Ninja History

[Disciple]

The Ninja arts originated in ancient China, then traveled to Japan
during the Tang Dynasty. The Japanese developed the Ninja arts
to the utmost, creating deadly assassins, who can enter any
place undetected and strike when least expected

-Peter Nepstad

If this is true, then are there any chinese ninja martial arts?

[joedoe]

All the Chinese arts contain ninja skills. In fact, the highest Japanese ninja skills are nothing but basic skills in the Chinese arts.

[Disciple]

That's cool! I would have never known.

[joedoe]

I was joking.

[Disciple]

well um... I WAS TOO! *runs away*

[joedoe]

Your first post, or your second?

P00 p00 head.

[Becca]

Originally Posted by joedoe

All the Chinese arts contain ninja skills. In fact, the highest Japanese ninja skills are nothing but basic skills in the Chinese arts.

Not as far off as you think with that comment, at least as far as what westerners think of as "ninja".

[Starchaser107]

I think the statement at the start of the thread is pretty much accurate. But I'm neither a historian , nor am I a ninja. So...
u know.

[wdl]

I ran into a guy from Ashida Kim's roach motel once that's moved here to Tennessee. Please, don't get me started on "ninjas". He does things like fill a backpack full of rocks and go running around out in the woods. haha, I'm not kidding. He told me, "it's alot harder here in Tennesse because it's not flat like Florida". NO SHEET? Really? You don't say?

I took that picture about 10 minutes from the house.

-Will

[Zaveesha]

Ninjitsu seems to be an old special operations unit art -nothing spectecular to the person who knows something abot the things they do but to the eyes of Japanese peasants they must have been incredible.

As far as I know and what claim the guys from Hwarangdo check their forum at www.hwarangdo.net -ninjitsu has its roots in the art of special soldiers of the Korean Kingdom - they were called sulsa - elite knights.
There was a guy in U.S Army who was a student of Hwarangdo master and special ops officer responsible for special training - his name was Micheal Echanis- so he was not teaching BS to the special ops soldiers. Unfortunalty the guy died in a Helicopter catastroph in Nicaragua I think.

Below I will enclose a question and an answer abot origins of ninjuitsu .The answer comes from Hwarangdo guy:

Q: I've been discussing in some forums the origins of japanese culture, language, race and martial arts and found curious that some people have a hard trouble in believing that most japanese are korean descendents. As far as i know it's very likely that even the japanese imperial family blood related to the ancient Kudara(Baeje/Paekche) royal family although this idea is hardly acceptable for japanese and japanese sympahtizers. For this, i suggest you fellow to read Wontak Wong's book about the origins of Yamato State and it's realtion to Kudara.
Another thing i found irritating was the difficulty for some of thepe people in accpeting that most ninja clans come from China and Korea.
One of the most important clans was the Hattori from Iga region. According to the famous Hanzo Hattori, his ancestor was Hata Sake-no-Kimi. Now the Hata Clan is well known in Japan and had a great importance mainly in the construction of Heian Kyo(ancient Kyoto) in what was before Uzumasa. This Hata clan came from Korea, mainly from Shinra State(Silla/Saroguk) while some other are likely to have come from Kudara. They're also beleive d to be descendents from ancient jewish and primitive christian tribes that came all the way from China and were know there as Hashiman. In fact the name Hata or Hada comes from Yahata/Yahada wich in turn is believed to be derived from the hebraic Yehuda (meaning Judea). Also the name Uzumasa is believd to be the ancient japanese pronounciation for Yeshu Messah ( Jesus Messiah in hebraic). Historians and academics have found more that 500 words with similar pronounce and meaning. For instance the word "Samurai" is similar to the hebraic/israeli word "Shamarai" and both mean the same- to serve a lord. I also found that in Korea there's the word "Samurang".
It's possible that this word is maybe the origin of the word "Samurai". However as far as i know the Samurang lived in North Korea so i really don't know if this word is the origin. The Yamato State(in Japan) had a closed relation with Kudara State(in South Korea) and was constantly sending troops to aid it in the was against Shinra and Kokuri/Koma(Koguryo). Kokuri/Koma had the Samurang warriors while Shinra(Silla) had the Warang warriors and also the Sulsa. On the other hand, the Hattori clan had two lineages: Kure Hattori and Aya Hattori. It is possible that both Kure and Aya are simplification for the respective names Koguryo and Kaya. Both were invaded by Shinra(Silla). In this way it's likely that japanese ninja techniques evolved from here. When these clans moved to Japan they brought with them a primitive form of Nin-jutsu. Probably added some elements in Japan and were likely old enemies of the Sulsa of Shinra(Silla).

