Inazo Nitobe "Bushido"

[Mikawa Ossan]

Has anyone heard of Inazo Nitobe? He wrote a book in 1899 entitled, Bushido: The Soul of Japan in English . It's a very interesting read. I am quite certain that the copywrite laws are such that it is in the public domain, and I would like to post it little by little. (If this causes any problems to JREF, please remove this thread, Administrators! :bow:) I'd like to think that we all have something we can learn from this book! :-)

I begin with the Preface to the first edition:

About ten years ago, while spending a few days under the hospitable roof the the distinguished Belgian jurist, the lamented M. de Laveleye, our conversation turned during one of our rambles, to the subject of religion. "Do you mean to say," asked the venerable professor, " that you have no religious instruction in your schools?" On my replying in the negative, he suddenly halted in astonishment, and in a voice which I shall not so easily forget, he repeated "No religion! How do you impart moral education?" The question stunned me at the time. I could give no ready answer, for the moral precepts I learned in my childhood days were not given in schools; and not until I began to analyse the different elements that formed my notions of right and wrong, did I find that it was Bushido that breathed them into my nostrils.

The direct inception of this little book is due to the frequent queries put by my wife as to the reasons why such and such ideas and customs prevail in Japan.

In my attempts to give satisfactory replies to M. de Laveleye and to my wife, I found that without understanding feudalism and Bushido, the moral ideas of present Japan are a sealed volume.

Taking advantage of enforced idleness on account of long illness, I put down in the order now presented to the public some of the answers given in our household conversation. They consist mainly of what I was taught and told in my youthful days, when feudalism was still in force.

Between Lafcadio Hearn and Mrs. Hugh Fraser on one side and Sir Ernest Satow and Professor Chamberlain on the other, it is indeed discouraging to write anything Japanese in English. The only advantage I have over them is that I can assume the attitude of a personal defendant, while these distinguished writers are at best solicitors and attorneys. I have often thought,--"Had I their gift of language, I would present the cause of Japan in more eloquent terms!" But one who speaks in a borrowed tongue should be thankful if he can just make himself intelligible.

All through the discourse I have tried to illustrate whatever points I have made with parallel examples from European history and literature, believing that these will asist in bringing the subject nearer to the comprehension of foreign readers.

Should any of my allusions to religious subjects and to religious workers be thought slighting, I trust my attitude toward Christianity itself will not be questioned. It is with ecclesiastical methods and with the forms which obscure the teachings of Christ, and not with the teachings themselves, that I have little sympathy. I believe in the religion taught by Him and handed down to us in the New Testament, as well as in the law written in the heart. Further, I believe that God hath made a testament which may be called "old" with every people and nation,--Gentile or Jew, Christian or Heathen. As to the rest of my theology, I need not impose upon the patience of the public.

In concluding this preface, I wish to express my thanks to my friend Anna C. Hartshorne for many valuable suggestions.

Twelfth Month, 1899. Inazo Nitobe

[Index]

An interesting read, but I'd say overly idealized and romantic.

[Mandylion]

Great, keep 'em coming. I've never read through the whole thing so I'll look forward to it.

For those interested in Bushido, I humbly direct you to this (http://www.jref.com/forum/showthread.php?p=43391#post43391) thread for your enjoyment

[nhannah]

I enjoyed this book. Has anyone ever heard of the book Bushido Shoshinsu ?

[Mikawa Ossan]

Idealized and romantic? Of course. But so was just about everything I ever learned about what it meant to be an "American".

I continue:

Chapter 1 Bushido as an Ethical System

Chivalry is a flower no less indigenous to the soil of Japan than its emblem, the cherry blossom; nor is it a dried-up specimen of an antique virtue preserved in the herbarium of our history.
It is still a living object of power and beauty among us; and if it assumes no tangible shape or form, it not the less scents the moral atmosphere, and makes us aware that we are still under its potent spell.

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 chivalry, which was a child of feudalism, still illuminates our moral path, surviving its mother institution.

The Japanese word which I have roughly rendered Chivalry, is, in the original, more expressive than Horsemanship.
Bu-shi-do means literally Military-Knight-Ways--the ways which fighting nobles should observe in their daily life as well as in their vocation; in a word, the "Precepts of Knighthood," the noblesse oblige of the warrior class.

Bushido, then, is the code of moral principles which the knights were required or instructed to observe.
It is not a written code; at best it consists of a few maxims handed down from mouth to mouth or coming from the pen of some well-known warrior or savant.
More frequently it is a code unuttered and unwritten, possessing all the more the powerful sanction of veritable deed, and of a law written on the fleshly tablets of the heart.
It was founded not on the creation of one brain, however able, or on the life of a single personage however renowned.
It was an organic growth of decades and centuries of military career.

We cannot, therefore, point out any definite time and place as say, "Here is its fountain-head."
Only as it attains consciousness in the feudal age, its origin, in respect to time,may be identified with feudalism.
But feudalism itself is woven of many threads, and Bushido shares its intricate nature.


-To Be Continued-

[Mandylion]

wonder what age of feudalism he is going to draw his moral principles from - Warring States or mid-Tokugawa. The two are quite different....

[Index]

It's definitely not Warring States. What he proposes is similar to the European idea of chivalry, which conveniently ignores the blood and guts side of things, as well as the depserate means people go to to try and stay alive when in an "it's me or him" situation. Yet that's not to say that the ideas are not noble. Strategically there are some flaws in his thinking, like when he suggests that a samurai should not think when he is offended, but rather act in the heat of the moment to take revenge immediately.

[Mikawa Ossan]

I think that he would argue that it of course didn't arise directly or solely from the Warring States period, but it was a necessary part of history for Bushido to form into what it eventually became.

Next installment:

Again, in Japan as in Europe, when feudalism was formally inaugurated, the professional class of warriors naturally came into prominence.
These were known as samurai , meaning literally, like the old English cniht (knecht, knight), guards or attendants--

A Sinico-Japanese word Bu-ke or Bu-shi (Fighting Knights) was also adopted in common use.
They were a privileged class, and must originally have been a rough breed who made fighting their vocation.

Coming to profess great honour and great privileges, and correspondingly great responsibilities, they soon felt the need of a common standard of behaviour, especially as they were always on a belligerent footing and belonged to different clans.

Fair play in fight! What fertile germs of morality lie in this primitive sense of savagery and childhood.

Is it not the root of all military and civic virtue?
We smile (as if we had outgrown it!) at the boyish desire of the small Britisher, Tom Brown, "to leave behind him the name of a fellow who never bullied a little boy or turned his back on a big one."

And yet, who does not know that this desire is the corner-stone on which the moral structures of mightly dimensions can be reared?

The desire of Tom is the basis on which the greatness of England is largely built, and it well not take us long to discover that Bushido does not stand on a lesser pedestal.

If military systems had operated alone, withouth higher moral support, how far short of chivalry would the ideal of knighthood have fallen!

"Religion, war, and glory were the three souls of a perfect Christian knight," says Lamartine.
In Japan there were several sources of Bushido.

-To Be Continued-
Next: Chapter 2 Sources of Bushido

[Index]

"Fair play in fight" (ie. ritualisation) is a luxury which can only be afforded in peaceful times. It also means that the unpleasant aspects of war are forgotten (ie. pain, death, injury, betrayal etc.), resulting in pomp, arrogance, innefective strategy and fighting tactics, and possibly repetition of the behaviour that leads to war. Alternatively, if it can lead to a peaceful society without class distinctions and discrimination then it has some validity. Too bad if you are invaded by a less "refined" power and none of your citizens can fight however.

[Maciamo]

Everytime I hear of Bushido, it strikes me how these chivalresque values have almost entirely disappeared from modern Japanese society. It happens from time to time, when enter a shop, that the staff starts panicking because I am a foreigner and they don't speak English. Everytime, I am watch them trembling in fear, freezing or mumbling shyly something in Japanese, I think "But where has the samurai spirit gone ?" and laugh in my head.

The only breed of people who may have inherited the strict honour code (rather than "moral" code) of the samurai, are the Yakuza. It's only natural as they are somehow the direct heir of the "warriors".

It is not a written code; at best it consists of a few maxims handed down from mouth to mouth or coming from the pen of some well-known warrior or savant.
More frequently it is a code unuttered and unwritten, possessing all the more the powerful sanction of veritable deed, and of a law written on the fleshly tablets of the heart.
It was founded not on the creation of one brain, however able, or on the life of a single personage however renowned. It was an organic growth of decades and centuries of military career.

How very Japanese ! It reminds me of the "common consciousness" of contemporary Japanese as what defines them as "Japanese". For example, almost every single Japanese think that they are Japanese because they live in harmonious and homogenous society, think of themselves as a polite and self-sacrificing people, think of Japan as a "small country", and have "4 seasons" that influence their daily life. Like the Bushido, this modern common consciousness is unwritten, usually unuttered (except when explaining it to foreigners), and is not the creation of one brain, but an organic growth of decades of defining themselves as Japanese. The problem is that this was done in contrast to the USA, but without considering similarities with other Asian countries, or European countries. Interestingly, the Bushido was written by Inazo Nitobe with the same purpose of defining Japaneseness as opposed to "Westerness", although this time it was not just by opposition to the USA, like modern Japanese people.


I found this on Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bushido#Bushido_ethics) regarding the sources of Bushido :
According to Inazo Nitobe, Author of "Bushido: The Soul of Japan", "As to strictly ethical doctrines, the teachings of Confucius were the most prolific source of Bushido.....Next to Confucius, Mencius exercised an immense authority over Bushido. His forcible and often quite democratic theories were exceedingly taking to sympathetic natures, and they were even thought dangerous to, and subversive of, the existing social order, hence his works were for a long time under censure.

This clearly shows that the "typically Japanese values" described in the Bushido actually come from China, like most of the traditional Japanese culture (http://www.jref.com/forum/showthread.php?t=19765). What is it with the Japanese (since Meiji) that always make them want to define themselves in opposition to the West, and completely forget about the roots of their culture in China ? Try to tell a Japanese that his/her culture mostly derives from China and they will be angry or at best uncomfortable.

