A Samurai and a Ninja
The warriors of the pre-industrial Japanese era always aroused the interest of many people around the world. Of all the warrior classes on those feudal times, there are two types of warriors that are known all over the world: the honorable samurai and the stealthy ninja.
Most of the people though, do not know the distinction between a samurai and a ninja. And before knowing the comparison and contrast between these two warrior classes, we need to know just how they live.
Samurais or what the Japanese call a bushi is a warrior that follows a strict moral code called bushido. They are noble warriors that place honor above anything they have, including their lives.
They are the rough equivalent of medieval England’s knights. As stated, the samurai follow the bushido as their moral code. Bushido is a belief on the path of a warrior, or a path of the sword. This means that samurai warriors place honor above anything, and would be loyal to their lords at any time, as they would die in the line of duty rather than shame themselves.
This warrior class also practices Harakiri or Seppuku, a type of suicide that a dishonorable samurai would take in order to regain their lost honor after death. Samurais wear armor, and are of noble class; although the early foundations of the samurai class were originally farming clans who just wanted to protect their family from invasions of bandits and corrupt officials. Samurai warriors prefer the use of the Japanese katana and a wakizashi as weapons.
A katana is a curved sword while the wakizashi is a short sword used together with a katana. These two weapons represent a samurai’s honor, as a samurai uses the wakizashi to end his life if ever he had done something dishonorable. Some samurai learned to use guns much later on.
Samurai are mostly straight-laced warriors that would face danger head on, just to show honor in their work. This quite contradicts the way ninjas do their work.
Ninjas are the masters of stealth in the pre-industrial periods of Japan. They prefer stealth than actual confrontation with the enemies. Like the samurai, ninjas follow a certain lord, but unlike the former, ninjas are manipulated for different reasons. Ninjas are trained by their clan in “ways of the shadow”.
This means that ninjas are perfect for espionage and assassinations. When it comes to fighting, ninjas rely on agile, quick strikes to immobilize or kill opponents. They also use shuriken as throwing agents, often covered in poison to maximize their effect.
Ninjas have not been regarded as a warrior class in their early days, and ninjutsu (ninja techniques) were not always considered an art. The services of a ninja were also like that of a mercenary, rather than the honorable services offered by the loyal samurai.
In the early foundations of the ninja class, they are farmers or specially trained individuals trained to counter the ruling samurai elites. They are their direct counterparts, since the samurai Bushido code do not permit the use of stealth and guerilla tactics that the ninja class most commonly use for assassinations.[1]
To summarize everything, ninjas and samurai are the same in terms of the fact that they follow a feudal lord. They are also well-trained and follow their own ways of fighting.
Their difference lies in how they execute the commands of their lord. Samurai place honor above their lives and will die fighting in a fair battle. Ninjas are hired warriors that do assassinations and dark operations for their feudal lord. Truly, they are marvelous warrior classes that will continue to fascinate people around the world.
Works Cited
Hayes Stephen K. The Mystic Arts of the Ninja, 1985
