2012/01/01 by Levi McLaughlin · 1 citation
Social Sciences · Arts and Humanities · #Japanese History and Culture #Chinese history and philosophy #Religious Studies and Spiritual Practices #History
paper · doi:10.1163/9789004234369_013
openalex publication_date 2012/01/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/04/10
This chapter discusses the contemporary characteristics and historical development of Sōka Gakkai, or the 'Value Creation Study Association', a group that began in 1930s Japan as a society of educators and grew into a postwar religious mass movement. Though Sōka Gakkai is commonly characterized as a lay movement within the Nichiren Shōshū Buddhist tradition, it is much more than a Buddhist organization and is instead heir to what the author characterize as 'twin legacies'. These are (i) a tradition of self-cultivation through the practice of Nichiren Shōshū Buddhism, and (ii) intellectual currents that flourished in the late nineteenth to early twentieth centuries in Japan valorizing education, pedagogy, and humanism. Instead of being an organization dedicated to promulgating Nichiren Buddhism, Sōka Gakkai has increasingly become an end in itself, and Nichiren Buddhism is subordinated to the group's 'culture' mission and centralization on Ikeda Daisaku. Keywords:Buddhist organization; Ikeda Daisaku; Japan; Nichiren Shōshū Buddhism; Sōka Gakkai; twin legacies