Published On:Sunday 5 October 2014

Posted by Celebrate Life Style information Blog

Japanese religious group GLA has a museum-like charnel house to store the remains and mementos of the deceased in Hokuto, Yamanashi prefecture. Photo: Kyodo

Funeral services in Japan, usually performed by Buddhist priests, are taking on new forms as bonds with family temples loosen.

Facilitating the changes are some of the country's newer religious groups, such as GLA.


Founded in 1969, GLA teaches that the human soul is eternal. In 2012, it opened a charnel house on the premises of its spiritual training facility in Hokuto, Yamanashi prefecture.

The house, which looks like a modern museum and has won an award at an illumination contest in North America, keeps not only remains of the deceased but also personal mementos such as photos and messages. Visitors can also watch video recordings of their loved ones.

A man in his 60s, who lost his mother at 91 last year and deposited her ashes and mementos in the charnel house, said: "When I read about her life, it reminds of her and brings a lump to my throat."
GLA scatters the ashes of the departed to "return" them to nature after keeping them in the charnel house for 30 years, but saves the records of "what they thought and how they acted at various phases of their life and what they generated as a result", a GLA official said.

The practice offers an "interesting clue" to the future of funeral services, said a Buddhist association leader.

Shinnyo-en, a new religion based on Buddhism, has a 6,900 square metre cemetery in Kisarazu, Chiba prefecture, where nearly 1,400 tombstones of the same shape stand in an orderly manner. While the cemetery was established about 30 years ago, Shinnyo-en opened a mass grave within its compound last year at the urging of its followers.

Shinnyo-en maintains a cooperative stance with traditional Buddhist temples by recommending that its followers hold funeral and memorial services, including the burial of the dead, at their family temples, said Shinji Hirashima, a spokesman for the new religion's headquarters in Tachikawa, Tokyo.

But an increase in followers among urban residents, who no longer have strong ties to family temples in their rural hometowns and villages, has made it necessary for Shinnyo-en to conduct funeral services.

The Kisarazu cemetery has no room left for new tombstones, while applications for future burial in the mass grave have reached their limit.

Recent social trends are likely to see followers of religious organisations rely on them even more for funeral services.

Meanwhile, Soka Gakkai, Japan's biggest lay Buddhist organisation, follows its own course, launching its original funeral ceremony, called yujin-so - funeral rites by friends - over 20 years ago. Each ceremony is performed by a Soka Gakkai member without a Buddhist priest.

While there are some 30,000 male members authorised to perform the yujin-so by chanting a Buddhist sutra based on the teachings of the 13th-century Japanese monk Nichiren, the service can also be performed by women and others based on their relationship with the deceased.

Yujin-so is "extremely simple", said Yoshitaka Wada, who heads the group of authorised protocol chiefs.

Whoever conducts the ceremony first studies the personality of the departed follower in advance to prepare an address, which includes a reference to his or her devotion to the teachings of Nichiren and words of hope for the bereaved, Wada said.

Because Soka Gakkai members carry out the service as friends, they accept no fees from the bereaved.

Soka Gakkai recently introduced kazoku-so - funeral rites by family members - as a new variant form of yujin-so.