Chris Parker
Grandmaster
I'm going to address this one quickly (I hope!).
The confusion over dates is actually not that uncommon, especially with people trying to change from the Japanese callendar to a Western one. There are also theories that Toda Shinryuken Masamitsu was not the direct teacher for the most part, but possibly Takamatsu's uncle instead, and the two persons have had their dates overlap. The school was Toda Sr's, but Toda Jr may have done most of the teaching. As I said earlier, there have been claims of Toda Sensei's grave being found.
As to using Takagi Ryu and Kukishin Ryu (not a jujutsu system, really) to argue whether or not they are classed as a ninjutsu lineage anywhere other than the Bujinkan and related organisations, they don't claim them as being ninjutsu lineages. Part of the reason the Bujinkan changed the description of it's technical curriculum from Togakure Ryu Ninjutsu to Bujinkan Ninpo Taijutsu to Bujinkan Budo Taijutsu was to reflect the fact that ninjutsu was only a small aspect of what it taught in it's schools.
As to why modern schools cannot be considered ninjutsu, the simple answer is that the required circumstances for a ninjutsu school to be founded no longer exist. Those circumstances include the fuedal caste system as applied in Japan (sorry Touch Of Death, not applicable to any other locale, including India), the particular geography of the region, the political situation (military dictatorships, a ruling military class, persecusion of non-conforming groups etc), and more. And those circumstances simply do not exist anymore.
As to a verifiable koryu lineage, the simple fact is that two independant historians, Watatani and Yamada, put together a book (two editions have been created) called the Bugei Ryuha Daijiten, in which they personally did their own research into the veracity of the claims of many koryu and other traditions throughout Japan, and the traditions held by Takamatsu and then Hatsumi are the only ones that passed muster. That is it. There is no other that is even close to that level of verification or legitimacy. And again, although Takamatsu's claims have been disputed, they have not been disproven.
If you look at the various ryu contained within the Bujinkan and related organisations, each is completely consistant in it's individual approach, in other words, it has a complete and defined philosophy and method of movement, distinct and defined apart from the others. There is of course a certain amount of cross-over, given how inter-related some of the ryu themselves are, but this defining guiding philosophy is something that I have never seen in any "modern ninjutsu" system. The closest I have seen are in some karate based bogus schools, because their guiding philosophy is basically the karate origin, but then they have other aspects tacked on which contravene that basic approach. This is like adding nunchaku to a ninjutsu system. It goes against the basic philosophy of the system, and if you aren't getting that, then you aren't getting the way ninjutsu works, moves, or approached combat. And that simply means you have never trained ninjutsu.
The confusion over dates is actually not that uncommon, especially with people trying to change from the Japanese callendar to a Western one. There are also theories that Toda Shinryuken Masamitsu was not the direct teacher for the most part, but possibly Takamatsu's uncle instead, and the two persons have had their dates overlap. The school was Toda Sr's, but Toda Jr may have done most of the teaching. As I said earlier, there have been claims of Toda Sensei's grave being found.
As to using Takagi Ryu and Kukishin Ryu (not a jujutsu system, really) to argue whether or not they are classed as a ninjutsu lineage anywhere other than the Bujinkan and related organisations, they don't claim them as being ninjutsu lineages. Part of the reason the Bujinkan changed the description of it's technical curriculum from Togakure Ryu Ninjutsu to Bujinkan Ninpo Taijutsu to Bujinkan Budo Taijutsu was to reflect the fact that ninjutsu was only a small aspect of what it taught in it's schools.
As to why modern schools cannot be considered ninjutsu, the simple answer is that the required circumstances for a ninjutsu school to be founded no longer exist. Those circumstances include the fuedal caste system as applied in Japan (sorry Touch Of Death, not applicable to any other locale, including India), the particular geography of the region, the political situation (military dictatorships, a ruling military class, persecusion of non-conforming groups etc), and more. And those circumstances simply do not exist anymore.
As to a verifiable koryu lineage, the simple fact is that two independant historians, Watatani and Yamada, put together a book (two editions have been created) called the Bugei Ryuha Daijiten, in which they personally did their own research into the veracity of the claims of many koryu and other traditions throughout Japan, and the traditions held by Takamatsu and then Hatsumi are the only ones that passed muster. That is it. There is no other that is even close to that level of verification or legitimacy. And again, although Takamatsu's claims have been disputed, they have not been disproven.
If you look at the various ryu contained within the Bujinkan and related organisations, each is completely consistant in it's individual approach, in other words, it has a complete and defined philosophy and method of movement, distinct and defined apart from the others. There is of course a certain amount of cross-over, given how inter-related some of the ryu themselves are, but this defining guiding philosophy is something that I have never seen in any "modern ninjutsu" system. The closest I have seen are in some karate based bogus schools, because their guiding philosophy is basically the karate origin, but then they have other aspects tacked on which contravene that basic approach. This is like adding nunchaku to a ninjutsu system. It goes against the basic philosophy of the system, and if you aren't getting that, then you aren't getting the way ninjutsu works, moves, or approached combat. And that simply means you have never trained ninjutsu.
