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(NEW LOTUS)
(Lotus—pietism)
[Mahayanistic]
(1) Preliminary
Since the Lotus of the Good Law was
translated and expounded by Kurnarajiva, it
has been one of the most popular subjects of Buddhist
study along with the Prajna and Nirvana
texts. When the philosophy of immanence or
the phenomenological doctrine was promulgated on the
basis of the Lotus by Chih-i, it was generally
known as the T’ien-T’ai School. It was Saichö (Dengyo
Daishi, 767-822 AD) who went to China and received the
doctrine from this school and on his return in 804 AD
founded the school in Japan. His theoretical elucidation
of the Lotus doctrine may not be much different
from the original Chinese school, but his practical
application of the doctrine to the national cult and
synthetic treatment of all other Buddhist schools subordinate
to his school seem to be the new aspects added by virtue
of his genius. Besides the Lotus doctrine, he
professed to teach mystic Shingon, Amita-pietism, contemplative
Zen, as well as Mahayanistic Vinaya discipline. To him
these were subordinate doctrines to the Lotus or
at any rate concurrent systems to complete the central
doctrine. However, in the course of time, there appeared
among his followers some ardent specialists in each
of these systems and sometimes the result was separation.
In the Heian period (781-1183) the mystic rituals and
ceremonial performances promoted by this school in concert
with the Shingon School carried the day to satisfy the
aristocratic taste of the time. There arose in time
a devotional school of Amita-pietism which also flourished
in the bosom of the school. Through the influence of
the two streams of religious activities a great Buddhist
transformation took place in the national life and thoughts
of Japan during the period.
The refinement of vernacular literature, mystification
of fine arts, development of national architectural
and industrial arts, and the graceful manners and customs
of the refined class were all due to the influence of
Buddhist culture. Probably the Japanese appreciation
of universals, tolerance, and thoroughness in research
owe a great deal to Buddhist training. But peace often
ends in effeminacy. As a rule political corruption and
social degeneration in general could not be checked
in any way. An opportunity for a military power was
now opened and perhaps hatred and struggle among courtiers,
clans, territorial lords and partisans were more than
we know from history. Already in the closing period
of the Heian era all under heaven was weary of war and
disorder. By the establishment of the military government
at Kamakura, the people in general expected peace and
order to be restored, but all in vain. Intrigues and
strifes were going on more than ever. The arrival of
the ‘latter age’ of religion was now felt in the public
life of the nation. A general reformation in political
as well as religious life seemed to be an urgent need.
The authority of the two old schools of Tendai and Shingon
was waning, or at any rate, was suffering the same fate
with the aristocratic classes. The new Amita-pietism
of Honen, though gaining ground among the
people at large, had no marked influence over the ruling
classes. The Zen School of the time, though it seemed
appropriate for the knightly training of military people,
had as yet no power over the political affairs. A man
of keen observation and strong character like Nichiren
(1222-1282), if imbued with a firm religious conviction,
could not remain without protesting.
To know Nichiren and his school we must first know
the Lotus text on which all his ideas and arguments
are founded. What is the Lotus text? A text-criticism
shows that originally the Lotus text consisted
of twenty-one sections and was later enlarged into twenty-eight
sections by addition and division. The earliest translation
was by Dharniaraksa in 286 AD, the second by Kumarajiva
in 406 AD, and the third (complete translation) by Jnanagupta
and Dharniagupta in 601 AD Among them, the second was
the best in Chinese composition and regarded as authoritative
by the best Lotus authorities. In
spite of late translation, it represented to proclaim
an earlier form of the text than the first translation,
judging from some internal evidences, e.g., a quotation
by Nagarjuna and the to the like. Besides, elements
of the contents of the added or divided chapters were
extant in the original form of twenty-one sections.
Anyhow, the existing text in twenty-eight sections (Kumarajiva’s
translation) was used by Chih-i, Saichô and Nichiren
himself. It is the only translation of the text used
in Japan, either within or without the Nichiren School.
Let us review the contents of the text and Karnakur;
the standpoint of Nichiren in the Lotus doctrine.
