What Is the Rinnegan in Naruto? Six Paths Powers and Users Explained

The Rinnegan is one of the most formidable eye techniques in Naruto, but its abilities are often confused with Pain's six bodies, the Sharingan, and Sasuke's later powers. The simplest explanation is that the Rinnegan grants access to extraordinary Six Paths techniques, while different wielders use that potential in different ways. This guide explains the eye, its major powers, and the people who wield it.

Spoiler warning: This article discusses the Pain arc and the ending of Naruto Shippuden. A separate, clearly labeled section contains a major Boruto spoiler.

What is the Rinnegan in Naruto?

The Rinnegan is a legendary dojutsu, or eye technique, recognized by its concentric ripple pattern. Its name is commonly translated as the Samsara Eye. It is associated with the Sage of Six Paths, Hagoromo Otsutsuki, and grants abilities far beyond ordinary visual perception. It is not simply an improved Sharingan that anyone can obtain by training harder.

Unlike the Sharingan, which is strongly associated with Uchiha perception and genjutsu, the Rinnegan is best known for manipulating forces, chakra, summons, and even the boundary between life and death. For the distinctions between the Uchiha eye stages, see our Sharingan guide. The powers below explain why Pain seemed almost impossible to defeat.

Where did the Rinnegan come from?

The Rinnegan's history leads back to Hagoromo, the Sage of Six Paths. He appears with the eye when Naruto learns the truth about the origins of shinobi and the conflict between Hagoromo's sons, Indra and Ashura. The official Naruto finale retrospective explicitly identifies Hagoromo as a Rinnegan wielder.

Madara eventually awakens his own Rinnegan after combining the chakra lineages connected to Indra and Ashura. His long experiment involved incorporating Hashirama Senju's cells into his body. The crucial point is the unusual chakra connection, not a universal rule that any Uchiha can take a Senju transplant and instantly acquire the eye.

Madara later implants his Rinnegan in the young Nagato as part of a plan to return to life. This revelation changes how viewers understand Pain: Nagato is an exceptionally capable user, but those eyes did not originally develop in him. The series also shows that a transplanted Rinnegan can be used by someone other than its original awakener, although the burden can be enormous.

The six Rinnegan paths and what they do

The Six Paths Technique divides the Rinnegan's best-known abilities into six categories. Nagato demonstrates them through six separate bodies, each specializing in one path. That division is his method of fighting, not a requirement that every Rinnegan user must control six corpses.

1. Deva Path: attraction and repulsion

The Deva Path manipulates attractive and repulsive forces. Shinra Tensei, often called Almighty Push, drives targets away; Bansho Ten'in, or Universal Pull, draws them toward the user. Chibaku Tensei, Planetary Devastation, creates a gravitational focal point that pulls surrounding material into a massive prison. The scale and timing of these attacks make the Deva Path especially dangerous.

2. Asura Path: mechanized weapons

The Asura Path reshapes the user's body into a weaponized form with extra limbs, armor, and destructive projectiles. In Pain's formation, this body supplies heavy offensive power while the others provide information, summons, or defense. Its strange mechanical appearance makes it easy to mistake for an unrelated technology rather than one of the Rinnegan's six abilities.

3. Human Path: memory and soul extraction

The Human Path can draw information from a person and remove their soul through direct contact. It is frightening because it turns close-range capture into a potentially fatal interrogation. This power is not ordinary mind-reading at a distance, and the user still needs an opening to make contact with the target.

4. Animal Path: extraordinary summons

The Animal Path summons powerful creatures, including animals that support tracking, movement, and battlefield pressure. Nagato uses this path to complicate fights with multiple opponents and changing angles of attack. Its value is not limited to raw damage: a coordinated summoning strategy can protect another Path or prevent an enemy from reaching the real controller.

5. Preta Path: chakra absorption

The Preta Path absorbs chakra-based techniques, allowing it to neutralize many ninjutsu attacks. However, absorbing energy is not the same as becoming invulnerable. During the Pain battle, Naruto turns the use of natural energy against a Preta Path body, showing that a powerful defense can also create an exploitable weakness.

6. Naraka Path: the King of Hell

The Naraka Path summons the King of Hell, which can be used for interrogation and for restoring damaged bodies within Pain's formation. That makes it a priority target: destroying one attacker matters less if the Naraka Path can repair it. The interaction is an important reason Naruto has to fight strategically rather than simply overpower every opponent.

What is the Outer Path?

Beyond the six standard paths, the Outer Path concerns control over life and death and the use of black chakra receivers. Nagato's Rinne Rebirth technique, also called the Samsara of Heavenly Life Technique, can restore lives at an extraordinary cost. It is not a casual healing move or proof that every Rinnegan user can reverse any death without consequences.

The Rinnegan also permits the creation of the Demonic Statue of the Outer Path, which becomes central to Akatsuki's Tailed Beast plans. This is where the eye connects to a much larger story than Pain's invasion. Our Akatsuki members and goals explainer covers the organization's changing purpose without treating the Rinnegan as its only weapon.

