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Oda Nobunaga and the Buddhist institutions

University of British Columbia

In the latter half of the sixteenth century, Japan, which for almost one hundred years had been fractured into a great number of small domains ruled by daimyo, was in the process of being unified. Three important figures, of whom the first was Oda Nobunaga (1534-1582), brought about that unification. Gda Nobunaga's role as a unifier of the Japanese state has been extensively studied by Japanese historians, but in those studies historians have usually misconstrued the nature and purpose of Oda's policies towards Buddhist institutions by portraying them as merely destructive, and have overlooked the most important effect of those policies. Oda Nobunaga's policies towards Buddhist institutions were not as sweepingly negative as has been generally asserted, and their effect was not the destruction of those institutions but a profound redefinition of the place of Buddhism in Japanese society. The greatest obstacle that Oda Nobunaga encountered in his efforts to unify the country was the Buddhist institutions which by the sixteenth century had come to possess great power. That power was of three types: many Buddhist institutions maintained armies of "cleric-soldiers" (so-hei) or "lay followers" (monto) that interfered in secular affairs and engaged in military campaigns; many owned vast stretches of land spread throughout the country; and many enjoyed a high degree of autonomy, independence, and extraterritoriality. By far the most powerful opposition to the realization of Oda's goal of a unified country was that put forward by the Ishiyama Honganji, the chief temple of the Honganji branch of True Pure Land Buddhism (Jodo Shinshu). The Ishiyama Honganji was the apex of a huge organization of monto. and it was also the hub of the anti-Nobunaga league that was made up of a number of Buddhist institutions, daimyo, and eventually the shogun Ashikaga Toshiaki. In order to unify the country Oda Nobunaga had to reduce the power of the Buddhist institutions, and to that end he pursued three policies, each one directed against one of the types of power enjoyed by those institutions: he eradicated the Buddhist armies of sphel and monto in a series of campaigns over the years from 1569 to 1582; he reduced the size of the Buddhist institutions' land holdings by confiscating many of their estates and by instituting a new land-ownership policy; and he denied their right to independence from the central administration. The result of Oda Nobunaga's policies was twofold: the power, land-holdings, and independence of Buddhist institutions was severely and permanently reduced; and more importantly, there was a redefinition of the place that Buddhism was to occupy in Japanese society in the centuries following the sixteenth. The classical definition of the role that Buddhism played in Japanese society was no longer accepted; Buddhism lost its influence on affairs of state as society underwent a process of secularization. Oda Nobunaga's policies were instrumental in ushering in a secular world. Oda Nobunaga's policies towards Buddhist institutions were investigated through an examination of a collection of 1461 documents, the vast majority of which are considered to have been issued by Oda between the years 1549 and 1582. Because the majority of the documents that were is sued by Oda deal with Buddhist institutions, it is possible to gain an understanding of his policies towards those institutions by a study of these documents. Much information on Oda's relations with Buddhist institutions is also contained in a biography of Oda, the Shincho K5ki. that was written by Ota Izumi no Kami Gyuichi in 1610, twenty-eight years after Oda's death.

Text

2010-02-21

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http://hdl.handle.net/2429/20656

Asian Studies

University of British Columbia

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