Rebuking the Enemies of the Lotus - Nichirenist Exclusivism in.pdf - Nichiren Shu - Bodhisattwa

Japanese Journal of Religious Studies 1994 21/2–3

Rebuking the Enemies of the Lotus

Nichirenist Exclusivism in Historical Perspective

Jacqueline S TONE

The Buddhist teacher Nichiren (1222–1282) has tended to be marginal-

ized by many scholars of Buddhism as “intolerant” for his exclusivistic

claim that only the Lotus Sðtra leads to salvation in the Final Dharma

age ( mappõ ). While the Nichiren Buddhist tradition has often been

aggressive in asserting its exclusive truth claim and in opposing other

forms of Buddhism, the label of “intolerance” does little to illuminate how

this exclusivistic stance has functioned within the history of the tradition

both as a unifying force and a strategy of legitimation. This brief historical

overview ³rst outlines the origins of “Lotus exclusivism” in Nichiren’s

thought. It then goes on to discusses how this claim to represent the only

true Buddha Dharma enabled early Nichiren communities to de³ne and

perpetuate themselves vis-à-vis more powerful institutions, and it shows

how it has been repeatedly re³gured from medieval times to the present in

response to changing circumstances. The article also explores the issue of

ongoing conµict within Nichiren Buddhism over whether, and to what

extent, confrontation with other Buddhist traditions should be pursued.

T HE B UDDHIST TEACHER Nichiren Õ ¥ (1222–1282) and the tradition

he founded have long been marginalized in both Japanese and

Western scholarship. Although this may stem in part from lingering

wartime associations of certain strands of Nichirenist rhetoric with

right-wing militarism, on a deeper level it reµects a fundamental dis-

comfort with the Nichiren tradition’s often strident opposition to

other religious forms. George S ANSOM , for example, writes that

Nichiren “broke the tradition of religious tolerance in Japan” (1952,

p. 335), while W ATANABE Shõkõ states that Nichiren displayed “a self-

righteousness unexampled in all of Buddhist history, and [when]

viewed from the standpoint of Buddhist tolerance, we must say that it

232

Japanese Journal of Religious Studies 21/2–3

is a completely non-Buddhistic attitude” (1968, p. 65). In Edward

C ONZE ’s view, Nichiren Buddhism

differs from all other Buddhist schools by its nationalistic,

pugnacious and intolerant attitude and it is somewhat doubt-

ful whether it belongs to the history of Buddhism at all…. On

this occasion Buddhism had evolved its very antithesis out of

itself. (1980, pp. 113–14)

Such criticisms, however, tell us more about modern scholarly pre-

suppositions than they do about the Nichiren tradition. It is true that

many Nichiren Buddhists have displayed a ³erce exclusivism (a word

preferable in this context to “intolerance” because less burdened by

associations with modern European religious history), but this exclu-

sivism is a complex phenomenon worthy of study in its own right. The

present paper will consider some of the ways in which Nichiren’s

claim to represent the only true Dharma has functioned in speci³c

social and historical circumstances, and how it has been adapted as

those circumstances changed. It will also consider the recurring conµict

within the tradition over whether, or to what extent, confrontation

with other religions should be pursued.

Origins in Nichiren’s Thought

First let us consider Nichiren’s foundational claim that only the Lotus

Sðtra can lead to Buddhahood, or salvation, in the Final Dharma age

( mappõ =À). Exclusive truth claims of this kind were not uncommon

in late twelfth- and early thirteenth-century Japanese Buddhism. For

some time, the great Tendai institution on Mt. Hiei had been splinter-

ing into rival groups and lineages, each claiming unique possession of

the most profound Dharma (H AZAMA 1948, vol. 2, pp. 241–44). The

new schools of Kamakura Buddhism often committed themselves to a

single form of practice, which thereby acquired absolute status. The

³rst Kamakura Buddhist leader to formally articulate this notion was

the Pure Land teacher Hõnen À5 (1133–1212), who emphasized the

exclusive practice of chanting Amida’s name ( senju nenbutsu é@

ç[). Nichiren—who, like Hõnen, was originally a Tendai monk—

claimed that chanting the daimoku Û (the title of the Lotus Sðtra ) in

the formula Namu-myõhõ-renge-kyõ Ç[UÀ ¥ T was the sole path to

liberation; to combine the daimoku with other practices would, he

wrote, be “like mixing rice with excrement” ( Akimoto gosho Eâ :

[Letter to Akimoto], R ISSHÕ D AIGAKU N ICHIREN K YÕGAKU K ENKYÐSHO

[RDNKK] 1988, vol. 2, p. 1730).

