A point of interest here is the leniency Nichiren displays in dealing with Dengyō Daishi, in view of the fact that Tendai Daishi’s doctrine was so altered in its transplantation to Japan. Dengyō added the Shingon teaching, giving the impetus to the further development of his school in the direction of mikkyō or secret teaching. He added Dharma Daishi’s Zen and Endon Kai transmission to proper Tendai, and gave to Hieizan a generous hospitality to the Amida Belief. These actions displayed his wish to make his Tendai Sect a synthesis of all strains of the One Vehicle Teaching. To this harmonizing tendency, that enlarged more and more the circle of the One Vehicle and showed the most conciliatory spirit to varied teaching, was opposed Nichiren’s tendency of narrowing the One Vehicle to exclude anything that was not harmonious with his “practical” and original doctrine. Of course, a harmonizing tendency had already dominated the pure Hokke En teaching of Tendai Daishi, since he used other sūtras and śāstras as well as the Hoke-kyō. Nichiren bases himself solely on the Hoke-kyō, and still his tolerance of these two Tendai teachers did not break. Therefore, it would be wrong to state that Nichiren’s intention was to purge Dengyō Daishi’s teaching of all “later additions,” or to restore Tendai Daishi’s doctrine to its pristine purity. Neither of these could have been Nichiren’s aim. Since he considered himself as having a much deeper comprehension of the Hoke-kyō than these two founders, and since the time had arrived for propagating this new view, he resolved to devote himself entirely to this mission alone. Certainly he respected Tendai Daishi and Dengyō Daishi as the originators of the Hokke teaching, but he never meant to acquiesce to their doctrine. He charged himself instead with the propagation of the supreme truth of the Hoke-kyō, a truth that had not been anticipated by his two predecessors.

[N]ichiren’s tenet for criticism of the Tendai Hokke Sect lies in its harmonizing tendencies. His objection to their meditation is based on their acceptance of Dharma Daishi’s zen meditation, which contradicts the teaching of Tendai Daishi; and the subsequent disassociation of the proper Tendai Teaching (shikan) from its original source, the Hoke-kyō.

Nichiren’s criticism of other sects has formed a significant part of his teaching and writing. Among his works, thirty-eight are criticisms, and in [Chigaku] Tanaka’s edition of Collected Works they constitute a special part, the Taihon hen or “Part of Polemical Classification.” His criticism began with the establishment of his sect, and though there are other works that are as equally representative, the Kenhōbō-shō or “The Treatise on the Manifestation of Slandering the Teaching” probably gives his argument in the most general and comprehensible way. He argues: Breaking the Mahāyāna sūtras from the standpoint of Hinayāna sūtras means blaspheming the right teaching and is a sin, but breaking the Hinayāna sūtras from the standpoint of the Mahāyāna sūtras is no blasphemy and no sin. Breaking the Hoke-kyō from the standpoint of General Mahāyāna means blaspheming the right teaching and is a sin; but breaking the various Mahāyāna sūtras from the standpoint of the Hoke-kyō is not a blasphemy or a sin. This argument forms the basis of Nichiren’s embittered fight against other sects.

In Japan the place of Kwan-ti, the God of War, as a protector of Buddhist monasteries, is taken by the War-God Hachiman, the “God of the Eight Banners” of pure Shintō extraction. But what is of still greater importance than the protection accorded to Buddhism by Chinese and Japanese native deities of war, is the fact … that already in Indian Buddhism we meet, besides the merciful Bodhisattva, the pitiless Myōō, besides the mild Avalokiteśvara, (the Japanese Kwannon) who graciously looks down on the sinner and endeavors to save him, the revengeful Acala, (the Japanese Fudō) who is unmoved by prayers and wants to surrender the transgressor to his well-merited desert. Both are supplementing each other, both are foreseen in the Buddhist plan of salvation. Though the Myōō or “Lord of Magic Powers” is considered of a lower rank than the Bodhisattva, the “Being of Enlightenment,” they are nevertheless both cooperating in the great work of reaching the living beings—only by opposite methods. The method used by the Bodhisattva and the method used by the Myōō and their striking contrast are brought out by two of the most famous Mahāyāna sūtras, the Bommō-kyō and the Dainehan-gyō.

