254 CHAPTER TENsystematizing Pure Land doctrines under the title The Treatise on the Selection of
the Nembutsu of the Original Vow (1197). A charismatic leader, he practiced
what he preached-chanting the N embutsu up to seventy thousand times a
day-and drew disciples from all levels of society, including aristocrats and
samurai. Of these the most important was the Fujiwara regent Kujo Kanezane
(1148-1207), whose enthusiastic support greatly advanced the position of the
school. Honen might have followed the example set by Kuya and Genshin
(see Section 10.4), who remained in the Tendai fold, had it not been for his
getting into trouble with the conservative Tendai establishment on two counts:
He was extremely popular, and his enthusiastic claims for the all-encompass-
ing powers of the Nembutsu could be interpreted as granting license to sin, as
all wrongdoing could supposedly be cleansed by chanting. Honen himself ad-
hered closely to what he regarded as the spirit of the Vinaya, but his insistence
that the practice of N embutsu was sufficient for salvation, with no need for
meditation or merit making, led many of his followers to interpret his doc-
trine as a release from moral strictures.
Honen's political connections protected him for a while, and even the
reigning emperor took on the role of mediator between the contending fac-
tions. However, in 1207, when four ofHonen's followers were executed for
alleged indiscretions with ladies of the court, he was stripped of his monastic
title and ordered into exile, together with a handful of his closest disciples.
The order was rescinded in 1211, but he died soon thereafter. Fifteen years
after his death, in 1227, his Treatise on the Selection of the Nembutsu of the Original
Vow was burned in public on the grounds that it was a threat to the Dharma.
Shinran (1173-1262), the inspiration for the Jodo-shin-shu (True Pure
Land sect}; was one of the disciples ordered into exile with Honen. Although
he had no intention of founding a separate school, dramatic visions inspired
him to make two important changes in the tradition-one institutional, the
other doctrinal-that led his followers to form a separate sect. The first vision
came while Shinran was still a Tendai monk. After twenty years on Mount
Hiei, _grappling with the constraints of celibacy, he experienced a revelation,
in which the Bodhisattva Kuan-yin (in Japanese, Kannon) appeared to him in
a dream and promised to come to him in the form of a young woman whom
he should marry. Shinran did as he was told and for the remainder of his life
assumed the status of "neither monk nor layman," which accurately describes
the married clergy of the sect that took him as its inspiration. These clerics
continued to live in temples and perform religious services, but also led a fam-
ily life and expected the eldest son to take over the temple from his father.
Shinran's place of exile was the northern province of Echigo; where he
propagated the Nembutsu among the common people. Because Honen died
soon after both of them were pardoned, Shinran did not return to Kyoto, but
traveled through the towns and villages of east Japan, spreading the teaching
and founding dojo nembutsu (Nembutsu temples). During this period he had
his second major revelation-that the saving grace of Amida required only
one Nembutsu. This provided Shinran's answer to a question that had divided
members of the Pure Land school for decades: How many times was it neces~