Hongan-ji (本願寺, Temple of the Primal Vow ), also archaically romanized as Hongwanji, is the collective name of the largest school of Jōdo Shinshū Buddhism (which further sub-divides into the Nishi and Higashi branches). 'Hongan-ji' may also refer to any one of several actual temple buildings associated with the sect. Nishi Honganji (西本願寺) and Higashi Honganji (東本願寺) are two major temples in Kyoto. [1] [2]
The Hongan-ji was established as a temple in 1321, on the site of the Ōtani Mausoleum, where Shinran, the founder of the Jōdo Shinshū ("True Pure Land") was buried. The mausoleum was attended by Shinran's grandson (through daughter Kakushinni), Kakue. [3] Kakue's own son, Kakunyo, became the first chief priest of the Hongan-ji and third monshu (spiritual leader), and dedicated it to the worship of Amitābha (Amida). The Hongan-ji first gained power and importance in the 15th century, when Rennyo became its eighth monshu. However, the Tendai sect based on Mount Hiei saw this expansion as a threat and attacked the Hongan-ji three times with its army of sōhei. Rennyo fled to Yoshizaki-gobō, where he established a new temple compound.
During the Sengoku period, fearing the power of the monks of the Hongan-ji, Oda Nobunaga tried to destroy it. For ten years, he laid siege to the Ishiyama Hongan-ji in Osaka, one of the two primary temple fortresses of the sect. In 1580, the abbot of the Ishiyama Hongan-ji, Kennyo, surrendered, while his son Kyōnyo refused to surrender, for which he was publicly disowned. [4]
After the death of Nobunaga in 1582 and the ascent of Toyotomi Hideyoshi, Kennyo was rewarded for his opposition to Shibata Katsuie by being granted land in Kyoto, at the site of modern-day Nishi Hongan-ji (西本願寺, "Western Hongan-ji"; sometimes called the Honpa Hongan-ji 本派本願寺). He was succeeded by his legitimate son, Junnyo, as abbot in 1592. While his brother Kyōnyo re-established the Osaka Hongan-ji in 1596 with local support, owing to his refusal to surrender to Nobunaga earlier. After the death of Hideyoshi in 1598, Kyōnyo openly supported Tokugawa Ieyasu, who became shōgun in 1602. In reward for his loyalty, Kyōnyo was rewarded with land for a temple in Kyoto to the east of Nishi Honganji, which then became known in 1603 as Higashi Honganji (東本願寺 "Eastern Hongan-ji"). In 1619 the government recognized the two entities as separate congregations. It is popularly believed, however mistakenly, that the institution was split in two in order to maintain control of the order. [5] [6]
Formally known as the Jodo-Shinshu Honganji-ha, it is the largest of all the Jodo Shinshu branches. Compared with the Higashi Hongan-ji, it has a history of institutional stability that accounts for high membership figures, and a larger geographical reach, but fewer well-known modern thinkers. The Nishi Hongan-ji has a sizable number of overseas temples in the United States, South America, Hawai'i, Canada, and Europe which are organized into several kyodan ("districts"). The largest of these is the Buddhist Churches of America.
The Hongwanji International Center, to the east of Nishi Hongan-ji, coordinates dialogue with Jōdo Shinshū organizations around the world and produces translation work.
The Nishi Hongan-ji operates the Hongwanji Publishing Company [7] which produces books, music, films, and anime about Jōdo Shinshū Buddhism. They also publish a bimonthly newspaper, the Hongwanji Journal and their website includes, among other things, a TV channel devoted to explaining Buddhism and Hongan-ji's everyday operations.
Higashi Hongan-ji is one of the two dominant subsects of Jōdo Shinshū, the other being the Nishi Honganji.
During the Meiji Restoration in the 1860s, the government set down new guidelines for the management of religious organizations. An organization called Ōtani-ha was put in control of Higashi Hongan-ji. In 1987, this temple was renamed Shinshū Honbyō "Shinshū Mausoleum", although the earlier name is still used. The buildings have not been changed or moved, and of course the historical cultural and religious significance of the place has not changed.
