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The story
At the Kagoshima Betsuin temple of Hongan-ji in Kagoshima City, a panel and sacred-treasure exhibition is being held to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the lifting of the ban on Jodo Shinshu (True Pure Land) Buddhism. In the Satsuma Domain, Jodo Shinshu had long been outlawed, and history shows that not only commoners but even samurai secretly kept their faith. On 5channel, a thread sparked lively discussion about why the sect was banned, the distinctive funeral customs that still linger strongly even after the ban was lifted, and doctrinal differences with other sects — the conversation even veered into theories about which sect the Tokugawa shogunal family belonged to.
Jodo Shinshu was once a banned faith in the Satsuma Domain. The year 2026 marks the 150th anniversary of the lifting of that ban. A temple in Kagoshima City held an exhibition tracing this history and the journey of those who kept practicing their faith in secret.
At the Kagoshima Betsuin of Hongan-ji in Kagoshima City, a panel exhibition and sacred-treasure exhibition were held to commemorate 150 years since “the opening of the faith in Satsuma.”
“On display are materials from the era when Jodo Shinshu was banned in Kagoshima, as well as records from after the ban was lifted in the 9th year of Meiji [1876] — materials related to the temple and records of people who practiced their faith in secret” (Tomooka Satoshi, Kagoshima Betsuin of Hongan-ji).
Source: news.yahoo.co.jp / Original article here
What people said
Enough that Nobunaga's Ambition (the strategy game series) sorts faith into categories like "Buddhism," "Ikko-shu," and "Christianity"
Strictly speaking there are differences, but ordinary believers don't know the details and aren't even expected to, so it's basically the same as having none.
For the average person, whether it's Zen, Pure Land, or Nichiren-affiliated, it's all just "the folks who handle the funeral" the same way.
Either way, the head priest has hair, is married, and drinks and eats meat.
Zen sect — emphasizes seated meditation
Shingon sect — emphasizes mantras and sutras
Jodo (Pure Land) sect — puts Amida Buddha above all else, that kind of thing
Because the Shimazu clan, the domain lords, feared an Ikko ikki uprising
Hongan-ji's teachings risked undermining the Shimazu clan's rigid status system, and worse — earnings the Shimazu lord should've been squeezing out of people might get donated to Hongan-ji instead
Even before the haibutsu kishaku, the region had already been hit once by a Christian "invasion"
It just moved into the empty space left behind, that's all
Jodo Shinshu is the only sect where lay believers can become buddhas.
If you live a normal life you're bound to kill something at some point, so in every other sect you're guaranteed to fall into hell.
That's where "funeral Buddhism" comes in — the bereaved family pays a priest so the deceased can at least get into paradise.
Even then, you don't become a buddha, you just come back to this world again.
And there's no guarantee you'll even be reborn human.
Well? Doesn't Jodo Shinshu sound better now?
My family is Jodo Shinshu, Hongan-ji branch.
When I was worrying about how to handle my parents' funeral and looked into it, Jodo Shinshu funerals turned out to be a real pain — quite different from other sects.
> And there's no guarantee you'll even be reborn human
Honestly, next time I'm reborn I want to come back as a sloth deep in the African jungle and spend my whole life just chilling out there.
Huh? I was chief mourner for a Jodo Shinshu funeral once and it was incredibly easy.
Like I said, it depends on the priest, but the old temple that's taken care of my family for generations never once sent anything like an invoice.
I've heard that elsewhere in the same city there are temples that basically bill you for a not-cheap amount, and the old folks joke about how rough that other temple sounds by comparison.
I'm sure the wealthy in our congregation give plenty too, but seriously, the Jodo Shinshu funeral was easy.
Jodo Shinshu is the easiest by far.
The donation (ofuse) is half of what other sects charge too.
That's because it's built to be convenient for those in power, even if the founder never intended that.
Though at the same time, no one is free of contradictions either.
Is it the sect for people who like flashy gold decoration?
You can reach paradise through other sects too, not just this one.
If the bereaved family pays a priest to perform memorial rites, you get there.
But if there's no one left to perform rites for you, it's hell.
Because everyone kills something at some point, guaranteed.
