Preface

Eight and a half years have passed since we published our book entitled The High Priest’s Great Conspiracy (Hossu no Daiinbo). Along with the previous books The High Priest’s Big Scandals (Hossu no Daishumon) and The High Priest’s Family’s Extravagance (Hossu Family no Daiakugyo), we have been endeavoring to examine and analyze the atrocious behavior of Nikken Abe. 

During the past eight years, doubts about the integrity of Nikken have been strengthened, due to his bizarre statements and strange behavior. He is the very model of an illegitimate high priest. 

Through these three books, we have clearly refuted the idea of the sole transmission of the heritage of Nichiren Buddhism through the lineage of successive high priests of Nichiren Shoshu. This is the erroneous concept that Nikken Abe and the current Nichiren Shoshu Administration use to justify his absolute authority. Nichiren Daishonin, the founder of this school, never intended to initiate a hierarchy of priests to transmit the Law. As his writings state, the transmission of the law is through “faith alone.” 

In our previous book, The High Priest’s Great Conspiracy, we presented the record of how Nikken stole the position of Nichiren Shoshu high priest after the former high priest passed away. We closely examined how Nittatsu Shonin spent his time on the day of April 15, 1978, the day that Nikken claimed he had received the transmission from him. In addition to the timing being disproved, the way the ceremony was conducted was very suspicious — Nikken’s account of it was not at all the traditional Nichiren Shoshu way of conducting a transfer ceremony. 

On July 22, 1979, right after former high priest Nittatsu Shonin passed away, Nikken proclaimed at a special session of executive priests that he had received the heritage of Nichiren Shoshu during the previous year. He stated that, on April 15, 1978, “When the high priest and I were all alone, the high priest privately referred to his intention to transmit the heritage of Nichiren Shoshu to me. I hereby disclose that I received profound instructions from him on this matter of the transmission of the heritage of Nichiren Shoshu.” Upon saying that to the session of executive priests, Nikken was installed as the 67th high priest without going through any part of Nichiren Shoshu’s formal, time-honored ceremony regarding the transmission of the heritage of the school. 

There was no tangible evidence of this supposed transference, nor were there any witnesses who backed up Nikken’s story. The Shoshinkai Group, in opposition to Nikken’s high-handedness toward them, later expressed their doubts about Nikken’s ascension to the position of high priest. They filed a lawsuit demanding the temporary termination of his right to execute his authority, citing his illegitimacy as high priest of Nichiren Shoshu. In this litigation, Nikken’s advocates could not give any concrete answers to such simple questions as “At what time on April 15, 1978, did he receive the heritage of Nichiren Shoshu?” “In which room of the high priest’s quarters did he receive the heritage?” and “How did the former high priest transfer the heritage to him?” 

What stood out most among Nikken’s actions was his action to destroy all the head temple buildings that the former high priest had built. Especially outrageous was his decision to destroy the Sho-Hondo, the Grand Main Temple that Nittatsu Shonin had supported. Nittatsu Shonin said, “Needless to say, the Sho-Hondo is a holy temple where the Dai-Gohonzon of the High Sanctuary of True Buddhism is to be enshrined. It is the high sanctuary where Brahma and Shakra should visit to pay homage.” He made these statements at the Cornerstone Placing Ceremony of the Sho-Hondo on October 12, 1969. That Nikken destroyed this building is the ultimate evidence of his opposition to and denial of his late mentor’s will. It was the epitome of his great slander. 

Then, when the so-called “Kawabe Memo” was leaked to the press in July 1999, it became clear that Nikken actually believed that the Dai-Gohonzon was a counterfeit Gohonzon. Although this statement was actually made by Nikken in 1978, one year before his inauguration as 67th Nichiren Shoshu high priest, it is still proof that he once asserted that the ultimate object of devotion in this school was counterfeit. The revelations of the Kawabe Memo dumbfounded many people inside and outside Nichiren Shoshu. No one would think that the high priest of a sect would express such doubts about its core beliefs. 

Furthermore, in the first half of 2002, the year that commemorated the 750th anniversary of the establishment of Nam-myoho-renge-kyo, Nichiren Shoshu lost three cases at the Supreme Court in Japan. All these cases involved Nichiren Shoshu’s attempts to oust the chief priests from temples, including those owned by our association. In these cases, the chief priests claimed that Nikken is not a legitimate high priest of Nichiren Shoshu — and these claims could not be disproved by Nichiren Shoshu. Therefore, the court ruled against them. This shows that, even though 20 years have passed since Nikken took office, people still doubt his legitimacy as high priest. 

The issue of Nikken’s false claim to the high priest position has surfaced more recently. To address this issue, we are publishing this new volume in the refutation series. In this new book, we introduce many new facts including the contents of the Kawabe Memo and newly discovered correspondence between Masatomo Yamazaki and Nikken Abe. We will demonstrate the conspiracy behind Nikken’s self-proclamation as the high priest, and, in the conclusion, we share for the first time the view of the 59th high priest, Nichiko Hori on the heritage of Nichiren Shoshu, which is markedly different from that of Nikken. Nichiko Shonin’s view, which refers to the essence of the heritage of Nichiren Buddhism, serves as a guideline for our continuing efforts to reform Nichiren Shoshu. 

“Did Nikken actually receive the heritage of Nichiren Shoshu from the former high priest?” This question has been repeatedly asked, and in this book we take another step toward revealing how false Nikken’s assumption of power was. Our basis is Nichiren Daishonin’s original view of the heritage of Buddhism. Nichiren Daishonin wrote, “Even embracing the Lotus Sutra would be useless without the heritage of faith” (The Writings of Nichiren Daishonin, p. 218). 

In the final analysis, the “heritage of faith” constitutes the basis of Nichiren Buddhism, transcending “whether a high priest is legitimate or not” and “whether the heritage of Nichiren Shoshu is continuously maintained or not.” This conclusion underlies the purpose of our association.