Samurai were members of a class of military nobility in pre-industrial Japan. They were bound by a code of honor known as “Bushido.” When roughly translated, “Bushido” means “the way of the warrior.” The Bushido was a moral code that all samurai were expected to follow. This code was a very complex system that included seven main virtues along with other rules and punishments. The seven main virtues were rectitude, courage, benevolence, politeness, sincerity, honor, and loyalty. The Bushido also taught the practice of seppuku and defined how samurai should be trained and live their daily lives.
The Bushido was not a written code. The code was passed down orally, and it was not created by just one person. The Bushido was “ … an organic growth of decades and centuries of military career” (Nitobe 24). The Bushido was an entire lifestyle that was passed down from generation to generation.
The first virtue in the Bushido is rectitude or justice. It was extremely important to the samurai to not be involved in any “underhand[ed] dealings” or “crooked undertakings” (39). One samurai defined rectitude as “… the power of deciding upon a certain course of conduct in accordance with reason, without wavering;-- to die when it is right to die, to strike when to strike is right” (39). Rectitude basically meant that the samurai should be just in everything they did. They should not accept ideas that violated their code of morality.
[...] Samurai were supposed to be completely loyal to their daimyou, but also to the rest of the rules in the Bushido. Samurai had an obligation to fulfill to fight when necessary, and to live properly as defined by the Bushido. The Bushido also included the practice of seppuku or hara kiri. Seppuku is a form of ritual suicide by disembowelment. A samurai could perform seppuku for several different reasons. Seppuku could be performed as a way for a samurai who had lost his honor to regain it. [...]
[...] It gives us insight on how the samurai class lived in pre-industrial Japan. Even today, we are able to see how strict of a code they were bound code that demanded rectitude, courage, benevolence, politeness, sincerity, honor and loyalty and also provided lifestyle guidelines for everyday life, and punishment options. Although the samurai class has ceased to exist, they have left behind their magnificent legacy in the form of this code. It is amazing to think that the Bushido survived for so long without even being written down. [...]
[...] Samurai - Class of military nobility in pre-industrial Japan Samurai were members of a class of military nobility in pre-industrial Japan. They were bound by a code of honor known as “Bushido.” When roughly translated, “Bushido” means way of the warrior.” The Bushido was a moral code that all samurai were expected to follow. This code was a very complex system that included seven main virtues along with other rules and punishments. The seven main virtues were rectitude, courage, benevolence, politeness, sincerity, honor, and loyalty. [...]
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