S TONE : Nichirenist Exclusivism

233

It is not altogether clear why these and other ³gures in the early

medieval period abandoned what had been the traditional Japanese

Buddhist position, in which a variety of teachings and practices were

regarded as liberating “skillful means,” and insisted instead on the

sole validity of a single path. It may have been, at least in part, a

response to the social and political upheavals that accompanied the

decline of aristocratic rule and the rise of warrior culture. Anxieties

about the Final Dharma age also played a role. Nichiren was unique,

not in making exclusivist claims per se, but in integrating confronta-

tion with other Buddhist teachings into the formal structure of his

thought, especially through his advocacy of shakubuku ÛN.

Buddhist canonical sources de³ne two methods of teaching the

Dharma: shõju Ú1, “to embrace and accept,” the mild method of

leading others gradually without criticizing their position; and

shakubuku , “to break and subdue,” the stern method of explicitly

rejecting “wrong views.” 1 Nichiren’s rejection of the other Buddhist

schools was summed up by his later followers in the form of the so-

called four declarations ( shika kakugen vO°í), drawn from various

passages in his work: “Nenbutsu leads to Av‡ci Hell, Zen is a devil,

Shingon will destroy the nation, and Ritsu is a traitor.” 2 Despite the

simplistic nature of this slogan-like formulation, shakubuku as

employed by Nichiren required considerable mastery of doctrine,

since his criticism of other sects rested on detailed arguments based

upon the sðtras and commentaries. Nichiren adopted the then widely

accepted T’ien-t’ai/Tendai doctrinal classi³cation that de³ned the

Lotus Sðtra as the culmination of the Buddha’s preaching—the Lotus

was the true ( jitsu ×) teaching, and all others were provisional ( gon

Ï). Nichiren drew also on certain hermeneutic trends within Tendai

that increasingly regarded the Lotus not simply as an integration of all

teachings but as qualitatively distinct from and superior to them. 3 In

the Final Dharma age, Nichiren maintained, people no longer had

the capacity to attain liberation through the various provisonal teach-

ings; these teachings were therefore “enemies” of the one vehicle and

1 The locus classicus for these terms is the Srim„l„-dev‡-simhan„da-sðtra , which speaks of

the two methods as “enabling the Dharma to long endure.” Nichiren would have had access

to the Chinese translation of this sðtra (for the passage in question, see Sheng-man shih-tzu-

hou i-ch’eng ta-fang-pien fang-kuang ching , T # 353, 12.217c). He also drew on the works of the

Chinese T’ien-t’ai master Chih-i (538–597), who explicitly connected shakubuku with the

Lotus Sðtra . See Fa-hua hsüan-i 9a, T #1716, 33.792b; Fa-hua wen-chü 8b, T #1718, 34.118c;

and Mo-ho chih-kuan 10b, T #1911, 46.137c.

2 For textual sources of the four declarations see N ICHIRENSHÐ J ITEN K ANKÕ I INKAI 1981,

pp. 143–45.

3 For a discussion of these trends and their origins, see H AZAMA 1948, vol. 1, pp.

193–219.

234

Japanese Journal of Religious Studies 21/2–3

had to be sternly refuted through shakubuku ( Nyosetsu shugyõ shõ

Øß@ [On practicing as the sðtra teaches], RDNKK 1988, vol. 1,

p. 735). Nichiren and his successors practiced shakubuku through

preaching, debate, and submitting memorials to government authori-

ties.

Nichiren did not, however, insist that shakubuku was appropriate for

all times and places. While he believed shakubuku to be best suited to

the Final Dharma age, he conceded that shõju could still be an appro-

priate teaching method depending upon the place and the people

involved. Here he drew a distinction between “countries that are

[merely] evil” (because their inhabitants are ignorant of the Lotus

Sðtra ), where shõju would be the proper approach, and “countries that

destroy the Dharma,” where only shakubuku would suf³ce. Nichiren

regarded Japan in his own time as belonging to the latter category

( Kaimoku shõ ¿ [Opening of the eyes], RDNKK 1988, vol. 1, p.

606). These quali³cations allowed for µexibility of interpretation, but

they also opened the way for doctrinal controversy among Nichiren’s

later followers.

Several other interrelated aspects of Nichiren’s claim for the sole

truth of the Lotus have had a great inµuence on the later tradition.