There is an awkward sense of both superiority and inferiority toward China, and the Japanese usually do not want to be associated with the Chinese in almost any way. They still look down on China as formerly conquered land, and think of it as a backward, undeveloped and immoral society. When I told them how developed and safe Shanghai is (http://www.jref.com/forum/showthread.php?t=19869), many who haven't been there just think that I am grossly exaggerating. The Chinese are are typically associated with Japan's rising criminality and not much more. I guess the Japan-China relations (http://www.jref.com/society/sino-japanese-relations.shtml) still have a long way to go before the Japanese accept identifying themselves as culturally close to the Chinese.

[Index]

Everytime I hear of Bushido, it strikes me how these chivalresque values have almost entirely disappeared from modern Japanese society. It happens from time to time, when enter a shop, that the staff starts panicking because I am a foreigner and they don't speak English. Everytime, I am watch them trembling in fear, freezing or mumbling shyly something in Japanese, I think "But where has the samurai spirit gone ?" and laugh in my head.



Perhaps shop clerks never had those values? Don't forget that Bushi were a privileged class of essentially elite, specialized units. The majority of troops were ordinary solidiers, just as now special forces make up only a small proportion of the military. You wouldn't expect shopkeepers in Europes to have internalized the codes and behaviours of Knights would you? In any case, socially speaking there seems to be a view that modern Japanese are not descendenats of the Samurai class, but rather the merchant class. Whether or not this has any basis in reality or not, I don't see how one could expect shopkeers, or even business people to uphold values associated with the military and aristocracy.

You'll find the bushi/bushido mentally (however ritualized or diluted) quite common amongst Japanese practitioners of old martial arts.

[Maciamo]

Perhaps shop clerks never had those values? Don't forget that Bushi were a privileged class of essentially elite, specialized units.

I completely agree. But I was under the impression that Inazo Nitobe wrote the Bushido to describe the "Spirit of Japan", i.e. what describes the Japanese values on the whole. I have also heard some Japanese businessmen refer to the "spirit of the samurai" as if all Japanese had inherited it.

You wouldn't expect shopkeepers in Europes to have internalized the codes and behaviours of Knights would you?

Certainly not. Nor anybody else. I have never heard anyone in Europe claiming that the "codes and behaviours of Knights" were still alive today (except some kids). But I have in Japan. People still read this book (Bushido) to understand the values of Japanese society, now ! I think it is at best anachronistic.

In any case, socially speaking there seems to be a view that modern Japanese are not descendenats of the Samurai class, but rather the merchant class.

I found in Wikipedia that about 6 to 10% of the Japanese in early Meiji were samurai. Over 80% were farmers, which leaves little space for the merchants and artisans. Indeed, I always hear Japanese people say that they descend either from farmers or samurai.

You'll find the bushi/bushido mentally (however ritualized or diluted) quite common amongst Japanese practitioners of old martial arts.

Which means ? 1% of the population ? It seems to me that proportionally less Japanese practice martial arts nowadays than Belgian or French people. I have done judo and karate myself, and so have quite a few of my friends and family members. It's one of the most popular sport in Belgium after football, tennis and cycling.

[Index]

I completely agree. But I was under the impression that Inazo Nitobe wrote the Bushido to describe the "Spirit of Japan", i.e. what describes the Japanese values on the whole.



I didn't get that impression when I was reading it, but perhaps you are right.

I have also heard some Japanese businessmen refer to the "spirit of the samurai" as if all Japanese had inherited it.

I daresay a part of being a samurai meant a measure of fanaticism, so maybe there is some validity to that claim?

I found in Wikipedia that about 6 to 10% of the Japanese in early Meiji were samurai. Over 80% were farmers, which leaves little space for the merchants and artisans. Indeed, I always hear Japanese people say that they descend either from farmers or samurai.

Interesting statistics. I was referring to social consciousness or behaviour however, though it makes little difference. As you say, the book is anachronistic and romanticised.

Which means ? 1% of the population ?

Not many at all. Yet that is where the flame (or at least a shadow of the flame) is being carried on.

[Mikawa Ossan]

I'd love to join in the debate, but...we must go onwards with our book!

Chapter 2 Sources of Bushido

I may begin with Buddhism.
It 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.

"Zen" is the Japanese equivalent for the Dhyana, which "represents human effort to reach through meditation zones of thought beyond the range of verbal expression."
Its method is contemplation, and its purport, so far as I understand it, to be convinced of a principle that underlies all phenomena, and, if it can, of the Absolute itself, and thus to put oneself in harmony with this Absolute.

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.

Everybody has observed that the Shinto shrines are conspicuously devoid of objects and instruments of worship, and that a plain mirror hung in the sanctuary forms the essential part of its furnishing.
The presence of this article is easy to explain: it typifies the human heart, which, when perfectly placid and clear, reflects the very image of the Deity.
When you stand, therefore, in front of the shrine to worship, you see your own image reflected on its shining surface, and the act of worship is tantamount to the old Delphic injunction, "Know Thyself."
But self-knowledge does not imply, either in the Greek or Japanese teaching, knowledge of the physical part of man, not his anatomy or his psycho-physics; knowledge was to be of a moral kind, the introspection of our moral nature.

-To Be Continued-

[Maciamo]

Its method is contemplation, and its purport, so far as I understand it, to be convinced of a principle that underlies all phenomena, and, if it can, of the Absolute itself, and thus to put oneself in harmony with this Absolute.

This is very close to my onw atheistic philosophy, but I don't think many modern Japanese would actually understand it.

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.

I think our Inza Nitobe is mistaking here. The values of loyalty to the sovereign, such reverence for ancestral memory, and such filial piety all come from Confucianism, not Shintoism.

Everybody has observed that the Shinto shrines are conspicuously devoid of objects and instruments of worship, and that a plain mirror hung in the sanctuary forms the essential part of its furnishing.

Well, I have seen many Shinto shrines, and most big ones (except Ise Jingu) had more abundant furnishings and decoration than most Buddhist temples.

[Mikawa Ossan]

Chapter 2 Sources of Bushido Continued

The tenets of Shintoism cover the two predominating features of the emotional life of our race.--Patriotism and Loyalty.

This religion--or, is it not more correct to say, the race emotions which this religion expressed?--thoroughly imbued Bushido with loyalty to the sovereign and love of country.

As to strictly ethical doctrines, the teachings of Confucius were the most prolific source of Bushido.
His enunciation of the five moral relations between master and servant (the governing and the governed), father and son, husband and wife, older and younger brother, and between friend and friend, was but a confirmation of what the race instinct had recognized before his writings were introduced from China.

Next to Confucius, Mencius exercised an immense authority over Bushido.
His forcible and often quite democratic theories were exceedingly taking to sympathetic natures,

The writings of Confucius and Mencius formed the principal text-books for youths and the highest authority in discussion among the old.
A mere acquaintance with the classics of these two sages was held, however, in no high esteem.
A common proverb ridicules one who has only an intellectual knowledge of Confucius, as a man ever studius but ignorant of Analects.

Bushido made light of knowledge of such.
It was not pursued as an end in itself, but as a means to the attainment of wisdom.
Hence, he who stopped short of this end was regarded no higher than a convenient machine, which could turn out poems and maxims at bidding.
Thus, knowledge was conceived as identical with its practical application in life; and this Socratic doctrine found its greatest exponent in the Chinese philosopher, Wan Yang Ming, who never wearies of repeating, "To know and to act are one and the same."

Thus, whatever the sources, the essential principles which Bushido imbibed from them assimilated to itself, were few and simple.


Next, Chapter 3 Rectitude or Justice

[Index]

I think our Inza Nitobe is mistaking here. The values of loyalty to the sovereign, such reverence for ancestral memory, and such filial piety all come from Confucianism, not Shintoism.



Not necessarily. (State) Shintoism was used by the government following the Meiji restoration as tool to inspire nationalism and Emperor worship. Confucianism does not necessarily refer to a monarch, but rather to a hierarchy based on moral legitimacy embedded in the patriarch (which is the state).

[Maciamo]

Not necessarily. (State) Shintoism was used by the government following the Meiji restoration as tool to inspire nationalism and Emperor worship. Confucianism does not necessarily refer to a monarch, but rather to a hierarchy based on moral legitimacy embedded in the patriarch (which is the state).

The Chinese system was the same. The monarch/sovereign was the Celestial Emperor (exactly the translation of 天皇 "tennou", the word referring to the Japanese Emperor). In both Japan and China, the hierarchy, elders and sovereign had to be respected. This is one of the fundamentals of Confucianism, which has ruled Japanese societies ever since the first permanent capital was established at Nara (and even a bit before that). Nowadays, if Buddhisst values have always completely disappeared from Japanese minds, Confucianism is still extremely strong - much more than in China, where Communist values have destroyed most of it.

State Shinto is also a very recent invention (Meiji period), and disappeared after WWII. So, if Inazo Nitobe wanted to described the values of traditional Japan, "the organic growth of decades and centuries", he would not have mentioned the then nascent State Shinto that people weren't yet familiar with.

The tenets of Shintoism cover the two predominating features of the emotional life of our race.--Patriotism and Loyalty.

This refers to State Shintoism only. Traditional Shintoism is an animist religion that reveres the "spirits of nature". The most popular type of Shinto shrines are the Inari-jinja (http://www.jref.com/glossary/inari.shtml), dedicated to the goddess of rice and fertility. These probably make up over 95% of all Shinto shrines in Japan. Some are so tiny that they fit between 2 houses, even in Tokyo (there are a few of these Inari-jinja in my neighbourhood).

This religion--or, is it not more correct to say, the race emotions which this religion expressed?--thoroughly imbued Bushido with loyalty to the sovereign and love of country.

That's interesting to see that Inazo Nitobe could not distinguish between the recent ideas of State Shinto taught at school from the Meiji Restoration and traditional Shintoism. He was born in 1862, and so was only 6 years old when the Meiji regime started. He thus belonged to the very first generation of children to be indoctrinated State Shintoism and its values of loyalty to the sovereign and love of country. When he wrote his book, he was 38 and had been inculcated these values for 32 years.