Why does Pain have six Rinnegan bodies?

Pain is not six unrelated people who coincidentally possess the same eye. Nagato remotely controls six corpses through chakra receivers, giving them shared vision and dividing his techniques among them. The Deva Path uses Yahiko's body, making the apparent leader of Akatsuki especially significant to Nagato and Konan's past.

The shared field of view is a practical advantage: one body can observe an attack another cannot see. But the system also has limitations, including the distance to its controller and the loss of specific functions when a body is defeated. The official Naruto anniversary recap of Jiraiya's battle describes the appearance of all six Rinnegan-wielding Pains.

Naruto's victory depends on discovering the system's weaknesses and confronting Nagato himself. It is one of the reasons the Pain Invasion arc works as more than a power-level contest: the final confrontation asks whether suffering can ever justify forcing peace on other people.

Who uses the Rinnegan?

Hagoromo Otsutsuki

Hagoromo is the legendary Sage of Six Paths and the eye's most important historical figure. His appearance establishes the Rinnegan's connection to the origins of ninshu, the Ten Tails, and the inheritance of chakra across generations. The Rinnegan is part of his mythic status, not simply an unusual combat accessory.

Madara Uchiha

Madara is central to the modern Rinnegan's history. He awakens the eye late in life, gives it to Nagato, and later seeks to reclaim its power. During the Fourth Great Ninja War, regaining a Rinnegan helps him pursue the Ten Tails and his vision for the world. The official war-arc retrospective records his recovery of one eye.

Nagato, also known as Pain

Nagato demonstrates the most complete six-body presentation of the Rinnegan. He uses the eye to project power through Pain while remaining hidden, and later demonstrates its devastating abilities directly. His physical condition also underlines an important distinction: having a legendary eye does not remove the body's limits.

Obito Uchiha

Obito takes a Rinnegan and uses it in the war, including with reanimated jinchuriki. That does not mean he naturally awakened it himself. His existing Sharingan abilities and the borrowed Rinnegan work together, but they have different origins. The official Great Ninja War recap identifies the Rinnegan-equipped jinchuriki, while our Obito character analysis explores his motives.

Sasuke Uchiha

Sasuke receives Six Paths power after meeting Hagoromo and develops a distinctive Rinnegan in his left eye, marked by tomoe. His most recognizable unique application is Amenotejikara, a short-range position-switching technique that transforms the rhythm of a fight. The official Naruto birthday retrospective identifies manga Chapter 674 as Sasuke's Rinnegan chapter.

Sasuke's Rinnegan also contributes to his space-time abilities, but the eye does not erase his need to manage chakra. He retains separate Sharingan-derived techniques, so calling every move he performs a Rinnegan power is misleading. VIZ's Volume 71 summary situates his new abilities in the battle against Kaguya.

Is the Rinnegan stronger than the Sharingan?

In terms of the breadth of its signature techniques, the Rinnegan offers extraordinary abilities that ordinary Sharingan users lack. That does not make every Rinnegan wielder automatically stronger than every Sharingan wielder. Skill, chakra reserves, physical condition, tactical knowledge, and the eye's origin all matter in Naruto's battles.

The two eyes also specialize in different things. Sharingan perception and certain genjutsu can be decisive in one situation, while gravitational techniques or chakra absorption are more useful in another. Comparing the eye techniques as if they were interchangeable upgrades misses how Kishimoto builds fights around counters and trade-offs.

Can the Rinnegan be defeated?

Yes. Pain's formation can lose bodies, and its shared vision can be disrupted. Nagato has finite chakra and a vulnerable physical body. Even spectacular techniques such as Chibaku Tensei can be countered by coordinated attacks; the official war recap describes Naruto, Killer Bee, and Itachi destroying the core of Nagato's Planetary Devastation.

Rinnegan powers also have conditions. Deva Path techniques cannot simply be spammed without timing considerations, and an opponent who understands the intervals can exploit them. Naruto's natural-energy training provides another example of the series rewarding preparation. See how Sage Mode works for the mechanics behind that advantage.

Boruto spoiler: what happened to Sasuke's Rinnegan?

Major Boruto spoiler begins here. In Boruto: Naruto Next Generations, Momoshiki takes control of Boruto and attacks Sasuke's left eye, leaving Sasuke unable to use his Rinnegan. This is an established story event, not a fan theory about the eye mysteriously disappearing. The official Boruto birthday retrospective specifically cites Chapter 53 and the loss of Sasuke's Rinnegan.

That development matters because it changes Sasuke's options without undoing his experience as a shinobi. It should not be confused with Naruto losing Kurama, which is a separate event with a different cause. Readers avoiding Boruto spoilers can treat the Rinnegan's original Naruto story as complete before this point.

The key takeaway

The Rinnegan is not one technique but a family of abilities connected to Hagoromo's Six Paths power. Nagato turns it into a coordinated six-body system, Madara uses it in a world-changing plan, and Sasuke demonstrates a distinct style built around movement and timing. Understanding who originally possessed each eye, and what each user actually does with it, clears up most of the confusion.