Due to opposition to the creation of the Ōtani-ha, and a number of other controversies and disputes such as the Ohigashi schism, several new Higashi Hongan-ji branches came into existence such as the Higashiyama Hongan-ji, founded in Kyoto in 1996 by Otani Korin, and the Tokyo Higashi Hongan-ji, whose current leader is Otani Koken. Despite, or perhaps even because of, this climate of instability, the Higashi Hongan-ji movement has also produced a significant number of controversial but influential thinkers, such as Soga Ryōjin, Kiyozawa Manshi, Kaneko Daiei and Akegarasu Haya, amongst others.
The largest Higashi Hongan-ji grouping, the Ōtani-ha has approximately 5.5 million members, according to statistics. [8]
In recent years some members of the Honganji sects have been involved in high-profile protests against the visits of Japanese politicians to the controversial Yasukuni Shrine.
Along with the other non-Honganji Jōdo Shinshū subsects, the Honganji issued a statement opposing the 2003 invasion of Iraq.
The Shinshū Honbyō, the mausoleum of Shinran, is now owned by the Ōtani-ha but is still commonly called Higashi Hongan-ji (東本願寺) by Kyoto visitors and locals. The massive Goei-dō (also known as Mie-dō), or Founder's Hall Gate, is often one of the first things one sees walking north from JR Kyōto Station. Nearly identical to the Nishi Hongan-ji head temple in layout, it too features an Amida-dō, and a larger Mie-dō. The Mie-dō at Higashi Hongan-ji dates from 1895 and vies with a number of other structures for the claim of largest wooden building in the world.
A few blocks from the main grounds of the Higashi Hongan-ji is the Shosei-en garden, owned by the temple. Poet-scholar Ishikawa Jozan and landscape architect Kobori Masakazu are said to have contributed to its design in the 17th century.
The Nishi Honganji, like the Higashi Honganji, features a huge Goeidō (御影堂), Kaisando and a smaller Amida-dō (阿弥陀堂) or Amitābha hall housing an image of Amitābha. Nishi Hongan-ji's Kura (倉), or storehouse, houses many National Treasures, most of which are not on view for the public. The shoin (書院), or study hall, is also quite famous; it is split into two sections, the shiro-shoin(白書院), or white study hall, and the kuro-shoin(黒書院), or black study hall.
Nishi Hongan-ji also contains a large shōgun complex from the medieval period, which was largely moved into the temple from elsewhere in Kyoto in the 16th century. This includes Hiunkaku (飛雲閣), a large tea pavilion, four Noh stages, one of which is thought to be the oldest in existence and the other being the largest outdoor Noh stage, and the Kokei no Niwa (虎渓の庭) garden.
Some medieval parts of Nishi Hongan-ji are now independent organizations: Ryukoku University and Kōshō-ji.
Shinran was a Japanese Buddhist monk, who was born in Hino at the turbulent close of the Heian Period and lived during the Kamakura Period. Shinran was a pupil of Hōnen and the founder of what ultimately became the Jōdo Shinshū sect of Japanese Buddhism.
Jōdo Shinshū, also known as Shin Buddhism or True Pure Land Buddhism, is a school of Pure Land Buddhism founded by the former Tendai Japanese monk Shinran.
Count Ōtani Kōzui was a Japanese Buddhist leader and explorer who was the 22nd Abbot of Nishi Hongan-ji and the head of the Honganji-ha sect of Buddhism. He is known for expeditions to Buddhist sites in Central Asia, such as Subashi. His Buddhist name was Kyōnyo (鏡如).
Rennyo was the 8th Monshu of the Hongan-ji Temple of the Jōdo Shinshū sect of Buddhism, and descendant of founder Shinran. Jodo Shinshu Buddhists often referred to him as the restorer of the sect. He was also known as Shinshō-in (信証院), and posthumously Etō Daishi (慧灯大師). During the conflict and welter of the Ōnin War and the subsequent warfare that spread throughout Japan, Rennyo was able to unite most of the disparate factions of the Jodo Shinshu sect under the Hongan-ji, reform existing liturgy and practices, and broaden support among different classes of society. Through Rennyo's efforts, Jodo Shinshu grew to become the largest, most influential Buddhist sect in Japan.
Ikkō-ikki were rebellious or autonomous groups of people that were formed in several regions of Japan in the 15th-16th centuries; backed up by the power of the Jōdo Shinshū sect of Buddhism, they opposed the rule of governors or daimyō. Mainly consisting of priests, peasants, merchants and local lords who followed the sect, they sometimes associated with non-followers of the sect. They were at first organized to only a small degree; if any single person could be said to have had any influence over them it was Rennyo, the leader of the Jōdo Shinshū Hongan-ji sect at that time. Whilst he may have used the religious fervour of the Ikkō-ikki in the defence of his temple settlements, he was also careful to distance himself from the wider social rebellion of the Ikkō movement as a whole, and from offensive violence in particular.
