abstract: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.