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The battle in Japan over paying taxes and acknowledging state patronage to a government that did not support the Lotus Sutra is one of the most dramatic and heroic chapters in Buddhist history. Known as the Fujufuse Controversy, this struggle pitted a dedicated faction of Lotus Sutra devotees against the absolute military rulers of early modern Japan. To understand this conflict, one must look to the core teachings of Nichiren Shōnin regarding the relationship between the state and the Dharma, the confrontation with the unifiers of Japan, and the terrifying “land and water” trap set by the Tokugawa Shogunate. The Doctrinal Root: Transcendent Authority
In the traditional Buddhist thought of Nichiren Shōnin’s day, the “ruler’s law” (ōbō) and the “Buddha’s Dharma” (buppō) were viewed as mutually dependent. Buddhist institutions would offer protective prayers for the sovereign, and in return, the government would provide economic support and lands.
Nichiren Shōnin, however, completely rejected this reciprocity if the ruler was indifferent or hostile to the ultimate truth of the Lotus Sutra. He taught that the authority of the Lotus Sutra radically transcends any worldly ruler, viewing the sovereign of Japan as merely an “island chief” compared to the vast, cosmic realm of the Eternal Śākyamuni Buddha.
Following this transcendent priority, Nichiren Shōnin established the principle of Fujufuse—meaning “neither receiving nor giving.”
Fuju (Not Receiving): True priests must never accept alms, donations, or patronage from those who slander the True Dharma.
Fuse (Not Giving): Devout lay practitioners must never give alms or seek religious services from priests who do not uphold the Lotus Sutra.
Nichiren warned that accepting offerings from slandering rulers would trap a practitioner in the sin of complicity (yodōzai), bringing misery to the nation and dragging individuals down into the lower realms. To avoid this, a devotee was morally obligated to “admonish the state” (kokka kangyō), directly rebuking the rulers even at the risk of exile or execution. The Confrontation: Hideyoshi’s Great Buddha Rites
This uncompromising principle was put to the ultimate test in 1595, when the regent Toyotomi Hideyoshi sought to demonstrate his supreme authority over all religious bodies. He ordered each of the ten major Buddhist sects to provide one hundred priests to participate in a massive, monthly memorial service before a great Buddha image he had erected at Hōkō-ji temple in Kyoto.
For the priests of the Lotus sect, participating in these rites was a direct violation of their vows. It required them to join in ceremonies not based on the Lotus Sutra and to accept a ceremonial meal (alms) from a nonbelieving ruler.
This demand shattered the Nichiren community into two hostile factions:
The Ju Fuse Faction (Accommodationists): Believing that institutional survival was paramount, the majority of the Kyoto abbots reluctantly agreed to participate, arguing that the ruler must be treated as a unique exception to protect their temples from being destroyed.
The Fuju Fuse Faction (Hardliners): Led by Nichiō Shōnin of Myōkaku-ji, this faction resolutely refused to compromise. Nichiō sent a bold admonition directly to Hideyoshi, urging him to cancel the rites, and then fled into the mountains.
For his refusal to submit, Nichiō was eventually summoned by Tokugawa Ieyasu in 1599, declared a traitor, and banished to the remote island of Tsushima. The “Land and Water” Trap
With the rise of the Tokugawa Shogunate (Bakufu) in Edo, the military government sought to bring all Buddhist temples under tight administrative control. The shogunate utilized the arguments of the accommodationist ju fuse faction to set a diabolical trap for the remaining fuju fuse temples.
In 1665, the shogunate reviewed all the temple lands (shuinchi) it had previously granted. Officials declared that these tax-exempt lands were not worldly gifts, but the ruler’s dharma offerings. They demanded that every temple sign a written receipt (otegata) explicitly acknowledging this.
To the fuju fuse practitioners, signing this receipt was equivalent to spiritual apostasy; it meant admitting they were accepting support from a slandering ruler. To refuse was to be branded an enemy of the state and punished.
To close all loopholes, the Bakufu issued the “Offerings of Land and Water Edict” (dosui kuyō rei) in 1666. In a stunning display of state arrogance, this edict proclaimed that even the soil you walk upon and the water you drink are the ruler’s dharma offerings. Therefore, even priests who tilled private plots or drank from local wells were declared to be accepting the ruler’s patronage and were required to sign a written submission. Resistance, Martyrdom, and the Underground
Faced with this demand to surrender the autonomy of their faith, the fuju fuse followers chose the path of absolute resistance.
The prominent scholar-priest Ankokuin Nichikō refused to sign the edict. He wrote a moving treatise of admonition, the Shushō gokoku shō, arguing that the sun, moon, earth, and water are the result of collective past karma and the natural elements—not the personal property of a worldly sovereign. He wrote:
“If you insist that all things are the ruler’s dharma offerings… then I refuse the specific offering of temple lands, but I accept the general offering of water to drink and roads to walk upon, and I will use them to spread the fuju fuse teaching throughout the country.”
For this act of defiance, Nichikō was bound in ropes and exiled to the remote province of Hyūga.
Other practitioners took even more extreme and dramatic measures. Drawing on the classical stories of Chinese exemplars who starved to death rather than eat the crops of a corrupt king, many fuju fuse devotees decided that if the water and food produced by the land were indeed the “offerings” of a slandering ruler, they would rather die than consume them.
In Okayama, the priest Kenjūin Nissei and four nuns sealed themselves inside an ancient burial mound, chanting the Odaimoku and fasting to death. Others immured themselves in holes in the ground or built their own coffins, starving themselves in an ultimate, non-violent protest against the state’s claim of absolute ownership. The Legacy of the Conflict
The shogunate ultimately banned the fuju fuse faction entirely, stripping them of their civil rights and treating them as outlaws. Those who refused to register with the state-approved temples were forced to go deep underground. For more than two centuries, these secret communities preserved their writings, chanted the Odaimoku, and maintained a hidden network of priests in total secrecy until they finally emerged to receive legal recognition in 1876.
Within the modern Nichiren Shū tradition, this historic battle is remembered with immense reverence. While the lineages that survived above ground were those that historically accepted the compromise of the ju fuse faction to preserve their temples and protect their lay followers, the legacy of the fuju fuse martyrs is highly honored. Their sacrifice represents an eternal monument to the purity of faith, demonstrating that when worldly power demands the surrender of spiritual truth, the authority of the Lotus Sutra must always remain supreme.
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