One Founder, Several Branches, One Portrait Tradition

Jodo Shinshu did not stay a single organization after Shinran's death. Several branches trace their authority back to him, the well known Hongwanji lineages among them, but also smaller schools such as Takada, whose head temple, Senjuji in Mie Prefecture, holds this portrait today. That a specific Shinran likeness survives at one branch temple rather than at a Hongwanji institution is a reminder that Shinran belongs to the whole tradition his teaching produced, not to whichever branch happens to have grown largest.

Senjuji also holds a related image known as the Kagami no Goei, a title whose characters echo, with a slightly different reading, the traditional "Kagami no Miei" title given to a mirror portrait of Honen, the teacher under whom Shinran first studied Pure Land Buddhist practice before developing his own distinctive teaching. Both portraits were exhibited together at the Kyoto Municipal Museum of Art in 2011, for Shinran's 750th memorial and the 40th anniversary of the Shinshu Buddhist Federation, an occasion that brought together material from across the tradition's several branches rather than favoring any single one. Displaying teacher and student side by side, under echoing titles, made visible in a single exhibition the lineage connecting them.