First, Nichiren insisted that the consequences of accepting or reject-

ing the Lotus Sðtra were materially reµected in the world. The collec-

tive sufferings he saw around him—hunger, epidemics, the great

earthquake of 1258 that leveled much of Kamakura, and especially

the impending Mongol invasion—were in his eyes a proof of the wide-

spread “slander of the Dharma” hõbõ 4À: the rejection of the Lotus ,

the one teaching that still led to Buddhahood in the Final Dharma

age, in favor of Amidism, Zen, esoteric Buddhism, and other “mislead-

ing” practices. On the basis of this conviction, Nichiren in 1260 sub-

mitted his famous treatise Risshõ ankoku ron C ± H ³ Ç [Establishing

the right teaching and bringing peace to the country] (RDNKK 1988,

vol. 1, pp. 209–26; Y AMPOLSKY and W ATSON 1990, pp. 11–47) to the

retired regent Hõjõ Tokiyori, the most inµuential ³gure in the Kama-

kura bakufu, urging the rejection of Amidism and exclusive devotion

to the Lotus .

Second, Nichiren believed that loyalty to the Lotus Sðtra should

take precedence over loyalty to both ruler and country. In 1274, for

example, he refused an of³cal request to offer bakufu-sponsored

prayers for the defeat of the Mongols, believing that it would be

wrong to provide ritual services for a ruler who did not uphold the

Lotus Sðtra and that the invasion might be a necessary part of awaken-

ing people from their neglect of its teachings. By thus according the

Lotus Sðtra a transcendent priority, Nichiren established both for him-

S TONE : Nichirenist Exclusivism

235

self and for his later followers a source of moral authority for chal-

lenging the existing political order.

Third, to Nichiren, the persecution resulting from shakubuku

assumed a legitimizing function. Nichiren’s writings show a clear

awareness that his repeated conµicts with the authorities, his exiles,

and the attempts on his life stemmed directly from his own unrelent-

ing criticism of other teachings; he even spoke of himself on this

account as “the most perverse person in Japan” ( Yagenta-dono gohenji

¡è°* : ª [Reply to Yagenta], RDNKK 1988, vol. 1, p. 805). But in

his thinking, shakubuku was not a partisan self-assertiveness but the

bodhisattva practice of the Final Dharma age, an act of both compas-

sion and expiation. It not only served to awaken others to the fact that

they were slandering the Dharma (an act that would land them in

hell), but it also gave rise to the persecution that enabled Nichiren to

atone for similar slanders that, he believed, he himself had committed

in the past. Moreover, he was convinced that giving one’s life for the

Lotus Sðtra guaranteed one’s future enlightenment. As he wrote to his

followers from exile in 1273:

Life is µeeting. No matter how many powerful enemies oppose

us, never think of retreating or give rise to fear. Even if they

should cut off our heads with saws, impale our bodies with

lances, or bind our feet and bore them through with gimlets,

as long as we have life, we must chant Namu-myõhõ-renge-kyõ ,

Namu-myõhõ-renge-kyõ . And if we die chanting, then Š„kyamuni,

Prabhðtaratna, and the other Buddhas of the ten directions

will come to us immediately, just as they promised at the

assembly on Sacred Vulture Peak…. And all the devas and

benevolent deities…will at once escort us to the jeweled land

of tranquil light. ( Nyosetsu shugyõ shõ , RDNKK 1988, vol. 1, pp.

737–38)

The Lotus Sðtra itself speaks of the trials that its devotees shall undergo

“in an evil age” after the Buddha’s nirv„«a. 4 That he himself encoun-

tered such dif³culties con³rmed for Nichiren the righteousness of his

position. This legitimizing function of opposition has played a pro-

foundly ambivalent role in the history of Nichiren Buddhism. Some

4 The verse section of the “Fortitude” (thirteenth) chapter, spoken by a throng of

bodhisattvas in the Buddha’s presence, is a vow to uphold and spread the Lotus in the face

of speci³c hardships and persecutions ( Miao-fa lien-hua ching , T #262, 9.36b–37a; H URVITZ

1976, pp. 204–207). These verses probably describe opposition from the older Buddhist

establishment confronting the µedgling Mah„y„na community that compiled the sðtra.

Nichiren read them as predictions being ful³lled in his own person.

Rebuking the Enemies of the Lotus - Nichirenist Exclusivism in.pdf

Plik z chomika:

Inne pliki z tego folderu:

Inne foldery tego chomika: