Placing Nichiren in the Big Picture - Some Ongoing Issues in S.pdf - Nichiren Shu - Bodhisattwa

Japanese Journal of Religious Studies 1999 26/3–4

Placing Nichiren in the “Big Picture”

Some Ongoing Issues in Scholarship

Jacqueline I. S TONE

This article places Nichiren within the context of three larger scholarly

issues: de³nitions of the new Buddhist movements of the Kamakura period;

the reception of the Tendai discourse of original enlightenment (hongaku)

among the new Buddhist movements; and new attempts, emerging in the

medieval period, to locate “Japan” in the cosmos and in history. It shows

how Nichiren has been represented as either politically conservative or rad-

ical, marginal to the new Buddhism or its paradigmatic ³gure, depending

upon which model of “Kamakura new Buddhism” is employed. It also

shows how the question of Nichiren’s appropriation of original enlighten-

ment thought has been inµuenced by models of Kamakura Buddhism

emphasizing the polarity between “old” and “new” institutions and sug-

gests a different approach. Lastly, it surveys some aspects of Nichiren’s

thinking about “Japan” for the light they shed on larger, emergent medieval

discourses of Japan’s religiocosmic signi³cance, an issue that cuts across

the “old Buddhism”/“new Buddhism” divide.

Keywords : Nichiren — Tendai — original enlightenment —

Kamakura Buddhism — medieval Japan — shinkoku

F OR THIS ISSUE I was asked to write an overview of recent scholarship

on Nichiren. A comprehensive overview would exceed the scope of

one article. To provide some focus and also adumbrate the signi³-

cance of Nichiren studies to the broader ³eld of Japanese religions, I

have chosen to consider Nichiren in the contexts of three larger areas

of modern scholarly inquiry: “Kamakura new Buddhism,” its relation

to Tendai original enlightenment thought, and new religiocosmologi-

cal concepts of “Japan” that emerged in the medieval period. In the

case of the ³rst two areas—Kamakura new Buddhism and original

enlightenment thought—this article will address how some of the

major interpretive frameworks have shaped our view of Nichiren, and

how study of Nichiren has in turn affected larger scholarly pictures.

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Japanese Journal of Religious Studies 26/3–4

Some assessment of current interpretations and alternative suggestions

will also be offered. Medieval concepts of Japan, however, represents

an area where the importance of Nichiren has yet to be fully recognized,

and this ³nal section of the article suggests the potential contribution

to be made by an investigation of his thought in this regard.

Nichiren and Kamakura Buddhism

No era in Japanese Buddhist history has received more scholarly atten-

tion than the Kamakura period (1185–1333). This was the time when

several of the Buddhist traditions most inµuential in Japan today—

Zen, Pure Land, and Nichiren—had their institutional beginnings.

Indeed, for many years, the study of Kamakura Buddhism was largely

equivalent to the study of sectarian origins. The last two decades, how-

ever, have seen a dramatic methodological shift, which in turn has

affected scholarly readings of Nichiren.

Beginning before the war, a major category in studies of Kamakura

Buddhism was the “Kamakura new Buddhism” à V G[ î —that is, the

movements beginning with Hõnen, Shinran, Eisai, Dõgen, and Nichiren

(Ippen is also sometimes included). Especially in the postwar period,

the older institutionalized Buddhism from which these founders had

emerged was treated primarily as the backdrop for their religious inno-

vations. “Old Buddhism”—Tendai, Shingon, and the Nara schools—

was regarded in the dominant postwar model of Kamakura Buddhism

as a moribund remnant of the state Buddhism of the ritsuryõ Ai sys-

tem, elitist, overly scholastic, and unable either to respond to the reli-

gious needs of the common people in the face of an alleged sense of

crisis accompanying the arrival of the Final Dharma age ( mappõ =À)

or to accommodate to rapid social change brought about by the rise

of warrior power. In contrast, the new Kamakura Buddhist movements

were seen as egalitarian and lay oriented, offering easily accessible

religious practices. They were often represented in a “Protestant”

light, as having rejected worship of the myriad kami and the apotropa-

ic rites of esoteric Buddhism. And, unlike the commitment of “old

Buddhism” to serving the state with its rituals of nation protection,

the new Buddhism was deemed to have been concerned chieµy with

individual salvation. Postwar “new Buddhism”–centered models of

Kamakura Buddhism were represented by such scholars as Ienaga

Saburõ and Inoue Mitsusada, for whom the exclusive Pure Land

movement was paradigmatic. This model often characterized Nichi-

ren as an in-between ³gure who had not fully negotiated the transi-

tion from “old” to “new.” For Ienaga in particular, Nichiren’s belief in

S TONE : Placing Nichiren in the “Big Picture”

