Yamashina Mido 1.8

Yamashina Mido, also known as Yamashina Hongan-ji, was a Buddhist temple in Kyoto which was used as a fortress by the Ikkō-ikki, an organization of warrior monks and lay zealots who opposed samurai rule.HistoryThe temple was founded by Rennyo, abbot of the Jōdo Shinshū sect whose preachings spurred the creation of the Ikkō-ikki. Following the 1465 destruction of the chief Jōdo Shinshū temple, the Hongan-ji in Kyoto, Rennyo spent roughly a decade in the provinces.He returned to Kyoto in 1478; the construction of the Yamashina Mido was completed in 1483, becoming the center of the Jōdo Shinshū sect. Rennyo remained there for over a decade, leaving in 1496 and traveling to the area now known as Osaka, where he would found the Ishiyama Hongan-ji.Over the next several decades, the Yamashina Mido remained the central headquarters of the sect, even as the Ishiyama Hongan-ji and the city of Osaka grew in size and prominence. In the 1530s, the Ikkō-ikki began to undertake attacks on major religious centers in the cities as other bands of Ikkō mobs had done against samurai rulers in the provinces. The mobs attacked the Nichiren Kenpon-ji in Sakai, the Kōfuku-ji and Kasuga shrines in Nara, among other sites, and incurred the ire of both clergy and lay adherents to Nichiren and other sects.