Research into the history of Bushido - Philosophy and Principles [cross post]

[kodomon]

Hello all,

I am in the middle of some research into the history of the development of Bushido, its philosophies and principles, and am currently scouring for resources and texts outside the usual popular titles. (Nitobe, Wilson, Cleary, Yuzan etc).

Can anyone point me at some lesser known and available titles or resources on this?

In particular, I am interested in any works on "Shido" by Yamaga Sokō in the 17th Century, and any obscure anecdotes or historical tales that personify any of the standard seven principles.

Finally, I am also interested in modern day interpretations and applications of the principles in Martial Arts Dojos and how these principles underpin the philosophies and training in those dojo.

[ichibyoshi]

Hi Glenn

Alex Bennett, one of the founders of "Kendo-World.com", did his PhD thesis on definitions of budo at Kyoto University. He has written general interest articles on same in the magazine of "Kendo-World". He is currently resident in Japan and would be a good source of the kind of references you seem to be interested in.

You don't mention whether you read and write Japanese, which is prob a pre-requisite to any in depth research of this area. Nevertheless, I'm sure Alex could help you out. He does appear to be hellishly busy (maybe he is researching his next scholarly work, "Towards a Definition of Koroshi" :P) however.

Your local university library could provide a boon. You don't have to be enrolled to be able to browse their shelves and make notes. ALso, Qld has a significant Japanese ex-pat community. There might be some leads there too.

HTH

b

[kodomon]

Thanks Ben,

I appreciate the reply.