(2) Historical schools
What is historical with the other schools of thought
is personal with the Nichiren’s Lotus-pietism, for it
is Nichiren’s personality against that constitutes the
feature of the school. It was not accidental that the
school was called after the founder’s name. Nichiren
was born in 1222, the son of a fisherman of Kominato,
Awa, the southeastern coast of Japan. He was sent to
Kiyozumi, a hill near his home, to live as a novice
in a monastery. He was ordained in his fifteenth year.
His early problem, "What was the Truth taught by
the Buddha?" was not solved there. He proceeded to Kamakura
and later passed to Mount Hiei in search of the Truth.
His study of ten years (1243-1253) on the mountain convinced
him that a revival of Tendai philosophy alone was the
nearest approach to the Truth. it.
By Tendai philosophy Nichiren meant not what he found
there at hand but what was taught by Dengyo Daishi himself.
The original T’ien-T’ai of Chih-i was chiefly theoretical,
whereas the Japanese Tendai of Dengyo Daishi was practical
as well as theoretical. But after the two great masters,
Jikaku and Chisho the practical sides of Tendai were either
mystic rituals or Amita-practically faith; that seemed
to them most important. The fundamental truth of the Lotus
doctrine seemed to be laid aside as if it were a philosophical
amusement. Nichiren could not accept this attitude and
so returned in 1253 to his old monastery at Kiyozumi where
he proclaimed his new doctrine that the Lotus alone
could save the people of the depraved age, the essential
formula being "Homage to the Text of the Lotus
of the True Ideal." It is Dharma-smriti (thought
on Dharma) and not Buddha-smriti as was
the Amita formula. Dharma is the ideal realized
by the original Buddha. All beings are saved through homage
to the Lotus of Truth, and this alone, he declared, is
the true final message of the Buddha.
The abbot and all others opposed him and he had to escape
to Kamakura where he built a cottage and lived for a while.
He preached his doctrine in streets or in parks, attacking
the other schools as violently as ever. He wrote a treatise
on the Establishment of Righteousness as the Safeguard
of the Nation, which he presented to the
Hojo Regent in 1260. His main arguments were against the
Amita-pietisnm of Honen, which he considered to he chiefly
responsible for the evils and calamities within and without
the nation. In the treatise he condemned Honen as the
enemy of all Buddhas, all scriptures, all sages and all
people. It was the duty of the government, he said, to
terminate his heresy even with the sword. His idea of
the identification of religion with national life is manifest
throughout the work. Nichiren’s classification of ‘latter
age’ began with the year 1050,according to the generally
accepted calculation of the date of Nirvana. The last
of seven calamities, the foreign invasion, was predicted
in it. He contended that national peace and prosperity
could be attained only through the unification of all
Buddhism by the doctrine of the Lotus of Truth. Later,
he attacked the religious schools then extant and formulated
his views as follows:
Jodo (Amita-pietism) is hell, Zen (meditative intuitionism)
is devil, Shingon (mysticism) is national ruin and Ritsu
(discipline) is traitorous. These four practically cover
all existing schools of his time and were the doctrines
that had been subordinate to Tendai.
As Amita-faith propagated by Honen, Shinran and others
was most influential among the people at large, the Zen
trend of thought, specially appealing to the ruling military
class of the time, was probably the second influential
doctrine. Owing to the activities of Eisai,’ Dogen and
Enni in Kyoto, and the Chinese teachers Rankei, Sogen,
and Ichinei, in Kamakura, the Zen School was
certainly asserting its position in the national life
and culture. As to Shingon, the power of mystification
which it cherished never lost its hold on the mind of
the people; the Shingon School was influential all over
Japan. The Ritsu was a school of discipline reformed by
Eison who prayed against the Mongol invasion at the Shinto
shrine of Iwashimizu by an Imperial order when Emperor
Kameyama himself was present and vowed to sacrifice his
life for the safety of the nation. Thus the Ritsu must
have been quite influential at the Court.
