vocab. question on samurai, bushi, senshi and heishi
Jody Holeton
I've been doing alot of reading lately and came up with some Japanese
words I hope the list could make a little clearer for me. I was under
the impression that samurai means "to serve", that it's kanji kind of
means "a person that stands by the temple".
Heishi means soldier?
Senshi means warrior?
Bugei means.......
Bushi means warrior?
Ashigaru means foot soldier?
Is there a difference between a warrior and a soldier? A Japanese
soldier and a samurai?
I was under the impression that these words kind of form a hierarchy? I
know there was the movement to eliminate the samurai class during the
meiji restoration, was the word "heishi" a product of that transition
mentality?
Any help would be appreciated----Jody Holeton
Karl Friday
>I've been doing alot of reading lately and came up with some Japanese
>words I hope the list could make a little clearer for me. I was under
>the impression that samurai means "to serve", that it's kanji kind of
>means "a person that stands by the temple".
The word "samurai" originally came from the verb "saburau," which means "to
serve." The *component elements* of the character "samurai" is written
with are "man" and "temple," but this doesn't mean that the character
literally means "a person that stands by the temple" (although that phrase
makes a nice mnemonic device for learning the kanji); it *may* once have
had this meaning in ancient Chinese, but it never has in Japanese.
"Samurai" initially referred to lower-ranked nobles who served in the
household offices of the top court aristocracy, but by the late Heian
period its usage was mostly (but not completely) restricted to those who
served in a military/bodyguard/police capacity. By sometime in the
Tokugawa period, the term was being used generally to refer to the whole
warrior class.
>Heishi means soldier?
>Senshi means warrior?
>Bugei means.......
>Bushi means warrior?
>Ashigaru means foot soldier?
There are many dozens of terms and variations on terms that have been used
over the centuries in Japan to describe soldiers and warriors. Some of
these had very specific meanings, some were ambiguous. Many changed
readings or orthographies or meanings over time. Which makes it pretty
much impossible to give generic translations for most of the terms listed
above; you have to be period-specific.
"Heishi" is a good example. From the late 7th to the mid 8th centuries it
was the designation for the conscripted troops who filled out the ranks of
the provincial regiments (gundan) that formed the core of the imperial
state (ritsuryo) military system. During the late 8th and the 9th
centuries, it was used to describe a wide variety of fighting men. By the
mid 10th century it (or rather the characters in the compound, by then read
as "tsuwamono") referred to the figures we generally call "samurai" or
"bushi" in English--members of the private warrior order. From the
medieval period onward it *usually* (but not always) meant lower-ranked
fighting men. In modern usage it refers to rank-and-file soldiers--most
commonly to enlisted men.
"Senshi" is mainly a variation of "heishi," and likewise changed meanings
depending on the period. "Bushi" (which was originally read as "mononofu")
is generally used (and has been used) as a kind of generic term for
"warrior," but there's a school of historians in Japan who treat it as a
technical term, distinguishing the heishi/tsuwamono of the 10th and 11th
centuries from the "real" bushi/mononofu of the 12th century and
later. "Musha" is another variation of "bushi"--albeit lacking the
connotations as a technical term.
"Ashigaru" (literally, "light feet") was the term used for very low-ranked
warriors of the medieval period. This group included peasant conscripts
and others who were neither enfeofed nor stipended
warrior/landholders. Most ashigaru stayed on the peasant side of the
peasant/samurai division imposed (artificially) under the Toyotomi
Hideyoshi and Tokugawa regimes. An alternative term for "ashigaru" is
"zohyo," sometimes also pronounced "zohei," or "zatsuhei."
"Bugei" means "martial art." This term also changed meanings and nuances
considerably over the centuries.
>Is there a difference between a warrior and a soldier? A Japanese
>soldier and a samurai?
A soldier is a member of an army; a warrior is a member of a social class
or order of fighting men (or women). Generally "soldier" is used for
fighting men (or women) who are part of well-organized, articulated
fighting forces on the order of modern armies, while "warrior" is used for
more individualistic sorts of fighters, and those for whom war was an
expression and obligation of status. According "warrior" tends to have a
more romantic flavor than the more pedestrian "soldier."
"Samurai" were hereditary warriors of medieval and early modern Japan;
"Japanese soldier" can refer to any modern (as well as some kinds of
ancient and medieval) servicemen (and women).
Karl Friday
Dept. of History
University of Georgia
Athens, GA 30602
ph. (706) 542-2537
kfr...@arches.uga.edu
Kevin Tsai
> The word "samurai" originally came from the verb "saburau," which means "to
> serve." The *component elements* of the character "samurai" is written
> with are "man" and "temple," but this doesn't mean that the character
> literally means "a person that stands by the temple" (although that phrase
> makes a nice mnemonic device for learning the kanji); it *may* once have
> had this meaning in ancient Chinese, but it never has in Japanese.
The case in Chinese seems to be the same as in Japanese. One way Chinese
characters were created was by adding a little extra to another
character that sounded similar, which incidentally is one of the reasons
that the Chinese script is *not* really ideogrammatic. The character in
question (shi in modern Chinese, 'to serve') is formed from another
character (read si, 'temple') by this phonetic principle of production.
(A dated reconstruction of ancient Chinese shows that the initial
consonant for the character 'to serve' is the initial for the character
'temple' palatalized. Anyway, the point is that modern Chinese seems to
reflect this difference.) I ran a little search (not exhaustive) and I
didn't find an instance of shi ('to serve') that could be construed as
'guarding a temple' or 'serving a temple.' This word, by the way, means
'to serve' in the sense of waiting upon someone as a servant. Nothing grand.
S-CKT
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