Amida Tong code

The Amida Tong code, as Yabu recounts it, makes assassination a religiously framed discipline of obedience, secrecy, and self-sacrifice. It governs not only how members are trained and when they may kill, but also how outsiders can commission an attack—and why even a failed or successful attempt may leave its sponsor unknown.

Organization and Oaths

Yabu describes the Amida Tong as a secret society organized in units of ten: each area has a leader and no more than nine acolytes, women and men. He presents its rules as sacred and secret oaths to Amida, the dispenser of eternal love, binding members to obedience, chastity, and death. Because Yabu introduces this account as what most people know, the details are presented as circulating knowledge rather than as the testimony of a member.

The members, according to this account, spend their lives training to become a weapon for one kill. They may kill only on the leader’s order; if they fail to kill the chosen target, whether man, woman, or child, they must immediately take their own lives. Yabu calls them religious fanatics who believe that death will carry them directly to Buddhahood. He adds that none has ever been caught alive, a claim that reinforces the code’s apparent finality while also making it impossible to verify through captured members.

Commissioning an Attempt

Yabu outlines a deliberately indirect method for hiring the society. A prospective employer whispers the request in three places: the Heinan Monastery, at the gates of the Amida shrine, and the Johji Monastery. If the employer is considered acceptable, intermediaries make contact within ten days. The process is so secret, Yabu says, that an employer could not expose or catch the society even by trying to betray it.

Payment is demanded in silver, in an amount determined by the intended victim. The sum must be paid in advance, with no bargaining. In return, the Tong guarantees only that one of its members will attempt the killing within ten days; it does not promise that the target will die. Yabu says contracts cover one attempt at a time. A successful assassin is said, according to legend, to return to the temple and undergo ritual suicide in a ceremony. That ending is explicitly reported as legend, not as a confirmed procedure.

Secrecy and the Threat to Toranaga

Yabu explains the code while discussing the attempt on Toranaga’s life, which is already known in Osaka. Asked whether the person who paid for that attack can be identified, he says no: the society’s secrecy leaves no clear route from the attempt to its sponsor. Its code thus protects not only the assassin but also the political anonymity of whoever commissions the violence.

A further attempt remains possible but uncertain. Since each contract covers one attempt, Yabu cannot say whether another will follow. He advises improving security around both the samurai and the women, warning that Amida women are said to train in poison as well as the knife and garrote. He does not claim personal experience as a client: when asked whether he has ever employed the Tong, he answers that he has not. His account therefore presents the code as a feared system of rules and reported practices, not as knowledge acquired through his own use of it.