Gatai

Gatai was a monk of the Brotherhood of Shinsei, and founder of the Perfect Land Sect.
== Soshi ni Kie ==
Gatai was follower of Yuzue, a nun of the Shrine of the Seven Thunders who in the late ninth century believed that the conversation between Shinsei and Hantei had initiated an Age of Celestial Virtue that lasted eight-hundred years, a century for each Kami who heard Shinsei's teachings, and that the ninth century began the Age of Declining Virtue, marked by corruption and difficulty in following the Tao. To beseech Shinsei to return, the monk ceaselessly chanted the mantra Shoshi ni kie ("devotion to the Little Teacher" or "absolute trust in the Little Teacher"). Yuzue came to believe that if enough people chanted this mantra with sincerity, Shinsei would return to usher in a new Age of Celestial Virtue. Emerald Empire: The Essential Guide to Rokugan, p. 20
== Perfect Land Sect ==
After Yuzue's death, Gatai discovered a sutra she had written: the Perfect Land Sutra, and he began championing her treatise and chanting the kie himself. While his ideas were not well received among the Brotherhood of Shinsei, which exiled him, he found a willing audience among the peasantry of Rokugan. Path of Waves, p. 29 Gatai founded the Perfect Land Sect based on the sutra she had written shortly before her passing. This scroll claimed that Shinsei did not return to the Void when he departed from Ningen-dō, but instead dwelt in a Perfect Land within Tengoku, the Celestial Heavens. The Perfect Land Sect believed that those who chanted the kie, as Yuzue's mantra became known, could join Shinsei in the Perfect Land upon their death, rather than face judgment in Meido and rebirth based on their karma. In the Perfect Land, under the tutelage of the Little Teacher himself, the faithful could achieve Enlightenment without suffering on the wheel of rebirth. 
== Contemplation Sutra ==
Throughout the course of his life, Gatai continued to meditate upon the nature of the kie, upon the Perfect Land, and upon his mentor's theories of the Age of Declining Virtue. These meditations were recorded in his own sutra, the Contemplation Sutra, and were kept with the Perfect Land Sutra by the burgeoning Perfect Land Sect. 
Category:Members of the Brotherhood of Shinsei (TCG)