武士魂 bushi-damashii Warrior Spirit
武士魂 (bushi-damashii), the samurai's spirit, followed here from the Edo novels through the Meiji writers and the war years into English.
Abstract
武士魂 (bushi-damashii), the spirit of the samurai, is built like 大和魂 (yamato-damashii), but it is a headword in none of the general dictionaries read here, which give the samurai's spirit the word 士魂 (shikon). In Japanese books in the national library's full-text index, by its own item dates, it is in print from 1813, when a novel of Santō Kyōden 山東京伝 has a man, with a hundred ryō set before him, bend his warrior's spirit; Kyokutei Bakin 曲亭馬琴 uses it in 1820 of a samurai's resolve; a translated history of Washington's war, of about 1870, uses it of an American army, and a notebook of Masaoka Shiki sets it beside the katakana for chivalry; and Natsume Sōseki 夏目漱石, in a talk of 1905 given before the peace with Russia, asks whether its reckless talk was born of a certain need. A book on the army of 1917 equated the soldier's spirit with it, and a commentary of 1941 reported the long-held idea that it was the Japanese spirit. English has samurai spirit by 1895, and in the full-text indexes searched the romanized word is first in a dated book of 1985.
Overview
The sense. 武士魂 has no entry at kotobank, and none in JMdict, the open Japanese–English dictionary [1][2]. The dictionaries hold its parts. Under 魂, the デジタル大辞泉 gives as sense 4 《（多く「…だましい」の形で）そのもののもつ固有の精神。また、気構え。「大和やまと―」「負けじ―」》, (mostly in the form …damashii) the spirit proper to a thing; also, its resolve. "Yamato-damashii", "makeji-damashii", and gives the headword だましい as the same [3]. 武士 is 《昔、武芸をおさめ、軍事にたずさわった身分の者。中世・近世には支配階級となった。さむらい。もののふ。》, in former times, those of the status that mastered the martial arts and was engaged in war; in the medieval and early modern periods the ruling class; samurai; mononofu [4]. The word the dictionaries give for the samurai's spirit is 士魂 (shikon): the デジタル大辞泉 has 《武士のたましい。》, and the 精選版 日本国語大辞典 《武士のたましい。武士の精神。》, with its earliest example from a book of 1933; JMdict gives it manly spirit; soul of a samurai [5][2]. The dictionaries also call the sword the samurai's soul: 《刀は武士の―》, the sword is the samurai's soul, stands as the example under one sense of 魂, and another sense of 魂 is 刀 itself, a sword [3]. So the phrase 武士の魂 names the sword by that figure, and in the definitions of 士魂 above it names the spirit. The English warrior is a person engaged or experienced in warfare; soldier, and a person who shows or has shown great vigor, courage, or aggressiveness [6]. That covers any fighter of any people. 武士 names one class of one country, and in its oldest uses 武士魂 is the spirit of that class, though, as the record below shows, a translated history of Washington's war, of about 1870, uses it of an American army.
The words. 武士 (bushi), the samurai, with 魂, soul, spirit, read -damashii when it closes a compound, as in 大和魂 and 負けじ魂 [3]. The デジタル大辞泉 gives the characters 武士 a second reading, もののふ (mononofu), a word for a man of arms [4]; one of the early witnesses below reads the compound that way.
The text in English. English has samurai spirit in prose by 1895, in a sentence that gives no Japanese word for the spirit [7]. The Meiji dictionary read here has no entry for the compound [8]. In the full-text indexes searched, the romanized bushi damashi, glossed warrior spirit, is first in a dated English book of 1985 [9]. The live page gives Warrior Spirit.
The historical record
1813, Santō Kyōden, 双蝶記. The national catalogue of early books dates the work 文化一〇刊, printed 1813 [10]. In the print of that year, one man takes a packet of a hundred ryō from his breast and sets it before another, who looks long at the money and, with something turning in his heart, 《忽武士魂を枉。詞をあらためていひけるハ》, at once bent his warrior's spirit, changed his words, and said [11]. The ruby reads ぶし beside 武士 and たましひ beside 魂, with the press's voicing mark on ぶ and none on た [11]. The typeset of 1891 prints the same sentence [12]. This is the earliest 武士魂 in a Japanese book that the National Diet Library's full-text index gives, by the index's own item dates (on its undated items, see the Notes), and its first use known here is of a pride a man bends with money before him.
