Nichiren Commentary

Nichiren (1222–1282), a Japanese Buddhist monk, declared the Lotus Sutra to be the supreme teaching for the Latter Day of the Law (mappo) and made it the exclusive focus of his religious practice. His interpretation centers on the daimoku – the chanting of Nam-myoho-renge-kyo (Devotion to the Wonderful Dharma of the Lotus Sutra) – as the essential practice that contains within it the entire merit and meaning of the sutra.

Nichiren emphasized Chapters 15 and 16 as the heart of the sutra, particularly the revelation of the Buddha’s eternal life span and the specific entrustment of the Dharma to the Bodhisattvas of the Earth for propagation in the evil latter age. His voluminous writings, known as the Gosho, offer detailed interpretations of virtually every chapter and passage of the Lotus Sutra, always in relation to the concrete challenges facing practitioners in a degenerate age.

Commentary from the Nichiren tradition will be added to this section as the project develops.