Its one of the striking facts of Japanese history that the code of the warrior was first formulated not in wartime but in a long period of peacetime that prevailed under the Tokugawa Shoguns. In fact it was precisely because of the extended peace of the shoguns, or ruling officials, that the bushido code, came into being. The idea of the code was not only to advise a samurai how to act in battle, but far more important for the time, how to find a meaningful place in peacetime society for the man of war.

It was in the 1600’s that the code was formulated, during a period when, hard times had become the lot of the samurai. Without any battles to fight, the samurais were leading a aimless existence and were gaining the reputation of parasites living off the rest of the people. And the living wasn’t that good either. In fact many of the samurai were existing in utmost poverty.

Formerly associated with the powerful land holding families, the economic power of the samurai class was being eclipsed by the rising merchant class. Increasingly, the proud samurai were finding themselves forced to turn to the merchant families to subsist. Under the rigid class system that prevailed in Japan at the time, the samurais were blocked off from becoming merchants themselves and trying to regain their former wealth through commerce.

Confused Samurais

Besides warriors and merchants, there were two other classes; the artisans and the peasants. All of these classes except the warrior understood their role in society and had their duties to perform during the Tokugawa rule. It remained for one of the great ronin of the time to forge a place for the warrior.

This man was Soko Yamaga, a figure celebrated in Japanese history for his intellectual power and fierce independence of mind. Yamaga was born in 1622 and died in 1685. During his 63 years he was to give a new direction and a new role to the samurai; the role of the educated leader of society and an example of highest moral duty.

Yamaga was known as one of the three great ronin of the Tokugawa period. The other two were Shosetsu Yui, who had to commit hara kiri in 1651 after being exposed in a plot against the shogunate, and Banzan Kumazawa, who died in exile after his reform program had run into opposition from the Shogun. The influence of these two was comparatively limited in their own time, but Yamaga acquired and enormous following.

It was this following, as well as his refusal to conform to the prevailing political temper of the times, that was to prove Yamaga’s undoing. It is interesting to note that all 3 of these ronin were to run afoul of the powerful forces of the powerful Shoguns.

Yamaga was Brilliant

Yamaga was a brilliant student of the great teacher Hayashi Razan. While still a young man Yamaga had established a wide reputation for his mastery of Shinto Buddhism and Taoism as well as Neo-Confucianism. But it was especially as a student of military science, and his strong views on the role of the warrior class, that Yamaga attracted wide attention.

Among those he attracted were many samurais eager to employ their leisure time in self-improvement. One of his students was to become the future leader of the 47 Ronin who later won fame for themselves by avenging their master’s death at the cost of their own lives.

Yamaga was greatly concerned over the prolonged inactivity of the warrior class under peaceful Tokugawa rule. Even so he felt the samurai had an important function to perform that justified his special status – something more than simply keeping himself fit for military service.

The fact that there was peace gave the samurai an advantage that the other three classes didn’t have – the benefit of leisure time. Yamaga proposed that the samurai use this free time to cultivate those arts and virtues which would enable him to serve as a model and leader for others. Above all, Yamaga believed, the samurai should set a high example of devotion to duty (gi or righteousness).

Yamaga Sets Code

As Yamaga saw it, the samurai was required to serve his lord with the utmost loyalty and to put devotion to moral principals or righteousness ahead of personal gain. The achievement of this lofty idea involved a life of austerity and temperance, combined with a constant self-discipline and a readiness to meet death at any time. These were qualities long honored in the Japanese budo tradition, but now given a systematic form by Soko in terms of Confucian ethical philosophy.

Yamaga spelled out his views in a series of works dealing with the warrior’s creed, Bukyo, and with shido, or the way of the samurai. This series, it is generally agreed today, represents the first systematic expression of what later came to be known as Bushido, or the way of the warrior.

Yamaga’s contribution to the code of bushido was far more important than simply codifying existing ideas and providing a philosophical base for Japanese feudal traditions. He also stressed the so called peaceful arts, making letters and history also essential to the intellectual and moral discipline of the samurai. And by this later fact, he was to point the way to a new role for the samurai.

Samurais’ New Roles

Yamaga’s system was attuned to one of the most characteristic features of the age, the union of military power, as represented by the Shogonate, with the civil that the Tokugawa encouraged through humanistic studies of Confucian times. A second great feature of the age was the conversion of the samurai from a purely military autocracy to a class providing increasing intellectual and political leadership.

