Bushido by Inazo Nitobe | AudioBook Classic
Bushidō (武士道, "the way of warriors") is a Japanese collective term for the many codes of honour and ideals that dictated the samurai way of life, loosely analogous to the concept of chivalry in Europe.
The "way" originates from the samurai moral values, most commonly stressing some combination of sincerity, frugality, loyalty, martial arts mastery, and honour until death. Born from Neo-Confucianism during times of peace in the Edo period (1600–1878) and following Confucian texts, while also being influenced by Shinto and Zen Buddhism, allowing the violent existence of the samurai to be tempered by wisdom, patience and serenity. Bushidō developed between the 16th and 20th centuries, debated by pundits who believed they were building on a legacy dating back to the 10th century, although some scholars have noted that the term bushidō itself is "rarely attested in pre-modern literature".
Under the Tokugawa shogunate, some aspects of warrior values became formalized into Japanese feudal law.
The word bushidō was first used in Japan during the 17th century in Kōyō Gunkan,[3][4][5] but did not come into common usage until after the 1899 publication of Nitobe Inazō's Bushido: The Soul of Japan.[6] In Bushido (1899), Nitobe wrote:
"Bushidō, then, is the code of moral principles which the samurai were required or instructed to observe ... More frequently it is a code unuttered and unwritten ... It was an organic growth of decades and centuries of military career. In order to become a samurai this code has to be mastered."
Nitobe was the first to document Japanese chivalry in this way. In Feudal and Modern Japan (1896), historian Arthur May Knapp wrote:
"The samurai of thirty years ago had behind him a thousand years of training in the law of honor, obedience, duty, and self-sacrifice ... It was not needed to create or establish them. As a child he had but to be instructed, as indeed he was from his earliest years, in the etiquette of self-immolation."
Early history to 16th century
Many early literary works of Japan talk of warriors, but the term bushidō does not appear in text until the Edo period.
From the literature of the 13th to 16th centuries, there exists an abundance of references to military ideals, although none of these should be viewed as early versions of bushidō per se.[citation needed] Carl Steenstrup noted that 13th and 14th century writings (gunki monogatari) "portrayed the bushi in their natural element, war, eulogizing such virtues as reckless bravery, fierce family pride, and selfless, at times senseless devotion of master and man".
Compiled over the course of three centuries, beginning in the 1180s, the Heike Monogatari depicts a highly fictionalized and idealized story of a struggle between two warrior clans, the Minamoto and the Taira, at the end of the 12th century—a conflict known as the Genpei War.[citation needed] Clearly depicted throughout the epic is the ideal of the cultivated warrior.[citation needed] The warriors in the Heike Monogatari served as role models for the educated warriors of later generations, although the ideals depicted by them were assumed to be beyond reach.[citation needed] Nevertheless, during the early modern era, these ideals were vigorously pursued in the upper echelons of warrior society and recommended as the proper form of the Japanese man of arms.
The sayings of Sengoku-period retainers and warlords such as Katō Kiyomasa and Nabeshima Naoshige were generally recorded or passed down to posterity around the turn of the 16th century when Japan had entered a period of relative peace. In a handbook addressed to "all samurai, regardless of rank", Katō states:
"If a man does not investigate into the matter of bushidō daily, it will be difficult for him to die a brave and manly death.[citation needed] Thus, it is essential to engrave this business of the warrior into one's mind well."
Katō was a ferocious warrior who banned even recitation of poetry, stating:
"One should put forth great effort in matters of learning. One should read books concerning military matters, and direct his attention exclusively to the virtues of loyalty and filial piety....Having been born into the house of a warrior, one's intentions should be to grasp the long and the short swords and to die."
Naoshige says similarly, that it is shameful for any man to die without having risked his life in battle, regardless of rank, and that "bushidō is in being crazy to die. Fifty or more could not kill one such a man". However, Naoshige also suggests that "everyone should personally know exertion as it is known in the lower classes".