Ājñāta-Kauṇḍinya Mahā-Kāśyapa Uruvilvā-Kāśyapa Gaya-Kāśyapa Nadi-Kāśyapa Śāriputra Great Maudgalyāyana Mahā-Kātyāyana Aniruddha Kapphina Gavampati Revata Pilindavatsa Bakkula Maha-Kausthila Nanda Sundarananda Pūrṇa who was the son of Maitrāyanī Subhūti Ananda Rahula.
The Etadaggavagga (Aṅguttara-Nikāya) lists the Buddha’s disciples in terms of their specialized abilities. For example, the ten great disciples are classified as follows1:
Sāriputta [Śāriputra], the foremost in deep wisdom,
Mahāmoggallāna [Maudgalyāyana], the foremost in transcendental faculties,
Anuruddha [Aniruddha], the foremost in divine sight,
Mahākassapa [Mahākāśyapa], the foremost in observance of ascetic practices,
Puṇṇa Mantāniputta [Pūrṇa, son of Maitrāyanī], the foremost in expounding the teaching,
Mahākaccāyana [Mahākātyāyana], the foremost in ability to analyze and explain the teachings,
Rāhula, the foremost of all who loved learning,
Revata Khadiravaniya, the foremost of the forest dwellers,
Ānanda, the foremost of those who had heard and memorized the teachings, and
Upāli, the foremost of those who had memorized the Vinaya.
The chapter goes on to list other bhikkhus, bhikkhuṇis, upāsakas, and upāsikās and describes their special abilities.
It is understandable that those leading disciples who responded to the Buddha’s teachings in the way that suited them best then became teachers of those special abilities, guiding new followers in their own particular expertise. The disciples who gathered under them appear to have formed groups according to their interests, as is hinted by a sentence in the Saṃyutta-Nikaya: “According to one’s nature/selfdom (dhātu) people flow together, meet together.” The Buddha pointed out that the groups that formed around the various leaders tended to have the same leanings as those leaders (Saṃyutta-Nikāya), commenting that the disciples who were walking with Śāriputra were people of great wisdom; those around Mahāmoggallāna were of transcendental powers; those around Mahākassapa were of ascetic tendencies; those around Anuruddha were of divine sight; those around Puṇṇa Mantāniputta were expounders of the teaching; those around Upāli were memorizers of the Vinaya; those around Ānanda were those who had “heard much” (bahussuta); and those who had followed Devadatta were people of evil. Source elements of the Lotus Sutra, p 169-170
1
Lotus World and the Oxford dictionary of Buddhism list Subhuti, foremost in understanding emptiness, among the 10 disciples. While Revata Khadiravaniya, the younger brother of Śāriputra, is not listed in those lists, other lists have him as foremost among forest dwellers. return
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Nichiren was born on the seacoast of the southeastern corner of Japan, in a fishing village surrounded on the north by undulating hills and washed by the dark blue waves of the Pacific Ocean on the south. Tidal waves have washed away the part of the seacoast where his father’s house stood, and today the spot is pointed out in the depths of the wonderfully clear water, on the rocky bottom of the sea, where lotus flowers are said to have bloomed miraculously at the birth of the wonderful boy. His father was a fisherman, and doubtless the boy was often taken out in the father’s boat and must have enjoyed the clear sky and pure air of the open sea. When in later years, during his retirement in the mountains, a follower sent him a bunch of seaweed to eat, the old hermit wept as he called to mind his early memories of the seaweeds, which are, indeed, a charming sight as they are seen through the transparent water. Far away from the effeminating air of the Imperial capital, far away from the turmoils and agitations of the Dictator’s residence, the boy grew up in the fresh and invigorating atmosphere of a seaside village, in the midst of unadorned nature – wooded hills and green trees, blue waters and sandy beaches. The inspiration of nature and the effect of association with the simple, sturdy people are manifest in each step of Nichiren’s later career, in his thoughts and his deeds. The new light was to come out of the East for the salvation of the Latter Days – this prophetic zeal of Nichiren is in large measure to be attributed to his idea about his birth, and to the surroundings of his early life.
In 1233, when the boy was eleven years old, his parents sent him to a monastery on the hill known as Kiyozumi, the “Clear Luminosity,” near his home. The reason is not given, but it was in no way an exceptional or extraordinary step; in those days many a father did the same, whether from motives of piety or for the sake of the boy’s future career. The peaceful and innocent days of the boy novice passed; he was made an ordained monk when he was fifteen years old, and the religious name given by his master was Renchō, or “Lotus-Eternal.” Doubts grew with learning, because too many tenets and practices were included in the Buddhist religion of his days, and the keen-sighted youth was never satisfied with the incongruous mixture in the religion he was taught. “My wish had always been,” he tells us in his later writings, “to sow the seeds for the attainment of Buddhahood, and to escape the fetters of births and deaths. For this purpose I once practised, according to the custom of most fellow-Buddhists, the method of repeating the name of Amita Buddha, putting faith in his redeeming power. But since doubt had begun to arise in my mind as to the truth of that belief, I committed myself to a vow that I would study all the branches of Buddhism known in Japan and learn fully what their diverse teachings were.”