Ironically, he was a Christian but try to explain that Shintoism is a "race emotion" that defines Japaneseness. Quite contradictory with Christian values of exclusive faith.

[pipokun]

Perhaps shop clerks never had those values? Don't forget that Bushi were a privileged class of essentially elite, specialized units. The majority of troops were ordinary solidiers, just as now special forces make up only a small proportion of the military. You wouldn't expect shopkeepers in Europes to have internalized the codes and behaviours of Knights would you?

Just google "Ishida Baigan".
Pax Tokugawana was lucky for Japanese to develop a positive view on the merchant class and lucky that the samurai class had no complaint with their poor positions.
After the post war era, it was lucky to have managers with their ethics like Matsushita Konosuke or Inamori Kazuo. Honda Soichiro must be an otaku by nature. :)

But it was stupid Japan created the bureaucratic giant, esp., in the army in the end of Meiji after the in-between generation, Edo and early Meiji, died.

[Mikawa Ossan]

Chapter 3 Rectitude or Justice

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.
The conception of Rectitude may be erroneous--it may be narrow.
A well-known bushi defines it as a power resolution;--"Rectitude is the bone that gives firmness and stature. As without bones the head cannot rest on the top of the spine, nor hands move nor feet stand, so without rectitude neither talent nor learning can make of a human frame a samurai. With it the lack of accomplishments is as nothing."
Mencius calls Benevolence man's mind, and Rectitude or Righteousness his path.

Righteousness, according to Mencius, is a straight and narrow path which a man ought to take to regain the lost paradise.

Rectitude is a twin brother to Valour, another martial virtue.
--hence, we speak of the Giri we owe to parents, to superiors, to inferiors, to society at large, and so forth.
In these instances Giri is duty; for what else is duty than what Right Reason demands and commands us to do?
Should not Right Reason be out categorical imperative?
Giri primarily meant no more than duty.

The instant Duty becomes onerous, Right Reason steps in to prevent our shirking it.

Giri this understood is a severe task master, with a birch-rod in his hand to make sluggards perform their part.

I deem it a product of the conditions of an artificial society--of a society in which accident of birth and unmerited favour instituted class distinctions, in which the family was the social unit, in which seniority of age was of more account than superiority of talents, in which natural affections had often to succumb before arbitrary man-made customs.

Starting as Right Reason, Giri has, in my opinion, often stooped to casuistry.
It has even degenerated into cowardly fear of censure.

Carried beyond or below Right Reason, Giri became a monstrous misnomer.
It harboured under its wings every sort of sophistry and hypocrisy.
It would have been easily turned into a nest of cowardice, if Bushido had not a keen and correct sense of courage, the spitit of daring and bearing.

-Next: Chapter 4 Courage, The Spirit of Daring and Bearing-

[Index]

Just google "Ishida Baigan".
Pax Tokugawana was lucky for Japanese to develop a positive view on the merchant class and lucky that the samurai class had no complaint with their poor positions.
After the post war era, it was lucky to have managers with their ethics like Matsushita Konosuke or Inamori Kazuo. Honda Soichiro must be an otaku by nature. :)

But it was stupid Japan created the bureaucratic giant, esp., in the army in the end of Meiji after the in-between generation, Edo and early Meiji, died.

Thank you for the suggestion pipokun. An interesting character, Ishida Baigan. Are you suggesting his ideas are (or were) widespread amongst merchants and others in the service industry?

[Index]

Great, keep 'em coming. I've never read through the whole thing so I'll look forward to it.

For those interested in Bushido, I humbly direct you to this (http://www.jref.com/forum/showthread.php?p=43391#post43391) thread for your enjoyment

Thanks for reminding me of this thread...I still haven't got around to reading those links you put up then :sorry:

[miles7tp]

This clearly shows that the "typically Japanese values" described in the Bushido actually come from China, like most of the traditional Japanese culture. What is it with the Japanese (since Meiji) that always make them want to define themselves in opposition to the West, and completely forget about the roots of their culture in China ? Try to tell a Japanese that his/her culture mostly derives from China and they will be angry or at best uncomfortable.
There is an awkward sense of both superiority and inferiority toward China, and the Japanese usually do not want to be associated with the Chinese in almost any way. They still look down on China as formerly conquered land, and think of it as a backward, undeveloped and immoral society. When I told them how developed and safe Shanghai is, many who haven't been there just think that I am grossly exaggerating. The Chinese are are typically associated with Japan's rising criminality and not much more. I guess the Japan-China relations still have a long way to go before the Japanese accept identifying themselves as culturally close to the Chinese.

Undoubtedly ancient Chinese culture deeply influenced on old Asian culture.
Similarly, undoubtedly "ancient Greek culture", "ancient Egyptian culture", "ancient Roman culture" and "Islamic culture" made the base of European cultures.
Today, do the European people thank "modern Greeks", "modern Egyptians", "modern Italians" and "modern Muslims" ?
If they had respected Muslims, the Middle East War might not have happened.
I guess the Europe- Islam relations still have a long way to go before the European accept identifying themselves as culturally close to Muslim.
And Chinese civilization(a mariner's compass, gunpowder and Type printing) deeply influenced on Europe.
Do European thank "modern Chinese" ?
And "Japonisume"(Japanism) influenced on European art(picture,craft products,architecture).
"Zero" discovered by Indians changed the world dramatically !
Endless !
:souka:
I am a fool Japanese girl, so I am hardly interested in "modern Chinese".
Am I sinful ?
:gomen:
There are some schools in Confucianism. Even in the same school of Confucianism, Japanese Confucianism is different from Chinese Confucianism or Korean Confucianism. A Chinese scholar, Gao Zengjie高 増杰 argued that peculiarity of Japanese Confucianism had made Japan the first modern nation in Asia. He said, "Japanese had transformed Confucianism and matched it with Japanese culture. Consequently Japanese Confucianism became different from Chinese Confucianism."("歴史街道"10/2004, p104)
The Confucianism developed in peculiar way in Japan influenced on "Busido".
:cool:
Do you believe European people could develop ancient Greek philosophy but Asian people could NOT develop Confucianism for a long time ?
:auch:
This refers to State Shintoism only. Traditional Shintoism is an animist religion that reveres the "spirits of nature". The most popular type of Shinto shrines are the Inari-jinja, dedicated to the goddess of rice and fertility. These probably make up over 95% of all Shinto shrines in Japan. Some are so tiny that they fit between 2 houses, even in Tokyo (there are a few of these Inari-jinja in my neighbourhood).

You should learn Shintoism. Shintoism is not so simple as you think. Have you seen a Shinto priest in tiny Inari-jinja ?
:blush:
That's interesting to see that Inazo Nitobe could not distinguish between the recent ideas of State Shinto taught at school from the Meiji Restoration and traditional Shintoism. He was born in 1862, and so was only 6 years old when the Meiji regime started. He thus belonged to the very first generation of children to be indoctrinated State Shintoism and its values of loyalty to the sovereign and love of country. When he wrote his book, he was 38 and had been inculcated these values for 32 years.

When did you think State Shinto was made ? State Shinto is not a instant food.
:ramen:

"It is easy to talk irresponsibly, but it is fruitless. It is difficult to talk responsibly, but it is fruitful.", said Kaerupop, a fool female senior high school student.
:heyhey:

[Maciamo]

Similarly, undoubtedly "ancient Greek culture", "ancient Egyptian culture", "ancient Roman culture" and "Islamic culture" made the base of European cultures.
Today, do the European people thank "modern Greeks", "modern Egyptians", "modern Italians" and "modern Muslims" ?
If they had respected Muslims, the Middle East War might not have happened.
I guess the Europe- Islam relations still have a long way to go before the European accept identifying themselves as culturally close to Muslim.

I think you are making a mistake. European culture certainly inherited a lot from the Greeks and Romans, but very little from the Egyptians, and even less from the Muslims.

We discussed the contributions of Ancient Egypt to the world (including Western cultures) in a recent thread (http://www.jref.com/forum/showthread.php?t=19847), and it turned out that the original thread poster was so mistaken about what actually came from Egypt that we had to create a new poll (http://www.jref.com/forum/showthread.php?t=19850). The only notable Egyptian contributions to Europe were glass-making, surveying and the 365-day solar calendar. The 2 first spread to the whole world, and are thus not "cultural". The calendar used in the West was the Roman one invented by Juius Caesar, which was modified by Pope Gregory XIII (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gregorian_calendar) in 1582. So, even that calendar does not come from Egypt. I'd say that European culture owns much more to the Levant (present-day Israel and Lebanon) than to Ancient Egypt. Then, don't forget Babylon and Persia, which influenced a bit Ancient Greco-Roman culture too.

As for Islam, the religion was only founded in the 7th century. The only part of Europe that ever became Muslim was Southern and Central Spain, and South-East Europe (Bosnia, Alabania, Bulgaria...). I saw a BBC documentary recently about what the Muslims "gave us". But almost everything we owe to the Muslims are translations of Ancient Greco-Roman books (esp. the works of Aristotle). Europe also obtained the Indian numbers (http://www.jref.com/forum/showthread.php?t=19742) and Chinese black powder from the Arabs. In any case, do not confuse the word "Arab" with "Muslim". Some Arabs were/are Christians, and about 80% of the world's Muslims are not Arabs (mostly Iranian, Pakistani, Indian, Bangladeshi and Indonesian).


And Chinese civilization(a mariner's compass, gunpowder and Type printing) deeply influenced on Europe.

Deeply influenced ? These are just 3 inventions. Nothing in terms of culture, arts, philosophy, theoretical sciences, etc. It is not even sure that the compass was first invented in China. The Chinese did find out how to make black powder, but not gunpowder, as the first guns were not invented in China.


And "Japonisume"(Japanism) influenced on European art(picture,craft products,architecture).

That's true. But that seem so tiny compared to Western or Chinese influence in Japan. What's more Japonisme (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japonisme) was in fact a European (mostly French) artistic current. The same way that "ome-rice" or "karee" are Japanese, although influenced by European and Indian cuisine. The original Japanese ukiyoe are not called "Japonisme" and the original Indian curry is not called "karee".


