(1173-1262) Founder of the Jodo-shin-shu school of Japanese Buddhism; he taught that attempting to attain enlightenment through one's own effort is futile; instead liberation can be attained exclusively through the help and grace of the Buddha Amida (Amitabha); he advocated calling out the name of Amida as the only practice necessary in order to be reborn in his Pure Land.

Japanese Buddhist philosopher. Disciples of his teachings founded the Shin or Pure Land Buddhist school. Rejected "rational calculation" as the last refuge of the ego-self and advocated the need for complete self-surrender to Amida Buddha.

Shinran Shonin (1173-1263)Popular Buddhism In Japan: Shin Buddhist Religion & Culture by Esben Andreasen, pp. 13,14,15,17 University of Hawaii Press 1998, ISBN 0-8248-2028-2 was a Japanese Buddhist monk, who was born in Hino (now a part of Fushimi, Kyoto) at the close of the Heian Period and lived during the Kamakura Period, a time when the Shoguns lost their rule to their militaries. Shinran was a pupil of Honen and the founder of the Jodo Shinshu (or True Pure Land) sect in Japan. It was during this era that Japanese Buddhism, which had been declining into formalism for several centuries, underwent intense renewal, giving birth to new paths to enlightenment and spreading to every level of society.