On July 15, 1913, in a Tenrikyo mission house in distant Yamaguchi Prefecture, a 31-year-old missionary named Onishi Aijiro heard the voice of God tell him he was the living kanrodai -- the divine pillar at the center of creation. It was the kind of claim that could destroy a man's career, and it did. Within a decade, the Tenrikyo establishment revoked his instructor's license and cast him out. But Onishi did not retreat. He built something new from the wreckage of his old life, a faith that would survive government persecution, wartime suppression, and internal schism to attract over 319,000 followers by the twenty-first century. His story is rooted here, in the hills of Nara and the coastal lowlands of Osaka, where the headquarters of his religion still stand.
Onishi Aijiro was born on August 26, 1881, in Uda, Nara Prefecture, the youngest child of Kishioka Kichijiro and Kisa. The mountainous Uda district sits in the eastern highlands of Nara, a landscape of forested ridges and narrow valleys that has shaped spiritual seekers for centuries. Tenrikyo, the religion Onishi would first serve and then break from, had been founded in this same prefecture just decades earlier by a woman named Nakayama Miki, who claimed divine possession in 1838. Tenrikyo grew into one of Japan's most significant new religions, centered on the idea that God the Parent created humanity at a specific spot in Tenri City, marked by the kanrodai -- a sacred stand representing the point of human origin. When Onishi declared himself the living embodiment of this concept, he was not merely claiming authority. He was claiming to be the physical manifestation of creation's center point.
After his excommunication from Tenrikyo in February 1924, Onishi formally established the Tenri Study Association in January 1925, which he later renamed Tenri Honmichi. His teachings drew followers rapidly, but they also drew the attention of the imperial government. In 1928, Onishi and approximately 500 of his followers were arrested on charges of lese-majeste -- the crime of insulting the dignity of the emperor. His movement's theology placed divine authority above imperial authority, a direct challenge to the state ideology that declared the emperor a living god. Onishi was convicted in his first and second trials but acquitted by the prewar Supreme Court in 1930. Undeterred, he resumed distributing religious documents that reasserted his theological claims. In 1938, the government struck again with a simultaneous nationwide crackdown, arresting Onishi and other leaders on charges of lese-majeste and violation of the Peace Preservation Law. Where other religious leaders might have compromised, Onishi held firm.
The empire that tried to silence Onishi collapsed in 1945. Religious freedom came with the postwar constitution, and in 1946, Honmichi established its permanent headquarters in Takaishi, Osaka Prefecture, on the coastal plain south of Osaka city. The name changed one final time in 1950, from Tenri Honmichi to simply Honmichi -- meaning 'the true path.' Onishi spent his remaining years leading the organization from Takaishi, where the headquarters complex still serves as the faith's administrative and spiritual center. He died on November 29, 1958, at the age of 77. His burial at the Take-no-uchi Cemetery in Taima, now part of Katsuragi City in Nara, placed him back in the prefecture where his life began.
Two years after Onishi's death, his grandson Onishi Yasuhiko assumed leadership in 1960, regarded by followers as Aijiro's reincarnation and thus the new living kanrodai. But succession was not seamless. In 1962, Honbushin -- a splinter movement led by Onishi's daughter Onishi Tama -- separated from Honmichi. Tama, who died in 1969, was believed by Honbushin followers to be the reincarnation of Nakayama Miki, the original Tenrikyo foundress. Both Honmichi and Honbushin claim to be the legitimate continuation of Onishi Aijiro's original vision. The theological architecture of Honmichi maps Tenrikyo's founding figures onto Onishi family members through a system of divine reincarnation, connecting each family member to one of the original creation deities. It is an intricate spiritual genealogy that binds the cosmic to the personal, the ancient to the modern.
Located at 34.51N, 135.70E in the hills southeast of Osaka. The article's coordinates place it near Takaishi, Osaka Prefecture, where Honmichi headquarters are located on the coastal plain facing Osaka Bay. From altitude, the area sits between the urban sprawl of southern Osaka and the forested mountains of Nara Prefecture to the east. Kansai International Airport (RJBB) is approximately 12 nautical miles to the south-southwest on its artificial island in Osaka Bay. Osaka Itami Airport (RJOO) is about 20 nautical miles to the north. Best viewed at 3,000-5,000 feet AGL, where the contrast between the dense coastal development and the mountainous Nara hinterland becomes visible.