High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! Yamamoto Tsunetomo also
read Yamamoto J ch (June 11 1659 - November 30, 1719) was a samurai
of the Saga Domain in Hizen Province under his lord Nabeshima
Mitsushige. For thirty years Yamamoto devoted his life to the
service of his lord and clan. When Nabeshima died in 1700, Yamamoto
did not choose to follow his master in death in junshi because the
master had expressed a dislike of the practice in his life.
Instead, Yamamoto followed his lord's wishes and refrained from
junshi. After some disagreements with Nabeshima's successor,
Yamamoto renounced the world and retired to a hermitage in the
mountains. Late in life (between 1709 and 1716), he narrated many
of his thoughts to a fellow samurai, Tsuramoto Tashiro. Many of
these aphorisms concerned his lord's father and grandfather
Naoshige and the failing ways of the samurai caste. These
commentaries were compiled and published in 1716 under the title of
Hagakure, a word that can be translated as either In the shadow the
Leaves or hidden leaves.
