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I corrected the characters for "loyalty", they clearly must be "忠義" and not "尽忠", which cannot be pronounced as "chugi".

Thanks, bye''

Factual accuracy

Why the heck would you quote "serious historians" like Karl Friday? I'd rather hear from someone who actually lived there and translated the books themselves, seeking the advice of experts. Karl Friday didn't even bother to crack open a Japanese dictionary which would have explained to him that it is very old. He is obviously just another westerner trying to rewrite history.

proof that Bushido is very old:

IDEALS OF THE SAMURAI, WRITINGS OF JAPANESE WARRIORS BY WILLIAM SCOTT WILSON	 

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0897500814/002-6529010-3956843?v=glance (EXCERPT) 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.

If a man does not investigate into the matter of Bushido daily, it will be difficult for him to die a brave and manly death. Thus it is essential to engrave This business of the warrior into one's mind well. -KATO KIYOMASA

read it and weep, folks: JAPANESE DICTIONARY DEFINITION OF BUSHIDO - - According to the Shogakkan kokugo daijiten: - Bushido is defined as a unique philosophy (ronri) that spread through the warrior class from the Muromachi (chusei) period.

An Expert Speaks http://www.kodansha-intl.com/books/html/en/477002942X.html AN INTERVIEW WITH WILLIAM SCOTT WILSON ABOUT BUSHIDO

Q.: What is Bushido?

A.: Bushido might be explained in part by the etymology of the Chinese characters used for the word. Bu comes from two radicals meanings "stop" and "spear." So even though the word now means "martial" or "military affair," it has the sense of stopping aggression. Shi can mean "samurai," but also means "gentleman" or "scholar." Looking at the character, you can see a man with broad shoulders but with his feet squarely on the ground. Do, with the radicals of head and motion, originally depicted a thoughtful way of action. It now means a path, street or way. With this in mind, we can understand Bushido as a Way of life, both ethical and martial, with self-discipline as a fundamental tenet. Self-discipline requires the warrior at once to consider his place in society and the ethics involved, and to forge himself in the martial arts. Both should eventually lead him to understand that his fundamental opponents are his own ignorance and passions.

Q.: How did the code develop and how did it influence Japanese society?

A.: The warrior class began to develop as a recognizable entity around the 11th and 12th centuries. The leaders of this class were often descended from the nobility, and so were men of education and breeding. I would say that the code developed when the leaders of the warrior class began to reflect on their position in society and what it meant to be a warrior. They first began to write these thoughts down as yuigon, last words to their descendents, or as kabegaki, literally "wall writings," maxims posted to all their samurai. Samurai itself is an interesting word, coming from the classical saburau, "to serve." So when we understand that a samurai is "one who serves," we see that the implications go much farther than simply being a soldier or fighter.

Also, it is important to understand that Confucian scholars had always reflected on what it meant to be true gentleman, and they concluded that such a man would be capable of both the martial and literary. The Japanese inherited this system of thought early on, so certain ideals were already implicitly accepted.

The warrior class ruled the country for about 650 years, and their influence–political, philosophical and even artistic–had a long time to percolate throughout Japanese society.

Q.: The Samurai were very much renaissance men – they were interested in the arts, tea ceremony, religion, as well as the martial arts. What role did these interests play in the development of Bushido? How did the martial arts fit in?

A.: This question goes back to the Confucian ideal of balance that Japanese inherited, probably from the 7th century or so. The word used by both to express this concept, for the "gentleman" by the Chinese and the warrior by Japanese, is (hin), pronounced uruwashii in Japanese, meaning both "balanced" and "beautiful." The character itself is a combination of "literature" (bun) and "martial" (bu). The study of arts like Tea ceremony, calligraphy, the study of poetry or literature, and of course the martial arts of swordsmanship or archery, broadened a man's perspective and understanding of the world and, as mentioned above, provided him with a vehicle for self-discipline. The martial arts naturally were included in the duties of a samurai, but this did not make them any less instructive in becoming a full human being.

Q.: What was sword fighting like? Was the swordplay different for different samurai?

A.: There were literally hundreds of schools of samurai swordsmanship by the 1800's and, as previously mentioned, each school emphasized differing styles and approaches. Some would have the student to jump and leap, others to keep his feel solidly on the ground; some would emphasize different ways of holding the sword, others one method only. One school stated that technical swordsmanship took second place to sitting meditation. Historically speaking, there were periods when much of the swordfighting was done on horseback, and others when it was done mostly on foot. Also, as the shape and length of the sword varied through different epochs, so did styles of fighting. Then I suppose that a fight between men who were resolved to die would be quite different from a fight between men who were not interested in getting hurt.

