Chapter 4 : The Founding and Development of the Soka Gakkai

Daisaku Ikeda writes in the preface to his novel, The Human Revolution: ‘A great human revolution in just a single person will help achieve a change in the destiny of a nation, and further will enable a change in the destiny of all humankind.’  Commenting on the novel, N Radhakrishnan, Director of Gandhi Smitri and Darshan Samiti, remarks:

I look at The Human Revolution and the creative manner in which Dr Ikeda has tried to analyse certain events as an honest and inspiring recreation of the most crucial period in the history of Soka Gakkai. History is not a cold record of events, it is much more than that. History is a record of the finest feelings of men and women who collectively contributed to the evolution of the betterment of life …

The founder died a prisoner for a cause he considered important. Truly, his life was a selfless life. Today many people are selfish and they have no faith. The guiding principle appears to be what do I get if I do this? …

In such a world, to die for a common cause, a profound cause, a profound truth which one holds dear to one’s heart, dearer than one’s life itself, requires uncommon courage and superhuman determination. In human history, many people displayed this courage and all those great men who sacrificed their life did it for noble causes. When it came to the second President Josei Toda, he had to reckon with a hostile atmosphere, face unforeseen difficulties and encounter travails in his everyday life and ensure that his faith was not weakened. The torch was handed over from Makiguchi to Toda to Ikeda and all three displayed an amazing courage to challenge their situations. It was like a few drops of water trickling down from the Himalayan Heights and collecting to form rivulets and then flowing on to form mighty streams. Right from this inception these few drops of water had all the qualities of a mighty ocean. This is the history of the SGI movement. If you are a historian, if you are a writer, what kind of approach would you adopt to present the great-epoch making events that changed the lifestyle of millions of followers not only in Japan but in several parts of the world?

...As I close the last volume of The Human Revolution, I could still hear the words of Toda ringing in my ears: ‘Shin’ichi, I will build a solid foundation for kosen-rufu in Japan, but you will pave the way for kosen-rufu throughout the world. I will create the blueprint; you will make it reality.’

The unprecedented growth of the Soka Gakkai is testimony of the profound relationship of master and disciple where the master envisioned and the disciple acted. The ‘blueprint’ envisioned by Toda became the guiding factor for Ikeda to build upon. In this quest for peace, he continues to build bridges of goodwill, harmony and understanding among peoples of the world.[1]

As Radhakrishnan notes, the history of the Soka Gakkai and its development into a worldwide organisation, the SGI, is intimately bound up with the lives of its first three presidents - Tsunesaburo Makiguchi, Josei Toda and Daisaku Ikeda - and their relationship to one another.  To tell the stories of the men is to tell the story of the organisation.

Tsunesaburo Makiguchi

Tsunesaburo Makiguchi was born in rural Japan, on 6 June 1871. An educator and author, he dedicated much of his life to developing a progressive philosophy of education and to reforming Japan’s educational system.

The core of Tsunesaburo Makiguchi’s educational philosophy is his theory of value. His theory of value begins by examining the three values of beauty, good and truth posited by Kant, and substituting the concept of ‘gain’ or ‘benefit’ for ‘truth‘.  He reasoned that truth is an absolute value that can only be discovered, unlike beauty and good, which are created through the interaction of human consciousness and some external object or phenomenon.  ‘Gain’, however, is created through this interaction.  According to Makiguchi, beauty equates to sensory value and relates to the individual‘s specific likes and tastes, good equates to social value and relates to the group or society; gain equates to personal value and relates to the individual.

In Makiguchi’s eyes, an educated person is someone who realises the tension between the values of beauty, good and gain in their own lives and endeavours to balance them harmoniously in their decisions.  Such people take responsibility both for their own lives and of the society to which they belong.   For Makiguchi, then, the major task of education is to produce people who are able to create in their lives and in their communities the values of beauty, good and gain.  He emphasised that this education must be practical and nurture students’ independence and creativity.  This was contrary to what was being practised in Japan’s educational system, which in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century was geared closely to the interests of the state and suppressed independent thought.  His humanistic thinking imbues the spirit of today’s Soka schools in Japan.

Encouraged by such national figures as the historian Kumezo Tsuboi and the famous geographer Shigetaku Shiga, in October of 1903 Makiguchi published The Geography of Human Life (Jinsei Chirigaku). The book, which explores the impact of the environment on human life and vice versa, was welcomed in academic circles and considered by some intellectuals as an important step in the study of geography in Japan’s. It even became a reference book for students preparing for the national teachers’ examination.

