Samurai Code. Hagakure Busido. Book of five rings. Tsunetomo Y., Miyamoto M.

The image of a samurai is one of the most promoted and replicated in modern mass culture. And, as it always happens in such cases, the true nature of the image or phenomenon remains behind the scenes. But this book is a completely different matter. She speaks in the voices of the Japanese samurai themselves - from antiquity to the 20th century, those who, with their actions, thoughts and battles, formed the Code of honor of the Japanese warrior - Busido. This code did not have a strictly fixed form, but possessed the indisputable power of the conviction, captured on the tablets of the heart, and from which acquired even greater authority. Busido is not the creation of one mind, no matter how great it is, and not the result of the activity of an individual personality, no matter how glorious it is in life. This is an organic product of the experience of centuries of military art.

Samurai Yamamoto Tsunetomo (1659-1719) lived to an old age and managed to dictate a book in which he together collected the dogmas of the Code of Honor of the Samurai, the Code of behavior, the practical and spiritual leadership of the Japanese warrior - “Hagakure” (“hidden in foliage "). The works of ten more famous samurai, who left their instructions, philosophical thoughts and aphorisms, adjoin this work. The name of another author of this book - the master of the sword Miyamoto Musashi (1584–1645) - is the most known to our contemporaries. He is a popular hero of films and computer games, dozens of manga and anime. His “Book of five Rings” about tactics, strategies and philosophy of military crafts is one of the most published creations of the Samurai tradition. The publication is completed by the unique composition of the “last samurai” Nitobe Inadzo (1862–1933) “Busido. The soul of Japan ”, in which all the instructions of Busido are collected and explained to the Western reader, which is useful to know to modern man, because the power of the moral spirit of Busido, like the light of distant stars, continues to give the world his energy and enrich our life with new knowledge.