Nichiren
Nichiren was a Japanese Buddhist monk and philosopher of the Kamakura period. His teachings form the basis of Nichiren Buddhism, a unique branch of Japanese Mahayana Buddhism based on the Lotus Sutra.
Nichiren declared that the Lotus Sutra alone contains the highest truth of Buddhism and that it is the only sutra suited for the Age of Dharma Decline. He insisted that the sovereign of Japan and its people should support only this form of Buddhism and eradicate all others, or they would face social collapse and environmental disasters. Nichiren advocated the faithful recitation of the title of the Lotus Sutra, Namu Myōhō Renge Kyō, as the only effective path to Buddhahood in this very life, a path which he saw as accessible to all people regardless of class, education or ability. Nichiren held that Shakyamuni and all other Buddhist deities were manifestations of the Original Eternal Buddha of the Lotus Sutra, which he equated with the Lotus Sutra itself and its title. He also declared that believers of the Lotus Sutra must propagate it even though this would lead to many difficulties and even persecution, which Nichiren understood as a way of "reading" the Lotus Sutra with one's very body. Nichiren believed that the spread of the Lotus Sutra teachings would lead to the creation of a Pure Land on earth.
Nichiren was a prolific writer and his biography, temperament, and the evolution of his beliefs has been gleaned primarily from his writings. He claimed to be the reincarnation of bodhisattva Viśiṣṭacāritra, and designated six senior disciples, which later led to much disagreement after his death. Nichiren's harsh critiques of the Buddhist establishment led to many persecutions against him and his followers. He was exiled twice and some of his followers were imprisoned or killed. After his death, Nichiren’s followers continued to grow, making it one of Japan's largest Buddhist traditions. He was posthumously bestowed the title by the Emperor Go-Kōgon in 1358. The title was also later conferred by the Emperor Taishō in 1922.
Nichiren Buddhism today includes more than forty different officially registered organizations, some of which have significant international presence. These include traditional temple schools such as Nichiren-shū sects and Nichiren Shōshū, as well as modern lay movements such as Soka Gakkai, Risshō Kōsei Kai, Reiyūkai, Kenshōkai, Honmon Butsuryū-shū, Kempon Hokke, and Shōshinkai among many others. Each group has varying views of Nichiren's teachings, some being more exclusivist than the others. Some see Nichiren as being the Bodhisattva Viśiṣṭacāritra, while other sects claim that Nichiren was actually the Adi-Buddha.
Life
The main narrative of Nichiren's life has been constructed from extant letters and treatises he wrote, counted in one collection as 523 complete writings and 248 fragments. Aside from historical documents stored in the repositories of various Nichiren sects, the first extensive non-religious biographical account of Nichiren did not appear until more than 200 years after his death. Several hagiographies about Nichiren and are reflected in various pieces of artwork about incidents in his life.Nichiren is most well known for his promotion of Lotus Sutra devotion over and above all other Buddhist scriptures and teachings. He held that reciting the title of the Lotus Sutra encompassed all Buddhist teachings, and thus it could lead to enlightenment in this life. As a result of his adamant stance, he experienced severe persecution imposed by the Kamakura Shogunate, which Nichiren saw as proof of the righteousness of his cause to spread the Lotus Sutra.
Nichiren remains a controversial figure among scholars who cast him as either a fervent nationalist or a social reformer with a transnational religious vision. Critical scholars have used words such as intolerant, nationalistic, militaristic, and self-righteous to portray him. On the other hand, Nichiren has been presented as a revolutionary, a classic reformer, and as a prophet. Nichiren is often compared to other religious figures who shared similar rebellious and revolutionary drives to reform degeneration in their respective societies or schools.
Birth
According to the lunar Chinese calendar, Nichiren was born on 16th of the second month in 1222, which is 6 April in the Gregorian calendar.Nichiren was born in the village of Kominato, Nagase District, Awa Province. Accounts of his lineage vary. Nichiren described himself as "the son of a Sendara, "a son born of the lowly people living on a rocky strand of the out-of-the-way sea," and "the son of a sea-diver." In contrast, Hōnen, Shinran, Dōgen, and Eisai, the other founders of religious schools who predated Nichiren, were all born in the Kyoto region and came from noble or samurai backgrounds. Although his writings reflect a fierce pride of his lowly birth, followers after his death began to ascribe to him a more noble lineage, perhaps to attract more adherents. Some have claimed his father was a rōnin, a manorial functionary, or a political refugee.
Nichiren's father was Mikuni-no-Tayu Shigetada, also known as Nukina Shigetada Jiro ; and his mother was Umegiku-nyo. On his birth, his parents named him which has variously been translated into English as "Splendid Sun" and "Virtuous Sun Boy" among others. The exact site of Nichiren's birth is believed to be currently submerged off the shore from present-day Kominato-zan Tanjō-ji near a temple in Kominato that commemorates his birth.
Buddhist education
At the age of 12 he began his Buddhist study at a temple of the Tendai school, Seichō-ji. He was formally ordained as a novice at sixteen years old to became a monk at twenty years old and took the Buddhist name, Renchō meaning "Lotus Growth".Between the years 1233 and 1253 Nichiren studied the major Buddhist traditions in Japan at that time, including Tendai, Pure Land Buddhism and Shingon. During these years, he became convinced of the preeminence of the Lotus Sutra and in 1253 returned to the temple where he first studied to present his findings.
In a 1271 letter Nichiren writes of this time of his life:
He later left Seichō-ji for Kamakura where he studied Pure Land Buddhism, a school that stressed salvation through the invocation of the name Amitābha, a practiced called nembutsu. He also studied Zen which had been growing in popularity in both Kamakura and Kyoto. He next traveled to Mount Hiei, the center of Japanese Tendai Buddhism, where he scrutinized the school's original doctrines, including Pure Land and Tendai Esoteric Buddhism. In the final stage of this twenty-year period he traveled to Mount Kōya, the center of Shingon esoteric Buddhism, and to Nara where he studied its six established schools, especially the Ritsu sect which emphasized strict monastic discipline.
