CHAPTER IV.

The Shinshu after Shinran's death.

( section section 21-24).

Shinran's remains were cremated at the Enninji temple, and his ashes buried at Otani on the outskirts of Kyoto. He left behind him several children, mostly sons, with at least one daughter. Of the eldest, Inshin, nothing seems to be known. The second, Zenran, had a son, Nyoshin, who was appointed to succeed his grandfather in the headship of the sect, and is therefore reckoned as the second Patriarch. With him Zenran's line seems to have died out. But Shinran had also a , Kakushin-ni, who had devotedly attended on her father during his last illness, and through whom the succession of Shinran's line was continued. Her grandson, Kakunyo, was the third head of the Shinshu, and the succession then passed to Kakunyo's son Zennyo and to his grandson Shakunyo. Eleven years after Shinran's death, Kakushin-ni and Nyoshin built a Temple at Otani, to which the Emperor Kameyama granted the name of Kuonjitsujo-Amida-Hongwanji, together with the status of an Imperial Chapel. The Temple was popularly known as the Hongwanji, and it may therefore in a sense be looked upon as the parent temple of the still united Shinshu body.

It was not long before the Shinshu showed signs of division, and at the present day there are ten

sub-divisions of the religion. These sub-divisions have no doctrinal importance; some arose, doubtless, from that pride which in all ages and times is a fruitful mother of schisms, but in some, the divisions must be attributed to a jealous affection for the revered memory of the Founder, and a desire to exalt the dignity of some particular Temple in which Shinran himself had laboured. I purpose giving a short account of these sub-sects, which are occasionally interesting for the light they throw on the subsequent experiences of the sect. [**]

I.--The Bukkoji ("temple of Buddha's Light") originally called Koshoji (temple of the restoration of the right"--possibly in reference to Shinran's recal from exile and pardon), was found by Shinran himself, in 1212, the year in which he commenced the active propagation of his system. It was situated in the village of Yamashina in Yamashiro, in the suburbs of Kyoto, and was Shinran's home for fifteen years. In 1227 he transferred it to the care of his younger brother Shimbutsu, and the Temple long remained in the hands of Shimbutsu's successors. In 1320 it was removed to Shibudani on Higashiyama, Ryogen being then Abbot.

It was in the reign of the unfortunate Godaigo, (1319-1338) when the troubles were brewing which culminated in the setting-up of a rival line of Emperors. In the confusion of the time, men, making a cloke of religion for nefarious purposes, brought the Shinshu into disrepute by their misuse of the doctrine of Salvation by Faith. There arose a clique