Tenrikyo traces its origin to a single, decisive religious experience in rural Japan in 1838. In the village of Shoyashiki, now part of Tenri City in Nara Prefecture, Nakayama Miki, a farmer’s wife later revered as Oyasama (“Honored Parent”), underwent a trance during a healing ritual for a family member’s illness. In this state she declared that Tenri-O-no-Mikoto, the “God of Origin, God in Truth,” had taken her as the “Shrine of God.” From that moment, Tenrikyo understands history as the unfolding of a divine intention: God the Parent calling humanity back to awareness of its origin and to the ideal of a “joyous life.”

Over the following decades, Nakayama Miki devoted herself to teaching, healing, and the formation of a new religious community. She articulated a vision of God as a loving Parent and human beings as divine children meant to live in gratitude and harmony. Her revelations were expressed in foundational scriptures, especially the Ofudesaki (“Tip of the Writing Brush”), and in liturgical forms such as the Mikagura-uta (“Songs for the Service”) and ritual dances and hand movements used in communal worship. These practices, together with reports of healing, drew followers particularly from farmers, artisans, and other ordinary people seeking both spiritual meaning and relief from suffering.

The emerging movement, however, did not develop in a vacuum. Under the late Tokugawa and early Meiji authorities, religious activity outside officially sanctioned frameworks was subject to suspicion and control. Tenrikyo’s gatherings and healing practices led to repeated interrogations and suppression, and its leaders sometimes sought protection by associating with existing Buddhist or Shinto structures. Despite such pressures, the Nakayama residence gradually became the spiritual center, and a lay network of preachers and adherents took shape, sustaining the sense that Oyasama’s parental presence continued even after her death in 1887.

As the modern Japanese state systematized religion, Tenrikyo pursued legal recognition and institutional consolidation. It was formally acknowledged as a Shinto-related body, with recognition granted and a headquarters established in Tenri, where the sacred center known as Jiba marks the site of Nakayama’s original revelation. There, doctrinal texts and commentaries were organized, and a network of churches and mission stations was developed. During the prewar period, the movement outwardly accommodated state religious expectations while preserving its distinctive emphasis on the Parent-Deity and the joyous life as the true purpose of creation.

With the advent of greater religious freedom, Tenrikyo assumed the status of an independent religious corporation and articulated its teachings in a more systematic doctrinal form. Its theology presents a single, parental God who created the world so that human beings might experience a life of joy grounded in awareness of divine parenthood. From its modest beginnings in a small village, Tenrikyo has grown into a structured religious tradition centered in Tenri City and has extended its activities beyond Japan, establishing missions in regions such as Korea, Taiwan, Brazil, and other areas where seekers resonate with its call to live joyously as children of the Divine Parent.