Tsunesaburo Makiguchi’s tireless search for the source of value creation led to his encounter, in 1928, with the Buddhism of Nichiren Daishonin.  As he later related, it ‘brought about a complete change in my life’ and enabled him to apply his theory of education in the daily life of the classroom. He took faith in Nichiren Daishonin’s Buddhism in the same year, with his colleague and disciple Josei Toda.

In 1930, Makiguchi and Toda founded Soka Kyoiku Gakkai (Value Creation Education Society) to coincide with the publication of the first volume of Makiguchi‘s The System of Value-Creating Pedagogy (Soka Kyoikugaku Taikei), his most significant work. Setting out his educational views and methods, it was compiled by Toda from notes made by Makiguchi over a number of years.  It also outlines his basic philosophy: ‘There cannot be happiness in a society which does not consider each person. To reform society, one must first think of the happiness of individuals’.  This attitude was the basis of the Soka Kyoiku Gakkai (the word soka - meaning to create value based on Nichiren Daishonin’s Buddhism - was born from a dialogue the year before between Makiguchi and Toda), which was not officially inaugurated, however, until 1937, when it held its first general meeting, attended by sixty people.

At first, the Soka Kyoiku Gakkai consisted of educators seeking to promote educational reforms based on Makiguchi’s theory of education. The society soon evolved into a religious movement in which, based on this Buddhism, one strives to achieve human revolution as a means towards building a better society.  It stressed the importance of each individual establishing faith on his own initiative, through gaining actual proof of practice. As such it marked a return to the essential heart of Nichiren Daishonin’s Buddhism, and contrasted sharply with the other Buddhist sects in Japan, which were geared towards the afterlife and whose main activity was conducting funeral services.

During the 1920s and 1930s, right-wing militarist elements in Japan became increasingly dominant, and in the late 1930s the Japanese government began to prepare for a wider war – it had invaded Manchuria in 1931. In 1940, it enacted the Religious Organisations Law in order to exert control over religious groups and force them to support the war effort.  The Soka Kyoiku Gakkai magazine, Creation of Values, was banned in 1942 for taking an anti-war stance and in July of the following year twenty-one Gakkai leaders, including Makiguchi and Toda, were arrested and imprisoned. The Soka Kyoiku Gakkai, which had grown to a membership of three thousand households, was crushed.

During this time, in order to placate State Shintoism – the religion that the military government was using to unite the country in its imperial adventure - the priesthood erased fourteen passages of Nichiren Daishonin’s writings, including ‘I, Nichiren, am the foremost sage in all Jambudvipa.’[2] They also actively ingratiated themselves with the authorities. The High Priest himself issued decrees which encouraged followers to bow in the direction of Ise Shrine (the centre of Shintoism) and to visit Shinto shrines, and altered the phrases of the silent prayers in the gongyo liturgy to accommodate Shintoism.

In the meantime, through fear of persecution from the military government, the Nichiren Shoshu priesthood accepted the Shintoism talisman that all citizens were to enshrine in their homes to encourage them to offer Shinto prayers.  Before Makiguchi and Toda were arrested, the priests had demanded that the Soka Kyoiku Gakkai should also accept the talisman. When both men rejected their demand, the priesthood banned Makiguchi and Toda from going to worship the Dai-Gohonzon at the Head Temple.

Tsunesaburo Makiguchi died in prison on 18 November 1944. In The New Human Revolution, Daisaku Ikeda pays homage to Mr Makiguchi’s tremendous love and compassion for people, which inspired him to boldly champion the cause of truth and justice, and to fight with fierce determination against all that is evil and destructive:

Sincerity, earnestness, strictness, integrity - these are the words that come to mind whenever I see photographs of Tsunesaburo Makiguchi, father of the Soka movement and first president of the Soka Gakkai. I always discern the penetrating gleam in his eyes. He was a strict mentor to his disciples, but he was even stricter with himself. His powerful, indomitable faith, which led him to fight resolutely against the oppression of the military authorities and, indeed, die for his beliefs, is unequivocal proof of this ...

Even after Mr Makiguchi was arrested and imprisoned, he continued to speak out with confidence and conviction. During interrogations with the prosecutors, he boldly aired his views on correct and erroneous religious teachings. He even told his guard about the greatness of Nichiren Daishonin’s Buddhism and persuaded him to embrace faith in the Gohonzon. Mr Makiguchi never showed the least trace of fear or compromise.

But prison life was harsh and eventually took his toll on the elderly Mr Makiguchi’s health. He grew physically weaker and frailer with each passing day. Even his guard urged him to move to the prison infirmary, but Mr Makiguchi steadfastly refused ...

