Yamato-damashii (大和魂; "Yamato/Japanese spirit") or Yamato-gokoro (大和心; "Japanese heart/mind") is a term in the Japanese language for the cultural values and characteristics of the Japanese people. The phrase was coined in the Heian period to describe the indigenous Japanese 'spirit' or cultural values as opposed to cultural values of foreign nations such as those identified through contact with Tang dynasty China. Later, a qualitative contrast between Japanese and Chinese spirit was elicited from the term. Edo period writers and samurai used it to augment and support the Bushido concept of honor and valor. English translations of Yamato-damashii include the "Japanese spirit", "Japanese soul", "Yamato spirit", and "The Soul of Old Japan". Lafcadio Hearn mentions the latter in connection with Shinto.

For this national type of moral character was invented the name Yamato-damashi (or Yamato-gokoro), — the Soul of Yamato (or Heart of Yamato), — the appellation of the old province of Yamato, seat of the early emperors, being figuratively used for the entire country. We might correctly, though less literally, interpret the expression Yamato-damashi as "The Soul of Old Japan". (1904:177)

Originally Yamato-damashii did not bear the bellicose weight or ideological timbre that it later assumed in pre-war modern Japan. It first occurs in the Otome (乙女) section of The Tale of Genji (Chapter 21), as a native virtue that flourishes best, not as a contrast to foreign civilization but, rather precisely, when it is grounded on a solid basis in Chinese learning. Thus we read:

No, the safe thing is to give him a good, solid fund of knowledge. It is when there is a fund of Chinese learning (zae 才) that the Japanese spirit (yamato-damashii 大和魂) is respected in the world. (Murasaki Shikibu, The Tale of Genji tr. Edward Seidensticker, 1976, 1:362)

Each man, according to Motoori Norinaga (who wrote a Commentary of The Tale of Genji ), has at his birth a "true heart" a "magokoro" (the term magokokoro is itself almost an onomatopoeia since kokoro, the heart, expresses these "beats of the heart") whose ancient Japanese literature is the most faithful expression. This sentiment expresses the Yamato gokoro (大和心, "Japanese heart") as opposed to the Kara gokoro ("superficial level of consciousness cluttered with masculine things, intellectually astute but full of pretension").

Yamato-damashii "Japan, Japanese" compounds Yamato (大和, "great harmony") with damashii, which is the voiced rendaku pronunciation of tamashii (魂 "spirit; soul"). Both these kanji (Chinese characters used in Japan) readings Yamato (大和) and damashii (魂) are native Japanese kun'yomi, while the Wakon (和魂 "Japanese spirit") reading is Sinitic on'yomi borrowed from Chinese Héhún (和魂).

Yamato is historically the second of three common Japanese endonyms (or autonyms) for 'Japan; Japanese'.

In current Japanese usage, Wa 倭 is an archaic variant Chinese character for Wa 和, Yamato is a literary and historical term, and Nihon is the usual name for "Japan; Japanese".