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organised labour, Komeito found its footing as a sort of populist party that
championed welfare and politics for and by ordinary people. Komeito argued
that representation for newly urbanised men and women, non-union labour
and those who worked in small and medium-sized companies was not to be
found in the ideological struggles between the left and the right. A power of
and for ordinary people was envisioned, which is partly what Ikeda later
referred to as
(Ikeda 1965).
As Nishiyama points out, the term kokuritsu kaidan was abandoned with
the establishment of Komeito, and Komeito never made claims to any speci
'
human socialism
'
and
'
Buddhist democracy
'
c
religious objectives. However, whether it was ever a primary political goal
remains questionable. An episode told by a number of leaders of Soka
Gakkai from that time is telling of how Ikeda regarded the sanctuary more
precisely as a religious symbol rather than the end objective of k
-
sen-rufu.In
1962 Ikeda compared the construction of the kaidan to the residue of bean
curd or a side dish (okada). In Japan, this bi-product of bean curd is at times
used and at times thrown away. The analogy illustrated the emphasis Ikeda
was putting on the process of individuals practising Buddhism over the con-
struction of a particular building. While this analogy did not mean that
erecting a building to house the dai-gohonzon was unimportant, he wanted to
stress (in a rather funny but succinct way) that this was no more than a reli-
gious symbol and not the practice of Nichiren Buddhism itself. The power of
the lay organisation and the insecurity of the priesthood by the same token
were rooted in the priority given to practise over speci
c rituals or buildings,
which were the mainstay of the priesthood but not the aim of the laity. In
other words, the construction and importance of a
(places or
buildings seen as essential to religious practice) was undermined from the
beginning. Soka Gakkai could be seen as a religion that throughout its his-
tory questioned the idea of a
'
holy land
'
'
holy land
'
as essential to religious practice.
'
The
holy land is not important
, says the head of Soka Gakkai study department
Saito Katsuji (interview with author, 29 June 2011),
'
'
but we need a commu-
nity where believers can gather and practice
. In Soka Gakkai, Buddhism is
clearly not only a personal practice; a person is part of and participates in
making religion organisational. The community or organisational aspect of
religion is the point of contention for many scholars and the mass media.
Yet, there was also a desire on the part of Soka Gakkai to build something
for the priesthood that re
'
ected the importance of the honzon in their Bud-
dhist practice, which made the issues complex and seemingly contradictory.
Furthermore, Komeito
uence continued to grow in the 1960s. On 14 June
1965 it caused the Tokyo Metropolitan Assembly to be recalled over corrup-
tion scandals, and just three weeks later in the 4 July House of Councillors
election it won 11 seats. Then two years later in the January 1967 Lower
House Election it won 25 seats. In the 1969 Lower House election, it saw a
huge gain of 47 seats, becoming the third-largest party in Japan. It was during
this time that it submitted its
'
sin
first child subsidy bill, which was eventually
implemented by the government in 1971. As pointed out by Nishiyama
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