Aristocratic Buddhism and the Emergence of Warrior Monks (Heian Period)

Conflicts between Buddhists and kami-worshippers continued during the Heian period (794-1185), but now both parties learned to live with each other, either in a serving or in a dominating role.

At the beginning of the Heian period, two new schools were established in the mountains more or less distant from the worldly centres, the former capital Nara and the new capital Heian-kyo (Kyoto): Tendai on Mount Hiei (north-east of Kyoto) and Shingon on Mount Koya (today's Wakayama Prefecture). In addition to performing official ceremonies for the well-being of emperor and state, Buddhist priests increasingly cared for individual needs of believers, such as healing sickness or exorcising, mostly for the aristocracy. Two socio-economic developments during Heian times are relevant for our theme. The first is that aristocratic families gave into the care of monasteries those sons and daughters whom they did not need for their stable continua­tion or for marriage politics, resembling similar developments in medieval Europe.15 This implied generous donations, such as estates. Donations are a virtue in Buddhism and help accumulate merits, in much the same way as in the medieval Catholic church. Up till then monastic offices had been occu­pied by monks who qualified on their merit; now noble monks assumed such functions (up to that of the abbot) owing to birth.

The second phenomenon concerns socio-economic developments. During the Heian period, fighting over land possession and farm produce took place between different landowners, as well as between aristocratic proprietors in the capital and local administrators. Subsequently, servants and workers were equipped with weapons, and warriors (tsuwamono) were employed for the protection of their estates. Out of these conflicts developed the bushi class (later called samurai). Parallel to these developments, warriors also emerged in manors owned by monasteries, such as Kofuku-ji (Nara) or Enryaku-ji (Mount Hiei). They were menial workers and low-ranking monks who were called summarily doshu (hall monks, workers) or daishu (big crowd).^[717] These low-ranking monks were called ‘evil monks' (akuso), because Buddhist monastic codes strictly prohibit the use of weapons. In later times, these monks were called ‘warrior monks' or ‘monastic warriors' (sohei).1^[718] The original word akuso clearly expresses the moral value judgement that the institutional or economic requirements of the temples contradict the Buddhist ethics of non-violence strictly prohibiting the killing of living beings. An early source mentioned that in 937 a small band of akuso from Nara prevented the influential Enryaku-ji abbot Ryogen (912-85) from participating in an official disputation. Ryogen himself is blamed for polarising the relation­ship between Enryaku-ji on Mount Hiei and Mii-dera (also called Onjo-ji), another Tendai monastery nearby on that mountain. This led to many armed conflicts between the two monasteries in the eleventh century.1^[719] Enryaku-ji employed one of the most notorious groups of ‘evil monks'; its relative proximity to the capital meant that it was prone to getting involved in worldly power struggles.

The following cases illustrate the extent of the violence committed by akuso. According to the contemporary source Gukan-sho, akuso of Enryaku- ji burned down the Mii-dera at least five times in 1081, 1121, 1140, 1165 and 1214.^[720] Many monks and servants were killed and numerous sacred scrip­tures and images were burned. Armed conflicts took place within one school, but also within one monastery. In Enryaku-ji, for example, lower- ranking monks (doshu) revolted against the higher scholar monks (gakusho) in 1167 and 1178. Internal fighting also resulted in abbots being chased away in 1184, 1203 and 1205.^[721] Violent conflicts occurred between denomination­ally different monasteries. In 1113 Kiyomizu-dera (in Kyoto) was caught in a conflict between Enryaku-ji and Kofuku-ji (in Nara) over competing claims for its affiliation. In the end, it was burned down by an army of akuso from Nara.^[722]

Akuso became involved in a political dispute for the first time in 1156, when Kofuku-ji monks fought in the Hogen Disturbence triggered by a quarrel over the imperial succession.^[723] The Tendai monk Myoun (or Meiun, 1115-83) engaged his monastic army in secular conflicts between the emperor and a military leader on a larger scale. Myoun had already assumed the office of the Enryaku-ji abbot in 1167 by violent means, which left forty-eight persons dead. In 1177 he sent his monastic army in support of one of the foremost military leaders of the time, Taira Kiyomori. Later he changed his allegiance to Emperor Go-Shirakawa and fought against the Taira. Finally he was shot and beheaded in 1183 when trying to escape in a related fight. Jien wrote: ‘Myoun was a person who did one evil thing after the other...

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Even the Shingon school in the remote area of Mount Koya was not exempt from violent conflicts. In 1168, monks of the main monastery Kongo-buji began to quarrel with monks of Denbo-in over the privilege of wearing certain garments during ceremonies.^[730] After the latter was moved to Mount Negoro in 1288 and the new cloister complex Daidenbo-in grew considerably in size and economy, it also entered the battles of the monastic armies right up until the sixteenth century, when the military leader Oda Nobunaga defeated and destroyed the Shingon warriors.^[731]

Contemporary observers were quite critical of the akuso, as Jien’s com­ment about Myoun indicated. According to the Heike monogatari (Tale of the Taira Clan), Emperor Shirakawa (r. 1072-86) was reported to have said: ‘The flow of the Kamo River, the role of the dice, and the mountain clerics are things I cannot control.’^[732] This shows the power of Enryaku-ji on Mount Hiei.

Some modern historians have argued that the emergence of monastic warriors resulted from a ‘decline of Buddhism’. Such an explanation probably derived from contemporary Buddhist sources, which perceived their time as the ‘Period of the Final Dharma’ (mappo) according to the Buddhist view of history. Recent historical research, however, makes it quite clear that ‘the emergence of monastic warriors in organized bands must be seen in con­junction with the general militarization of society rather than the decline of Buddhism or certain monasteries’.³³

The different kinds of violence carried out by ‘evil monks’ indicate various reasons and purposes of their military actions. In the beginning they had to defend and protect monastic manors, that is, the economic base. Then violence was used increasingly in rivalries between different schools, between different monasteries of the same school, or even within one monastic complex. Here the motivation was rather striving for sectarian predominance and for gaining more economic support from the ruling classes. Eventually, when aristocratic abbots became military leaders, they engaged their monastic armies in secular wars between leading military clans, or between the imperial family and military clans. These battles were fought for political influence and for increased patronage. None of these different kinds of violent actions can be called properly a ‘religious war’, that is, a battle for the sake of one’s faith, and the defeat of the other’s ‘false beliefs’, as happened in Europe. The goals of the monastic forces during the

Insei (1086-1185) and Kamakura periods (1185-1333) were competition for land and for religious status among the leading monasteries.^[733] The monks were fighting for the same reasons as the secular elites: for supremacy of lineage, resources and land. Secular and religious institutions were connected through mutual relationship because the monasteries depended on patron­age by nobles and the monks performed rituals in their families and at court.