Basara (ばさら)

"Basara" is a word which expressed the social and cultural trends during the Northern and Southern Courts period (in the Japanese medieval period), which was actually used as a vogue word at that time. Although the word is rendered in Chinese characters in several versions, such as "婆娑羅", and "vajra" in Sanskrit refers to diamond, it is not known as to how the meaning of the word was transformed as it was used in medieval Japan.

Basara represents a particular aesthetics in which people disregarded social class or rank, laughed scornfully at authorities such as court nobles or the Emperor, and esteemed fashionable and glamorous garments or behaviors; it was considered to be a type of behavior that was manifested in gekokujo (an inversion of the social order in which the lowly people reigned over the elite), which flourished in the subsequent Sengoku period (the period of warring states). Takauji ASHIKAGA prohibited the act of basara in "Kenmu-Shikimoku", which was issued as the basic policy of the government.
The writer of the classic epic "Taiheiki" (The Record of the Great Peace) was clearly critical about basara, and in it, the basara-like behaviors the people such as KO no Moronao, a head steward of the Genke Ashikaga clan, Doyo SASAKI (Takauji) of Omi Province (Shiga Prefecture), and Yorito TOKI of Mino Province (Gifu Prefecture), are described
They were called the "basara daimyo" for their unconventional behaviors.

[Original Japanese]