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gional warlords, those with sufficient forces, joined by religious strongholds
in the countryside, participated actively in the wars to defend their
assets. In addition, local warriors and peasants gathered under the banner
of new populist sects, though rarely in monk robes, to fight in the name of
the Buddhist savior to oppose oppressive rule by warrior leaders during
this turmoil.
Toward the end of the sixteenth century, Japan was gradually pacified
by a few powerful warlords who, interestingly, targeted the most powerful
and independent monasteries first in their efforts to subdue the opponents to
a centralized state. The attacks on and destruction of the last monastic
strongholds of Enryakuji in 1571 and Negoroji in 1585 effectively signified
the end of the religious forces, as Japan was subsequently restructured into a
peaceful and pacified society with the establishment of the third warrior government,
the Tokugawa bakufu. The sôhei were thus extinguished, although
some temples continued to display the martial skills of the naginata for some
time. More important, they remained a part of the cultural production of
subsequent centuries, often blamed for the decline of the imperial government
prior to 1600 by later scholars. Today, armed monks, without exception
in their mythical form, still appear in popular culture both in Japan and
the United States, be it in historical dramas or animated comic books.
Mikael Adolphson
See also Folklore in the Martial Arts; Japan; Religion and Spiritual
Development: Japan
References
Adolphson, Mikael. 2000. The Gates of Power: Monks, Courtiers and
Warriors in Premodern Japan. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press.
Arai Takashige. 1990. Chûsei akutô no kenkyû (A study of evil bands in the
Middle Ages). Tokyo: Yoshikawa kôbunkan.
Hioki Shôichi. 1934. Nihon sôhei kenkyû (A study of Japan’s monkwarriors).
Tokyo: Heibonsha.
Hirata Toshiharu. 1986. “Nanto hokurei no akusô ni tsuite” (Concerning
the evil monks of Nara and Kyoto). In Heian jidai (The Heian Age).
Vol. 3 of Ronshû Nihon bukkyô shi. (The collective works of the history
of Japanese Buddhism). Edited by Hiraoka Jôkai. Tokyo: Yûzankaku
shuppan, 261–295.
———. 1965. Sôhei to bushi (Monk-warriors and warriors). Tokyo: Nihon
kyôbunsha.
Katsuno Ryûshin. 1966. Sôhei (Monk-warriors). Tokyo: Shibundô.
Kuroda Toshio. 1980. Jisha seiryoku: Mô hitotsu chûsei no shakai (The
secular power of temples and shrines: yet another medieval society).
Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten.
McCullough, Helen. 1988. The Tale of the Heike. Stanford: Stanford
University Press.
———. 1987. Yoshitsune. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Nagashima Fukutarô. 1980. Nara-ken no rekishi (The history of Nara
prefecture). Tokyo: Yamakawa shuppansha.
Warrior Monks, Japanese/Sôhei 663