1820, Kyokutei Bakin, 南総里見八犬伝, the fourth part. The novel was printed in parts from 1814 to 1842 [13]; the National Diet Library's catalogue dates the fourth part to 文政3 (1820) [14]. 房八 lies with a deep wound, and 小文吾 is urged to end his pain with the mercy stroke, for that too is compassion: 《介錯も亦惻隠ぞと奬す武士魂に小文吾有理と思ひかへして》, at the 武士魂 that so urged him, 小文吾 thought again that it was right; he draws his sword and rises, and 房八 smiles [14][15]. The ruby beside 武士魂 reads it with もののふ: at the two copies of 1820 it is もの…ふ…ましひ, the kana between not clear, and the typeset of 1885–86 prints もの〻ふたましひ, mononofu-tamashii, with no voicing mark on た where the same column marks the げ of はげま [14][15]; on the 1820 leaf Bakin rubies 武士 alone ぶし [14]. The verb is one character at the leaf, 奬, which the text layer of the 1820 print splits as 将大; the typeset prints 奬す with the ruby はげま, to urge [14][15]. In Bakin the word is the resolve that urges a hard compassion, the mercy stroke for a wounded comrade, and it is read with もののふ, a word for a man of arms.
About 1870, a history of Washington's war. The 華盛頓軍記, translated by 鈴木弥堅, which the National Diet Library dates 〔1870頃〕, about 1870, tells how Washington had orders read to his soldiers and gave directions down to the small business of every day: 《其外日々の些細の事務に至る迄。一々差圖を加へけるの。主意とする處も。真の武士魂の兵卒を仕立んとあり》, and its aim too, it says, was to make soldiers of true 武士魂 [16]. Here the word names the spirit of good soldiers in an American army.
1882–91, Masaoka Shiki 正岡子規's notebook. A notebook in Shiki's hand, whose National Diet Library record gives its author as 迂加連達磨, under the heading 正岡子規, and dates it, in brackets, 〔1882–1891〕, has on one page the phrase 《所謂武士魂なるもの》, what is called 武士魂, beside the katakana for knight and chivalry (ナイト, シヴアルレー, the ア not clear in the cursive); on the next, in a passage that appears to speak of seppuku, stands 《日本固有の武士魂》, the 武士魂 proper to Japan (the cursive's 固 read for a form the text layer gives as 国) [17]. The notebook is cursive, and only these two phrases and the naming of chivalry are read here with certainty [17].
1905, Natsume Sōseki, 戰後文界の趨勢. A talk of Sōseki's, the trend of literature after the war, which opens on Japan's unbroken victories and speaks of the peace as still to come, and names the enemy: 《然るに日本は茲に歐洲第一流の頑固で强いといふ露西亞を敵にして連戰連捷したのである》, yet Japan has now made Russia, said to be stubborn and strong, a first-rank power of Europe, its enemy, and won victory upon victory [18]. Its title stands in two magazines dated 1 August 1905, known here from snippets [19]. In the text of his collected works of 1920: 《日本人は由來武士魂といふ。この負けじ魂を有つて居るといふが、西洋人に負けて居たのは事實である。然し負けながらこの魂の維持されたのが、今までの有樣であつた。》, the Japanese have from of old spoken of 武士魂. They say they have this unyielding spirit, but it is a fact that they were losing to the Westerners. Yet until now this spirit has been kept up while losing; and next, 《それであるからこの日本人の特性であると誇りつゝある武士魂でさへ、負けながらの中にやつと維持されつゝあつた。》, so even the 武士魂 they pride themselves on as the Japanese character was only barely kept alive in the midst of losing [18]. And on the same page, running onto the next: 《吾々は大和魂——又は武士魂といふことを今までも口にしたが、然しこれを今日まで無暗に口にしたといふのは、或必要から出たのではあるまいか。これを事實の上に現ずる事なしに、徒に其聲をして高からしめんと叫んだのは、一方に精神の消耗といふ事を思はせるのと、一方には其事に對して恐怖を抱いたが爲ではあるまいか、と臆測する者があるのも餘儀ないことになる。》, we have spoken till now of yamato-damashii, or 武士魂; but was not our speaking of it so recklessly till today born of a certain need? As for our crying out to make its voice loud, without showing it in fact, it is no wonder that some suspect it suggests on the one hand a wasting of the spirit, and on the other came from fear for the thing itself [18]. The word is set beside 大和魂 and 負けじ魂, and the man who uses it doubts the boast.
1917, a book on the army. 『軍隊大観』, a survey of the army, of 大正6 (1917): 《軍人精神とは所謂武士的精神とか武士魂とかいふのと同じことで、つまり眞誠なる忠君愛國の犠牲的精神であり》, the soldier's spirit is the same as what is called the samurai-like spirit or 武士魂: in short, a self-sacrificing spirit of true loyalty to the sovereign and love of the nation [20]. The ruby is ぶしだましい, the reading the page gives, in the first witness read here at the leaf that voices it [20].
1941, a commentary on 国体の本義. 『国体の本義詳説』, of 昭和16 (1941), under the heading 《我が國は尚武の國である》, our country is one that honors arms: 《由來武士魂卽日本精神の考は》, the long-held idea that 武士魂 is the Japanese spirit [21]. The commentary reports the idea, that 武士魂 is 日本精神, the Japanese spirit, as one held from of old.
