Renkoji Temple and the Ashes of Subhas Chandra Bose

The temple and the remains

The Suginami ward heritage listing dates Renkoji to 1594 and says it moved to its present site in July 1915 during a land readjustment in Asakusa. The same listing says the temple enshrines the remains of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose, and that a memorial stone went up in 1975 and a bust in 1990.

Tokyo Shimbun reported on August 26, 2026, that many temples refused the remains of a man who had fought the British, and that Renkoji accepted them. It quotes the priest of that time: "Not only do souls have no borders, but offering prayers for the dead is the mission of a monk who serves the Buddhist Dharma." The quotation is the newspaper's Japanese, translated here.

Black granite plaques beside the memorial stone carry messages from visiting Indian leaders. President Rajendra Prasad's, dated October 4, 1958, says it is his happiness to come to the temple and pray at Netaji's sacred remains.

What the inquiries found

The Shah Nawaz Committee, set up by the government in 1956, concluded by majority that Bose died in a plane crash. One member, Bose's elder brother Suresh Chandra Bose, dissented and said there was no crash. The government accepted the majority report. The Khosla Commission, set up in 1970, concluded that Bose died of injuries from a crash at Taipei and that his ashes were taken to Tokyo.

The Mukherjee Commission was set up in 1999 and submitted its report on November 8, 2005. It concluded that Bose is dead, that he did not die in the crash, and that the ashes at Renkoji are not his. It said Bose left Saigon by air on August 17, 1945, and that the story of the crash, his death, and his cremation was engineered by Japanese army authorities, two doctors, and Habibur Rahman, a colleague of Bose, and announced on August 23. It also said that without clinching evidence it could not give a positive answer to its terms of reference.

The government tabled the Mukherjee report on May 17, 2006, with an action taken report that said it did not agree with the findings that Bose did not die in a plane crash and that the Renkoji ashes were not his.

Japan's 1956 report

A Japanese government document titled "Investigation on the cause of death and other matters of the late Subhas Chandra Bose" was published online on September 1, 2016, by Bosefiles.info, a website in the United Kingdom. According to PTI, it was completed in January 1956 and submitted to the Indian embassy in Tokyo. It concludes that Bose died in a plane crash in Taiwan on August 18, 1945, and gives August 22 as the date of his cremation at Taipei.

The DNA question

The Mukherjee report said that experts at home and abroad had held out a bleak prospect for DNA testing of the ashes. PTI quotes its English text as saying that "on account of the Temple Authorities reticence" the commission could not proceed further.

On January 23, 2022, PTI reported on a new translation of a 2005 letter from the temple's chief priest, commissioned by Bose's grandniece Madhuri Bose. It includes the line "I agreed to offer my cooperation for the testing" and places that agreement at a 2004 meeting with Indian Ambassador M.L. Tripathi. Madhuri Bose said the official English version attached to the report left that passage out. PTI said it could not independently authenticate the translation.

On January 23, 2025, PTI reported that relatives had renewed their demand for a DNA test and for transfer of the remains to India. Surya Kumar Bose said that on a 2019 visit the head priest and the widow of a former priest were willing to hand the remains over for testing.

Renkoji is a working Nichiren temple. The Bose memorial stone, the bust, and the plaques stand outdoors beside the main hall. Visitor accounts describe a walk of about 5 minutes from Higashi-Koenji Station on the Marunouchi Line.

The temple holds a memorial service for Bose every August 18. A notice for 2024 invited the public to pay respects from 1pm to 1:40pm, and Tokyo Shimbun reported that Indian visitors were prominent at the 2026 service. Hours and access are the temple's to set, and it is best to confirm them with the temple in Japanese before going. As at any active temple, it's best practice to keep voices low and to ask before photographing inside the hall.