seppuku?

[max sigmans]

Hello everybody,

This is my first post here, and i am sorrt if i posted this question in the wrong place.

I was wondering what is the difference, if there is any, between seppuku and hara kiri(?) i dont know if that's spelled right. i was just kinda curious.

Thnx,

Max Sigmans

[hyaku]

Seppuku (self disembowelment) the first part of the word comes from Setsu. For example the medical term to cut and open is Sekai. Another word Setsudan is amputation. Fukubu is the word for abdomen. Linked together 'seppuku'

The word Junshi was also used meaning self immolation on the death of ones Lord. Junshi was a relatively short lived custom lasting only some fifty or sixty years. To commit Seppuku after the death of ones Lord was known as Oibaru.

Sometimes a retainer died before his lord. Other forms such as departing beforehand were known as Maebaru or Sakibaru.

Other words such hara-kiri (cutting ones stomach) have been loosely translated as ritual suicide. As suicide generally means an act of self destruction usually associated with an imbalance of the mind, it hardly seems to be an appropriate translation of the calm calculating decision of Junshi made by the people concerned.

Hyakutake Colin