Nichiren[9]: 77 [10]: 1 declared that the Lotus Sutra alone contains the highest truth of Buddhist teachings suited for the Third Age of Buddhism, insisting that the sovereign of Japan and its people should support only this form of Buddhism and eradicate all others.[11] He advocated the repeated recitation of its title, Nam(u)-myoho-renge-kyo, as the only path to Buddhahood and held that Shakyamuni Buddha and all other Buddhist deities were extraordinary manifestations of a particular Buddha-nature termed Myoho-Renge that is equally accessible to all. He declared that believers of the Sutra must propagate it even under persecution.[12][13][14][15][16][17][18]
Nichiren was a prolific writer and his biography, temperament, and the evolution of his beliefs has been gleaned primarily from his writings.[19]: 99 [8]: 442 He claimed the reincarnation of Jōgyō bodhisattva in a past life,[20][21] and designated six senior disciples, of which the claims to successorship are contested. After his death, he was bestowed the title Nichiren Dai-Bosatsu (日蓮大菩薩, Great Bodhisattva Nichiren) by the Emperor Go-Kōgon in 1358[22] and the title Risshō Daishi (立正大師, Great Teacher of Correction) was conferred posthumously through imperial edict by the Emperor Taishō in 1922.[23]
^Petzold, Bruno; Hanayama, Shinshō (1995). Ichimura, Shōhei (ed.). The classification of Buddhism = Bukkyō kyōhan: comprising the classification of Buddhist doctrines in India, China and Japan 1873–1949. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz. ISBN3-447-03373-8. OCLC34220855.
^Lopez, Donald S. Jr. (2016). The Lotus Sūtra: a biography. Princeton University Press. ISBN978-1-4008-8334-9. OCLC959534116. Among all of the preachers of the dharma of the Lotus Sutra over the past two thousand years, there has been no one like Nichiren. In the long history of the sutra in Japan, he is the most famous—and the most infamous.
^Cite error: The named reference Rodd1978 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
^H. Byron Earhart (31 October 2013). "Value Creation Society (Sōka Gakkai)". In Huffman, James L. (ed.). Modern Japan: An Encyclopedia of History, Culture, and Nationalism. Routledge. p. 281. ISBN978-1-135-63490-2. Archived from the original on 1 June 2022. Retrieved 1 December 2020. Buddhism and the state have always been closely allied in Japan. Nichiren insisted, however, that the Lotus Sutra was the only true Buddhism, that the state should support only this form of Buddhism, and that it should abolish all other Buddhist sects as heretical.
^Jack Arden Christensen, Nichiren: Leader of Buddhist Reformation in Japan, Jain Pub, page 48, ISBN0-87573-086-8
^Stone, Jacqueline (Spring 2006). "The Final Word: An Interview with Jacqueline Stone". Tricycle.
^Stone, Jaqueline (2003). "Nichiren". In Buswell, Robert E. (ed.). Encyclopedia of Buddhism. Vol. II. New York: Macmillan Reference Library. p. 594. ISBN0-02-865718-7.
^Shuxian Liu; Robert Elliott Allinson (1988). Harmony and Strife: Contemporary Perspectives, East & West. The Chinese University Press. ISBN962-201-412-7.
^Habito, Ruben L. F. (2005). "Altruism in Japanese Religions: The Case of Nichiren Buddhism". In Neusner, Jacob; Chilton, Bruce (eds.). Altruism in World Religions. Georgetown University Press. pp. 141–143. ISBN1-58901-235-6. Archived from the original on 2 June 2022. Retrieved 3 October 2020.
^Japanese Journal of Religious Studies. International Institute for the Study of Religions. 1994. p. 314. The Lotus Sutra states that this person would be a reincarnation of Jogyo bosatsu, a status that Nichiren did, in fact, claim for himself on numerous occasions.
^Eliot, Charles (1935). Sansom, George Bailey (ed.). Japanese Buddhism 1862–1931. Richmond, Surrey: Curzon Press. p. 421. ISBN0-7007-0263-6. OCLC28567705.