But there are still much facts unknown .....what do you fellows think about this? By the way, does any of you know the japanese pronouciation for "Warang" and "Sulsa"? It's curious but i think they pronouce "Samurang" as "Shiburo". Anyway i found interesting nowdays poeple practicing haedong Gumdo and wearing japanese Hakama and Gi. Where did they get these clothes? Is this a korean thing or did they began to wear it after second word war. Anyway the japanese got they vestuary from Korea and China so it would be no surprise......

A: I agree completely that Korea has been a tremendous influence on Japanese culture. I recommend everyone interested reading the "Nihongi", which is the oldest surviving Japanese history.
"Nihongi: Chronicles of Japan from the Earliest Times to A.D. 697"
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg...books&n=507846 (or anywhere else you buy your books).
There are countless references to the 3 Korean kingdoms in the book.

>> For this, i suggest you fellow to read Wontak Wong's book about the origins of Yamato State and it's realtion to Kudara. <<

Professor Hong's book can actually be downloaded for free from his homepage at Seoul National University at
http://gias.snu.ac.kr/wthong/publica.../paekch_e.html

>> Another thing i found irritating was the difficulty for some of the people in accpeting that most ninja clans come from China and Korea. <<

Hwarang Do's saying for years that the Ninja came from the Sulsa, and actually in his book 'Essence of Ninjutsu' Grandmaster Masaaki Hatsumi says that his teacher Takamatsu Sensei told him this about the foundation of Ninjutsu:

"Legend says that it was a Ninja named Ikai who lived during the Korai So-dynasty (present day Korea) from late in the tenth century to the beginning of the eleventh century. In the first year of the Kouyu-period he fought a hopeless battle against King Jinso together with the armies of Kittan and Ka. After this he fled to Japan, where he webt ashore at Ise, later settling in a cave in the Iga-province. It is written that Ikai was a military commander who was very skilled in Hicho Kakuregata (camouflagetechniques based on Hicho Jutsu), and it is also told that he was able to jump many meters up in the air with a penetrating yell. Apparently Ikai was the first to bring Ninjutsu to Japan."
(Sorry about the translation, I'm translation from the Danish version).

Some Ninjutsu practicioners says that Ikai actually dates before ninjutsu was created, and that he taught "Koshijutsu". Which is both the oldest of the nine martial art traditions that make up the Bujinkan System, and the core style of the majority of Ninjutsu arts.

So in short, even Hatsumi Sensei and his teacher recognizes a Korean lineage. Which is pretty interesting when you consider how (especially older generations of) the Korean and Japanese feel about each other.

>> I also found that in Korea there's the word "Samurang".
It's possible that this word is maybe the origin of the word "Samurai". However as far as i know the Samurang lived in North Korea <<

I've heard this too, but I've never seen the original reference, or the characters used to write "Samurang". The theory is that the word originally comes from an ancient Korean word, and there are other words like this, for instance the Japanese city of "Nara", which means "country" in Korean. I'm not really convinced, but I haven't looked into it and I've never been interested in ancient Korean/Japanese languages, so I really can't say.

>> But there are still much facts unknown .....what do you fellows think about this? <<

Unfortunately I think there are too few surviving Korean sources to ever prove much. For instance, the founder of Daito-ryu aikijutsu was "Shinra Saburu Minamoto." The name is of course written in Chinese characters and then pronounced in Japanese. If you pronounce the same Chinese characters in Korean, the founders name is "Silla Sam-Rang" - or "3 (Hwarang) Knights from Silla". The characters are there and you can make up your own mind if you think it's likely, based on what you know about Korean influence on Japan, but of course it cannot be scientifically proven.

>> By the way, does any of you know the japanese pronouciation for "Warang" and "Sulsa"? <<

I think:
Hwa = flower = Hana in Japanese
Rang = young man = Rou in Japanese

Sul = technique = Jutsu in Japanese
Sa = teacher/master = Shi in Japanese

>> Anyway i found interesting nowdays poeple practicing haedong Gumdo and wearing japanese Hakama and Gi. Where did they get these clothes? Is this a korean thing or did they began to wear it after second word war. <<

I'm quite sure this is Japanese and they started wearing this after the Japanese occupation of Korea.


