Integration of Nichiren Sects in the Taisho Era

Abstract

Each of the various subsects of the Nichiren school refers to the sect or school that has Nichiren as its founder. From Nichiren’s time in the Kamakura period, his disciples formed an organization that expanded with the progress of time. In the Muromachi period, its priests of the sect were active in various places, and among them, a number of branches were formed based on differences in doctrine and disagreements over succession. The organization that emerged from these branches was organized by the head temple as a result of religious control during the Edo period, and then reborn as a modern sect as a result of the religious policies of the early Meiji period. Through this process, the Nichiren sects became nine in the Taisho period (1912–1926), and seven of them began concrete activities to unify them in 1914. These activities were triggered by the commemoration in 1902 of the 650th anniversary of the founding of Nichiren Buddhism, the subsequent rise of Nichiren shugi 日蓮主義 (Nichirenism), which became a social phenomenon, and the sect’s involvement in World War I. In this paper, I consider the integration activities conducted by each subsect of Nichiren’s followers during the Taisho era, including the background of the conference held in 1914 with the chief abbot of each subsect in attendance.