Did the Ikko Ikki, both in Kaga and otherwise, actually practice communalism/land redistribution?

by RuhigFliesstDerRhein
ParallelPain

Unlikely. Though it must be stated, besides the significant amount of communication Ōsaka Honganji sent to other Ikkō groups in central Japan, especially in resistance to Nobunaga, we have basically no surviving documentation on the inner workings of Ikkō Ikki realms. We can only gleam from the outside. Also I'm not really sure what you mean by "communalism/land redistribution".

Kaga was really the only Ikkō Ikki group with significant control over their province. Ikkō Ikki revolts usually took place for self-preservation, or when invited by secular powers against a rival (usually said rival had temple forces from another Buddhist sect on his side), or to prevent daimyō from ignoring temple privileges. Kaga's Ikkō Ikki started out in 1475 invited by Togashi Masachika against hist younger brother (who funnily had another Jōdo Shinshū sect on his side, just to show you how much monks even of the same school fought each other). Masachika tried to assert control over the Ikkō supporters, so they rose up another Togashi member, Yasutaka, as lord in 1488. From then on the Ikkō Ikki was the de-facto ruler of Kaga. But from what we can glimpse from external documents, besides internal quarrels and fighting for/against this or that external daimyō, the Kaga Ikkō Ikki, like other Ikkō Ikki, seem to have been more interested in preserving existing rights, like rights to the taxes on temple land, though also on aristocratic land. So while Ikkō Ikki were radical in the sense that they fought warrior rule (though only Kaga completely threw out warrior lordship and only after 1531), at the same time they were conservative in the sense that warrior lords were taking away traditional privileges, conducting census, and reassigning land but the Ikkō Ikki were trying the preserve traditional privileges. So it would be wrong to see the Ikkō Ikki as revolutionary peasants trying to create a new world order or something. In fact there were considerable number of warriors among Ikkō Ikki ranks.

We know other Ikkō (specifically the one in Mikawa) seemed to have built new temples and then claimed privileges (taxes, exemption from levies, protection) without the lord of the province having actually issued them said privileges, and it was the lord trying to take away these privileges he didn't give that led to the Ikki. So we might infer the Kaga Ikkō Ikki having done the same thing, but it's not the same thing as setting up systematic communal farming.

It should be noted that in the Sengoku, villages often were often semi-independent and self-ruling since they often could not rely on the higher-ups, who were often more of a threat than a benefit. And these villages sometimes came together to resist warrior demands or make their own demands, called Tsuchi Ikki. So while there was (most likely) no economic farming commune where the government redistributed land among everyone forced farmers to come together in groups, there was in a sense anarchist commune situation in which villages took matter, including defense, into their own hands.

After 1506 there seem to be some inner turmoil among the Ikkō Ikki ranks, culminating in outright infighting in 1531 (so not even being of the same sect prevented monks from fighting each other). For our purposes, the result of 1531 was that Ōsaka Honganji could at least issue orders and directives that were followed in Kaga. Afterwards we know Kaga, based on Honganji's orders, organized the villages it controlled into 郡 (gun "commanderies/municipals") which probably referred to the four commanderies of Kaga, 組 (kumi "team") and 講 ( "lecture*) for organizational purposes, likely to better rule and fight. But this seem to be just organizing the people of existing castles/temples/villages into such groups, not any kind of redistribution.