What is "Bushido?"

http://members.aol.com/koshinage/commentary/budo_and_bushido.htm

To avoid these same exaggerations, the term bushido in this paper refers to the loose collection of Pre-Meiji samurai ideals, not to be confused with the bushido in Nitobe's work, or bushido used in other contexts by other authors. Many authors have cited the Tokugawa period as the birth of bushido, but this can be misleading. Although bushido first appeared in print during the Tokugawa era (by Yamaga Soko in 1685), during the strict Tokugawa regime, many laws and codes were passed, including those covering the samurai class, such as the Buke- Shohatto (Laws of the Military House, 1615). Although these laws were influenced by the rich martial ethos of Japan's past, it was also influenced by the political agenda of the Tokugawa shoguns. To say that bushido, or the "Way of the Warrior", is confined to a collection of Tokugawan laws and military regulations is just as misleading as saying bushido is confined by the definitions in Nitobe's work. Both may represent the martial ethos of their time, but they do not accurately reflect the attitudes of the samurai before them. Although samurai ideals and samurai "codes" varied according to time and geography, approaching bushido as a loose collection of warrior ideals and codes of conduct that began with the rise of the samurai class and ended with the Meiji Restoration (the official end of Japan's feudal age and, therefore, the end of the historic samurai) serves as a way to separate the martial ethos of the samurai from the political ideology of the Meiji Period--and the misconceptions that persist in popular culture today.
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Interestingly enough, however, this "loose collection of warrior ideals and codes of conduct that began with the rise of the samurai class and ended with the Meiji Restoration" is never actually defined by the author.

Not once. Not even once. That is very telling, in my opinion.

In fact, what the author does seem to actually detail is how the warrior's philosophy and thinking differs from period to period. There is no theme of underlying unity or continuity, but rather one of perpetual change and historical revisionism.

By contrast, Karl Friday suggests in his article that what some would ascribe to be a "warrior code" is simply the set of Confucian values and mores that had been a part of Japanese culture for centuries prior to the rise of the samurai. There is nothing unique in this regard concerning the warrior class. These Confucian values were something shared by the entire culture (and are still, by and large, subscribed to to this day).

Laterz.
 
heretic888 said:
Interestingly enough, however, this "loose collection of warrior ideals and codes of conduct that began with the rise of the samurai class and ended with the Meiji Restoration" is never actually defined by the author.

Not once. Not even once. That is very telling, in my opinion.
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The Chikubasho:Shiba Yoshimasa (1350-1410 AD)
Regulations of Imagawa Ryoshun (1325-1420 AD)
17 Articles of Asakura Toshikage (1428-1481 AD)
21 Precepts of Hojo Soun: Hojo Nagauji (1432-1519 AD)
The Recorded Words of Asakura Soteki (1474-1555 AD)
The Iwamizudera Monogatari: Takeda Shingen (1521-1573 AD)
Opinions in 99 Articles:Takeda Nobushige (1538-1618 AD)
Lord Nabishima's Wall Inscriptions (1538-1618 AD)
Precepts of Kato Kiyomasa (1562-1611 AD)
Notes on Regulations:Kuroda Nagamasa (1568-1623 AD)

I could probably dig up online links to each, but as they will probably not make a difference, Ill leave the leg work up to others....

This site has a small collection of a few...
http://www.columbia.edu/~hds2/chushinguranew/Bushido/Kakun.htm

Samurai House Codes (kakun)


[font=Times New Roman,Times]The word kakun is composed of two Chinese ideographs, the first meaning “house,Eand the second meaning “codeEor “precept.Enbsp; As reflected in the ideographs, the kakun functioned as moral guides, handed down from the head of the house or clan to younger males. In many cases the kakun were meant to serve as ethical and behavioral guidelines for the sons or heirs of the writers and often reflect concerns regarding the prosperity and the continuity of the clan. Even though some kakun have been found in connection with regents and other agents of the Imperial family, most of the writers and readers of kakun were members of military households, especially after the establishment of the Kamakura shogunate (1185-1333). The writing of house codes prior to the Tokugawa period was generally limited to persons of high authority, and it was only during the Tokugawa period that kakun from the houses of merchants and wealthy peasants began to appear.[/font]

