THE PATH OF THE BUSHI

By HERMANN BOHNER

A year ago. inJanuary 1942, ProJUMW BoIa,lM' eontrWuud a remarkable e8MJYwilled "Mirror, Sword, and Jewel," whieJ& a1'01t8ed mtteh interul among our reader6.IVe are now publishing anotMr arlich Jrom hi6 expert pen.

ProfUllOr Bohner came to Japan al"l061 thi.rty year6 aga alld W06 600'.appoiflled prof- aI the IMn newly Jotlnded Imperil.Jl Ifl6lUute Jar ForeignLangttagt" oj 06Gka, where he i.9 Blill u:orking. Hi6 ruearoh ha6 been delJOlM,primarily to the lHuie fodor''' oj tl~ hi8tQry and clllJracter oj Japan, and amollg otherwork.t he hu publUMd a proJatmd, 1I01uminoU6 monograph on the untral figure ofearly JapalleH hi#tory, Crollm Prinu ShotoL-u.-K.M.

1.

EVERYONE knows that the Japaneseare a people of fishermen andsailors. This is the maritime aspect

of their lives. Naval battles are notfought and won suddenly or by chance:history, thousands of years of tradition,is behind them, is in the blood. Insome districts every boy still has hisown canoe, which he loves as he loves.his sweetheart; sometimes he lies for daysin it out in the open sea. The steamingahead of the Russian fleet before thenaval battle of TSU8hjma was reportedfirst of all by a dugout of this kind. Itwas in suoh V68$81s that the earliestancestors of the Japanese crossed thou­sands of miles of ocean; it has beenproved that there was a connection as faras Madagascar; the South Pacific was,-ery probably crossed by forefathers ofthe Japanese in these canoes. The Japa­nese seems to have grown one with hisboat.

2.

Everyone knows that the aucient Ger­mans loved horses and had a horse cult,that their gods rode on horses. Butha.rdly any Westemer knows that thesame applies to the Japanese. The horsehas been known in Japan since ancienttimes as the highest, most powerfulcreature after Man. In countless housesall over the country there hangs or isstuck in the wall the bone of a horse,which is there to ward off evil spirits and

bring luck-the relic of bygone sacrificeswhose pW'pose was to banish and to bless.In the home of the Kumagai familyin Marikoyado (Suruga Province), theskeleton of the famous war horse Suru­sumi ha-s been hanging for centuries, andthroughout all this time the house andfamily has been spared from fire andsevere illness. Indeed, it is said that,when a sick horse was brought to thepillar for a short time, it recovered.Legends about horses are to be fOlmd allover Japan.

The greatest of all sacrifices is alwaysthat of human beings. But when it isno longer human beings that are sacrificed,not even those that have been seized byforce, then the next greatest sacrifice isthat of the horse. The whole life ofJapan has always been permeated by thishigh estimation of horses.

In peace time the most importantquestion in Japan, the one tha~ affectsher very existence, is rain. Without~,no rice. With too much rain, no rice.Thus, even today, we have as the sacrificein prayers for rain-the horse. Thespotless white horse is the horse of thegods. The Emperor rides on such ahorse. The god rides on such a horse.Go into an old shrine, and you will seethe horse of the gods: in the form of areal horse or of sacrifioial gifts of bronzeor of stone, woven or painted. Thedivinity is always presented with thehorse: "picture horse" (_" e-ma) is the

270 THE XXth CENTURY

Japanese Ilame given to the votive tablet.The white horse is sacrificed when prayingfor precious rain; the black horse forbanishing rain. The Imperial Regent,Crown Prince Shotoku (about 600 A.D.),the greatest figure in Japanese historybeside the Emperors, had horses broughtto him from all t.he provinces and chosethe most perfect one, a black horse withwhite feet, on which he rode all aroundthe dominion-here we have the oldGermanic Hking's ride" on the occasionof the ascent of the throne. The CrownPrince's horse rose into the clouds, soaredaround Mount Fuji, and returned afterseven days-here we have the legendsof Pegasus and the sun-horse.

The Crown Prince was born in or neara stable (uma-yado) and was hence calledUma-yado, which probably indicated,as in the case of the ancient Germans,the possession of horse8. Many familiesconsider themselves the descendantsof horses. One could add to theseexamples ad infinitum. The Japanesehave always been and still are ridersand hunters; that is their originalland aspect. Knight and horse areinseparable.

