Professor Medieval History, Leiden University
Comparisons between the so-called new Buddhisms of Medieval Japan and the Reformation are an old staple in scholarship. They have been rightfully criticized. Still, all forms of comparison may not be methodologically illegitimate, or fruitless. One of the sects originating in Japan’s thirteenth century, in particular its relationship to armed violence and to the functional equivalent of the European notion of “the world” can be juxtaposed to, and made more understandable thanks to, Late Medieval and Early Modern “Western” configurations. This talk will present and explore comparatively the ikkō ikki movement, militant provincial coalitions of small warriors, peasants, and itinerants, which in the course of the sixteenth century morphed into a school, jōdoshin-shū (True Pureland Buddhism).
