Yamamoto Tsunetomo was a samurai of the Saga domain in Hizen province under the dive of Nabeshima Mitsushige. For thirty years, Yamamoto devoted his life to serving his lord and clan. When Nabeshima died in 1700, Yamamoto did not want to follow his master into death, as the traditions of the samurai ordered, because he had an aversion to this practice.
After some disagreement with the successor of Nabeshima, Tsunetomo Yamamoto abandoned the world and retired to a monastery in the mountains. Thinking about life (from about 1709 to 1716), he expressed many of his thoughts in a conversation with one of the samurai - Tashiro Tsuramoto.
Many of these aphorisms concerned the father of his lord and grandfather Naoshige, some cruel traditions of the samurai caste. These comments were collected and published in 1716 under the name "Hagakure" by Yamamoto Tsunetomo. This name can be translated as "In the shadow of the leaves" or "Hidden in the foliage."
Development of events
For several years after his death, the name of the author of Hagakure was not widely known, but by the 1930s he had become one of the most famous representatives of the Bushido philosophy in Japan. And in 2011, a manga was released - a version of the book Hagakure: The Manga Edition, translated by William Scott Wilson, adapted by Sean Micomle Wilson and Chi Kutsuvada in the form of comics.
Views
Tsunetomo believed that a person’s encounter with death in his thoughts, even during life, is the highest achievement of purity and concentration. He felt that the decision to die leads to a higher level of attitude towards life, filled with beauty and grace. This was not available to those who care about self-preservation.
Some viewed him as an immediate person because of some of his quotes. And in the Hagakure treatise, Hidden in Foliage, Yamamoto Tsunetomo described a carefully planned attack of forty-seven ronins (the main method of knowing life).
Yamamoto is also known as Yamamoto Yish. This is the name that he took after he became a monk.
Yamamoto Tsunetomo: hidden in foliage
Hagakure, which means "hidden by the leaves," is essentially a practical spiritual guide for the warrior. The treatise is based on a compilation of comments by samurai Yamamoto Tsunetomo, the former keeper of Nabeshima Mitsushige, the third ruler of what is now Saga Prefecture in Japan.
Tashiro Tsuramoto compiled these comments from his conversations with Tsunetomo from 1709 to 1716, but the treatise was first published only many years later. Written at a time when there were no officially formulated codes of samurai, the book raises the problem of maintaining the class of warriors in the absence of war; reflects the author’s nostalgia for a world that disappeared even before his birth.
Hagakure was largely studied for two centuries after its compilation, but it gained recognition and attracted universal interest only during the Pacific War. Hagakure is also known as the Samurai Book, Reflections on Nabeshima, or Agakura.
Book's contents
In this book, the hero of the article discusses his understanding of the bushido - warrior code. In particular, he believes that bushido is more an art of dying than survival.
The treatise at one time influenced the views of the Japanese writer and ultra-right politician Yukio Mishima, who was distinguished by his decadent views and the cult of death, sung in art.
After the Tokugawa shogunate crushed the Shimabar rebellion in 1638, Japan did not wage any war at all for about two centuries. They also severely suppressed private enmity and duels between samurai. In the late 1600s and early 1700s, samurai faced the challenge of maintaining a military class in the absence of war, and the Hagakure reflects this uncertainty.
Yamamoto Tsunetomo was born in 1659, after the official activities of the samurai. He had no personal combat experience, and when he worked, he only dealt with literature. A letter written at the end of the author’s life reflects his nostalgia for a world that disappeared before his birth.
We repeat that the first modern edition of this illustrious treatise, written on the basis of conversations with a samurai, appeared in 1900, and in the first decades of the century it did not receive much attention. Hagakure was considered the best book for the military of the new century only during World War II. According to the author of The Last Samurai, Mark Ravina, instead of talking about the ancient traditions of this estate, the work described is an example of how modern Japanese soldiers should understand the code of samurai.