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Warriors In the Land of the Rising Sun: Edo Period Samurai
Introduction: Emergence of the Samurai Class
According to Paul Varley, the "true spawning ground" of the samurai class was Kanto, which was renowned as the source of the country's best fighters (78). The warrior class developed there when local chieftains formed bands of mounted warriors. The groups of warriors originally contained only blood relatives of the chieftain, but later expanded to include non-relatives in a lord-vassal relationship. These samurai were diametrically opposite the Heian courtiers; they displayed manly arrogance, fighting prowess, complete fidelity to their overlord, and pride in their lineage (Varley, 79). This deviation seems both fitting and strange; many of the samurai came from court culture. In this time, the Fujiwara clan enjoyed such complete control over the court that it became difficult for other clans--even lesser Fujiwara clans--to advance. Many of the failed courtiers left for Kanto, where they learned the ways of the warrior. The Taira and Minamoto clans existed among the clans that sprang into being after leaving unsuccessful court life.
One can follow the progression from Heian courtiers to samurai in the capital. The Taira clan came into power in 1159 over their rivals. The Taira warriors resembled a cross-breed between the courtiers and the warriors; they knew the ways of the warrior but retained much of the courtiers' sensitivity. In the Tale of the Heike, a warrior who sympathizes with the Minomoto clan remarks that, upon finding a flute on the body of a Taira warrior, none among the Minomoto clan would carry such an item into battle (Varley, 81). Such observations distinctly mark the division between the Taira clan, who played dual roles of courtier and samurai, and the Minamoto clan, who did not diverge from the warrior role and who ultimately usurped power from the Taira clan. Thus, when Minamoto no Yoritomo became the first shogun, the military class sprang into being like Athena, fully matured.
The samurai with whom many non-Western persons find familiarity, however, did not develop until the Edo period, during the Tokugawa shogunate. Prior to this time, numerous wars dictated that the primary role of the samurai had to be that of warrior and counselor to his daimyo. After a period of invasions and civil wars, a unification of Japan occurred; when the last Great Unifier, Tokugawa no Ieyasu, stepped into the office of shogun, Japan found itself in a period of peace. This peace forced samurai to look elsewhere for their identities, as the battlefields stood empty. The samurai formed a distinctly new identity during the Edo period.
A Change in Samurai Identity
A samurai in peacetime could service his daimyo in two ways. The samurai could observe traditional peacetime duties, and the majority of samurai did just these: garrisoning the daimyo's castle, serving as an escort on one of his journeys, and providing a police force for his lands (Beasley, 155). These tasks, however, eventually became mundane and routine. More samurai became unemployed, and the spirits of the samurai faltered. The other samurai became administrators, primarily collecting rice or cash in order for the daimyo to keep up his residence in Edo and make the journey every other year. Administrative samurai could also manage the farmlands of their daimyo. Land inspections, tax return examinations, and the supervision of surveys all fell under this duty. The samurai supervisors did not always perform their tasks in the most efficient manner; the farmers could very easily hide or skew yields when presenting information to the samurai. Samurai assisted in the upkeep of his daimyo's domain, a dormant army.
Although the shogun did not want the samurai to lose their skill in battle, he also did not encourage quarrels and seeking vengeance. These behaviors would not promote the orderly society forming in Japan. In an effort to deter such behavior, in the early eighteenth century the shogun ordered Lord Asano, who incited a quarrel in the shogun's castle, to commit seppuku. Forty-seven of his surviving samurai, or ronin (samurai without masters), decided to take revenge on the other party in the dispute. After killing their target, the ronin, too, received orders to commit seppuku. Samurai, after this time, although allowed to follow the code of bushido and pursue revenge in personal matters, were expected to adhere to the wishes of the shogun regarding non-aggression in their duties.
What, then, would become of the samurai? The government provided a salary increase to those in office, and distinguished service allowed for advances in rank and, possibly, promotions. Also, the government developed samurai education, in order to provide skills to samurai outside of the skills needed on the battlefield. Newly formed schools admitted high-ranking samurai for study, and middle and lower samurai might attend on a volunteer basis. The schools provided an amalgamation of Confucianism, basic reading and writing, and sometimes simple arithmetic. Other samurai, unsatisfied with or unable to receive this education, turned to scholarship, swordsmanship, or military science expertise to advance themselves (Beasley, 158).
The Bushido Code
Yamaga Soko helped develop the code of bushido to combat and explain the sudden idleness of the samurai class. Soko said that, "the business of the samurai consists in reflecting on his own station in life, in discharging loyal service with friends, and, with due consideration of his own position, in devoting himself to duty above all" (Varley, 208). With his ideas, Soko transformed the idea of the samurai class from rough warriors to the social elite and gave them a code of ethics not unlike European chivalry.
Bushido, or "way of the warrior," draws from several schools of thought. One can trace bushido back to Zen Buddhism, Shintoism, and Confucianism. Samurai, long familiar with the Zen practice of meditation, now used that meditation as part of bushido, eliminating fear and the probability of mistakes and replacing them with composed confidence. From bushido, stoicism, constant self-control, respectful conduct in the face of death, understanding of death, and tendency to deny oneself and live in poverty can all be traced back to Zen Buddhism. Shinto gave to bushido the intense loyalty to the daimyo and shogun. Bushido takes the ancestor worship and reverence of shinto and transforms it into a renewed patriotism for the increasingly disillusioned samurai. This respect for higher power also instilled a passivity to the otherwise arrogant samurai (Nitobe, 15). Soko's great study, however, lay in the ideas of Confucianism. Although Soko rejected Neo-Confucianism, he believed that the basic, practical ethics of Confucianism would serve the Japanese greatly. Confucius's five moral relations (master and servant, father and son, husband and wife, older and younger brother, and between two friends) found themselves adopted into bushido, as well.
According to the bushido code, a samurai may commit seppuku (suicide) to "expiate their crimes, apologize for errors, escape from disgrace, redeem their friends, or prove their sincerity" (Nitobe, 116). Seppuku appears highly gruesome to the outsider, but for the samurai, seppuku presented the ultimate challenge, staying collected and composed while one disembowels oneself. Nitobe cites a foreigner's recollection of watching the spectacle:
... for a moment he seemed to collect his thoughts for the last time, and then
stabbing himself deeply below the waist on the left-hand side, he drew the dirk
slowly across to his right side, and turning it in the wound, gave a slight cut
upwards. During this sickeningly painful operation he never moved a muscle
of his face. (119)
The ceremony of seppuku contained many formal rituals, as do many practices of Japan; aside from the actual killing of oneself, performing the preparatory acts and other parts of the ceremony with solemn resolve proved to be of equal importance. The intense concentration and stoicism necessary to perform such an act made seppuku an act of contrition; who but the utterly faithful who felt sorrow for the wrongs that occurred could disembowel himself without twitching a facial muscle? Aside from atoning for personal wrongs, samurai whose masters had died or lost their lands often committed seppuku. Frequently, if they did not commit seppuku, the samurai became ronin, master-less samurai. The ronin could become nomadic teachers, hired swords, or bandits, which was common among the ronin.
Conclusion: The End of an Era
The Edo period reached its end in 1868, with the Meiji Restoration, which restored the emperor to power. The reign of the military class lasted 683 years, during which time the samurai matured from unrefined soldiers to societal exemplars through scholarship and ingenuity. The Western world, for the most part, had yet to be introduced to the traditions of Japanese warriors, even as said warriors rapidly became extinct. The ideas, however, of Edo period samurai remain in our minds, as exotic as the pale, European faces watching a fallen samurai commit seppuku.