Paper short abstract:

This paper covers how Japanese new religious groups keep their founders and themselves relevant after death through hagiographical accounts using the example of the new religion Nakayama Shingoshōshū.

Paper long abstract:

Existing research on new religious movements in Japan has mainly focused on founders during their lifetimes. Their relevance to the religious community after death, however, has been largely ignored. During the founder’s lifetime, a new religion can prosper due to the founder’s charisma created by their spiritual awakening and subsequent activities. After their death, these experiences and activities are recounted as the founder’s life story, which becomes an integral part of the group’s narrative. One example of this phenomenon is Yasaka Kakue, the founder of Nakayama Shingoshōshū, a Japanese new religion of Buddhist lineage primarily active in northern Kyushu. He founded this religion in 1912 after experiencing a vision of the prominent Japanese Buddhist saint, Kōbō Daishi, who tasked Kakue with spreading his teachings. Visions and spirit possessions called ojihi, which Kakue frequently experienced throughout his life, have become a crucial part of his group’s central beliefs and rituals, with the founder predominantly functioning as their source. Taking up prominent sources of Kakue’s hagiography, such as the Shūso Shōninden (Biography of the Founder), alongside results from field research on the ojihi and other rituals, this paper seeks to shed light on the ways in which the founder is kept relevant in Nakayama Shingoshōshū. The paper will show that through his life story, Kakue is kept alive in three specific ways—as a charismatic leader, a role model, and ultimately a divine being for the members of his group. Furthermore, the life story also defines the role of the founder in many aspects of the group’s ritual culture. This research on Yasaka Kakue thus offers a useful framework for studying hagiographical accounts of founders of new religions in general who lived on through stories and rituals after their death. In doing so, it shows one important way in which modern religious movements attempt to remain relevant long after their founders die.