The spread. Of the 2,182 items the National Diet Library's full-text index returned for a search on 武士魂 on 20 October 2026, sorted by date, the first 1,095 are dated before 1946, as are a few of the items it lists last, which its sort treats as undated; items 751 to 1,095, some 345, are dated from 1936 to 1945, and the sample does not show where 1936 begins [22]. These are counts of items, not of uses. Of 大和魂, the word Sōseki sets 武士魂 beside, the デジタル大辞泉 says that it was 《天皇制における国粋主義思想、戦時中の軍国主義思想のもとで喧伝された》, trumpeted under the ultranationalist thought of the emperor system and the militarist thought of wartime [23].
The word in English
1895, Hearn. Lafcadio Hearn, in Out of the East, writing of Kyūshū in a paragraph on the students of Kumamoto: The ancient samurai spirit still lives on [7]. The English phrase; the sentence gives no Japanese word for the spirit.
1903, Hepburn. J. C. Hepburn's Japanese-English and English-Japanese Dictionary, in a printing the Internet Archive dates 1903, has BUSHI, a cavalier; one belonging to the military class; a soldier, and then BUSHINJIN, with no BUSHI-DAMASHII between them [8].
From 1985. In the full-text indexes searched, the earliest dated book with the romanized word is Dave Lowry's Autumn Lightning (1985), in a fragment the index returns, set as a glossary entry: bushi damashi (warrior spirit) The emotional essence of the… [9]; books of 1994 and after follow, and an undated Budo Jiten in the same index has the headword bushi-damashii : The warrior spirit [9]. These books are known here from the index's fragments, not at the page.
Today. No general dictionary read gives 武士魂 a headword, in Japanese or in English: kotobank, JMdict and Hepburn have none [1][2][8]; the martial-arts glossary above, known only from a fragment, has bushi-damashii [9]. The design is sold as Warrior Spirit.
A reading
The sources read here give the word four lives. It begins in the novels as a samurai's pride, and its first use known here is of a man who bends it with a hundred ryō before him; in Bakin it is the resolve that urges the mercy stroke for a wounded man [11][14]. In early Meiji it could be said of an American army's good soldiers, and set beside the katakana for chivalry and called 日本固有, proper to Japan [16][17]. In 1905, before the peace with Russia, Sōseki said that the 武士魂 the Japanese boasted of had barely been kept alive while losing to the West, and asked whether a certain need lay behind their reckless talk of it [18]. A book of 1917 then equated the soldier's spirit with it, and a commentary of 1941 reported it as the Japanese spirit [20][21]; of the items the national library's index returns for it, at least half are dated before 1946, and at least 345 of those from 1936 to 1945 [22].
I read 武士魂 as a word for a pride that has to be kept, because it can be bent. Its oldest witness shows the bending, and the one critic read here asked what need lay behind the loud talk of it. A buyer who hangs these three characters can mean by them what the novels meant: the resolve not to sell one's word, and to stand by it when it costs. The word also carries its war years, and a reader of Japanese may see them; the scroll does not mean them unless its owner does.
Notes
- The 1813 print marks the voicing on ぶ of ぶし and writes たましひ with no mark; the print marks ぶ and not た, so how the word was said in 1813 is not settled here [11]. The voiced -damashii is read at the leaf in 1917 [20].
- Bakin's ruby is read at two National Diet Library copies of the fourth part, where the kana between もの and ましひ are not clear, and at the typeset of 1885–86, which prints もの〻ふたましひ; the typeset's text layer reads the た as だ, which the leaf does not carry [14][15].
- Sōseki's talk is read in the collected works of 1920; a collection of 1917 whose snippets carry the passage, National Diet Library pid 954371, did not serve its page images at a test of 20 October 2026 (its IIIF manifest returned HTTP 404, against 200 for the 1920 edition), and the magazine that first printed it is not read [18][19].
- 双蝶記 is the title as the national catalogue gives it (雙蝶記); the typeset of 1891 is titled 吾妻余五郎双蝶記 [10][12].
- Two Chinese works among the index's oldest items carry the characters 武士魂 in their text layers; one, read at the leaf, has 武士喪魂, the warriors lost their souls, and is not the compound [24]; the other was not opened.
- The index sorts its undated items last. One of them, the manuscript kabuki script 梶原平三紅梅靮, undated, has 《当時平家の武士魂は》 in its text layer; at the leaf the line runs 平家の武士…, its last character a cursive not settled here as 魂, so it is not counted [25].
