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Tanaka Chigaku | |
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| 田中智學 | |
 Tanaka Chigaku around 1890 | |
| Born | Tada Tomonosuke (1861-12-14)December 14, 1861 |
| Died | November 17, 1939(1939-11-17) (aged 77) Tokyo, Japan |
Tanaka Chigaku (田中智學; December 14, 1861 – November 17, 1939) was aJapaneseBuddhist scholar and preacher ofNichiren Buddhism, orator, writer andultranationalist propagandist in theMeiji,Taishō and earlyShōwa periods. He is considered to be the father ofNichirenism, the fiercely ultranationalistic blend of Nichiren Buddhism andJapanese Nationalism espoused by such figures asNissho Inoue,Kanji Ishiwara andIkki Kita. Notably, however, the children's writer, poet, and rural activistKenji Miyazawa also idolized Tanaka, and both Miyazawa and Ishiwara joined his flagship organization, theKokuchūkai, in 1920.
Born Tada Tomonosuke inTokyo (then calledEdo), the third son of a noted physician and former devotee ofPure Land Buddhism who had converted toNichiren Buddhism, Tanaka was placed under the care of the Rev. Kawase Nichiren following the death of his parents in 1870. Enrolled as a novice at Kawase's temple, he later entered the Nichiren Buddhist academy of Daikyo-in (the predecessor toRissho University), during which time he adopted the sobriquet "Chigaku", meaning "Wisdom and Learning".
However, during this time, Tanaka came to be disillusioned with the sect's leadership, who he considered too passive in their teachings, and in 1879 he abandoned the priesthood and set out to establish himself as a lay preacher of the "true" Nichiren Buddhism. Briefly employed at aGerman engineering company inYokohama, he was quickly drawn to religious proselytizing, joining the lay organization Nichirenkai (日蓮会) as a preacher, in which capacity he honed his public speaking skills and developed his own distinct uncompromising Nichiren doctrine, which he came to refer to as "Nichirenism" (日蓮主義,Nichirenshugi).
The 1890s saw Tanaka's spiritual philosophy evolve in an increasingly nationalistic manner, taking to concluding his works with the twin salutations ofNamu Myōhō Renge Kyō "Homage to theLotus Sutra" and "Imperial Japan for Ever and Ever" (日本帝国万々歳 (Nippon teikoku banbanzai)). The decade saw him carry out extensive lecturing tours throughout Japan and establish his Nichiren study group, Rissho Ankokukai (立正安国会) from his new base inKamakura.
A notedanti-Christian and staunch opponent of Christian missionaries in Japan, he applauded Japan's triumph in theRusso-Japanese War in 1905, stating that "The war withRussia is divinely inspired to make Japanese citizens aware of their heavenly task."[1] In 1908, he moved his base toMiho,Shizuoka Prefecture, where he would write his most famous work, "The Doctrine of Saint Nichiren" (日蓮聖人の教義 (Nichiren shonin no kyogi)) in 1911, in which he casts the radical 13th century priestNichiren as the champion of the Japanese nation, and called for world unification through Nichirenism with the emperor as its core. "Japan's very purpose of existence," he writes, "is the implementation of this plan, as a country conceived for building Nichiren Buddhism."[2]
In 1914, Tanaka amalgamated all of his followers into a single organization, the (国柱会 (Kokuchūkai,National Pillar Society) based in Miho. He would maintain a busy lecture schedule until illness curtailed his activities in the late 1930s, traveling not only throughout Japan but also embarking on speaking tours ofJapanese-occupied Korea andManchukuo, where he supported and gave lectures toPuyi, who had been appointed Emperor of Manchukuo. His nationalist and imperialist convictions only hardened with age, believing that Japan's 1931 takeover ofManchuria was divinely ordained and part of a divine plan to spread the "true" Nichiren Buddhism throughout Asia. He even went as far as to compile diagrams of the states in which the "Nichirenization" of the world would take place. By the 1950s he foresaw a total of 19,900 students, 19,200 instructors and 23,033,250 followers spread across the Asia-Pacific region reaching as far asNew Zealand.[3]
Tanaka was also a convincedanti-Semite who argued that Jews were fomenting social unrest in order to rule the world and that they advocated liberalism, especially within academic circles, as part of their plan to destroy the people's moral sense.[4]
While best known as a preacher and an orator, Tanaka was also a skilled poet and dramatist with a keen interest in the traditional theatrical arts of Japan. He wrote and performed numerous plays, all with a heavily moralistic undertone, and produced a volume of essays, songs and poems.
Tanaka died in 1939 at the age of 79, and is entombed in the Myoshu Mausoleum in Tokyo. His son, Dr. Satomi Kishio, took over the reins of his organization, and remained a staunch defender of his father in the postwar era when numerous academics denounced him as afascist for his ideology's links to suchultranationalist figures as Nissho and Kita.
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