There are some schools in Confucianism. Even in the same school of Confucianism, Japanese Confucianism is different from Chinese Confucianism or Korean Confucianism. A Chinese scholar, Gao Zengjie高 増杰 argued that peculiarity of Japanese Confucianism had made Japan the first modern nation in Asia. He said, "Japanese had transformed Confucianism and matched it with Japanese culture. Consequently Japanese Confucianism became different from Chinese Confucianism."("歴史街道"10/2004, p104)

I don't know what you are trying to say. This is as obvious as there are hundreds of types of Christianity (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_denomination). Roman Catholics are based in Rome, Armenian Catholics in Armenia, Anglican Catholics in England, Greek Orthodox in Greece, Russian Orthodox in Russia, Ethiopian Orthodox in Ethiopia, Coptic in Egypt, etc. It does not matter. Christianity is still a Hebrew religion, as much as Buddhism is Indian and Confucianism is Chinese, because of their founders.


Do you believe European people could develop ancient Greek philosophy but Asian people could NOT develop Confucianism for a long time ?

I still don't understand that question. Could you write it in Japanese ?

You should learn Shintoism. Shintoism is not so simple as you think. Have you seen a Shinto priest in tiny Inari-jinja ?

I live near one of the biggest Shinto Shrines in Tokyo. I have seen various ceremonies. Anyway, do you understand that I am an Atheist, hate Christianity and Islam, and don't mind Buddhism and Shinto ? Do you know that one of my main reason to live in Japan is that there is no Christian influence and people are not very religious ? Saying that Japanese people are not very religious is a praise (讃賞), not negative criticism.


When did you think State Shinto was made ? State Shinto is not a instant food.

State Shinto was established by the Meiji government based on traditional Shinto. But it added the cult of the emperor of elements of nationalism, both of which I dislike, because it has led to the invasion of other Asian countries and the killing of millions of people. I dislike strong religious beliefs because they cause wars and desolation.

[Maciamo]

"It is easy to talk irresponsibly, but it is fruitless. It is difficult to talk responsibly, but it is fruitful.", said Kaerupop, a fool female senior high school student.

I have found out from your IP address that you are in fact the ignominous "miles7tp" that was banned a few months ago. Such a hypocrite !

[pipokun]

I don't know what you are trying to say. This is as obvious as there are hundreds of types of Christianity (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_denomination). Roman Catholics are based in Rome, Armenian Catholics in Armenia, Anglican Catholics in England, Greek Orthodox in Greece, Russian Orthodox in Russia, Ethiopian Orthodox in Ethiopia, Coptic in Egypt, etc. It does not matter. Christianity is still a Hebrew religion, as much as Buddhism is Indian and Confucianism is Chinese, because of their founders.

I still don't understand that question. Could you write it in Japanese ?

I don't know if Kumarajiva should be Indian or Chinese, Buddhism at least in Japan was greatly influenced by his "original" teaching.
There has been the longlasting dispute Mahayana/Hinayana dispute, but I I don't know why people killed each other on the Christ's divinity. I forgot the right term for it, though.

And I don't know why you don't post your threads something like 暗黒国家日本　in 「一般的なフォーラム」 here. I bet this forum will get the most players than other Japan-related forums.


State Shinto was established by the Meiji government based on traditional Shinto. But it added the cult of the emperor of elements of nationalism, both of which I dislike, because it has led to the invasion of other Asian countries and the killing of millions of people. I dislike strong religious beliefs because they cause wars and desolation.

Google "Hirata Atsutane". He's said to be influeced by Christianity.

[Maciamo]

Google "Hirata Atsutane". He's said to be influeced by Christianity.

Do you mean that the concept of State Shinto was influenced by Christianity ? If that is true, then Christianity was again the cause of great evil. :erm:

[Mikawa Ossan]

Chapter 4 Courage, The Spirit of Daring and Bearing

Courage was scarcely deemed worthy to be counted among virtues, unless it was exercised in the cause of Righteousness.
In his Analects Confucius defines Courage by explaining, as is often his wont, what its negative is.

"Perceiving what is right," he says, "and doing it not, argues lack of courage."
Put this epigram into a positive statement, and it runs, "Courage is doing what is right."
To run all kinds of hazards, to leopard one's self, to rush into the jaws of death--these are too often identified with Valour, and in the profession of arms such rashness of conduct--what Shakespeare calls "valour misbegot"--is unjustly applauded; but not so in the Precepts of Knighthood.
Death for a cause unworthy of dying for, was called a "dog's death."

A distinction which is made in the West between moral and physical courage has long been recognised among us.
What samurai youth has not heard of "Great Valour" and the "Valour of a Villian?"
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.
Stories of military exploits were repeated almost before boys left their mother's breast.

Anecdotes of fortitude and bravery abound in nursery tales, though stories of this kind are not by any means the only method of imbuing the spirit with daring and fearlessness.
Parents, with sternness sometimes verging on cruelty, set their children to tasks that called forth all the pluck that was in them.

-Next, Chapter 4 Continued-

[Mikawa Ossan]

Chapter 4 Courage, The Spirit of Daring and Bearing continued

Occasional deprivation of food or exposure to cold, was considered a highly efficacious test for inuring them to endurance.
Children of tender age were sent among utter stangers with some message to deliver, were made to rise before the sun, and before breakfast attend to their reading exercises, walking to their teachers with bare feet in the cold of winter; they frequently--once or twice a month, as on the festival of a god of learning,--came together in small groups and passed the night without sleep, in reading aloud by turns.
Pilgrimages to all sorts of uncanny places--to execution grounds, to graveyards, to houses reputed of being haunted, were favourite pastimes of the young.

The spiritual aspect of valour is evidenced by composure--calm presence of mind.
Tranquility is courage in repose.
It is a statical manifestation of valour, as daring deeds are a dynamical.
A truly brave man is ever serene; he is never taken my surprise; nothing ruffles the equanimity of his spirit.
In the heat of battle he remains cool; in the midst of catastrophes he keeps level his mind.

We admire him as truly great, who, in the menacing presence of danger or death, retains his self-possession; whoe, for instance, can compose a poem under impending peril, or hum a strain in the face of death.
Such indulgence betraying no tremor in the writing or in the voice is taken as an infallible index of a large nature--of what we call a capacious mind (yoyu), which, far from being pressed or crowded, has always room for something more.

Indeed, valour and honour alike required that we should own as enemies in war only such as prove worthy of being friends in peace.
When valour attains this height, it becomes akin to Benevolence.

-Next, Chapter 5 Benevolence, The Feeling of Distress-

[Maciamo]

Occasional deprivation of food or exposure to cold, was considered a highly efficacious test for inuring them to endurance.

I think that such treatment does indeed make people tougher, but also reduce their general sensitivity, and thus make them "dumber". It's not a coicidence that "tough guys" are usually the "brainless" type.

The spiritual aspect of valour is evidenced by composure--calm presence of mind.
Tranquility is courage in repose.

I can't help thinking about the masses of exciting young girls who stomp their feet when they see something cute or can't get something they want. I also remember the elderly shop keepers or the young combini employee, both freezing and unable to speak at the sight of a foreigner. Then, there are those noisy drunk salarymen shouting and laughing at the top of their voice in izakayas and in the streets every evening. Without mentioned all those laugh-out variety programmes on Japanese TV. Indeed calm and tranquility must be a rare and sought-after value in a country like Japan.

A truly brave man is ever serene; he is never taken my surprise; nothing ruffles the equanimity of his spirit.

Such men are becoming an even rarer breed. He is the one that does not vocalize long 'eeeeeeeeeh' or 'oooooooh' of surprise for every little trivial fact revealed on TV. These values seem all but lost in modern Japanese society.

[Index]

I think that such treatment does indeed make people tougher, but also reduce their general sensitivity, and thus make them "dumber". It's not a coicidence that "tough guys" are usually the "brainless" type.



Could you perhaps be more subjective and generalising?

[Maciamo]

Could you perhaps be more subjective and generalising?

If I remember well, some studies have shown that boxing champions tend to have an IQ below average (under 100), and so did quite a few famous gangsters (mafiosi, yakuza...). Of course, that doesn't mean that anybody with muscles is necessarily stupid, and even less the reverse.

Usually people born in tough conditions, lacking food and forced to adapt to a harsh environment (e.g. poor people in developing countries) tend not to be as intelligent. That's partly why (very) poor people perform less well at school and at IQ tests. One of the reasons is that a lack of proper nutrition during pregnancy and infancy can cause irreversible damage to the brain. The passage I quoted from the Bushido involved "deprivation of food" for "children of a tender age" so as to toughen them. It is certainly a good way to damage their brain, which in turns does have for effect a lessen sensitivity to physical and emotional pain and hardship.

[Mikawa Ossan]

Chapter 5: Benevolence, the Feeling of Distress

Love, magnanimity, affection for others, sympathy and pity, were ever recognized to be supreme virtues, the highest of all the attributes of the human soul.
It was deemed a princely virtue in a twofold sense: princely among the manifold attributes of a noble spirit; princely as particularly befitting a princely profession.

How often both Confucius and Mencius repeat the highest requirement of a ruler of men to consist in benevolence.

Both defined this indispensable requirement in a ruler by saying, "Benevolence--benevolence is Man."

We knew benevolence was a tender virtue and mother-like.
If upright Rectitude and sern Justice were peculiarly masculine, Mercy had the gentleness and the persuasiveness of a feminine nature.
We were warned against in indulging in indiscriminate charity, without seasoning it with justice and rectitude.
Masamune expressed it wel in his oft-quoted aphorism--"Rectitude carried to excess hardens into stiffness; benevolence indulged beyond measure sinks into weakness."
Fortunately mercy was not so rare as it was beautiful, forit is universally true that "The bravest are the tenderest, the loving are the daring."
"Bushido no nasake"--the tenderness of a warrior--had a sound which appealed at once to whatever was noble in us; not that the mercy of a samurai was generically different from the mercy of any other being, but because it implied mercy where mercy was not a blind impulse, but where it recognized due regard to justice, and where mercy did not remain merely a certain state of mind, but where it was backed with power to save or kill.
As economists speak of demand as being effectual or ineffectual, similarly we may call the mercy of Bushi effectual, since it implied the power of acting for the good or detriment of the recipient.

