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The gem, mirror and sword are the three sacred symbols of Japan.

The origin of the warrior goes back to the divine age of antiquity when the central ruler of heaven, the Great Goddess Lighting the Sky, made a pact with her august descendant Ninigi-no-Mikoto, saying, “Let the emperor use artful subtlety like the curve of the sacred gem to govern the earthly administration; use clarity like the sacred mirror to oversee the mountains and rivers, seas and plains; and wield the sacred sword to pacify the earth and benefit the populace.”

The sacred gem symbolizes flexibility and accommodation. The government of the earth should be carried out with the warm, rich quality of humaneness represented by this object. Artful subtlety is expressed by its rounded curvature; the path is not a single fixed straight line but adopts what is suitable to the time, in accord with the context. So it is a way of adapting to the time.

The sacred mirror symbolizes honesty. A mirror doesn’t retain anything but reflects everything impartially, so right and wrong and good and bad features all show. Virtue is to respond sensitively to those features. This is the basis of honesty. For a mirror the essential feature is clarity. When the essence of mind is clear, compassion and decisiveness are therein. If observed with honest intelligence clear as a mirror, there will be no one corrupt at court and no savant neglected in the countryside. With the operation of government honest, and good communication between superior and subordinates, all people will find their places.

The sacred sword symbolizes decisiveness. It implies the imperative to take the side of absolute firmness and freedom from greed to destroy the internal mental enemies selfishness and treachery and execute the external bandits crime and violence, being straightforward and uncorrupted in body and mind and government affairs as well, imbued with the commanding presence to overawe the world.

- Izawa Nagahide