Declaration of the ''Lotus Sutra''
According to one of his letters, Nichiren returned to Seicho-ji Temple on 28 April 1253 to lecture on the supremacy of the Lotus Sutra. What followed was his first public declaration of Nam Myoho Renge Kyo atop Mount Kiyosumi that same day. This marked the start of his campaign to convince the Tendai tradition to shift its focus back to the Lotus Sutra and his efforts to convert the entire Japanese nation to this belief. This declaration also marks the start of his efforts to make profound Buddhist theory practical and actionable so an ordinary person could manifest Buddhahood within his or her own lifetime in the midst of day-to-day realities.At the same event, according to his own account and subsequent hagiography, he changed his name to Nichiren, an abbreviation of and. Nichi represents both the light of truth and the sun goddess Amaterasu, symbolizing Japan itself. Ren signifies the Lotus Sutra. Nichiren envisioned Japan as the country where the true teaching of Buddhism would be revived and the starting point for its worldwide spread.
At his lecture, it is construed, Nichiren vehemently attacked Honen, the founder of Pure Land Buddhism, and its practice of chanting the Nembutsu. It is likely he also denounced the nembutsu teachings found at Seicho-ji. In so doing he earned the animosity of the local steward, Tojo Kagenobu, and eventually Nichiren was forced to leave the temple. Modern scholarship suggests that events unfolded not in a single day but over a longer period of time and had social, and political dimensions.
Nichiren then moved to a hermitage in the hills around Kamakura. From there he converted several Tendai priests, directly ordained others, and attracted lay disciples who were drawn mainly from the strata of the lower and middle samurai class. Their households provided Nichiren with economic support and became the core Nichiren communities in several locations in the Kanto region of Japan.
First remonstration to the Kamakura government
Nichiren arrived in Kamakura in 1254. Between 1254 and 1260 half of the population had perished due to a tragic succession of calamities that included drought, earthquakes, epidemics, famine, fires, and storms. Nichiren sought scriptural references to explain the unfolding of natural disasters and then wrote a series of works which, based on the Buddhist theory of the non-duality of the human mind and the environment, attributed the sufferings to the weakened spiritual condition of people, thereby causing the Kami to abandon the nation. The root cause of this, he argued, was the widespread decline of the Dharma due to the mass adoption of the exclusive nembutsu teachings of Hōnen.The most renowned of these works, considered his first major treatise, was the, "On Securing the Peace of the Land through the Propagation of True Buddhism." Nichiren submitted it to Hōjō Tokiyori, the de facto leader of the Kamakura shogunate, as a political move to effectuate radical reform. In it he argued the necessity for "the Sovereign to recognize and accept the singly true and correct form of Buddhism as the only way to achieve peace and prosperity for the land and its people and end their suffering."
Using a dialectic form well-established in China and Japan, the treatise is a 10-segment fictional dialogue between a Buddhist wise man, presumably Nichiren, and a visitor who together lament the tragedies that have beleaguered the nation. The wise man answers the guest's questions and, after a heated exchange, gradually leads him to enthusiastically embrace the vision of a country grounded firmly on the ideals of the Lotus Sutra. In this writing Nichiren displays a skill in using analogy, anecdote, and detail to persuasively appeal to an individual's unique psychology, experiences, and level of understanding.
The teacher builds his argument by quoting extensively from a set of Buddhist sutras and commentaries. In his future writings Nichiren continued to draw from the same sutras and commentaries which he deemed supportive of the Lotus Sutra, including the Konkomyo, Daijuku, Ninno, Yakushi, and Nirvana sutras. They share in common themes like prophecies of Dharma decline and nation-protecting teachings. The Risshō Ankoku Ron concludes with an urgent appeal to the ruler to cease all financial support for Buddhist schools promoting inferior teachings. Otherwise, Nichiren warns, as predicted by the sutras, the continued influence of inferior teachings would invite even more natural disasters as well as the outbreak of civil strife and foreign invasion.
Nichiren submitted his treatise on 16 July 1260 but it drew no official response. It did, however, prompt a severe backlash from the Buddhist priests of other schools. Nichiren was challenged to a religious debate with leading Kamakura prelates in which, by his account, they were swiftly dispatched. Their lay followers then formed a mob and attacked Nichiren at his dwelling, forcing him to flee Kamakura. His critics had influence with key governmental figures and spread slanderous rumors about him. One year after he submitted the Rissho Ankoku Ron the authorities had him arrested and exiled to the Izu peninsula.
Nichiren's Izu exile lasted two years. In his extant writings from this time period, Nichiren began to strongly draw from chapters 10–22 of the Lotus Sutra, what Tanabe calls its "third realm" . Nichiren began to emphasize the purpose of human existence as being the practice of the bodhisattva ideal in the real world which entails undertaking struggle and manifesting endurance. He suggested that he is a model of this behavior, a "votary" of the Lotus Sutra.
Upon being pardoned in 1263 Nichiren returned to Kamakura. In November 1264 he was ambushed and nearly killed at Komatsubara in Awa Province by a force led by Lord Tōjō Kagenobu. He suffered a broken arm and a sword cut across his forehead, and one of his followers was killed. For the next few years he preached in provinces outside of Kamakura but returned in 1268. At this point the Mongols sent envoys to Japan demanding tribute and threatening invasion. Nichiren sent 11 letters to influential leaders reminding them about his predictions in the Rissho Ankoku Ron.