His distress of mind was, however, not over a merely intellectual problem, but was a deeply religious crisis; and, indeed, the young monk was then passing through so violent a struggle of religious conversion that he at last fell into a swoon, following a fit of spitting blood. It is said that during this swoon he saw, in vision, Kokuzō, the deity of wisdom.
This happened when Renchō was seventeen years old, and in the next year we find him studying under a teacher of Amita-Buddhism in Kamakura, the residence of the Commissioners. The uneasiness of the young monk was not allayed, and his quest of truth was not satisfied by the teachers who were accessible in the provinces. Renchō then went to Hiei, the greatest center of Buddhist learning and discipline, where he stayed from 1243 to 1253, pursuing a varied course of study and training. During these years he also visited other centers of Buddhism, where special branches of Buddhism were taught and practiced, and extended his study even to Shinto and Confucianism. The results of all this study and investigation are shown, not only in the erudition of his later writings, but in the comprehensive breadth of his doctrine. But the range of his studies never diverted him from his central problem: What is the true form and the unique truth of Buddhism? On the contrary, as he progressed in knowledge, the conviction gradually grew strong in his mind that the truth is one, and that the essence of the Buddhist religion – nay, of human life – is not manifold. “I had gone to many centers of the religion,” he says in reminiscence, “during those twenty years, in the quest of Buddhist truths. The final conclusion I arrived at was that the truth of Buddhism must be one in essence. Many people lose themselves in the labyrinth of learning and studies, through thinking that every one of the diverse branches might help to the attainment of Buddhist ideals.” Wherein, then, did the young zealot find the unique truth?
Chapter 2 Nichiren's Birth, Studies, and Conversion. The Lotus of Truth
I am to leave for Sado Province in exile on the 7th of this month. As all of you who are put in prison due to your faith in the Lotus Sūtra actually read through one book of the Lotus Sūtra physically and spiritually, you not only reap the merits yourself, but extend the merits to the souls of your parents, brothers, and sisters as well.
Gonin Tsuchirō Gosho, A Letter to Five Disciples in a Dungeon, Writings of Nichiren Shōnin, Biography and Desciples, Volume 5, Page 153
The written words of the Lotus Sutra express in a visible and tangible form the Brahma’s voice of the Buddha, which is invisible and intangible, so that we can see and read them with our eyes. The Buddha’s pure and immaculate voice, which had disappeared, is resuscitated in the form of written characters for the benefit of humankind.
Nichiren wrote this passage in his Treatise on Opening the Eyes of Buddhist Images, Wooden Statues or Portraits (Mokue Nizō Kaigen no Koto). Living in this world, 2500 years after the Buddha Śākyamuni walked the Earth, it is difficult to hear his voice leading us to enlightenment and encouraging us to let go of our attachments. In the Lotus S̄ūtra we have an instrument for creating the Buddha’s voice in our own time. This is his highest teaching. It brings all beings to liberation, whether they are clever or dull, stupid or wise, focused or distracted. It reminds us of our true nature as Bodhisattvas who chose this life out of our determination to benefit all beings. It shows us how to transform the poison of suffering into the medicine of compassion, and the poison of ignorance into the medicine of wisdom.
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Having last month considered the eighth beneficial effect, we consider the ninth beneficial effect of this sutra.
“O you of good intent! Ninth, this sutra’s unimaginable power for beneficial effect is this: If men and women of good intent, upon obtaining this sutra—either during or after the lifetime of a buddha—dance with joy and delight at gaining something marvelous, accept and keep faith with it, internalize and recite it, make records of and honor it, and widely explain to people in great detail what this sutra means, they will immediately and instantly achieve the destruction and elimination of the heavy hindrances from karmic causes and other impurities that remain from the past. They will opportunely achieve purity, come to attain great eloquence, perfectly compose themselves in the spiritual attitudes one by one, and attain various kinds of specialized focus of mind, including that of courageous advancement (śūraṅgama-samādhi). They will gain access to great Dharma-grasping empowerments, obtain the power of diligent endeavor, and swiftly pass to the uppermost stage of development. They will be well capable of widely making their presence felt in all the lands of the ten directions. Rescuing greatly suffering living beings throughout the twenty-five states of existence, they will lead them all to emancipation. This is all because this sutra contains power of this kind. O you of good intent! This is known as the inconceivable power of the ninth beneficial effect of this sutra.
