In those days, Japan was divided between two rival dynasties, Northern and Southern, and their struggles for the ascendency reduced the country, especially the Capital, into a state of constant disturbance; and the shrine at Otani was burned to the ground by the

soldiers in 1336. Kakunyo Shonin, therefore, retired to the Kuon-ji in Yamashiro, where he stayed for two years until the shrine was rebuilt in 1338, and in the year following he came back to Otani. For some one hundred and twenty years thence, the shrine suffered no misfortune.

The eldest son of Kakunyo was called Zonkaku, and being a great scholar wrote many works, of which the most important is "The Roku-yo-sho" in ten volumes, which is a commentary on Shinran Shonin's "Kyo-gyo-shin-sho." Among other writings of his, we may mention the following: "The Sen-jyaku-shu-chu-ge-sho" in 5 vols.; "The Haja-kensho-sho" in three vols.; "The

[paragraph continues] Jodo-shin-yo-sho" in two vols.; "The Sho-jin-hon-gwai-shu" in two vols.; "The Kecchi-sho," 2 vols.; "The Hokke-mondo," 2 vols.; "The Busen-sho," 2 vols.; "The Ho-on-ki," 2 vols.; "The Kemmyo-sho " ; "The Jimyo-sho" ; "The Zonkaku-ho-go ; "The Nyonin-wojo-kikigaki" ; "The Jodo-kemmon-shu" ; "The Tandoku-mon" ;

etc. This learned author, however, did not succeed Kakunyo as Jyushoku (or "residing priest") of the Hongwanji. Zennyo, Shakunyo, Gyonyo, and Zonnyo are the names appearing in the patriarchal line after Kakunyo; and it was not until after these "residing priests" that the eighth , Rennyo Shonin, who was the eldest son of Zennyo, came on the stage to give a new impetus to the development of the True Sect in Japan. Before the appearance of this remarkable personage, the Hongwanji was far from being an influential Buddhist denomination. Without him, it was perhaps impossible for the Hongwanji to achieve such a phenomenal progress and gain its full strength as it really did.

Rennyo Shonin was born at Otani on Feb. 25 in the twenty-second year of Oye (1415). His boyhood name was Hotei-maro, and he proved even in his early life to be a remarkable genius.

[paragraph continues] On December 28, 1420, his mother mysteriously disappeared, leaving an advice for her now six years old boy, saying, "My dear child, make it your life's duty to revive the True Sect of Pure Land." Nobody knows where she retired, but her instruction left such a deep upon the boyish mind of Hotei-maro that he well remembered it later; and when he was fifteen years old he firmly made up his mind to carry out actually what his mother commanded him before.