Parishioners - Danka

A family that permanently requests a specific temple to perform funeral rites and protects the temple by making donations. The word originates from the transliteration of the ancient Indian word dānapati (meaning a donor who makes offerings to the monks of the temple). While these are personal relationships between a master and a monk, a relationship between a specific family and a temple is called a danka, and the people of the danka are called danto.

It started when nobles and samurai families had specific family temples (danna-dera), and when small family-type households for the common people were established widely in the early modern period, danna-dera were born as their collective family temples, and the relationship between the two became permanent and fixed, and temple parishioners were generally established. Based on this situation, when the Edo Shogunate implemented the Teraukesei system, which required temple priests to prove that common people were temple parishioners in order to enforce the ban on Christianity, all people came to be considered temple parishioners of some temple. This system of temple parishioners, along with the Teraukesei system, was abolished with the Meiji Restoration, but temple parishioners as a relationship between temples and households was the basic structure of Buddhist sects and has survived to the present day.

Its essence lies in ancestor worship to maintain the continuity of the family. To do this, it is necessary for all members of the family to belong to the same temple, but in contrast to this type of marudanke, there are families that include members who belong to different temples, and these are called handanke and futsudanke, in which the tradition is passed down within the family. There is disagreement as to whether these should be considered relics of the pre-marudanke system, and the issue remains. In modern times, the idea of ​​a bilateral family that places importance on the genealogy of both parents is gradually taking shape, and a new type of handanke is beginning to appear.

[Hitoshi Okusa]

Source: Shogakukan Encyclopedia Nipponica About Encyclopedia Nipponica Information | Legend

特定寺院に永続的に葬祭を依頼し、布施(ふせ)を行ってその寺院を護持する家。古代インド語ダーナパティーdānapati（寺僧を供養(くよう)する施主(せしゅ)という意味）の音写の檀那(だんな)・檀越(だんおつ)に語源をもつ。これらが個人的な師檀の関係であるのに対して、特定の家と寺の関係となったものを檀家とよび、檀家の人々を檀徒という。

　公家(くげ)・武家が特定の菩提(ぼだい)寺（檀那寺）をもったのに始まり、近世初頭に小家族形態の民衆の家が広範に成立すると、その集合菩提寺として檀那寺が生まれ、両者の関係が永続化・固定化して檀家が一般的に成立した。こうした状況を前提に、江戸幕府がキリシタン禁制の実施のため、寺僧をして民衆が檀家であることを証明させる寺請制(てらうけせい)を始めると、すべての人々がいずれかの寺の檀家とされることになった。このような寺請制を伴った制度としての檀家は、明治維新とともに廃止されたが、寺と家の関係としての檀家は、仏教教団の基礎構造であったから、現代に至るまで存続している。

　その本質は、家の連続性を維持する祖先崇拝にある。そのためには、家族全員が同一寺院に所属することが必要であるが、このような丸檀家に対し、家族のうちに檀那寺を異にするものが含まれ、それが家族内で継承されていく半檀家・複檀家とよばれるものがある。それを丸檀家以前の遺制とみるかどうかについては、異論があり問題を残している。現代においては、父母双方の系譜を重視する双系的家観念がしだいに形成され、新しい半檀家形態が出現しつつある。

［大桑　斉］

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