Welcome Guest [Log In] [Register]
Recent Posts

Welcome to the NEW Samurai Archives Japanese History Forum. If you have an account on the old forum (The Samurai Archives Citadel), you'll have to create a new account here. If you did have an account at the old forum, send a PM to "Samurai Archives Bot" letting us know, and we'll update your post count to reflect your activity on the old forum.

Otherwise, you're currently viewing our forum as a guest. This means you are limited to certain areas of the board and there are many features you can't use. If you join our community, you'll be able to access member-only sections, and use many member-only features such as customizing your profile, sending personal messages, and voting in polls. Registration is simple, fast, and completely free. Be sure to validate your account via the email that will be sent when you sign up, otherwise you will have very limited access to forum features.


Join our community!


If you're already a member please log in to your account to access all of our features:

Username:   Password:
Add Reply
Understanding the Ikko-Ikki; A Guide for Beginners
Topic Started: Oct 17 2015, 01:33 PM (1,817 Views)
Saru
Member Avatar
Togishi
DISCLAIMER: I am not a specialist in this topic so feel free to correct me if I'm full of BS!

I've been working on an episode on religion in the medieval era for my Sengoku Series (see the stickied thread in this forum of my signature, thanks Kitsuno!) and I decided to do a post on the Ikkō-ikki. I've always found them a very interesting part of the Sengoku period but one that is often misunderstood, as sometimes they are portrayed as proto-anarchists, religious Bolsheviks or a 16th-century al-Qaeda. The reality is, as always, not so clear-cut.

The Ikkō-ikki represent a fascinating but often overlooked and misunderstood element of the political and military landscape of Sengoku Japan. The image often conjured up in popular culture is throngs of fanatical religious warriors driven by an egalitarian ideology, seeking to overthrow the traditional societal structure of medieval Japan, something that seems very enigmatic and foreign within an otherwise conservative and authoritarian culture. The truth is that the Ikkō-ikki were not really that radical or progressive as some might assume, with their religious beliefs rather similar to other contemporary Buddhist sects and their organization and practice not any more classless and equal than the classic top-down relationship between lord and retainer, master and servant.

It should first be stressed that the term “Ikkō-ikki” refers to a very specific hodgepodge of individuals, ranging from peasants to monks to samurai, united by their adherence to a very specific temple belonging to a very specific branch of a very specific form of Buddhism. Confused yet?

Let us start from Buddhism in Japan and work our way down. When Buddhism was first introduced to Japan in the mid-6th century, brought over from Korea, it was promoted as the new religion of the imperial court and the attendant nobility. There was a symbiotic relationship where the monasteries would provide religious services to the upper classes, and in turn, the upper classes would provide the monks with patronage and sponsorship. When Japanese monks traveled to China to learn about the different schools of Buddhism, they returned with esoteric knowledge involving specialized rituals, chants and mandalas, which were then passed on as sacred knowledge to those with the privilege of access. It was also necessary to have the time and the disposable income to devote yourself to these practices, both of which commoners highly lacked.

In the medieval era, this trend changed as two monks, both followers of the Tendai sect of Buddhism, moved to bring faith more to the masses. These were Nichiren and Honen, founders of the Nichiren and Pure Land branches of Japanese Buddhism, respectively. Both Nichiren and Honen believed that the world had entered a degenerate age, in which society had become morally corrupt and people were too far removed from the teachings of the Buddha. Nichiren promoted salvation through recitation and homage to the Lotus Sutra, a text containing the Buddha’s teachings that he claimed provided the most accessible and comprehensive understanding of Buddhist belief. Honen, however, argued that people could be reborn in paradise by faith in Amida Buddha, an ancient monk who had become a celestial Buddha. According to both of these schools, spiritual progress did not come from learning mysterious rituals but often just from reciting phrases praising the Lotus Sutra or Amida Buddha. This made both schools accessible and therefore very popular with regular people. Nichiren Buddhism flourished in the cities, among merchants and other urban dwellers, while Pure Land Buddhism flourished among farmers, peasants and minor samurai living in the countryside.

The traditional Buddhist sects did not respond favorably to either of these new teachings, and the upper classes generally felt threatened by any belief system that took power out of the hands of conventional authority and leveled relations between classes. As such, Nichiren and Honen both found themselves targeted for assassination and were exiled several times. Both men survived, however, as did their ideas, and both continued a great deal of prominence into the late medieval and early modern periods.

