Limited edition with high-quality finishes.
Format: 19 x 26 cm. 333 full-color pages.
Printed on high-weight 135 g semi-matte coated paper of premium quality.
Thread-sewn paperback binding with fabric bookmark.
Hardcover bound in cloth with gold foil stamping.
Dust jacket with flaps printed in full color on 170 g semi-matte coated paper with matte varnish.
- Language/s: English
- Editorial: CIFE GROUP
- Year: 2025
- Edition: 1st Edition
- Pages: 333
- Dimensions: 19x26 cm
Throughout Japan’s long martial tradition, a rare title has been whispered with reverence — Kensei (剣聖), the Sword Saint. Reserved not for the most skillful warrior, but for the one who unites perfect technique with pure spirit, this name transcends combat. It signals the arrival at a sacred threshold, where swordsmanship becomes a path to inner awakening.
This book is a journey into that sacred realm.
Kensei Shinden unveils the hidden teachings, spiritual insights and living legacy of Japan’s most revered masters of the sword. Through ancient scrolls, historical records, and the voices of those who continue this path today, it traces the evolution of kenjutsu from battlefield to spiritual discipline, from external form to inner truth.
With clarity and depth, it reveals how true martial mastery is not the art of defeating others, but of overcoming oneself. Not simply the act of wielding a blade, but of illuminating the soul.
Far from being just a historical study, this is a work of transmission — a densho in modern form. A tribute to the sacred spirit of budō and a homage to those whose lives became silent prayers engraved in steel and silence.
At its heart is the radiant figure of Masaaki Hatsumi, the last great Sword Saint of our time, whose life and teachings carry the invisible thread of nine ancestral lineages into the future.
Kensei Shinden is both compass and mirror — a guide for all who walk the martial path, and a reflection of the eternal values that lie at its core: humility, harmony, courage, and emptiness (kū).
