''Hagakure'' (

Kyūjitai ''Kyūjitai'' ( ja, 舊字體 / 旧字体, lit=old character forms) are the traditional forms of kanji, Chinese written characters used in Japanese. Their simplified counterparts are ''shinjitai'' ( ja, 新字体, lit=new character forms, lab ...

: ;

Shinjitai are the simplified forms of kanji used in Japan since the promulgation of the Tōyō Kanji List in 1946. Some of the new forms found in ''shinjitai'' are also found in Simplified Chinese characters, but ''shinjitai'' is generally not as extensiv ...

: ; meaning ''Hidden by the Leaves'' or ''Hidden Leaves''), or , is a practical and spiritual guide for a warrior, drawn from a collection of commentaries by the clerk

Yamamoto Tsunetomo , Buddhist monastic name Yamamoto Jōchō (June 11, 1659 – November 30, 1719), was a samurai of the Saga Domain in Hizen Province under his lord Nabeshima Mitsushige. He became a Zen Buddhist priest and relayed his experiences, memories, ...

, former retainer to

Nabeshima Mitsushige was a Japanese ''daimyō'' of the early Edo period. He was famed for his forbidding of ''junshi'', the form of traditional suicide whereby a retainer followed his lord in death. It was because of this dislike for ''junshi'' that one of his favor ...

(July 10, 1632 – July 2, 1700), the third ruler of what is now

Saga Prefecture is a prefecture of Japan located on the island of Kyushu. Saga Prefecture has a population of 809,248 (1 August 2020) and has a geographic area of 2,440 km2 (942 sq mi). Saga Prefecture borders Fukuoka Prefecture to the northeast and Nagasak ...

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...

. Tashiro Tsuramoto compiled these commentaries from his conversations with Tsunetomo from 1709 to 1716; however, it was not published until many years afterwards. Written during a time when there was no officially sanctioned samurai fighting, the book grapples with the dilemma of maintaining a warrior class in the absence of war and reflects the author's nostalgia for a world that had disappeared before he was born. ''Hagakure'' was largely forgotten for two centuries after its composition, but it came to be viewed as the definitive guide of the armed forces of the

Empire of Japan The also known as the Japanese Empire or Imperial Japan, was a historical nation-state and great power that existed from the Meiji Restoration in 1868 until the enactment of the post-World War II 1947 constitution and subsequent fo ...

during the

Pacific War The Pacific War, sometimes called the Asia–Pacific War, was the theater of World War II that was fought in Asia, the Pacific Ocean, the Indian Ocean, and Oceania. It was geographically the largest theater of the war, including the vast ...

. ''Hagakure'' is also known as ''The Book of the Samurai'', ''Analects of Nabeshima'' or ''Hagakure Analects''.

Content

The book records Yamamoto's views on

bushido is a moral code concerning samurai attitudes, behavior and lifestyle. There are multiple bushido types which evolved significantly through history. Contemporary forms of bushido are still used in the social and economic organization of Japan. ...

, the

warrior code A warrior is a person specializing in combat or warfare, especially within the context of a tribal or clan-based warrior culture society that recognizes a separate warrior aristocracies, class, or caste. History Warriors seem to have been ...

of the

samurai were the hereditary military nobility and officer caste of medieval and early-modern Japan from the late 12th century until their abolition in 1876. They were the well-paid retainers of the '' daimyo'' (the great feudal landholders). They h ...

. ''Hagakure'' is sometimes said to assert that bushido is really the "Way of

Dying Dying is the final stage of life which will eventually lead to death. Diagnosing dying is a complex process of clinical decision-making, and most practice checklists facilitating this diagnosis are based on cancer diagnoses. Signs of dying ...

" or living as though one was already dead, and that a samurai must be willing to die at any moment in order to be true to his lady/lord. His saying "the way of the warrior is death" was a summation of the willingness to sacrifice that ''bushido'' codified. ''Hagakure''s text is occasionally misinterpreted as meaning that bushido is a code of death. However, the true meaning is that by having a constant awareness of death, people can achieve a transcendent state of freedom, whereby "it is possible to perfectly fulfill one's calling as a warrior."

Historical context

After the Tokugawa shogunate suppressed the

Shimabara Rebellion The , also known as the or , was an uprising that occurred in the Shimabara Domain of the Tokugawa Shogunate in Japan from 17 December 1637 to 15 April 1638. Matsukura Katsuie, the ''daimyō'' of the Shimabara Domain, enforced unpopular polic ...

in 1638, Japan experienced no warfare for about two centuries. Private feuding and dueling between samurai was also suppressed. Yamamoto Tsunetomo was born in 1659, after the end of officially sanctioned samurai fighting. He had no personal combat experience and when he was employed, he worked as a scribe. By the late 1600s and early 1700s, samurai faced the dilemma of maintaining a warrior class in the absence of war, and ''Hagakure'' reflects this uncertainty. Written late in the author's life, the book also reflects his nostalgia for a world that had disappeared before his birth.

Reception

''Hagakure'' was largely forgotten for two centuries. The first modern edition appeared in 1900, and it did not receive much attention during the first decades of the century. ''Hagakure'' came to be viewed as a definitive book of the samurai only during the Pacific War. According to

Mark Ravina Mark Ravina (born 1961) is a scholar of early modern ( Tokugawa) Japanese history and Japanese Studies at the University of Texas at Austin, where he has taught since 2019. He currently holds the Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Chair in Japanese Studi ...

, "Rather than an account of samurai tradition, this work serves as an example of what the Japanese army thought Japanese soldiers should believe about samurai practice." In the

post-war era In Western usage, the phrase post-war era (or postwar era) usually refers to the time since the end of World War II. More broadly, a post-war period (or postwar period) is the interval immediately following the end of a war. A post-war period c ...

, the nationalist author and poet,

Yukio Mishima , born , was a Japanese author, poet, playwright, actor, model, Shintoist, Nationalism, nationalist, and founder of the , an unarmed civilian militia. Mishima is considered one of the most important Japanese authors of the 20th century. He was ...

, was inspired by ''Hagakure'' and wrote his own book in praise of the work. Quotations from ''Hagakure'' are used as a narrative device in the 1999 American gangster film '' Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai''.

Editions

* ''Hagakure: The Secret Wisdom of the Samurai'', Yamamoto Tsunetomo, Translated by Alexander Bennett, Tuttle Publishing, 2014, (Full Translation) * ''The Art of the Samurai: Yamamoto Tsunetomo's Hagakure'', Yamamoto Tsunetomo, Translated by Barry D. Steben, Duncan Baird, September 2008, (Partial translation) * ''Hagakure, The Way of the Samurai'', Yamamoto Tsunetomo, Translated by Takao Mukoh, Angkor Verlag, 2000 (Reprint), * ''Hagakure, The manga edition'', Yamamoto Tsunetomo, Translated by William Scott Wilson, a comic book/manga version, adapted by Sean Michael Wilson and Chie Kutsuwada, Kondansha International Ltd., 2011. * ''Bushido, The Way of the Samurai'', Yamamoto Tsunetomo, Translated by Justin F. Stone and Minoru Tanaka,

Square One Publishers Square One Publishers is a publishing company, founded in 2000 by Rubin "Rudy" Shur, a former Avery Publishing president. Rudy Shur serves as the Chief Executive Officer. Their offices are located in Garden City, New York, home to other publisher' ...

, 2003,

References

External links