385

the ef³cacy of ritual prayers ( kitõ t ô) and his concern with the

Japanese kami placed him squarely in the lineage of “old Buddhism”;

any “new Buddhist” elements in his teaching were due solely to

Hõnen’s inµuence (I ENAGA 1947, pp. 96, 63). In particular, Ienaga saw

his emphasis on “nation protection” ( chingo kokka ¥ D³ B) as indistin-

guishable from that of Nara and Heian times, something that “pres-

ents a large obstacle to understanding Nichiren’s religion solely in

terms of the so-called new Buddhism” (p. 68). Ienaga is an outstand-

ing scholar, and his work on Kamakura Buddhism, read critically, is

still useful today. Nonetheless, he was writing in the immediate post-

war period, when conscientious scholars of Buddhism were just begin-

ning to confront the troubling legacy of institutional Buddhism’s

recent support for militant Japanese imperialism. In that context,

Nichiren’s concern with the relationship between Buddhism and gov-

ernment could perhaps be seen only in a negative light.

A major challenge to “new Buddhism”–centered models of Kama-

kura Buddhism came about through the work of the late historian

Kuroda Toshio (1926–1993), whose work is too famous to need much

discussion here (see D OBBINS 1996). Kuroda conclusively demonstrated

that the dominant forms of medieval Japanese Buddhism were not the

Kamakura new Buddhist movements, which did not attain signi³cant

institutional presence until the late medieval period, but rather the

temple-shrine complexes of “old Buddhism.” Kuroda found that, far

from being an ossi³ed remnant of Nara state Buddhism, these institu-

tions had evolved distinctively medieval forms of organization, deriv-

ing their support, not from the imperial court, but from their own

extensive private estates or shõen v Ó . As major landholders, together

with the court and later the bushi Dw (warrior) leadership, these tem-

ple-shrine complexes emerged as one of the powerful kenmon or rul-

ing elites that formed the joint system of medieval governance

( kenmon taisei Ï– ¿ £). As one of these powerful factions, the leading

Buddhist temples joined across sectarian lines to form a distinctive rit-

ual and ideological system that Kuroda called the kenmitsu taisei

ßO ¿ £—a fusion of the exoteric doctrines of particular Buddhist

schools with a shared body of esoteric ritual that provided both thau-

maturgical support and religious legitimization for existing rule. Ken-

mitsu Buddhism, Kuroda argued, overwhelmingly represented

orthodoxy ( seitõ ±j) for the period. Within this overarching system,

the new Buddhist movements of the Kamakura period were mere

marginal heterodoxies ( itan b 2).

Kuroda’s work produced a revolution in scholarly approaches to

medieval Japanese religion. He shifted attention away from the long-

standing approaches of doctrinal and sectarian history to focus on the

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Japanese Journal of Religious Studies 26/3–4

political, economic, ideological, and other previously neglected

dimensions of the ³eld. He transcended an earlier emphasis on indi-

vidual sects by noting underlying structures that cut across traditions,

such as the exo-esoteric fusion ( kenmitsu ); discourse of the mutual

dependence of imperial law and Buddhism ( õbõ buppõ sõi ron ÷ À[À

o S Ç ); or the honji-suijaku ûGs) logic that identi³ed kami as the

local manifestations of buddhas and bodhisattvas, thus enabling the

incorporation of spirit cults and kami worship within the kenmitsu sys-

tem. The implications of his work have yet to be fully explored. Kuroda

himself did not study Nichiren in any detail, but his understanding of

the new Buddhist movements of the Kamakura period as small hetero-

dox movements de³ning themselves over and against the dominant

religiopolitical establishment opened a new perspective from which

Nichiren might be reconsidered. Here we will brieµy consider some

aspects of the work of Sasaki Kaoru and Satõ Hiroo, two scholars who

have focused on Nichiren in this light.

