Samurai : noblest warrior caste of Japan. After 1868 they also became great statesmen, generals, & businessmen – their nobility & patriotism built modern Japan.
... of European social & political organization necessary to complete her culture under modern conditions and poured into these forms the old potent dynamic spirit of Japan, the spirit of the Samurai. It is the Samurai type which has been dominant in that country during the nineteenth century. In India the mass of the nation has remained dormant; European culture has had upon it a powerful disintegrating... Writings from Manuscripts 1907-1908 Bande Mataram The Bourgeois and the Samurai Two oriental nations have come powerfully under the influence of Western ideas and felt the impact of European civilization during the nineteenth century, India and Japan. The results have been very different. The smaller nation has become one of the mightiest Powers... & religious activities the spirit of this new & foreign graft has predominated & determined the extent & quality of our progress. This type is the bourgeois. In India, the bourgeois, in Japan, the Samurai; in this single difference is comprised the whole contrasted histories of the two nations during the nineteenth century. What is the bourgeois? For the word is unknown in India, though the thing ...
... tough Samurai once went to see a litde monk. "Monk," he said, in a voice accustomed to instant obedience, "teach methodology about heaven and hell!" The monk looked up at this mighty warrior and replied with utter disdain, 'Teach you about heaven and hell? I couldn't teach you about anything. You're dirty. You smell. Your blade is rusty. You're a disgrace, an embarrassment to the Samurai class... class. Get out of my sight. I can't stand you." The Samurai was furious. He shook, got all red in the face, was speechless with rage. He pulled out his sword and raised it above him, preparing to slay the monk. 'That's hell," said the monk softly. The Samurai was overwhelmed. The compassion and surrender of this little man who had offered his life to give this teaching to show him hell! He ...
... Aurobindo's passing, the original manuscripts of all five of the pieces were recovered. The texts in the present volume have been transcribed from these manuscripts. The Bourgeois and the Samurai . Editorial title. 1906 - 7. This article was intended not for the Bande Mataram , but for a certain "Review", presumably The Modern Review or another monthly journal. The notebook containing the... a general editorial title above them both. The "former article, in this Review" referred Page 1177 to in the first complete paragraph is undoubtedly "The Bourgeois and the Samurai". The text of "The New Nationalism" was put in as evidence by the prosecution in the Alipore Bomb Trial. In the beginning of 1909 this piece and "The Morality of Boycott" (see below) were reproduced ...
... of the old bourgeois ideals of the nineteenth century. It is an attempt to relegate the dominant bourgeois in us to his old obscurity, to transform the bourgeois into the Samurai and through him to extend the workings of the Samurai spirit to the whole nation. Or to put it more broadly, it is an attempt to create a new nation in India by reviving in spirit & action ancient Indian character, the strong ...
... the Japanese : one tall and with a long nose and fine aristocratic face, and another the 'Inune' who came from Australia and Polynesia. It was the tall people with classical features that gave Samurai Culture to Japan. I met a Japanese painter at Tagore's place – he was of the first type – what magnificent features! The other is the usual Mongolian type. Disciple : The dictator's psychology... the Japanese : one tall and with a long nose and fine aristocratic face, and another the 'Inune' who came from Australia and Polynesia. It was the tall people with classical features that gave Samurai Culture to Japan. I met a Japanese painter at Tagore's place – he was of the first type – what magnificent features! The other is the usual Mongolian type. Disciple : The dictator's psychology ...
... because he discharged the duty of protecting the country and preserving the high courage and manhood of the nation, and he had to cultivate the princely temperament and acquire the strong and lofty Samurai training which alone fitted him for his duties. So it was with the Vaishya whose function was to amass wealth for the race and the Sudra who discharged the humbler duties of service without which the... India, a brain that can think and plan for her greatness, a tongue that can adore her name or hands that can fight in her quarrel [The new Nationalism] is the rebirth in India of the Kshatriya, the Samurai. 5 Man is of a less terrestrial mould than some would have ________________ * An allusion to the 1905 awakening. Page 44 him to be. He has an element of the divine ...
