'Nobunaga Is an Enemy of the Buddha': Why Kennyo Started a Ten-Year War

On September 12, 1570 (the twelfth of the ninth month of Genki 1), at Ishiyama in Settsu Province (the modern Chūō Ward of Ōsaka City, the ground of Ōsaka Castle).

The Hongan-ji eleventh head Kennyo issued a call to the adherents of the provinces.

'Nobunaga is an enemy of the Buddha; if we do not strike him down, there will be no other way' — a declaration of war designating Oda Nobunaga as an enemy of the Buddha and calling on all the Jōdo Shinshū adherents across the country to armed uprising.

Kennyo was twenty-seven. The ten-year Ishiyama War that would follow begins here.

The Hongan-ji organization of the time was a religious institution in Japan and, at the same time, an effectively armed force.

The adherent organizations spread across the Kinki, Hokuriku, and Tōkai regions were estimated in the several hundreds of thousands, and in Kaga Province an effectively autonomous state by the adherents (Ikkō-ikki) had lasted for nearly a century since 1488.

Ishiyama Hongan-ji itself was a fortified castle-complex, and held its own navy and gun corps.

It was 'another power' that dealt on equal terms with the Sengoku daimyō.

The conflict between Nobunaga and Hongan-ji was not merely religious suppression but a fundamental question over ruling authority.

Nobunaga's conception of realm-unification aimed at nationwide rule by a unified secular power.

The existing order, in which religious forces held their own force and territory, collided head-on with this conception.

As of 1570, Nobunaga had already gone to Kyoto (1568) with Ashikaga Yoshiaki in tow and was attacking Asakura Yoshikage and Azai Nagamasa.

Confrontation with Hongan-ji was in the state of things unavoidable.

Kennyo's call to arms declared that Nobunaga was planning the destruction of Hongan-ji, and ordered the adherents of the provinces to armed uprising.

The adherents of Kinki, Hokuriku, Ise, and Mikawa rose one after another, and Nobunaga's fronts expanded at a stroke.

The Nagashima Ikkō-ikki in Ise, the Mikawa Ikkō-ikki, the Echizen Ikkō-ikki, the Kaga adherent state — these acted in concert and encircled Nobunaga.

For the next ten years, Nobunaga would keep fighting Hongan-ji as one of his greatest enemies.