Kyonyo (教如)
Kyonyo (6 November, 1558 - 6 November, 1614) the twelfth chief priest of the Ishiyama Hongan-ji Temple. His imina (personal name) was Koju. He was the first son of eleventh chief priest, Kennyo. He was engaged to a daughter of Yoshikage ASAKURA, but it was broken off.
When the Ishiyama War broke out against Nobunaga ODA in 1570, he helped his father and fought exhaustively against Nobunaga. But in 1580, his father tried to leave Ishiyama Hongan-ji Temple after the violent attacks by Nobunaga, accepting the Imperial order by Emperor Ogimachi to make peace. Kyonyo claimed to resist to the last and fought against Nobunaga ignoring the Imperial order for peace and shutting himself in Hongan-ji Temple, and was disowned by his father.
After that, he wandered through many regions such as Yamato Province, Omi Province, Kii Province, Yamashiro Province, Settsu Province, and Aki Province. In 1582, when Nobunaga died in the Honnoji Incident, he reconciled with his father. After Kennyo died in 1592, his first son Kyonyo tried to succeed the chief priest of Hongan-ji Temple, but Hideyoshi TOYOTOMI opposed the succession by Kyonyo with the reasons that he was once disowned by his father, he resisted exhaustively against Nobunaga in the past, and so on, and appointed Junnyo, his half-brother, as the successor. Because of this, Kyonyo could not succeed to his father's position.
However, when Ieyasu TOKUGAWA came into power after Hideyoshi's death, because of the reason that Ieyasu was once troubled by the Ikko Sect, he started to intervene in the quarrel between Kyonyo and Junnyo. Ieyasu came to support Kyonyo, and after experiencing espionage on the night before the Battle of Sekigahara (it was sensed by the Mitsunari ISHIDA side and was encountered in such a dangerous situation that he had written a farewell poem, but with the help of Hidenobu ODA and others and hard fighting by his followers, he at last returned to Kyoto), he erected Shinshu-honbyo Mausoleum in Karasuma in Shichijo in Kyoto in 1602, with Imperial sanction from the Emperor Goyozei in the background. Because of this, Hongan-ji Temple in Shichijo Horikawa, succeed by Junnyo, came to be called Nishi Hongan-ji Temple, and the religious community of Hongan-ji Temple was split into East and West.
In 1614, he died at the age of 57.