Back then, commoners suffering from famine, plague, and war were desperate for salvation, but in the Buddhism of the time only powerful aristocrats or the ultra-wealthy who could make huge donations could become monks.
Commoners couldn't even get to the starting line, and samurai were out of the question since killing was their trade.
In that climate, the Pure Land schools taught that ordinary people living honestly were saved more readily than monks who built gilded temples — and of those schools, Shinshu was the one that really connected with the common people.
But in today's world, where people already have food, clothing, and shelter, it offers no support at all.
If anything, it's just modern money-worshipping, desire-riddled hereditary priests fleecing you of money you earned through hard sweat.
Jodo Shinshu doesn't require payment.
Believers all become buddhas immediately upon death, no charge.
AI: "No need to worry at all — we'll take care of everything for you."
https://i0.wp.com/access21-co.xsrv.jp/shigekikou/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/202209091604.jpg
Buddhism means the teachings of the Buddha.
Anything that contradicts the Buddha's teachings isn't Buddhism.
In other words, in the present day, only the Jodo (Pure Land) and Jodo Shinshu sects are true Buddhism.
All the "self-power" sects are fakes.
Which sutra is that from?
Pure Land thought isn't in early Buddhism — it's from the Tendai lineage.
That's just the standard line Mahayana uses when criticizing early Buddhism.
The other sects are just "skillful means" (hoben) meant to lead people toward Jodo Shinshu.
The truly fake ones are separately designated as "heretical."
"So we've developed technology to make practice 1,000 times more efficient than back then!"
I wonder if commoners were already mostly Jodo Shinshu or Jodo sect even by the late Muromachi period.
Number of believers:
Jodo sect lineage — about 19 million
Shingon sect lineage (11 branches combined) — about 12 million
What do you mean "overwhelmingly"?
Sect affiliation originally reflected social class to begin with.
Tendai/Shingon — court nobility
Soto/Rinzai — samurai
Jodo sect — farmers and townsfolk
There are exceptions, of course.
Current sect population figures come out every year in statistics, and there's no dramatically huge gap.
In the Edo period it wasn't officially recognized as a temple.
Huge organizations like Hongan-ji may have held power, but ordinary local temples weren't treated as official temples — they were treated like new religious movements.
Yet some of them were still used within the danka (parishioner registration) system, so their standing was ambiguous.
Isn't it a stretch to say it wasn't an official temple when it served as the family temple (bodaiji) of daimyo houses?
https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/守綱寺
https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/忠綱寺
Apparently Ikko-shu was outside the jurisdiction of the Tokugawa shogunate's temple and shrine magistrate (jisha-bugyo).
It might have been different in the various regional domains though.
Wasn't the Tokugawa family Jodo Shinshu…?
Wasn't Tokugawa Nichiren-shu?
That's just because one of Tokugawa Mitsukuni's concubines happened to be Nichiren-shu — the main Tokugawa line and the three branch houses (gosanke) have been Jodo Shinshu for over 400 years.
Really now? Never heard that.
Everyone normally says Tokugawa = Nichiren-shu, right?
Background and Key Points of This Topic
The Satsuma Domain is said to have banned Jodo Shinshu because the Shimazu clan feared that Ikko ikki uprisings by Hongan-ji followers could destabilize the status system. Unlike other sects, its doctrine doesn’t require mandatory donations, and tradition holds that not only commoners but even samurai kept practicing in secret. The ban was lifted in the 9th year of Meiji (1876), and the current exhibition commemorates that 150th anniversary. In the thread, alongside discussion of the reasons for the ban, there was a string of personal accounts claiming that Jodo Shinshu funerals are simpler and cheaper than those of other sects, while opinions split over which sect the Tokugawa shogunal family actually belonged to, with both Jodo-sect and Jodo-Shinshu theories put forward. It’s worth noting that all of this reflects individual posters’ personal knowledge and impressions on 5channel, not confirmed historical fact.
※This article is excerpted and summarized from the 5channel (News Speed+) thread “[Kagoshima] ‘Not only commoners but samurai too practiced in secret’ — Jodo Shinshu, banned in the Satsuma Domain, marks 150 years since the ban was lifted… temple holds commemorative sacred-treasure exhibition.”
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