Banzui'i (幡随意) (December 1, 1542 - February 2, 1615) was a Japanese Buddhist monk and scholar of the

Jōdo-shū Jōdo-shū (浄土宗, "The Pure Land School"), is a Japanese branch of Pure Land Buddhism derived from the teachings of the Kamakura era monk Hōnen (1133–1212). The school is traditionally considered as having been established in 1175 and i ...

sect throughout the late

Sengoku period The was the period in History of Japan, Japanese history in which civil wars and social upheavals took place almost continuously in the 15th and 16th centuries. The Kyōtoku incident (1454), Ōnin War (1467), or (1493) are generally chosen as th ...

and early

Edo period The , also known as the , is the period between 1600 or 1603 and 1868 in the history of Japan, when the country was under the rule of the Tokugawa shogunate and some 300 regional ''daimyo'', or feudal lords. Emerging from the chaos of the Sengok ...

. He is best known for his assistance of the

Tokugawa Shogunate The Tokugawa shogunate, also known as the was the military government of Japan during the Edo period from 1603 to 1868. The Tokugawa shogunate was established by Tokugawa Ieyasu after victory at the Battle of Sekigahara, ending the civil wars ...

in the suppression of

Christianity Christianity is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion, which states that Jesus in Christianity, Jesus is the Son of God (Christianity), Son of God and Resurrection of Jesus, rose from the dead after his Crucifixion of Jesus, crucifixion, whose ...

throughout

Kyushu is the third-largest island of Japan's Japanese archipelago, four main islands and the most southerly of the four largest islands (i.e. excluding Okinawa Island, Okinawa and the other Ryukyu Islands, Ryukyu (''Nansei'') Ryukyu Islands, Islands ...

.ELISON, GEORGE. ''Deus Destroyed: The Image of Christianity in Early Modern Japan''. 1st ed. Vol. 141. Harvard University Asia Center, 1973. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctt1tg5jpg. He is said to have created the practice of

Fumi-e A was a likeness of Jesus or Mary onto which the religious authorities of the Tokugawa shogunate of Japan required suspected Christians (Kirishitan) to step, in order to demonstrate that they were not members of the outlawed religion; other ...

.{{Cite book , last=Nakamura , first=Hajime , title=A history of the development of Japanese thought from A.D. 592 to 1868 , date=1969 , publisher=Kokusai Bunka Shinkokai , volume=1 , location=Tokyo , pages=111-146 , language=English

History

Banzui'i was born in Fujisawa,

Kanagawa is a Prefectures of Japan, prefecture of Japan located in the Kantō region of Honshu. Kanagawa Prefecture is the List of Japanese prefectures by population, second-most populous prefecture of Japan at 9,221,129 (1 April 2022) and third-dens ...

Japan Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...

, on December 1, 1542, as the son of the powerful Kawashima Clan. At the age of nine he aspired to become a monk and was ordained at the age of eleven at Niden-ji Temple. He then studied Jōdo Buddhism at Kōmyō-ji in

Kamakura , officially , is a city of Kanagawa Prefecture in Japan. It is located in the Kanto region on the island of Honshu. The city has an estimated population of 172,929 (1 September 2020) and a population density of 4,359 people per km2 over the tota ...

and Renkei-ji in Kawagoe. In 1601 he was appointed as the head of the Chion-ji Temple in

Kyoto Kyoto ( or ; Japanese language, Japanese: , ''Kyōto'' ), officially , is the capital city of Kyoto Prefecture in the Kansai region of Japan's largest and most populous island of Honshu. , the city had a population of 1.46 million, making it t ...

, and was occasionally invited by

Emperor Go-Yōzei was the 107th Emperor of Japan, according to the traditional order of succession. Go-Yōzei's reign spanned the years 1586 through to his abdication in 1611, corresponding to the transition between the Azuchi–Momoyama period and the Edo period ...

to lecture to the Imperial Court. In 1603 he was invited by

Tokugawa Ieyasu Tokugawa Ieyasu (born Matsudaira Takechiyo; 31 January 1543 – 1 June 1616) was the founder and first ''shōgun'' of the Tokugawa shogunate of Japan, which ruled from 1603 until the Meiji Restoration in 1868. He was the third of the three "Gr ...

Edo Edo (), also romanized as Jedo, Yedo or Yeddo, is the former name of Tokyo. Edo, formerly a (castle town) centered on Edo Castle located in Musashi Province, became the '' de facto'' capital of Japan from 1603 as the seat of the Tokugawa shogu ...

and built Shin Chion-ji Temple (later known as Banzui-in) for the protection of the

. In 1613, at seventy-two years old, Banzui'i was ordered by Tokugawa Ieyasu to travel to

to convert the

Christians A Christian () is a person who follows or adheres to Christianity, a monotheistic Abrahamic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus Christ. Christians form the largest religious community in the world. The words '' Christ'' and ''C ...

of the region to Buddhism with the

daimyo were powerful Japanese magnates, feudal lords who, from the 10th century to the early Meiji period in the middle 19th century, ruled most of Japan from their vast hereditary land holdings. They were subordinate to the shogun and nominally to ...

Arima Tadasumi as his bodyguard. After he gladly agreed to the mission, Ieyasu gifted him with a war-vest made of Chinese Brocade and a golden truncheon fan, traditional symbols of the

samurai The samurai () were members of the warrior class in Japan. They were originally provincial warriors who came from wealthy landowning families who could afford to train their men to be mounted archers. In the 8th century AD, the imperial court d ...

, declaring him similar to a general who would spiritually defeat the enemies of Buddhism. Banzui'i traveled to the

Ise Grand Shrine The , located in Ise, Mie Prefecture of Japan, is a Shinto shrine dedicated to the solar goddess Amaterasu Ōmikami and the grain goddess Toyouke-hime (Toyouke Omikami). Also known simply as , Ise Shrine is a shrine complex composed of many Shi ...

and prayed to

Amaterasu , often called Amaterasu () for short, also known as and , is the goddess of the sun in Japanese mythology. Often considered the chief deity (''kami'') of the Shinto pantheon, she is also portrayed in Japan's earliest literary texts, the () ...

for seven days before proceeding to Kyushu. In Nagasaki and Shimabara he would convert a great number of Christians and help to build Buddhist temples where Christian churches once stood before their destruction. In his later years he lived in

Wakayama Wakayama may refer to: * Wakayama Prefecture, a prefecture of Japan * Wakayama (city), the capital city of Wakayama Prefecture, Japan * Wakayama Station, a train station in Wakayama, Wakayama * Wakayama University, a national university in Wakayama, ...

and died there in 1615.

References

Jōdo-shū Buddhist priests 1542 births 1615 deaths Buddhist clergy of the Edo period People from Fujisawa, Kanagawa