Q.: How is the code reflected in Japanese society today?

A.: When I first came to live in Japan in the 60's, I was impressed how totally dedicated and loyal people were to the companies where they were employed. When I eventually understood the words samurai and saburau, it started to make sense. While these men (women would usually not stay long with a company, giving up work for marriage) did not carry swords of course, they seemed to embody that old samurai sense of service, duty, loyalty and even pride. This may sound strange in our own "me first" culture, but it impressed me that the company had sort of taken the place of a feudal lord, and that the stipend of the samurai had become the salary of the white-collar worker.M

That is on the societal level. On an individual level, I have often felt that Japanese have a strong resolution, perhaps from this cultural background of Bushido, to go through problems rather than around them. Persistence and patience developed from self-discipline?

It looks like some people have different beliefs regarding the bushido, and this is reflecting on the previous edits of this article. Something must be done about this, and until that happens, the {{disputed}} tag should remain there. Me, I don't know enough about the subject, so I can't really stick my finger on this. I hoped I could find something more reliable here. As for my opinion, I've always thought their code of honor was indeed real in that past. Something that was common sense, followed by a large part of the samurai. Now I don't know anymore, though.

The discussion pertaining this can be carried here.--Kaonashi 04:26, 18 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Recent edits by anon user 203.62.217.146 sound dismissive and POV: "Bushido was the supposed warrior code of the samurai." "In reality, however, bushido was an invention of frustrated samurai", "Today it is dismissed by serious historians" "Bushido re-emerged during World War 2 as Japanese propaganda" etc... Maybe a line could be written on such alternative views (with "serious historian"'s reference please), but isn't organizing the whole article around this theme quite excessive? PHG 10:33, 18 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I agree this page needs to stay disputed for awhile, and that anon should have worded their entry a little more elegantly, though the actual content of the entry is essentially correct. The mistake people make with the whole samurai/bushido thing is that they are mixing up the eras, and reading the wrong books. The Sengoku Jidai period samurai is the samurai that most people are familiar with. Most of the Akira Kurosawa samurai films are taken from this period (mid 15th century up until the beginning of the 17th century), and this is where the image of the warrior samurai that everyone is familiar with comes from. These samurai were as unloyal as you could imagine, retainers often changed masters, and daimyo were continuingly forming and breaking alliances as soon as an advantage was to be had. Then Tokugawa Ieyasu won the battle of Sekigahara and established the Tokugawa Bakufu, ushering in the "Edo period", and with it several centuries of peace. In this period the samurai quite rapidly became aristocrats. They still wore their swords and some of them even practiced the martial arts, but there were no battles to fight and most samurai spent their lives on guard duty, collecting taxes or enjoying poetry and theatre (along with booze and the odd trip to the brothel!). This is where the image of the elegant & learned samurai comes from, though even that has been exaggerated somewhat over the years. Now, the topic of bushido. I was going to write up my opinions on the matter, but the article listed on the current Bushido page, http://www.koryubooks.com/library/kfriday2.html, does a pretty good job of it (and it's written by historian Karl Friday, to boot). A quick summary would be - during the Edo period, the period of peace, the Tokugawa Bakufu had to find a way to satisfy and reward their samurai, who no longer had much of a chance of moving through the ranks without the opportunity of proving himself in battle, which had been the main cause of promotion in the Sengoku Jidai period. To do this the Bakufu tried to change the concept of "honour" from a personal one to that of the clan and your master. The intent of this was that even if you were likely stuck at your social level for your whole life, you should still work hard to make your clan and your daimyo look better, which in turn will make you look better. To anyone who has read "Hagakure" this should sound familiar, giving and not getting anything back but the knowledge that you've improved your clan's status. As you may imagine, this didn't quite work in practice as samurai are, after all, human beings, and are just as ambitious as everyone else. It also led to some problems, like with Lord Asano and the 47 ronin, who revenged their lord as any good samurai was supposed to, yet were still condemned to death because they acted contrary to the Bakufu's ruling on the matter. But the actions of these 47 men were pretty unique, and could not be considered the standard. The real problem is that during the Edo period there was a certain consensus of what defines a samurai, however it differed from clan to clan and was not a written code in any sense of the word, nor was it followed by each and every man who wore the two swords. It's also important not to think of this as "bushido", as this term was simply not used back in those times. I think a great book that should help disillusion people about samurai of this period is the dairy of Katsu Kokichi, titled "Musui's Story: The Autobiography of a Tokugawa Samurai". This is a great example of exactly what a good percentage of the samurai had become during the period of peace following Sekigahara. "The Taming of the Samurai" by Eiko Ikegami is also a great look at the changing role of samurai during the Edo Period, from a sociological perspective. It touches on the Hagakure as well. Personally, I think the Bushido article hosted here needs a couple of things to be complete - a quick description of the transition of the samurai from warriors to administrators, a description on what it meant to be a samurai in the Edo period, the appearance of Bushido as Japanese propaganda after the Meiji restoration and a final blurb about the modern view of the bushido code, comparing the fiction to fact.--AngusH 04:25, 21 Feb 2005 (UTC)