-to be continued-

[Maciamo]

Masamune expressed it wel in his oft-quoted aphorism--"Rectitude carried to excess hardens into stiffness;

I was wondering if it was not Munemasa (http://www.jref.com/entertainment/gallery/showgallery.php?si=munemasa) he was talking about... :D :sorry:

Sorry, I will behave from now on; I promise. :bluush:

[Mikawa Ossan]

I double-checked, and the text I have in front of me does say, "Masamune". Could be a mistake.

[Maciamo]

I double-checked, and the text I have in front of me does say, "Masamune". Could be a mistake.

Have you checked my link ? I was just kidding.

[Mikawa Ossan]

Honestly, no I didn't check it. Sorry, I didn't realize you were kidding. I'm a little tired and slow on the take today. :gomen:

But Munemasa is not bad, either! (I just checked!) :bluush:

[Index]

I was wondering if it was not Munemasa (http://www.jref.com/entertainment/gallery/showgallery.php?si=munemasa) he was talking about... :D :sorry:

Sorry, I will behave from now on; I promise. :bluush:

Ha ha. Maciamo I didn't know you had it in you :clap:

[Mikawa Ossan]

Chapter 5 Benevolence, The Feeling of Distress continued

Priding themselves as they did in their brute strength and priviledges to turn it into account, the samurai gave full consent to what Mencius taught conceding the power of love.
"Benevolence," he says, "brings under its sway whatever hinders its power, just as water subdues fire: they only doubt the power of water to quench flames who try to extinguish with a cupful a whole burning waggon-load of faggots."
He also says that "the feeling of distress is the root of benevolence," therefore a benevolent man is ever mindful of those who are suffering and in distress.
Thus did Mencius long anticipate Adam Smith who founds his ethical philosophy on sympathy.

It was an old maxim among them that "It becomes not the fowler to slay the bird which takes refuge in his bosom."
This in a large measure explains why the Red Cross movement, considered so peculiarly Christian, so readily found a firm footing among us.
Decades before we heard of the Geneva Convention, Bakin, our greatest novelist, had familiarized us with the medical treatment of a fallen foe.

It was ostensibly to express, but actually to cultivate, these gentler emotions that the writing of verses was encouraged.
Our poetry has therefore a strong undercurrent of pathos and tenderness.

Our pithy, epigrammatic poems were particularly well suited to the improvisation of a single sentiment.
Everybody of any education was either a poet or a poetaster.
Not infrequently a marching soldier might be seen to halt, take his writing utensils from his belt, and compose an ode,--and such papers were found afterward in the helmets or the breast plates when these were removed from their lifeless wearers.
What Christianity had done in Europe toward rousing compassion in the midst of belligerent horrors, love of music and letters has done in Japan.
The cultivation of tender feelings breeds considerate regard for the sufferings of others.
Modesty and complaisance, actuated by respect for others' feelings, are at the root of politeness.

-Next Chapter 6 Politeness-

[Mikawa Ossan]

Chapter 6 Politeness

Courtesy and urbanity of manners have been noticed by every foreign tourist as a marked Japanese trait.
Courtesy is a poor virtue, if it is actuated only be a fear of offending good taste, whereas it should be the outward manifestation of a sympathetic regard for the feelings of others.
It also implies a due regard for the fitness of things, therefore due respect to social positions; for these latter express no plutocractic distinctions, but were originally distinctions for actual merit.

In its highest form, politeness almost approaches love.
We may reverently say, politeness "suffers long, and is kind; envieth not, vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up; does not behave itself unseemly, seeks not her own, is not easily provoked, takes not account of evil."

While thus extolling politeness, far be it from me to put it in the front rank of virtues.
If we analyse it, we shall find it correlated with other virtues of a higher order; for what virtue stands alone?
While--or rather because--it was exalted as peculiar to the profession of arms, and as such esteemed in a degree higher than its deserts, there came into existence its counterfeits.
Confucius himself has repeatedly taught that external appurtenances are as little a part of propriety as sounds are of music.

Mr. Spencer defines grace as the most economical manner of motion.

I might follow the example of Mr. Spencer and trace in our ceremonial institutions their origins and the moral motives that gave rise to them; but that is not what I shall endeavour to do in this book.
It is the moral training involved in strict observance of propriety, that I wish to emphasise.

I have said that etiquette was elaborated into the finest niceties, so much so that different schools, advocating different systems, came into existence.
But they all united in the ultimate essential, and this was put by a great exponent of the best known school of ettiquette, the Ogasawara, in the following terms: "The end of all etiquette is to so cultivate your mind that even when you are quietly seated, not the roughest ruffian can dare make onset on your person."

-To Be Continued-

[Mikawa Ossan]

Chapter 6 Politeness continued

It means, in other words, that by constant exercise in correct manners, one brings all the parts and faculties of his body into perfect order and into such harmony with itself and its environment as to express the mastery of spirit over the flesh.

If the promise is true that gracefulness means economy of force, then it follows as a logical sequence that a constant practice of graceful deportment must bring with it a reserve and storage of force.
Fine manners, therefore, mean power in repose.

Is lofty spiritual attainment really possible through ettiquette?
Why not?--All roads lead to Rome!
As an example of how the simplest thing can be made into an art and then become spiritual culture, I may take Cha-no-yu, the tea ceremony.

That calmness of mind, that serenity of temper, that composure and quietness of demeanour which are the first essentials of Cha-no-yu, are without doubt the first conditions of right thinking and right feelin.

The very fact that it was invented by a contemplative recluse, in a time when wars and the rumor of wars were incessant, is well calculated to show that this institution was more than a pastime.
Before entering the quiet precincts of the tea-room, the company assembling to partake of the ceremony laid aside, together with their swords, the ferocity of battle-field or the cares of gevernment, there to find peace and friendship.

Cha-no-yu is more than a ceremony--it is a fine art; it is poetry, with articulate gestures for rhythms: it is a modus operandi of soul discipline.
Its greatest value lies in this last phase.

Politeness will be a great acquisition, if it does no more than impart grace to manners; but its function does not stop here.
For propriety, springing as it does from motives of benevolence and modesty, and actuated by tender feelings toward the sensibilities of others, is ever a graceful expression of sympathy.
Its requirement is that we should weep with those that weep and rejoice with those that rejoice.

-Next: Chapter 7 Veracity and Sincerity-

[Mikawa Ossan]

Chapter 7 Veracity and Sincerity

Without veracity and sincerity, politeness is a farce and a show.
"Propriety carried beyond right bounds," says Masamune, "becomes a lie."

The apotheosis of Sincerity to which Confucius gives espression in the Doctrine of the Mean, attributes to it trancendental powers, almost identifying them with the Divine.
"Sincerity is the end and the beginning of all things; without Sincerity there would be nothing."
He then dwells with eloquence on its far-reaching and long-enduring nature, its power to produce changes without movement and by its mere presence to accomplish its purpose without effort.

From the Chinese ideogram for Sincerity, which is a combination of "Word" and "Perfect," one is tempted to draw a parallel between it and the Neo-Platonic doctrine of Logos--to such height does the sage soar in his unwonted mystic flight.
Lying or equivocation were deemed equally cowardly.
The bushi held that his high social position demanded a loftier standard of veracity than that of the tradesman and peasant.
Bushi no ichi-gon--the word of a samurai, or in exact German equivalent, Ritterwort--was sufficient guaranty for the truthfulness of an assertion.
His word carriedsuch weight with it that promises were generally made and fulfilled without a written pledge, which would have been deemed quite beneath his dignity.
Many thrilling anecdotes were told of those who atoned by death for ni-gon, a double-tongue.
The regard for veracity was so high that, unlike the generality of Christians who persistently violate the plain commands of the Teacher not to swear, the best of samurai looked upon an oath as derogatory to their honour.

Those who are well acquainted with our history will remember that only a few years after our treaty ports were opened to foreign trade, feudalism was abolished, and when with it the samurai's fiefs were taken and bonds issued to them in compensation, they were given liberty to invest them in mercantile transactions.

Now you may ask, "Why could they not bring their much boasted veracity into their new business relations and so reform the old abuses?"

-Next Chapter 7 Veracity and Sincerity continued-

[Mikawa Ossan]

Chapter 7 Veracity and Sincerity continued

Those who had eyes to see could not weep enough, those who had hearts to feel could not sympathise enough, with the fate of many a noble and honest samurai who signally and irrevocably failed in his new and unfamiliar field of trade and industry, through sheer lack of shrewdness in coping with his artful plebeian rival.

It will be long before it will be recognised how many fortunes were wrecked in the attempt to apply Bushido ethics to business methods; but it was soon patent to every observing mind that the ways of wealth were not the ways of honour.

Of the three incentives to veracity that Lecky enumerates, viz., the industrial, the political, and the philosophical, the first was altogether lacking in Bushido.
As to the second, it could develop little in a political community under a feudal system.
It is in its philosophical and, as Lecky says, in its highest aspect, that honesty attained elevated rank in our catalogue of virtues.
With all my sincere regard for the high commercial integrity of the Anglo-Saxon race, when I ask for the ultimate ground, I am told that "honesty is the best policy,"--that it pays to be honest.
Is not this virtue, then, its own reward?
If it is followed because it brings in more cash than falsehood, I am afraid Bushido would rather indulge in lies!
If Bushido rejects a doctrine of quid pro quo rewards, the shrewder tradesman will readily accept it.

Often have I wondered whether the veracity of Bushido had any motive higher than courage.
In the absence of any positive commandment against bearing false witness, lying was not condemned as a sin, but simply denounced as weakness, and, as such, highly dishonourable.
As a matter of fact, the idea of honesty is so intimately blended, and its Latin and its German etymology so identified with honour, that it is high time I should pause a few moments for the consideration of this feature of the Precepts of Knighthood.

