Read Online Hara-Kiri: Japanese Ritual Suicide by Jack Seward - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Jack Seward
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fingers and sending them as tokens of their love.
Sometimes, when their love was thwarted at every turn, the lovers resorted to suicide to "reveal the heart." Properly, the word was shinju-shi, but shi, meaning "death," came to be omitted. This manner of suicide spread among the townspeople very quickly, and the latter part of the Edo Period came to be characterized by this phenomenon. Many stories of shinju remain to this day in the form of novels, dramas, and songs.
Comparison of Seppuku and Shinju
It would be a misinterpretation to think that shinju was the choniris imitation of the samurai's seppuku. There is considerable antithesis therein.
The age was outgrowing seppuku and much that it stood for. Feudalism remained as a meaningless formalism that was suffocatingly inhuman. Voices of opposition from the common people began to make themselves heard. They were under the subjugation of the sword but they were learning that no power on earth has any control over death. The common people found a certain elevation of apperception was required to commit shinju and a new truth was discovered in so doing. The chonin were finding in shinju what the samurai had found in committing seppuku: the sense of joyful fulfillment in sacrificing one's life for an ideal, however mistaken or foolish that ideal might be. They were finding in shinju a worthwhile dqath.
Shinju came to be praised and exalted in the literature of the day. In a sense, shinju served to expose the shallowness and excessive formality of seppuku and hastened its end.
The adherents of seppuku brought forth the following arguments to show the superiority of seppuku over shinju:
1. Seppuku required an admirable mental attitude of composure, while the approach to shinju was characterized by faltering and hesitation.
2. The seppuku knife was the sacred emblem of the samurai spirit, while the "weapon" used to bring about shinju was often only the red cord women used to tie around their waists. (This was used to tie the two lovers together when they threw themselves into rivers, waterfalls, or the sea.)
3. Shinju was often prompted by the exposure of the ignoble crime of adultery.
4. Shinju was often an escape, a fleeing from the pain of living without one's lover. Seppuku, however, was done in fulfillment of one's duty to one's code and class * .
Whereas seppuku could be described as the crowning culmination of Bushido and perhaps of the feudal society from which it grew, shinju arose as a form of desperate resistance and opposition to a civilization that negated humanity.
The prohibition of junshi or self-immolation had dealt a mortal blow to the samurai's moral code of honor. This inhuman practice of trying to follow one's master even beyond the grave should not have been permitted at all, but its prohibition confronted feudalism with a dilemma.
During the period of warfare that lasted for nearly a century, it was perhaps a logical requirement that a samurai should be ready to die for his master. These vassals played for high stakes on the battlefield: their own welfare and that of their children. "To die in the presence of his master's horse" was a favorite phrase that stirred the samurai's ambition, for his offspring would be honored by his master and his master's heirs, if he were to fall in battle.
When peace was finally ushered in under the prodigious generalship of Tokugawa Ieyasu, there were no more such stages for glory; they could no longer "die in the presence of their master's horse." However, down through the time of the Second and even the Third Shogun, there were still generals alive who could not forget past glories in battle. It was understandable why those lords and generals wanted to practice junshi when the Second and Third Shogun died. These were rare opportunities "to die in the presence of the master's horse." To them, loyalty without death was meaningless; there was art even in loyalty.
It was important that the Tokugawa Shogunate had
Sometimes, when their love was thwarted at every turn, the lovers resorted to suicide to "reveal the heart." Properly, the word was shinju-shi, but shi, meaning "death," came to be omitted. This manner of suicide spread among the townspeople very quickly, and the latter part of the Edo Period came to be characterized by this phenomenon. Many stories of shinju remain to this day in the form of novels, dramas, and songs.
Comparison of Seppuku and Shinju
It would be a misinterpretation to think that shinju was the choniris imitation of the samurai's seppuku. There is considerable antithesis therein.
The age was outgrowing seppuku and much that it stood for. Feudalism remained as a meaningless formalism that was suffocatingly inhuman. Voices of opposition from the common people began to make themselves heard. They were under the subjugation of the sword but they were learning that no power on earth has any control over death. The common people found a certain elevation of apperception was required to commit shinju and a new truth was discovered in so doing. The chonin were finding in shinju what the samurai had found in committing seppuku: the sense of joyful fulfillment in sacrificing one's life for an ideal, however mistaken or foolish that ideal might be. They were finding in shinju a worthwhile dqath.
Shinju came to be praised and exalted in the literature of the day. In a sense, shinju served to expose the shallowness and excessive formality of seppuku and hastened its end.
The adherents of seppuku brought forth the following arguments to show the superiority of seppuku over shinju:
1. Seppuku required an admirable mental attitude of composure, while the approach to shinju was characterized by faltering and hesitation.
2. The seppuku knife was the sacred emblem of the samurai spirit, while the "weapon" used to bring about shinju was often only the red cord women used to tie around their waists. (This was used to tie the two lovers together when they threw themselves into rivers, waterfalls, or the sea.)
3. Shinju was often prompted by the exposure of the ignoble crime of adultery.
4. Shinju was often an escape, a fleeing from the pain of living without one's lover. Seppuku, however, was done in fulfillment of one's duty to one's code and class * .
Whereas seppuku could be described as the crowning culmination of Bushido and perhaps of the feudal society from which it grew, shinju arose as a form of desperate resistance and opposition to a civilization that negated humanity.
The prohibition of junshi or self-immolation had dealt a mortal blow to the samurai's moral code of honor. This inhuman practice of trying to follow one's master even beyond the grave should not have been permitted at all, but its prohibition confronted feudalism with a dilemma.
During the period of warfare that lasted for nearly a century, it was perhaps a logical requirement that a samurai should be ready to die for his master. These vassals played for high stakes on the battlefield: their own welfare and that of their children. "To die in the presence of his master's horse" was a favorite phrase that stirred the samurai's ambition, for his offspring would be honored by his master and his master's heirs, if he were to fall in battle.
When peace was finally ushered in under the prodigious generalship of Tokugawa Ieyasu, there were no more such stages for glory; they could no longer "die in the presence of their master's horse." However, down through the time of the Second and even the Third Shogun, there were still generals alive who could not forget past glories in battle. It was understandable why those lords and generals wanted to practice junshi when the Second and Third Shogun died. These were rare opportunities "to die in the presence of the master's horse." To them, loyalty without death was meaningless; there was art even in loyalty.
It was important that the Tokugawa Shogunate had
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