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The Book of Ninja: The Bansenshukai

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The Book of Ninja: The Bansenshukai

By: Antony Cummins, Yoshie Minami
Narrated by: John Chancer
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Summary

The first abridged translation of the ultimate Ninja manual—a comprehensive guide to the arts of the ninja, including espionage, warfare, assassination, and more

In 1676, a ninja named Fujibayashi collected and combined information from the ninja clans of Iga—regarded to be the homeland of the ninja—and compiled it into an authoritative book. Known as The Bansenhukai, Fujibayashi's book has now been translated into English by the Historical Ninjutsu Research Team and is widely considered to be the "bible" of ninjutsu, the arts of the ninja.

The Book of Ninja begins with an in-depth introduction to the history of Fujibayashi's scripture. The teachings themselves, appealingly rendered in this translation, then take us into the secrets of guerrilla warfare and espionage. We learn how to become the ultimate spy, whether through a network of spies or by hiding in plain sight. Through the stealth and concealment tactics of night-time infiltration, through weapon and tool building skills, and through mission planning, we can learn much both about warfare and about adopting the right mindset for tackling our own inner and outer enemies. Adding to the mix for the spycraft lover, there are sections on capturing criminals, performing night raids, making secret codes and signs, and even techniques for predicting the weather, and using an esoteric Buddhist system of divination.

An exciting and engaging tome of lost knowledge, The Book of Ninja is the final say in the world of the ninja and the ultimate classic for samurai and ninja enthusiasts alike.

©2013 Antony Cummins (P)2023 Watkins Publishing Armed Forces Asia Japan Military Special & Elite Forces Warfare Samurai Espionage
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This is a very good history of the ninja, imagine living in feudral Japan. This is about the same time as that.

Very Good

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It's great taking the time to make such a detailed translation of an old work such as this. While I love military field tactics, compared to the printed edition, I think it could have been possible to lean away a bit more from this aspect of the book in this abridged audio version. I'm sure most don't think of Ninja/Shinobi as belonging in the field of battle, but more around it. It might not really be what many potential listeners expect.

In the shadows

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I have been a long time subscriber of the author in Youtube, so I had an idea of what the quality would be.
However, even with this in mind, Antony exceeded my expectations.
No longer do we need to accept 80s magic ninjas, but we should expect media to use the actual information.
Great work, and I recommend to anyone with even a passing interest in "ungentlemanly warfare".

80s is dead

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As someone who began training under Bo Munthe at the Stockholm Bujinkan Dojo in 1988, during a golden era of Bujinkan when Soke Hatsumi himself would occasionally visit, I approached The Book of Ninja with a mixture of skepticism and curiosity. Over the years, my journey has taken me from the tatami mats of Shadow Warrior Bujinkan London to the revered Hombu Dojo in 2005, where I had the privilege of training under both Hatsumi Sensei and Nagato Sensei. I’ve also made pilgrimages to the historic ninja strongholds of Koka and Iga, and had the rare opportunity to see the original Bansenshukai manuscripts in Koka. With this background, I feel well-positioned to reflect critically, but appreciatively, on this modern English-language translation.

Let’s be clear: this is not a book of Taijutsu. Readers looking for techniques or spiritual insights in the vein of Stephen K. Hayes’ Ninja: Spirit of the Shadow Warrior, or practical application texts like Unarmed Fighting Techniques of the Samurai, will not find that here. Nor is it a guide aligned with Bujinkan training as passed down from Takamatsu to Hatsumi. This is a historical document, painstakingly translated for a modern, primarily Western audience, and in that regard, it is both successful and valuable.

Antony Cummins, alongside Yoshie Minami, delivers what is essentially a translation job, not a new interpretation or a modern retelling. This works in its favor. The voice of the original author, Fujibayashi Yasutake, remains intact through the archaic yet disciplined structure. While the translation lacks the poetic flavor one might find in William Scott Wilson’s work (e.g., The Book of Five Rings), it compensates with clarity and directness, no small feat when dealing with 17th-century Japanese military texts.

The hardcover edition is handsomely bound and sits well alongside other historical ninja works such as Ninpiden and Shoninki (both also translated by Cummins). However, the audiobook format, while enjoyable and well-paced, naturally loses out on the rich illustrations and charts that are essential to understanding much of the spycraft, fire tools, and disguises described. I found myself switching between the formats, often revisiting sections in the hardcover for a fuller grasp of the material.

And then there’s the content itself. For those of us who’ve stared at scrolls in dim light in Koka or huddled around conversations in Hombu about the “true” history of ninjutsu, there’s something deeply satisfying about seeing these texts opened up to wider audiences. The Bansenshukai is a treasure trove, not of techniques, but of mindset, of culture, of the era’s intelligence operations and survival philosophies. It’s a ninja’s field manual rooted in the Sengoku and early Edo period realities, not dojo mythos.
But how does this historical record align with the living, breathing art we’ve trained in for decades?


More including the original scroll and Koka Ninja Village, Japan 🇯🇵 at
https://1-2-1.app/post/3c30e06a-7716-428f-b94b-f01b090d5269?s=a

From an ‘active’ Ninja

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