Buraku Liberation News, November 1997 issue (N0.99)
4. A Buddhism Sect Held a Memorial Service for Derogatory Posthumous Names.
On September 27 Soto Sect of Buddhism held a memorial service at Eiheiji Cathedral in Fukui Prefecture for souls of the dead who had been given derogatory Kaimyo, posthumous names. About 250 priests headed by Mr Ryoei Otogawa, the Director-General of the sect as well as President of the Promotion Headquarters for Human Rights Protection, and 25 people from the BLL participated in the service.
Kaimyo, given by a Buddhist priest to the dead, is recorded in a post-memorial register and carved on a tomb. Of late, it was discovered that discriminatory names were given to the dead who were of Buraku origins. The names include the character for beast, humble, ignoble, servant and many kinds of derogatory expressions. While the majority seem to have been given a long time ago, there are some names given since the 1940's.
The Soto Sect, which became aware of the existence of such names within their sect in 1981, tried to investigate for years the actual condition among their temples nationwide. As a result, they found out that there were 229 temples which had discriminatory Kaimyo.
Since then, the Soto Sect has considered this issue as one of the important subjects to tackle, and has occasionally held memorial services as well as rectified the discrimination to the dead. However, the rectification has been done at a slower pace than originally planed.