ABSTRACT
In the sixteenth century in Japan one of the greatest powers was the Monto sect of Buddhists. One Japanese historian remarks that though strife between the secular and religious powers is a characteristic of Christian kingdoms, yet those who say that it has never existed in Japan must be ignorant of the history of that country. This is true enough, for in Japan the great monasteries have always tended to accumulate possessions owing to the freedom from taxation and control by the civil governors that they enjoyed, and the right they had of affording refuge to those who wished to escape from the oppression of the competitive world outside. These rights needed guarding in a land like Japan, where the military were not much inclined to be frightened by the ghostly terrors with which the monks tried to threaten them, and so the soldier monk consequently eventuated. Since the temples had so much property there would be no lack of volunteers for the honour of guarding it, and the great groups of temples like Hieizan and Nara (Tendai and Ritsu sects), and later the Amida and Nichiren sects, not to speak of the Shingon of Koya and Negoro, not only resisted the military government, but fought viciously among themselves, in all cases for loaves and fishes, or fish and saké rather, and not for any particular belief in the efficacy of their doctrines, except perhaps in the case of Nichiren, the only really bigoted sect, with a bible and drums complete. The Monto sect was particularly popular because it made no great demands on its believers either ethically or intellectually, while its priests were permitted to marry and hand down their temples and eat fish and live just like any layman. So great did the power of this sect become that in about 1529 it is said to have plotted to put Shônyo Shonin, Lord Abbot of the Hongwanji, on the throne, and his military commander Shimotsuma into the place of the Shogun, though it did not succeed any better than the famous usurping monk Dôkyo in the eighth century.