3.

Then agriculture entered upon thescene. With it came the ox and, to acertain extent, replaced the horse in

.southern and western Japan, where theregions were rich in culture. ThroughEmperor Jimmu's foundation of theempire, Yamato became the center ofJapan, the center of her history. Therefollowed the Asuka Period (about 600A.D.) and the Nara Period (710-784), thedawn of this culture. Kyoto was founded,and an increasingly rich, refined cul­ture developed there. The people wrotepoems, sang songs, went out to look atthe moon or the bl088om, wore gorgeousrobes, reveled in gallant love affairs,intrigued for court positions. Over­refinement and effeminacy made theirappearance. In those regions, the kuge(court Doble) was the characteristic type.

In eastern and northern Japan therewas an entirely different atmosphere: a

wild cmmtry with herds of galloping wildhorses. The people there hunted andcaught the horses and broke th(>m in; thebu-ahi or the bu·~:e (which means thesame) is the man of the east. Bu (~)

means fierce, military, weapon; shi ('*)means nobleman, official; while loe (:;.)stands for family, clan. Hence bu-ahi.(knight) and b'u·ke (military clan).

Here, the historians say, is the sourceof bv8Aido, of the "path of the bu-aM."Do (il) means path, or -dom (as inkingdom, officialdom) or -hood (as inknighthood). That which the bU8hi doesand does not do becomes doctrine, fonn,standard. Soon things came to the stagewhen the capital, its bureaucracy, itsmanner of thinking and living, its cere­moniousness, no longer pleased the people.H it does not come to its senses, theysaid, we shall not bother about it anymore. Soon the hge could no longerexist without the bukt. They calledthem out of the wilderness to help themin their quarrels, and soon the Intkebecame the leading powers. The Kama­kura Period (13th and 14th centuries)and, fundamentally speaking, all thesubsequent periods up to the Meiji Era,were bu!'·e periods.

4.It must be stressed that this close re­

lationship to horses, this essence of horse­manship, went on and on through thecenturies. Only recently a diplomat toldme that he had been invited. by CountMat.sudaira to participate in a great horsefestival deep in the interior lasting severaldays. Hundreds upon hundreds of horse­men, dressed in old armor and costumes,came from miles around from the villagesand farms to take part in races andtournaments. On an open. field, onerbLimyo group fa.ced another as if inbattle; the leading daimyo (feudal baron)was always-true to the b'IUJhido spirit­strikingly distinguished by banners andspecial armor and markings, as much asto say: "Here is the enemy, the leader!Come and do battle, those who are braveenough to oppose him!"

And to this day an individual cult islinked up wit,h t.he horse in so religious a

THE PATH OF THE BUSHI 271

country as Japan. Buddhism added itshorse-headed K wannon as a divine pro­tectress; but after that it was Myokenand his cult who was the patron saint ofhorse and rider, as al80 of lovers. Knight,charger, beautiful maid, golden goblet,faithful unto death-that is the type ofbU8hido old ballads sing of.

5.

Let us consider another aspect. Inthis COUDtry of more than two thousandia1anda (now the number has probablybeen doubled or trebled) there are someislands where one may not eat alone: onemust always eat in company. Were thisprinciple to permeate the world and tobe developed to its utmost, it wouldmean the end of all want; there would betrue socialism. When we look at thehistory of these small islands, we findthat in early times they were liable tobe suddenly plunged into extreme want.Pirates came in superior numbers,robbing, plundering, and killing. Insome caaes, a few men, ten or twenty orthirty, succeeded in overwhelming therobbers. I cannot recount all thesestories here, and a single one is notenougb. It is only in their multitude, intheir almost identical repetition, thatthey make an impression, an indelibleimpression.

One need only make a vivid mentalpicture of this insular feeling, of thisneed of being armed, this union for lifellnd death of the small community ofmen, to have bU811.ido. Now one needonly enlarge the small island till itembraces aU, the whole Nippon EmpireIsland, to have the innermost feeling ofthe Japanese of today, the btt8hido of thepresent situation.

6.

