Intangible cultural heritage meaning of the Eosan group as a special group

This paper focuses on special groups that have been overlooked in our policy of intangible cultural assets. It focused on the community that needs expertise and has a certain entry barrier in the process of transferring intangible heritage, which is why it has become special. Particularly noteworthy in this paper is, which passes on Buddhist rites. The reason why we pay attention to the Eosan group as a special group is because we felt the need to overcome various confusion arising in the course of implementing policies regarding the designation of intangible cultural assets.The discussion first begins by looking at the status of special groups and the confusion that emerges in the course of policy implementation. The situation of ‘controversy over the similarity of Buddhist ritual performing subjects’, ‘controversy over the similarity of the Buddhist ceremony’, ‘crossing the events of the same performing subject’, and ‘inconsistency between the performing and leading groups’ are reviewed here. The following discussion is a review of Japan’s unique collective succession structure. While studying Japan’s Iemoto system, we will organize things to consider in our special group discussions.Based on this arrangement, we looked at what we should pay attention to in our special group, which is the following discussion. Through this discussion, I stressed that the attributes of our special group, which appear to be ‘a similar family-oriented transmission’ and ‘a closed transmission’, are never anachronistic. That property is the basic attribute of our special group. Based on the above discussion, I looked at the intangible cultural heritage meaning of the special group represented by the Eosan group. The conclusion of this study is as follows.Our special group is characterized by a broad sense of family succession. Therefore, it has a certain closeness, which blends with the equality of religious ideologies, creating a stable and enduring successionable structure. Closure and sharing of religious ideologies indicate that there is a limit to entering or leaving the group. In addition, our special group is a community that has its own internal system and order to secure expertise. These attributes of special groups are also products of the past, but rather come from the nature of the community. This means that attention and consideration of special groups are never anachronistic. Attention to these special groups may solve a number of problems that currently appear in the relevant designated events. Now it is necessary to pay attention to special groups. Perhaps the intangible cultural heritage value of our special group lies in the group itself. Of course, the policy emphasis should be placed on maintaining the integrity of this special group.