Nichiren School

The claim

The Lotus Sutra is the Buddha's final and complete teaching. Chanting its title — namu myoho renge kyo — is not a summary of the practice but the practice, and other teachings are provisional.

What it held

Nichiren trained at the Tendai centre on Mount Hiei, which taught that the Lotus Sutra was supreme, and drew a conclusion Tendai had not: if it is supreme, the others should be abandoned rather than ranked below it.

The practice is the daimoku, the title chanted. The reasoning is Tendai's — the whole is present in the part — so the title is not an abbreviation but contains the sutra entire, and the sutra contains everything.

What distinguishes Nichiren from every other Japanese founder is the political argument. In the Rissho Ankoku Ron he told the shogunate that the natural disasters and famines of the day were caused by state support for false teachings, and that foreign invasion would follow unless it changed. He was exiled twice and nearly executed. The Mongols came in 1274.

That combination — a single simple practice and a duty to remonstrate publicly — has produced both persecution and, in the twentieth century, mass movements and a political party.

How it argued

Preaching, remonstration and written petition to authority, with the mandala — a scroll of written characters rather than an image — as the object of devotion.

What it was arguing against

Pure Land, Zen, Shingon and the Ritsu school, each named and attacked by Nichiren in unusually direct terms.

Where it disagreed with itself

Whether Nichiren is himself the buddha of the latter age, which divides the traditional schools from Nichiren Shoshu. How far the remonstration duty extends.

Common misconceptions

That it is simple sectarianism. The exclusivity follows from a Tendai argument about the relation of whole to part, and Nichiren argues it rather than asserting it.

How it began

A fisherman's son who studied at Hiei, concluded the establishment was teaching error, and announced it in 1253 at the age of thirty-one.

What became of it

Living, and unusually various — traditional temple schools, lay movements including Soka Gakkai, and a political party that has been in Japanese governing coalitions.

Lasting influence

Japanese religious politics. Soka Gakkai is one of the largest lay religious movements in the world and its international arm has brought Nichiren practice worldwide.

Why it still matters

It is the clearest case of a doctrine that makes public criticism of the state a religious obligation, in a tradition usually assumed to be quietist.

Put another way

A title on a scroll, held to contain the whole book.

Where to start

The Rissho Ankoku Ron. It is a political document as much as a religious one.

The surprising bit

He was taken to the beach at Tatsunokuchi to be beheaded and, by his own account, was saved when a luminous object crossed the sky and the executioner's arm failed. He was exiled to Sado instead.

In their own words

Connections

Answers

Tiantai Buddhism

Opposed by

Pure Land Buddhism (Jodo), Rinzai Zen, Shingon

The verdict

The one Japanese Buddhist founder who told the government it was wrong and kept saying so after being exiled for it.

Sources

• Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy