This is another in a series of daily articles concerning Kishio Satomi's book, "Japanese Civilization; Its Significance and Realization; Nichirenism and the Japanese National Principles," which details the foundations of Chigaku Tanaka's interpretation of Nichiren Buddhism and Japan's role in the early 20th century.

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In considering Kishio Satomi’s ideas regarding Nichirenism it is important to put his 1923 book in historical perspective. By the 1920s, the Japanese had reformed their country’s government, social structure, educational system, and more. They were the first non-Western people to industrialize. They had won two foreign wars and acquired territories overseas. But these successes provided little comfort to government leaders. Leaders were increasingly uneasy about Japan’s future. (Source)

For Satomi, military might was necessary to secure the ideal Buddhist land.

[Protecting the Right Law is] apparent in the Hokekyo. It says in Chapter XIV:

“It is a case, Mañjuśrī (Japanese, Monju or Monjushiri), similar to that of a King (Tenrinjo-o; Skt. Chakravarti-raja), a ruler of armies, who by force has conquered his own Kingdom, whereupon other Kings, his adversaries, wage war against him. That ruler of armies has soldiers of various descriptions to fight with various enemies. As the King sees those soldiers fighting, he is delighted with their gallantry, enraptured, and in his delight and rapture he makes to his soldiers several donations, such as villages and village ground, towns and grounds of a town ; garments and head-gear ; hand-ornaments, necklaces, gold threads, ear-rings, strings of pearls, bullion, gold, gems, pearls, lapis lazuli, conch-shells, stones(?), corals ; he, moreover, gives elephants, horses, cars, foot soldiers, male and female slaves, vehicles and litters ” (Kern, p. 274 ; Yamakawa, p. 415).

Therefore, Nichiren proclaims :

“Know ye, that when these Bodhisattvas act in accordance with the positive instruction, they will appear as wise kings and attack foolish kings in order to instruct them; when they will act negatively then will they appear as priests and propagate and keep the right law ” (Works, p. 103).

In that relation did Nichiren acknowledge military force, he accordingly wrote an instruction to one of his great supporters, Shijo Kingo, who was a typical Japanese warrior:

“Prefer the art of war to any other art, even any branch connected therewith shall be rooted in the Law of the Hokekyo ” (Works, p. 907).

Of course in this connection it is not his intention to interfere with anything relating to the substance itself, but it is mentioned for the fundamental enlightenment of all existence. In this relation Buddha makes the suggestions:

“All the pluralistic laws which are preached in several instances, do not contradict nor contravene Suchness by their signification. Even the moral books in the world or political words or industry or the like may be explained to the people, they shall all comply with the right law” (Yamakawa, pp. 539-40 ; there are no equivalent lines in Kern).

Hereupon Nichiren emancipated the ordinal conception of religion into the broadest sense, which is the synthetic creation. The moral books in the above quotation, imply philosophy, ethics, literature or the like; political words mean legislation, the judicature and administration, and industry means agriculture, commerce and the manufacturing industry, etc. Nichiren gave this instruction to his disciples:

“The priests among my disciples shall be the Masters to the Emperors or the ex-Emperors, and the laymen shall take seats in the Ministry; and thus in the future, all the nations in the world shall adore this law” (Works, p. 583).

He goes on to say :

“In brief, my religion is the law path” (Works, p. 391).

Therefore, for Nichiren, the professional practice of religion is not only the method, but verily also the justification and purification of our daily lives at every turn. Keeping this in mind, read the following instruction of Nichiren to Shijo Kingo:

“Consider your daily works in your Lord’s service as being the practice of the Hokekyo” (Works, p, 893).

Thus, he established the religious method of the synthetic creation, and he decided that the country should be the unit of the worldly salvation.

Nichirenism and the Japanese National Principles, p106-108

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This is another in a series of daily articles concerning Kishio Satomi's book, "Japanese Civilization; Its Significance and Realization; Nichirenism and the Japanese National Principles," which details the foundations of Chigaku Tanaka's interpretation of Nichiren Buddhism and Japan's role in the early 20th century.

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In Satomi’s Nichirenism the “Holy Altar” is not only the key to the enlightenment of the country, but of the world.

