Secrets of the Samurai. Oscar Ratti
1970 issue of Worldwide Projects and Industry Planning, that surveys carried out by the Oriental Economist in 1968 and 1969 revealed that the largest corporations in Japan had never relinquished the traditional management system, “but had actually strengthened it over the past 10 years.” This system remains, in essence, that which it has been for centuries: a vertical clan system under the guidance of the patriarchal leader, geared to operate smoothly and efficiently for the welfare of the “clan.” This ever-present awareness of the past in all forms of Japanese life, according to Dore, “is not surprising in view of the recency of the feudal past contrasting so clearly with the whole tenor of modern urban life” (Dore1, 245).
This awareness cannot be expected to fade away or be replaced by a less rigidly organized conception of man’s loneliness in the heart of creation, by an increased awareness of the self as a responsible agent capable of individual decisions which might clash against the dicta of the clan, the house, the family, or, finally, society, until that feudal tradition has been reevaluated and redefined. “Real tradition,” wrote Yves Montcheuil, “is constitutive, not constituted” (Brown, 60). It grows as men evolve individually, as well as collectively. It adapts to new circumstances of time, place, and culture, and it stimulates new responses which themselves become a part of that tradition. It does not force the present into the rigid mold of the past, nor does it apply unyieldingly to the present values developed during an era which contituted only a phase of the national development. A constantly enriched and enriching tradition would not, in brief, impose a system of ethics developed and accepted by the military clans of feudal Japan upon the whole country and, progressively, upon the rest of the world under professed principles of brotherhood and universal harmony within the human family (hakko-ichiu). That system of ethics, that martial code, represented only one particular interpretation of reality and of man’s role in it. Even a cursory glance at Japanese history, after all, provides ample evidence that other interpretations predated and then coexisted with those of the military class—interpretations which were less successful perhaps in teaching a man how to use a sword, but no less admirable and often more useful in helping him to comprehend the true dilemma of his existence.
Considering the great significance assigned by the Japanese people to their military tradition, then, the qualification of “martial” (bu) so freely attributed to almost all the specializations of the art of combat in the doctrine of bujutsu finds its own semantic justification. It was much more selectively applied during the feudal era, when the warrior generally used it in reference to those arts which were his professional prerogative or when he extended it to include other arts still rather strictly correlated to the former. Its use increased with the progressive expansion of the military tradition among all classes of Japanese subjects and their striving toward total identification with it.
It is undeniable that the feudal warrior played the major role upon Japan’s national stage. It was, after all, the warrior who used those methods of combat, often with consummate skill, as he strove to rise to power in the face of an armed and equally determined opposition. It is also true that, consequently, he was the indirect activator of an intense interest in bujutsu on the part of members of other classes of Japanese society, who were forced to learn his methods or invent new ones if they wished to compete with him for even a semblance of political influence, to challenge his position of exclusive privilege or merely to defend themselves against his excesses or his inability to protect them from lawlessness. For not always, nor in every part of the country, was the warrior capable of totally imposing his interpretation of law and order. In such instances, citizens were forced to rely heavily upon themselves and their civil organizations in an effort to safeguard their lives and property.
The bushi, however, remained the main practitioner of bujutsu, since whenever he was exposed to new methods of combat intended to minimize or reduce his own military power, he was forced to learn them in the interests of self-preservation. The most notorious example of this necessity was provided by his involvement with the population of the Ryukyu Islands. It was in these islands—according to a predominant theory in the doctrine—that he learned how inadequate his armor and his array of traditional weapons (which had hitherto won the respect of enemy warriors in Korea) could prove to be, when pitted against the bare hands and feet of a peasant sufficiently desperate and properly trained in the ancient Chinese techniques of striking. These methods, said to have originated in the distant reaches of Asia (India, China, Tibet), helped men to develop their capacities for hitting or striking with hands, feet, and other parts of the body. The bushi was, therefore, caught in an uncontrollable spiral of escalation. He had to practice traditional methods of combat and continue to learn new ones—in a manner similar to the modern military establishment, which keeps devising new methods of destruction, even though these soon become obsolete, which, in turn, necessitates the development of even more destructive methods, ad infinitum. In any case, as noted earlier, after the sixteenth century the bushi alone had the legal right and enough time to practice and perfect various forms of bujutsu. The main schools of the martial arts were usually directed, in fact, by masters of arms attached to a clan, or by unattached warriors who had been granted permission to teach (for a fee) by the lord of the district. These schools kept records of their students and methods, thus providing a continuity in the process of expansion and development of certain arts which other schools, more removed from the military dimension, did not possess—such a lack often resulting in the disappearance of certain schools and methods, which have left us only fragmented references to indicate that they ever existed.
Finally, modern disciplines of unarmed combat, which have become famous under their Japanese names the world over, were developed by masters who acknowledged their indebtedness to the bujutsu of the ancient military class of Japan. Actually, and with only a few exceptions, these masters seem to take great pride in linking themselves and their innovations in the art of combat to a tradition that has an indefinable and irresistible charisma derived from its very antiquity. Even in those few cases where modern masters point out the differences between their methods and others (both ancient and modern), differences which make their methods unique and therefore a contribution to bujutsu rather than merely repetitions of its ancient theories and practices, their position within a well-defined, traditional stream of evolution is, by implication, unmistakably clear. The only and, indeed, rare cases of a clear break with this tradition occur when the basic premises of bujutsu as arts of combat, as arts of war and violent subjugation, are denied and their techniques transformed into arts of pacification and harmless neutralization. This subject, however, requires a further, detailed exploration, which the authors hope to undertake in a subsequent volume.
Origins of Bujutsu
The authors of books and treatises dealing with the Japanese martial arts, as well as almost every important master of the ancient and modern disciplines and methods of combat derived from them, have all presented their views on the subject of the primary sources, the first systematic presentation of techniques, and so forth in an effort to provide a satisfactory answer to the question: How, when, and where did bujutsu begin? The history of Japan in general and the doctrine of the martial arts in particular do not provide us with definite or precise answers to this question. Both the historical records of the Japanese nation (employing the Chinese system of calligraphy) and the more specialized manuscripts of the various schools of bujutsu refer to a variety of practices and methods which were ancient and codified long before any actual records were kept. Chinese writing is said by most historians to have been introduced into Japan in the sixth century, probably together with the first Buddhist texts. By that time, Japan had already evolved through the pre- and protohistorical periods, such as the Jomon, Yayoi, and Asuka, which culminated in the formation of a political organization revolving around the Heijo capital, Nara (710-84), with its resplendent imperial court. These periods of development, which preceded the Heian period (794-1185), were to see the emergence and eventual consolidation of one of the most ancient social units in the history of mankind: the clan. In many history books, in fact, these periods are referred to as the age of the original clans (uji) and of hereditary titles (kabane, or set). These units emerged from a nebulous “age of the gods” (kamino-yo) and from an imperfectly known blending of tribes, some of which had apparently emigrated from the Asiatic mainland or from islands of the south, while others are considered to have been the original inhabitants of the islands of the Japanese archipelago. Indirect references in Japanese records would seem to indicate