Brotherhood of Shinsei (TCG)

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The Brotherhood of Shinsei was a religious organization that governed and oversaw the temples, shrines and monasteries of Rokugan. It was named after Shinsei, the Little Teacher. The Emperor was the official head of the Brotherhood.

Sects of the Brotherhood

The Tao of Shinsei was studied and debated by a vast collection of monastic orders, each with an individual approach to study and practice. This religious heterodoxy occasionally gave rise to potent heresies, and many divergent sects of Shinseism had appeared over the centuries. The Grand Master of the Four Temples was seen as the head of the Brotherhood.

History

The Ways of the Brotherhood

By the fifth century, the Brotherhood of Shinsei had begun to make significant advances in healing and medicine. As a result, both commoners and nobles increased their support for monks across Rokugan. The organization of monks greatly expanded its membership and teach an increasing number of commoners about the Tao and the path to Enlightenment. Determined to spread correct teachings as widely as possible, the Brotherhood sponsored festivals in cities and towns across the Empire. The festivals featured dramatizations of events from the life of Shinsei interspersed with sermons and readings from the Teachings of Shinsei and became an important and persistent cultural touchstone of Rokugan. The style of theater called Kabuki was one mainstay of these festivals, rising to become a major art form of the day.

Perfect Land Sect Heresy

In 1124 the Brotherhood held their annual conclave at the Mountain Song Temple under the hospitality of Mirumoto Daimyō Mirumoto Masashige, being its main agenda item a vote on whether to formally bestow the label of False Path on the Perfect Land Sect, with the risk to fall into a violent schism.

Shinsei's Reincarnation

During the conclave some incidents happened, and eventually it was exposed that a peasant woman named Senzai was the reincarnation of Shinsei, the Little Teacher. She told to the conclave the Perfect Land did not exist, and the words of the kie had no power to free souls from the wheel of rebirth. Bur his moral message was correct: the samurai of Rokugan had indeed lost their way, and the Empire as a whole; all of Rokugani society was out of balance. The very concept of the Celestial Order had been warped over time, becoming a too-rigid system used to justify the oppression of those below for the gratification of those above. The effects of her declaration would ripple far beyond the conclave itself over time. Some Perfect Land communities broke up, others vowed to create the Perfect Land in the Mortal Realm, by righting what had gone wrong.

References

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