The Ohigashi schism (お東騒動) was a religious

schism A schism ( , , or, less commonly, ) is a division between people, usually belonging to an organization, movement, or religious denomination. The word is most frequently applied to a split in what had previously been a single religious body, suc ...

in the

Ōtani-ha Ōtani-ha (真宗大谷派, ''Shinshū 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. The headquarters of Ōtani-ha are in Kyoto,http://w ...

(also known as

Higashi Honganji , 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 (or, 'The Western Temple of the Original Vow'). It is also the name of the head temple of ...

) subsect of the

Jōdo Shinshū , also known as Shin Buddhism or True Pure Land Buddhism, is a school of Pure Land Buddhism. It was founded by the former Tendai Japanese monk Shinran. Shin Buddhism is the most widely practiced branch of Buddhism in Japan. History Shinran ( ...

school of

Buddhism Buddhism ( , ), also known as Buddha Dharma and Dharmavinaya (), is an Indian religion or philosophical tradition based on teachings attributed to the Buddha. It originated in northern India as a -movement in the 5th century BCE, and gra ...

that occurred in 1969 after a reformist group created internal divisions.

History

The Dobokai Movement (同朋会運動), a reform group within Higashi Honganji, officially began on the 700th memorial of

Shinran ''Popular Buddhism in Japan: Shin Buddhist Religion & Culture'' by Esben Andreasen, pp. 13, 14, 15, 17. University of Hawaii Press 1998, was a Japanese Buddhist monk, who was born in Hino (now a part of Fushimi, Kyoto) at the turbulent close of ...

in 1962, though its roots were in a movement started in 1947 by a group of practitioners calling themselves the ''shinjinsha'' "true person community".Popular Buddhism In Japan: Shin Buddhist Religion & Culture by Esben Andreasen, pp. 26, 69-73 / University of Hawaii Press 1998, The grass-roots reform group was led by Kurube Shin'yū.

Akegarasu Haya was a Shin Buddhist priest in Ōtani-ha. For a decade he was a student of the Shin reformer Kiyozawa Manshi. Akegarasu was also a former head of administration of the Higashi Hongan-ji who was a major inspiration to the formation of the Doboka ...

, Soga Ryōjin, and other disciples of

Kiyozawa Manshi was a Japanese Shin Buddhist reformer and priest of samurai background who studied at Tokyo University in Western philosophy under the American philosopher Ernest Fenollosa.Popular Buddhism In Japan: Shin Buddhist Religion & Culture by Esben A ...

were also closely involved.Higashi Honganji sanjūnen funsō 東本願寺三十年紛争 by Tahara Yukio 田原由紀雄, pp. 37-41 / Hakubasha 2004, INBN978-4-938651-51-0 The goal of the Dobokai movement was to awaken and unite members of Higashi Honganji due to internal conflict over differences of doctrinal opinion such as over the idea of

shinjin In Shin Buddhism, Shinjin (信心) was originally the Japanese word for the Buddhist concept of citta-prasāda (clear or clarified heart-mind), but now carries a more popular related meaning of faith or entrusting. According to Ueda, "shinjin is ...

and whether the

pure land A pure land is the celestial realm of a buddha or bodhisattva in Mahayana Buddhism. The term "pure land" is particular to East Asian Buddhism () and related traditions; in Sanskrit the equivalent concept is called a buddha-field (Sanskrit ). Th ...

was to be entered in death or in this life. The Dobokai movement based itself largely on the ''

Tannishō The , also known as the ''Lamentations of Divergences'', is a late 13th century short Buddhist text generally thought to have been written by Yuien, a disciple of Shinran. In the ''Tannishō'', Yuien is concerned about the rising doctrinal divergen ...

'', a collection of sayings attributed to Shinran with commentaries by Yuien-bo, one of his disciples, and the idea of cutting through spiritual differences. The movement split Higashi Honganji into four different groups. What is now known as the Higashi Honganji-ha is centered in Tokyo. The physical property of Higashi Honganji temple is run by the much-larger Ōtani-ha, which changed the temple's name to "Shinshū Mausoleum". Meanwhile, the treasure of Higashi Honganji-ha at the time, amounting to about $200 million in donations, was seized for use by a "nonprofit organization" which does not maintain any temples. In 2012 a court ruled that this money must be returned.

References

Notes Bibliography * Suzuki, David A. (1985). Crisis in Japanese Buddhism : case of the Otani Sect. Los Angeles : Buddhist Books International. * Shojun Bandō, Harold Stewart, Ann T. Rogers, Minor L. Rogers (trans.)
Tannishō: Passages Deploring Deviations of Faith and Rennyo Shōnin Ofumi: The Letters of Rennyo
Berkeley: Numata Center for Buddhist Translation and Research 1996. Shinshū Ōtani-ha History of Jōdo Shinshū Incidents in the history of Buddhism in Japan {{Japan-reli-stub