Encyclopedia of Buddhism Volume One A -L Robert E. Buswell

M ONGOLIA
lier than circa 1451 in Korea, 1682 in China, or 1715
in Japan. Although the term is relatively late, it can be
used to retrospectively designate earlier phenomena.
Buddhist scriptures prohibit the use of force and the
taking of life. Nonetheless, East Asian history records
many instances during times of political conflict, regional
unrest, dynastic change, or foreign invasion
when Buddhist institutions relied on armed forces to
defend their interests. During the years from 1553 to
1555, for example, Chinese monastic forces fought
alongside government troops to repel coastal raiders.
Likewise, in 1592 Korean Buddhist monks formed
armed bands to help fight invading Japanese armies.
Neither Chinese nor Korean examples, however,
have been as historically prominent or as well studied
as those of early and medieval Japan. Throughout most
of that period the institutions of secular government
in Japan derived legitimation from the divine protection
of buddhas (enshrined in temples) and local gods
(placated at shrines), while the temples and shrines engaged
in the secular activities of controlling large tracts
of land and the people who worked thereon. Beginning
in the tenth century, major shrines (such as Ise)
developed the tactic of protesting unfavorable government
actions by sending armed bands of men to the
capital, where they would parade the divine body of
the gods in front of the residences of terrified government
officials. Major Buddhist centers (Mount Hiei,
Onjoji, Kofukuji, Todaiji, etc.) soon adopted this tactic.
By the end of the eleventh century, they were
directing their armed forces not just to protest government
authorities but also to attack one another.
Mount Hiei, the main center of the Japanese Tendai
school, became infamous for its men of arms. During
the twelfth century they repeatedly attacked and
burned Onjoji, a rival Tendai center. English-language
accounts of these conflicts frequently render the term
so hei as “warrior monks,” although membership in
those armed bands was not limited to the clergy, but
consisted primarily of laborers (shuto, jinin, etc.) in
various degrees of servitude to the temples and shrines.
The warlord Oda Nobunaga (1534–1582) campaigned
to eliminate the military power of Japanese Buddhist
institutions beginning with Mount Hiei, which he
torched in 1571. His successor Toyotomi Hideyoshi
(1537–1598) successfully concluded this campaign in
1585 when he defeated the Shingon school’s stronghold
of Negoroji and eradicated monastic militias
from Japan.
See also: Hyujŏng; Martial Arts; War; Yujŏng
Bibliography
Adolphson, Mikael S. The Gates of Power: Monks, Courtiers, and
Warriors in Premodern Japan. Honolulu: University of
Hawaii Press, 2000.
Hirata Toshiharu. “Akuso ni tsuite.” In Shu kyo shakaishi
kenkyu , ed. Rissho Daigaku Shigakkai. Tokyo: Yuzankaku.
1977.
Kuroda Toshio. Jisha seiryoku: mo hitotsu no chu sei shakai.
Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 1980.
McMullin, Neil. Buddhism and the State in Sixteenth Century
Japan. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1984.
Nishigaki Harutsugu. “Ritsuryo taisei no kaitai to Ise jingu.”
Chicho 56 (1955): 37–51.
MONGOLIA
WILLIAM M. BODIFORD
In the late twelfth and early thirteenth centuries, a
confederation of Mongol tribes rose up in Outer and
Inner Mongolia under the leadership of Genghis Khan
(Chinggis Khan, named Temujin, 1162?–1227).
Though the Mongols had certainly had contact with
Buddhist neighbors (Jurchen, Tanguts, and Chinese),
Genghis continued to support indigenous shamanist
practices. However, following his death in 1227 and
the subsequent conquest of China and much of
Central and Western Asia by his sons and grandsons,
Buddhism—specifically Tibetan Buddhism—began
to have a significant impact on Mongolian concepts
of rulership and empire.
Buddhism during the Mongol Yuan dynasty
(1260–1368)
Genghis’s son Ogodei (r. 1229–1241) established a
Mongol empire that stretched from Korea (occupied
in 1238) to present-day Poland and Hungary (1241).
Ogodei’s second son, Gödan Khan, invaded Tibet several
times and in 1244 brought three prominent Tibetan
SA SKYA (SAKYA) lamas as guests (or hostages)
to his court in Liangzhou (modern Gansu province).
They were SA SKYA PAN D ITA (SAKYA PAN D ITA,
1182–1251), head of the Sa skya pa, and his two
nephews, ’Phags pa (1235–1280) and Phyag na rdo rje
(1239–1267). Under duress, Sa skya Pandita wrote a
letter to Tibet’s great nobles and lamas praising Gödan
Khan, but he also initiated him into Tibetan Bud-
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