The tenth of the forty-eight light precepts of the Bommō-kyō says: When one is a child of Buddha, he must not have in his possession any sword or knife, stick, bow, arrows, lance, hatchet or any fighting weapon whatever, nor any net or snare. One must not have in his possession any object destined to put to death living beings, whatever it may be. A Bodhisattva must not revenge a murder, not even one committed against his father or his mother; how much less would it be permitted to him, to kill any living being: He must not have in his possession any instrument destined to kill living beings, and if nevertheless he has one, with his own knowledge and will, he makes himself culpable of a secondary sin causing pollution.”

Diametrically opposite is the injunction of the Dainehan-gyō, as quoted by Nichiren in his Risshō-ankokuron where Buddha says: “Good boy! One who wants to protect and keep the proper dharma [shōbō], ought to keep swords, bows, arrows and halberds without accepting the five śīlas and without studying the igi,” i.e. “the dignified forms” or practical ceremonies, not included in the vinaya. In the same text this sūtra is quoted as saying: “If there is one who wants to accept and to keep the five śīlas, he cannot be called a man of Mahāyāna. If one protects the proper dharma, although he has not received the five śīlas, he is called a man of Mahāyāna. The one who protects the proper dharma, ought to hold swords and sticks. And although he possesses swords and sticks, I [Buddha] will call him a keeper of śīlas.”

Though the persecution of dissenters by the orthodox party was by no means unknown in the history of Buddhism in China or Japan, it would nevertheless be a great injustice to maintain that Buddhism as a doctrine ever encouraged its adherents to propagate their creed with fire and sword. On the contrary, what has generally distinguished Buddhism, and especially Mahāyāna Buddhism, is a remarkable latitudinarianism, which acknowledged the heterodox standpoint as not altogether bad and in some ways as even necessary and right! All extraneous religions are accordingly considered as propaedeutic steps for the Buddhist religion, which itself is divided into lower and higher steps, representing inferior and superior degrees of the Buddhist truth.

This evolutionary view of Buddhism had been already maintained with the utmost determination by Tendai Daishi. In conformity with it, the lower type of religion, and above all the lower type of Buddhism, must be broken by the higher type—not by annihilating the lower teachings, but by incorporating them as aufgehobene Momente (to speak with Hegel) into the more perfect teaching.

Nichiren—as we have seen from the Kenhōbō shō–justifies the breaking of the Hinayāna Sūtras from the standpoint of the Mahāyāna and the breaking of the General Mahāyāna Sūtras from the standpoint of the Hoke-kyō. In this respect he is entirely in agreement with the Tendai School and does not show any particular intolerance. However, he goes a step further than Tendai Daishi by expressly censuring the opposite method, of breaking Mahāyāna by Hinayāna and breaking the Hoke-kyō by the General Mahāyāna, i.e. the breaking of the higher teaching by the lower. Here his attack against other sects comes in. Carried away by his religious zeal, Nichiren accuses them of having deserted the true teaching of Śākyamuni and having compromised the very fundamentals of Buddhism. They committed the crime which seemed to him the most heinous and which the Mahāparinirvāṇa sūtra exhorts all virtuous priests to extirpate.

The Bommō-kyō [or Brahmajāla-sūtra, the most important of the Mahāyāna Vinaya texts,] is a sūtra of the “open doctrine,” and by the Tendai School intimately associated with the Hoke-kyō. The most renowned commentary on it is written by Tendai Daishi. But Nichiren, as we have seen from his criticism of the Kai Ritsu Sect, rejected not only the two hundred and fifty Hinayāna precepts, but also the fifty-eight Mahāyāna precepts of the Bommō kai, and the interpretation of the Hinayāna śīlas in a Mahāyāna spirit. Moreover, he refused to acknowledge the ten precepts of the Yōraku-kyō that were approved of, together with the Bommō kai and the Hinayāna kai, by Tendai Daishi. Neither did Nichiren recognize the ten infinite precepts of the Kegongyō. For Nichiren, the only true and real kai or “the king of the śīlas,” was that of the Hoke-kyō, in which he distinguished the kai of the shakumon and the kai of the hommon, placing the latter over the former. He considered the ten heavy precepts taught in the Juryō hon of the hommon part of the Hoke-kyō as the acme of morality and as the only kai suitable for the Mappō time of “non-śīla.” He also made use of the promises referring to the attainment of buddhahood, contained in the Hōben hon in the Shakumon part.

