A Medieval Buddhist Revolution? The Ikko-Ikki part one

Lately, I’ve been enjoying a fantastic history podcast called Grey History, covering the French Revolution in detail. While enjoying this show I started thinking about a famous peasant uprising in medieval Japanese history called the Ikko-Ikki rebellions of the 16th century.

The Ikko-Ikki rebellions are remarkable as being the one time in pre-modern Japanese history where a peasant uprising not only succeeded, but successfully carved out a region of Japan that was ruled by the masses, and not by military samurai, nor the old aristocracy from Kyoto. The binding influence of the uprising was a strong affinity to a certain Buddhist sect, the Jodo Shinshu (浄土真宗, “True Pure Land Sect”), but there was more to the Ikko-Ikki than a “rebel cult” as some labeled them.

Information in English about the Ikko-Ikki is sparse, and often misinformed. I am happy though to have obtained a copy of Dr Carol Tsang’s excellent book War and Faith: Ikko Ikki in Late Muromachi Japan (publisher link), covers the Ikko Ikki, who they were, and their relation to the Jodo Shinshu sect. It’s been a fascinating read even for an old “history nerd” like myself.

This post is part one of two three exploring the Ikko Ikki, but before we talk about the rebellions, we need to cover some Jodo Shinshu history. Speaking as someone who was part of the Jodo Shinshu community for a long time, and also a history nerd, Jodo Shinshu’s history is … different.

The Jodo Shinshu Sect

The Jodo Shinshu sect was one of several Buddhist sects that arose during the Kamakura Period of Japanese history (12th-14th centuries) as a kind of backlash to the Buddhist establishment at the time, and their close association with the ruling aristocracy. Starting with my favorite monk, Honen (法然, 1133 – 1212), a populist Pure Land Buddhist movement took shape, filling a gap that was missing in Japanese society at the time. To be clear, Pure Land Buddhism was not the only new Buddhist movement at the time: we see Nichiren Buddhism and new Zen sects imported from China as well. However, the Pure Land movement was much more widespread in comparison.¹ Under Honen this movement was diverse, widespread, and loose-knit comprising of peasants, nobility, and clergy.

However, it was not to last.

The Pure Land Buddhist movement was punished by the Emperor in the Jogen Persecution of 1207 (承元の法難, jōgen no hōnan), and the community was scattered across many parts of Japan and its monks defrocked. Not unlike the many disciples of Socrates in classical Greece,² these disciples each had their own recollection of Honen’s teachings, and since they were now living different provinces of Japan, individual sects and communities arose.

Some examples include:

• Jodo Shu, Chinzei branch – started by Bencho.
• Jodo Shu, Seizan branch – started by Shoku.
• Jodo Shinshu – started by Shinran and the subject is this post.
• “Single Nembutsu” teaching – started by Kosai (who was later denounced by Honen), but quickly faded.
• “Many Nembutsu” teaching – started by Ryukan, but also petered out later.
• Ji-shū – started by Ippen, who was not a direct discipled of Honen, but a disciple of Shoku’s disciple.
• …. among other groups.

As we can see, Shinran (親鸞, 1173 – 1263) was one of these disciples.

According to some scholars, Shinran had been a mid-level disciple of Honen. When he was defrocked and sent to Echigo province he broke precedence, famously declaring that he was neither priest nor laymen. He then took a wife, and fathered children.

Shiran was not idle though. He was a prolific writer and teacher, spreading Honen’s message (as he understood it) to people in his province. After the exiles were pardoned, Shinran returned to Kyoto with his daughter Kakushin-ni (覚信尼, 1224-1281?) who cared for Shiran until his last days. Shinran spent his time in the capital still teaching, writing hymns and letters. When he passed, he left behind a large community of disciples in the provinces, and Kakushin-ni helped establish a mausoleum for her father in Kyoto. The ownership and maintenance of this mausoleum (later called the Honganji temple) was complicated, but it seems to have been a shared model between the disciples and supporters in the provinces, and Shinran’s descendants.

In time, Shinran’s grandson Kakué (覚恵, 1239 – 1307) assumed the role as caretaker of the mausoleum, the monshu (門首), after Kakushi-ni. Kakue passed on this hereditary role to his son Kakunyo (覚如, 1271 – 1351) and from here the role of Caretaker/Patriarch fell to successive descendants of Shinran even to this day. However at the time, the Honganji mausoleum was not very influential, compared to provincial communities. In time, that would change.

In any case, Jodo Shinshu from its outset was a firmly lay-Buddhist sect, the first in Japanese history. It was somewhat decentralized and had no monastic institution whatsoever. Other competing Pure Land sects listed above, were founded by monks, and still maintained some form of monastic institutions (some more than others) by contrast.