It is this development which helps to explain why the warrior class did not wither and pass away as did the knight, the samurai counterpart of the west, following the end of the feudalism in Europe. In the East, the samurai could serve as the brains of the restoration movement, taking the initiative in dismantling feudalism itself and playing an important role in Japan’s subsequent modernization.

Unlike the case of the Knights in the west, the samurai’s contribution to society did not cease with the end of feudalism, but actually increased. The new pat that men like Yamaga blazed gave the Samurai class and extra 200 years of life in Japan.

But Yamaga’s views were not universally accepted at the time, and he was to run afoul of some powerful interests. It was in his interpretations of Confucianism that he was to flounder and be forced into exile in the custody of Lord Ako.

Yamaga’s intellectual interests did not conform strictly to the Confucian pattern of civil arts and peaceful pursuits. He had an intense concern for military science and devoted himself to the study of strategy and tactics, weapons, and the method of gathering military intelligence – subjects for which the average Chinese Confucianist would have expressed a lofty disdain.

Yamaga also had an activist policy of Confucianism. He wanted to put it to work to change the role of the samurai and to help him survive the period of feud transition. It is not surprising, then, that he based his system on the old confucianist system of almost 2000 years earlier, when Confucius himself lived in a period of feudal transition.

But in so doing, he gave short shrift to the powerful and influential modern Confucianists of his day. The primary social concerns of the new Confucianists were those of a highly developed civil bureaucracy in a centralized state. This group reflected the philosophical outlook of greater urbanity and cultural maturity of the Soong school of Confucianism.

Confucianism Is Better Than Abstract Thinking.

Yamaga was at loggerheads with the school and in 1665 wrote and attack on one of the new Confucianists for his interpretations of the ancient master. Yamaga proclaimed that the unadulterated truth could only be found in the ethical teachings of Confucius, and that subsequent developments within the Confucian tradition, especially the metaphysical theories of the Soong school, represented perversions of the original doctrine. Yamaga held that Confucius was a common-sense sage who taught men about their everyday duties in life and was a far better guide for the samurai than all the abstract thinkers of later times.

Yamaga’s attack arouse the opposition of Hoshina, a stout defender of the new Confucianism, who thought he saw in Yamaga’s writings a potential challenge to the authority of the Tokugawa itself. Yamaga was hustled safely into exile to block any supposed threat to the authorities.

During his stay in exile, Yamaga brought to full fruition the themes he had been developing. His studies and writings turned more toward the Japanese tradition than the Chinese, which had been his model for so long. He became convinced that Japan had produced the greater civilization, and in his work Chuchojijitsu, he asserted that his country, not China, was the centre and zenith of all culture. He based his view on the claim that Japan was divinely created and ruled over by an imperial line. Yamaga asserted that the truth that Confucius taught had already been revealed by the divine ancestors of the Japanese imperial house. Furthermore, he asserted, the Japanese alone had been to the highest concepts of duty as set forth by Emperor Jimmu Confucius. It was they only who had set and example of answering loyalty to the dynasty. In China, on the other hand, dynasties had come and gone and Confucian teaching had been corrupted almost beyond recognition, Yamaga contended.

Loyalty to Emperor

This pointing to the emperor as the centre of all loyalty was the sort of thing that had earlier gotten Yamaga into trouble with Hoshina, a supporter of the Shoguns. But actually, Yamaga had no intention of undermining the authority of the Shogunate. For one thing, his teachings greatly emphasized the samurai’s duty to recognized and give service to his lord.

And so he believed that recognition should be given to the Shoguns, the military authorities who rule in the name of imperial sovereignty. Yamaga argued that this recognition gave proof to the continuity of imperial rule and the legitimate exercise of power by the shoguns as the deputies of the emperor.

But history didn’t see it that way, and later disciples of Yamaga’s teaching agreed with Hoshina’s views. When hostility to the Shoguns grew in much later times, Yamaga became a hero in the eyes of those backing the emperor. His devotion to the imperial house was recalled and became upper-most in significance of those who sought to put Bushido to the service of the emperor in opposition to the Shogunate.

Thus the influence of Yamaga lived on long after he was gone. Indeed much of his teachings are still in living tradition today.

Randy Martin