What I find wrong here is the way the anon user filled the article with his "the bushido was nothing but a farse" pseudo-arguments. Things were not so simple. There was a strong feeling of keeping an honorable status among the samurai of certain eras in the feudal Japan. What you say about the samurai changing their concepts through the ages, Angus, sounds more than plausible, but still, there was no farse. Sure, our minds are filled with fantasy nowadays, and that surely clouds our judgement regarding certain things (specially things like this), but I still think this article is filled with endless bias. I will give an example that might sound good for some, and might sound like BS to others, but there it goes anyway.

I think one of the biggest demonstrations of honor to one's owns beliefs, at that time, was the seppuku. The reasons varied greatly. Tainted reputation, overwhelming disappointment, protest, etc. Cases of seppuku, however, weren't isolated among the samurai community. They were very common. It was part of their culture, and still is, in certain ways. It comes from the concept that it's better to have an honorable death than live a life in shame. It was a fast way of getting rid of every single dishonor on their lives. It was an act considered to be so full of honor, that after it's done, the person would be forgiven of everything. A decent ending. Now, anyone paid attention to the recent cases of mass suicides in Japan, set up via the Internet? Young people commiting suicide together inside cars? Would that be just a coincidence? I wouldn't say so. There's more there than meets the eye.

I'm not just pulling that off my head, though. I've read a lot about it, so nah, I'm not wrong. You might think this is completely unrelated, but to everybody that read a thing or two about suicide in Japan, you know that these aren't the only cases. Why do certain subway stations in Japan have acrylic barriers in the platforms to prevent people from jumping down the rails? Keep thinking.

Alright, this is just an example. Now, to my point. Would a culture that preserved such traditions based purely on honor (which "evolved" through the ages, certainly), so strongly, have nothing to do with that same honor? It's true I'm talking about something more complex than bushido right now, but see if you can trace the connections. As it's said in the seppuku article, "Seppuku was a key part of bushido". I'm still talking about the same thing, besides the appearances. "Invention of frustrated samurai"? I wouldn't say so. --Kaonashi 01:07, 24 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Hi, I agree with AngusH. But this article is titled Bushido which is a term that did not even exist before the late Edo period and in fact probably the Meiji era (mid 1800s). Niitobe's book Bushido, written in English, is the most widely read text on this topic and it is largely fictious, although Japanese themselves have adopted much of it. Niitobe turned his back on Japan. The book Shogun is another bad influence.

Just as well I didn't write this article, it would have been far more pointed. Maybe I can re-write it.

As for Seppuku, it was far more rare than reported. Mostly it was a forced suicide. Originally the individual stabbed himself and the assitant decapitated him after sufficient agony had been endured. By the Edo period people were commiting seppuku with (folded) fans, they reached for the fan as a purely symbolic act and were decapitated by the "assistant".

Kaonashi, there are no subway stations in Tokyo with acrylic barriers to prevent suicides.

Yes, there are. It's glass by the way, if that makes any difference. This time I'll even show you exactly where I read about it. That's a famous Brazilian magazine that talks exclusively about the Japanese culture. What you're referring to is right at the editorial. Too bad you won't be able to see it. And yes, you guessed it. It's Tokyo. Congrats.