Nichiren’s attacks against these schools became more violent
than ever when he was mobbed, attacked and banished to
Izu in 1261. Even after his return to Kamakura and to
his native place to see his ailing mother, he did not
refrain from his violent protest against the government
as well as the religion, and went so far as to say that
Tokiyori, the Hojo Regent who believed in Zen and wore
a Buddhist robe, was already in hell and that the succeeding
Regent Tokuniune was on the way to hell. Upon the arrival
of the Mongolian envoys demanding tribute, he again remonstrated
the Regime to suppress the heresies and adopt the Lotus
doctrine as the only way out of national calamities.
In 1271 he was arrested, tried and sentenced to death.
In a miraculous way he escaped the execution and was banished
to the remote island of Sado at the end of the same year.
In spite of the hardships and troubles he experienced
there, Nichiren wrote several works. In the Eye-opener,
his famous vows are found: "I will be
the pillar of Japan; I will be the eyes of Japan; I
will be the vessel of Japan." Here he became conscious
of himself being the Bodhisattva Visistacaritra (‘Distinguished
Action’) with whom the Buddha entrusted the work of
protecting the Truth. After three years he was allowed
to return to Kamakura in 1274. No moderation, no compromise
and no tolerance could be extracted from him in spite
of an ardent effort on the part of the government. He
retired to Minobu, west of Mount Fuji, and lived peacefully.
He died at Ikegami, near Tokyo, in 1282. Nichiren’s
militant spirit was kept alive by his disciples, six
of whom were earnest propagandists. One of them, Nichiji,
went to Siberia in 1295 but no further report was heard
of him. The school, always colored by a fighting attitude,
had many disputes with other religious institutions.
In 1532, for example, it had a conflict with Tendai,
the mother school, called the war of Tembun. One of
the Nichiren sects called Fujufuse Sect (‘no give or
take’) refused to comply with the parish rule conventionally
set forth by the government and was prohibited in 1614
along with Christianity by the Tokugawa Shogunate. There
are at present eight Nichiren sects, two of which are
important: 1. The Nichiren School proper with headquarters
in Minobu, 3,600 monasteries under it. 2. The Kenpon-Hokke
School otherwise called the Myomanji School which has
580 monasteries.
(3) Philosophical and
Religious
Just as the personality of Nichiren constitutes the
Nichiren School, the essence of which is the Lotus
formula "Homage to the Lotus of Truth,"
so it is the personality of the Buddha that constitutes
the Lotus doctrine. The whole Lotus text
may be a drama as Professor Kern imagined, but the Buddha
is not only the hero in the play. The Buddha is also
the organizer or proprietor of the drama. The Truth
of the Lotus text is not an impersonal dead truth;
it is the ideal, the Truth blooming, fragrant and bearing
fruits as the lotus, the Truth active, the Truth embodied
in the Buddha, the Truth-body, the Enlightenment itself,
the Enlightened and Enlightenment and Enlightener all
combined. So the real Buddha of the text is not that
corporeal Buddha who got enlightened under the bodhi
tree, preached for the first time at the Deer Park
of Benares and entered Nirvana at the Sala grove of
Kusinagara at eighty-one years of age. He is the Buddha
of immeasurable ages past, ever acting as the Enlightener.
By enlightening all beings he exercises benevolence
to all. Out of his mercy he teaches the doctrine of
expediency. He is in reality the organizer of the drama,
yet he himself acts as a hero in the play, leading all
the dramatic personnel, even with some of the inferior
characters who in time will be able to play a role.
The three Vehicles, of course, as well as Devadatta
the wicked and Naga the serpent maid, all come under
the Buddha’s illumination. The world of illumination
of the remote Buddha is called the ‘realm of origin'
and the world of illumination by the incarnate Buddha
is called the ‘realm of trace.’ I used the
word ‘realm’ but it does not mean a separate division
or place. It simply indicates the ‘activity of the Buddha
of original position’ or ‘that of the Buddha of trace-leaving
manifestation.’ ‘Original position' and ‘trace-manifestation'
are the problems long discussed in the Lotus schools
and all center on the Buddha’s personality, a Buddhological
question. When it is applied to the Lotus text,
the question at the outset will be, "Which Buddha
is revealing the Truth?"