In this context, the question arises of whether the intolerance of Nichiren is not in large measure a direct reflection of the spirit of the Hoke-kyō itself. This text is generally considered to be a mere didactic writing, impregnated with a serene mysticism that rises again and again to apocalyptic exuberance. However, there is also intermingled with it a decided polemic tendency, that in some places finds even passionate expression. Therefore the Hoke-kyō, this “book of peace and divine love,” can also be considered as an apocalyptic work, and as such it was apt to inflame the mind of a man like Nichiren, who by natural disposition was inclined to go to extremes. Moreover, we ought to remember that already in the early time of the Mahāyāna creed, the opinion was advanced by its propagandists that anybody who caused a schism in the community and infringed upon the foundations of belief might be killed, if the religion could not be saved otherwise. The interests of Buddhism as a whole are thereby placed higher than the life of the individuals; and the Mahāyāna teaching was advised not to shrink back from taking an individual life at a time when the existence of religion itself was at stake, and thus invalidating for a while the first and most important of the five precepts.

In view of his uncompromising attitude, it is no wonder that Nichiren earned the reputation of being intolerant. His vehemence against other sects cannot be questioned. And yet, it seems that he has been somewhat misrepresented.

In the Risshó-ankokuron there is an argument between the Visitor and the Master of the House, who represents Nichiren, which turns on the question of whether or not the Government should suppress by force such heresies as taught by Hōnen. …

The Master, that is, Nichiren, consequently takes the stand: In the fight against blasphemy, only the sin, not the person, must be killed, by depriving the blasphemers of the gifts they receive from the State and communities, i.e. by cutting them off from their livelihood. This will induce the false prophets to give up priesthood and thus be silenced and unable to commit their sin.

This was not exactly the method of the Inquisition, and [Arthur] Lloyd [who translated Risshó-ankokuron] is therefore wrong in drawing a parallel between this treatise by Nichiren, written in 1258-60, and the revision of the measures of Innocent III for “the detection and punishment of heretics” brought about by the Council of Toulouse in 1229. As is evident from the preceding quotations, Nichiren had no inclination to engage in the edifying sport of roasting heretics at the stake. Instead, he insisted on rendering the “enemies of Buddhism” harmless by boycotting them. The application of this method he considered not only as right, but as his duty, in pointing to the “Mahā-Pari-Nirvāṇa-Sūtra” that says: “However virtuous a priest may be, if he neglects to eject transgressors, to make them repent or renounce their sins, hearken! he is wicked and hostile to Buddhist Law. If he casts them out to make them be repentant and amend their negligence, he is worthy to be my disciple and truly virtuous.” (Satomi, p. 100)

[N]ichiren rejects the Hinayāna and Mahāyāna kai, and maintains that purity can be gained only through a pure teaching. And as the teaching was preached by Buddha, the purity of Buddha himself becomes a thing of fundamental importance. Nichiren says in this respect that by manifesting the fundamental truth of the enlightenment of the very substance of Myō Hō Ren Ge Kyō all living beings inherited also the purity of the Wonderful Teaching. Since they were unaware of it themselves, they lost the purity of it. If one believes that the wonderful substance of the Original Buddha Śākyamuni is the very essence of one’s own substance, and if one trusts in and practices Namu Myō Hō Ren Ge Kyō, then the kaitai of incomparable purity becomes active naturally. Textually, Nichiren says in the Kanjin Honzon: “The Venerable Śākyamuni of wonderful enlightenment is our blood and flesh. His merits of cause and effect are our bones and marrow.” “Śākyamuni’s two dharmas of cause and practice and effect-virtue are possessed completely in the five characters of Myō Hō Ren Ge Kyō. If we accept and keep these five characters, then he naturally gives us his merits of cause and effect.” Nichiren says, thus, that the wonderful substance of ourselves is manifested openly and truly only by the Myō Hō Ren Ge Kyō. Whoever believes in this sutra obeys the precepts.