[font=Times New Roman,Times]The kakun are considered important historical documents. They provide insights into how the warrior saw himself and his function in society. Scholars have also been interested in the relationship between kakun and the daimyo’s law especially as it pertains to the development of law during the Sengoku period (1460-1560). A chapter in the book Japan Before Tokugawa explores this relationship and suggests that due to the influence of kakun a tone of morality found its way into the formal law, in respect to both the daimyo’s house and the general population (103).[/font] [font=Times New Roman,Times]While many medieval Japanese texts address warriors in the context of historical narratives, the house codes, which were written by the warriors themselves, represent a less explored genre that help illuminate warrior ideals. And although the word bushido may not be mentioned in any of them, they do, in essence, reflect the way of the warrior both concretely and abstractly.
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:shrug:
 
The Last Statement of Torii Mototada (1539-1600AD)

(written by Torii to his son Tadamasa a few days before the fall of the castle. It is a moving account of unbending and selfless loyalty of vassal to master, and expresses in very clear terms that the true meaning of being a warrior is to die in battle.)

Recently there has been the report of an uprising in the Kamigata area, and that a large number of rebel daimyo who have fallen into the evil scheming of Ishida Mitsunari will first lay siege to this castle and are now making such preparations with large forces.

For myself, I am resolved to make a stand within the castle and to die a quick death It would not take much trouble to break through a part of their numbers and escape, no matter how many tens of thousands of horsemen approached for the attack or by how many columns we were surrounded. But that is not the true meaning of being a warrior, and it would be difficult to account as loyalty. Rather, I will stand off the forces of the entire country here, and without one one-hundredth of the men necessary to do so, will throw up a defense and die a resplendent death. By doing so I will show that to abandon a castle that should be defended, or to value one's life so much as to avoid danger and to show the enemy one's weakness is not within the family traditions of my master Ieyasu. Thus I will have taken the initiative in causing lord Ieyasu's other retainers to be resolved, and in advancing righteousness to the warriors of the entire country. It is not the way of the warrior to be shamed and avoid death even under circumstances that are not particularly important. It goes without saying that to sacrifice one's life for one's master is an unchanging principle. As this is a matter I have thought over beforehand, I think that circumstances such that I am meting now must be envied by people of understanding.

You Tadamasa, should understand the following well. Our ancestors have been personal vassals of the Matsudaira for generations........

(Mototada gives a lengthy history of how his father served Tokugawa's ancestors, naming the names of his ancestors)

"Because lord Ieyasu is well aware of my loyalty, he has left me here in charge of the important area of Kamigata as Deputy of Fushimi Castle while he advances toward the east, and for a warrior there is nothing that could surpass this good fortune. That I should be able to go ahead of all of the other warriors of this country and lay down my life for the sake of my master's benevolence is an honor to my family and has been my most fervent desire for many years.

"After I am slain you must lovingly care for your younger brothers......."

(Mototada tells his son to raise his younger brothers and to offer themselves to Ieyasu as soon as they are able)

"They must be determined to stand with Lord Ieyasu's clan in both its ascent and decline, in times of peace and in times of war; and either waking or sleeping they must never forget that they serve his clan and his clan alone. "To be avaricious for land or to forget old debts because of some passing dissatisfction, or to even temporarily entertain treacherous thoughts is not the Way of Man. Even if all of the other provinces of Japan were to unite against our lord, our descendants should not set foot inside another fief to the end of time........."

(the section continues with several vows of loyalty to Ieyasu)

I am now 62 years of age. Of the number of times I have barely escaped death since the time I was in Mikawa I have no Idea. Yet, not once have I acted in a cowardly way......

(There is a lengthy section where Mototada advises his son to listen to older retainers for advice)

"The entire country will soon be in the hands of your master lord Ieyasu. If this is so, the men who served him will no doubt hope to become daimyo by his appointment. You should know that if such feelings arise, they are inevitably the beginning of the end of one's fortunes in the Way of the Warrior. Being affected by the avarice for office and rank, or wanting to become a daimyo and being eager for such things.......will not one begin to value his life?"

"And how can a man commit acts of martial valor if he values his life? A man who has been born into the house of a warrior and yet places no loyalty in his heart and thinks only of the fortune of his position will be flattering on the surface and construct schemes in his heart, will forsake righteousness and not reflect on his shame, and will stain the warriors name of his household to later generations............"