The Lotus Sutra records that the eight-year-old daughter of the Nāga (Dragon) King attained buddhahood in the southern region. According to the chapter “The Nāga and Birds” in the fourth varga (Shih-chi Ching, “Origin of the Worlds”) of the Chinese translation of the Dirgha-āgama (Ch’ang-a-han Ching, translated by Buddhayagas and Chu Fo-nien in 412-13; T. 1:127-29), at the bottom of the sea was the Sāgara palace. The Cheng-fa-n’ien-ch’u Ching (T. 721; Saddharma-smṛtyupasthāna Sūtra, translated by Prajñāruci in 539) says that there is a great sea (the Arabian Sea) past the mountain called Gurjara in the southern part of Jambudvipa. Five hundred yojanas under this sea is the palace of the Dragon King, adorned with many kinds of jewels (T. 17:405b). We can safely conjecture that behind these traditions is the fact of the prosperity of Gandhāra and Kashmir as centers for East-West trade during the Kuṣāṇa dynasty, and the inflow of riches with the expansion of seaborne trade between the west coast of India and the Roman Empire. In the depiction in the “Devadatta” chapter of the daughter of the Dragon King offering the Buddha a pearl, we may suppose that those people who supported the Nāga cult had a connection with the merchants of that trade, and that with the expansion of the idea of compassion in Buddhism, such low class non-Aryan people became the object of salvation and received predictions of buddhahood; thus it is possible to infer that here we have the Nāga cult (and the buddhahood of women) symbolically being embraced by Buddhism.
Buddhist Integration of Religion, Thought and Culture
From Keisho Tsukamoto’s Preface:
The central idea of the Lotus Sutra is integration, that the teaching of three vehicles is an expedient to enable all to reach enlightenment (in the words of the classical commentators, “opening up and merging,” Ch., k’ai-san hsien-i). We may think of the Lotus Sutra as the scripture of a religious movement within Mahayana Buddhism that set out to integrate within Buddhism the religion, thought, and culture of the peoples who lived in northwestern India around the beginning of the common era. This is what is generally called Ekayāna (One Vehicle) thought. This book verifies the historical background, together with the relevant social and cultural factors, that encouraged such religious harmony and fostered establishment of the idea of integration. It approaches those phenomena through not only philology but also historical science, archaeology, art history, paleography, epigraphy, and numismatics.
Keisho Tsukamoto’s Source Elements of the Lotus Sutra is not a book about the teaching of the Lotus Sutra as much as it is a book about how the evolution of Buddhism is reflected in the Lotus Sutra. As such it is filled with archeological and historical minutia that is of little interest outside academic circles. Today’s post, Embracing the Nāga cult, is a good example.
The book was originally published in Japanese in 1986 and republished in English by Kosei Publishing in 2007. When I purchased this book last year, it was going for $50 used. The cover price was originally $26.95. Today you would be hard-pressed to find this book for sale for less than $300. This is the Pokemon card in my Lotus Sutra library – do I hold on to it or sell it for a big profit.
The “degenerate Buddhism”; the four schools of Buddhism
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Turning to another matter, the religious conditions, Nichiren saw similar evils, closely connected with the political and social disorders. The far-reaching plan of Dengyō, the reformer of the ninth century, for establishing the center of Japanese Buddhism on Mount Hiei and unifying its church organization, had been partly realized. But even this partial attainment of the ideal of a state church was of merely temporary duration because the relations established between the church hierarchy and the government bureaucracy had had a corrupting influence on both of them. The centralization of government and the consequent accumulation of wealth in the capital were concomitant with the development of ecclesiastical power and the growth of secular aims and motives among the clergy. The government fell into the hands of the Fujiwara oligarchy, who now became the supporters of the church with its rituals and mysteries; and the priesthood degenerated into tools of the ambitious aristocrats, by promising them the supernatural aid of religion, and by supplying them with elaborate ceremonies for the gratification of their over refined tastes. The final result was the collapse of the effeminate court nobility and the rise of the military class. To the eyes of those – few in number – who adhered to the ideal of Dengyō, the political disintegration seemed to be a necessary consequence of the ecclesiastical degeneration. Nichiren was one of these, and the one who was most severe in attacking the existing régime – both political and ecclesiastical.
