Peter A Goldsbury
The original ancient name for Yamato was written as 倭. I gather that this was the name used by Chinese and Koreans to refer to Japan. Then under the Empress Genmei (707-715), the characters were changed to 大和. Or so my university students tell me. They are not aware of 大東 as a name for Yamato.
Hi professor, thank you for following up on this! Sorry I forgot to reply to this. So it is still a bit of an interesting unresolved issue why there would have been any confusion of "Yamato" and "Daito" in the spoken language when referring to the name of Takeda's art.
If it was a kanji issue-- did something change since then? And if there is no legitimate "alternate reading" explanation, then this seems to be a bit of anecdotal evidence for Takeda not being able to read. Though by now, we have covered that it is possible and likely for traditional info to have been received by Takeda through oral means, so the point I guess is....... happy Friday everyone!