Yet for all his steel will and rigorous self-discipline, Mr Makiguchi was an infinitely warm and gentle person. When he was still just starting out in his career and teaching at an elementary school attached to Hokkaido Teachers’ College (present-day Hokkaido University of Education), he would go outside on snowy mornings to meet his students part way and walk them to school. He’d carry the little ones on his back and hold the hands of the older girls and boys. He was especially considerate of those children who suffered from weak constitutions or who were ill. If any of the children had frozen and badly chapped hands, he’d heat some water in the classroom and gently soak their hands in it until they were warmed ...

This rare combination of a courage so strong as to be fearless in the face of death, and a loving concern for others that knows no bounds, is true testimony to the greatness of Mr Makiguchi’s character.[3]

Josei Toda

Toda was born on 11 February 1900. Like his mentor, he was a passionate and innovative educator, and disillusioned with the Japanese educational system.  He took immediate interest in Makiguchi’s pedagogical theories when he read, in August 1920, that the distinguished educator had made a bold criticism of the Meiji Emperor’s famous educational Rescript, the basis of Japanese education, describing it as ‘of the lowest moral order’. He decided to visit him, hoping to find a job in the Nishimachi Elementary School where Makiguchi was the principal.  Daisaku Ikeda recounts the scene in The Human Revolution:

Please, Mr Makiguchi hire me to work with you at the Nishimachi School. I promise that if you do, you will never regret it. I can make honour students out of all your backward students. Please believe me.[4]

His devotion to Makiguchi, and the Soka Kyoiku Gakkai that he founded together with him, led eventually to his imprisonment alongside his mentor for refusing to bow to the religious policies of the Japanese wartime government.

In prison, Toda read the Lotus Sutra over and over again in his cell, and came to the profound realisation that ‘the Buddha’ is nothing other than life itself. He also experienced the mystic reality of being present at the ceremony in the air as one of the Bodhisattvas of the Earth. Through this experience, Toda gained a deep realisation of his mission as a Bodhisattva of the Earth to achieve kosen-rufu and vowed to dedicate the rest of his life to the propagation of the Mystic Law. In retrospect, it is clear that Toda’s enlightenment in prison was the source of the Soka Gakkai’s great development in the years to come.

While still in prison, on 8 January 1945 Toda was shattered to learn of Makiguchi’s death some weeks before.  He later recalled his last meeting with his mentor:

When Mr. Makiguchi was being moved to Sugamo [to the Tokyo Detention House from the Metropolitan Police Department in September 1943], I was permitted a brief meeting with him. I said to him, ‘Please take care of your health.’

             I have been told that on the way to the car after we parted, he asked, ‘Where’s Toda?’ ‘What’s happened to Toda?’

             I chanted earnestly with the prayer: ‘I am still young, but Mr. Makiguchi is old. May he be released as soon as possible. I don’t care how long I remain here, but please let Mr. Makiguchi be released as quickly as possible.’ But perhaps because my prayers weren’t strong enough, he died in prison the following year [in November 1944].

             When I was told, ‘Makiguchi’s dead,’ I was devastated. I wept all night long in my prison cell.

Furthermore, I later learned that Mr. Kobayashi [an employee of one of Mr. Makiguchi’s relatives] carried Mr. Makiguchi’s body home on his back from Sugamo Prison.

             You cannot imagine the bitter anger and intense sorrow I felt at that time [when I heard this and the fact that so few disciples came to their mentor’s funeral]. Those were difficult times [because of the government’s crackdown on the Soka Gakkai], I admit, but I couldn’t help wondering bitterly: Did they not come because they did not know of his death? Or did they know, but not come [because they were afraid of persecution]? I vowed then and there, ‘Right! I will, without fail, hold a memorial service for Mr. Makiguchi!’ From that time, I felt a powerful reason for living surge inside me. [5] 

On his release from prison on 3 July 1945, Toda made a solemn pledge to exact revenge on the devilish forces – the fundamental darkness within life - that had killed his mentor.  This he would do by rebuilding the movement to spread Nichiren Daishonin’s Buddhism, a task he undertook from the moment of his release.  The organisation was renamed Soka Gakkai (Society for the Creation of Value) in 1946, a reflection of Toda’s conviction that its mission should not be confined to the field of education but extend to the whole of society. It was a new start.