-Next Chapter 8 Honour-

[Mikawa Ossan]

-Chapter 8 Honour-

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 priveledges of their profession.
Though the word ordinarily given nowadays as the translation of honour was not used freely, yet the idea was conveyed by such terms as na (name) menmoku (countenance), guaibun (outside hearing), reminding us respectively of the biblical use of "name," of the evolution of the term "personality" from the Greek mask, and of "fame."
A good name--one's reputation, "the immortal part of one's self, wha remains being bestial"--assumed as a matter of course, any infringement upon its integrity was felf as shame, and the sense of shame (Renchishin) was one of the earliest to be cherished in juvenile education.
"You will be laughed at," "It will disgrace you," "Are you not ashamed?" were the last appeal to correct behaviour on the part of a youthful delinquent.
Such a recourse to his honour touched the most sensitive spot in the child's heart, as though it had been nursed on honour while he was in his mother's womb; for most truly is honour a pre-natal influence, being closely bound up with strong family consciousness.

The popular adage said: "To hear what you think you cannot bear is really to bear."
The great Iyeyasu left to posterity a few maxims, among which are the following:--"The life of man is like going a long distance with a heavy load upon the shoulders. Haste not... Reproach none, but be forever watchful of thine own shortcomings... Forbearance is the basis of length of days."

Patience and long-suffering were also highly commended by Mencius.
In one place he writes to this effect: "Though you denude yourself and insult me, what is that to me? You cannot defile my sould by your outrage."

Elsewhere he teaches that anger at a petty offence is unworthy a superior man, but indignation for a great cause is righteous wrath.
To what height of unmartial and unresisting meekness Bushido could reach in some of its votaries, may be seen in their utterances.

-Next Chapter 8 continued-

[Mikawa Ossan]

-Chapter 8 Honour- continued

It must be admitted that very few attained this sublime height of magnanimity, patience and forgiveness.
It was a great pity that nathing clear and general was expressed as to what constitutes honour, only a few enlightened minds being aware that it "from no condition rises," but that it lies in each acting well his part; for nothing was easier than for youths to forget in the heat of action what they had learned in Mencius in their calmer moments.

Said this sage: "`Tis in every man's mind to love honour; but little doth he dream that what is truly honourable lies within himself and not elsewhere. The honour which men confer is not good honour. Those whom Chao the Great ennobles, he can make mean again."
For the most part, an insult was quickly resented and repaid by death, as we shall see later, while honour--to often nothing higher than vainglory or worldly approbation--was prized as the sunnum bonum of earthly existence.
Fame, and not wealth or knowledge, was the goal toward which youths had to strive.
Many a lad swore within himself as he crossed the threshold of his paternal home, that he would not recross it until he had made a name in the world; and many an ambitious mother refused to see her sons again unless they could "return home," as the expression is, "caparisoned in brocade."
To shun shame or win a name, samurai boys would submit to any privations and undergo severest ordeals of bodily or mental suffering.
They knew that honour won in youth grows with age.

Life itself was thought cheap if honour and fame could be attained therewith: hence, whenever a cause presented itself which was considered dearer than life, with utmost serenity and celerity was life laid down.

-Next Chapter 9 The Duty of Loyalty-

[Mikawa Ossan]

-Chapter 9 The Duty of Loyalty-

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.
I am aware that personal fidelity is a moral adhesion existing among all sorts and conditions of men,--a gang of pickpockets owe allegiance to a Fagin; but it is only in the code of chivalrous honour that loyalty assumes paramount importance.

Similarly, loyalty as we conceive it may find few admirers elsewhere, not because out conception is wrong, but because it is, I am afraid, forgotten, and also because we carry it to a degree not reached in any other country.

Griffis was quite right in stating that whereas in China Confucian ethics made obedience to parents the primary human duty, in Japan precedence was given to loyalty.

The individualism of the West, which recognises separate interests for father and son, husband and wife, necessarily brings into strong relief the duties owed by one to the other; but Bushido held that the interest of the family and of the members thereof is intact,--one and inseparable.
This interest is bound up with affection--natural, instinctive, irresistible; hence, if we die for one we love with natural love (which animals themselves possess), what is that?

"For if ye love them that love you, what reward have ye? Do not even the publicans the same?"
In his great history, Sanyo relates in touching language the heart struggle of Shigemori concerning his father's rebellious conduct. "If I be loyal, my father must be undone; if I obey my father, my duty to my sovereign must go amiss."
Poor Shigemori! We see him afterward praying with all his soul that kind Heaven may visit him with death, that he may be released from this world where it is hard for purity and righteousness to dwell.
Many a Shigemori has his heart torn by the conflict between duty and affection.
Indeed, neither Shakespeare nor the Old Testament itself contains an adequate redering of ko, our conception of filial piety, and yet in such conflicts Bushido never wavered in its choice of loyalty.

-next Chapter 9 The Duty of Loyalty continued-

[davidterrell]

I just want to add a comment on the book you are reading and quoting. It does have many interesting aspects to it, but you should be aware that Nitobe wrote this book after the day of the samurai. In other words, it is written in hindsight, and not OF the era. Bushido was not a formal study during most of the samurai history, but rather became formalized when the day of the warrior was in eclipse. The advent of the Tokugawa Shogunate basically began this slow decline by largely stabilizing Japan and ending broad-based warefare. As warriors found themselves with fewer wars to fight and jobs to occupy themselves, they began to question how their warrior training was to guide them and prove useful in a progressively more peaceful society. From this examination slowly emerged formal "Bushido".
The reason I take the time to note the above is simply that to more deeply understand Budo and have a greater perspective on it, one really should go back much farther in history than just reading Nitobe. It isn't that he is not valuable, but that he is just one aspect of the Way of the Warrior, a sort of late-comer and almost the tip of the proverbial iceberg. His writing are most idealized and modern, and just need to be seen in that light.
Sincerely, David Terrell

[godppgo]

In his great history, Sanyo relates in touching language the heart struggle of Shigemori concerning his father's rebellious conduct. "If I be loyal, my father must be undone; if I obey my father, my duty to my sovereign must go amiss."
Poor Shigemori! We see him afterward praying with all his soul that kind Heaven may visit him with death, that he may be released from this world where it is hard for purity and righteousness to dwell.
Many a Shigemori has his heart torn by the conflict between duty and affection.


The Sigemori example pin points a very important and core value of Japanese that is unique to Japanese themselves. Confucius thinking regards family as the basic building block of the society and family matter should be taken care of as priority before extending one's care to the sovereign and then society.
Samurai regards loyal to sovereign(society/country) should come first and family second. This idea of putting society and country first can still be observed in modern day Japan. Evident from Japan's national flag presence at school and company induction ceremony.

[Mikawa Ossan]

-Chapter 9 The Duty of Loyalty- continued

Women, too, envouraged their offspring to sacrifice all for the king.
Even as resolute as Widow Windham and her illustrious consort, the samurai matron stood ready to give up her boys for the cause of loyalty.
Since Bushido, like Aristotle and some modern sociologists, conceived the state as antedating the individual,--the latter being born into the former as part and parcel thereof,--he must live and die for it or for the incumbent of its legitimate authority.
Readers of Crito will remember the argument with which Socrates represents the laws of the city as pleading with him on the subject of his escape.
Among others he makes them (the laws or the state) say: "Since you were begotten and nurtured and educated under us, dare you once to say you are not our offspring and servant, you and your fathers before you?"
These are words which do not impress us as any thing extraordinary; for the same thing has long been on the lips of Bushido, with this modification, that the laws and the state were represented with us by a personal being.
Loyalty is an ethical outcome of this political theory.

Bushido did not require us to make our conscience the slave of any lord or king.

A man who sacrificed his own conscience to the capricious win or freak or fancy of a sovereign was accorded a low place in the estimate of the Precepts.
Such as one was despised as nei-shin, a cringling, who makes court by unscrupulous fawning, or as cho-shin, a favourite who steals his master's affections by means of servile compliance;

When a subject differed from his master, the loyal path for him to pursue was to use every available means to persuade him of his error, as Kent did to King Lear.
Failing in this, let the master deal with him as he wills. In cases of this kind, it was quite a usual course for the samurai to make the last appeal to the intelligence and conscience of his lord by demonstrating the sincerity of his words with the shedding of his own blood.
Life being regarded as the means whereby he serves his master, and its ideal being set upon honour, the whole education and training of a samurai were conducted accordingly.

next -Chapter 10 The Education and Training of a Samurai-

[Mikawa Ossan]

-Chapter 10 The Education and Training of a Samurai-

The first point to observe in knightly pedagogics was to build up character, leaving in the shade the subtler faculties of prudence, intelligence and dialectics.
We have seen the important part aesthetic accomplishments played in his education.

Indispensable as they were to a man of culture, they were accessories rather than essentials of samurai training.
Intellectual superiority was, of course, esteemed; but the word Chi, which was employed to denote intellectuality, meant wisdom in the first instance and gave knowledge only a very subordinate place.
The tripod which supported the framwork of Bushido was said to be Chi, Jin, Yu, respectively, Wisdom, Benevolence, and Courage.
A samurai was essentially a man of action.
Science was without the pale of his activity.
He took advantage of it in so far as it concerned his profession of arms.
Religion and theology were relegated to the priests; he concerned himself with them in so far as they helped to nourish courage.
Like and English poet the samurai believed "'tis not the creed that saves the man; but it is the man that justifies the creed."
Philosophy and literature formed the chief part of his intellectual training; but even in the pursuit of these, it was not objective truth that he strove after,--literature was pursued madly as a pastime, and philosophy as a practical aid in the formation of character, if not for the exposition of some military or political problem.
From what has been said, it will not be surprising to note that the curriculum of studies, according to the pedagogics of Bushido, consisted of mainly the following:--fencing, archery, jiujutsu or yawara, horsmanship, the use of the spear, tactics, calligraphy, ethics, literature, and history.