(Mototada gives his son advice on how to run the affairs of the clan and ends his statement with this

Be first of all prudent in your conduct and have correct manners, develop harmony between master and retainers, and have compassion on those beneath you. Be correct in the degree of rewards and punishments, and let there be no partiality in your degree of intimacy with your retainers. The foundation of man's duty as a man is in "truth". Beyond this, there is nothing to be said"
 
http://www.columbia.edu/~hds2/chushinguranew/Bushido/original.html

A testament to this fact is the wide range of names which have been used in different periods to refer to values associated with the warrior, values that have included (often to varying degrees) martial spirit, skill with weapons, loyalty to one’s lord, a sense of personal honor, devotion to duty, and a willingness to sacrifice one’s life. Some of the older names used in reference to such a "code" of values include "mononofu no michi," "masurao no michi," "tsuwamono no michi," "yumiya no michi," "musha no narai," and "yumiya toru mi no narai." Other names such as "samuraidô,"bushi no michi," and "shidô" have also been used. It appears that the term "bushido" itself only came into common usage during the Tokugawa period and did not become the word for designating "the way of warrior" until the Meiji period.
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I believe Friday's work focuses mostly on the modern (post-Meiji) definition of "Bushido" and it's adaptation by the Japanese after signifigant renovation. While Bushido, as a term, (from its first mention in the Tokugawa era) was a "compilation" of various "house codes", precepts and other "Ways" mentioned above. And as mentioned in my previously cited writing.
 
Heres an interesting work regarding the "origins" of Bushido....

http://ccbs.ntu.edu.tw/FULLTEXT/JR-PHIL/ew26464.htm

Actually, the term bushido appears in modern English publications, most notably martial-arts magazines, more often than it did in premodern Japanese texts. Even though unfamiliar with Tokugawa works, Nitobe imagined the term to have been his own. He was not totally wrong. In fact, it is only in the sengoku era that the term appears. Furukawa Tesshi finds it first in several sixteenth-century works, but considers the Koyo gunkan (not actually compiled until the early seventeenth century) to be the first text to articulate something called bushido as a behavioral pattern. And only in the subsequent Edo period does it gain some currency, although even then it is not widely used: works like Yamamoto Tsunetomo's Hagakure and Daidoji Yuzan's Budo shoshinshu which use the word are relatively rare. Indeed, Furukawa finds that in the sixty volumes included in Inoue's Bushido sosho (Collected Works of Bushido), only ten of the volumes even use the term, and of those, only four use it with any frequency.

Far more common in the Edo period were terms like shiko, budo, and bushi no michi. Throughout medieval Japan there were a number of house laws (kaho), house precepts (kakun), and other documents espousing a variety of moral values among samurai; but it was really during the Tokugawa or Edo period (1600-1868), when samurai literacy became almost universal, that works addressing the morality of the ruling samurai class circulated widely. Some were abstruse tomes of moral philosophy, some were manuals of behavior for the warriors of a certain domain. They were written largely from a Neo-Confucian point of view, although there were, of course, a number of heterodox schools which held differing perspectives from that of the orthodox school supported by the Tokugawa family.
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And a dated, but nonetheless interesting work....
http://www8.big.or.jp/~yabukis/asa2005/bushi1905e.pdf
 
Can you tell I have an interest in the subject? :)

The Heike Monogatari is one of the longest "War Chronicles", of which many Warriors of later generations idolized and and attempted to copy the ideals of. It narrates the events surrounding the Gempei Wars of 1181-1185, in which an alliance of clans led by the Minamoto drove the once mighty Taira and their allies from the capital, chasing them as far as the southern island of Kyushu in an attempt to exterminate every last member of the clan.


http://www.glopac.org/Jparc/Atsumori/Heiketxt.htm
 
So is Bushido something that we should aspire to? From my perspective I can’t get past the need for total loyalty to one person, or the need to accept that I am in effect the property of another. Certainly loyalty is a noble quality, as many of the other stated qualities, but this needs to be tempered with morality and humanity. As for me, I find a more worthwhile path in Budo than Bushido.
 
At this point in history, I would say read some of the literature mentioned and take what is good from it......nobody really has to live "Bushido" as a total lifestyle anymore.
 
It would be somewhat affected to adopt it here and now, wouldn't it? Like intentionally speaking with a British accent?
 
Very interesting, Tgace. Thanks for the sources. ;)

However, I still don't perceive the presence of some continous, unchanging "code" or "way" that all Japanese warriors are supposed to have followed. From what I'm reading here, it looks like the moral precepts uttered in the various kakuan differed from clan to clan --- and, even more significantly, from time period to time period.

There, for example, doesn't seem to really be anything akin to the bushido in Tsunetomo's Hagakure in the kakuan.

Furthermore, and this is the point Dr. Friday makes in his article, the actual behavior of the pre-Edo samurai differs substantially from the values and morals espoused. The Tokugawa shogunate's warriors, however, seem to be much more in alignment with the precepts typically attributed to bushido.

