Their mother produced a letter naming the younger son, Hideyoshi removed the elder as head of the Honganji, and Ieyasu gave the elder land for a rival temple in Kyoto

The headship of the Honganji, the main temple of the Jōdo Shinshū Buddhist school, passed from father to son. From 1570 Kennyo led the Honganji in a ten-year war against Oda Nobunaga. In 1580 its fortress at Osaka surrendered and burned. His eldest son, Kyōnyo, refused to surrender and was publicly disowned. Kennyo died in 1592, and Kyōnyo succeeded him with a seal letter of recognition from Toyotomi Hideyoshi. In 1593 their mother, Nyoshun-ni, presented Hideyoshi at the Arima hot springs with a transfer letter dated 1587 that named the younger son, Junnyo, as heir. Hideyoshi summoned Kyōnyo, put eleven charges to him, and proposed that he hand over the headship after ten years. When a senior retainer disputed the letter, Hideyoshi ordered Kyōnyo to retire at once. He submitted his retirement on the 17th day of the 9th month, and Junnyo was confirmed. Hideyoshi died in 1598. Kyōnyo backed Tokugawa Ieyasu and met him before and after the battle of Sekigahara. In 1602 Ieyasu granted him a four-block estate at Shichijō Karasuma in Kyoto, east of the Honganji. There Kyōnyo founded the Higashi (East) Honganji, and Junnyo's temple became the Nishi (West) Honganji. The government recognised them as separate congregations in 1619. Both stand in Kyoto. After 1969 the Higashi Honganji split again into four groups; the Ōtani-ha runs the temple, renamed Shinshū Honbyō in 1987.