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Ryokan Kangetsu Tokyo Japan. Reasonable Hotel & cheapest Backpacker's Inn in Tokyo Japan
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Japanese Culture / Tokyo Spots / Business Area / Kamakura / Mt. Fuji / Kyoto & Nara / What's news ! / Resservations
| BUSHIDO AS AN ETHICAL SYSTEM BUSHIDO ( SAMURAI SPIRIT = Chivalry ) is a flower no less indigenous to soil of Japan than its emblem, the cherry blossom. The conditions of society which brought it forth and nourished it have long disappeared; but as those far-off stars which once were and are not, still continue to shed their rays upon us, so the light of BUSHIDO which was a child of feudalism,still illuminates our moral path, surviving its mother institution. Kamakura was once the seat of a feudal ( SAMURAI = BUSHI ) government set up in 1192 as the first of its kind in Japan. Elements of Samurai Spirit( Bushido ) & feudalism rise was simultaneous with the ascendancy of Minamon-no-Yoritomo (Kamakura Bakufu). SOURCES OF BUSHIDO Buddhism furnished a sense of calm trust in fate, a quiet submission to the inevitable, that stoic composure in sight of danger or calamity, that disdain of life and friendliness with death. What Buddhism failed to give, Shintoism offered in abundance. Such loyalty to the sovereign, such reverence for ancestral memory, and such filial piety as are not taught by any other creed, were inculcated by the Shinto doctrines, imparting passivity to the otherwise arrogant character of the samurai. The wholesome unsophisticated nature of our warrior ancestors derived ample food for their spirit from a sheaf of commonplace and fragmentary teachings, gleaned as it were on the highways and byways of ancient thought, and, stimulated by the demands of the age, formed from these gleanings a new and unique tipe of manfood. RECTITUDE OR JUSTICE ( GI ) Here we discern the most cogent precept in the code of the samurai. Nothing is more loathsome to him than underhand dealings and crooked undertakings. COURAGE, THE SPIRIT OF DARING AND BEARING ( YUKI ) Courage was scarcely deemed worthy to be counted among virtues, unless it was exercised in the cause of Righteousness. Valour, Fortitude, Bravery, Fearlessness, Courage, being the qualities of soul which appeal most easily to juvenile minds, and which can be trained by exercise and example, were, so to speak, the most popular virtues, early emulated among the youth. BENEVOLENCE, THE FEELING OF DISTRESS ( ZIN ) Love, Magnanimity, affection for others, sympathy and pity, were ever recognised to be supreme virtues, the highest of all the attributes of the human soul. POLITENESS ( REI ) Politeness also implies a due regard for the fitness of things, therefore due respect to social positions. In its highest form, politeness almost approaches love. VERACITY AND SINCERITY ( MAKOTO ) Without veracity and sincerity, politeness is a farce and a show. Lying or equivocation were deemed equally cowardly. The Bushi (SAMURAI) held that his high social position demanded a loftier standard of veracity than that of the tradesman and peasant. "Bushi no ichi-gon" was sufficient guaranty for the truthfulness of an assertion. HONOUR ( MEIYO ) The sense of honour, implying a vivid consciousness of personal dignity and worth, could not fail to characterise the samurai, born and bred to value the duties and privileges of their profession. THE DUTY OF LOYALTY ( TYUGI ) Feudal morality shares other virtues in common with other systems of ethics, with other classes of people, but this virtue - homage and fealty to a superior - is its distinctive feature. <Extract from BUSHIDO / Inazo Nitobe, A.M.,Ph.D.> |