In an earlier artiole we have spoken ofJapan's "beehive structure": cell adjoin­ing cell, each strictly partitioned fromthe other. H between the past-thetiny island, and the present-the EmpireIsland, we consider history as it hasdeveloped in its thousand branches inthe manifold cells, the many little cellsa·s they once were, as they grew,

came into contact, fought each other,and so on, we have btt8hido in its develop­ment. We cannot show this developmenthere in detail. Let us sketch two or threeof the phases of this development.

In the eastern parts of Europe thevillages are walled, and the churches arelike bastions. In the old days, a villagehad to be able to defend itself as a cellagainst invading hordes. It was no dif­ferent in eastern Japan. There they hadto st.and together in each cell. They hadt.() have a clear leadership and definitere~iners.. ~ithout a distinot grading ofsociety WIthin a cell, no safe existence waspo88ible.. On every Japanese stage andin countless Japanese novels we meetwith the "head bucket." Every Japanesechild is familiar with it, and the bU8h.carries i~ with him on every campaign.At any mstant the OO8h. is ready, if hislord so commands, to send him his headin the covered bucket, as a sign of com­plete obedience to hie lord. This ismeant neither in the BeIl86 of despotismnor of servility. It is the absolute fellow­ship in the cell which demands suchbU8hido.

7.As we have sa.id before, the true land

of the bU8h. was the wild colonial easten1and northern part of Japan. Here, too,cells or clans were formed, which were atfirst separated by the wilderness andlater grew cloeer and closer towards eachother till they touched. In the 8h.h­ching (~Jl), the Oriental canon of his­tory, which is as familiar to the East asthe Book of Kings is to us, one can readabout the battles and feuds betwe~n theancient Chinese states. What intrigues!And how they tried by every means towin over the most capable statesman ofthe opposing state, in order to gain"world dominion" \mder his leadership.What facts, what lessonsI All this wascontinued a thousandfold in the Japan ofthe..~ddle Ages, indeed, even up to theMel) I Era. Even today, the countiesstiU dispute \lith each other.

If in ancient days one cell possessed agood medicine, on no account could it berevealed to another cell. The history of

272 THE XXth CENTURY '.Japanese pottery is a history of secretsthat were sneaked from each other withextreme cunning. In order to help hisown home-cell, a man sent off to spyupon a foreign cell had to bear anything,had perhaps to wait there secretly foryears, try to marry into the foreign clanand marry whomever he was given-allthis only so as to elicit the secret andmake it available to his own cell. Thatis the b'ushido of the small cell, and itcan be applied to the Empire Island oftoday. There are innumerable examplesof such oo811ido for the whole Empire.

The conflicts among the cells ledtowards the end of the Middle Ages to akind of struggle of all against all. Butthe three dictators Oda-Nobunaga (1534·1582), Hidey08hi (1536-1598), and Toku­gawa Ieyasu (1542-1616) created unityand order with an iron hand. TheTokugawa rule (1603-1868) meant utmostcontrol. Down to the "five-family group"everything was controlled, regulated, ra­tionalized, and mechanized. This con­dition was not altogether pleasant; thenatural, the free, the charming, thesimple, were lacking. But how werethese things to be given the Japanesenation? How was it, so to speak, tofind itself1

The menace from abroad grew everstronger, ever mightier; in the faoo of iteverything else appeared of minor im­porlance. It was this menace whichunited Japan in a free union. With therenewal of the Empire in 1868, the ra­tionalized, mechanized bU8hido turnedinto something that was spontaneous,that was applied voltmtarily. The lordand father, whom all knights and sonsserve, is the Tenno. Justice, the greatwhole, the highest meaning and purposeof b1t8ltido, is today personified for theJapa.nese in him, the supreme ruler andpriest. The struggle, whatever there isof it, is now directed outward.

8.In all Japanese schools, fencing (kendo)

is taught. Japan's wealth of bamboomakes it possible to manufacture excel­lent armor and weapons from bamboo.The face is protected by an iron grill.