... whereas the Westernised Japanese - the politicians, the money-makers, the men-about-town - were no different from their Western counterparts, the authentic Japanese were those who had retained the old Samurai tradition, and such were truly unique; and so she wrote in the Modern Review: They know how to remain silent; and though they are possessed of the most acute sensitiveness, they are, among... I ought to say, to complete my picture, that the four years I was there I found a dearth of spirituality as entire as could be. 16 The Japanese sense of morality was "wonderful", their Samurai code Was compellingly and comprehensively strict, their minutiae of social behaviour were precise and exacting, but they could go no deeper: ... not once do you have the feeling that you are ...
... in, 193 Rome (ancient), 80 , 119, 137 Ro th, Prof. von, 116 Roy, Motilal, 105 Rudra , 123, 144 Russel , Bertrand, 193 Russia , 193, 225 , 252 Russia ns, 176, 2 17 S samata , 206 Samurai, 29 , 44 Sanaana dharma, 49-50, 5 1, 69 , 93, 94, 145 see also Hinduism Sannyasin, 69 , 106,219 Sanskrit, 12, l00 (fn), 107, 109 , 118, 157 Saraswati (river), 10 1(fn) Satyagraha, Satyagrahi ...
... are gathered in a narrow island. But if you have—as we have had—the privilege of coming in contact with the true Japanese, those who kept untouched the righteousness and bravery of the ancient Samurai, then you can understand what in truth is Japan, you can seize the secret of her force. They know how to remain silent; and though they are possessed of the most acute sensitiveness, they are, among ...
... high time we abandoned the fat and comfortable selfish middle-class training we give to our youth and make a nearer approach to the physical and moral education of our old Kshatriyas or the Japanese Samurai. Page 223 ...
... world of stereotyped thought and customary action.’ 25 The reader of these words sees passing before his inner eye the world of Chinese emperors and warlords, the traditional Japan of shoguns and samurai, the India of maharajas, sultans and nizams: the whole colourful but burned-out East of the traditions. When an Indian at the time asked the Mother the question: ‘How is India likely to get freedom ...
... personality which enables one to ... call upon strong powers of projection and suggestion, and these can often be used to prevent combat, or to win it. There is an episode... said to have involved a samurai who was set upon in the woods by a pack of wolves.... He merely kept walking straight ahead, his countenance so stable, aware, and potentially explosive that the animals were frozen in their tracks ...
... consciousness and morale of man. Not only there is no decency or decorum, not to speak of magnanimity and nobility of attitude and behaviour— once familiar things in stories of the Kshattriya, the Samurai, the Knights of old—there has come into the field a phenomenon for which it has itself found a name, sadism, wanton violence and on a mass scale. Man seems to have thrown off all mask, all the ...
... and feel that the inspiration above was doing whatever was necessary. There are two types of men in Japan. One is tall, with a long nose and finely cut aristocratic face. It was they who gave the Samurai culture to Japan. I met at Tagore's place one of this type: he had magnificent features. The second type is the usual Mongol type. They haven't a particularly handsome face. Purani now brought in ...
... Japanese woman in her kimono; the Kabuki, the Noh and puppet theatres; the sophistication and grace of the Tea Ceremony; the singular charm of the art of Flower Arrangement; the gaunt and uncompromising Samurai code; the marvels in miniature, the Haiku and the Tanka mini-lyrics, the ceramics and lacquer work; these and many other facets of Japanese life in their particularity had such a hold on their sensibility ...
... they will take all human life for their province and strive to regenerate the life of humanity as a whole to fit the conditions of the spiritual age. If the number of these spiritual men - these samurai in the service of the Divine, these Rishis and Mahapurushas - is sufficiently large to make a critical mass, "then the Spirit who is here in man, now a concealed divinity, a developing light and power ...
... because he discharged the duty of protecting the country and preserving the high courage and manhood of the nation, and he had to cultivate the princely temperament and acquire the strong and lofty Samurai training which alone fitted him for his duties. So it was with the Vaishya whose function was to amass wealth for the race and the Sudra who discharged the humbler duties of service without which the ...
... speech and reserving all their strength for acts; they will express their disapproval of you with great plainness, indeed, but also with wonderful calmness and politeness. The Page 308 Samurai used to rip up his enemy very mercilessly but also very politely; he did it as a duty, not out of passion. But of our emotional, sentimental race, so long accustomed to find its outlet in speech, nothing ...
