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FOUR The Teeth and Claws of the Buddha Noble Monks and Monk-Commanders In his 1974 opus on the rise of the warrior class, Jeffrey P. Mass asserted that it was the noble commanders, whom he described as “bridging figures ,” who played the most crucial role in linking the provincial warriors to the capital elites. In short, whereas warriors had been prominent members of local society for much of the Heian age, it was only through the leadership of nobles, who became commanders over groups of local warriors (sometimes referred to as bushidan by historians), that armed men were brought into the foreground of national politics.1 Likewise violent elements had always been present in the monasteries and religious estates, but only when the monk-commanders emerge in the late eleventh and twelfth centuries do we see monastic forces joining the factional frays of the capital . If, as shown in the previous chapter, the monastic forces were largely comprised of menials among the clergy and warriors from the estates in the provinces, then whence came their commanders? Are these the figures that best correspond to the received image of the sōhei? To address these questions , it will be useful to explore the careers of several monk-commanders as they have come down to us in the sources. The Belligerent Monks of Mt. Hiei Jōjin (1037–1118) was one of the most belligerent monks of Shirakawa’s era. He was the son of Fujiwara no Yoshisada, a mid-ranking member of the Northern Fujiwara, who served as governor of Bingo Province in the 1040s and early 1050s.2 The family had a history of pursuing ambitious careers, but met with little success owing to its comparatively low status within the 88 the teeth and claws of the buddha Fujiwara. Jōjin took Buddhist vows on Mt. Hiei, perhaps in hope of escaping the limitations of his family, but even as a cleric his promotion through the ranks was fairly slow. Despite counting two of Enryakuji’s most influential leaders among his teachers—Genshin, the famous author of Essentials of Salvation, and Shōhan, both of whom served as head abbots—Jōjin only reached the level of preceptor in 1085, at the age of 47.3 This belated promotion did, however, allow him to participate in ceremonies performed for the imperial court, such as the Godan-no-hō in 1092, with regent Morozane in attendance, and the following year with the new regent Moromichi. Late in 1095 he was promoted to minor assistant prelate (gon no shō sōzu) in reward for his services. In fact, he appears to have been so busy in the capital that he did not return to Enryakuji for four or five years prior to this promotion.4 But Jōjin began to pay increasing attention to matters on Mt. Hiei soon after his promotion early in 1096, when he became involved in a dispute over the abbotship of Saitō, one of the three main sections of Enryakuji, where his teachers had served as abbots before becoming Tendai heads. Jōjin had been dismayed at the selection of the previous abbot, which may have contributed to his decision to remain in the capital for several years. Now, with that abbot gone, he saw an opportunity to himself become head of Saitō, and he suddenly ascended the mountain to confront his opposition . Battles ensued until the Tendai head abbot, Ninkaku, stepped in to award the prestigious abbotship to Eijun, a non-ranking monk of Jōjin’s own cohort. There was more than just religious politics behind this decision . The head abbot was well connected among the capital nobles—he was a descendant of Michinaga’s line of the Fujiwara and the uncle of the chancellor Moromichi (1062–1099). The latter, in particular, disliked Jōjin, whose family was in general on poor terms with the Regent’s. At one point, Moromichi’s grandfather (Yorimichi, 992–1074) referred to Jōjin’s branch as a family “with evilness deeply rooted in their hearts.”5 One can certainly not deny that Jōjin was ambitious, but it is the intensification of the factional tensions that deserves our attention more than the monk himself. Contemporary diaries call the clashes he was involved in “battles” (kassen), which suggests a new level of violence, strategies, and leadership compared to skirmishes that occurred earlier in the eleventh century. Following his initial failure to wrest control of Saitō through force of...

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