The Samurai

The Japanese samurai would eat, sleep, live, and die by a code of honor. It was known as Bushido which means "the way of the warrior". Now this code stressed a moral code of conduct which covered frugality, loyalty, martial arts mastery, and honor unto death. This code came about from the combination of two ways of life, the religuous life of Shinto Buddhism that stressed wisdom and serenity and the violence that the samurai lived with and dealt with on a regular basis.

Bushido was developed and accepted somewhere between the 9th and 12th century across the whole of Japan. This code was an organic growth from centuries of military careers. Samurai were required or instructed to observe the Bushido code even though this code was onwritten and in overall unuttered in those days.

Between the 1600's and 1800's certain aspects of the Bushido code were formalized and put into Japanese Fuedal Law by the Tokugawa Shogunate leadership.

The Bushido code stressed a balance between violence and peace. Thus many Samurai were not only true masters in their martial arts and weapons, but also spent there free time as artists, writers, masters of tea ceremonies, anything which would show a gentler, calmer side of an expert warrior. This outlet was believed to give the samurai a balanced being, and it was believed that the more at peace he was with himself the greater the warrior he would be on the battlefield.