Religious Revolts and Wars of Buddhist Peasants (Muromachi Period)
As mentioned above, the monk armies of the big monastic complexes were active until the end of the Muromachi period (1338-1573). During this time a new group entered the stage of history: Buddhist lay believers belonging to the lower classes.
From Shinran's teachings emerged a movement which gained followers particularly among peasants, craftsmen and traders. Alongside the aristocratic Buddhism of the court and the military elite there now developed a people's Buddhism.[751] Shinran's descendants became the movement's leaders in succession. Probably the most influential one was Rennyo (1415-99) since he transformed the movement into an established religious institution spread across several provinces.[752] Its headquarters was named Hongan-ji. Because some Tendai temples in Omi province (next to Mount Hiei) had joined Hongan-ji, Enryaku-ji forces attacked its religious centres in 1465 since it had lost revenue from these temples. First, Hongan-ji could settle the conflict by paying large amounts of money,[753] but then its members also became involved in violent upheavals against Enryaku-ji in 1465 and 1468. Such uprisings were called ikko ikki. Ikki is the name for peasant groups which, because of economic exploitation, stage uprisings against feudal lords.[754] Ikko is a Pure Land Buddhist term meaning ‘complete determination' in pursuing the religious path. Hence, ikko ikki denotes the peasant uprisings of Hongan-ji members. In 1488, Hongan-ji peasants in Kaga province (north-east of Omi province) suffered under heavy taxation, started a revolt, defeated the governor and began to control the land. This came as a shock for the other rulers.[755]Whereas Rennyo does not seem to have actively supported these ikko ikki, even though he was closely related,58 his son Jitsunyo (1458-1525) directly ordered Hongan-ji members to fight.
The time of his reign (1489-1525) was turbulent and during this period Hongan-ji became militarised. The conflicts extended geographically and rose from provincial to national level in 1506. The causes of the violent conflicts were disputes over tax, rent and land ownership. Moreover, Jitsunyo legitimised warfare.59 Richmond Tsang calls him the ‘warrior patriarch'.60His successor Shonyo (1518-54, r. 1525-54) continued the policy of his father. During the Daisho ikki of 1531 in Kaga province he consolidated his power by defeating competing factions within the Hongan-ji community and assumed the provincial government, thereby increasing his secular power. Between 1532 and 1536, Hongan-ji was engaged in the Tembun War against a deputy shogun. In 1532, ikko ikki warriors burned down Kofuku-ji in Nara and killed monks because it had outlawed them in Yamato province. In the same year, the shogun asked members of the Nichiren sect to attack Hongan-ji, which at this time was located in Yamashina (between Kyoto and Omi province). After the fortified headquarters fell in 1532, Hongan-ji was relocated to Osaka and built as a castle. In another quarrel, akuso of Enryaku-ji destroyed Nichiren temples in Kyoto in the years 1534-6, because they had dominated the capital for some time. In 1540, Hongan-ji had become so strong that it could cease paying tax to Enryaku-ji. In the 1530s, Shonyo issued an ‘afterlife pardon' (gosho gomen) for his warriors, which extinguished their bad karma accumulated through killing and instead ensured their safe birth into the Pure Land.[756] He had become almost like a daimyo (feudal lord).[757]
His son Kennyo (1543-92, r. 1554-92) behaved accordingly. Through huge possessions of land and governing the whole of Kaga province, Hongan-ji had developed into a powerful social and economic organisation, which also played a role in politics. In Mikawa province, temple towns connected with Hongan-ji claimed tax exemption from secular authorities.
This triggered a conflict called Mikawa ikki lasting from 1563 until 1564. Also ordinary warriors (bushi) took part on the Hongan-ji side as in previous and subsequent battles. Kennyo did not attempt to justify war and killing in religious terms. The reason was, as Richmond Tsang assumes, that fighting was a natural part of the Time of Civil Wars (sengoku jidai; c. 1470-1580).63In these civil wars, feudal lords and warlords were the main agents, but monasteries such as Kofuku-ji, Enryaku-ji and Negoro continued to play a significant role, as did the newcomers such as Hongan-ji and Nichiren-shu. During the later part of the Time of Civil Wars, the warlord Oda Nobunaga (1534-82) had emerged and eventually succeeded in uniting and pacifying Japan. Part of his endeavour was a lengthy war with Hongan-ji warriors and its feudal allies from 1570 to 1580, called the Ishiyama War. The banners of the ikko ikki warriors read: ‘Those who advance (attack) will be born in (the Land of) Utmost Bliss; those who retreat will fall into the hell of uninterrupted (suffering).'64 In the end, Nobunaga defeated them and destroyed the Hongan-ji castle. Hence, the ikko ikki perished, and Hongan-ji lost its political independence.65
Richmond Tsang comments that in the case of Hongan-ji a religious group provided the power of cohesion and loyalty. However, she does not see this power grounded in the Shin-Buddhist teaching of equality (byoodoo) because she argues that this religious concept had not been transformed into a social one. Still, in his thorough study, Pauly emphasises that the religious ideas of doogyoo (fellow practitioners) and dooboo (fellow brethren) and the accompanying practice in equality replaced the hierarchical structures in court, state and aristocratic Buddhism as well as in the feudal society. At the same time, such concepts provided the ordinary believers with a sense of responsibility and subjecthood.[758] Hence, Pauly believes that the idea of equality provided the strongest religious-ideological support for the peasant leagues. At the end of such religious upheavals, however, as Richmond Tsang explains, Nobunaga's (and later Hideyoshi's) victories over the monastic armies and the Hongan-ji warriors ‘redefined the place of religion in society, severing it from its independent economic and military base and confining it to a far narrower band of operation'.[759]
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