Shinran 親鸞 (Jōan 3 / 4 / 1 = 1173-05-21 → Kōchō 2 / 11 / 28 = 1263-01-16), late-Heian → Kamakura Japanese Buddhist master, founder of Jōdo Shinshū 浄土真宗 (“the True Pure-Land School” — Shin Buddhism), which became and remains the largest Buddhist denomination of Japan by membership. Self-designation in his mature works as Gutoku Shaku Shinran 愚禿釋親鸞 (“the foolish-shorn-monk, Śākya[muni’s] Shinran”). Lay surname Hino 日野 — i.e. of the Hino branch of the Fujiwara 藤原 clan; lay name Matsuwakamaru 松若丸. Posthumous titles: Kenshin Daishi 見眞大師 (conferred Meiji 9 / 1876 by Emperor Meiji on the 600th anniversary of his death).
Hieizan period (1181–1201). Tonsured at age 9 (1181) at Shōren-in 青蓮院 in Kyoto under Jien 慈圓 — the great Tendai prelate and Gukanshō author. Trained on Hieizan in Tendai kanmuryōju-kyō (visualisation of Amida) and jōgyō-zanmai 常行三昧 (the “constant-walking samādhi” practice of the Mūla-saṃghika nenbutsu), as a dōsō 堂僧 (hall-monk) under Eizan no Jōkū 叡山乘空. Through age 28 was a Tendai jōgyō-dō practitioner; the early Hieizan name Hannen 範宴 belongs to this period.
Yoshimizu conversion (1201). At age 28 (Kennin 1 / 1201), after a hundred-day retreat at Rokkaku-dō 六角堂 (the Shōtoku Taishi shrine in central Kyoto) culminating in a dream-vision of Shōtoku Taishi 聖徳太子 (or, in some accounts, of Kannon Bosatsu as the honji of Shōtoku) instructing him to seek out 源空 Hōnen, Shinran entered Hōnen’s Yoshimizu 吉水 assembly. The new dharma-name Shakkū / Shakū 綽空 was given by Hōnen on transmission. Studied under Hōnen for six years (1201–1207); was among the named disciples whom Hōnen authorized to copy the Senchakushū (the 1205 manuscript-copy is preserved as the Shinran-shahon 親鸞写本 Senchaku-shū at Hongan-ji 本願寺).
Exile and the Kantō period (1207–1235). In Jōgen 1 / 1207, the court banned the senju nenbutsu; Hōnen was exiled to Sanuki, and Shinran to Echigo 越後 (modern Niigata), where he was defrocked and given the lay name Yoshizane 善信. In Echigo Shinran married Eshinni 惠信尼 (1182–1268) — the first openly-married, openly-meat-eating senior Japanese-Buddhist priest, on the explicit doctrinal basis that the senju-nenbutsu requires no observance of the vinaya precepts. After amnesty in Kennin 1 / 1211 he moved to Hitachi 常陸 (modern Ibaraki), where he spent some twenty years (1214–1232) as an itinerant lay-evangelist among the eastern peasantry. Most of his major works were drafted during this Hitachi period, in particular the Kyōgyōshinshō KR6t0352 (六卷, editio princeps draft completed Gennin 1 / 1224 — the 立教開宗 Rikkyō kaishū founding date of Jōdo Shinshū).
Late Kyoto period (1235–1263). Returned to Kyoto c. 1235, lived in retirement at his daughter Kakushin-ni’s 覺信尼 residence (later Hongan-ji 本願寺) in Higashiyama. Continued to revise the Kyōgyōshinshō and to compose the wasan hymn-cycles (KR6t0356–KR6t0359) and the doctrinal essays KR6t0361–KR6t0368. Carried on extensive correspondence with the eastern disciples, the principal documents of which were collected after his death by his great-grandson 從覺 Jūkaku as the Mattōshō KR6t0370 and by Yuien 唯圓 as the Tannishō KR6t0372.
Doctrinal contribution. Shinran’s signature theological move is the radicalization of Hōnen’s tariki (other-power) doctrine into the doctrine of shinjin (faith as pure gift): not the practitioner’s act of taking refuge in Amitābha, but the Buddha’s bestowal of the saving faith-consciousness as a unilateral gift, prior to any practitioner-volition. Consequently nenbutsu itself is no longer a practice but an expression of the already-bestowed faith; even the act of thanking Amitābha is itself a gift of Amitābha’s compassion. This muga-tariki (selfless-other-power) doctrine — paired with the doctrine of akunin shōki 惡人正機 (“the wicked person is the proper vehicle [of salvation]”) — distinguishes Jōdo Shinshū from the moderate Chinzei tradition (which retained the practitioner’s senchaku volition) and from the Seizan (which retained the kihō ichinyo unification of practitioner and dharma).
Principal works (extant in Taishō): Kyōgyōshinshō 顯淨土眞實教行證文類 (KR6t0352, 6 fasc., the magnum opus); Jōdo monrui jushō 淨土文類聚鈔 (KR6t0353, 1 fasc., the abbreviated Kyōgyōshinshō); Gutoku-shō 愚禿鈔 (KR6t0354, 2 fasc.); Nyū-shutsu nimon ge-ju 入出二門偈頌 (KR6t0355); Jōdo wasan 淨土和讃 (KR6t0356); Jōdo kōsō wasan 淨土高僧和讃 (KR6t0357); Shōzō matsu hō wasan 正像末法和讃 (KR6t0358); Kōtaishi Shōtoku hōsan 皇太子聖徳奉讃 (KR6t0359); Jōdo sanbu-kyō ōjō monrui 淨土三經往生文類 (KR6t0361); Nyorai nishu ekō-mon 如來二種廻向文 (KR6t0363); Songō shinzō meimon 尊號眞像銘文 (KR6t0365); Ichi-nen ta-nen mon’i 一念多念文意 (KR6t0367); Yui-shin-shō mon’i 唯信抄文意 (KR6t0368). Wikidata Q317122.