Essays From The Master

Like most sects in Japan, the Komuso Ryu has its spiritual/mythic patron that embodies the doctrine of said sect. The Patron of the Komuso Ryu is the Kami known as Susano, God of sea and storm. Susano is a trickster God in Japanese mythology. Once, for example, in order to slay a monster, Susano got the monster drunk on Sake’. The trickster nature of Susano is best shown in the race of spirit beings that Susano spawned called the Tengu (literally “Mountain Demon” known in China as Lin Kuei or “Forest Demon”). The Tengu are a race of half-crow half-men that often take the form of Yamabushi or mountain ascetics. They are known to punish the vain and the wasteful but are equally known to act as tutors in the martial arts. The Ninja’s art was said to have had its origin with the Tengu and through them to Susano. It is held by the Komuso Ryu that each member’s true self is his or her inner Tengu and it is this aspect of one’s self that the training makes available to the practitioner.

The storm imagery and ambiguity that surround Susano are also the hallmarks of the Ninja. The lightning and thunder linked to storms is found in Komuso Nin Do as the cultivation of Ki or personal power and the discipline of Kiai-Jitsu and in the aspects of the Kokoro as the power-image and mind-body continuums. It is of interest to note that many of the traits linked to the Tengu and the Ninja are also found in the American Radio and pulp fiction character The Shadow. The Tengu and the Ninja are said to be able to go invisible and manipulate the minds of others, just as The Shadow is said to be able to do. This is said to show the consistency of the archetype cross culturally. The storm imagery of Susano, too, comes across in The Shadow as it is in such conditions that the character is usually found acting as well as in a phrase linked to both The Shadow and the Tengu, “the power to cloud men’s minds”.  The Tengu-Ninja connection may also arise from the ninja’s use of gliders and cloaks on their missions which would give the impression of wings to an onlooker. This image also comes up in the American comic book Batman. Given that Susano is a deity of storm and sea it is clear that the Kami has strong ties to the moon. Lunar symbolism indicates a connection with the occult arts traditionally which ties in well with the workings of the Komuso Ryu and the Koga Clan from which this ryu originates. The Tengu’s association with the path known as Shugendo is expressed in the lore of Nin Do as the discipline Kuji Kiri which has a particular importance in the Komuso Ryu. The link with the Tengu is also why the Ninja were often seen as inhuman. Indeed it is likely that non-Japanese secretly living in the mountains gave rise to the legend of the Tengu. This idea was taken up by the fiction writer Eric V. Lustbader in his Ninja novels in which the Ninja have their origins in a primal proto-Asian race known as the Tanjian.

In the modern Komuso Ryu Susano is viewed as a genuine deity by some, while others view the Kami as a mythic symbol to be meditated upon and, through study of its mythology, learned from. In whatever way Susano is viewed, the Kami plays an important role in Ninjitsu in general and Komuso Ninjitsu in particular. The symbol of Susano is a sword. Which Susano drew from the body of the aforementioned monster. The sword of Susano is symbolized by the inverted crescent moon in the symbolic matrix of the Komuso Ryu, though this is not all the symbol stands for.