Rebuking the enemies of the Lotus: Nichirenist exclusivism in historical perspective

Abstract

The Buddhist teacher Nichiren (1222-1282) has tended to be marginalized by many scholars of Buddhism as intolerant for his exclusivistic claim that only the Stitra leads to salvation in the Final Dharma age (mappo). 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 unifying force and strategy of legitimation. This brief historical overview first 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 define and perpetuate themselves vis-d-vis more powerful institutions, and it shows how it has been repeatedly refigured from medieval times to the present in response to changing circumstances. The article also explores the issue of ongoing conflict within Nichiren Buddhism over whether, and to what extent, confrontation with other Buddhist traditions should be pursued. THE BUDDHIST TEACHER Nichiren H _ (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 deeper level it reflects fundamental discomfort with the Nichiren tradition's often strident opposition to other religious forms. George SANSOM, for example, writes that Nichiren broke the tradition of religious tolerance in Japan (1952, p. 335), while WATANABE Shoko states that Nichiren displayed a selfrighteousness unexampled in all of Buddhist history, and [when] viewed from the standpoint of Buddhist tolerance, we must say that it