Musashi Province

Map of Japanese provinces with province highlighted

Musashi Province (武蔵の国, Musashi no kuni) was a province of Japan, which today comprises Tokyo Metropolis, most of Saitama Prefecture and part of Kanagawa Prefecture.[1] It was sometimes called Bushū (武州). The province encompassed Kawasaki and Yokohama. Musashi bordered on Kai, Kōzuke, Sagami, Shimōsa, and Shimotsuke Provinces.

Musashi was the largest province in the Kantō region.

Name

The name Musashi, recorded in early records as 牟射志 muzasi, has been conjectured to be of Ainu origin.[2] It has no apparent meaning in Japanese, but mun-sar-i or mun-sar-ihi (weed-marsh-POSS)[3] is a hypothetical Ainu form that would mean "marsh/wetland of (i.e. belonging to) weeds/inedible or otherwise useless plants," and Musashi sits in the middle of the Kantō Plain.[4]

History

Musashi had its ancient capital in modern Fuchū, Tokyo, and its provincial temple in what is now Kokubunji, Tokyo. By the Sengoku period, the main city was Edo, which became the dominant city of eastern Japan. Edo Castle was the headquarters of Tokugawa Ieyasu[5] before the Battle of Sekigahara and became the dominant city of Japan during the Edo period, being renamed Tokyo during the Meiji Restoration.

Hikawa jinja was designated as the chief Shinto shrine (ichinomiya) of the province; [6] and there are many branch shrines.[7]

The former province gave its name to the battleship of the Second World War Musashi.

Timeline of important events in Musashi

Wadōkaichin monument in Saitama

Historical districts

Musashi Province had 21 districts, added one after.

See also

Notes

  1. ↑ Nussbaum, Louis-Frédéric (2005). "Musashi" in Japan Encyclopedia, pp. 669–671, p. 669, at Google Books.
  2. ↑ Alexander Vovin (2009) "Strange words in the Man'yoshū and the Fudoki and the distribution of the Ainu language in the Japanese islands in prehistory"
  3. ↑ There are dialectical words of Ainu origin in the Tohoku region where si corresponds to Hokkaido Ainu hi
  4. ↑ Vovin, Alexander (2008). "Man'yōshū to Fudoki ni Mirareru Fushigina Kotoba to Jōdai Nihon Retto ni Okeru Ainugo no Bunpu". Kokusai Nihon Bunka Kenkyū Sentā.
  5. ↑ "Map of Bushū Toshima District, Edo". World Digital Library. Retrieved 6 May 2013.
  6. ↑ "Nationwide List of Ichinomiya," p. 3.; retrieved 2011-08-09
  7. ↑ Nussbaum, "Hikawa-jinja" at p. 311, p. 311, at Google Books.
  8. ↑ Brown, Delmer M. (1979). Gukanshō, p. 271.
  9. 1 2 3 Titsingh, Isaac. (1834). Annales des empereurs du japon, p. 63., p. 63, at Google Books

References

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