Japan Coptic Church

Gxg (G²) said:

Was thinking recently and considering the example of the Sōhei - Buddhist Warrior Monks in Medieval and Feudal Japan

• The Teeth and Claws of the Buddha: Monastic Warriors and Sohei in Japanese History

As said elsewhere, for a brief excerpt, in The Sohei | Together With Japan:

The sohei existed because of an astonishingly simple question. What force on Earth had the authority to tell Buddhist monks what to do? To Japan, Buddhism was an imported religion. It existed in multiple sects. No one had ever established that they answered to the Japanese Emperor; at any rate, the rise of the samurai had eroded the Emperor’s secular authority centuries before the sohei stormed onto the scene.

If two Buddhist sects had a dispute, who would settle it for them? No one.

If two Buddhist sects had a dispute that became an armed confrontation, who would fight for them? No one.

If two Buddhist sects fought in the open, who would interfere to prevent the stronger side from winning? No one.

This situation, a product of the same social and political upheavals that produced the rule of the Shogun and a hardening of the role of the samurai, produced the sohei.

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A Force Unto Themselves
There are three things beyond my control: the rapids on the Kamo river, the dice at gambling, and the monks of the mountain. – Emperor Go Shirakawa-in, 12th century

Sohei were instantly recognizable because of the white cowls they wore over their heads (which were shaved, like all monks). Otherwise, they were armed much like samurai, right down to steel helmets under the cowls. In other words, they were armed according to the prevailing conditions of their day. Thinking of them as temple samurai would not be an exaggeration.

Some might recoil at the whole idea, but Buddhism would never have thrived in Japan if people had interpreted it as a religion of pure pacifism. Besides, if you’re on a holy crusade, a lot of what might otherwise be condemned as unnecessary violence suddenly becomes necessary violence.

The point being, sohei co-existed with samurai during the same period. It isn’t much of a stretch to say that they recruited from a lot of the same talent pools.

Thanks to their holy status, and their all too temporal might, the temples became forces unto themselves.

If they had not, these temples, often centers of local or even regional commerce and, even if this was disregarded, sources of money due to visits by pious pilgrims, would find themselves at the mercy of others, to be exploited or simply plundered at will. Thanks to the sohei, this was not the case – to the point that these groups came to be considered a threat to the warlords of Japan.

Weapons and Armor
Like samurai, sohei used katana and tanto (the latter being reinforced daggers capable of penetrating armor, a standard samurai back-up weapon throughout their history). Also like samurai, they included a considerable number of skilled archers, for otherwise they would have difficulty defending high places. In addition, they wore armor that was virtually indistinguishable from the samurai yoroi (armor) of the day, except for the white cowls.

Unlike the samurai, sohei became known as particularly heavy users of the naginata, a polearm with a wooden shaft and a slightly curved blade. This made the weapon useful both as a swinging weapon, with greater reach than than the katana, and as a thrusting weapon, used in packed formations. Thus, it was ideal as a weapon for defense and counter-attack on temple grounds, allowing a single man to attempt to hold a doorway, but also allowing a packed formation to swiftly go on the assault.

Sohei often carried a portable shrine, or mikoshi, with them on campaigns. Committing violence in the presence of such a holy object was considered blasphemous… though certain warlords could have cared less, seeing armed monks as blasphemy in and of itself. At any rate, this served as protection from ordinary soldiers, not rival sohei with their own rival divine beliefs (and carrying their own mikoshi).

History of the Sohei
Origins
In the 10th century, the Emperor and his government still retained a great deal of power. This power included the authority to appoint which monk would run a particular temple. However, the factional divisions within Buddhist monks and the simple realities of palace politics meant that a member of one faction could be appointed as the head of a temple controlled by a rival faction.

This, of course, did not go down very well.

Protests began. Eventually, there were protests of this nature which ended in brawls in the streets, accompanied by fatalities. A dispute between two shrines led to the establishment of a standing army of monks at the Yasaka Shrine in Kyoto. This led to a warrior monk arms race, if you will, as disputes over appointments, and the personal honor of the leaders of various religious complexes, broke out into limited armed conflict.

These disputes expanded at times, but at others, were prone to long periods of complete peace. Nonetheless, new grievances arose and once again, even larger armies of sohei dueled with each other. Finally, in 1121, the Mii-dera complex was burned to the ground by monks from Enryaku-ji. (And in 1141, they came back and did it again!) Other temples became embroiled into conflicts, and the Mii-dera and Enryaku-ji rivals joined forces against other powerful temples.

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The Genpei War
Sohei were combatants on both sides of the “Genpei” civil conflict. Thus, monks who would have gladly fought for themselves were fighting rivals working for the other side. The temples of losing factions were burned to the ground in retaliation for defiance. Overall, these stories were footnotes as part of the grander conflict that produced the shogunate.

The Peak of Sohei Influence
The 13th and 14th centuries were as good as it got for sohei. Though they first had to rebuild, physically as well as politically, the mere existence of the sohei helped the temples get what they wanted from the shogunate without violence. Furthermore, they were able to stay largely aloof during other civil disputes of the time. This meant they could husband their economic and military resources and remain bastions of power, untamed by secular forces, and simply not worth the trouble to humble.

Put another way, deliberate attempts to use appointments to debilitate strongly established factions tapered off. There was less need to protest, and less reason to fight each other.

Notwithstanding this, the rise of Zen, and the support given to Zen by the Ashikaga shogunate, gave rise to new conflicts, with the established temples seeking to defend their power and influence from the upstarts.​

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