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Shinjū (心中, the characters for "mind" and "centre") means "double suicide" in Japanese, as in ''Shinjū Ten no Amijima'' (''The Love Suicides at Amijima''), written by the seventeenth-century tragedian Chikamatsu Monzaemon for the puppet theatre (''bunraku'' and/or ''joruri'' theatre). In common parlance shinjū is used to refer to any group suicide of persons bound by love, typically lovers, parents and children, and even whole families. In Japanese theatre and literary tradition, double suicides are the simultaneous suicides of two lovers whose ''ninjo,'' "personal feelings", or love for one another are at odds with ''giri'', "social conventions" or familial obligations. Double suicides were rather common in Japan throughout history and double suicide is an important theme of the puppet theatre repertory. The tragic denouement is usually known to the audience and is preceded by a ''michiyuki,'' a small poetical journey, where lovers evoke the happier moments of their lives and their attempts at loving each other. Lovers committing double suicide believed that they would be united again in heaven, a view supported by feudal teaching in Edo period Japan, which taught that the bond between husband and wife is continued into the next world,〔http://www.ibsensociety.liu.edu/conferencepapers/mori.pdf Mitsuya MORI(2004) "Double Suicide at Rosmersholm"〕 and by the teaching of Pure Land Buddhism wherein it is believed that through double suicide, one can approach rebirth in the Pure Land.〔http://ccbs.ntu.edu.tw/FULLTEXT/JR-PHIL/becker.htm Carl B. Becker (1990) Buddhist Views of Suicide and Euthanasia, ''Philosophy East and West'', V. 40 No. 4 (October 1990) pp. 543-555, University of Hawaii Press〕 The filmmaker Masahiro Shinoda adapted the puppet theatre play ''Shinjū ten no Amijima'' as a film in 1969, released under the title: ''Double Suicide'' in English, in a modernist adaptation, including a score by Toru Takemitsu.〔http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0064975/〕 In the preface he wrote for Donald Keene's book ''Bunraku'', the writer Jun'ichirō Tanizaki complained about the too-long endings of all the double suicide plays, since it is a known denouement. In his novel ''Some Prefer Nettles'', he parodies the notion of shinjū and gives it a social and sensual double suicide with no clear ending. ==See also== *Suicide in Japan *Suicide pact 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Shinjū」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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