for more of his and others' writing on classical martial traditions in practice. 

Good reads for a general introduction to the study of classical traditions would be Diane Skoss' Koryu Books series. These bring the work of a number of current martial researchers and some scholars together in one place.

Scholarly Research 

Scholarship on Japanese warrior culture has expanded considerably over the years, with many new insights developed, some of it made available to the non-specialist reader.  More often than not these days, my reading list is more academic work than "martial arts research."

Accessible versions of some doctoral theses are out there and in some cases more focussed on overall martial culture, even specific schools, than in general historical work. 

To start, I would suggest tracking the work of the following four scholars down before going further. They should set the scene, so to speak, and provide much needed perspective on the world in which the Japanese martial tradition arose. 

1. RP Dore's Education in Tokugawa Japan

2. The 1998 doctoral thesis of the late John M Rogers The Development of the Military Profession in Tokugawa Japan. 

3.The late Dr. Cameron Hurst's Armed Martial Arts of Japan.

4. The works of Dr. Alexander Bennett:   Kendo: Culture of the Sword, in particular.

Also read Musui's Story. 

Additionally the following:

The works of Dr. Karl Friday:

Legacies of the Sword: the Kashima-Shinryu and Samurai Martial Culture.

This article at Budo Japan. Dr. Friday has various articles addressing and re-assessing Japanese warrior culture in light of ongoing scholarly research and everything he writes has relevance. 

The works of Dr David A Hall: 

Encyclopedia of Japanese Martial Arts

The Buddhist Goddess Marishiten: A Study of the Evolution and Impact of her Cult on the Japanese Warrior. 

The price is now exorbitant. Individual chapters can be obtained from Brill. Especially relevant material appears in his chapter Marishiten: Buddhist Influences on Combative Behavior in Koryu Bujutsu and his article Pilgrimage and Practice: The Body, Speech, and Mind Interface Between the Japanese Warrior and Religious Ritual.

The works of Steven Trenson:

Trenson writes on esoteric Buddhism, and in particular his articles Cutting Serpents: Esoteric Buddhist Dimensions of the Classical Martial Art of Drawing the Sword and Buddhism and Martial Arts in Premodern Japan: New Observations from a Religious Historical Perspective are must reads.

Trenson also translated Muso Jikiden Eishin Ryu: The Iai Forms and Oral Traditions of the Yamauchi Branch.

These works give insight into the spiritual world view of the pre-modern warrior vis-a-vis the mentality necessary when taking life in order to avoid sin (in the medieval Buddhist context) and "falling into hell." And how that approach was later transformed and esotericized after taking life ceased to be a realistic concern for the early modern warrior class, and the symbolics shifted.

Beyond these are some great sources for background, such as Michael Wert's Samurai: a Concise History and the work of Thomas Conlan.

The works of Dr. Constantine Vaporis:

Tour of Duty is particularly good to get a sense of the daily life of the warrior stationed at Edo, including their guard and law enforcement responsibilities, specifically touching on some martial matters. 

The Samurai Encyclopedia  which *may* be a condensed - and more affordable - version of this one. I haven't seen the latter yet.

Original Enlightenment and the Transformation of Medieval Japanese Buddhism

This book by Jacqueline Stone is important to understanding the medieval and early modern Japanese approach to the concept of original enlightenment, which undergirds some of the gokui of some of the martial traditions of the times.  

Musashi:

Translated works of swordsman have been available for a long time. Two translations - by practitioners and scholars - that I continually revisit are:

The Complete Musashi the above-mentioned Dr. Alex Bennett's translation of Professor Takashi Uozumi's most recent research on the famed swordsman-artist's oeuvre. Corrections of prior translations from later discovered original documents are part of this work.

and

The Five Rings by Meiji University's David K Groff, also a practitioner of a line of Musashi's swordsmanship.

Groff's translation is my current favorite. Very nuts-and-bolts, no nonsense, accessible. I've always liked the direct simplicity of Musashi's writing and his critique of the aestheticized, commercialized, and philosophizing of the martial way in his day (which continued unabated since that time, and in light of some of the historical writing above, isn't much different from today). 

Musashi addresses combative realities as a whole, not just with swords, in a practical way that is reflected in the above translations.