On 3 May 1951, Toda was inaugurated the second president of the Soka Gakkai in response to the members’ wishes.  Setting a target membership of 750,000 households to be achieved by the time of his death, he initiated a great advance for kosen-rufu, declaring: ‘If I do not achieve this goal, it is useless to celebrate my funeral at my death. You should only throw my ashes in the bay of Shinagawa.’ 3 May is therefore celebrated as Soka Gakkai Day.  Daisaku Ikeda writes:

That day, an intrepid lion rose up. On 3 May 1951, our mentor Josei Toda was inaugurated as the second president of the Soka Gakkai. A mighty roar for the propagation of Buddhism for the sake of world peace and the happiness of all humanity reverberated across the land: ‘I will give my life for the propagation of Buddhism! I vow to convert, through my own efforts, 750,000 households during my life time!’ He did not say, ‘through our efforts’; he said, ‘through my own efforts.’ When the inauguration ceremony was over, the members lifted Mr Toda up off the ground and begun to toss him in the air in jubilation.[6]

In the same year, 1951, the Religious Body Act came into force. The Soka Gakkai took the opportunity it provided to become an independent religious body in 1952.

On 8 September 1957, Toda issued a declaration condemning the use of nuclear weapons as criminal under any circumstances, and called on the young people of the world to work for their abolition.

Overcoming many great difficulties, the membership target of 750.000 households was achieved at the end of 1957.  The following year, in a special ceremony held on 16 March, Toda passed on to the youth division the mission to accomplish kosen-rufu,  as Daisaku Ikeda describes:

The ceremony on March 16 was exhilarating. Mr Toda announced that he was passing the baton of kosen-rufu on to the youth division. The hearts of his young disciples burned with enthusiasm. Their proud sense of mission leapt up like dancing flames.

On that day in 1958, some six thousand young disciples had gathered with their mentor Josei Toda, whose life was quietly ebbing away. Everyone celebrated that landmark day with great joy and excitement. Brave young men and women dedicated to kosen-rufu had assembled from all over Japan. They shook hands, patted each other on the shoulder, and talked and laughed together. It was a joyful vision of future triumph ...

On 1 March 1958, Mr Toda said to me, ‘The rest will be up to you, Daisaku, I’m counting on you.’ A few days later, he made a suggestion: ‘Let’s conduct a ceremony that will serve as a trial run – a dress rehearsal - for kosen-rufu in preparation for the future.’ Mr Toda knew that he would never rise again, never again stand at the head of the march for kosen-rufu, directing its advance.

Nichiren Daishonin writes: ‘Life is limited, and we must not begrudge it. What we should aspire to, after all, is the Buddha Land.’[7]

March 16 was a ceremony to eternally honour and pay tribute to the selfless spirit of Mr Toda, who had lived in complete accord with these words of the Daishonin, and to pass that legacy on to the next generation. At the same time, it was a private ceremony between just the two of us – a ceremony of the oneness of mentor and disciple – in which Mr Toda transferred the seal of succession, the mission to achieve kosen-rufu, to me.

Profoundly aware of the deep significance of this occasion, I took on full responsibility for carrying it out successfully.[8]

A few days later, on 2 April, Josei Toda’s eventful life ended at the age of 58. A few days before his death, he had encouraged his young disciple: ‘Never slacken in your pursuit against evil.’

Daisaku Ikeda

Daisaku Ikeda first met Josei Toda at the age of 19.  Born in Tokyo on 2 January 1928, as a teenager Ikeda had experienced the horrors of war through the death and devastation around him, including the death of his eldest brother on the Burmese front. He developed a deep-rooted abhorrence to war and a respect for those who had undergone persecution by the state of their anti-war beliefs, but had not compromised their convictions.  He met such a person, Josei Toda, during a Soka Gakkai discussion meeting on 14 August 1947.

Toda provided sound answers to all of Ikeda’s questions. Soon after this meeting, on August 24, he joined the Soka Gakkai and from that time both worked closely together. This encounter profoundly influenced the course of the life of the young man, who considered Josei Toda as the mentor of his life:

My mentor in life and second president of the Soka Gakkai, Josei Toda, emerged from a two-year imprisonment by the forces of Japanese militarism, to initiate a new humanistic movement in Japan...

To tell the truth, I had no understanding at all of religion or Buddhism in those days. Asking further, I found out more about Toda...

During the war, he had opposed Japan’s ill-advised military adventures and sticking dauntlessly to his principles, suffered from the arrogance of the military dictatorship...

Despite having been arrested and imprisoned, he had kept his faith through everything. That was the decisive factor for me...

