sponsors

 

 

sponsors

 

 

 

 

Located in Takanawa, a suburb of Yedo, Japan, is Sengakuji “Spring-hill Temple” and its cemetery that contains the graves of forty-seven rônin, who are famous in Japanese history as examples of strict adherence to the samurai code of honor “bushido”.

In feudal Japan, each fiefdom or domain was ruled by a lord, called a daimyo. Each daimyo had personal bodyguards, called samurai, who helped him control his domain.  A central military ruler, a shogun, exerted power over each daimyo in his shogunate but each daimyo‘s samurai felt bonded to their particular lord. These fiercely loyal samurai were highly trained and highly regarded by the people of the shogunate. A samurai who was not affiliated with a lord roamed the land as an independent warrior for hire, known as a rônin

The story of the Forty-seven Rônin, commonly known as the Genroku Akō Incident,  tells of a group of forty-seven samurai who were left leaderless after their daimyo was forced to commit ritual suicide “seppuku” for assaulting a court official, thus forcing them to become rônin. The group of rônin patiently waited for two years, and then avenged their master's honor by killing the official. Because of the killing, they were ordered to commit seppuku for their dishonor act of disobeying the shogunate. While this is a true story, it has been embellished, exaggerated, and popularized in Japanese culture for hundreds of years as an example of the loyalty, sacrifice, persistence, and honor that all good people should exhibit in their daily lives.

There are many versions of what led up to and what occurred during the Genroku Akō Incident. The following is but one version of this event.

In 1701, two daimyo, Lord Asano of the Akō Domain and Lord Kamei of the Tsuwano Domain, were ordered to arrange a reception for some envoys of the Tokugawa Tsunayoshi shogun in Edo. Kira, a powerful Edo official in the shogunate, was selected to give Asano and Kamei instruction in court etiquette.

Page 1 of 4:  NEXT  Back  First  Last | Share | Errors | Last Modified:

Subtopics:  NEXT | None 

Topic:  Comments: Add  View | Sources | Related: None