In the 13th century, one of Honen’s followers, Shinran, emerged as a leader of disciples of the Pure Land school. Eventually, Shinran’s followers split to form their own True Pure Land school, as it emphasized more and more the writings and doctrine of Shinran over Honen, although the stress remained on reaching the Pure Land by embracing faith in Amida Buddha. The school was actually on the wane until the 15th century, when it was revived under a new leader, Rennyo, who is considered as the “second founder” of True Pure Land Buddhism. He simplified Shinran’s teachings and brought greater structure and organization to the disparate groups belonging to the school. He did so from Hongan-ji, the temple that also served as the mausoleum of Shinran, as such, Hongan-ji became the headquarters of sorts for most True Pure Land followers. However, it should be stressed that the Hongan-ji branch was just one branch of the larger True Pure Land Buddhist sect overall; Hongan-ji was the most prominent and politically dominant branch of the sect, but one could be a True Pure Land Buddhist without being a follower of the Hongan-ji branch.

This brings us finally to the Ikkō-ikki, which literally translates to “single-minded leagues.” The “single-minded” aspect refers to the belief in True Pure Land Buddhism that reliance on Amida Buddha is the only effective means of reaching paradise. The term “ikki” had also been used in the past to refer to leagues of warriors or commoners who united for mutual assistance in achieving shared goals, like tax or debt relief. The Ikkō-ikki, however, tended to act out for religious reasons: in defense of the Hongan-ji, in response to religious persecution or simply protecting their temples from the constant warfare that defined Sengoku Japan. Unlike the more established Buddhist schools, like the Shingon and Tendai sects, the Hongan-ji did not have professional armies of “warrior-monks.” The regular followers of the Hongan-ji acted as warriors themselves.

One famous incident involving the Ikkō-ikki is their role in overthrowing the governor of Kaga province in 1488, leading to the perception that subsequently commoners administered the province, an oddity among most provinces managed by the upper classes. In actuality, what had happened was that Togashi Masachika had taken power in Kaga in 1473 with the assistance of some Hongan-ji followers (some of whom favored Togashi’s rival). Afterwards, when the temples in Kaga affiliated with the Hongan-ji attempted to exercise autonomous authority, Togashi attempted to bring them under his direct control. This led to a rebellion, involving not just Hongan-ji followers but also disgruntled retainers of Togashi. Togashi committed suicide and Kaga came under the power not just of the Hongan-ji followers but also local warrior houses, prominent merchants and others; it is more accurate to say that civil society administered Kaga than a progressive coalition of farmers and villagers. By the 1530s, the province came under the control of the Hongan-ji itself (that is, the primary True Pure Land temple), although in effect actual governance remained in the hands of local power brokers. At no point was there anything like land redistribution or any other such reforms; if anything, the Hongan-ji tended to side with the upper classes (temples and aristocrats), not commoners. Even if True Pure Land Buddhism advocated for collective ownership and democratic governance (and it did not), either would have been practical given the need for a military-like chain of command and mobilized resources to defend against invasions and overthrow hostile rivals.

The greatest of these rivals, as far as the Ikkō-ikki was concerned, was Oda Nobunaga, who took a directly antagonistic relationship with the Hongan-ji in the 1570s, following his ascendancy to one of the most prominent warlords in Japan. Nobunaga aspired to unify the land, and in so doing, to bring all the vying powers of Japan under his hegemony. As such, he could not tolerate an autonomous religious institution like Hongan-ji and its followers unless they were willing to submit. Threatened, the leader of the Hongan-ji, a monk named Kennyo, rallied the Ikkō-ikki to take up arms against Nobunaga in order to defend their faith. It should be stressed that, by this point, True Pure Land Buddhism had become so institutionalized that Kennyo, as the head of the Hongan-ji, possessed the authority to excommunicate members of the school. While he did not explicitly promise rebirth in paradise for those who fought and died him, it must be recalled that, within True Pure Land Buddhism, there are only two possibilities upon death: reborn in paradise or condemned to suffering. Accordingly, we can assume that those who answered Kennyo’s call to arms believed that fighting was a moral obligation, and that to refuse would have been to invite damnation. Hence, the famous banners of the Ikkō-ikki which read, “Advance and be reborn in paradise; retreat and go instantly to hell.”

