The Encyclopedia of World Religions

324 S Nichiren

nation or for individuals; that trust was also one’s only sure hope for salvation. The Lotus Sutra was not just to be read, but chanted and worshipped for the power that lay in its very words. Nichiren taught people a recitation called the Daimoku. It consists of the words Namu myoho renge-kyo (“Hail the marvelous teaching of the Lotus Sutra ”) chanted rapidly. The chant is best done in front of a shrine called the Gohonzon, a rectangular sheet of paper bearing the words of the Daimoku and the names of some figures from the Lotus Sutra. Nichiren Buddhists today find this a very effective form of prayer. Nichiren believed that all Japan must accept his FAITH in the Lotus Sutra. He denounced other religions as false, but said that if Japan as a whole would turn to the Lotus, it would be blessed and would be a center of light for the world. He believed that Japan’s famous Mount Fuji repre sented the mountain on which the Buddha had originally delivered the Lotus Sutra as a sermon. On the other hand, if the nation rejected the Lotus Sutra, he said, many disasters would befall it. He pointed to a series of calamities around him: earth quakes, drought, famine, epidemics. He also pre dicted that Japan would be invaded from outside, and claimed to have been right when the Mongols came in 1268. But Japan was saved in that fateful year by a typhoon (called the kamikaze, “divine wind”) that destroyed the enemy’s fleet; Nichiren said this was because at least some Japanese had accepted his preaching. Nichiren’s teaching created much opposition. He was twice exiled and once sentenced to death; legend has it that he was spared the death sentence at the last minute, when the executioner’s sword was struck by lightning. But he started a religious movement, Nichiren Buddhism, which has had an important role in Japanese history and has grown rapidly in the 20th century in the form of some of the largest of the new religions of Japan ( see J APAN , NEW RELIGIONS IN ), especially S OKA G AKKAI .

to Japan, New Year’s Day has been thought of as a time when—it being a time of turning—the gate ways to the other world opened a bit, and mys terious gods and spirits could come through, and ancestors might return in spirit to visit. Sometimes costumes are worn to personify these entities by celebrators going from door to door. This may also be the ultimate ancestor of the tradition of new year parades, like the famous Rose Parade in Pasa dena, California. On a more serious note, the start of the new year is a time for repenting of things done wrong in the past, and for making resolutions to help one do better in the future. The theme of conflict between old and new, or between two sides, on New Year’s Day is reflected in the practice of new year con tests, whether tug-of-war as in some places in Japan, or the football bowl games in the United States. In all, New Year’s Day is a time, though now often secularized, that has had deep religious meaning in its past. Nichiren (1222–1282) Japanese Buddhist priest and reformer Nichiren was born to a poor fishing family in a village called Kominato, northeast of the present location of Tokyo. Despite his lowly background, he received an education in a local Buddhist temple. From the age of 16, he traveled widely from one temple and school of B UDDHISM to another, seeking truth. It was a time of much conflict and fighting in Japan, and of the rise of new, simplified forms of Buddhism. This caused Nichiren to be particularly worried about two questions: Why, in the civil wars then going on in Japan, did armies often lose despite all the PRAYERS and ceremonies offered on their behalf by Buddhist priests? and, How can I be sure that I am myself saved? Nichiren finally decided that the answers lay in the power of the L OTUS S UTRA , a great Buddhist text, which had been regarded as the most important of all by the Tendai school of Buddhism in which he had been raised. But Nichiren said it was now the only scripture; all the others were outdated. Trust in it and it alone would bring success here and now, he said, whether for armies and the

nirvana Sanskrit for “blowing out”; in B UDDHISM , the blowing out of the flames of craving that are