［54　Saint Nichiren］ 　 The source：「REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF JAPAN」 　 〔In and Out of Darkness〕 　 　He was fairly introduced into the elementary knowledge of Buddhism when several questions presented themselves to his mind for solution. The most apparent was the existence of multitudinous sects in Buddhism. "Why is it" he asked to himself, "that Buddhism which had its origin in the life and teaching of one man is now divided into so many sects and divisions? Is Buddhism more than one? What means that which I see around me, that one sect speaks evil of all others, each maintaining that it has Buddha's true mind? The waters of the sea have the same taste, and there can be no two ways in the teachings of Buddha. Oh wherein lies the explanation of this division sects, and which among these sebts is Buddha's way, the way I should walk in?" 　 　Such was his first and greatest doubt, an entirely reasonable doubt, we believe. We also have similar doubt about Buddhism and some other religions, and we can entirely sympathize with our hero in the struggle he had. As neither his abbot nor anybody else relieved him from his doubt, he naturally resorted to his prayers. One day as he came from his worship at the temple at of the Bodhisattva of his special devotion, the burden within him became unbearable, and down he came to the ground with abundant hemorrhage from his mouth. His friends helped him up, and it was sometime before he returned to consciousness again. We are still pointed to the exact apot of this occurrence, a little bamboo bush nearby with certain reddish tints in its leaves being supposed to have taken its colors from the blood that was spattered on that occasion. One evening, however, as his eyes were poring over the Nirvana Sutra, said to have been delivered by Buddha just before his entrance into that blessed state, the following caught the attention of the yuong priest, to the inexpressible relief of his troubled mind: 依法不依人. Trust in the Word and not in man. That is, he was not to trust in human opinions, however plausible and highsounding, but in the sutras as left by the Great Teacher, and he was to decide all questions by them and them only. His mind was now at ease. He found something to stand upon, whereas thus far all had been sinking sand under him. 　…… 　But in cae of the Buddhist priest, the question of the authoritative scripture was not so simple a one as that of the Christain Luther. 　 …… 　The Japanese had dozens, often of very contradictory natures, from which to make his selection of the canon of the supreme authority. This, however, was a comparatively easy tast in the age when the so-called Higher Criticism was wholly unknown, and men put their simple trust upon the records of the ancients without questioning why and wherefore. It was enough for our hero that he found that one of the sutras gave the chronological order of all the great sutras in both Mahayana and Hinayana. The order given was, beginning with the Avatamsaka Sutra, supposed to conrain Buddha's first public utterances, (1) the Agamas (Agon Kyou), containing his teaching of the first twelve years of his ministry, (2) the Vaipulya Sutras (Houdou Kyou), containing those of the second sixteen years, (3) the Prajna Sutra (Hannya Kyou), of the third fourteen years, and (4) the Saddharma-Pundarika Sutra (Myou-Hou-Renge or Hokke Kyou), of the last eight years of his life. Natural conclusions from this order were that the last-mentioned sutra contained the essence of the teaching of Buddha's whole life; or in the words of Nichiren, it had in it "the principle of all things, the truth of eternity, and the secret importance of Buddha's original state and of the virtue of his enlightenment." Hence its beautiful name of "the Sutra of the Lotus of the Mysterious Law." It is not our purpose here to enter into a critical examination of the exact order of the Buddhist canons, or the comparative value of one above others. I thik it is fairly settled now that the sutra that Nichiren thought so much of was a later product, some 500 years after Buddha's death, and that tha Amitartha Sutra that gives the order of the different canons here mentioned was written expressly for the purpose of giving authenticity and superlative authority to the new canon. But be these whatever they may, it only suffices us to know that our hero accepted them in the order here given, and found in Saddharma-Pundarika Sutra the standard of the Buddhist faith, and a clear simple explanation of the all-comprehensibility of so many discordant views in Buddhism. As he came to this conclusion, the joy and gratitude within him burst into abundant tears. "I," he finally said to himself, "I who left my father and mother, and gave myself to the service of this excellent faith, - should I cling to the traditional teachings of common priests, and not seek the golden words of the Tathagata (Buddha) himself?" He was twenty years old when the holy ambition rose in his mind. Seclusion in a country-monastery became no more possible. Bidding farewell to his abbot and order, he launched out boldly into the world, to seek the truth far and wide. 　…… 　 〔An Estimate of His Character〕 　 　…… 　The most fearless of men, his courage was based wholly upon his conviction that he was Buddha's special messenger to this earth. He himself is nothing, - "a sudra of a sea-coast" - but in his capacity as a vehicle of the Pundarika Sutra, his person had all the importance of heaven and earth. "I am a worthless, ordinary priest," he once said to a man in authority; "but as a promulgator of the Pundarika Sutra, I am Sakyamuni's special messenger, and as such Brahma serves me on my right hand and Sakra on my left, the Sun guides me and the Moon follows me, and all the deities of the land bend their heards and honor me." 　…… 　Indeed, Nichiren's life always reminds me of Mahomet without the concupiscence of the latter. The same intensity, the same insanoid fanaticism, yet withal the same sincerity of purpose, and much of inward pity and tenderness, in one as in the other. Only I believe the Japanese was greater than the Arabian, in that the former had more confidence in his Sutra than the latter in his Koran. Physical force was not a neccessity to Nichiren, seeing that he had such a book to trust in. It slone without any human agency is a power enough, and no force is needed to establish its worth. History that has acquitted Mahomet of hypocrisy, ought have done more toward a right estimate of Nichiren. 　 　Divested therefore of his thirteenth century garb, of the aberration of his critical knowledge, and of a little taint of insanity that might have dwelt in him (as it dwells in all great men, I suppose), there stands before us a remarkable figure, one of the greatest of his kind in the world. No more independent man can I think of among my countrymen. Indeed,, he by his originality and independence made Buddhism a Japanese religion. His sect alone is purely Japanese, while all others have their beginnings either in Hindoo, or Chinese, or Corean minds. His ambition, too, embraced the whole of his time. He speaks of the eastward march of Buddhism from India to Japan till his time, and of the westward march of its improvel form from Japan to India from his time on. He was therefore an exception among passive receptive Japanese, - not a very tractable fellow no doubt, because he had a will of his own. But such alone is the nation's backbone, while much else that goes by the name of affability, humility, receptivity or beg-ability, is no better than the country's shame, fitted only for swelling the number of "converts" in proselytizers' reports to their homeland. Nichiren minus his combativity is our ideal religious man.

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