This is not to say that the Ikkō-ikki were all foaming-at-the-mouth zealots, driven by vehemence; the case of the aforementioned Kaga rebellion indicates that the Ikkō-ikki could rise up over economic grievances just as much by perceived attacks on their faith. Nevertheless, it is undeniable that these dichotomies of thinking – salvation or damnation, fight or be excommunicated – no doubt provided a significant boost to morale for those who fought as part of the Ikkō-ikki. If one believed in the power of Amida Buddha, and if one followed the head of the Hongan-ji temple as the earthly expert of the Pure Land, what else was there to do but do as the head of the temple prescribed? In addition, the fact that access to paradise was relatively straightforward – paying homage to Amida Buddha – meant that, no matter what sins or atrocities one committed on the battlefield, one was guaranteed to reach paradise by executing the Hongan-ji’s orders.

Something else that was no doubt a boost to Ikkō-ikki morale was the notion that True Pure Land Buddhism was correct and that competing Buddhist schools were wrong. Indeed, another trait shared by Nichiren Buddhism and Pure Land Buddhism is the belief that there is only one way to reach enlightenment (their own, obviously) and that other Buddhist deviations are wrong and even dangerous. (Nichiren Buddhism was especially hostile to other forms of Buddhism, with followers actively attacking the temples of other sects regularly.) This went against the traditional approach of Buddhism that there are multiple routes to enlightenment. By being exclusionary, True Pure Land Buddhism ensured that its followers could adopt an “us” versus “them” philosophy. This meant that, if a warlord went against the Hongan-ji temples in his domain, his retainer band could split between and non-followers.

This occurred in 1563-1564 when Matsudaira Motoyasu (the future Tokugawa Ieyasu) sought to tax the temples affiliated with the Hongan-ji in the province of Mikawa. Several of the Matsudaira retainers, including Honda Masanobu, sided with the Ikkō-ikki against their former master, and even though they were finally defeated (with the traitorous generals brought back into the fold), the danger of a hostile religious force left a lasting impression, as it did anywhere the Ikkō-ikki had to be put down. Indeed, when Nobunaga’s successor, Toyotomi Hideyoshi, banned Christian missionaries and the Tokugawa shogunate persecuted Japanese Christians, we can see lessons learned about the potential of autonomous religious communities to the absolute rule of an autocratic dictatorship.

Recommended reading:

Tamura, Yoshiro. 2000. Japanese Buddhism: A Cultural History. Tokyo: Kosei Publishing.

Tsang, Carol Richmond. 2007. War and Faith: Ikko Ikki in Late Muromachi Japan. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Tsang, Carol Richmond. 2010. "'Advance and Be Reborn in Paradise...': Religious Opposition to Political Consolidation in 16th Century Japan." In War and State Building in Medieval Japan, eds. John A. Ferejohn and Frances McCall Rosenbluth. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
Read my samurai fiction here: https://samuraistories.wordpress.com/

Check out my videos on the history of Sengoku Japan: The Sengoku Series
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
ltdomer98
Member Avatar
Daijo Daijin

I don't have time to go through your post in detail, but an invaluable source for info on the Ikko-ikki is Neil McMullin's book Buddhism and the State in Sixteenth-Century Japan.

Also, I've got a blog post from about 2 years ago discussing the Ikko-ikki as insurgency vis a vis the Oda.
Posted Image
Daijo Daijin Emeritus
退職させていただきます。
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Tatsunoshi
Member Avatar
Miko no Kami

That's a very well put-together introduction to the Ikko-shu. I'd suggest making one thing clearer-that 'peasants' doesn't mean just 'farmers', but also (and in the Ikko-shu, mostly) townspeople and merchants. Tsang's work with rosters suggests that the Ikko-ikki was made up mostly of non-farmers.
Posted Image
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
ltdomer98
Member Avatar
Daijo Daijin

Tatsunoshi
Oct 22 2015, 06:44 PM
That's a very well put-together introduction to the Ikko-shu. I'd suggest making one thing clearer-that 'peasants' doesn't mean just 'farmers', but also (and in the Ikko-shu, mostly) townspeople and merchants. Tsang's work with rosters suggests that the Ikko-ikki was made up mostly of non-farmers.


That's an important point, especially since they are often simplistically situated as the "peasant" religious ikki compared to the Nichiren "townsmen" ikki.