When two men fence with eaeh other,they first kneel down and bow deeply toone another. This is the case in allJapanese duels of arms. Originally, andeven t.oday, the fencer first bowed towardthe divinity. What does this mean1 Ifight, and you fight-but the divinitydecides. All fighting is divine judgment.That is essentially bushido. I recall agreat mass held by the chief abbot of thefamous temple mountain Koya, in thepresence of a thousand priests and aco­lytes. In this m&88, at which I also waspresent, he prayed for victory. AB inan old prayer of the prophets, he recountedthe entire happenings to the gods, howthe war had come about. He soberlyrecallt'd fact by fact, like in a historicaldocument or in a legal action; he did notpress the matter for, according to Japa­nese ideas, the divinity cannot be pressed."Pass Thou judgment, we shall onlyfight ~" That was the attitude.

The history of law recognizes as animmeasurably far-reaching event HugoGrotius' work De jure belli ac pacis(Paris, 1625). Through it war was forthe first time included in the sphere oflaw. Grotius' work might be called thesecularization of something that alreadyexisted, namely, that spirit which is ex­pressed by the deep reciprocal bow at thebeginning of the duel.

9.

Well thon, should there not also be abow at the end? There is: towards thedivinity and towards the opponent.After the Great War, this bow wasmissing. That was the greatest mistake.English politicians in particular have saidthis. One might chara(lterize the attitudeof b1t8hid.o something like this:

First, if divine judgment decides inmy favor, I must also take possession ofwhat has boon adjudged t.o me. Pityand weakness are then out of place. Asin Shakespeare's royal tragedies, wrongsmust be righted and crime moat bepunished. In olden times this meantthat the restless soul of a person whohad been wrongfully killed had t.o be setat peace; the enemy killed for that pur-

THE PATH OF THE BUSHI 273

pose, or his spirit, could not expect tobe spared.

But secondly, this same enemy, espe­cially if he has fought bravely, is worthyof respectful treatment. His opponentbows to him. This life-this is the idea-is not the only life. The enemy thuskilled is now in a higher sphere, intowhich those who are still living ordinaryearthly lives cannot enter. He is ami-koto (koto: thing, matter, being; mi:classifier indicating something divine).During their lifetime, only the god., andthe Emperor are called mi-kot.o. Andfurthermore-and this is probably awidespread historical development, paral­lel to that of law in the Occident-thestrong fights only with the strong. Fair­ness forbids striking an opponent who isdown. Above all, a strong man does notattack the weaker sex, or chilclren andold men, or a people that subjects itselfentirely. ")Ioderation, self-contro!!" bu­shido demands ceaselessly. especially atthe moments of supreme strength. Thati the standard, and every .Japanese childknows it and ha been taught it in prac­tical cases. "Don't be surprised,' theJapanese say, "if we sometimes treat ourenemies better than our friends! That isspontaneous bushido." Let me empha­size: that is the direction in which thebushido development of history is moving.

10.

And if, in the divine judgment, I amthe defeated one? Then that is my part,given to me by the divinity. Here, too,wo find in the thousandfold growth ofhistory the most varied changos andphenomena. 'Vestern attention is at­tra.cted here especially by the solemnsuicide, so peculiar to Japan, throughdisembowelment, harakiri. 01'. as it isusually called in Japan, 8eppuku. It ha.soften been described. In It ritual-likemanner, the man committing seppul..u, inone stroke with an extremely sharp knife,cuts through the abdomen and theimportant nerve organ situated there,which is regarded as the seat 01' containerof the soul. Since in olden times thiswas often done unskillfully and deathsometimes occurred only after hours of

agony, the custom arose that a closefriend or relative, or the most loyalvassal. cut through the neck with oneswordstroke.

From a historical point of view, seppukuprobably has several roots. In timesgone by, people did not want to fall intothe hands of the enemy alive: slaveryand torture were waiting there. Aboveall, they feared the contamination andcalumny of the soul, of the name (theeternal name "inscribed in Heaven").Secondly, there were some things whichcould only be atoned for by sacrificingone's life. Thirdly, consider mother andchild. lover and beloved, husband andwife in ancient times! They are like onetree, one plant! 'Vhen one dies., theother must perish too. This primitive,immediate unity of life appears in a verypronounced manner in Japan. Masterand servant, lord and retainer, are bondsof a similar nature. On the one hand,there 'Was the command that the lordshould be followed in death by his nearest"as.-nls; on the other hand, the natureof these bonds was such that death wassought. for voluntarily. General Nogiand his wife. for instance, could not bearto go on li\'ing after their lord andemperor. Emperor Meiji. had died. Andfinally, if a noble should be condel1lUedto death, he had the privilege of killinghimself in this maImer.

