was a Japanese

Japanese people

The are an ethnic group originating in the Japanese archipelago and are the predominant ethnic group of Japan. Worldwide, approximately 130 million people are of Japanese descent; of these, approximately 127 million are residents of Japan. People of Japanese ancestry who live in other countries...

 Shin Buddhist reformer of samurai

Samurai

is the term for the military nobility of pre-industrial Japan. According to translator William Scott Wilson: "In Chinese, the character 侍 was originally a verb meaning to wait upon or accompany a person in the upper ranks of society, and this is also true of the original term in Japanese, saburau...

 background who studied at Tokyo University

University of Tokyo

, abbreviated as , is a major research university located in Tokyo, Japan. The University has 10 faculties with a total of around 30,000 students, 2,100 of whom are foreign. Its five campuses are in Hongō, Komaba, Kashiwa, Shirokane and Nakano. It is considered to be the most prestigious university...

 in Western philosophy

Western philosophy

Western philosophy is the philosophical thought and work of the Western or Occidental world, as distinct from Eastern or Oriental philosophies and the varieties of indigenous philosophies....

 under the American philosopher Ernest Fenollosa

Ernest Fenollosa

Ernest Francisco Fenollosa was an American professor of philosophy and political economy at Tokyo Imperial University...

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Many Shin scholars feel that Kiyozawa's viewpoints are comparable to the religious existentialism

Existentialism

Existentialism is a term applied to a school of 19th- and 20th-century philosophers who, despite profound doctrinal differences, shared the belief that philosophical thinking begins with the human subject—not merely the thinking subject, but the acting, feeling, living human individual...

 of Europe

Europe

Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...

.

Many Higashi Honganji scholars trace their line of thought to Kiyozawa Manshi, including such men as Akegarasu Haya

Akegarasu Haya

was a Shin Buddhist student of Kiyozawa Manshi for a decade. Akegarasu was a former head of administration of the Higashi Hongan-ji who was a major inspiration to the formation of the Dobokai Movement....

 (1877-1954), Kaneko Daiei

Kaneko Daiei

was a Japanese born son of a Shin Buddhist priest from Niigata Prefecture. He was a student Kiyozawa Manshi and had taught for several years at Otani University. In 1928 he was excommunicated from Jodo Shinshu for having charged the organization had become shrouded in materialism...

 (1881-1976), Soga Ryōjin

Soga Ryojin

was an influential thinker in the Higashi Honganji Jōdo Shinshū Buddhist tradition, and a President of Otani University. A disciple of Kiyozawa Manshi he developed an approach to Jōdo Shinshū doctrine that at times brought him into serious conflict with more conservative elements of the tradition...

 (1875-1971) and Maida Shuichi (1906-1967). Some of his essays were translated into English, and have found a Western readership.

In his, life, however, Kiyozawa was an ambivalent figure. He was emblematic of both the need for modernization, and its pitfalls. He was not popular with the members of his temple, who considered his Dharma messages too difficult to understand. Accordingly, many of his disciples were branded heretics. Kiyozawa himself died of tuberculosis quite young and therefore some consider his thought to be immature and incomplete. Even today, many conservative Shin thinkers see Kiyozawa as being emblematic of what had gone wrong with the Otani school.