Daughters Lead the Way: Women Successors in Japanese New Buddhist Movements

This paper explores the intersection of women's leadership and new Buddhist movements in contemporary Japan. Specifically, it examines the cases of two prominent female leaders: Shinsō Itō (1942- ) of Shinnyo-en and Kōshō Niwano (1968- ) of Risshō Kōseikai. As the daughter and granddaughter of their respective organizations' founders, these women offer insights into the shifting dynamics of gender, leadership, family lineage, and religious authority in Japanese Buddhism.

Japanese Religious Studies has historically siloed two critical topics: the roles and contributions of women, and the new religious movements that emerged in the early twentieth century. Multiple factors help explain this siloing, including antiquity bias that privileges older traditions over modern developments, androcentrism, and challenges in gaining access to new religious groups, particularly after the 1995 Aum Shinrikyō incident. The marginalization of these topics has led to an incomplete understanding of Japanese religion in its living, contemporary state. By focusing on women leaders in new religious movements, this research addresses both gaps simultaneously, contributing to a more comprehensive understanding of religion in Japan as it exists today.

The paper examines two case studies. The first is Shinsō Itō of Shinnyo-en, daughter of the founders, Shinjō and Tomoji Itō. Shinsō has led Shinnyo-en since her father’s death in 1989. Shinnyo-en is a lay Mahayana Buddhist organization with approximately 900,000 members in Japan and a global membership of around one million. The second case study is Kōshō Niwano of Risshō Kōseikai, granddaughter of the founder and current president-designate, who is poised to lead Risshō Kōseikai in the near future. Risshō Kōseikai is a Lotus Sutra-based movement with about two million domestic members and 80,000 international members.

The research consists primarily of textual analysis of published works by and about these leaders, including Shinsō Itō's Living in Shinnyo: A Compass for an Awakened Life (2019) and Kōshō Niwano's The Buddha in Everyone's Heart (2013) and 笑顔は天の花 Egao ha ten no hana (en: “Smiles are the Flowers of Heaven,” 2014). Official organizational publications and websites are also examined. This paper addresses several key questions. How do these women understand their roles as leaders in their respective traditions? How does their status as daughters/granddaughters of the founders shape their perception of leadership and their approach to it? What role does gender play in the expression of their leadership? How do their leadership styles compare to their male predecessors and to each other?

Initial analysis suggests that while both leaders use similar language to describe their roles as torchbearers of their traditions, there are important differences in how they address gender in their leadership. Kōshō Niwano's writings often focus on family themes, reinforcing traditional gender norms. Shinsō Itō, on the other hand, explicitly addresses her position as a woman in a traditionally male role, framing it as a reflection of changing societal norms and her parents' vision of inclusivity. These differences may be influenced by their respective stages in leadership––Itō has led Shinnyo-en for over three decades, while Niwano is still president-designate––and the specific contexts of their organizations.

Both Itō’s and Niwano’s writings emphasize their roles in preserving and transmitting the teachings of their predecessors. However, their positions as women in traditionally male roles inherently represent a departure from convention. The tension between continuity and change reflected in the writing of Itō and Niwano provide valuable insights into the evolving nature of organizational leadership within Japanese religions. The paper will also explore women's roles more broadly within these organizations. The most recent government data collected in 2022 on religious membership in Japan does not include a breakdown by gender, however gender data is collected for the numbers of religious teachers/priests (教師) for each organization. Shinnyo-en reported 87,672 female teachers and 20,818 male teachers; Risshō Kōseikai reported 56,902 female teachers and 16,776 male teachers. While the ratio between female and male teachers is staggeringly high for both organizations, without a gender breakdown of the total membership, we cannot discern whether those ratios are in line with a gender disparity in the overall membership. Still, we may question whether the high rate of female teachers within each organization may be at least partially influenced by the prominent female leadership at the top of the organization. 

This research has several important implications for the field. It challenges the traditional focus on male leadership in religious organizations and provides insight into to what extent new religious movements are reflective of and responding to changing gender norms in Japanese society. Furthermore, by examining the lives and works of Shinsō Itō and Kōshō Niwano, the study provides a fresh perspective on the interplay between family lineage, gender, and religious authority in contemporary Japanese Buddhism.