The 62-Year Life of Miyamoto Musashi, the Last Great Swordsman of the Sengoku Period: How True Was His Undefeated Record of over 60 Battles?

May 19th, 1645 (Shouho 2) is the day that Miyamoto Musashi, a renowned swordsman, passed away. His real name was Harunobu Genshin, and as is customary, I will refer to him as Musashi in this article. He is a man with many famous anecdotes, so today let's take a slightly different perspective and trace his life. Much about Musashi has been fictionalized based on his own book, The Book of Five Rings, but there are no clues at all about his early l…