Next -Chapter 10 The Education and Training of a Samurai- continued

[Mikawa Ossan]

-Chapter 10 The Education and Training of a Samurai- continued

A subject of study which one would expect to find in military education and which is rather conspicuous by its absence in the Bushido course of instruction, is mathematics.
This, however, can be readily explained in part by the fact that feudal warfare was not carried on with scientific precision.
Not only that, but the whole training of the samurai was unfavourable to fostering numerical notions.
Chivalry is uneconomical: it boasts of penury.
It says with Ventidius that "ambition, the soldier's virtue, rather makes choice of loss, than gain which darkens him."
Don Quixote takes more pride in his rusty spear and skin-and-bone horse than in gold and lands, and a samurai is in hearty sympathy with his exaggerated confrere of La Mancha.
He disdains money itself,--the art of making or hoarding it.
It was to him veritably filthy lucre.
The hackneyed expression to describe the decadence of an age was "that the civilians loved money and the soldiers feared death."
Niggardliness of gold and of life excited as much disapprobation as their lavish use was panegyrised.
"Less than all things," says a current precept, "men must grudge money: it is by riches that wisdom is hindered."
Hence children were brought up with utter disregard of economy.
It was considered bad taste to speak of it, and ignorance of the value of different coins was a token of good breeding.
Knowledge of numbers was indispensable in the mustering of forces as well as in distribution of benefices and fiefs; but the counting of money was left to meaner hands.
In many feudatories, public finance was administered by a lower kind of samurai or by priests.
Every thinking bushi knew well enough that money formed the sinews of war; but he did not think of raising the appreciation of money to a virtue.
It is true that thrift was enjoined by Bushido, but not for economical reasons so much as for the exercise of abstinence.
Luxury was thought the greatest menace to manhood and severest simplicity of living was required of the warrior class, sumptuary laws being enforced in many of the clans.

Next -Chapter 10 The Education and Training of a Samurai- continued again

[Mikawa Ossan]

Next -Chapter 10 The Education and Training of a Samurai- continued again

Not so with the Precepts of Knighthood.
It persisted in systematically regarding finance as something low--low as compared with moral and intellectual vocations.
Money and the love of it being thus diligently ignored, Bushido itself could long remain free from a thousand and one evils of which money is the root.

Of the three services of studies that Bacon gives,--for delight, ornament, and ability,--Bushido had decided preference for the last, where their use was "in judgment and the disposition of business."
Whether it was for the dispostion of public business or for the exercise of self-control, it was with a practical end in view that education was conducted.
"Learing without thought," said Confucius, "is labor lost; thought without learning is perilous."
When character and not intelligence, when the soul and not the head, is chosen by a teacher for the material to work upon and to develop, his vocation partakes of a sacred character.
"It is the parent who has borne me; it is the teacher who makes me man."
With this idea, therefore, the exteem in which one's precerptor was held was very high.
A man to evoke such confidence and respect from the young, must necessarily be endowed with superior personality, without lacking erudition.
He was a father to the fatherless, and an adviser to the erring.
"Thy father and thy mother."--so runs our maxim--"are like heaven and earth; thy teacher and thy lord are like the sun and the moon."
The present system of paying for every sort of service was not in vogue among many adherents of Bushido.
It believed in a servce which can be rendered only without money and without price.
Spiritual Service, be it of a priest or teacher, was not to be repaid in gold or silver, not because it was valueless, but because it was invaluabe.
Here the non-arithmetical honour-instinct of Bushido taught a truer lesson than modern Polical Economy; for wages and salaries can be paid only for services whose results are definite, tangible, and measureable, whereas the best service done in education,--namely, in soul development (and this includes the services of a pastor), is not definite, tangible, or measurable. Being immeasuable, money, the ostensible measure of value, is of inadequate use.

They were grave personifications of high spirits undaunted by adversity.
They were an embodiment of what was considered as an end of all learning, and were thus a living example of that discipline of disciplines, self-control, which was universally required of samurai.

Next -Chapter 11 Self-Control-

[osias]

i just started to read this book:bluush:

[Mikawa Ossan]

-Chapter 11 Self-Control-

The discipline of fortitude on the one hand, inculcating endurance without a groan, and the teaching of politeness on the other, requiring us not to mar the pleasure or serenity of another by expressions of our own sorrow or pain, combined to engender a stocial turn of mind, and eventually to confirm it into a national trait of apparent stoicism.
I say apparent stoicism, because I do not believe that true stoicism can ever become the characteristic of a whole nation, and also because some of our national manners and customs may seem to a foreign observer hard-hearted.
Yet we are realy as susceptible to tender emotion as any race under the sky.

I am inclined to think that in one sense we have to feel more than others--yes, doubly more--since the very attempt to restrain natural promptings entail suffering.

It was considered unmanly for a samurai to betray his emotions on his face.
"He shows no sign of joy or anger," was a phrase used, in describing a great character.
The most natural affections were kept under control.
A father could embrace his son only at the expense of his dignity; a husband would not kiss his wife,--no, not in the presence of other people, whatever he might do in private!

To give in so many articulate works one's inmost thoughts and feelings--notably the religious--is taken among us as an unmistakable sign that they are neither very profound nor very sincere.
"Only a pomegranate is he"--so runs a popular saying "who, when he gapes his mouth, displays the contents of his heart."
It is not altogether perverseness of oriental minds that the instant our emotions are moved, we try to guard our lips in order to hide them.
Speech is very often with us, as the Frenchman defines it, "the art of concealing thought."

Indeed, the Japanese have recourse to risibility whenever the frailties of human nature are put to severest test.

NEXT -Chapter 11 Self-Control- continued

[Mikawa Ossan]

-Chapter 11 Self-Control- continued

Personally, I believe it was our very excitability and sensitiveness which made it a necessity to recognise and enforce constant self-repression; but whatever may be the explanation, without taking into account long years of descipline in self-control, none can be correct.
Discipline in self-control can easily go to far.
It can well repress the genial current of the soul.
It can force pliant natures into distortions and monstrosities.
It can beget bigotry, breed hyprocrisy, or hebetate affections.
Be a virtue never so noble, it has its counterpart and counterfeit.
We must recognise in each virtue its own positive excellence and follow its positive ideal, and the ideal of self-restraint is to keep the mind level--as our expression is--or, to borrow a Greek term, attain the state of euthymia, which Democritus called the highest good.

The acme and pitch of self-control is reached and best illustrated in the first of the two institutions which we shall now bring to view, namely, the institutions of suicide and redress.

next -Chapter 12 The Institutions of Suicide and Redress-

[Mikawa Ossan]

-Chapter 12 The Institutions of Suicide and Redress-

Of these two institutions (the former known as hara-kiri and the latter as kataki-uchi), many foreign writers have treated more or less fully.
To begin with suicide, let me state that I confine my observations only to seppuku or kappuku, popularly known as hara-kiri--which means self-immolation by disembowelment.

Not for extraneous associations only does seppuku lose in our mind any taint of absurdity; for the choice of this particular part of the body to operate upon, was based on an old anatomical belief as to the seat of the soul and of the affections.

Modern neurologists speak of the abdominal and pelvic brains, denoting thereby sympathetic nerve centres in those parts which are strongly affected by any psychical action.
This view of mental physiology once admitted, the syllogism of seppuku is easy to construct.
"I will open the seat of my soul and show you how it fares with it. See for yourself whether it is polluted or clean."
I do not wish to be understood in asserting religious or even moral justification of suicide, but the high estimate placed upon hounour was ample excuse with many for taking one's life.

Death involving a question of honour, was accepted in Bushido as a key to the solution of many complex problems, so that to an ambitious samurai a natural departure from life seemed a rather tame affair and a consummation not devoutly to be wished for.

An invention of the middle ages, it was a process by which warriors could expiate their crimes, apologise for errors, escape from disgrace, redeem their friends, or prove their sincerity.
When enforced as a legal punishment, it was practised with due ceremony.
It was a refinement of self-destruction, and none could perform it without the utmost coolness of temper and composure of demeanour, and for these reasons it was particularly befitting the profession of bushi.

The glorification of seppuku offered, naturally enough, no small temptation to its unwarranted committal.
For causes entirely incompatible with reason, or for reasons entirely undeserving of death, hot-headed youths rushed into it as insects fly into fire; mixed and dubious motives drove more samurai to this deed than nuns into convent gates.

next -Chapter 12 The Institutions of Suicide and Redress- continued

[GodEmperorLeto]

Such men are becoming an even rarer breed. He is the one that does not vocalize long 'eeeeeeeeeh' or 'oooooooh' of surprise for every little trivial fact revealed on TV. These values seem all but lost in modern Japanese society.

Consider how bushido is the "soul of Japan," in conjunction with Mishima Yukio's claim that Japan has "lost it's soul", and was a fervent follower of bushido and revered the emperor.

The very posting of this by Mikawa Ossan is, in many ways, a scathing, though unintentional, commentary on Japanese modern society. Mishima would be proud.

An invention of the middle ages, it was a process by which warriors could expiate their crimes, apologise for errors, escape from disgrace, redeem their friends, or prove their sincerity.
When enforced as a legal punishment, it was practised with due ceremony.
It was a refinement of self-destruction, and none could perform it without the utmost coolness of temper and composure of demeanour, and for these reasons it was particularly befitting the profession of bushi.


In some ways, enforcing it as a legal punishment cheapened it. Then again, I'm not Japanese, so who am I to judge?

Although never an institution, suicide has a few interesting parallels in Western culture. Although frowned upon by Christianity, and in many Western countries seen as a form of cowardice, the ancient Romans saw the practice as wholly acceptable as well. However, their view of suicide included it as a form of contempt, as per Cato the Younger's self-disembowelment to "rob Caesar of the glory of pardoning him", as well as a form of political protest (the refusal to live under a monarchy, for example). Honor (read dignitas) was incredibly important to the Romans.

[Index]

Ignore this post

[ricecake]

I've recently purchased Chinese language translation of this book,a good read for those interest in Japanese mentality.

Japanese people are more highly self-displined than Koreans and Chinese.

[Mikawa Ossan]

-Chapter 12 The Institutions of Suicide and Redress- continued

And yet, for a true samurai to hasten death or to court it, was alike cowardice.

