Miyamato Musashi’s work “The Way to be Followed Alone,” or Dokkodo, is the samurai’s lesser known work next to The Book of Five Rings (Gorin no Sho). Musashi is a ronin, or masterless samurai, and considered to be the best samurai who lived. Musashi was born around 1584. His father was named Hirata Munisai, and his mother was called…
Category: History
Hideyoshi’s Wife Kitanomandokoro: the Woman Who Changed Japan
Kitanomandokoro was the first wife of Toyotomi Hideyoshi, one of the men who helped unify Japan during the Warring States period. Kitanomandokoro proves an interesting person, namely because we have her voice and can see her influence. She had a special marriage of respect and even love with Hideyoshi as evidenced by surviving letters….
Japan’s Mysterious Jomon Period
The Jomon Period is the era before writing that extends from the late Pleistocene to 410 BCE. Little is known about the religious and daily life of the earliest Japanese peoples. But they left us with the best-studied and oldest ceramic sequences in the world. Some of the oldest dates to around 15,000 years ago…
Tales of Ise
Tales of Ise is referenced throughout early Japanese literature. If you hadn’t read it, you won’t catch some of the meaning Sei Shonagon, Lady Nijo, Murasaki Shikibu, and other writers make through their references. Tales of Ise is a collection of 209 short stories and anecdotes written and collected somewhere between 850 CE and 950 CE….
Sei Shonagon’s Pillow Book
Sei Shonagon’s Pillow Book offers a look at the Imperial court from around 993 to the end of 1000, when she served as a lady-in-waiting for Empress Teishi. We don’t know Sei Shonagon’s true name. The name passed down to us combines the first character (Sei) of her clan name, Kiyowara, and her role at…
The Confessions of Lady Nijo
The Confessions of Lady Nijo is an example of Japan’s traditional women’s literature: the diary. Her father was the head of the Minamoto clan: Major Counselor Masatada, who served the Emperor from 1228-1272. Her mother was the niece of an Honorary Empress. Nijo herself was a lady-in-waiting and the concubine to the Retired Emperor Go-Fukakusa…