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Tenugui Japanese to English translation

Gavin

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12 Jul 2017
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Hi guys, I'm looking to buy a small gift, a tenugui, for my Aikido sensei, but I'm not sure what is printed on it. The site I'm buying from doesn't give much information.

Can anyone please translate, or give me an idea of what it says?

Thank you in advance. I hope I've posted this correctly.

IMG_3399.JPG
 
This website:

Tenugui - Shoubu

says that the large characters are read as "shou bu", and mean "respect for the martial arts".

In that case, the characters would be 尚武, read from right to left.
 
The first four of these characters appear to be:
藤田彪斌,
which appears to be a reference to the scholar Fujita Toko, also known as Fujita Takeki. (藤田彪 is read as Fujita Takeki.) The character 斌 is part of another name he went by.
Here is some info about him:
FUJITA TOKO (May 3, 1803 — November 11, 1855), Japanese scholar | Prabook

The only association I could find with him and the expression 尚武 was on this page: 〈出展作品紹介〉藤田東湖の書: 日本文化「英傑の書」展覧会 He used the expression in one of his short writings, depicted on the vertically-written scroll on that page. If you look at the bottom left of that scroll, you can see that his signature is quite similar to that on the tenugui.

That is all the investigative time I wish to spend on this matter. If you still desire more info, someone else on this site should be able to help you.
 
Thank you so much for taking the time to find that. It's greatly appreciated, thank you.
 
I would say this is a reproduction of calligraphy done by Fujita Tōko, who was an advocate of martial arts, and calligraphy, and the last character is probably 書 (meaning: written by).

Joadbres, well done in figuring that out. I tried but didn't get very far. Did you just know 彪 by looking at it, or did you use some other avenue to figure it out?

(I was thinking 魁 or 龍, but was getting nowhere...Didn't even know that 彪 existed.)
 
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