Samurai

Japanese Samurai is the term to stand for the special warriors formed from 1603 to 1868, during the reign of shogunate Tokugawa. In the Japanese and Chinese cultures the terms for samurai mean “those who serve closely to the nobility”. Any fate of any samurai is the death as the final life episode, this way or that. Thus, honorable and plain class of Samurai warriors were recognized among the whole class of samurai. The samurai who died from the sword-blade of the other samurai was deemed honorable and the highest award since the death from the ordinary person was believed to be disgraceful for these noble people. It’s interesting that Japanese samurai never yielded themselves prisoner. If so for any reasons, the Head of the Army ordered the samurai to commit a suicide.

Throughout 1603 to 1868 the samurai aka bushi eventually became the highest ranking social class. They used bows and arrows, guns and spears with the sword as their main weapon, so the weapon accepted in martial practice.

Samurais strongly adhere to Confucian phylosophy stressing concepts as loyalty to their master, self-discipline and ethical behavior. The samurai life position is the worked out life style of the true warrior formed through history as the free-swinging and strong warrior who master the skill of using battle-axe or spear and the sword. As a matter of fact, there are not only triumphing wins and awards and incredible fame in samurai’s life. They happened to live in poverty, sick and exhausted and being condemned by other people. The Japanese people believe the samurai is the person who can endure any terrible life tests since the samurai acts by order of his master, even the order is to kills the children.

In the mid of 70s there was the tendency to extirpate the true samurais though it failed which is the sign of the great wisdom and strength of the samurai class. It is not publicly known that the true samurai should have mastered a range of weapons and the formal writing ability, either. The young samurais were trained in writing and reading from the age of 16. Every single samurai should have memorized the code with all rules and provisions of the culture and traditions he used to live and obey. The samurai code also established a range of order and punishment procedures for the samurais. The code was called the Bushido.

In ancient Japan the samurais had their own names unlike other ordinary people who were called as of their occupation activity. So, a fisher was called Fisher. A samurai’s path of life was difficult and special to pass but not everyone called samurai was able to end in what was assumed by the code. During the reign of the shogunate a samurai strongly believed in karma, that is fate. When the samurai would die from disease that was his fate. And finally the fate as the concept became so ordinary for any samurai to enter the noble warrior path when some of them were not able to go through the samurai path from beginning to reasonable end. Only elite samurais were challenged to have this achieved showing the high military skills.