The Katana, which emerged in the Muromachi Period, was the standard weapon of the samurai, used in the open field and one of its variants, the wakizashi (smaller sword), was used for fighting inside buildings. The katana was much more than a weapon to a samurai: it was the extension of his body and his mind, forged in its details carefully. From the tip to the curvature of the blade, it was worked entirely by hand. Thus virtuous and honorable samurai made their sword a philosophy of life. For the samurai, the sword was not only an instrument of killing, but a way of doing justice and helping people. The sword surpassed its material sense; symbolically, it was like an instrument capable of “cutting off” the impurities of the mind.

“The sword is the soul of the samurai,”– Shogun Tokugawa Ieyasu

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