My recent book is subtitled “The Japanese Way of Learning, for Artists and Fighters”. But why artists and fighters, and why mention them together?

In medieval Japan, warriors weren’t really expected to choose between intellectual pursuits and martial prowess. Instead they were required to master both. This philosophy is captured in the concept of bunbu ichi (文武一), which literally means “the civil and the martial are one.”

The principle emerged from bunbu nidō (文武二道), the “two paths of writing and warring.” This phrase emphasized that true excellence required competence in both literary arts and combat. Like much in Japanese culture it originated in China, but the Japanese made it thoroughly their own. By the early Muromachi period (1336-1573), it had evolved into a foundational concept in Japanese political thought, as scholar Pier Carlo Tommasi notes in his 2018 research.

The warrior-ruler who embodied both scholarly learning and military skill became the cultural ideal. According to historian G. Cameron Hurst, by the mid-fourteenth century, bunbu ryōdō (文武両道) thinking was firmly established in Japan, with this dual-talented warrior as the model leader.

Scholars like Oleg Benesch and Thomas Conlan have explored how this paradigm shaped Japanese identity and warrior culture. Their research reveals that the civil-martial unity wasn’t static but evolved alongside Japan’s political landscape, particularly during the medieval period when warrior classes consolidated power.

This wasn’t particularly about producing well-rounded individuals though. The integration of literary and martial disciplines was part of a sophisticated understanding of governance and power. Warriors who could compose poetry, practice calligraphy, and engage with classical texts were seen as more legitimate rulers than those who relied solely on force.

“from the time of the sages of the past, they have followed the path of bun to the left and bu to the right, for bun without bu is such that authority withers, while bu without bun means that the people are in fear, and remain distant. Instead, bun and bu belong together so as to allow for virtue to spread.” - Fujiwara Shigenori, 1254 (quoted in Conlan, 2011:88).

Besides, as the Warring States period (1467-1603) ended and Japan unified under the Tokugawa shogunate (1603-1868), the role of the warrior classes transformed dramatically, from fighting large-scale military campaigns to serving primarily as administrators of the unified state. This shift made the bunbu ideal a practical necessity. To fulfill their new roles in peacetime society, warriors now needed literacy, administrative skills, and cultural refinement as much as they needed martial prowess.

I wrote my book Shu Ha Ri: The Japanese Way of Learning, for Artists and Fighters with this concept in mind. The juxtaposition of fighters and artists may sound strange to Western readers, but it’s fairly well understood in Japan, and it’s a duality echoed in Ruth Benedict’s classic anthropological study The Chrysanthemum and the Sword.

The legacy of bunbu ichi continues to influence Japanese culture today. It serves as a reminder that strength without wisdom is incomplete, just as scholarship without the courage to act remains unfulfilled. True mastery, according to this ancient wisdom, requires a delicate balance.

My book, Shu Ha Ri: The Japanese Way of Learning, for Artists and Fighters, is available now. Please check it out.

References

Benesch, Oleg. Inventing the Way of the Samurai: Nationalism, Internationalism, and Bushido in Modern Japan. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014.

Benesch, Oleg. “National Consciousness and the Evolution of the Civil/Military Binary in East Asia.” Taiwan Journal of East Asian Studies 8, no. 1 (2011): 129–71.

Benedict, Ruth. The Chrysanthemum and the Sword: Patterns of Japanese Culture. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1946.

Conlan, Thomas. “The Two Paths of Writing and Warring in Medieval Japan.” Taiwan Journal of East Asian Studies 8, no. 1 (2011): 85–127.

Hurst, G. Cameron. “The Warrior as Ideal for a New Age.” In The Origins of Japan’s Medieval World, edited by Jeffrey Mass, 209–233. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1997.

Tommasi, Pier Carlo. “The Bunbu Paradigm Reconsidered: Warrior Literacy and Symbolic Violence in Late Medieval Japan.” Proceedings of the Association for Japanese Literary Studies 19 (January 2020). doi.org/10.26812/…