Before him sits the poem he has just written about his own death. In addition to demonstrating bravery in combat, another method to preserve honor, particularly when facing defeat, capture or some other disgrace, was the act of seppuku or ritual suicide. It is the crossing of a single barrier and is like the saying, ‘The more the water, the higher the boat.’” “When meeting difficult situations, one should dash forward bravely and with joy. Upon going into battle, Yamamoto further advised: It was said that a warrior’s life was much like the sakura: After a brief moment of beauty, the delicate flowers are carried away by the slightest breeze. Under such circumstances it is unsurprising that samurai also embraced the symbolism of the sakura, or cherry blossom. “The way of the samurai is, morning after morning, the practice of death, considering whether it will be here or be there, imagining the most sightly way of dying, and putting one’s mind firmly in death.”Īlthough Yamamoto was writing long after the chaos of the Sengoku Jidai or Warring States period of Japanese history, during the civil war it was not uncommon for warriors to even burn incense inside their helmets the night before battle so that if their heads were taken, the victor would be greeted by a fragrant aroma. Offering further explanation of the bushido code, Yamamoto added: To members of the samurai class, cowardice in battle was seen as the ultimate disgrace, and in order to truly be brave, one was expected to accept death as a possibility.
The 17 th century samurai, Yamamoto Tsunetomo, summarized the warrior’s guiding philosophy in his famous literary work, Hagakure: “The way of the samurai is found in death.” It was a fatalistic embrace of mortality, but at its core was the preservation of honor. With their legendary loyalty to their lords, or daimyo, they were also a formidable adversary.
Renowned for their martial arts skills, when not feuding among themselves during Japan’s civil wars, they repelled two Mongol invasions during the 13th century, and also briefly established a presence on the Asian mainland during the 16th century.Īrmed with an array of weapons including swords, spears, bows and arrows, and eventually firearms, the samurai were an intimidating presence on the feudal battlefields of Japan. The samurai existed as a military and political force from the 8th century until the 19th century. In Japan, it was the samurai who embodied this warrior spirit. THROUGHOUT HISTORY, a number of cultures have established guiding principles to ensure martial bravery on the battlefield. (Image source: WikiCommons) “Honor came at a high price, and the responsibility of a samurai was not to be taken lightly.” For more than a thousand years, Japan’s elite warriors lived by a code that valued honor above all else. Samurai warriors photographed sometime around 1870.
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