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Extracts from his sermons were printed on an amulet and distributed among worshippers, who grew so numerous and so zealous that the wealth of the sect became enormous, and its leaders did not hesitate to provide themselves with an armed following. Finally the monks of Hiei-zan swept down on Hongwan-ji, applied the torch to the great temple, and compelled the abbot, Kenju, to fly for his life.
Thereafter, Harumoto quarrels with the Hongwan-ji bonzes, and being attacked by them, obtains the aid of Rokkaku Sadayori and the Nichiren priests, with the result that the splendid fane of Hongwan-ji is reduced to ashes. A reconciliation is then effected between Harumoto and the shogun, Yoshiharu, while Miyoshi Masanaga is appointed to high office.
The defence was admitted by Hideyoshi, but the abbot Kennyo received such large rewards that he was able to erect the great temple Nishi Hongwan-ji, "which became the wonder of after-generations of men and which has often been erroneously referred to by foreign writers as a proof of the deep religious feelings of Buddhist converts three hundred years ago."* *A New Life of Hideyoshi, by W. Dening.
Therefore, from the latter's point of view he was a renegade, and while vehemently attacking the creed of his youth, he had acquired power and influence that placed the Hongwan-ji almost on a level with the great Hiei-zan. Kenju possessed extraordinary eloquence.
Soon the Miyoshi brothers, Motonaga and Masanaga, engage in a fierce quarrel about their inheritance, and the former, with Yoshikore as candidate for the shogunate and Hatakeyama as auxiliary, raises the standard against Harumoto, who, aided by the soldier-priests of Hongwan-ji, kills both Yoshitaka and Motonaga and takes Yoshikore prisoner.
At Osaka where in 1532 the priests of the Hongwan-ji temple had built a castle which Nobunaga captured in 1580 only after a long and severe siege, Hideyoshi built what is called The Castle of Osaka. It is a colossal fortress, which is still used as military headquarters for garrison and arsenal, and the dimensions of which are still a wonder, though only a portion of the building survives.
The Asai sept received assistance from no less than ten temples in Omi; the Asakura family had the ranks of its soldiers recruited from monasteries in Echizen and Kaga; the Saito clan received aid from the bonzes in Izumi and Iga, and the priests of the great temple Hongwan-ji in Osaka were in friendly communication with the Mori sept in the west, with the Takeda in Kai, and with the Hojo in Sagami.
Very soon, however, the Hosokawa chief fell out with his cassocked allies. But he did not venture to take the field against them single handed. The priests of the twenty-one Nichiren temples in Kyoto, old enemies of the Ikko, were incited to attack the Hongwan-ji in Osaka. This is known in history as the Hokke-ikki, Hokke-shu being the name of the Nichiren sect.
Nothing now remains of all this grandeur except some of the gates and other decorative parts of the structure, which were given to the builders of the temples of Hongwan-ji after the destruction of the Juraku-tei when Hidetsugu and his whole family died under the sword as traitors.
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