Martial Arts Of The World - Webs

Japan. Variation by region and social class was the rule. One cannot even
say with certainty when martial arts began. Some recent scholars suggest
that codified systems of martial art were not developed until the seventeenth
century, when Tokugawa peace and social regulation prompted the
appearance of a class of professional instructors. It is more widely assumed
that systematic martial training developed throughout the thirteenth to seventeenth
centuries, as warrior families (buke [71]) fought one another for
governmental authority, and attained maturity during the following two
centuries of Tokugawa peace. Over these centuries, however, warrior families
changed so much that they cannot be identified by any consistent criteria.
Moreover, warrior families (however defined) never monopolized
military arts. The centuries of unrest preceding Tokugawa rule saw organized
fighting units among other social strata, such as shrine militia (jinin
[72]), monastic legions (a.k.a. warrior monks, sôhei [73]), criminal gangs
(akutô [74]), naval raiders (a.k.a. pirates, wakô [75]), and peasant rebels
(ikki [76]). Even after clergy and peasants were disarmed, Tokugawaperiod
regulations could not confine martial arts just to officially designated
samurai [77] (i.e., senior members of each domain’s military government).
Martial arts proliferated among warriors who lacked samurai status
(e.g., ashigara [78], kachi [79]), townsmen (chônin [80]), rural warriors
(gôshi [81]), and in many cases among peasants. Naturally, between different
populations the goals, techniques, and training methods of martial curriculums
would not have been the same.
The religious scene was no less varied. A few developments selected almost
at random can illustrate this point. Exclusive (Ikkô [82]) Pure Land
Buddhism grew from an outlawed heretical sect in the thirteenth century
into Japan’s largest denomination, possessing armed forces capable of ruling
several provinces in the sixteenth century. In 1571 Mt. Hiei [83], the nation’s
most powerful Buddhist center, lost its domination over religious discourse
when Oda Nobunaga [84] (1534–1582) set it ablaze and killed tens
of thousands of Mt. Hiei’s priests, soldiers, craftsmen, women, and children.
Next, Oda defeated the Ikkô forces. In the 1590s, Christianity boasted of
300,000 converts, including major warlords (e.g., Ôtomo [85], Ômura [86],
Arima [87]) whose armies fought under the sign of the cross, but rigorous
persecution eliminated it within a century. In the early 1600s, the first Tokugawa
ruler (shôgun [88]), Ieyasu [89] (1542–1616), was deified as the Great
Avatar Shining over the East (Tôshô Dai Gongen [90]), a title signifying that
he had become the divine Buddhist protector of Japan. Subsequent regulation
of religious activities prompted the most rapid proliferation of Buddhist
temples in Japan’s history. Ironically, this Buddhist expansion prompted
growing anti-Buddhist sentiments among Confucian and Nativist (kokugaku
[91]) scholars. New publications of Buddhist scriptures, for example,
486 Religion and Spiritual Development: Japan