JJRS > Volume 32 Issue 1 Marriage, Adoption, and Honganji

Tsang, Carol Richmond

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The Honganji branch of True Pure Land Buddhism, unlike other Buddhist institutions in the Muromachi period, explicitly followed a hereditary, dynastic model for its leadership. Honganji’s policies arranging marriage and adoption contributed to the expansion and definition of the sect in the fifteenth century, and to its acceptance as a legitimate branch of Buddhism. Secondarily, when the sect experienced a civil war in Kaga in 53, differences in marital and adoptive policies between the earlier temples and those led by Rennyo’s children contributed to the defeat of the latter.