*shrug* Then again, maybe its just me. Laterz. :)
 
heretic888 said:
Very interesting, Tgace. Thanks for the sources. ;)

However, I still don't perceive the presence of some continous, unchanging "code" or "way" that all Japanese warriors are supposed to have followed. From what I'm reading here, it looks like the moral precepts uttered in the various kakuan differed from clan to clan --- and, even more significantly, from time period to time period.

There, for example, doesn't seem to really be anything akin to the bushido in Tsunetomo's Hagakure in the kakuan.

Furthermore, and this is the point Dr. Friday makes in his article, the actual behavior of the pre-Edo samurai differs substantially from the values and morals espoused. The Tokugawa shogunate's warriors, however, seem to be much more in alignment with the precepts typically attributed to bushido.

*shrug* Then again, maybe its just me. Laterz. :)
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Absolutely. There never was an unchanging "all encompassing code". My point is that the Bushido that appeared in Tokugawa Japan did in fact "develop" from "codes", rules and writings that were peculiar to the warrior class vs. "common practice". Much in the same way that modern military institutions have their own culture. Much in common, but different in many ways from branch to branch. There is a "military culture" and there is an "Army, Marine, Navy, Air Force etc." culture. If we were to meld them all together with a common source of ideals and behaviors we would have a "Bushido"esque culture of sorts.
 
Oh, absolutely. ;)

I didn't mean to imply that the mores and values underlying Tsunetomo's bushido were somehow magically self-generated in the late 17th century. They were clearly based, at least in part, on pre-existing rules and practices.

However, it still remains the case that there doesn't seem to be anything like Tsunetomo's bushido during, say, the Sengoku-Jidai. At least, not if we look to the actual behavior of samurai from this time period. We could look to Uesugi Kenshin, mind you, but he was a fanatically devout Buddhist, which explained his "honorable" orientation moreso than anything else. Meaning, he was more like the exception to the norm.

Underhanded tactics and betrayals were quite common during this time period. Hell, that was how Oda Nobunaga met his end. Even Kusunoki Masashige, the archetypal samurai warrior of the Southern Court, fought his entire campaign on the basis of subterfuge and commando warfare.

But, still, I see your point. Even coming from the "ninja" side of things, we see a set of values very, say, bushido-esque expressed in the second chapter of the Bansenshukai (an Iga ninjutsu treatise published around 1676).

Laterz. :asian:
 
Well "Tsunetomo's bushido" as expressed in the Hagakure was kind of a glamorization of the "good old days" by a Samurai administrator. After so many years of Tokugawa enforced peace, most of his writings were kind of reliving the glory days. I find the older stuff to be much closer in "martial spirit" to the "Way of the Warrior".

A little about the Hagakure's history here...

http://www.geocities.com/Tokyo/Towers/9151/hagakure.htm
 
Tgace said:
At this point in history, I would say read some of the literature mentioned and take what is good from it......nobody really has to live "Bushido" as a total lifestyle anymore.
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[font=&quot][/font]I think the Japanese have already done this with the creation of Budo. This of course doesn’t mean that no one else can, just that many Japanese martial artists have recognised the inadequacies of Bushido. I know Doshin So gave many talks on the need for people to not accept anything he or anyone else said on face value, but to educate themselves and examine the facts for themselves. One of his favourite sayings was “live half for yourself, and half for others”.
 
When it comes to codes and "Warrior ethos" I often see the "well they didnt really live like that" response. To which I say "well naturally so". Codes are more Ideals to be lived up to more than they are laws. These Codes are the ideals that "Warriors" use to carry them through the "why am I here doing this" moments. Its the Marine "esprit de corps" that makes them Marines, sets them apart, and is in part a component of what allows the Marines to accomplish what they have. The historic Knights didnt "live" the Chivalric code 100% anymore than the Samurai "lived" the Bushido Code. But who could put up with the fear of death with the cynical mindset of "Im here as a tool of national policy and my death here will really have no meaning." without losing their sanity? People seem to expect those who put themselves in dangerous situations for at least what they believe to be the "greater good" to take no pride in what they do. Much like people who want to say that in my line of work that Im not really a "Protector and defender" as much as Im a paper pusher who just shows up to pick up the pieces. Why put up with the fear that the guy you just pulled over has a .357 in his lap, or the domestic you walk into may be the door you never walk out of with that kind of mindset? As arrogant as this next bit sounds, I think a lot of it comes from people who consider their lives "less than exciting/adequate" and want to minimize what others do, to negate the foundation of what keeps them going back to work day after day.
 
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