Yamaga Sokō

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Yamaga Sokō (山鹿素行, September 21, 1622 - October 23, 1685) was a Japanese philosopher and strategist during the Tokugawa shogunate. He was a Confucian, and applied Confucius's idea of the "superior man" to the samurai class of Japan. This became an important part of the samurai way of life and code of conduct later known as bushido.

By adapting the Confucian tradition to their own requirements, Japanese scholars implied a repudiation of Tokugawa authority over intellectual matters. Yamaga Sokō was the first important thinker to break away from official orthodoxy in this way. Yamaga was a student of Hayashi Razan, a Japanese Neo-Confucianist philosopher. As Yamaga was also a student of military science, he was concerned over the prolonged inactivity of the warrior class under peaceful Tokugawa rule.

Yamaga wrote a series of works dealing with "the warrior’s creed" (bukyō) and "the way of the gentleman" (shidō). In this way he described the lofty mission of the warrior class and its attendant obligations, which later became known as the "Way of the Samurai" (bushidō). He emphasized that the peaceful arts, letters, and history were essential to the intellectual discipline of the samurai. Yamaga thus symbolizes the historical transformation of the samurai class from a purely military aristocracy to one of increasing political and intellectual leadership. He also drew attention to the need to study and adopt Western weapons and tactics, as introduced by the Dutch.

In 1665, Yamaga publicly avowed his antipathy for Neo-Confucianism in the Essence of Confucianism and was arrested the following year at the instigation of Hoshina Masayuki, Lord of Aizu. Yamaga proclaimed his belief that the unadulterated truth could only be found in the ethical teachings of Confucius, and that subsequent developments within the Confucian tradition represented perversions of the original doctrine. Hoshina, however, saw this attack as a potential challenge to Tokugawa authority itself, and Yamaga was subsequently exiled.

Yamaga’s conception of bushidō pointed to the emperor as the focus of all loyalties and emphasized a samurai’s duty to his own lord. His teachings therefore had direct application for everyone in the existing feudal structure, and he was not calling for a change in the status of the emperor.

One of his pupils was Daidōji Yuzan, a samurai from the Daidōji family, author of the famous bushidō book, "Budō shoshin shu".