In the case of Jodo Shinshu, its local communities were organized by lay priests, peasants and craftsman who like Shinran worked and raised families. They organized religious gatherings in small dōjō (道場) rather than formal temples. A dojo in this context could be a room in someone’s home, or a communal space. A network of temples arose over the generations to oversee the various dojo, but early Shinshu communities started out small and informal.

This remained the state of the community for generations up through the Ikko Ikki rebellion.

The Warrings States Period and the Ikki Rebellions

Fast-forward about 200 years since Shinran and Honen. By this point in Japanese history, the reigning Ashikaga Shoguns have become permanently weakened by the disastrous Onin War, and social order was rapidly breaking down as rival warlords who had nominally supported the Ashikaga family, now fought one another for control of Japan. Technically, the Ashikaga still ruled a small region around Kyoto the capital, but the rest of Japan was rapidly descending into all-out war which lasted for another 100 years: the Sengoku or Warring States period (mid-15th through 17th centuries).³

Japanese society at this time had been a feudal, militaristic society. The various domains and provinces had been managed by the Ashikaga Shogunate through a complex web of grants, appointments, and negotiations. Much like medieval society in Europe, the feudal order of Japan was complicated and full of political tension between the Church (i.e. the old Buddhist orders), local land-owning warlords, and peasants who were compelled to work the land in various arrangements. Similar to medieval England at the time, peasants were not all one social class. Many were modestly successful like the English yeoman, while others were saddled with ancestral debt and had to work the land they rented from their landlords (military or Buddhist temples) like European serfs. Other peasants were part of artisan communities that formed associations that might be vaguely compared to European guilds.

Further, the distinction between samurai and peasant wasn’t so clear-cut as it would be in later generations. A low-ranking, provincial samurai or jizamurai (地侍) worked the land and sold goods just as peasants did, though they also had certain obligations to their liege lord, and enjoyed patronage and influence as a result. Even the famous Hojo no Yoshitoki worked his own land (at least some of the time).

Meanwhile, wealthy and powerful land-holding peasants could command local military resources when the needs for mutual defense arose, or lend them to the local warlord if needed, in return for some arrangement. Such peasant soldiers were often called up by local samurai as ashigaru (足軽) foot soldiers. Even the great Toyotomi Hideyoshi once started this way before eventually claiming dominion over all of Japan.

So, while there were social classes, they were fluid, and the boundaries were vague. A low-level jizamurai and a powerful peasant weren’t all that different. In the end, it was a “might makes right” environment.

Thus, in this fast, fluid and shifting environment, communities or like-minded people would form an ikki (一揆), which was a society founded for one single purpose. According to Dr Tsang, ikki were often formed in a ceremony where the participants would gather at a religious site, sign a contract vowing to accomplish their stated aim, burn the contract, mix the ashes into water, and drink it together. The pact was thus sealed in the most solemn of manners.

But why form a society like this?

Local samurai, especially if they had familial ties, might found an ikki promising one another mutual aid and defense. Peasants of a village might form an ikki to push the government for tax relief. An ikki formed in 1428 was large enough to march on Kyoto and burned down debt owners and tax-collecting tolls, for example.

The Ikko ikki (一向一揆) specifically were formed by those who subscribed to the Jodo Shinshu sect, which was also called the Ikkō (一向) sect at the time. The term ikkō referred to their singular reliance on Amida Buddha (lit. all facing one direction: toward Amida and the Pure Land). Ostensibly these followers formed an ikki for mutual defense but soon grew to challenge the most powerful warlords of the era.

With the rise of Shinran’s descendant Rennyo, the ragtag societies grew into a powerful army that even warlords like Oda Nobunaga were unable to defeat. We’ll see more of this in part two.

Stay tuned!

P.S. These longer historical posts take some time to write (let alone proofread), so I may be delayed in posted part two.

¹ The rise of the opposing Nichiren sect is an interesting aspect of Japanese-Buddhist history, but it’s out of scope here, and was somewhat smaller in scale. Dr Tsang’s book does point out that there were Nichiren Ikki groups, too, in later ages.

² Socrates left behind no writing (unlike Honen who was a prolific writer), but his disciples such as Plato and Xenophon described

³ The “sengoku” name was borrowed from a much earlier, though equally fascinating, period of Chinese history. The Warring States Period of Chinese history should not be underestimated in terms of influence too, because many strands of Chinese political philosophy arise from this period, as various thinkers tried to grapple with the collapse of social order, and the debauchery and degradation of the times. These same ideas later had a profound influence on later Asian culture, and the world at large.