NICHIREN AS “ANTIESTABLISHMENT”

Sasaki Kaoru has built upon Kuroda’s work to clarify the nature of the

dominant religious establishment against which the new movements,

including Nichiren’s, were reacting. He argues that Kuroda’s category

of kenmitsu taisei typi³es the religious institutions of Kyoto aristocrats

but is not adequate to describe the religious support structure of the

Kamakura Bakufu, which developed its own religious policy. Sasaki

accordingly introduces the concept of zenmitsu shugi 7 Oü – , a reli-

gious ideology composed of Zen and esoteric elements stemming

from the activities of those Zen monks and mikkyõ ritual specialists

who provided the Bakufu with religious support. The Buddhism bol-

stering the established system of rule ( taisei Bukkyõ ¿ £[ î ) can thus

be divided into that of the court aristocracy and that of the leading

Kamakura bushi . Over and against this dominant “establishment Bud-

dhism,” Sasaki sets up two further categories: antiestablishment Bud-

dhism ( han-taisei Bukkyõ ‚ ¿ £[ î ), or those who de³ned themselves

over and against the dominant religious system, and “transestablishment

Buddhism” ( chõ-taisei Bukkyõ • ¿ £[ î ), or those whose religion was

de³ned independently of the tension between the other two (S ASAKI

1988, 1997).

One of the most striking features of Sasaki’s work on Nichiren is his

analysis of how Nichiren gradually shifted, over the course of his life,

from an “establishment” to an “antiestablishment” position. As others

have noted, Nichiren in the early stages of his career was very much

self-identi³ed with “old Buddhism” or the kenmitsu of Tendai (K AWA -

ZOE 1955–1956; I KEGAMI 1976; S ATÕ 1978). His criticism of Hõnen’s

S TONE : Placing Nichiren in the “Big Picture”

387

exclusive nenbutsu was launched from this kenmitsu standpoint. Nichiren

saw himself as a successor to Myõe gˆ and others of the established

Buddhist schools who had written critiques of Hõnen’s Senchakushð

*ã T ( Shugo kokka ron ! D³ B Ç , STN 1: 90) and, contra Hõnen’s

exclusive nenbutsu doctrine, still spoke at this stage of the esoteric

teachings and other Mah„y„na sutras, along with the Lotus Sðtra , as

worthy teachings to be upheld. He also criticized the exclusive nenbutsu

movement for undermining the Tendai economic base. But Nichi-

ren’s early self-identi³cation was with the Tendai of Mt. Hiei, and rela-

tions between the Bakufu and Mt. Hiei were anything but cordial. The

Bakufu had a number of Tendai monks in its service; for example, of

the seventeen successive chief superintendents ( bettõ ƒc) of Kama-

kura’s Tsurugaoka Hachiman Shrine Æ þ kg · who served between

1180 and 1266, ten were Tendai monks. All, however, belonged to the

rival Tendai lineage of Onjõ-ji Ó ô±, which had enjoyed a longstand-

ing relationship with the Minamoto house. Bakufu religious policy, says

S ASAKI (1997, pp. 405, 421–22), was informed by anti-Hiei sentiment—

one reason, in his estimation, why Nichiren encountered persecution.

Sasaki divides Nichiren’s thinking into three periods demarcated by

his exile to Sado Island: pre-Sado (up until 1271), Sado (1271–1274),

and post-Sado (1274–1282), or the years of his retirement on Mt.

Minobu. He traces Nichiren’s shift from an establishment to anti-

establishment perspective through an exhaustive reading of his works

and collation of their internal evidence, focusing on Nichiren’s view

of the emperor and the Bakufu, his criticism of the esoteric teachings

( mikkyõ ), and his understanding of the kami (S ASAKI 1997, pp. 287–415).

In his early writings, Sasaki says, Nichiren saw the emperor or tennõ

ú y as Japan’s actual ruler ( jisshitsuteki kokushu ×Öí ³ ü) and the

Bakufu as subordinate, an upstart in terms of pedigree and the ruler

merely in name or form. While in exile on Sado, however, his think-

ing on this matter began to change, undergoing a radical transforma-

tion during the Minobu years. This becomes particularly evident in

his understanding of the Jõkyð Uprising of 1221, in which the retired

emperor Go-Toba sought to overthrow the Bakufu and restore full

imperial authority but was defeated by the Kamakura forces under the

command of Hõjõ Yoshitoki. As a result, despite his imperial status,

Go-Toba and two other retired emperors who had supported him

were sent into exile. Nichiren interpreted this as due to Go-Toba’s

reliance on mikkyõ ritual rather than the Lotus Sðtra for his thaumatur-

gical support, as well as the spread of other, “inferior” teachings. This

inversion of the proper hierarchy of “true” and “provisional” in the

realm of Buddhism led to a corresponding upset in worldly rule:

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