This is another in a series of daily articles concerning Kishio Satomi's book, "Japanese Civilization; Its Significance and Realization; Nichirenism and the Japanese National Principles," which details the foundations of Chigaku Tanaka's interpretation of Nichiren Buddhism and Japan's role in the early 20th century.
Another focus of Kishio Satomi’s Nichirenism that distinguishes it from traditional Nichiren Shu is its focus on the Three Great Secret Laws and, in particular, what it calls the “Holy See.”
Nichiren Shu doctrine describes the Three Great Secret Dharmas as the Gohonzon, the Daimoku and the Kaidan, or Precept Platform. Here’s Satomi’s summary:
Nichirenism and the Japanese National Principles, p66-67The Three Great Secret Laws are the three aspects of his religion, and they emanated from the One Law which is indicated by the Sacred Title of the Hokekyo. Each of the Three is the independent principle on the one hand, and again each of them is the essential moment of the One Law on the other hand, that is to say something like Hegel’s “aufgehobenes Moment.”
It is the three aspects of reality in the sense of the observance of Law; it is the three expressions of the principle of typical personality in the significance of Buddha; it is the three principles of the modes of our lives in the significance of being. Let us reduce the three aspects, then it will be the One Law, and vice versa. From another point of view, the Sacred Title is the religious subject which indicates the Self, containing He. The Supreme Being of the three is the religious object in which the religious subject exists, in other words, it is the He which contains our Selves therein. The Holy See of the three is the concrete realization of the religion.
The Sacred Title is the law of awakening of the individual, the Holy See is the principle of idealization of the country, and the Supreme Being is the harmonious manifestation of the world.
In Satomi’s Nichirenism, the Holy Altar has special importance:
It is absolutely useless to seek the ideal world under the name of paradise after completing this life. Of course, we believe in an after-life as well as a past life in a religious sense. But we cannot demonstrate the past nor the after-life, therefore the after-life is possible only as a religious postulation. In short, we must apprehend the meaning of past and future in the very present, hence the present centric consistentism through the three lives, viz. the past, present and future. In respect thereof we shall have a full explanation and idea of Nichiren by our understanding of the doctrine of the Holy See.
Nichirenism and the Japanese National Principles, p90
And later:
Nichirenism and the Japanese National Principles, p94-95The third important thought in Nichirenism is the Holy Altar (or the Holy See). Nichiren founded his most concrete idea of his religious practice on this doctrine. As I have stated above, the Sacred Title was mentioned for the instruction of individuals, the Supreme Being was for the world or universe, and, from this point of view, this Holy Altar is the key to the enlightenment of the country. Moreover, this Holy Altar, in a sense, is the connection between the Sacred Title and the Supreme Being; namely the Holy Altar shows the concrete method of entering the Supreme Being, and how to adore the Sacred Title, the essential law of Buddhism.
This discussion of the Three Great Secret Laws or Dharmas is based on a single letter by Nichiren, Sandai Hiho Honjo-ji, The Transmission of the Three Great Secret Dharmas. The letter appears in the Doctrine 2 volume of the Writings of Nichiren Shōnin. The fact that this concept of Three Great Secret Dharmas is addressed only once in all of Nichiren’s writings has prompted controversy.
From 2000 to 2001, Rev. Gyokai Sekido wrote a series of articles for Nichiren Shu News about the advances in the study of Nichiren’s doctrines over the years. In discussing this letter he writes:
Nichiren Shonin’s “The Transmission of the Three Great Secret Dharmas” written in the fourth year of the Koan Era (1281) preaches the doctrine of the Three Great Secret Dharmas (the honzon, daimoku, and kaidan based on the doctrine revealed in the essential section: hommon of the Lotus Sutra), especially the establishment of the kaidan of the hommon.
The authenticity of this document, however, has often been questioned from ancient times. Utilizing the latest computer technology, Professors Zuiei Ito and Masakatsu Murakami, of Rissho University and Ministry of Education Center for the Study of Mathematical Principle respectively, tried to see if they could find the answer to this problem.
All sentences of Nichiren’s writings were divided up into grammatical units (such as nouns, verbs, adverbs, adjectives, postpositional particles, prefixes, suffixes and conjunctions), to be analyzed by a computer in order to find out the characteristic use of the parts of speech in Nichiren’s writings and its yearly changes.
Then they compared it against what is found in similar analysis of the “Transmission of the Three Great Secret Dharmas.” Beginning the project in 1975, this Ito-Murakami group reported its tentative conclusion in 1980 saying that the “Transmission of the Three Great Secret Dharmas” is probably genuine. Their final conclusion in 1991 declared, “The writing is genuine,” creating a stir in the study of Nichiren’s writings.
Professor Ken’ichi Kammuri of Rissho University, however, has a strong doubt about the validity of handling words in the basic documents.
How Study on Nichiren Buddhism Has Made Progress in the 20th Century, p19-20
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