Adolphson's book offers a sophisticated yet accessible account of premodern Japanese warriors who were affiliated with important Buddhist monastic centers. His primary aim is to situate these warriors within their proper historical and social contexts, while decrying the tendency of modern scholars to anachronistically label them sōhei (literally “monk‐warrior”). Adolphson argues that such figures had more in common with secular warriors than with Buddhist clergy, so it is wrong to call them “monks.” Further, Adolphson contends that premodern Japanese monastic warfare had less to do with Buddhist institutional developments than with the broader “militarization” of Japanese society. Finally, he demonstrates that the term sōhei itself did not appear until the eighteenth century, as part of contemporary drives to standardize and stigmatize the image of the fighting monk as against new classes of powerful warlords. By and large, Adolphson's arguments here are convincing, and his sociohistorical contextualization of Japanese monastic violence sheds valuable light on the phenomenon. However, his insistence on the inseparability of secular and monastic warfare and warriors begs many questions about religious identity in premodern Japan. First and foremost, if we accept Adolphson's claims that these “monastic warriors” were not really monks, even if contemporary sources labeled them as such, then what exactly did it mean to be a monk in premodern Japan? And in general, Adolphson largely overlooks the religious dimensions of monastic violence in this study. Nevertheless, this is a truly fascinating book that deserves the close attention of any reader interested in Buddhism and war.
