Rennyo 蓮如 (clerical name Kenju 兼壽, 1415–1499), eighth abbot of the Hongan-ji, is conventionally — and accurately — called the second founder of Jōdo Shinshū. Born in Kyoto when the Hongan-ji was a marginal Pure Land temple, he transformed the school over four decades into the largest sectarian movement in late-medieval Japan. His mature career divides into three phases: (1) Yoshizaki period (1471–1475), during which he made the Yoshizaki gobō in Echizen the centre of a fast-growing Hokuriku Shinshū movement; (2) Yamashina period (1480–1499), the founding of the Yamashina Hongan-ji and consolidation of the Kinai congregations; (3) late Osaka period, the founding of the Ōsaka Ishiyama Hongan-ji (1496), which would become the political and military centre of late-Sengoku Shinshū.
Rennyo’s principal literary work is the Ofumi / Gobunshō 御文章 KR6t0379 — 80 pastoral letters to the Shinshū congregations, addressing doctrinal, ethical, and organizational questions. The companion Go-zokushō o-fumi KR6t0381 is a single, especially important letter; the Rennyo shōnin go-ichidaiki kikigaki KR6t0380 is a posthumous biographical-anecdotal record assembled by his disciples. The DILA authority id is A001241. He died at the Yamashina Hongan-ji on the 25th day of the 3rd month of Meiō 8 / 1499, age 85.