Nikko Shonin
Constant Service and Propagation
of the True Law

Home  |  Basic of Buddhism

Nikko Shonin was born on the eighth day of the third month, 1246 (the fourth year of the Kangen Period), in Kajikazawa, a village in the Oi-no-sho region of Kai Province, which is now Kajikazawa-cho, in Yamanashi Prefecture. He received his early education at Shijuku-in Temple, in the Kanbara-no-sho area of Suruga Province, which is present-day Kanbara-cho, in Shizuoka Prefecture.

In the second month of 1258 (the second year of the Shoka Period), Nichiren Daishonin visited the Great Sutra Repository at Jissoji Temple in Iwamoto, to gather doctrinal references for the Rissho ankoku-ron. (Iwamoto is now the city of Fuji, in Shizuoka Prefecture.) During his visit, Nikko Shonin, who was just 13 years old at the time, became the Daishonin’s disciple and received the name Hoki-bo, which was later changed to Byakuren Ajari. Nikko Shonin meticulously and devotedly served the Daishonin thereafter, even accompanying him into exile on two occasions. The first exile was to Izu, in the fifth month of 1261 (the first year of the Kocho Period). Then, after a plot to behead the Daishonin at Tatsunokuchi failed in the ninth month of 1271 (the eighth year of the Bunei Period), the Daishonin was banished to Sado Island in the tenth month of the same year.

Nikko Shonin also accompanied the Daishonin into retirement on Mt. Minobu in the fifth month, 1274 (the 11^th year of the Bunei Period), and vigorously propagated the Daishonin’s teachings in Kai and Suruga Provinces, where he had family and friends. He was thereby able to convince many of the priests at a number of temples, including Shijuku-in, Jissoji and Ryusenji, as well as many of the farmers registered at those temples, to embrace the Lotus Sutra.

This mass conversion led to the Atsuhara Persecution, which occurred in the ninth month of 1279 (the second year of the Koan Period). Nonetheless, under Nikko Shonin’s guidance, Jinshiro, Yagoro, Yarokuro and the other Atsuhara Hokkeko believers maintained their faith without begrudging their lives, and boldly spread the Daishonin’s teachings in spite of the danger.

 Nikko Shonin

Constant Service and Propagation of the True Law
Two Transfer Documents: The Great Master of Propagation of the Essential Teaching
Departure from Minobu
The Establishment of Taisekiji
Omosu Seminary: Differentiating the One from the Five
Tale of the Pear Leaves
Differentiating the One from the Five
Other Facts and Disciples
The Twenty-six Admonitions of Nikko

BUDDHASUNIVERSE.COM