Posted Image
Daijo Daijin Emeritus
退職させていただきます。
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Saru
Member Avatar
Togishi
Nate, is this the blog post you mentioned: http://www.sengokufieldmanual.com/2012/11/the-ikko-ikki-insurgency-as-fortified.html?m=1

I thought your conclusion that the lack of coordination was the downfall of the Ikkō-ikki was very interesting. Given that the Ikkō-ikki did not actually possess an ideological aversion to vertical authority, I find it a bit odd that neither Rennyo nor his successors took more control over the Ikkō-ikki and tried to direct them in a more organized fashion. I suppose it could be argued that some distance was maintained to disassociate the Honganji from the actions of the Ikkō-ikki, but on the other hand, no one from the Sengoku period seemed to be any other illusion that the Ikkō-ikki were followers of the Honganji. Could have just been that the Honganji were theologians and politicians and not really commanders.
Read my samurai fiction here: https://samuraistories.wordpress.com/

Check out my videos on the history of Sengoku Japan: The Sengoku Series
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Tatsunoshi
Member Avatar
Miko no Kami

Tsang continually notes that Rennyo did not particularly want to use his followers as military forces or issue 'commands' to them and actively tried to hold back members who took part in uprisings. He eventually took a more active role in an effort to try to keep them under some sort of control (and largely in matters of defense, particularly against other religious factions), but it wasn't until after his death that Jodo-Shinshu leaders began to aggressively use them as a striking arm.
Posted Image
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Saru
Member Avatar
Togishi
Oh that's correct, but I just don't really comprehend the logic of not going all-in with taking on the armed monto as the militant wing of the Honganji sect. It was certainly peeve dented and we know Kennyo at least used his power to excommunicate followers. And Tsang herself notes that organizations fare better when vertical authority is implemented during times of war/crisis. Since they were fighting for their survival and their independence, why preserve unit autonomy? The only thing I can think is that it was not so much a lack of will as the distance and other logistical troubles of organizing ad hoc militias all over Japan.
Read my samurai fiction here: https://samuraistories.wordpress.com/

Check out my videos on the history of Sengoku Japan: The Sengoku Series
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
ltdomer98
Member Avatar
Daijo Daijin

Tatsu's got the right answer--despite how they are depicted as a "playable clan" in Sengoku-themed strategy games, Kennyo wasn't a daimyo, and didn't command Ikko monto adherents in the same way. We view the Sengoku in terms of daimyo behavior, so it makes sense (to us) that to survive/succeed Kennyo would have done the same thing. However, there's a completely different set of drivers and constraints at work, to include possibly the complete inability to coordinate/command adherents across all of central Japan. Nagashima's group may have looked to Kennyo for advice on salvation, but wanted to run their own resistance against Nobunaga, for instance. I don't have proof for that, just a possibility. But it's pretty clear that even if he wanted to, Kennyo couldn't command regional adherents.

Quote:
 
Since they were fighting for their survival and their independence, why preserve unit autonomy?


This question assumes not only that consolidation of control was a possibility, but desirable. It also assumes they were a coherent homogeneous group.

And yes, that was the article I meant. Part of my fun is to take concepts I find in the 95% "Western" focused military history field and see if I can find parallels in Japan.
Edited by ltdomer98, Oct 24 2015, 07:18 AM.
Posted Image
Daijo Daijin Emeritus
退職させていただきます。
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Saru
Member Avatar
Togishi
That all makes sense, but it does seem that Rennyo was quite effective in consolidating control (at least in terms of religious authority) over the Jodo Shinshu at Honganji. Granted, that isn't the same thing as saying that the disparate followers of the Honganji branch of Jodo Shinshu looked to the abbot of Honganji as the ONLY authority, or that their interests were homogeneous. But considering that Kennyo used that same religious authority to issue a call to arms for the Ikko-ikki to oppose Nobunada (with the implied threat of excommunication), it doesn't seem too far afield to think that Kennyo (or someone else) could have brought a formal hierarchy connecting the different Ikko-ikki "cells" to their headquarters (Honganji). I don't think that is so much "daimyo behavior" as how a lot of the traditional temples acted, such as the warrior-monks that served Enryakuji, for example.

