鎌倉時代の神風の太刀（元寇の護国刀）
Kamikaze Tachi (Divine Wind Sword of the Mongol Invasions)
Also known as: Divine-Wind Protective Sword; Sword of the Mongol Repulsion; Ise Shrine Votive Tachi
Description
During the Mongol invasions of Japan (1274 and 1281) — the largest amphibious military operations in the medieval world, launched by Kublai Khan with forces of 30,000 and then 140,000 men respectively — the Kamakura shogunate and the imperial court ordered nationwide prayers and sword offerings at Japan's major shrines. The regent Hōjō Tokimune, who had defiantly refused Kublai's demands with the declaration 'our land is a land of the gods,' organized both military resistance and intensive religious supplications. The finest tachi of the era — products of the Awataguchi school in Kyoto, the Ko-Bizen and Osafune schools in Bizen, and the emerging Sōshū school in Kamakura — were offered to Ise Jingū, Atsuta Jingū, Kasuga Taisha, and other great shrines as votive weapons requesting divine protection. When the second invasion fleet was devastated by typhoon (the 'divine wind' — kamikaze) and forced to withdraw, these sword offerings appeared to have been answered. The votive tachi preserved in those shrines survived precisely because their sacred status protected them from the vicissitudes that destroy ordinary weapons — many designated National Treasures or Important Cultural Properties today, they represent the finest extant examples of Kamakura-period swordcraft, preserved in pristine conditions in shrine treasuries for over seven hundred years.
Legends & Stories
The divine-wind legend of Japan's Mongol repulsion is one of the founding myths of Japanese national identity. Kublai Khan's fleets — the most powerful military force on earth, which had conquered China, Korea, Persia, and Russia — appeared off Japan twice, and twice were destroyed by storm. In the medieval religious understanding, the cause was clear: the prayers and votive swords offered at the nation's shrines had moved the gods, and the gods had sent their wind. The samurai warrior-poet of the era understood the connection between their own fighting — holding the beaches, preventing the landing, keeping the enemy at bay in their ships — and the supernatural intervention as a partnership: human sword and divine wind working together for Japan's survival. Hōjō Tokimune's confidence in this partnership — expressed in his refusal to capitulate, his organization of both military resistance and nationwide shrine supplications, his personal devotion to Zen practice as preparation for death in battle — exemplifies the fusion of sword, spirit, and religious belief that defines the Kamakura warrior ideal at its peak. The swords votive-offered during this crisis entered the treasure houses of Japan's great shrines, where they were venerated as sacred objects that had participated in the miracle, and where they have been preserved in extraordinary condition for over seven centuries. When you see them today — blades from the hands of Awataguchi and Osafune masters, forged in the awareness of an existential threat to Japan's existence — you see both the highest achievement of Kamakura swordcraft and the physical expression of a nation's prayer.