Nichiren, Soka Gakkai and Komeito - Religion and Politics in Contemporary Japan - page 37

previous iconographic honzons, Nichiren places Namu-my - ho-renge-ky -

as

representing the Dharma, while placing various venerable figures, some of

whom represent the Ten Worlds (from Buddhahood to Hell) on either side (cf.
Dolce 1999).
In his Reply to Ky - - (1273), Nichiren shows how he sees the object of

devotion as an embodiment of himself (cf. Habito 1999a). He writes,

'

I,
Nichiren, have inscribed my life in sumi ink, so believe in the Gohonzon with
your whole heart. The Buddha

'

is will is the Lotus Sutra, but the soul of
Nichiren is nothing other than Nam[u]-my - ho-renge-ky -

'

(WND-1, 412).
This passage indicates that he saw himself as a person who personi

'

ed the
Dharma in the physical object of his honzon. Yet, rather than a relic seen as
possessing supernatural powers, he stresses the power of his honzon is found
in faith alone. For Nichiren the honzon was a graphic representation of how
he viewed reality from the perspective of Buddhahood as depicted in the
Lotus Sutra.
There is only partial agreement among the various Nichiren sects as to the
exact practice and role of Nichiren in the Buddhist lineage. It is beyond the
scope of this chapter to discuss these various positions. For the relevance of
this topic, I limit the discussion to the version put forward by Soka Gakkai as
followers of Nikk -

and the Nichiren Sh - sh -

branch. The various Nichiren

er considerably; only the followers of Nikk - took Nichiren Buddhist
practice to mean solely the chanting of the daimoku (Namu-my - ho-renge-ky - )
with faith in Nichiren

schools di

'

s honzon. Soka Gakkai regards devotion or chanting to
other objects such as the statue of Shakyamuni, as can be seen in Nichiren
Shu, for instance, as contravening the teaching of Nichiren. There are no
agreed conclusions in this regard. As we shall see in the next section, Nichiren
Sh - sh - claimed further legitimacy with a particular honzon in their posses-
sion, the dai-gohonzon (dai meaning supreme), which they regard as the ulti-
mate object of worship produced by Nichiren.
Nichiren

' s Buddhism has often been seen as part of the ' new ' Buddhism of

the Kamakura Era (1185 - 1333), new movements that could be juxtaposed to

the 93) seminal

work shows that such dichotomies, however, may have given overdue credence
to the power of the

' old ' , corrupt Buddhist establishment. Kuroda Toshio ' s (1926 -

. He shows that the new Buddhist movements of the
Kamakura periodwere a small heterodoxy against the dominant religio-political
establishment, which he termed the kenmitsu taisei, or the exoteric-esoteric
system that characterised Buddhist institutions (Kuroda 1996; Dobbins 1996;
cf. Stone 1999a: 60

' new '

nes and relocates the
Kamakura Buddhist sects to a more peripheral position, which may have
posed less of a threat to the

- 61). In this way, Kuroda rede

' old ' Buddhism of the kenmitsu system than at

first presumed. Kuroda inspired models (Sasaki 1988, 1997; Sat - 1998; dis-
cussed in Stone 1999b) nevertheless show how Nichiren was the paradigmatic

figure of resistance to the religiopolitical establishment (see also Stone 1999b:
392). While there have been various critiques of Sat - s position for represent-

ing this new movement as overly egalitarian, progressive, and liberating

'