Stand by Your Founder

Abstract

Pure Land Buddhist texts and practices have been part of the fabric of Japanese Buddhism since the Nara period, but they grew to have significantly greater impact in the Kamakura period when the first independent schools of Pure Land Buddhism were founded by Hōnen and Shinran. This article looks at the evolution of ritual funeral practices carried out within the Pure Land school of Shinshū, particularly the Honganji establishment, and discusses the apparent conflict many of these practices have had with orthodox Shinshū doctrine. The core issue here is twofold: 1) the ways in which Honganji decided to participate in mortuary rites to assuage the anxiety of its lay followers and strengthen its own financial base through the revenue it generated, and 2) the degree to which these practices could be rationalized in terms of their doctrinal orthodoxy. After tracing the historical links between Pure Land Buddhism and the afterlife in Japan, the article looks at the views of Shinran as well as the interpretations of Tokugawa-period scholars who tried to issue «rulings» on where Honganji orthodoxy should stand regarding the funeral rituals performed by Shinshū priests. By the Tokugawa period, mortuary rites had come to dominate Shinshū culture, and the most common of such rites are examined here: the kue-issho, o-toki, eitai-kyō, and hōon-kō.