As for seppuku, I'm afraid you don't completely understand it. The "assistant" you talk about was usually a close friend of the person in question. He was there to finish his pain as soon as possible, by yes, chopping the head. They had no reasons to make the seppuku committer endure more pain than necessary. Now, about the "forced seppukus" you also referred to, that's not that different either. When captured prisoners were sometimes given the choice of commiting seppuku or by dying by the sword of someone there. To be given such a choice was a great regally. It was better to commit seppuku and die a honorable death than dying by the hands of the enemy, once again. In that case, the "assistant" would be there to end the person's pain just as fast. No changes on that. Otherwise, why would the enemy suggest the seppuku anyway? It's a chance of being "forgiven" by many. Not a chance of getting through even more pain.--Kaonashi 15:43, 24 Feb 2005 (UTC)

• Factual accuracy: sliding walls in the recently built subways throughout Japan are not designed specifically to avoid suicides, but more generally as a security feature against people falling on the tracks. It's been especially implemented when there the trains are fully automated and don't have drivers (such as the Yurikamome line going to Odaiba), but not exclusively. It is also a usefull security feature when you have a Shinkansen rushing through a station without stopping (in that case these are not "walls", but sliding barriers about 1 meter high, which cannot prevent someone jumping over anyway). By the way, the latest line in the Paris Subway also has sliding transparent wall: Paris Metro Line 14, which is also fully automomated. Of course, there are also some suicides in France too...PHG 21:59, 24 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Kaonashi (literally) Mr No Face, I have lived in Japan for 8 years, Tokyo for 3. I catch the subway daily and have never seen a barrier of any type. Perhaps you could tell me the name of the line and station that have these barriers. As PHG mentioned the Yurikamome does, but if I remember correctly that is a monorail (certainly not a subway) and of course the Shinkansen (bullet train) has them at some stations.

Yes I do understand Seppuku; problem is there was no enemy after Tokugawa united Japan. I used quotes on the term assistant as during this era seppuku was used as a form of execution and the assitant was most usually not a close associate and the subject did not stab himself.

The biggest problem with Japan's history is that most of the English (or non-Japanese) texts are wrong.

I say those who disagree with what 203.62.217.146 has to say change this article back at least for the moment. elvenscout742 16:54, 2 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I disagree. In my opinion leave it as it is now until someone comes up with something better. Better a sharp, pointed entry than a fictional and misleading one. --AngusH 05:11, 9 Mar 2005 (UTC)

What you say would make sense, if the "sharp" and "pointed" content in question had any theoric basis. Never saw those claims anywhere else. What I did see, funnily enough, is exactly the "fictional and misleading" claims. I'll refrain from this discussion from now one, though. Better that way.--Kaonashi 00:03, 10 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Fair enough, not sure what more I can do to convince you otherwise outside of the link I posted right here as well as my first post above, and the other information I added in my original post, all of which has been taken from a great variety of textbooks on the subject. Please feel free to check out this page, too: The Top 11 Misconceptions About the Samurai. If I still can't sway your opinion, *shrug* what more can I do? --AngusH 03:17, 10 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Either way, it seems to have been fixed now by this PHG figure. I've never seen the claims made by 203.62.217.146 anywhere else, and chances are they were just supporting a wild conspiracy theory or something with little basis in reality. It is good the way it is, and if someone can back up up those unfamiliar claims with fact I will accept it. Until then, the whole "Bushidō didn't exist" argument stands alongside those infernal "Hirohito was evil" and "Japanese people are lazy" rants in my mind. elvenscout742 13:41, 12 Mar 2005 (UTC)

