Danka system

The danka system (檀家制度, danka seido), also known as jidan system (寺檀制度, jidan seido), is a system of voluntary and long-term affiliation between Buddhist temples and households in use in Japan since the Heian period.^[1] In it, households (the danka) financially support a Buddhist temple which, in exchange, provides for their spiritual needs.^[1] Although its existence long predates the Edo period (1603–1868), the system is best known for its repressive use made at that time by the Tokugawa, who made the affiliation with a Buddhist temple compulsory to all citizens.

During the Tokugawa shogunate, the system was turned into a citizen registration network; supposedly intended to stop the diffusion of Christianity and help detect hidden Christians, it soon became a government-mandated and Buddhist temple-run system to monitor and control the population as a whole.^[2] For this reason, it survived intact long after Christianity in Japan was thought to have been eradicated. The system as it existed in Tokugawa times is sometimes called terauke system (寺請制度, terauke seido) because of the certification (or terauke, because the tera, or temple would issue an uke, or certificate) issued by a Buddhist temple that a citizen was not a Christian.^[3]

The mandatory danka system was officially abolished during the Meiji period, but continues nonetheless to exists as a voluntary association between the two sides, constitutes a major part of the income of most temples and defines as before the relationship between households and temples.^[1]