Japan's
being the "Land of Great Peace," and Buddhism's being necessarily gentle
and non-resistant, we find in the chequered history of the island empire
many a bloody battle between the monks on horseback and in armor.[39]
Rival sectarians kept the country disquieted for years. Between
themselves and their favored laymen, and the enemy, consisting of the
rival forces, lay and clerical, in like array, many a bloody battle was
fought.

The writer lived for one year in Echizen, which, in the fifteenth
century, was the battle-ground for over fifty years, of warring monks.
The abbot of the Monastery of the Original Vow, of the Shin sect, in
Ki[=o]to, had built before the main edifice a two-storied gate, which
was expected to throw into the shade every other gateway in Japan, and
especially to humble the pride of the monks of the Tendai sect, in
Hiyeizan, The monks of the mountain, swarming down into the capital
city, attacked the gate and monastery of the Shin sect and burned the
former to ashes. The abbot thus driven off by fire, fled northward, and,
joined by a powerful body of adherents, made himself possessor of the
rich provinces of Kaga and Echizen, holding this region for half a
century, until able to rebuild the mighty fortress-monasteries near
Ki[=o]to and at Osaka.

These strongholds of the fighting Shin priests had become so powerful as
arsenals and military headquarters, that in 1570, Nobunaga, skilful
general as he was, and backed by sixty thousand men, was unsuccessful in
his attempt to reduce them. For ten years, the war between Nobunaga and
the Shin sectarians kept the country in disorder. It finally ended in
the conflagration of the great religious fortress at Osaka, and the
retreat of the monks to another part of the country. By their treachery
and incendiarism, the shavelings prevented the soldiers from enjoying
the prizes.

To detail the whole history of the fighting monks would be tedious. They
have had a foothold for many centuries and even to the present time, in
every province except that of Satsuma. There, because they treacherously
aided the great Hideyoshi to subdue the province, the fiery clansmen,
never during Tokugawa days, permitted a Buddhist priest to come.[40]

Literature, and Education.

In its literary and scholastic development, Japanese Buddhism on its
popular educational side deserves great praise. Although the Buddhist
canon[41] was never translated into the vernacular,[42]