It is clear, then, that belief in the Hoke-kyō, implying its acceptance and keeping, facilitates the rise of the substance of morality. In simple terms, Nichiren has reduced the various śīlas [morality] into an acceptance of the teachings of the Hoke-kyō. The verbal expression of this is the recitation of Namu Myōhōrengekyō. Dogmatic justification of his conviction is the aim of his Kaitai sokushin jóbutsugi, which itself is the theoretical foundation of his practice of Daimoku.

[I]n order to understand Nichiren’s theory of the substance of morality thoroughly, we must consider the evolution of this concept through the whole history of Buddhism, especially its formulation by the Tendai philosophy.

The Abhidharmakośa of Hinayāna, on which the Sarvāstivā School is based, declares the substance of morality of non-action (mu sa no kai tai) to be a “material thing” (Shiki hō). The Jōjitsu ron (Satyasiddhi), on which the Jōjitsu or Satyasiddhi School stands, which is part Hinayāna and part Mahāyāna, judges the substance of morality of non-action to be “neither matter nor mind” (hi shiki hi shin). The Hossō School of Mahāyāna, the Chinese form of the Indian Yogācāra School, holds the substance of morality of non-action to be the “seed of the good mind” (zenshin no shuji).

Tendai Daishi, who stands on the principle of the “one thought being the three thousand,” considers the substance of morality to be a quasi-matter of non-action possessed originally within the nature of the mind. By declaring the substance of morality to be “temporal matter of nonaction,” Tendai Daishi acknowledges it as a “material thing,” as the Sarvāstivā held. By declaring the substance of morality to be “possessed originally within the nature of the mind,” he acknowledges it as “mental,” as the Yogācāra school held. In short, Tendai Daishi harmonizes the Hinayāna theory of kaitai and the Temporal Mahāyāna theory of kaitai from the standpoint of the theory “that all things have real form” (i.e. “that all things are absolute” as stated in the shakumon of the Hoke-kyō). The substance of morality in Hinayāna is “single matter”; that of Temporal Mahāyāna is the “single mind,” while that of the shakumon of the Hoke-kyō is the “plural mind.”

Nichiren’s conception of the formula “one thought being the three thousand” takes its stand on the hommon of the Hoke-kyō and therefore differs from Tendai Daishi’s conception which, according to Nichiren, stands on the shakumon. While shakumon makes clear that the “three thousand” (i.e. all psychical and physical phenomena) are possessed completely within the nature of the mind of the living beings; hommon elucidates that the substance and form of the Original Buddha is omnipresent within the “three thousand” dharma worlds. Whereas in shakumon, and thus to Tendai Daishi, the substance of morality is “the temporal matter of non-action of the nature,” in hommon and to Nichiren the substance of morality is “the wonderful matter of nonaction of the substance.” Thus, to Tendai’s “temporal,” Nichiren opposes “wonderful”; to “nature,” “substance”—the distinction here being that nature is understood to be the Absolute Reality considered as mind, i.e. abstract; while substance is the Absolute Reality as matter, i.e. concrete and tangible.

To Nichiren the substance of morality is not obtainable by “the good mind” or by “reason meditation,” but solely by the deep and fundamental “believing mind” (shin jin), that receives the vow and keeps it. This “believing mind” originates with the Original Buddha, and ultimately its effect harmonizes the man with the omnipresent substance of the Original Buddha. This highest effect is a result of the co-operation between self-power (ji riki) and other-power (ta riki).

[R]yozan Shimizu, in the Manual of the Nichiren Sect, identifies the Kaidan with the Great Mandala of the Great Śākyamuni. This inconceivable, mystic Kaidan is manifested by the Great Meeting in the Sky, taught in the Hommon part of the Hoke-kyō. The Great Mandala representing it consists of three forms.

