Nissen Shounin

Saint Nissen (Nagamatsu Seifu, 1817–1890) was born in Bunka 14 (1817) in the closing years of the Edo period, into the Oji family, a merchant household on Takoyakushi Street, Muromachi, Kyoto. Gifted in the literary arts, at the age of 14, Saint Nissen’s name appeared in the “Painting” section of the Heian Jinbutsu-shi (a kind of “Who’s Who” of the time). In his youth, he traveled to Edo to study and became a disciple of Matsuzaki Kyodo. By the age of 26, he had gained recognition as a distinguished scholar from the townsman class and made a name for himself as both a poet and a calligrapher.

Though Saint Nissen’s promising future seemed assured, the death of his mother and his own serious illness prompted him to study various schools of Buddhism. Through his participation in a calligraphy gathering at Kyoto’s Honnoji Temple, he was awakened to faith in the Odaimoku (Sacred Title of the Lotus Sutra) as transmitted in the “Eight Chapters of the Original Gate” (Honmon Happon Jōgyō Shoden).

At that time, the Buddhist world had long been steeped in the danka system under the Tokugawa shogunate, having forgotten the mission of propagation and fallen into a degenerate state that focused solely on memorial services for the dead. Determined to restore Buddhism’s true role as “a faith for the living,” Saint Nissen, at the age of 32, was ordained at Ryusenji Temple of the Hokke-shu in Awaji. However, for the Hokke sect and the Buddhist community of the day, the presence of Saint Nissen—a celebrated man of culture, well-versed in Buddhist law, and burning with the aspiration to devote himself to the salvation of the people—was unwelcome. He faced various forms of oppression.

Nevertheless, holding firmly to his resolve as a successor to the true lineage of the Eternal Original Buddha (Kuon Honbutsu), Nichiren Shounin, and Nichiryu Shounin, Saint Nissen founded the Honmon Butsuryu-ko. Nichiren Shonin had clearly stated, “I am neither the founder nor the patriarch of any sect.” Inheriting this spirit, Saint Nissen established, not a human-founded religion (jinritsu-shu) with founders or patriarchs, but the religion “established by the Buddha Himself” — the Honmon Butsuryu-shu (Ko) — on January 12, Ansei 4 (1857).

From then on, he composed over three thousand Gokyouka (Didactic Poems) in simple, accessible Japanese verse, making complex teachings easy for the common people to understand, thereby continuing to spread Buddhism and the teachings of Nichiren Shonin. Through the chanting practice of the Odaimoku and the tangible blessings (gorenku, actual proof of benefit), the network of followers expanded mainly in the Kyoto-Osaka-Kobe region. On July 17, 1890 (Meiji 23), Saint Nissen brought his turbulent life to a close.

In the Honmon Butsuryu-shu, Saint Nissen is also referred to as Kaido Shounin (“Opening and Guiding Saint”). “Kaido” is an abbreviation of kaihotsu kyodo (“opening, developing, and guiding”), a respectful title expressing the gratitude that, more than 430 years after the passing of the founder Nichiryu Shounin, when the doctrine and spirit of the school were on the verge of extinction, Saint Nissen opened the Honmon Butsuryu-ko and guided people back to the path of true faith.