Becoming a Danka in Japan: I Compared 3 Temples Before My Parent Died

What do you have to do to become a danka? How much does it cost? I saw three temples before my parent died, and I want to write down what happened.

Roughly speaking, a danka is a household that belongs to one Buddhist temple in Japan. The temple takes care of the funerals and the memorial services for that family, and the family supports the temple with money.

I will say the conclusion first.

Our household is now the danka of Temple B. I saw three temples, and in the end we decided on Temple B.

Temple	Cost	When they collect	What stood out
Temple A	3,000 yen a year	New Year (from before the death)	The collecting began after nothing more than a conversation
Temple B	10,000 yen a year	May (from after the funeral)	Two households of relatives use it too
Temple C	Monthly	Every month	The chief priest comes to pray every month

If you choose without knowing this difference, the money you pay out over the years, and the weight you carry, can end up very different.

How We Met Temple A

Temple A was introduced to my parent by an acquaintance. The story was that a grave could be built there for free. So we spoke to them, just to see. Whether it was really free, I still do not know. We had not decided to build a grave. I thought of it as no more than listening to what they had to say.

But from that time on, they came to collect money every New Year. Three thousand yen. It was not the kind of situation where we could refuse, and our household kept paying for three years.

Before the grave was built, before we had become danka at all, they came for the money. Honestly, it felt grasping to me.

I looked it up later. That three thousand yen at New Year had a name. It is called goji-kaihi, a membership fee for keeping the temple maintained, and the amount is apparently not unusual. So even if the land is free, once the relationship starts, the yearly money is a separate matter. I thought I had only listened to a talk. On the list over there, we were already written down.

How We Ended Up With Temple B

When my parent went into the hospital, we talked about what to do about the temple.

There are four households of relatives in our town. Two of them were danka of Temple B. It was a temple we had known since we were children, and my older brother knew the people there. The suggestion was that we use the same temple, and Temple B is what we decided on.

What Do You Need to Become a Danka? For Us It Was One Box of Sweets

First I went to Temple A with a box of sweets and declined politely. They accepted that.

Then I went to Temple B, with the same kind of box of sweets, and asked them to take us. We had known them since childhood. They took us in gladly.

To be honest, the formal definition of a danka is something I still do not know. In our case, the temple we asked to hold the funeral, the temple that gave a kaimyo, simply became our temple from then on. A kaimyo is the Buddhist name a temple gives to a person after death. We paid no money to go in. All I carried was a box of sweets. I thought arriving empty handed would be rude, and that was the whole reason. I found out later that some temples ask for an entry fee called nyudanryo, and it can apparently run from tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of yen.

I Learned the Cost of Temple B When the Collector Came Around

How Temple B charges became clear in May, when the person on collection duty came. About ten danka households in the neighborhood take the duty in turns, two years at a time, and go around collecting. Ten thousand yen, once a year.

It was nothing like Temple A, which came to collect while my parent was still alive.

The House Next Door Belongs to Temple C and Pays Every Month

The house next door is a danka of a different temple, Temple C. The chief priest comes to pray there every month, I hear. The cost comes every month too.

Just from looking at three temples, A and B and C, the way the money works is completely different. Choose without knowing that, and the amount that goes out over many years changes a great deal.

What to Check Before Becoming a Danka

• Is the payment monthly or yearly
• When does the payment start, after the death or before it
• How is the collecting organized
• Does it cost money to stop

None of it is written on a website. Asking directly, or gathering it through relatives and local connections, is the realistic way.

When I declined Temple A, no money was demanded. We were not danka yet, and no grave had been built. But when a family has a grave at a temple and then leaves the danka, I hear a ridanryo, a fee for leaving, is sometimes asked for. They say there is no legal obligation to pay it, but I have heard of cases where a large sum was demanded and it turned into a fight. Before going in, hearing about how you come out is worth the trouble.

The Funeral Was at Temple B, Run by a Friend in the Funeral Business

A friend of mine ran a funeral company. There was giri there too, the sense of obligation you carry toward someone you have a relationship with. So the funeral was held with Temple B as the place, and that friend and his company ran it.

What I really wanted was to use one of the large ceremonial companies. The big ones have their own halls, and a priest comes on assignment. But this time it became a funeral at Temple B, and my friend and his company handled it. A real funeral, I thought, is a tangle of obligations and circumstances.

Ours was decided by giri and by the people around us. If someone can choose without those ties, then looking into it first costs nothing.

In the End: Becoming a Danka Starts With Talking While the Parent Is Still Well

A temple is not something to decide in a rush after the death. We talked it over while my parent was in the hospital, and we decided then.

Temple A came to collect every year while we were not even danka. Temple B asked for ten thousand yen once a year, and only after the funeral was over. Temple C is the monthly kind, which I learned later.

They are all called danka of a temple, but the way the money works is not the same at all. While the parent is still well, checking it once is what I would do.