Bushidō, “the way of the warrior,” did not begin as a fixed scripture but as a living ethos that grew out of the early bushi’s experience of warfare and service. In the Heian and Kamakura eras, warriors were bound above all by loyalty to their lords and clans, by courage in battle, and by the honor gained through martial prowess. Shintō sensibilities fostered reverence for ancestors, attachment to land and lineage, and concern for ritual purity, while Buddhist teachings, and later Zen in particular, framed death and impermanence in ways that supported fearlessness. At this stage, values were transmitted through stories, house traditions, and exemplary deeds rather than through systematic doctrine. The warrior’s path was more a pattern of conduct than a codified “code.”

As samurai rule solidified from the Kamakura through the Muromachi period, this warrior ethos deepened and became more self-conscious. Zen practice among the warrior class encouraged inner discipline, direct experience, and a calm mind in the face of danger, reinforcing readiness to die and simplicity of life. Over time, Neo-Confucian thought began to interact with these currents, adding a strong emphasis on hierarchy, filial piety, and clearly ordered relationships between lord and vassal. Bushidō in this sense was still largely practical and customary, yet it was already absorbing religious and philosophical strands that would later be articulated more explicitly.

Under the long peace of the Edo period, the samurai’s outward role shifted from constant fighting to administration and governance, and bushidō was increasingly systematized as a moral ideal. Neo-Confucian scholars and house codes articulated a constellation of virtues—rectitude, courage, benevolence, respect, honesty, honor, and loyalty—while texts such as the *Hagakure* and other instructional works reflected on how a warrior ought to live and die properly. The emphasis moved from raw battlefield skill toward character, etiquette, frugality, and self-cultivation, portraying the samurai as a moral elite even as many served primarily as bureaucrats. Zen continued to inform notions of inner composure and acceptance of death, and Shintō continued to undergird loyalty and reverence for authority, now directed toward shogun and emperor as well as clan.

With the end of the feudal order, the formal samurai class was abolished, yet bushidō was reinterpreted rather than discarded. Thinkers such as Nitobe Inazō presented it as a timeless ethical spirit, and state ideology adapted its language of loyalty, sacrifice, and martial resolve to serve nationalism and devotion to the emperor. During the era of militarization, this reworked bushidō was used to justify extreme self-sacrifice and disdain for surrender, extending what had once been a class ethos to soldiers and civilians alike. After the devastation of war, such uses of bushidō were widely criticized and many of their ideological accretions rejected. Even so, elements of the older warrior ethic—discipline, perseverance, sincerity, and a spiritualized “samurai spirit” shaped by Zen and Shintō—continue to echo in martial arts, ethical reflection, and cultural memory, as a reminder that this path was always evolving rather than fixed in stone.