1. The Great-Mandala-Secret Platform of Original Existence of Non-Beginning (Mushi honnu no daimandara mitsudan). This Mandala, originally complete and existing originally by itself, cannot be seen; its form is “non-form.” It is the absolute Kaidan.
2. The Great Mandala Secret Platform of the Great Meeting in the Air in the Original Doctrine (Hommon kokū dai-e no daimandara mitsudan.) This manifests the superior and wonderful material forms (ji sō) by opening the “form of non-form” of the first Mandala, whereby all complete meetings are made to exist completely. That is, the whole universe and all beings and things contained in it now become manifested. The non-beginning is made evident by the beginning; the Buddha of original origination reveals himself in “dust-particle-kalpas”; the original sowing of the seed is disclosed by the “delivery” (datsu); and the Great Śākyamuni the Venerable, viz. the Original Śākyamuni reveals himself as Śākyamuni. This Mandala represents the Kaidan of the wide and deep hommon teaching of Hokke which is superior to all other teachings.
3. The Great-Mandala-Secret-Platform adapted to the Period of Mappō (Mappō ōji no daimandara mitsudan.) It is made apparent and understandable to the people of low capacity of the time of the End of the Teaching by the use of written characters, drawn on paper with Indian-ink. The Tathāgata’s great mercy is manifested by this third Kaidan, which is to be propagated by the Honge Bosatsu. …

After the two thousand years of the shōbō and zōbō periods had elapsed, the Great Mandala Secret Platform adapted to the Mappō period was established for the first time. By written characters, drawn on paper with Indian-ink, it gives a visible expression and tangible form to the superior and wonderful Meeting in the Air of the Hommon of Hoke-kyō, and by the “believing mind” of one momentary thought, (ichi nen no shinjin) it introduces the devotee to the Secret Platform of the Great Mandala of Original Existence and Non-Beginning. The believing mind of one moment is therefore the Secret Platform of the Mandala of Mappō and the seed of the complete body of Mahāvairocana, the omnipresent Buddha. This seed, already sown in our mind at the time of non-beginning, possesses completely and naturally all matter and mind, cause and effect, subject and object, all the three thousand dharmas. This Secret Platform of the Great Mandala of Mappō is originally within our mind. However, if the gate of the pagoda of our mind should not be open, we cannot see the Ancient Buddha enthroned within. Therefore the gate must be opened by the key in Śākyamuni’s hand, that is by the Namu Myō Hō Ren Ge Kyō, whereby we throw away all temporal teaching, believing in the Hoke-kyō only.

The reader will have become aware from the above description that the term “Kaidan,” as used by the Nichiren School, has lost entirely its historical meaning, which denotes a platform for the ordination of priests. … It is something entirely mystical which results from the association of the dharmakāya and the nirmāṇakāya with the three forms of kaidan, and particularly from the application of the term “secret” (mitsu) to each of them. The Great Meetings celebrated on these secret platforms are neither comparable with any clerical assemblies at some real ordination, nor are they purely symbolical. The one is expressed by means of written characters; the second is noticeable by intuitive vision only; the third surpasses any representation and observation, being covered by absolute darkness that cannot be penetrated.

The view on the “practical Kaidan” of the Nichiren School was for the first time stated in detail in the Sandai hihōshō [On the three great secret Dharmas]. Therefore, this book has been considered since ancient time as the basis for the Nichirenist doctrine of the Kaidan. There we find stated that at the time when the Law of Kings has merged with the Law of Buddha, a most superior place as excellent as Śākyamuni’s Gṛdhrakūṭa -Pure Land, should be found, and the Kaidan established there.

What have we to understand by this Kaidan as recommended by the Sandai hihōshō? Certainly not a mandala and also no ordination platform in traditional meaning, but evidently a dōjō or place for gaining enlightenment by reciting the holy Title of the Hoke-kyō. This Kaidan seems to have been intended as a central place of initiation and worship for the Nichiren Sect, and as the Holy See of true Buddhism, to be established by imperial grant.