Hongan-ji ［本願寺］: The head temple of the True Pure Land (Jōdo Shin) school in Japan. After the school’s founder, Shinran, died, the nun Kakushin, his youngest daughter, and his disciples built a memorial hall in 1272 and there enshrined an image of Shinran. Shinran’s great-grandson, Kakunyo, had it officially recognized as a temple and named it Hongan-ji (Original Vow Temple). He regarded Shinran as the temple’s founding patriarch and first chief priest, Shinran’s grandson, Nyoshin, as the second chief priest, and himself as the third chief priest. The temple’s prosperity declined for a time, but was restored by the eighth chief priest, Rennyo (1415–1499). It came to wield considerable secular, military, and religious power, until in the sixteenth century its eleventh chief priest, Kennyo, waged a military struggle against the warrior chieftain Oda Nobunaga. After years of conflict, the imperial court commanded Kennyo, who, in addition to being a priest was also a functionary of the court, to make peace with Nobunaga to whom he surrendered the massive temple, which had served as a fortress. In 1602 Kyōnyo, the elder brother of the twelfth chief priest, Junnyo, founded a temple of the same name under the patronage of Tokugawa Ieyasu, the first in the line of Tokugawa shoguns. From then on, the original temple was called Nishi (West) Hongan-ji, and the new one, Higashi (East) Hongan-ji. Higashi Hongan-ji is the head temple of the Ōtani branch of the True Pure Land school, and Nishi Hongan-ji, that of the Hongan-ji branch. Both are located in Kyoto.