It is generally accepted that the first fourteen sections
of the text, with an introduction, a principal portion
and a conclusion, refer to the realm of trace, while the
last fourteen sections also with an introduction, a principal
portion and a conclusion, relate to the realm of origin.
The object of the Lotus on the whole is a revelation
of Truth. In the former sections, chiefly in the section
of upaya or the ‘expediency,’ the Buddha reveals
that what he taught before the Lotus, during forty
or more years, was only an expedient; more definitely,
the teachings for direct disciples (sravakas, i.e.,
arhat teaching), for the enlightened-for-self
(pratyeka-buddha teaching) and for lesser bodhisattvas,
i.e., the teaching for the three Vehicles, was for
expediency’s sake, and indicated clearly that the ‘one
vehicle for all’ (ekayana) is the Truth. In
the latter sections, chiefly in the longevity section,
the Buddha speaks of his own personality, and reveals
that the historical existence which he has now nearly
completed is not his real body but shows clearly his Truth-body
(Dharma-kaya) to be a true realization of remote
ages past.
The former sections refer to the doctrine in which the
Truth is revealed; expediency is taught as expedience
and Truth as Truth. The latter sections, on the other
hand, refer to the personality in which the Buddha himself
is revealed; the recent as the manifested person and the
remote as the real original person. So far Nichiren agrees
with Dengyo Daishi. Nichiren, however, standing on the
doctrine of personality, asserts that all teachings before
the Lotus are the "trace doctrines of the Trace
Buddha" and that only the latter sections are the
‘essential original doctrines of the Original Buddha.’
He The established his school on the basis of the original
Lotus. Thus his school is called either the Nichiren
School after the founder or the Hommon Hokke School
after the doctrine.
The difference of the tenets of Dengyo Daishi and Nichiren
is further seen in the treatment of the substance of the
Lotus text. The Lotus doctrine assumes ten regions,
ten thus-aspects and three realms. Dengyo Daishi lays
importance on the principle of the realm of trace. The
realm of trace treats only the nine regions, teaching
the causal states of culture" and therefore considering
mind and thought as important factors of training, and
finally attributing all the phenomenal worlds to the mere-ideation
theory. The threefold view of one mind and the 3,000 worlds
immanent in one thought-instant are taught minutely. According
to the Nichiren School, the Tendai is too much inclined
to the theoretical side of the Truth, thereby forgetting
the practical side of it. Nichiren holds that the realm
of origin teaches the effective state of enlightenment
and the Buddha’s person is the center of Truth; the reality
of the phenomenal worlds centers in the personality of
the Buddha; and all aspirants should be guided to realize
the Ideal-body of the Buddha.
The Lotus text reveals the original Buddha whose
principle and practice are fully explained in the original
portions of the text. What the founder holds important
is the Buddha’s practice, not his principle. One who
understands and practices the practical aspects of that
Buddha is a devotee or realizer of the Lotus,
just as the bodhisattva of supreme
action (Visistacaritra) is placed in the highest position
in the text. The Buddhahood (perfect enlightenment)
of such an adept will be immediate in this very body.
The original Buddha was like the moon in the sky and all
other Buddhas of the Wreath, of the Againa,
of the Vaipulya (‘developed’), the Prajna
(‘wisdom’), the Gold Light (Suvarnaprabhasa), the
Sukhavati (Pure Land) and the Great Sun (Mahavairocana)
were all moons in various waters, and merely reflections
of the one central moon. It is only a fool who would try
to catch a reflected moon.
The title of the Lotus of the Good Law sums up
all these principles and practice of the Buddhas of origin
and trace, and, to Nichiren, is the only remedy to procure
the reform of the depraved state of the ‘latter age,’
in spite of all counteractions from existing poisons.
The fourfold watchword set forth by Nichiren, as we have
seen above, was the renowned object of hatred by all the
rest of the Buddhist schools of Japan, for it was against
the Amita-pietism of Jodo, the meditative intuitionism
of Zen, the ritual mysticism of Shingon and the formalistic
discipline of Ritsu. This was the wholesale denunciation
of all existing Buddhist schools except the Tendai School
of Dengyo Daishi, which he sought to reform and restore
to its original form.
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