Jōdo-shū, also known as Jōdo Buddhism, is a branch of Pure Land Buddhism derived from the teachings of the Japanese ex-Tendai monk Hōnen. It was established in 1175 and is the most widely practiced branch of Buddhism in Japan, along with Jōdo Shinshū. In the general classification of Buddhism in Japan, the Jōdo-shū, the Jōdo Shinshu, the Ji-shu and the Yuzu Nembutsu shu are collectively classified into the lineage of Jōdo Buddhism.
Ikkō-shū (一向宗) or "single-minded school" is usually viewed as a small, militant offshoot from Jōdo Shinshū Buddhism, though the name has a complex history.
Higashi Hongan-ji (東本願寺), or, "the Eastern Monastery of the Original Vow", is one of two dominant sub-sects of Shin Buddhism in Japan and abroad, the other being Nishi Honganji. It is also the name of the head temple of the Ōtani-ha branch of Jōdo Shinshū in Kyoto, which was most recently constructed in 1895 after a fire burned down the previous temple. As with many sites in Kyoto, these two complexes have more casual names and are known affectionately in Kyoto as Onissan and Ohigashisan.
Nishi Hongan-ji (西本願寺) is a Jōdo Shinshū Buddhist temple in the Shimogyō ward of Kyoto, Japan. It serves as the head temple of the sub-sect Honganji-ha.
The Ohigashi schism (お東騒動) was a religious schism in the Ōtani-ha subsect of the Jōdo Shinshū school of Buddhism that occurred in 1969 after a reformist group created internal divisions.
Yamashina Mido, also known as Yamashina Hongan-ji (山科本願寺), 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.
The Monshu (門主), or keeper of the gate is a term sometimes used in Japanese Buddhism to denote the head of a monastery, as in the case of Jōdo-shū and Tendai Buddhism, but in the case of the Nishi Hongan-ji sub-sect of Jōdo Shinshū Buddhism, it refers to the spiritual leader of the sect, and direct descendant of its founder Shinran.
Hōonkō (報恩講) is a holiday in the Jodo Shinshu tradition of Buddhism which commemorates the death of its founder, Shinran Shonin. Depending on whether the old Japanese lunar calendar is used, or the western Gregorian calendar, typically this holiday is observed either in around 28 November or early January from the 9th to the 16th respectively. This holiday is among the most important observed in the Jodo Shinshu tradition. The observance began after Shinran's youngest daughter, Kakushinni (覚信尼, 1224-1283), assumed administration of Shinran's mausoleum, a duty later inherited by her descendants, who ultimately became the Monshu of Jodo Shinshu. In the word hōonkō; 'hōon' means "return of gratitude" and 'ko' means "to clarify the meaning of" or "gathering"'.
The Shōshinge (正信偈) or The Hymn of True Faith was written by the founder of Jōdo Shinshū Buddhism, Shinran. It consists of an outline of the Pure Land teaching according to Shinran's personal interpretation. The structure is as follows:
The Jodo Shinshu Buddhist Temples of Canada, formerly the Buddhist Churches of Canada, are a group of temples and fellowships that are affiliated with the Nishi Hongan-ji of Kyoto, Japan, the mother temple of the Jodo Shinshu sect of Buddhism.
Ōtani-ha is a Japanese Buddhist movement. It belongs to Jōdo Shinshū, also known as Shin Buddhism. The movement has approximately 5.5 million members.
Jodo Shinshu Hongwanji-ha, or more commonly Jodo Shinshu Honganji-ha, is a Japanese Buddhist organization. It is a sub-sect within Jodo Shinshu. Its head temple is Nishi Hongan-ji. It is the largest Jodo Shinshu sub-sect, the second largest being Otani-ha.
The Hongan-ji Nagoya Betsuin (本願寺派名古屋別院) is a Jōdo Shinshū Buddhist temple located in Naka ward, Nagoya in central Japan.
Sonyu Ōtani was a Japanese Shin Buddhist priest and politician who served as a member of the House of Peers of the Diet of Japan and once as a cabinet minister.