According to these data - ninjitsu comes from Korea and the skills that were used by Korean special ops knights were introduced in Japan and for sure developed further by special agents called Ninja.

What do you think about it?

[Zaveesha]

Concerning Japanese DNA - according to a japanese researcher - about 55 % of Japanese population has korean DNA ( I have seen that on National Geographic channel ) - so this means that there was a big exchange between Korea and Japan. The korean roots of ninjitsu maybe real.

[Becca]

Originally Posted by wdl

I ran into a guy from Ashida Kim's roach motel once that's moved here to Tennessee. Please, don't get me started on "ninjas". He does things like fill a backpack full of rocks and go running around out in the woods. haha, I'm not kidding. He told me, "it's alot harder here in Tennesse because it's not flat like Florida". NO SHEET? Really? You don't say?

I took that picture about 10 minutes from the house.

-Will

That was one very nice view!


Zaveesha- Yet another myth. Ninjitsu is a japanese art. Period. It is basicly a highly refined form of guarilla warfare. Koreans had guarilla warfare, too, but it was not ninjitsu. The only true lineage still taught is done so under the name of Ninpo. As I found out the hard way, anything else is probably some westerner's bogus idea of what it is based on trashy movies and a few years' study of krotty.

[Mr Punch]

Interesting story Zaveesha, but that's about all I'm afraid.

The accepted foundation of Japan includes a Korean strand and another strand that many historians believe comes from Mongolia. Of course there is a lot of Korean culture and blood in Japan. But remember, not all of it comes from ancient history: there were at least two famous raiding parties when the Japanese who were lacking in women brought some back from Korea, not to mention the war.

The Mongolian genes appear to be the dominant ones however, at least explained by the Moukouhan, the 'Mongolian Spot', which is a large bruise resembling blue-black mark found at the base of the spine of Japanese and Mongolian babies.

There is little to suggest that Japanese ninjutsu comes from Korea though: the timescale's all out of whack. There are a few theories which may appear to hold more water about some cross fertilization from Chinese secret fighters... but I'm afraid, I'm going to have to go with Becca on this one.

The most likely story is that the esoteric parts (the breathing techniques, the shuggyou - severe training under waterfalls, firewalking and the like that the somewhat hokey yamabushi still practice on Takao Mountain among others now, the stories of disappearing, etc) derived from certain mikkyou (esoteric Buddhists) practices and the warrior training was from the yamabushi (the wild mountain warriors who founded many of the monasteries in Japan and were hired out as mercenaries before the standing armies, samurai and ninja were formally recognized). Emperor Kammu was rumoured to have been the first to use what later became known as the samurai, and his shogun (Emmai ?) the first to use what later became the ninja.

The derivation of samurai actually comes from the word 'saburau'. The 'm' only replaced the 'b' in the 17th century, which makes the connection with Hebrew even more potty.

[GeneChing]

The most prominent Chinese-ninja claim came from Dr. Leung Ting in his two classic books, Skills of the Vagabonds & Behind the Incredibles (SotV 2). These are great old books, in that classic Leung Ting HK graphic style, and they mostly discuss performance tricks, like qigong feats - how they work and how to fake them. It also dealt with the more underhanded methods, akin to ninja stuff and alluded to the ninja-Chinese, most prominently in the ad copy. Ironically, it has grown into this notion of Vagabonds being a sort of special class, a Chinese ninja, even though vagabond is a common word. I've heard people refer to vagabond styles and such. Sometimes I think that vagabond was just an odd translation for jianghu, but that's a whole other issue.

As for the origin of stealth skills, it's really hard to do research on any secretive society because they were secret. It brings any lineage claims into immediate suspicion. Plus, you see parallel development in many other societies, the most common example would be the thuggies (where we get the word 'thug).

If you're really interested in ninjas, you should join us down on the Shaolin forum for our We demand the pink ninjas thread.

[red5angel]

Hey Mat, you don't know offhand how the Ninja were viewed by the Samurai in general do you? I've never been able to find any real solid reference to how these two warrior groups felt about each other.