Doctrinal Justifications for Religious Violence in the Insei Period
Incorporations of various martial elements are found among Buddhist icons. As mentioned, the ‘Four Celestial Kings' (shitenno) helped the Soga clan to defeat the Mononobe and Nakatomi clans and their indigenous kami in war.
As protectors of Buddhism in the four cardinal directions, they are clad in armour, bear weapons, have fierce facial expressions, and trample on subdued demons.[734] Other fierce-looking Buddhist deities equipped with a broad range of weapons are the ‘Mantra Kings' (myoo), who remove all obstacles in the Buddhist path and use force to lead believers to awakening. The most famous Mantra King in Japan is the ferocious-looking Fudo Myoo, keeping a sword and a rope in his hands and standing (or sitting) in front of an aureole of flames.[735]In his study of monastic warriors, Adolphson claims that Buddhists in Japan did not attempt to justify the akuso through doctrines:
Christian rhetoric strongly informed the mission of crusades and monastic knights, though political and diplomatic motivations certainly came into play as well. But the Japanese monk-commanders do not appear to have resorted to religious ideas at all to justify their activities, even though state ideologies contained the clear notion of mutual dependence between the imperial court and Buddhism... in view of the European example, the lack of express religious justification for monastic violence is a noteworthy difference.
In conclusion, the author suggests
that the category of religious violence provides little if any help in understanding the role of religion and monastic warriors in Japanese history. Instead, a careful examination of the political, military, and ideological contexts in which such violence occurred is far more illuminating and relevant than consideration of religious violence alone.
Monastic warriors acted not differently than their secular counterparts, nor do they appear to have been motivated by a religious rhetoric qualitively different from other ideologies condoning violence in the Heian and Kamakura eras. In fact, the absence of religious rhetoric is itself of great interest, in view of our current assumptions about holy wars and crusaders. It suggests that other factors played at least as important a role as religious commitment for those fighting in the name of the Buddha.[736]One problem with Adolphson's research is that he does not recognise the religious elements in contemporary secular sources. Reading noble diaries or historical records more carefully one will find that at least the patrons of the monasteries recognised the contradiction between the basic Buddhist teaching of non-violence and the warfare of the ‘evil monks', and they criticised it quite clearly. Another problem is that Adolphson does not investigate contemporary religious sources. Criticism by patrons forced at least the scholar monks to respond by formulating theories justifying monastic violence - otherwise they would have lost their support.
During the Insei period, when monastic violence emerged on a larger scale, two religious theories for its justification became popular. We have already encountered one teaching in the Gukan-sho, where Jien explained Myoun's militancy with the deplorable ‘Final Age'.[737] This expression derives from the Buddhist view of history consisting of the periods ‘True Dharma' (shobo), ‘Imitation Dharma' (zobo) and ‘Final Dharma' (mappo). In Japan, the year 1052 came to be acknowledged as the beginning of the mappo period.[738] An important scripture treating this subject is the Mappo tomyo-ki (Record of the Candle of the Latter Dharma). Since it was quoted for the first time by Honen (1133-1212), it must have been compiled during the Insei period.
It presupposes that mappo had begun already. Here we read:Within the Latter Dharma only the written teachings exist. There is neither practice nor enlightenment. If precepts existed, then it would be possible to break the precepts. But since precepts no longer exist, what precepts are there to break? And since it is no longer possible to break the precepts, how much less can one keep the precepts?[739]
Since the sutras, including the precepts, disappeared during mappo, it was not necessary, and not even possible, to keep the precepts. Moreover, even though the Three Treasures (Buddha, dharma, monastic community) no longer existed, the ‘nominal monks' still must be revered by laypeople because nothing else of Buddhism was left in this age.[740] Mappo is here perceived as an objective historical development that cannot be changed by religious reform or any other endeavour. Hence, evil monks are exculpated and laypeople have no reason for criticism. Moreover, since there are monks in name left, patrons have to continue supporting them economically without any questions.[741] This argument is the main aim of the Mappo tomyo-ki.[742]
The second form of a religious justification of evil monks was the teaching of the hongaku homon. During the Insei period, Tendai scholars developed the doctrinal distinction between the ‘Dharma gate of inherent awakening' (hongaku homon) and the ‘Dharma gate of acquired awakening' (jigaku hoomon). Traditional Buddhism teaches the latter, that human beings should strive through religious practice to achieve religious awakening or liberation. Part of such practice is also to follow the precepts, such as the prohibition of taking life. Since the akuso had to kill their enemies in order to protect the economic base of the monasteries, the hongaku homon offered a new path for liberation that inherently, or by birth, they had already attained awakening.[743] They were therefore exempted from the necessity of pursuing the path of Buddhist practice, that is, from keeping the commandment prohibiting murder.
This conclusion is quite similar to that of the Mappoo tomyo-ki.The Sanjushi-ka no kotogaki (Notes on Thirty-Four Articles), for example, treats this problem under the heading ‘Karma is identical with liberation' (go soku gedatsu):
According to the interpretation of our school, being originally nondual in essence is called ‘identity' (soku)... When one knows the doctrine of perfectly interpenetrating true aspect, deluded action in its essence is endowed with all dharmas; thus it is not merely deluded action but the perfect interpenetration of the dharma realm in its entirety. A hawk seizing a bird is, without transformation of its essence, precisely the true aspect of liberation. A fierce dog pursuing a beast is, without transformation, precisely the true aspect of liberation. And all other sorts of actions should be understood in light of these examples... One should simply sweep aside all partial views and dwell in the undifferentiated true aspect. One who does not dwell in understanding of the undifferentiated dharma realm has not yet grasped the meaning of karma being precisely liberation.[744]
Whereas Buddhism normally teaches the transformation process of first getting rid of evil karma and then creating good karma in order to achieve liberation, hongaku texts claim that despite having accumulated bad karma, an evil person as such attains awakening without previous transformation.
Similarly, the Kanko ruijü (Digest of the Light of Han) presupposes that evil karma (akugo) is essentially identical with liberation. From here it discusses whether a person practising the Tendai contemplation (shikan) may commit evil deeds such as theft or murder:
However, if, returning (to the realm of daily affairs) from the inner enlightenment of calming and contemplation, one were to commit evil deeds without selfish interest (musa) in accordance with circumstances (nin'un), there could still be no difference (between karma and liberation).
This is what is meant by Kannon appearing as a fisherman and killing all sorts of water creatures.[745]Considering the fact that, wherever Buddhism was introduced, its missionaries taught fishermen and hunters to stop killing, the contradiction of the new teaching becomes apparent. If even Kannon, the Bodhisattva of compassion, incorporates herself as a human being killing fish, nobody may object to killing. The hongaku literature and Mappo tomyo-ki are apocryphal scriptures introducing new teachings anonymously or under false names. The latter addressed mainly the irritated patrons and the former probably internal monastic critics, since it argues with sophisticated metaphysical deliberations.[746] Both tried to overcome the massive contradiction between the claim of Buddhist morality and the social reality by eliminating the necessity for religious practice. The hongaku literature is not the reason for the moral decline of Buddhists, as Japanese scholars claimed, but its doctrinal justification.48
A comparison with the Pure Land movement which also arose also during the Insei period will help to put such approaches into perspective. The Pure Land teaching, too, presupposed the entry into the period of the Final Dharma and focused particularly on the liberation of ‘evil persons' (akunin ojo, akunin shoki-setsu, akunin jobutsu). However, in marked difference to hongaku-homon and the Mappo tomyo-ki, the Pure Land teachers taught the necessity of practice and spiritual transformation.[747]