Aum ShinrikyŌ
AUM SHINRIKYŌ, or "Aum Sect of Truth," is a new religious movement based on Buddhism and other Eastern traditions, including Hinduism and Daoism. The movement was founded by Asahara Shōkō, also known as Matsumoto Chizuo (b. 1955), who claims to have attained ultimate enlightenment. Although Aum Shinrikyō presents itself as a Buddhist sect, its main deity is Śiva. This is unusual even in the eclectic and syncretic Japanese religious tradition. Compared to other new religious movements in the main line, at its height Aum was a small group, with only one thousand shukke (full-time members who had renounced the world) and ten thousand zaike (lay members) in Japan, and more than twenty thousand members in Russia. As of early 2004, twelve Aum members (including Asahara) had received death sentences because of the group's criminal and terrorist activities perpetrated in the name of salvation. Aum Shinrikyō proved to the world how a new religious movement could be a real threat and danger to the contemporary society. In 2001, under the leadership of Jōyū Fumihiro (b. 1962), the group changed its name to Aleph. Reeling from the legal problems and poor public relations resulting from the 1995 sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway, the sect was radically reformed.
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