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Genshin (?? 942–1017), also known as Eshin Sozu, was the most influential of a number of Tendai
Tendai

is a Japanese school of Mahayana Buddhism, a descendant of the China Tiantai or Lotus Sutra school.David W. Chappell frames the relevance of Tendai for a universal Buddhism:...
 scholars active during the tenth and eleventh centuries in Japan
Japan

Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, People's Republic of China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south....
. He was not a wandering evangelist as Kuya was, but was an elite cleric who espoused a doctrine of devotion to Amida Buddha which taught that because Japan was thought to have entered mappo
Mappo

Mappo, or The Latter Day of the Law, is one of the Three Ages of Buddhism. Mappo , which is also translated as the Age of Dharma Decline, is the "degenerate" Third Age of Buddhism....
, the "degenerate age" of the "latter law," the only hope for salvation
Salvation

In religion, salvation is the concept that God saves humanity from death. As commonly conceived, He has both Will of God and omnipotence to realize human salvation....
 lay in the reliance on the power of Amitabha.






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Genshin (?? 942–1017), also known as Eshin Sozu, was the most influential of a number of Tendai
Tendai

is a Japanese school of Mahayana Buddhism, a descendant of the China Tiantai or Lotus Sutra school.David W. Chappell frames the relevance of Tendai for a universal Buddhism:...
 scholars active during the tenth and eleventh centuries in Japan
Japan

Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, People's Republic of China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south....
. He was not a wandering evangelist as Kuya was, but was an elite cleric who espoused a doctrine of devotion to Amida Buddha which taught that because Japan was thought to have entered mappo
Mappo

Mappo, or The Latter Day of the Law, is one of the Three Ages of Buddhism. Mappo , which is also translated as the Age of Dharma Decline, is the "degenerate" Third Age of Buddhism....
, the "degenerate age" of the "latter law," the only hope for salvation
Salvation

In religion, salvation is the concept that God saves humanity from death. As commonly conceived, He has both Will of God and omnipotence to realize human salvation....
 lay in the reliance on the power of Amitabha. Other doctrine
Doctrine

Doctrine is a codification of beliefs or "a body of teachers" or "instructions", taught principles or positions, as the body of teachings in a branch of knowledge or belief system....
s, he claimed, could not aid an individual because they depended on "self-power" (jiriki), which cannot prevail during the chaos of the degenerate age, when the power of another (tariki) is necessary. In his approach to rebirth in the Pure Land, Genshin emphasized visual meditation practices, where later Pure Land sects favored verbal recitations such as the nembutsu. Genshin's doctrine is documented in his magnum opus
Magnum opus

Magnum opus , from the Latin meaning great work, refers to the largest, and perhaps the best, greatest, most popular, or most renowned achievement of an author, artist, or composer....
, the , which in later copies of the text came complete with graphic depictions of the joy
Happiness

Happiness is a state of mind or feeling such as contentment, satisfaction, pleasure, or joy. A variety of Philosophy, Religion, Psychology and Biology approaches have been taken to defining happiness and identifying its sources....
 of the blessed
Blessing

A blessing, is the infusion of something with Sacred, divine will, or one's hopes....
 and the suffering of those doomed to chaos
Chaos

Chaos typically refers to unpredictability, and is the antithesis of cosmos.The word did not mean "disorder" in classical-period ancient Greece....
.

Genshin's influence in contemporary Japanese culture today is primarily due to his treatise, Ojoyoshu
Ojoyoshu

The was an influential medieval Buddhism text composed in 985 by the Japanese Buddhist monk Genshin. Three volumes in length and in kanbun prose, the text expounds on Pure Land Buddhist thought, with emphasis on methods to attain rebirth in the Pure Land of Amida Buddha, drawing upon earlier Buddhist texts such as the Contemplation Sutra....
, particularly the graphic descriptions of the Buddhist hell
Hell

In many religious traditions, Hell is a place of suffering and punishment in the afterlife, often in the underworld. Religions with a linear Divinity history often depict Hell as endless ....
 realms (?? jigoku), which inspired a genre of horror and morality stories. The 1960 Japanese film Jigoku
Jigoku (film)

is a 1960 in film J-Horror, directed by Nobuo Nakagawa and starring Utako Mitsuya and Shigeru Amachi. Jigoku was re-made in 1970 by Tatsumi Kumashiro, and later re-made again under the title of Japanese Hell by Teruo Ishii in 1999....
 was influenced by Genshin's Ojoyoshu among others. In Jodo Shinshu
Jodo Shinshu

, also known as Shin Buddhism, is a school of Pure Land Buddhism. It was founded by the former Tendai Japanese people monk Shinran Shonin. Today, Shin Buddhism is considered the most widely practiced branch of Buddhism in Japan....
 Buddhism, he is considered the Sixth Patriarch
Jodo Shinshu Patriarchs

The Seven Patriarchs of Jodo Shinshu were seven Buddhist monks who helped to develop Pure Land Buddhism over time. Shinran, founder of Jodo Shinshu Buddhism, established a lineage for Pure Land Buddhism thought that traced all the way to the time of Gautama....
.

Genshin is credited as the founder of the Enshin school of Tendai
Tendai

is a Japanese school of Mahayana Buddhism, a descendant of the China Tiantai or Lotus Sutra school.David W. Chappell frames the relevance of Tendai for a universal Buddhism:...
 Buddhism, and for espousing the "original enlightenment" teaching, or hongaku, where one is originally enlightened, but unaware of it. In all, Genshin left more than 30 works which continue to influence Pure Land thought today.

Amida-nyorai image at the main building of Yasaka-ji Temple in Shikoku is said to have been made by Genshin in the Nara Period
Nara period

The of the history of Japan covers the years from AD 710 to 794. Empress Gemmei established the capital of Heijo-kyo . Except for 5 years , when the capital was briefly moved again, it remained the capital of Japanese civilization until Emperor Kammu established a new capital, Nagaoka-kyo, in 784 before moving to Heian-kyo , or Kyoto, a decade lat...
.

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