is a moral code concerning samurai attitudes, behavior and lifestyle, formalized in the Edo period (1603–1868). There are multiple types of bushido which evolved significantly through history. Contemporary forms of bushido are still used in the social and economic organization of Japan. Bushido is also used as an overarching term for all the codes, practices, philosophies and principles of samurai culture. It is loosely analogous to the European concept of chivalry, but there are major differences.
Origin
Ideas of the samurai code formalized earlier samurai moral values and ethical code, most commonly stressing a combination of sincerity, frugality, loyalty, martial arts mastery, honour until death, "bravery", and "loyalty to the samurai's lord." The idea of a samurai code or codes was developed and refined centuries before the Edo period in the Kamakura period.
Bushido proper developed between the 16th and 20th centuries, but this was debated by pundits who believed they were building on a legacy dating back to the 10th century.
The term bushido itself is "rarely attested in pre-modern literature".
Born from Neo-Confucianism during times of peace in the Edo period and following Confucian texts, while also being influenced by Shinto and Zen Buddhism, it balanced violence with the therapeutic ideals of wisdom and peace accepted at the time. It was developed further during the Muromachi period (1336–1573) and formally defined and applied in law by Tokugawa shogunates in the Edo period.
There is no strict definition, and interpretations of the code have varied over time. Bushido has undergone many changes throughout Japanese history, and various Japanese clans interpreted it in their own way.
One of the earliest known usages of bushido is in the extremely influential late 16th century text The Military Mirror of Kai, where it was used to describe unwritten rules in a complex metaphorical way that commoners could purportedly not live up to.
Another early use of the written term is in the Kōyō Gunkan in 1616 by Kōsaka Masanobu. In 1685, the ukiyo-e book by artist Hishikawa Moronobu included the term and artwork of samurai with simple descriptions meant for children. In 1642, the was written by samurai Saito Chikamori and included moral precepts which explained the theoretical aspects of bushido. It was written with accessible kana and intended for commoners, not warriors. It was very popular, demonstrating that the idea of bushido had spread among the population. The Kashoki shows that moral values were present in bushido by 1642.
The term, bushido, came into common international usage with the 1899 publication of Nitobe Inazō's Bushido: The Soul of Japan which was read by many influential western people. In Bushido (1899), Nitobe wrote:
Bushidō, then, is the code of moral principles which the samurai were required or instructed to observe...More frequently it is a code unuttered and unwritten...It was an organic growth of decades and centuries of military career. In order to become a samurai this code has to be mastered.
In Feudal and Modern Japan (1896), historian Arthur May Knapp wrote:
The samurai of thirty years ago had behind him a thousand years of training in the law of honor, obedience, duty, and self-sacrifice ... It was not needed to create or establish them. As a child he had but to be instructed, as indeed he was from his earliest years, in the etiquette of self-immolation.
Etymology
is a Japanese word that literally means "warrior way". It is first attested in the 1616 work , a military chronicle recording the exploits of the Takeda clan. The term is a compound of , a Chinese-derived word first attested in Japanese in 712 with the on'yomi (Sino-Japanese reading), and . In modern usage, bushi is often used as a synonym for samurai; however, historical sources make it clear that bushi and samurai were distinct concepts, with the former referring to soldiers or warriors and the latter referring instead to a kind of hereditary nobility.
In the early 17th century, the term with its on'yomi reading was used alongside the synonymous alternative form , read using native Japanese vocabulary (kun'yomi) as mono no fu no michi. Another important term is .