Category: JapaneseCulture

When the Second World War ended, one of the conditions imposed to Japan by the United States was that emperor Hirohito had to lose his divine status. The emperor of Japan was considered a god, direct descendant of Amaterasu, the Goddess that created Japan.

Arahitogami (現人神 – now, person, God) means “God that at this moment has a human form” in Japanese language. Hirohito emperor was an arahitogami until 1946 when he was obligated by general Douglas MacArthur to sign a document, probably unique in the history of humanity, called 人間宣言 ningen sengen, that can be translated as “humanity declaration/proclamation”.

By signing the 人間宣言 ningen sengen, emperor Hirohito renounced to his arahitogami (God with human form) status and admitted to be a normal and ordinary human! This is the original document preserved in the National Diet Library:

This is an excerpt of the document with the most important sentences:

朕ト爾等國民トノ間ノ紐帯ハ、終始相互ノ信頼ト敬愛トニ依リテ結バレ、單ナル神話ト傳説トニ依リテ生ゼルモノニ非ズ。天皇ヲ以テ現御神トシ、且日本國民ヲ以テ他ノ民族ニ優越セル民族ニシテ、延テ世界ヲ支配スベキ運命ヲ有ストノ架空ナル觀念ニ基クモノニモ非ズ

“The ties between Us and Our people have always stood upon mutual trust and affection. They do not depend upon mere legends and myths. They are not predicated on the false conception that the Emperor is divine, and that the Japanese people are superior to other races and fated to rule the world. “

One of the problems of this humanity declaration document (人間宣言 ningen sengen) is that even though Hirohito renounced to his divine status, he never denied being a direct descendant of goddess Amaterasu. In other words, the emperor was not a god anymore but he was still a descendant of the gods.

Another problem, is that the word akitsumikami 現御神(Now, Honorable, God) was used in the document instead of 現人神 (Now, Person, God). Notice that the only different character is the one in the middle; however according to some Japanese purists the meaning is somewhat different; the first concept means something similar to “God’s incarnation”. Some members close to the imperial family say that you can lose your 現御神 status (God’s incarnation) without losing your 現人神 status (God with human form)… yes, I know in English it seems practically the same; and the same applies in Japanese, except for some purists. Therefore, Hirohito would have renounced to his akitsumikami 現御神 status but not to his arahitogami 現人神 status.

This vagueness has caused a lot of confusion, in fact if you ask around in Japan, there is still a lot of people that consider the actual emperor a god, and a few people still think that all Japanese people are descendants of the goddess Amaterasu. On the other hand many Japanese people say that signing a paper doesn’t make a god human.

Emperor Hirohito in his human form :). Picture from wikipedia.

Yesterday happened to be the birthday of the Emperor of Japan (天皇誕生日: てんのうたんじょうび, birthday of the Emperor) and that’s why we didn’t have to work around here. However today and tomorrow we have to go to work, there’s no Xmas holidays in Japan.

One of the Emperor’s birthday traditions is that the “common people” is allowed to see him. The royal family gathers behind big windows specially prepared for the occasion at the Imperial Palace, and groups of people take turns to see the Emperor and his family. Each turn takes 3 minutes, the imperial family waves with their hand and smiles, and the people that go to see them wave small Japan flags.

Samurai have been the most powerful social class in Japan for centuries. From the 12th century and on, the warrior class known in Japanese as ‘bushi’ or ‘samurai’, started having power within the social structure and even within the political sphere. Samurai followed a lifestyle, an ethos, certain rules, a code, which spread to all levels of society and even today it affects the way Japanese people think and behave. This code is known as the ‘Bushi-do’- 武士道; where the last character (do = 道) could be translated as ‘way’. Therefore, we have ‘bushi’ (warrior) and ‘do’ (way). This way was based on certain values, such as loyalty, justice, sacrifice or honor. I’ll go on to talk in more depth about all aspects that the ‘do’, ‘the way’, may include.

Bushido takes its influences from two religious disciplines, Zen Buddhism and Confucianism. Buddhism came through China during the 6th century and ever since it has greatly influenced Japanese culture. Specifically, a sect called Zen was the one that settled in Japan with greatest strength. The main goal of Zen is to achieve enlightenment by freeing one’s mind, searching the way to unite soul and body, in order to calm the soul until there is no thoughts in one’s mind. Steming from Zen Buddhism, a series of disciplines have been developed to encourage those principles, including the tea ceremony (Sa-do) or calligraphy (Sho-do). Note that both words also include the particle -do = 道 ; ‘way’. In the case of samurai, the practice and understanding of Zen was used to remain calm and patient in battle even in the most extreme circumstances, so they didn’t give in to fear. This is still alive in the culture today. Those of you who know Japanese people will agree with me that most of them are calm and patient people. Sometimes too much, I would say.

Confucianism also came through China during the 12th century. According to Confucianism, relationships among human beings are the core of society, so we must respect our ancestors, our relatives, our superiors. It defended the values of loyalty, justice and honor. Confucianism is still in the mind of the Japanese people today, making them respect their superiors very much, as well as their families and their enterprises, as we saw in the articles devoted to their structure: Structure of Japanese companies – Part 1 and Structure of Japanese companies – Part 2.

Carlos and I in the mountains in Nikko some years ago.

Loyalty might be one of the most important values for the samurai. They were completely loyal to their “feudal lord”, and they risked their lives for him on a daily basis. Samurai didn’t mind dying as long as they didn’t regret anything they had done during their lives. Meaning they always had to try to be loyal and free their minds of any “stain”.

In the case of honor, they were really strict. “Better to die before being a disgrace” was their philosophy. Samurai always tried to be in the first line of battle, and if they failed any mission they committed “seppuku” (suicide), cutting their abdomen with their sword. Other Bushido values that I haven’t talked about are sincerity, compassion, courtesy, honesty, etc.

From the Meiji Restoration onwards, samurai haven’t existed in Japan anymore, but many aspects of their life philosophy are still present in society. Students are loyal to their teachers; workers are loyal to their companies by working many extra hours. Even today there are many Japanese who commit suicide to remain honorable when they make a very serious mistake in order to safeguard their family’s or their company’s reputation, etc.

To sum up, Bushido is still present in Japanese society, in the Japanese mind, in their families, in their companies and in Japan in general. Bushido may have been one of the factors that has helped in the restoration of the country several times after destruction in the last 150 years.

To complete this post, I highly recommend the movie Shichinin no samurai to those of you who haven’t seen it, as it contains many of the elements of “Bushido” and from which it is said that George Lucas got his inspiration to create the Star Wars saga.

Yes! This is a message in space-time, dear master.