Yamaga Sokō

Yamaga Sokō (born Sept. 21, 1622, Aizu, Iwashiro Province, Japan—died Oct. 23, 1685, Edo) was a military strategist and Confucian philosopher who set forth the first systematic exposition of the missions and obligations of the samurai (warrior) class and who made major contributions to Japanese military science. Yamaga’s thought became the central core of what later came to be known as Bushido (Code of Warriors), which was the guiding ethos of Japan’s military throughout the Tokugawa period (1603–1867) and down to the end of World War II.

A rōnin, or masterless samurai, Yamaga early showed great promise, and he journeyed to Edo (now Tokyo), the capital, where he soon became the favourite student of the Neo-Confucian scholar Hayashi Razan. Yamaga soon moved beyond his teacher, however, studying Buddhism, Shintō, and military science as well as Confucianism. Within a short time he became one of the most popular teachers of his time, attracting thousands of disciples. As a result of his fame, in 1652 he was appointed military instructor to the lord of the great han (fief) of Akō.

Yamaga made important innovations in the study of strategy and tactics, weapons, and military intelligence. His work as a military teacher became one of his most important legacies; 19th-century students of Yamaga, though fiercely nationalistic and antiforeign, were among the first to advocate learning more about Western nations so that Japan would be better able to oppose them.

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Meanwhile, Yamaga began his attempts to develop a suitable ethic for the samurai class and turned to the Chinese “Ancient Learning” school of Confucianism, which advocated a return to the original 7th/6th-century-bc teachings of Confucius. Yamaga felt that those teachings were more appropriate to the samurai class than the watered-down Neo-Confucianist philosophy of Tokugawa Japan. Accordingly, Yamaga equated the samurai with the Confucian “superior man” and taught that his essential function was not only to keep himself fit for possible military service, but to justify the stipend his lord provided him with by becoming an exemplar of virtue for the lower classes. Without disregarding the basic Confucian virtue, benevolence, Yamaga emphasized the second virtue, righteousness, which he interpreted as obligation or duty.

Yamaga’s critique of Neo-Confucianism first appeared in 1665 in his Yamaga gorui (“Yamaga’s Sayings”), the summary of which was also published in three volumes under the title Seiyōyōroku (“Summary of Holy Teachings”). His views were seen as a potential challenge to Tokugawa authority, and he was banished from the capital in the custody of the Lord of Akō and exiled to one of the remote corners of Japan.

Yamaga became the teacher and chief inspiration for the future leader of the “47 rōnin.” Following Yamaga’s code, that group of samurai in 1702 defied shogunate law and risked their own lives to avenge the death of their lord. That incident still is one of the most famous in Japanese history and brought increased (if posthumous) fame to Yamaga and his ideas. Another of his ideas was that Japanese civilization was superior even to that of China. In his Chūchō jijitsu (“The True Facts Concerning the Middle Kingdom”), Yamaga maintained that since its founding Japan had remained loyal to its divine Imperial line, whereas China’s dynasties had come and gone. Furthermore, he argued, Confucian philosophy had been corrupted by metaphysical speculation, but Japan had remained true to the Confucian conception of duty. In the 19th century these thoughts helped inspire the militant Japanese nationalists, who in 1868 overthrew the Tokugawa shogunate and restored direct Imperial rule to Japan.