Background
Eun Maeda was born in 1857 in Kuwana in what later became Mie Prefecture, the son of the priest of a temple called Saifuku-ji of the Hongan-ji branch of the Jodo Shin sect.
Eun Maeda was born in 1857 in Kuwana in what later became Mie Prefecture, the son of the priest of a temple called Saifuku-ji of the Hongan-ji branch of the Jodo Shin sect.
As a boy he studied Chinese and Buddhist texts under a scholar in the neighborhood. In 1875 he went to Kyoto and entered the Seizan Kyojuko, a school operated by the Hongan- ji branch of the sect.
In 1903 he received his doctorate; his dissertation was a collection of scholarly articles entitled Daijo Bukkyo shiron.
In 1878 he became a disciple of Taiho Risshi of Miidera in Otsu, studying the scriptures and traditional doctrines of Buddhism. With his father’s death in 1880, he returned to his home for a time and became resident priest of his father’s temple, but later went to Kyoto once more. He also went to Kyushu, where he studied the history of the Jodo Shin sect under Matsushima Zenjo. He went to Tokyo in 1888, where he joined the Sonno Hobutsu Daidodan, a Buddhist political organization formed by Ouchi Seiran, and for a while was active in politics.
He served as a lecturer at Tokyo Imperial University and elsewhere and later as president of Toyo University and Ryukoku University, the last in Kyoto. From 1905, he devoted his energies to the publication of the Da Nippon Zokuzokyo, a continuation of the Tripitaka containing basic texts of Buddhism.
His works include Hongan-ji-ha gahiji-shi and Tendaishu koyo.
