Rennyo
Rennyo (蓮如?)(1415-1499) was a pivotal leader of the Jodo Shinshu sect of Buddhism (a.k.a. Ikko sect), as well as an inspiration for the Ikko-ikki revolts in which mobs of low-level samurai, peasants and farmers launched organized attacks on their feudal rulers. He was also known as Shinso-in, and posthumously Kenju Daishi.
Life
In 1457, Rennyo succeeded his father as head of Kyoto's rundown Honganji, and began active missionary work in Omi Province leading to a dramatic revival in the temple's fortunes. However his promotion of the unorthodox Jodo Shinshu form of Buddhism offended the older Tendai temples, and Rennyo was forced to flee to Omi when the Honganji was attacked by Enryakuji monks in 1465.
Following his ancestor Shinran, Rennyo promoted belief in the saving grace of Amida Buddha and taught that there was no need for any religious practice beyond saying the nembutsu in gratitude. This meant that his teachings particularly appealed to peasants and farmers, many of whom would later form the Ikko-ikki (single-minded leagues) and rebel against the feudal noble class.
Forced to flee attack again in 1471 Rennyo traveled to Yoshizaki, where he built a popular temple which attracted many peasant converts from the region.
Five years later, he returned to the Kyoto area, establishing new Honganji branch temples. During this time, Rennyo established a new form of liturgy (gongyo), incorporating elements that would eventually become the core of Honganji Shinshu Buddhism. He also rewrote many Buddhist texts into kana, the simple, phonetic Japanese characters, making the texts more accessible for the common person.
Meanwhile, the broader Ikko movement, being based so much on the power of the common people, governed itself, and grew of its own accord, growing in influence in Kaga and Echizen Provinces, and becoming increasingly resentful of the control of the secular authorities. In 1488, they drove out the Constable of Kaga, a man by the name of Togashi, and effectively took control of the entire province. The Ikko-ikki then went on to defeat the Asakura clan warriors from Echizen, who had been sent by the Shogunate to stop them.
Rennyo's Legacy
Such was Rennyo's importance in reviving Shinran's teachings that he is revered by devotees as the 'second founder' of the Jodo Shinshu tradition. His pastoral letters, known as the Gobunsho or Ofumi, are frequently read out at Jodo Shinshu services. At the same time, however, there is ongoing low-level debate amongst sectarian scholars as to whether Rennyo's legacy was good for the Jodo Shinshu or not. On the one hand Rennyo gave the disorganized Shinshu movement a coherent structure, translated Shinran's teachings into simpler language, and developed a common liturgy. On the other hand the process of institutionalisation which Rennyo introduced arguably damaged Shin's egalitarian origins and led to a disjunction between priest-scholars and lay-devotees contrary to Shinran's intention. Furthermore Rennyo undoubtedly introduced certain doctrinal elements of the rival Seizan Jodo tradition into the Shinshu, and also tolerated Shinto Kami belief to a greater extent than Shinran. Ultimately though such debates are moot as without Rennyo's efforts the Shinshu would almost certainly have fragmented and been absorbed by other sects. (- see Dobbins & Rogers references below.)
References
- Kyoto National Museum (website, 1998) "Rennyo and Hongan-ji: History and Fine Arts." Accessed 30 Dec 2004.
- Sansom, George (1961). 'A History of Japan 1334-1615.' Stanford, California: Stanford University Press.
- Dobbins, James C. (2002). 'Jodo Shinshu: Shin Buddhism in Medieval Japan', Hawaii University Press
- Rogers, Minor, 'Rennyo', Nanzan Studies in Asian Religions