[Nichiren] beheld the signification of the relation between the Hokekyo and Nichiren himself through the fact of the wonderful combination of Japan. According to him, the world must be united as bretheren, namely as a moral world, and in the future the Holy Altar of the Hokekyo, especially the Honmon centric commandment, shall be established in Japan. He says in one of his significant essays, “On the Three Great Secret Laws” (San dai Hihō Shō):

“At a certain future time, when the state law will unite with the Buddhist law and the Buddhist law harmonizes with the state law, and both sovereign and subjects will keep sincerely the Three Secret Laws, then will be realized such a golden age in the degeneration of the Latter Law, as it was in olden times under the rule of King Utoku. Thus the Holy Altar will be established with Imperial Sanction or the like at a place like the excellent paradise of Vulture Peak. We must only prepare and await the advent of the time. There is no other law or commandment which is practicable, only this one. This Holy Altar is not only the sanctuary for all nations of three countries (India, China and Japan) and the whole world, but even the great deities, Brahma and Indra, have to descend in order to initiate into the perfect truth of the Hokekyo ” (Works, pp. 240-41).

Nichirenism and the Japanese National Principles, p111-112

Western ideas about separating matters of religion from affairs of government are foreign to Nichiren’s thinking, according to Satomi.

In the religious sense, the unification of the world or the salvation of the world is impossible unless the religion and the country assimilate. Nichiren, there fore, determined the country as the unit of salvation of the world as far as method is concerned. He says:

“Hearken! the country will prosper with the moral law, and the law is precious when practiced by man. If the country be ruined and human beings collapse, who would worship the Buddha, who would believe the law? First of all, therefore, pray for the security of the country and afterwards establish the Buddhist Law” (Works, p. 13).

This is a paragraph in his important essay, “Rissho Ankoku-ron” or “An Essay on the Establishment of Righteousness and Security of the Country.” He discoursed on the relation between the country and religion in this essay and sent it to the Hojos Government at an early date as an intimation of his religious movement; but this thought fully developed by degrees and eventually the doctrine of the Holy Altar was founded. There is no doubt that Nichiren thus thought of the country as the most concrete basis on which to propagate religion.

Nichirenism and the Japanese National Principles, p102-103

For Satomi’s Nichirenism, religion is necessary in all aspects of material life.

Religion is intended to redeem living beings and their environment. Therefore, religion must purify the whole concrete life of man in order to religionize all individuals and the world. If religion does not in any sense concern material life, but merely spiritual life, then is religious influence almost in vain. A belief which purposely eliminates material affairs from the religious field is not only a misunderstanding of the essential meaning of religion, but is a very wrong view of human life. The true religious Empire can be established in the material world which is purified with spiritual signification. Nichiren’s doctrine of the Holy Altar is, indeed, an enlightenment of religion with material purification.

Nichirenism and the Japanese National Principles, p104

Satomi explains that the faithful must reconstruct the country so that it may exist “hand in hand with righteousness.”

According to Nichiren, in the degenerate days of the Latter Law, there is no Buddhist commandment outside of our vow for the reconstruction of the country and the realization of the Heavenly Paradise in the world. Even the so-called virtuous sage, if he does not embrace this great and strong vow, in other words only enjoys virtue individually, such a sage is pretty useless.

Although a man be imperfect, let him carry out Buddha’s task with the strong vow for the realization of Buddha’s Kingdom, with preaching or with economical power or with knowledge of sciences and with all sorts of such things. We can find the true significance of religion, of commandment, of human life therein.

Nichirenism and the Japanese National Principles, p105

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This is another in a series of daily articles concerning Kishio Satomi's book, "Japanese Civilization; Its Significance and Realization; Nichirenism and the Japanese National Principles," which details the foundations of Chigaku Tanaka's interpretation of Nichiren Buddhism and Japan's role in the early 20th century.

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Another focus of Kishio Satomi’s Nichirenism that distinguishes it from traditional Nichiren Shu is its focus on the Three Great Secret Laws and, in particular, what it calls the “Holy See.”

