Bushido

Bushido

Bushidō (武士道?), literally "the way of the warrior", is a Japanese word for the way of the samurai life, loosely analogous to the concept of chivalry. The etymology of the Japanese word bushido, stemming from the Zhou Dynasty (1111–256 BCE)(Zhang, and Fan, 2003) or (1818-221 BCE)(de Bary, and Bloom) Chinese text Zhou bi 周髀 (Cullen, 1996) and word wushidao (武士道), loosely meaning a soldier well-trained in martial arts. The subword "wushi," (武士) when bifurcated into two parts, the first term "wu" (武) describes a person competent in martial arts such as King Wu, with the second term "shi," (士) meaning army. The two characters together (武士) meaning warrior or palace guard. The last part of the word, "dao" (道) is the same as "do" in Japanese, meaning "way of" (Dao, 2003) such as the Japanese martial art Kendo (剣道) "way of the sword".

The Japanese understanding of the word is predicated on the samurai moral code stressing frugality, loyalty, martial arts mastery, and honor unto death. Born from Neo-Confucianism during times of peace in Tokugawa Japan and following Confucian texts, Bushido was also influenced by Shinto and Zen Buddhism, allowing the violent existence of the samurai to be tempered by wisdom and serenity. Bushidō developed between the 9th and 20th centuries and numerous translated documents dating from the 12th to 16th centuries demonstrate its wide influence across the whole of Japan, although some scholars have noted "the term bushidō itself is rarely attested in premodern literature."

Under the Tokugawa Shogunate, aspects of bushidō became formalized into Japanese feudal law.

According to the Japanese dictionary Shogakukan Kokugo Daijiten, "Bushidō is defined as a unique philosophy (ronri) that spread through the warrior class from the Muromachi (chusei) period."

The word was first used in Japan during the 17th century. It came into common usage in Japan and the West after the 1899 publication of Nitobe Inazō's Bushido: The Soul of Japan.

In Bushido (1899), Inazō 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.

Nitobe was not the first person to document Japanese chivalry in this way. In his text 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.