West and East: After Kennyo's Death, Why Did Hongan-ji Split in Two?

In the present Kyoto, there are two enormous Hongan-ji temples. Nishi Hongan-ji at Shichijō Horikawa, and Higashi Hongan-ji at Karasuma Shichijō.

Two head temples honoring the same founder Shinran stand in parallel, within a few minutes' walk of each other.

The origin of this split lies in Kennyo's death in 1592 and the internal family conflict over his succession.

Kennyo had three sons: the eldest Kyōnyo (1558-1614), the second Kensson, and the third Junnyo (1577-1631).

At the peace of 1580 by court imperial edict, Kennyo decided to withdraw from Ishiyama in compliance with the edict, but the eldest Kyōnyo opposed and remained at Ishiyama, insisting on continued resistance.

A public conflict arose between father and son, and Kyōnyo came into a state close to being disowned.

The conflict of this time became the foreshadowing of the later split.

When Kennyo died in 1592, by his testament the position of Hongan-ji head was inherited by Kyōnyo.

But the following year, in 1593, through the intervention of Toyotomi Hideyoshi, Kyōnyo was retired, and the third son Junnyo became the twelfth head.

The split within the organization — between the adherents who supported Kyōnyo and those who supported Junnyo — was fixed.

In 1602 (Keichō 7), Tokugawa Ieyasu granted Kyōnyo the temple site of Karasuma Shichijō in Kyoto, and set up Higashi Hongan-ji (head temple of the Jōdo Shinshū Ōtani-ha) separately.

Ieyasu's intent, it is interpreted, was to reduce the threat to governance by dividing the massive religious force of Hongan-ji in two.

With this Tokugawa-backed separation, it was fixed that the head temple of Junnyo's line (Nishi Hongan-ji) and the head temple of Kyōnyo's line (Higashi Hongan-ji) would stand in parallel in Kyoto.

Nishi Hongan-ji and Higashi Hongan-ji developed as separate organizations through the Edo period.

The doctrine is the same Jōdo Shinshū, but the organization, ritual, and events are run independently.

Contemporary Japanese Jōdo Shinshū adherents number about ten million, and almost all belong to one of the two Hongan-ji.

In Kyoto they are affectionately known as 'Onishi-san' and 'Ohigashi-san,' and the massive garan of both temples form the core of the townscape in front of Kyoto Station.

The legacy of Kennyo, who fought the Ishiyama War, remains in the modern Japan of eight hundred years after founder Shinran, as two head temples.