Japanese Scrolls by Master Calligrapher Eri Takase
Sources not seen
- The magazine that first printed Sōseki's talk in 1905; the two magazines whose August issues carry its title are served in Japan only and on the library's premises, and their snippets name the title, not the issue that carried it [19].
- 『日露戦争実記』 of April 1904, National Diet Library pid 1592415, whose text layer gives the ruby ぶしだましひ, served on the library's premises only; it would show the voiced reading before 1917.
- Dave Lowry, Autumn Lightning (1985), and Steve Rabson, Righteous Cause or Tragic Folly (1998), whose fragment names a title, Bushi-damashii; lending copies only. They would show how English first took the word.
A reader with access to any of these is invited to write to Takase Studios at Tim@Takase.com.
References
- kotobank, the address for 武士魂, no entry (HTTP 404). https://kotobank.jp/word/武士魂
- 士魂 (entry 2805530), JMdict, at jisho.org; jisho.org has no page for 武士魂 (HTTP 404). https://jisho.org/word/士魂 · https://jisho.org/word/武士魂
- 「魂」, デジタル大辞泉, 精選版 日本国語大辞典, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/魂-505768
- 「武士」, デジタル大辞泉, 精選版 日本国語大辞典, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/武士-124344
- 「士魂」, デジタル大辞泉, 精選版 日本国語大辞典, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/士魂-518807
- "warrior", Dictionary.com. https://www.dictionary.com/browse/warrior
- Lafcadio Hearn, "With Kyūshū Students", in "Out of the East": Reveries and Studies in New Japan, Houghton, Mifflin and Company, 1895, p. 29. Internet Archive outofeastreverie00hear. https://archive.org/details/outofeastreverie00hear/page/n42
- J. C. Hepburn, A Japanese-English and English-Japanese Dictionary, the printing the Internet Archive dates 1903, p. 48. Internet Archive ajapaneseenglis00hepbgoog. https://archive.org/details/ajapaneseenglis00hepbgoog/page/n90
- Dave Lowry, Autumn Lightning: The Education of an American Samurai, 1985, a fragment the Internet Archive's full-text search returns (its index page 214, not a printed page); and the same search for bushi damashi and bushi-damashii. Internet Archive autumnlightninge0000lowr. https://archive.org/details/autumnlightninge0000lowr
- 国書データベース, 国文学研究資料館, the work 雙蝶記, 山東京伝 作. https://kokusho.nijl.ac.jp/work/349871
- 山東京伝『双蝶記』, 文化10 (1813), scan 16. National Diet Library pid 2554014. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/2554014/1/16
- 山東京伝『吾妻余五郎双蝶記』, 1891, p. 32, scan 19. National Diet Library pid 878835. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/878835/1/19
- 「南総里見八犬伝」, デジタル大辞泉, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/南総里見八犬伝-108857
- 曲亭馬琴『南総里見八犬伝』 四輯 巻四, leaf 十九: scan 20 of National Diet Library pid 2546356 (whose catalogue record's collation note dates the fourth part), and scan 21 of pid 2551606. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/2546356/1/20 · https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/2551606/1/21
- 曲亭馬琴『南総里見八犬伝』, typeset, 1885–86, p. 124, scan 39. National Diet Library pid 879351. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/879351/1/39
- 鈴木弥堅 訳『華盛頓軍記』 二編上, 〔1870頃〕, scan 8. National Diet Library pid 995153. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/995153/1/8
- 正岡子規『無花果艸紙』, autograph notebook, 〔1882–1891〕, scan 67. National Diet Library pid 2541082. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/2541082/1/67
- 夏目漱石「戰後文界の趨勢」, in 『漱石全集』 別冊, 漱石全集刊行会, 1920, pp. 446, 450 and 451, scans 238 and 240. National Diet Library pid 978810. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/978810/1/238 · https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/978810/1/240
- National Diet Library, snippet view: 『新公論』, 1 August 1905, scan 7, pid 11005406; 『中央公論』, 1 August 1905, scan 63, pid 10231874. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/11005406 · https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/10231874
- 『軍隊大観』, 大正6 (1917), p. 22, scan 40. National Diet Library pid 951108. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/951108/1/40
- 『国体の本義詳説』, 昭和16 (1941), p. 211, scan 113. National Diet Library pid 1039474. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1039474/1/113
- National Diet Library Digital Collections, full-text search for 武士魂, all access levels, sorted oldest first, 2,182 items (searched 20 October 2026). https://dl.ndl.go.jp/search/searchResult?keyword=武士魂
- 「大和魂」, デジタル大辞泉, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/大和魂-144215
- 『册府元龜』, 崇禎15 (1642) preface, scan 42. National Diet Library pid 2573894. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/2573894/1/42
- 『梶原平三紅梅靮』, manuscript kabuki script (演劇台帳), undated, scan 69. National Diet Library pid 2537857. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/2537857/1/69