Bushido - The Warrior Governments Of Japan, From War To Peace, Modern Legacy, Precepts Of The Fighting Man (kamakura, Muromachi, Azuchi-momoyama Periods, 1185–1600)
samurai loyalty centuries courage
Literally translated as "way of the warrior," Bushido evolved into a clearly defined ethical system of the bushi, or warrior class of Japan, during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries; the term first appeared in the Kōyō gunkan in about 1625. In his 1899 Bushido: The Soul of Japan, Nitobe Inazō, the first to articulate the concept in English, enumerated seven essential values of the warrior class: justice, courage, benevolence, politeness, veracity and sincerity, honor, and loyalty. More recently,
Samurai warrior, photographed c. 1860 by Felice Beato. Bushido, the samurai code of ethics, was formalized in writing in the sixteenth century and adhered to for some three hundred years. Bushido placed emphasis on certain chivalrous virtues such as loyalty, courage, and courtesy. © HISTORICAL PICTURE ARCHIVE/CORBIS
Bushido has been credited with fueling Japanese atrocities in World War II, through "the unassailable rule that death is preferable to dishonour" (Edwards, p. 5). In fact, neither of these popular conceptions accurately represents the codes of warrior behavior that developed over the course of six centuries.
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In 1192 Minamoto Yoritomo established the first bakufu, or "tent government," to counter the growing inability of the imperial family and aristocracy to control the provinces. From that time until the Meiji Restoration of 1868 Japan was governed by its warrior class. Yoritomo's Kamakura government was later idealized as the warrior's "Golden Age," when &#x…
Prior to the Edo period (1600–1868), the primary function of a warrior was to fight. Writing about how to behave as warriors was of less immediate concern than actual battlefield skills. Tokugawa Ieyasu changed all that, through the unification of the country and his establishment of the third and final bakufu in 1603. Suddenly the bushi, who had been engaged in almost continual warfare for…
The values of the bushi, both actual and idealized, have permeated all levels of Japanese society. In the Edo period, members of the merchant class deliberately adopted samurai standards of behavior to identify themselves more closely with
the ruling class. After the Meiji Restoration, unemployed samurai became doctors and educators, and brought their written codes with them. The Imagawa kabegaki…
Rokuhara-dono gokakun (The precepts of the lord of Rokuhara, 1247), by Hōjō Shigetoki Gokurakuji-dono goshōsoku (The message of the master of Gokurakuji, 1256), by Hōjō Shigetoki Tōjiin goisho (Last testament from the Tōjiin Temple, 1357), attributed to Ashikaga Takauji Chikubashō (Bamboo stilt anthology, 1383), by Shiba Yoshimasa Imagawa kabegaki (I…
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