Then again, imitating Enryakuji probably would have undermined the appeal of the Honganji as well as the Ikko-ikki as populist militias. I suppose I'm just Monday morning QBing the Ikko-ikki. :P
Read my samurai fiction here: https://samuraistories.wordpress.com/

Check out my videos on the history of Sengoku Japan: The Sengoku Series
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
ltdomer98
Member Avatar
Daijo Daijin

Being able to call adherents to rise up against your enemies is very different than actually commanding them in a coherently coordinated manner. Think of it this way: The Pope in medieval Europe could put out a call for believers to rise up and smite the enemies of the Church, but he didn't then throw on armor and give them tactical orders.
Posted Image
Daijo Daijin Emeritus
退職させていただきます。
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Dickjutsu
Member Avatar
Artisan
ltdomer98
Oct 25 2015, 02:57 PM
Being able to call adherents to rise up against your enemies is very different than actually commanding them in a coherently coordinated manner. Think of it this way: The Pope in medieval Europe could put out a call for believers to rise up and smite the enemies of the Church, but he didn't then throw on armor and give them tactical orders.
That's a very interesting parallel to make on this topic. Look at the First Crusade. The Pope called for the Christian lords and people to rise up and aid the Byzantines (well, not what they called themselves at the time, but you know the gist, I'm sure).
At that point all he could do was give them advice and try to act as a consigliore, more than an overlord, and certainly more than a legitimate commander.

You look at the Nagashima and the Honganji sects as having similar interests, and why couldn't them Kosa fellows bring them together? Because the motivation of the Nagashima sects was to control and protect Nagashima.

If I am a religious adherent in Pennsylvania (let's call me Protestant) and I'm controlling a militant sect of Protestants against an encroaching anti-Protestant faction from New York, I'm not necessarily going to ally and support the pro-Protestant forces in Vermont. Yeah we're fighting the same foe, but that doesn't mean I care about Vermont at all.

Same with, as ltdomer put it with the Pope, during the First Crusade he just called for it and even before the militant princes and barons gathered their forces a huge group of peasants made their way east to 'fight' against Muslims. Nobody could stop them or control them as they looted and pillage friendly fellow-Christian lands along the way causing havoc for the actual Crusader forces coming a year behind them.
Richard C. Shaffer
Author of Escort

Check out Samurai Gaiden on Youtube!
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
ltdomer98
Member Avatar
Daijo Daijin

Also, Saru compares them to the Enryaku-ji. Which is fine, except the Enryaku-ji wasn't controlling groups of believers around the country--it controlled the Enryaku-ji and local subtemples, and that's it. And even local subtemples didn't like to be controlled--look at how many times the Enryaku-ji and Miidera went at each other, and Miidera was (at least initially) a subtemple of Mt. Hiei.
Posted Image
Daijo Daijin Emeritus
退職させていただきます。
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Saru
Member Avatar
Togishi
The problem with the Pope and the Crusades allegory is that the Crusades were called as an aggressive war -- as a way to stem the Turkish encroachment on the Byzantine Empire, while also giving idle knights and minor lords something to do other than fight one another and promote instability in Europe.

By the time of the 2nd Anti-Nobunaga Alliance, however, it was clear the struggle against Nobunaga was going to be a defensive struggle, and that the ultimate interest of the Ikko monto in Ishiyama Hongan-ji was the same as the Ikko monto in Kaga or anywhere else: to survive, at least as a meaningful political as well as spiritual institution. So, while it is correct to argue that the immediate interests of an Ikko follower in one region or city was not the same as all the other followers, I would think there was a pretty clear interest in rallying around the Hongan-ji and therefore subordinating to the temple in a more vertical hierarchy. It needn't have been a conventional top-down military structure, either; even something approximating a HQ with loose cells around the country may have been more effective than every community out for themselves.

As to the comparison to Mt. Hiei, that was more to show that having an army of sorts subordinated to a temple had precedent. And while it's true that Mt. Hiei didn't control "armies" around the country, and that it didn't get along with sub-temples all the time, the existential crisis posed by Nobunaga violently conquering any and all institutions and clans that threatened his absolute hegemony may have well induced the Hongan-ji and its affiliated temples to work together, at least for something as basic as coordinating the defenses of their fortress-temples and so on.
Read my samurai fiction here: https://samuraistories.wordpress.com/

Check out my videos on the history of Sengoku Japan: The Sengoku Series
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
1 user reading this topic (1 Guest and 0 Anonymous)
ZetaBoards - Free Forum Hosting
Fully Featured & Customizable Free Forums
Learn More · Sign-up Now
« Previous Topic · Japanese History - Beginner's Guide & Resources · Next Topic »
Add Reply

  Board Index

Samurai Archives is (C)2015 by C.E. West & F.W. Seal. Samurai Archives online since September 1st, 1999. The current Samurai Archives forum online since March 4th, 2015.