was a Japanese sumo wrestler from Awazaki,

Hitachi Province was an old province of Japan in the area of Ibaraki Prefecture. Nussbaum, Louis-Frédéric. (2005). "''Hitachi fudoki''" in . It was sometimes called . Hitachi Province bordered on Shimōsa (Lower Fusa), Shimotsuke, and Mutsu ( Iwase -17 ...

(now Inashiki,

Ibaraki Prefecture is a prefecture of Japan located in the Kantō region of Honshu. Ibaraki Prefecture has a population of 2,871,199 (1 June 2019) and has a geographic area of . Ibaraki Prefecture borders Fukushima Prefecture to the north, Tochigi Prefecture ...

). He was the sport's 7th ''

yokozuna , or , is the top division of the six divisions of professional sumo. Its size is fixed at 42 wrestlers (''rikishi''), ordered into five ranks according to their ability as defined by their performance in previous tournaments. This is the on ...

''.

Early life and career

Born , his birth date is ambiguous. Although the date of 1802 is commonly accepted, some say he was born between 1795 or 1798. If the former is correct, he was the youngest ''yokozuna'' until the promotion of

Umegatani Tōtarō II was a Japanese professional sumo wrestler from Toyama City, Toyama Prefecture. He was the sport's 20th ''yokozuna''. Umegatani had a great rivalry with fellow ''yokozuna'' Hitachiyama Taniemon. Their era was known as the Ume-Hitachi Era and it ...

in 1903. The details of his younger days are unclear.
He entered the

Sadogatake stable is a stable of sumo wrestlers, one of the Nishonoseki group of stables. In its modern form, it dates from September 1955, when it was set up by former '' komusubi'' Kotonishiki Noboru. Former '' yokozuna'' Kotozakura took over the running of t ...

in 1821, under the ''

shikona A is a sumo wrestler's ring name. The tradition of ring names in sumo dates back to the Edo period, where they were used as a means to attract customers and hide the identities of the '' rikishi''. Like standard Japanese names, a ''shikona'' ...

'', or ring name, . There, he began to wrestle for the

Matsudaira clan The was a Japanese samurai clan that descended from the Minamoto clan. It originated in and took its name from Matsudaira village, in Mikawa Province (modern-day Aichi Prefecture). During the Sengoku period, the chieftain of the main line of t ...

, under which legendary sumo wrestler Raiden wrestled. Other sources state that he only started wrestling for the Matsudaira clan after he left his stable for the Nishikiyama stables. Uppon promotion to ''komusubi'' in 1824, he changed his ring name to , meaning "lightning bolt" in Japanese. He reached the highest rank of '' ōzeki'' on ability alone, after only 6 tournaments (some ''ōzeki'' of the period were merely given the rank because of their size or status). Ōnomatsu is said to have been his rival and their competition established the golden age of sumo in the late

Edo period The or is the period between 1603 and 1867 in the history of Japan, when Japan was under the rule of the Tokugawa shogunate and the country's 300 regional '' daimyo''. Emerging from the chaos of the Sengoku period, the Edo period was characte ...

.
In 1828, the offered him a ''yokozuna'' license and two years later he received one from the , and thus has been accepted as an official ''yokozuna''. In the top ''

makuuchi , or , is the top division of the six divisions of professional sumo. Its size is fixed at 42 wrestlers ('' rikishi''), ordered into five ranks according to their ability as defined by their performance in previous tournaments. This is the o ...

'' division, he won 130 bouts and lost only 13 bouts, achieving a winning percentage of 90.9.

Retirement from sumo

After his retirement, he moved to

Matsue is the capital city of Shimane Prefecture, Japan, located in the Chūgoku region of Honshu. The city has an estimated population of 202,008 (February 1, 2021) following the merger with Higashiizumo from Yatsuka District. Matsue is located ...

but he returned to Tokyo in the

Meiji period The is an era of Japanese history that extended from October 23, 1868 to July 30, 1912. The Meiji era was the first half of the Empire of Japan, when the Japanese people moved from being an isolated feudal society at risk of colonization ...

. He was known as a good calligrapher and a skilled writer, leaving behind him a lot of ''

haiku is a type of short form poetry originally from Japan. Traditional Japanese haiku consist of three phrases that contain a ''kireji'', or "cutting word", 17 '' on'' (phonetic units similar to syllables) in a 5, 7, 5 pattern, and a ''kigo'', or s ...

''. He died on March 29, 1877. His last words were "Lightning () is passing away in the wind and the autumn sky". He was burried in the graveyard of the Myoen-ji temple in

Shibuya Shibuya (wikt:渋谷, 渋谷wikt:区, 区 ''Shibuya-ku'') is a Special wards of Tokyo, special ward in Tokyo, Japan. As a major commercial and finance center, it houses two of the busiest railway stations in the world, Shinjuku Station (southern ...

Tokyo Tokyo (; ja, 東京, , ), officially the Tokyo Metropolis ( ja, 東京都, label=none, ), is the capital and List of cities in Japan, largest city of Japan. Formerly known as Edo, its metropolitan area () is the most populous in the world, ...

. A bronze statue of Inazuma was erected in front of the Inashiki Municipal Museum of History and Folklore.

The sumo precepts

Inazuma is credited to have wrote the "Sumo Precepts" (''sumo kun'', 相撲訓), a combination of teachings related to sumo that warned ''

rikishi A , or, more colloquially, , is a professional sumo wrestler. follow and live by the centuries-old rules of the sumo profession, with most coming from Japan, the only country where sumo is practiced professionally. Participation in official t ...

'' against coarse behavior and taught them how to cultivate their fighting spirit. These precepts include notions like the cardinal values of Sumo (wisdom, humanity and courage) and disciplinary advices (wrestlers are not to indulge in the vices of alcohol and gambling). The "Sumo Precepts" also give advices to wrestlers when in bouts (do not show mercy to your opponent, do not underestimate him, do not fear him, do not scheme against him and follow your breathing while observing the moves).

Top division record

*''The actual time the tournaments were held during the year in this period often varied.'' ''*Championships for the best record in a tournament were not recognized or awarded before the 1909 summer tournament and the above unofficial championships are historically conferred. For more information see

yūshō is the term for a championship in Japanese. This article focuses on championships in the sport of professional sumo. It is awarded in each of the six annual '' honbasho'' or official tournaments, to the wrestler who wins the most bouts. ''Y� ...

.''

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Inazuma, Raigoro 1802 births 1877 deaths Japanese sumo wrestlers Sumo people from Ibaraki Prefecture Yokozuna 19th-century wrestlers

Early life and career

Retirement from sumo

The sumo precepts

Top division record

See also

References