From Inspiration to Institution the Rise of Sectarian Identity in Jōdo Shinshū

From Inspiration to Institution The Rise of Sectarian Identity in Jōdo Shinshū

James C. Dobbins

When tracing their origins, religious organizations often depict themselves as springing into existence full-bodied from the inspiration of a founder.* Whatever they may claim as their starting point—revelation, enlightenment experience, charismatic leader, or what not—they consider institutional forms to be a direct extension and an immediate and inevitable result of that inspired beginning. Hence sectarian histories draw institutional conclusions from for- mative visions, and emphasize the community of believers and the religious network that coalesce around that inspiration. The rise of religious organizations, however, is generally more protracted and complicated than this. It entails an elaborate and extended evolution wherein belief systems, ceremonies and ritual, hierarchies, legitimation of authority, and institutional structure are all gradually defined. The end result is a complex constellation of religious forms that are only intimated, if included at all, in the original vision of the founder. Nonetheless, that vision functions as a causal force and sets in motion the entire evolutionary chain; it provides the raw material from which subsequent interpretations are fashioned, so that what arises later does indeed have a link to what has gone before. The intri- cate process of sectarian evolution is well exemplified in the history of Jōdo Shinshū 浄土真宗, one of the largest schools of Buddhism in Japan. Jōdo Shinshū, known more simply as Shinshū, emerged out of the teachings of Shinran 親鸞, 1173–1262, and from the band of followers he left behind. Shinran did not consider himself the founder of a school of Buddhism, nor was his following clearly distinguishable from the broader Pure Land movement originated by his teacher Hōnen 法然, 1133–1212. The entire movement arose in opposition to the organized religion of the period, the so-called eight schools of Buddhism, including Tendai 天台, Shingon 真言, and the schools as- sociated with the powerful temples of Nara. Shinran, Hōnen, and several other

Source: Dobbins, James C, “From Inspiration to Institution: The Rise of Sectarian Identity in Jōdo Shinshū,” Monumenta Nipponica 41(3) (1986): 331–343.

* The Author is assistant professor in the Department of Religion, Oberlin College. A prelimi- nary draft of the present article was presented at the General Meeting of the Association for Asian Studies at San Francisco on 26 March 1983.

© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2020 | doi:10.1163/9789004401518_016 350 Dobbins important religious figures of the Kamakura period formulated new versions of Buddhism that were more attuned to the needs of the ordinary person. These new movements, commonly known as Kamakura Buddhism, represent the full adaptation of Buddhist ideas to the religious sensibilities of the Japanese. At the same time they constituted a threat to the established authority of the traditional eight schools, and as such incurred censure and suppression at their hands. All of these circumstances militated against the emergence of Shinshū as a formal school of Buddhism. But during the two and a half centuries after Shinran’s death, his religious heirs managed to build Shinshū into a nationwide religious organization by idealizing Shinran as its founder, by distinguishing it from other Pure Land groups, by shaping a popular religious creed out of his teachings, and by winning social acceptance for the organization. In this way Shinshū was transformed into a full-fledged school of Buddhism. The rise of Shinshū occurred in spite of strong opposition from the domi- nant religious authorities. Shinran’s teachings, as well as those of the Pure Land movement as a whole, were a radical departure from the prevailing Buddhism of the period. They subverted the religious world-view promoted by such major Buddhist centers as Tendai’s Enryakuji on Mt Hiei, and consequently evoked their wrath and suppression. Shinran’s starting point was the ‘exclusive nembutsu’ (senju nembutsu 専修念仏) that he inherited from Hōnen. Hōnen advo- cated the nembutsu as the one religious act that, when practiced exclusively, could lead any sentient being to salvation. By means of it people could be born in Amida’s transcendent Pure Land ( jōdo 浄土) during their next rebirth, and there they would achieve Buddhist enlightenment quickly and easily. Shinran went a step beyond Hōnen by claiming that it is not so much the outward practice of the nembutsu that results in rebirth in the Pure Land as the state of mind lying behind it—specifically, the state of faith (shinjin 信心). Where faith exists, birth in the Pure Land is assured, even if wrongdoings or acts of ignorance continue to occur in a person’s lifetime. The implication is that all personal religious endeavors, including those of the Buddhist clergy, are extra- neous, and only faith is necessary. Hence Shinran repudiated his clerical vows by marrying and begetting a family, and he took up a life that he described as that of ‘neither priest nor layman’ (sō ni arazu zoku ni arazu 悲僧非俗). The ideas of both Hōnen and Shinran made Buddhism’s highest goals more accessible to the ordinary person, but in doing so they broke with the domi- nant form of Buddhism that idealized the cleric over the layperson and that made ethical action (kai 戒), meditation ( jō 定), and cultivation of wisdom (e 慧) the criteria for salvation. As a result, Hōnen, Shinran, and their followers became targets for suppression by the Buddhist establishment.