The chief cause of the degeneration of the Buddhist Church lay, as Nichiren thought, in its promiscuous adoption of Shingon mysticism, a form of Buddhism contaminated with Hinduism and other alien elements. It was this admixture that appealed to the court nobles and supplied them with brilliant spectacles and occult mysteries. It was this secularization, or vulgarization, of religion that had obscured the high ideals of Dengyō and reduced his institutions on Hiei to instruments of greed and vice. Even after the fall of the Fujiwara nobles, the supporters of Hiei, this religion of occult rites exercised its influence far and wide among the people at large through the superstitious practice of magic and sorcery. Therefore, Nichiren’s bitterest attacks were directed against this corrupt religion and its center, Hiei. He firmly believed that the sole way to restore Dengyō’s religion consisted in adhering faithfully and exclusively to the scripture, the Lotus of Truth.
Another form of Buddhism, in which Nichiren saw a curse, was the worship of the Buddha Amita. This was a special development of Buddhist faith which emphasized the simple-hearted devotion to Amita, the Buddha of Infinite Light and Life, the Lord of the Western Paradise. This worship seemed to Nichiren to be a desertion of the Buddha Śākyamuni, the genuine founder of Buddhism and the Lord of the Universe, as he was revealed in the [Lotus Sutra]. The gospel of salvation by the all-redeeming grace of Amita Buddha had crept into the institutions of Hiei, and, later, produced an independent sect, through the personal inspiration of the pietist Hōnen and by its appeal to distressed hearts in the turbulent times toward the end of the twelfth century. Amita Buddha was, in the eyes of Nichiren, nothing but a usurper of the true dignity of Buddha, and the piety of multitudes toward the supposed savior but a manifestation of the hysterical tendency of the age. Nichiren boldly declared that those who believed in this usurper were destined to fall to the nethermost hell, while the Shingon mysticism was denounced by him as a religion that was ruining the vitality of the nation.
Nichiren’s third object of attack was a school of Buddhist monastic discipline. In the twelfth century a reaction against the corruption of the hierarchy took, with certain reforming leaders, the shape of enforcing a strict observance of the monastic rules. They systematized the principles of Buddhist ethics from the standpoint of monastic discipline. This school was called Ritsu, or Disciplinary School, and developed a one-sided rigorism, which manifested in the course of time the evils of formalism. Training in morality, under rules, cultivated a tendency to practice virtue merely for the sake of individual salvation. Self-satisfaction easily grew into self-conceit, which often tempted the adept in these extraordinary ways of life to make his attainments the means of attracting popular admiration and reverence.
Moreover, the slavish and formal observance of disciplinary rules that had originally been intended for Hindu monks, aroused antagonism in those who adhered to Japanese ideas and customs. Nichiren, as a nationalist and an advocate of a broader Buddhism, could not fail to protest vigorously against the Ritsu Buddhists. He called them traitors to their country.
The introduction of a new Buddhist school, called Zen, or the Meditative School, increased the religious confusion. Zen was a simple method of training intuitive insight by the practice of meditation, which aimed at revealing the primordial purity of the cosmic soul in each individual soul. Riddle-like questions were given by the master which the disciples had to solve, sitting in meditation, by avoiding the usual process of reasoning and trying to discover an unexpected light by a flash of illumination. This new method of mental training and spiritual drill commended itself to the minds of military men, and they found in it a very beneficial exercise for keeping their composure and preparing for resolute action. Not only did Zen reject systematic thought on religion and ethics, but it induced those robust but rude men to take pride in self-assertion and often to run to an excess of individualism. Nichiren saw in this new method of Buddhist meditation a rebellion against the genuine Buddhism of the Lotus [Sutra], as well as a fruitful source of rampant selfishness. “Devil” was the name given by Nichiren to the Zenist, and the “devils” were threatening the national integrity of Japan and the authority of the true Buddhism.
Shingon occultism ruining the nation, Ritsu methodism betraying the country to foreign customs, Amita-Buddhism leading people to the hells, and Zen meditation alluring men to devilish pride – these four were declared by Nichiren to be the greatest curses of the age. The violent antagonism of Nichiren was due to his exclusive faith in the teachings of the scripture, Lotus, as representing the genuine and deepest truth of Buddhism. Now, we shall see why and how he arrived at this conviction, and what the Lotus of Truth is.
At first only I, Nichiren, started chanting the daimoku, Namu Myōhō Renge Kyō, but then two, three, then one hundred people, gradually began chanting it. This will continue in the future. Isn’t this what emerging from the earth means? When an innumerable number of people emerge from the earth and this Wonderful Dharma spreads extensively, there will be no mistake, just as a shooting arrow never misses the earth, Japan will be filled with people chanting Namu Myōhō Renge Kyō. You should therefore establish your fame as the practicer of the Lotus Sūtra and devote your life to it.
Shohō Jisso-shō, Treatise on All Phenomena as Ultimate Reality, Writings of Nichiren Shōnin, Faith and Practice, Volume 4, Page 78
Buddhist Integration of Religion, Thought and Culture
Beginning today I will be posting excerpts from 