Nichiren Shu doctrine describes the Three Great Secret Dharmas as the Gohonzon, the Daimoku and the Kaidan, or Precept Platform. Here’s Satomi’s summary:

The Three Great Secret Laws are the three aspects of his religion, and they emanated from the One Law which is indicated by the Sacred Title of the Hokekyo. Each of the Three is the independent principle on the one hand, and again each of them is the essential moment of the One Law on the other hand, that is to say something like Hegel’s “aufgehobenes Moment.”

It is the three aspects of reality in the sense of the observance of Law; it is the three expressions of the principle of typical personality in the significance of Buddha; it is the three principles of the modes of our lives in the significance of being. Let us reduce the three aspects, then it will be the One Law, and vice versa. From another point of view, the Sacred Title is the religious subject which indicates the Self, containing He. The Supreme Being of the three is the religious object in which the religious subject exists, in other words, it is the He which contains our Selves therein. The Holy See of the three is the concrete realization of the religion.

The Sacred Title is the law of awakening of the individual, the Holy See is the principle of idealization of the country, and the Supreme Being is the harmonious manifestation of the world.

Nichirenism and the Japanese National Principles, p66-67

In Satomi’s Nichirenism, the Holy Altar has special importance:

It is absolutely useless to seek the ideal world under the name of paradise after completing this life. Of course, we believe in an after-life as well as a past life in a religious sense. But we cannot demonstrate the past nor the after-life, therefore the after-life is possible only as a religious postulation. In short, we must apprehend the meaning of past and future in the very present, hence the present centric consistentism through the three lives, viz. the past, present and future. In respect thereof we shall have a full explanation and idea of Nichiren by our understanding of the doctrine of the Holy See.

Nichirenism and the Japanese National Principles, p90

And later:

The third important thought in Nichirenism is the Holy Altar (or the Holy See). Nichiren founded his most concrete idea of his religious practice on this doctrine. As I have stated above, the Sacred Title was mentioned for the instruction of individuals, the Supreme Being was for the world or universe, and, from this point of view, this Holy Altar is the key to the enlightenment of the country. Moreover, this Holy Altar, in a sense, is the connection between the Sacred Title and the Supreme Being; namely the Holy Altar shows the concrete method of entering the Supreme Being, and how to adore the Sacred Title, the essential law of Buddhism.

Nichirenism and the Japanese National Principles, p94-95

This discussion of the Three Great Secret Laws or Dharmas is based on a single letter by Nichiren, Sandai Hiho Honjo-ji, The Transmission of the Three Great Secret Dharmas. The letter appears in the Doctrine 2 volume of the Writings of Nichiren Shōnin. The fact that this concept of Three Great Secret Dharmas is addressed only once in all of Nichiren’s writings has prompted controversy.

From 2000 to 2001, Rev. Gyokai Sekido wrote a series of articles for Nichiren Shu News about the advances in the study of Nichiren’s doctrines over the years. In discussing this letter he writes:

Nichiren Shonin’s “The Transmission of the Three Great Secret Dharmas” written in the fourth year of the Koan Era (1281) preaches the doctrine of the Three Great Secret Dharmas (the honzon, daimoku, and kaidan based on the doctrine revealed in the essential section: hommon of the Lotus Sutra), especially the establishment of the kaidan of the hommon.

The authenticity of this document, however, has often been questioned from ancient times. Utilizing the latest computer technology, Professors Zuiei Ito and Masakatsu Murakami, of Rissho University and Ministry of Education Center for the Study of Mathematical Principle respectively, tried to see if they could find the answer to this problem.

All sentences of Nichiren’s writings were divided up into grammatical units (such as nouns, verbs, adverbs, adjectives, postpositional particles, prefixes, suffixes and conjunctions), to be analyzed by a computer in order to find out the characteristic use of the parts of speech in Nichiren’s writings and its yearly changes.

Then they compared it against what is found in similar analysis of the “Transmission of the Three Great Secret Dharmas.” Beginning the project in 1975, this Ito-Murakami group reported its tentative conclusion in 1980 saying that the “Transmission of the Three Great Secret Dharmas” is probably genuine. Their final conclusion in 1991 declared, “The writing is genuine,” creating a stir in the study of Nichiren’s writings.

Professor Ken’ichi Kammuri of Rissho University, however, has a strong doubt about the validity of handling words in the basic documents.

How Study on Nichiren Buddhism Has Made Progress in the 20th Century, p19-20

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