ssary to him was faith in the desire of Amida to bless and save. To
Shinran,[9] faith was the sole saving act.

To rely upon the power of the Original Prayer of Amitabha Buddha with
the whole heart and give up all idea of _ji-riki_ or self-power, is
called the truth. This truth is the doctrine of this sect of Shin.[10]
In a word, not synergism, not faith _and_ works, but faith only is the
teaching of Shin Shu.

Shinran, the founder of this sect in Japan, was born A.D. 1173 and died
in the year 1262. He was very naturally one who had been first educated
in the J[=o]-d[=o] sect, then the ruling one at the imperial court in
Ki[=o]to. Shall we call him a Japanese Luther, because of his insistence
on salvation by faith only? He is popularly believed to have been
descended from one of the Shint[=o] gods, being on his father's side the
twenty-first in the line of generation. On his mother's side he was of
the lineage of the Minamoto or Genji, a clan sprung from Mikados and
famous during centuries for its victorious warriors. H[=o]-nen was his
teacher, and like his teacher, Shinran studied at the great monastery
near Ki[=o]to, learning first the doctrine of the Tendai, and then, at
the age of twenty-nine, receiving from H[=o]-nen the tenets of the
J[=o]-d[=o] sect. Shortly after, at thirty years of age, he began to
promulgate his doctrines. Then he took a step as new to Buddhism, as was
Luther's union with Katharine von Bora, to the ecclesiasticism of his
time. He married a lady of the imperial court, named Tamayori, who was
the daughter of the Kuambaku or premier.

Shinran thus taught by example, if not formally and by written precept,
that marriage was honorable, and that celibacy was an invention of the
priests not warranted by primitive Buddhism. Penance, fasting,
prescribed diet, pilgrimages, isolation from society whether as hermits
or in the cloister, and generally amulets and charms, are all tabooed by
this sect. Monasteries imposing life-vows are unknown within its pale.
Family life takes the place of monkish seclusion. Devout prayer, purity,
earnestness of life and trust in Buddha himself as the only worker of
perfect righteousness, are insisted upon. Morality is taught to be more
important than orthodoxy.

In practice, the Shin sect even more than the J[=o]-d[=o], teaches that
it is faith in Buddha, which accomplishes the salvation of the believer.
Instead of waiting for death in order to come under the protection