This, then, was the Bushido teaching--Scar and face all calamities and adversities with patience and a pure conscience; for, as Mencius taught, "When Heaven is about to confer a great office on anyone, it first exercises his mind with suffering and his sinews and bones with toil; it exposes his body to hunger and subjects him to extreme poverty; and it confounds his undertakings. In all these ways it stimulates his mind, hardens his nature, and supplies his incompetencies."
True honour lies in fulfilling Heaven's decree and no death incurred in so doing is ignominious, whereas, death to avoid what Heaven has in store is cowardly indeed!

We will now see whether its sister institution of Redress--or call it Revenge, if you will--has its mitigating features.

"What is the most beautiful thing on earth?" said Osiris to Horus.
The reply was, "to avenge a parent's wrongs,"--to which a Japanese would have added "and a master's."

Our sense of revenge is as exact as out mathematical faculty, and until both terms of the equation are satisfied we cannot get over the sense of something left undone.

The master of the forty-seven Ronins was condemned to death; he had no court of higher instance to appeal to; his faithful retainers addressed themselves to vengeance, the only Supreme Court existing; they in their turn were condemned by common law,--but the popular instinct passed a different judgement, and hence their memory is still kept as green and fragrant as are their graves at Sengakuji to this day.

Though Lao-tse taught to recompense injury with kindness, the voice of Confucius was very much louder, which taught that injury must be recompensed with justice;--and yet revenge was justified only when it was undertaken in behalf of our superiors and benefactors.

Next -Chapter 13 The Sword, The Soul of the Samurai-

[Uchite]

I read this book many years ago and enjoyed it very much. It really can be helpful in understanding how "old" Japan and "new" Japan are so different in so many ways.

Another good book somewhat similar to it is Hagakure: The Book Of The Samurai by Yamamoto Tsunetomo. Somewhat more difficult to understand at times. But full of great advice that is timeless such as:


"One should be careful and not say things that are likely to cause trouble at the time. When some difficulty arises in this world, people get excited, and before one knows it the matter is on everyone's lips. This is useless. If worse comes to worse, you may become the subject of gossip, or at least you will have made enemies by saying something unnecessary and will have created ill will. It is said that at such a time it is better to stay at home and think of poetry."

And:

"A person who knows but a little will put on an air of knowledpe. This is a matter of inexperience. When someone knows something well, it will not be seen in his manner. This person is genteel."

[Mikawa Ossan]

-Chapter 13 The Sword, The Soul of the Samurai-

Bushido made the sword its emblem of power and prowess.
When Mahomet proclaimed that "the sword is the key of Heaven and of Hell," he only echoed a Japanese sentiment.
Very early the samurai boy learned to wield it.
It was a momentous occasion for him when at the age of five he was apparelled in the paraphernalia of samurai costumes placed upon a go-board and initiated into the rights of the military professions by having thrust into his girdle a real sword instead of the toy dirk with which he had been playing.
After this first ceremony of adoptio per arma, he was no more to be seen outside his father's gates without this badge of status, even though it was usually substituted for everyday wear by a gilded wooden dirk.
Not many years pass before he wears constantly the genuine steel, though blunt, and then the sham arms are thrown aside and with enjoyment keener than his newly acquired blades, he marches out to try their edge on wood and stone.
When he reaches man's estate, at the age of fifteen, being given independence of action, he can now pride himself upon the possession of arms sharp enough for any work.
The very possession of the dangerous instrument imparts to him a feeling and an air of self-respect and responsibility.
"He beareth not the sword in vain."
What he carries in his belt is a symbol of what he carries in his mind and heart, --loyalty and honour.
The two swords, the longer and the shorter,--called respectively daito and shoto or katana and wakizashi,--never leave his side.
When at home, they grace the most conspicuous place in the study or parlour; by night they guard his pillow within easy reach of his hand.
Constant companions, they are beloved, and proper names of endearment given them.
Being venerated, they are well-nigh worshipped.

next -Chapter 13 The Sword, The Soul of the Samuarai- continued

[kamaru]

I saw a BBC documentary recently about what the Muslims "gave us". But almost everything we owe to the Muslims are translations of Ancient Greco-Roman books (esp. the works of Aristotle). Europe also obtained the Indian numbers (http://www.jref.com/forum/showthread.php?t=19742) and Chinese black powder from the Arabs.
MISSING FACTS- MISSING FACTS- MISSING FACTS- MISSING FACTS
Europe has actually inherited much more from the Arabs. In fact Algebra was created by the Arabs ( the word algebra is derived from the name of an Arab scientist), Astronomy was a lead topic of study in the Arab world and the Arabs gave Europe the Arabic numbers while the Indian numbers are used by the Arabs, besides,the 0 ( zero is derived from the Arabic pronunciation) was an Arabic invention and a revolutionnary one ...
MISSING FACTS- MISSING FACTS- MISSING FACTS- MISSING FACTS

[Mikawa Ossan]

-Chapter 13 The Sword, The Soul of the Samuarai- continued

The swordsmith was not a mere artisan but an inspired artist and his workshop a sanctuary.
Daily he commenced his craft with prayer and purification, or, as the phrase was, "he committed his soul and spirit into the forging and tempering of the steel."
Every swing of the sledge, every plunge into water, every friction on the grandstone, was a religious act of no slight import.
Was it the spirit of the master or of his tutelary god that cast a formidable spell over our sword?

Harmless were its mission, if it only remained a thing of beauty and joy!
But, ever within reach of the hand, it presented no small temptation for abuse.

Too often did the blade flash forth from its peaceful sheath.
The abuse sometimes went so far as to try the acquired steel on some harmless creature's neck.
The question that concerns us most is, however,--Did Bushido justify the promiscuous use of the weapon?
The answer is unequivocally, no!

As it laid great stress on its proper use, so did it denounce and abhor its misuse.
A dastard or a braggartwas he who brandished his weapon on undeserved occasions.
A self-possessed man knows the right time to use it, and such times come but rarely.

The popular apothegm--"To be beaten is to conquer," meaning true conquest consists in not opposing a riotous foe; and "The best won victory is that obtained without shedding of blood," and others of similar import--will show that after all the ultimate ideal of knighthood was peace.

-Next: Chapter 14 The Training and Position of Woman-

[Mikawa Ossan]

-Chapter 14 The Training and Position of Woman-

The female half of our species has sometimes been called the paragon of paradoxes, because the intuitive working of its mind is beyond the comprehension of men's "arithmetical understanding."
The Chinese ideogram denoting "the mysterious," "the unknowable," consistists of two parts, one meaning "young" and the other "woman," because of the physical charms and delicate thoughts of the fair sex are above the coarse mental calibre of our sex to explain.
In the Bushido ideal of woman, however, there is little mystery and only a seeming paradox.
I have said that it was Amazonian, but that is only half the truth.

Without confining the sphere of woman's activity to Kuche, Keirche, Kinder, as the present German Kaiser is said to do, the Bushido ideal of womanhood was pre-eminently domestic.
These seeming contradictions:--domesticity and Amazonian traits--are not inconsistent with the Percepts of Knighthood, as we shall see.
Bushido being a teaching primarily intended for the masculine sex, the virtues it prized in woman were naturally far from being distinctly feminine.

Bushido similarly praised those women most "who emancipated themselves from the frailty of their sex and displayed an heroic fortitude worthy of the strongest and bravest of men."
Young girls, therefore, were trained to repress their feelings, to indurate their nerves, to manipulate weapons--especially the long-handled sword called nagi-nata, so as to be able to hold their own against unexpected odds.
Yet the primary motive for exercise of this martial character was not for use in the field; it was twofold--personal and domestic.
Woman owning no suzerain of her own, formed her own body-guard.
With her weapon she guarded her personal sanctity with as much zeal as her husband did his master's.
The domestic utility of her warlike training was in the education of her sons, as we shall see later.

Fencing and similar exercises, if rarely of practical use, were a wholesome counterbalance to the otherwise sedentary habits of women.
But these exercises were not followed only for hygienic purposes.
They could be turned into use in times of need.
Girls, when they reached womanhood, were presented with dirks (kai-ken, pocket poniards), which might be directed to the bosom of their assailants, or, if advisable, to their own.

-Next: Chapter 14 The Training and Position of Woman continued-

[Mikawa Ossan]

-Chapter 14 The Training and Position of Woman- continued

Accomplishments and the gentler graces of life were required of them.
Music, dancing, and literature were not neglected.
Some of the finest verses in our literature were expressions of feminine sentiments; in fact, woman played an important role in the history of Japanese belles-lettres.
Dancing was taught (I am speaking of samurai girls and not of geisha) only to smooth the angularity of their movements.
Music was to regale the weary hours of their fathers and husbands; hence it was not for the technique, the art as such, that music was learned; for the ultimate object was purification of heart, since it was said that no harmony of sound is attainable without the player's heart being in harmony with itself.

The accomplishments of our women were not acquired for show or social ascendancy.
They were a home diversion; and if they shone in social parties, it was as the attributes of a hostess--in other words, as a part of the household contrivance for hospitality.

Woman's surrender of herself to the good of her husband, home, and family, was as willing and honourable as the man's self-surrender to the good of his lord and country.
Self-renunciation, without which no life-enigma can be solved, was the key-note of the loyalty of man as well as of the domesticity of woman.
She was no more the slave of man than was her husband of his liege-lord, and the part she played was recognised as naijo, "the inner help."

In the ascending scale of service stood woman, who annihilated herself for man, that hemight annihilate himself for the master, that he in turn might obey Heaven.
I know the weakness of this teaching and the superiority of Christianity is nowhere more manifested than here, in that it requires of each and every living soul direct responsibility to its Creator.
Nevertheless, as far as the doctrine of service--the serving of a cause higher than one's own self, even at the sacrifice of one's individuality; I say the doctrine of service, which is the greatest that Christ preached and was the sacred key-note of His mission--so far as that is concerned, Bushido was based on eternal truth.
My readers will not accuse me of undue prejudice in favour of slavish surrender of volition.

I accept in a large measure the view advanced and defended with breadth of learning and profundity of thoughy by Hegel, that history is the enfolding and realisation of freedom.
The point I wish to make is that the whole teaching of Bushido was so thoroughly imbued with the spirit of self-sacrifice, that it was required not only of woman but of man.

-Next: Chapter 14 The Training and Position of Woman continued (pt.2)-