The Bushido

The Bushido was the unwriten code of honor that ruled the life and the acts of the warrior class of the bushi (samurai). Literaly means "the way of the warrior". It was passed oraly from father to son through the generations. Because of that, it is not possible to say the precise date of when it was created. We can only say that it evolved greately after the conquest of the political power by the samurai, in the end of the XII century.

The bushido consists one of the most important aspects of the samurai's life. In spite of haven't been writen, it had the power of a law in the warrior's conduct. Its main aspects will be shown next:

The main principle of the bushido is the seach for a death with honor. In case of a choice betwen life and death, choose death. However, the death must not be useless, without a meaning. The true samurai believes that, this way, he and the bushido would join in only one thing. This way he could acomplish without danger of failure his life's mission.

The preservation of the honor was the main concern of the samurai. This include his personal honor, his ancestor's honor and his lord's honor. There was a maximun rule among the samurai: one's life is limited, however his name and his honor can last forever. Because of this the samurai's reputation was source of constant concern. Die and be remembered like an exemple for future generations, is the question.

Once the samurai have injured his honor with an unworthy act, or comits an unforgivable failure, have the obligation to commit seppuku (suicide ritual), like a way to recover his honor.

The samurai must aways carry his two swords (Daisho). His swords were the biggest simble of the samurai. It must be his "soul", a mirror of his personality.

The samurai must never give up his courage, what is inseparable of his condition. Rather die in place of being called a coward. The samurai, on a battlefield, had to charge and fight alone against an army of enemies if the situation demanded.

Other important aspect of the bushido is that the samurai had always to act with justice. He must always have compasion and benevolence by the defeated. However, the samurai had the right to kill anyone of inferior caste that don't respect him.

The lie and the hypocrisy were considered sign of character weakness by the samurai. So, the samurai must give his word as a way to keep his honor.

It was very common too among the samurai the notion of gratitude. The gratitude that it is given to his fathers and people that helped them in some way. This gratitude is called Giri, word of several meanings, but that in general means the obligation that we have with people that gave us something. This explais the big payment given to the samurai by the daymio for theyr services. It was very normal for the samurai to treat theyr subordinated with consideration.

When exercing his function in the feud, the samurai must understand totaly the importance of his role. And must dedicate every day of his life for his lord. The loyalty and the obligation were of supreme importance in the relationship of the samurai with his lord, be him the daimyo (feudal lord), the Emperor or even the Xogun (dictator). The notion of loyalty tuns to such an extreme that it turns common a samurai comit seppuku to aaccompany his lord in death. This was called junshi, the principle that a samurai must never serve two lords in his life.

The most important work that is about the bushido is Hagakure (literaly, "hiden in sheets"). It's aged about XVIII. It was writen by Tashiro Tsuramoto, disciple of the famous master Yamamoto Tsunetomo, despite his orders to never write his teachings. In this work of 11 volumes were writen all the basis of the bushido, for the first time. However, the bushido must not be cosidered a writen honor code because of this work, because when it was writen the warrior class falowed it for centuries. Still today the Hagakure is the main reference about the topic.

As José Yamashiro says, in his book "História dos Samurais" ("history of the samurai", but I don't know if there is an english version), there are three main development sources of the bushido: Budhism, Xintoism and Confucionism. However, I (the original autor, not me) have considered important to distinguish the Budhism from the Zen-Budhism:

Budhism - It supplys the calm confidence in the destin, pacific submission to the inevitable, unattachment to life and acception of the death. It's curious to notice that certain samurai used to fell guilty by the fact of doing acts highly censured by the budhism, like killing people. It was created so among them the conception that they had as payment for these acts the eternal condition as warriors along theyr succesive lives.

Xintoísm - Certain moral principles of the Xintoism had great influence over the warriors and over Japanese people in general. Among them: total loyalty for theyr lord, reverence to the ancestors' memorie, filial mercy and patriotism.

Confucionism - Main source of the etic teachings. The five relations enunciated by Confusio (betwen lord and servant, father and son, husband and wife, younger and older brothers and betwen friends) were falowed in its essence.

Zen - Through the Zen meditation, the samurai had as objective the total harmoni with the Absolute, find the real "self"; they learned to deal better with theyr emotions and accept life and its turns with naturality. The samurai didn't looked after being great warriors, but being exemples of perfect men too. Its in this search that they find the Zen, as way to reach enlightening. Several samurai as achieved theyr elder age retracted from the world only to dedicate to the Zen as way to complete the meaning of theyr lifes.

Until today the bushido exerces great influence over the Japanese people; theyr values and comportamental customs are in its essence a portrait of the actual Japan. Lots of the Japanese people's actitudes, wich is somewhat incomprehencible for us, find its meanings in the old and traditional bushido. Some researchers say, for exemple, that the dedication and loyalty that the Japanese workers exert theyr roles as samuraic ideals.

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I know there may be several mistakes in the language and that some words were not well chosen so, if you fell like it, leave a coment or contact me saying what's wrong and I'll correct as it's possible, or you can correct it yourselves, but contact me first ok?
[Black Blur]

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