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The medieval Japanese warriors known as the samurai have been a fascination source for people throughout the world for centuries. For a good reason – they were among the most elite warriors in human history. The samurai are renowned for several reasons, which include their efficiency in battle, their well-crafted <i>katana</i> swords, and most importantly, their honor code is known as <i>bushido</i>. It was the code of bushido that set the samurai apart from other contemporary warrior groups and gave them their reasons to fight. Without the bushido code, the samurai would have just another one of the many warrior classes in history.

==What is a Samurai? ==

The samurai rose to prominence in Japan gradually during the twelfth century AD, making themselves known when they helped repulse the Mongols in the thirteenth century. Before the Mongols attempted their amphibious invasion of Japan, a highly militarized government took power in the Japanese city of Kamakura that established a <i>bakufu</i> or shogunate. The Kamakura shogunate defeated all but one other power in Japan by giving special concessions to the <i>buke</i> or warrior class during the Gempei War (1180-1185). The result was Japan’s first military government based in Kamakura, although the shogunate never ruled over a unified Japan. <ref> Mass, Jeffrey P. “Kamakura Bakufu.” <i>[https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0521484049/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0521484049&linkCode=as2&tag=dailyh0c-20&linkId=d03742615977e1c8e7d5b647be9981f9 Warrior Rule in Japan].</i> Edited by Marius B. Jansen. (Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 1995), pgs. 1-4</ref>

==What is the importance of Shinto, Confucianism, Zen, and Bushido for the Samurai?==

The combination of Shintoism, Confucianism, and Zen Buddhism formed the samurai bushido warrior code. Although the samurai followed this code from the beginning of their existence, it was not codified until after the Sengoku in the seventeenth century. <ref> Friday, p. 340</ref> Besides the individual elements that each philosophy brought to the bushido code, there were also additional components that were unique to the code, particularly the practice of <i>seppuku</i>. The practice of seppuku, which was heavily influenced by Confucianism, held that if a samurai brings dishonor to himself, his family, or his lord in any way, then he must commit ritual suicide by disembowelment.