[I]n the summer of 1889, as the result of research into Buddhist traditions during the Latter Days of the Law, Tanaka managed to lay to rest any final misgivings he may have had about his role as a lay religious leader. While monastic discipline remained a hard and fast rule for every branch of Buddhism, he said, in the Latter Days of the Law this was a moot point, for in effect there was no monastic order. Priests and monks were no longer set apart from the citizenry at large; they were all laymen. Hence, inhibitions against meat-eating, marriage, and the like did not apply, for there were no priests. Tanaka’s own status was thus justified. He was a layman who pretended to be nothing else, while those who called themselves priests and monks were involved in deception.

It was not until the spring of 1901, however, that Tanaka formulated a complete picture of what he had in mind, when, in a monograph entitled Shūmon no Ishin (Reform of Religion), he advocated the transformation and, by implication, unification of Japanese Buddhism into a great Nichiren organization a kind of state church. In the Latter Days at hand, said Tanaka, Buddhism was in a sad way, the result of its long subservience to the Tokugawa regime and the subsequent doleful influence of Westernization on Japanese life. Buddhism, indeed, had sunk to so low a condition that its sole function was to bury the dead.

But Buddhism, on the contrary, should be a militant, revolutionary force, a staunch ally as Japan went about its task of uniting the world for righteousness’ sake.

Nichiren is the general of the army that will unite the world. Japan is his headquarters. The people of Japan are his troops; teachers and scholars of Nichiren Buddhism are his officers. The Nichiren creed is a declaration of war, and shakubuku is the plan of attack. Faith provides courage; doctrine provides logistic support. The army to unify all the nations of the world is to be set up in such a way. … The faith of the Lotus will prepare those going into battle. Japan truly has a heavenly mandate to unite the world.

Tanaka continued:

Army regulations must be strictly enforced. Civil war really began in 1253 and is not yet finished. … No matter what the circumstances, war is aggressive. War should not be leisurely; it should be swift as the wind. War should not be rash and noisy; it should be quiet as a forest. War should not be frivolous; it should be firm as a mountain. … Aggressively believe! Aggressively preach! Agitate! When you feel weak and tired, say, ‘The Lotus Sutra is my sword.’ Do not pray for righteousness. Do not pray for yourself. Do not pray for your father and mother. Do not pray for your teacher. Pray only for conquest!

In what may be its most salient chapter, as far as Tanaka’s developing nationalism was concerned, the Shūmon no Ishin said of Aggression:

Everything is aggressive. Animals are aggressive by nature. If one is aggressed upon, one will be aggressive in return. The cat is the aggressor of the mouse; it is aggressed upon by the dog. Men, too, are aggressive or aggressed upon according to their strength or weakness, their wealth or penury, their wisdom or stupidity. Saints, models of virtue, legalists, scholars—all possess such a contrary aggressor/aggressee spirit. Aggression is the way of the world.

However, there is good aggression, inferior and superior aggression, mundane and spiritual aggression. What we have termed “Lotus Sutra aggression” is superior, good, spiritual aggression. This kind of aggression will irrigate the fields of the spirit and nurture the seedlings implanted therein; it is medicinal, not poisonous. It is universal justice, religious righteousness.

While it is probably too much to say that Tanaka here sanctioned military aggression, it is easy to understand how such an inference could be made, especially in light of his ideas concerning cooperation between state and religion in modern Japan. As long as aggression could be rationalized as ‘good’, it was acceptable, and all aggression on behalf of the Lotus Sutra, it seems, was ‘good’.