basara

Updated: May 24, 2025

Basara is a Sanskrit term for costly luxuries of every description, and the compilers of the code were doubtless sincere in their desire to popularize frugality. But the Ashikaga rulers themselves did not confirm their precepts by example. They seemed, indeed, to live principally for sensuous indulgence.

F. (Frank) Brinkley - A History of the Japanese People : From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era

Yet things should have been otherwise, for in Takauji's time there was enacted and promulgated the code of regulations already referred to as the Kemmu Shikimoku, wherein were strictly forbidden basara, debauchery, gambling, reunions for tea drinking and couplet composing, lotteries, and other excesses.

F. (Frank) Brinkley - A History of the Japanese People : From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era