What's here now is fair enough I guess. Let me clear one thing up though: Bushido did "exist" and I don't mean to imply it didn't, it just wasn't a "code". Bushido simply means "way of the warrior", and there was obviously a "way of the warrior" (i.e.. a way that a warrior could be expected to behave), and it did go by this name. This was more cultural than anything else though, and was the result of centuries of families specialising in the martial arts, and varied in many ways from house to house. Out of interest I picked up my copy of the Cambridge History of Japan volumes 3 & 4 (arguably the best and most complete books you can get on the topic of Japanese history, which explains their price...), which cover the samurai/bushi periods, and checked the index for mentionings of "bushido". There are precious few, I believe only two, neither being longer than a single sentence. I feel this should help people gauge exactly how important bushido was in the grand scheme of things.--AngusH 04:22, 15 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I realise this has all been going on some while ago, and that it's probably all sorted by now, but while I can sit and listen to any argument about the reality or otherwise of Bushido (not being a historian myself and generally unfamiliar with Japanese history), this idea about 'modern seppuku' needs addressing. First, the matter that previous posters here seem to have got hung up on is whether or not Tokyo has barriers on subway stations to prevent suicides. That's not the point. The point is that suicides happen all over the world, and where there are trains there will be people who select that particular method. Similarly, where there are cars that emit carbon monoxide, there will be people who choose that. People throw themselves in front of tube (subway) trains in London almost daily. Is there any reason to believe they are committing a ritual seppuku to reclaim their honour? There are many motivations for suicide, and I think it's an unsafe assertion to claim that people kill themselves for a specific reason based purely on where they are. Japanese-style swords are freely available from the Internet in Britain - I can only assume they're similarly available in Japan. If someone wanted to commit a ritual suicide in this particular style, then I cannot imagine any reason why they would not obtain a sword to do it with - that way at least the method would suggest the reasoning for investigators.--Adaru 11:31, 4 October 2005 (UTC)

I am starting a Samurai / Bushido website

I am giving wikipediots a preview of what will be on it. See the wikipedia SEPPUKU and SAMURAI pages also. Enjoy the links and remember "It is man that makes The Way Great"-- MASARU 5/3/2005

The word "Bushido" did exist as a word before the Tokugawa era

The writings of Imagawa Ryoshun, author of "Michiyukiburi" and "Nan taiheki" mentions "The Way of The Warrior" (Bu Shi Do) in his "regulations" (AD1412). The regulations were respected by traditional Japanese as a guide to correct moral and ethical behavior until world war II.

Afraid not, at least in the Imagawa Letter (or his regulations, as they are more commonly known). The term he uses is budo, which has a very different meaning than the bushido that is being discussed here.--AngusH 04:12, 15 July 2005 (UTC)

Samurai fiction

what is it about samurai that so fascinates people that they feel the need to Make up things about them? Bushido has a set of three kanji representing the word. The kanji for "creed" has never, to my knowledge been used in the word for Bu ("military") it is a very distinct symbol. I challenge you to find one mention of the symbol for creed in japanese literature to represent "bushi". That would change the meaning of the word. Japanese people define the meaning of a word by the underlying character, not the romanized pronunciation. Source books in Chinese literature during the warring states period were the source of the adopted "bu shi" characters in Japanese. These books are more than 2000 years old. By the way, "secrets of the samurai" is one book I reluctantly admit to reading...in 1991. It is lame and actually compares budo, bushido and bujutsu which are distant relations.

The Sad Truth About Thomas Conlan-- why would you want to use him as a source?

Historian Wrong About Samurai--http://hnn.us/comments/32133.html

Volume 56 Number 1, January/February 2003 RELICS OF THE KAMIKAZE Excavations off Japan's coast are uncovering Kublai Khan's ill-fated invasion fleet. BY JAMES P. DELGADO http://www.archaeology.org/0301/etc/kamikaze.html

(excerpt)

"In his recent book In Little Need of Divine Intervention, which analyzes two Japanese scrolls that depict the Mongol invasion, Bowdoin College historian Thomas Conlan suggests that a scene showing a samurai falling from his horse as a bomb explodes over him was a later addition. Conlan's research masterfully refutes many of the traditional myths and commonly held perceptions of the invasion, downplaying the number of ships and troops involved and arguing that it was not the storms but the Japanese defenders ashore, as well as confusion and a lack of coordination, that thwarted the khan's two invasions. But his suggestion that the exploding bomb is an anachronism has now been demolished by solid archaeological evidence. Moreover, when the Japanese x-rayed two intact bombs, they found that one was filled just with gunpowder while the other was packed with gunpowder and more than a dozen square pieces of iron shrapnel intended to cut down the enemy. "

Uh, OK. So he is proven wrong thanks to new information, and so should not be used again as a source? I don't think so. There are numerous bits of outdated information in Sansom's three volumes of history on Japan, should we throw those in the garbage too?--AngusH 01:42, 19 August 2005 (UTC)

Character Definition Accuracy

Shouldn't 誠 (makoto) be defined as 'sincerity' more than 'truth', to distinguish it from 'shin'?

Biographical Information

I moved the biographical information on Kato to his own, already existing, biography page. That's what links are for. The article is already quite long.Peter Rehse 04:36, 18 November 2005 (UTC)