Bushido - the code of samurai ethics - characterizes ritual suicide as one of the most worthy ways to escape to another world. To denote suicide in Japanese, two words are used, or rather, two versions of the reading of the same hieroglyph - "harakiri" and "seppuku". Only the first name stuck in the Russian language. Meanwhile, the difference between these two concepts is greater than it might seem to a Westerner.
The peculiarity of the Japanese language is such that being with Chinese in different language groups, Japanese inherited the Chinese hieroglyphic writing. Over time, the Japanese modified it, adjusted it for themselves, and in the period from the VIII to X centuries. created two alphabets: hiragana and katakana. So, there are also two options for reading hieroglyphs: upper and lower. The upper pronunciation of the hieroglyph for "entrails" and "rip open" is seb-puku, and the lower pronunciation is "hara-kiri". Of course, there is an essential semantic difference: hara-kiri is a more general term denoting an ordinary suicide committed with a cold weapon; this reading is also used in a figurative sense, for example, to denote the suicide of suicide bombers. Reading "seppuku" is a "bookish", high style, this concept denotes a purely ritual suicide, performed in compliance with all rituals in accordance with centuries-old traditions.
Ritual suicide was practiced 2000 years ago in the Japanese and Kuril Islands, as well as in Manchuria and Mongolia. Initially, it was carried out solely of their own free will. Several centuries later, ritual suicide by order began to be practiced. Beginning in the 16th century, seppuku became widespread among the Japanese military aristocracy. There were no prisons in Japan, and there were only two types of punishment: corporal - for minor violations, and the death penalty - for all other types of crimes. It was forbidden to apply corporal punishment to samurai, so only the death penalty remained for them. And that was the only way to wash away the shame.
Of course, it is of interest why seppuku is performed by ripping open the abdomen. This gesture symbolized the nakedness of the soul. Often, suicide was carried out in protest if the samurai did not agree with the charges against him. He ripped open his stomach, he seemed to demonstrate his innocence, the absence of sin in his soul, secret intentions. In addition, this method of taking one's own life is the most painful, and therefore honorable, since it required remarkable courage and courage. Women from samurai families also had to know all the intricacies of the seppuku ritual, since for them not being able to commit suicide if necessary would also be shameful.
Finally, if we talk about the instruments of suicide, then, as a rule, wakizashi (small samurai sword), a special knife or a wooden sword were used. The wound had to be precise and shallow so as not to damage the spine. It was necessary to perform seppuku without losing face and without uttering a single groan. The highest manifestation of the samurai spirit was to keep a smile on your face. And moreover, there were cases when samurai wrote a suicide poem with their own blood.