II.

In every fortress there is a room "inwhich aU knights will commit seppukushould the fortress be captured. It isthere, like the well or the kitchen or thewomen's quarters; everyone passes itevery day. For the foreigner, t,his coldroom with its stone-flagged floor wherethe blood will Bow off, is a curious sight.The East sees deat,h and goes to meet it.In the West we have infant care, childwelfare, kindergartens, etc; but for "thesunset of life we have no composed at­titude, no prescript, usually not even ·theleast knowledge.

Buddhism says simply: "Ordinary me~see life. Look thou on the other side!Take it into thy life! Go thou beyond!"

2i4 THE XXtb CENTURY

In Zen Buddhism it is said: "He whostill has anything of life and death inbiB thoughts cannot really fight, cannotbe loyal, yea, cannot even really live."The "no-life-no-death" (A :A._A. mU-SM­mu-ski) concept is one of the foundationsof Buddhism.

"Bu.!kido," a biBtorian has said in hissummary of it, "is the history and pathof how to die." From the Japanesepoint of view, however, tbiB does notmean the end. Even at the moment ofita cessation, life is under the star ofeternity; otherwise life at the moment ofits beginning would also be a n,ikil.

12.For the foreigner there is much that is

strange in bU8kido as it appears to himnow if he becomes closer acquaintedwith Japan and her art and literature.It is mainly the developments during theTokugawa Period which are responsiblefor this. They mechanized and rational­ized things which should not bemechanized or rationalized. The contem­porary development in Europe showedmuch that was similar, especially in theFrench sphere (Voltaire, Baron Holbach,Robeepierre). Even preeent times arevery peculiar in this respect.

True bu8kido is in accordance with life.The following will outline some well­known lines of thought of the East.

When we are born, there are olderpeople there who look after us and whomwe should obey. They are above, wearc below, or, as the East says, they areheaven, we are earth. All life is liketbiB. Parents and child, older andyounger generations, older brother andyoung brother, older, more capable friendand younger friend, master and disciple,these are the basic forms. In this respect,life cannot be mechanized, there can beno equality. Even husband and wife,lover and beloved, have something of thisbasic form.

] t is easy to understand that, in thecourse of history, the basic form of m88terand servant, lord and follower, found itsway more and more into the foreground.

Only a few centuries after Confucius, hisfollowers interpreted the love poeme ofthe Book of Songs allegorically, applyingthem to lord and retainer. This doctrinalelement became increasingly pronounced;later ages turned it more and more intoschol88ticism a bllS/i,ido scho188ticism ofthe relationship between lord and vassal.

Countless thousands of Japanese novelsand plays are filled with this schol88ticbuakido. In order to save the child ofthe m88ter or lord, which the enemies areabout to kill, an affectionate mother,wife of one of the vassals, sacrifices herown child by secretly putting it in theplace of the other. Long acts aboundwith such struggles of the soul. Or am88ter has been robbed of his precioussword a,nd expresses biB desire to bisservant to recover it. The ruses employedby the servant in regaining the sword,biB adventures, his devotion to duty even88 far a.'l sacrificing his life, fill thickvolumes and hold theater audiences spell­bound. And how many films are basedon this schol88iic bU8h,ido, as we havecalled it.

In order to understand, one must goback to the b88ic forms, to that whichis natural. It can perhaps be mosteasily gr88ped by the examples of fatherand son, mother and child, master anddisciple. They belong to each other,tbey are a unit-as was the tiny islandor, later on, the great Empire Island.Thus also in the case of master and serv­ant, lord and subject. The true shep­berd sacrifices his life for his sheep.Tho captain gOO8 down with his ship.In December II) 14 in the battle of theFalkland Islands, the commander, CountSpec, took the brunt of the attack uponhimself in order to save the other ships,and went down. The strong protectsthe weak; the weak realizes whom hemust follow. When a human communitygrades itself in this way, serving andleading each other reciprocally, wbenthis spiritual attitude of bU8/i,ido is madeto come true, then, even in every extrem­ity, supreme success is imminent.

Eight.h-century guardian god of the Kaidan.in Temple in Nara.A fine plastio ex-presSiOD of what was later to be known lUI thebtulaido spirit ~

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