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The Eight DO





 
The Eight Roads of KOTO - The regional "Ways" of old Japan
 
    While the Five Schools were the largest providers of swords in KOTO times, there were excellent smiths associated with the smaller schools located throughout the country. These schools, like the big five, hailed from provincial townships that were in mutual contact via old Japan's DO system. 

     A DO is an area of land and peoples that share a bond of long-term communications, competition and common materials share. Mostly they share the common traits and character underlying and imbued throughout the area's philosophy and art. The DOI or path of its people.

     As knowledge and communication were greatest throughout the DO and its roadways, those towns developed the greatest similarity of school style. Of equal appraisal importance, one sees the greatest similarity in the quality of steels 
- the essence of sword quality and character -

     Placing KOTO that were not of the Five Schools, therefore, is accomplished by associating style to one of the town-schools linked within their region by DO. Similarity to one of the Five Schools, then, will point toward a defined number of appraisal possibilities: one of the towns of that given DO.

     Upon seeing numbers of swords, an appraiser realizes the striking similarity in steel and sword style between pieces originating from towns common by DO. This is true of all KOTO and somewhat through the later periods as well.


GO KINAI
YAMASHIRO
YAMATO
KAWACHI
IZUMI
SETTSU
TOSANDO
OMI  - TAKAGI - SHIMOSAKA
MINO
HIDA
SHINANO 
KOZUKE
SHIMOTSUKE
 IWASHIRO - UZEN (DEWA)
UGO
IWAKI      RIKUOKU (MUTSU)
RIKUZEN
RIKUCHU
HOKURIKUDO
WAKASA
ECHIZEN
KAGA - NOTO
ETCHU
ECHIGO - SADO

TOKAIDO
IGA
ISE
SHIMA
OWARI 
MIKAWA
TOTOMI
SURUGA
KAI

IZU
SAGAMI 
MUSASHI - SHIMOHARA
SHIMOSA
AWA
KAZUSA
HITACHI
SANINDO
TAMBA
TANGO
TAJIMA 
INABA
HOKI
IZUMO
IWAMI 
SANYODO
HARIMA 
BIZEN - MIMASAKA
BITCHU 
BINGO
AKI
SUWO
NAGATO
NANKAIDO
KII
AWAJI
AWA
SANUKI
IYO
TOSA

SAIKAIDO
CHIKUZEN 
CHIKUGO
BUZEN
BUNGO
HIZEN - IKI - TSUSHIMA
HIGO
HYUGA
OSUMI
SATSUMA


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