... sacrifice the individual and the family to the interests of the nation. Nowadays a new call is visibly forming, the call on the higher classes to sacrifice their privileges and prejudices, as the Japanese Samurai did, for the raising up of the lower. The spread of a general spirit of ungrudging self-sacrifice is the indispensable prelude to the creation of the Indian nation. This truth is not only evident from ...
... lasting one week, the concentration became so heavy that I began to have severe pains in the chest. To ease the pressure, the teacher gave another exercise, which was simply to keep my attention on a samurai or warrior standing in front of me, holding a raised sword, which would immediately kill me if I took my gaze off it. Strangely enough, this resulted in my first decisive spiritual opening. Suddenly ...
... humanity that they are jeering at.” 1167 The increasingly complex and threatening situation made Sri Aurobindo, for a time, favour the Japanese. He had long been admiring this people for their samurai qualities. “The power of the Japanese for self-sacrifice, patriotism, self-abnegation and silence was remarkable … The Japanese are kshatriyas [the princely warrior caste], and their aesthetic sense ...
... underwent unlimited extension in an ignorantly blissful shudder before the Nibelungen and the Last of the Goths, before the Lost Warrior Bands of the Middle Ages, before Langemarck, Koltschak and the samurai ideal … All this was not merely the expression of a historicizing hero-worship but also a symptom of a deep-rooted tendency of German educational tradition to prepare the young for death rather than ...
... the past has, when subjected to an ideal, helped in this elevation, as in the development of knighthood and chivalry, the Page 51 Indian ideal of the Kshatriya, the Japanese ideal of the Samurai, can only be denied by the fanatics of pacifism. When it has fulfilled its function, it may well disappear; for if it tries to survive its utility, it will appear as an unrelieved brutality of violence ...
... the father has but to say a few words in a low voice, and the sorrow seems to be swept away. What are those magic words which enable children to be so reasonable? Very simple indeed: "Are you not a Samurai?" And this question is sufficient for the child to call to him all his energy and to overcome his weakness. In the streets you see hundreds of children, in their charming bright " kimono ", 2 ...
... life in the society. In later Page 122 epochs, in the mediaeval age for example, the age of conquerors and conquistadors, and of Digvijaya, man as the warrior, the Kshattriya, the Samurai or the Chivalry was given the place of honour. Next came the age of traders and merchants, and the industrial age with the invention of machines. Today the labourer is rising in his turn to take the ...
... , for evil also. And so to guard against the latter contingency, rules and regulations were framed to control and canalise the new-found capacities. The Dharma of the Kshatriya, the honour of the Samurai, the code of Chivalry, all meant that. The power to kill was sought to be checked and restrained by such injunctions as, for example, not to hit below the belt, not to fight a disarmed or less armed ...
... consciousness and morale of man. Not only there is no decency or decorum, not to speak of magnanimity and nobility of attitude and behaviour – once familiar things in stories of the Kshatriya, the Samurai, the Knights of old – there has come into the field a phenomenon for which it has itself found a name, sadism, wanton violence and on a mass scale. Man seems to have thrown off all mask, all the rules ...
... tone and temper and frame of life in the society. In later epochs, in the mediaeval age for example, the age of conquerors and conquistadors, and of Digvijaya, man as the warrior, the Kshattriya, the Samurai or the Chivalry was given the place of honour. Next came the age of traders and merchants, and the industrial age with the invention of machines. Today the labourer is rising in his turn to take the ...
... commenting on similar circumstances of Muslim ruffianism, he said that it was high time to give our Page 234 youth a physical and moral education "of our old Kshatriyas or the Japanese Samurai." It was the British who had sown the seeds of violence. Terrified at the rising nationalism the Anglo-Indian Governement had turned to turbulent Mahomedan fanaticism, hoping to drive out poison by ...
... they might stab afterwards. They could work so silently and secretly that no one knew anything before the Russo-Japanese War broke out. All on a sudden it broke out. The Japanese are kshatriyas, samurais, and their aesthetic sense is of course well known. But European influence has spoiled all that, and see now how brutal they have become, a thoroughly un-Japanese thing. Formerly they could look ...
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