Samurai
Titles & roles侍 ・ Reading: samurai (bushi)
Definition
The hereditary warrior class that ruled Japan from the late twelfth century until 1868. Samurai patronage of Zen, castle towns, and family temples shaped much of the religious landscape travelers explore today.
From provincial guards to ruling class
Samurai (more formally bushi) began as provincial mounted warriors serving noble estates. After the Genpei War their leader Minamoto no Yoritomo founded the Kamakura shogunate in 1192, and for nearly seven centuries warriors, not courtiers, governed Japan. Their ethos wove together loyalty, martial skill, and an acute awareness of death; in the peaceful Edo period the sword-bearing class became administrators and scholars, and the ideal was codified retrospectively as bushidō. The class was abolished in the Meiji reforms of the 1870s.
The samurai and the sacred
Samurai left fingerprints all over religious Japan. They embraced Zen for its discipline and composure before death, funding the great monasteries of Kamakura and Kyoto; they prayed to Hachiman as the patron kami of warriors; their castle towns seeded the temple districts many cities still have; and their families kept grand bodaiji, like the Tokugawa mausoleums at Nikkō and Zōjō-ji. Sword offerings, armor votives, and warrior graves you meet at temples and shrines all trace back to this class.
Common questions
- Why were samurai drawn to Zen?
Zen's discipline, directness, and composure in the face of death suited warrior life, and Zen monks also served shogunates as advisors, diplomats, and educators, deepening the bond.
- Which kami did samurai worship?
Above all Hachiman, venerated as the patron of warriors. Hachiman shrines such as Tsurugaoka Hachimangū in Kamakura were warrior shrines par excellence.
- When did the samurai class end?
The Meiji government dismantled it in the 1870s, abolishing stipends, topknots, and the right to wear swords. Many former samurai became officers, officials, teachers, and entrepreneurs.