A man who had locked horns with militarism and endured two years of prison glowed nobly with the strength of his convictions. At nineteen years old, the question of whether or not a person had gone to jail for opposing war had become a primary criterion of trust.[9]

Ikeda had been Toda’s closest disciple from the moment he decided to take faith, so it came as little surprise that an emergency board of directors meeting on April 9, a week after Toda’s death, that Chief of Staff Ikeda was unanimously recommended to be the third president of the Soka Gakkai. Ikeda declined, feeling himself not worthy, and did so on three further occasions until he eventually accepted the appointment two years later.

On 3 May 1960, at the age of 32, he was officially inaugurated in a ceremony at the auditorium of Nihon University in Tokyo. On that occasion, he declared: ‘From today onward, on behalf of President Toda’s disciples, I will take the leadership to move a step forward towards the substantiation of kosen-rufu.’ He also expressed his resolve to achieve a membership of three million households and the construction of the Grand Reception Hall at the head temple by the seventh anniversary year of president Toda’s passing (1964)[10].

Two months before his death, Josei Toda had fixed the goal of three million households. This was the result of a profound reflection, based on his clear vision of kosen-rufu and on the plans he wished to accomplish for the organisation for a seven-year period. He had told Ikeda:

’We must hurry up. Shin’ichi![11] Do you think you can achieve a membership of three million households by the seven years to come ?’

Without hesitation, he had answered:

’Yes, I will do it. I feel even more determined. I am your disciple; I will absolutely accomplish this goal. Please, do not worry.’

Shin’ichi would never forget the joy that had illuminated Josei Toda’s face when he had given him this answer. For Shin’ichi, the achievement of the goal of three million households was a struggle for the salvation of the Buddhist Law - a struggle he had to win at all costs as a disciple and a heir of Josei Toda’s work. It was also his first campaign as a new president, recently appointed.[12]

The goal was accomplished within two-and-a half years.

On 2 October 1960 Ikeda made the first step towards worldwide kosen-rufu, visiting North and South America.  He travelled to Asia in January 1961, and Europe in October 1961, to give guidance to the members there and encourage them to work earnestly for kosen-rufu wherever they found themselves.

While kosen-rufu was developing in the world, propagation within Japan was making very fast progress. Before the tenth anniversary of Ikeda’s presidency, by January 1970 the had membership exceeded 7.5 million households. 

On 26 January 1975, members from all over the world assembled and formed the International Buddhist League, whose objective is to create eternal peace in the world. During this first international conference, Ikeda stated:

The sun of Nichiren Daishonin’s Buddhism has begun to rise on the horizon. I hope you do not seek after your own praise or glory but that you will instead dedicate your whole lives to sowing the seeds of true Buddhism throughout the world, and I pledge to do the same. At times I will lead in the forefront, at times will stand by your side, and at other times be watching you from behind the scenes. However, I will always supporting you with all my heart.

Therefore, I ask you to live your entire live beaming with courage, mercy and burning passion for justice as true disciples of Nichiren Daishonin. Be those who stand on the side of the common people and continually advance for the sake of their nations as well as for the sake of the precious existence of mankind itself.

Daisaku Ikeda was named president of the IBL, which changed its name to Soka Gakkai International the following year.  At the present time (January 2003) there are 188 countries and territories where SGI members are practising Nichiren Daishonin’s Buddhism and contributing to society as good citizens.

In 1979, Ikeda resigned as Soka Gakkai president in Japan. From a deep desire to protect all the members of the SGI and (until 1990) the unity between priesthood and laity, he revealed the profound reasons only recently:

April 24, 1979. That day, I resigned the presidency of the Soka Gakkai, position I had filled for nineteen years, to become honorary president. When they heard that, all the fellow members all over Japan and in the whole world were flabbergasted and remained speechless.

Behind my sudden resignation was the sly authority of the Nichiren Shoshu priests and countless attacks against the Soka Gakkai by members who betrayed us, abjuring their faith and strengthening the group of the plotting priests of the Head Temple.[13]

Daisaku Ikeda was an early proponent of citizen’s diplomacy, meeting with leaders in China and the former Soviet Union from the early 1970s and playing a significant role in re-establishing diplomatic links between the two countries at a time of great tension. He has engaged many of the world’s leading thinkers in dialogue, addressed audiences in over fifty countries, inspired the SGI’s support of United Nations activities, and written extensively on a range of issues related to peace and the human condition.

A central theme in his works is his exploration of the means by which human dignity can be nurtured, human conflict transformed and peace extended to all humanity.  To this end, each year on 26 January - the anniversary of the founding of the SGI in 1975 – he issues a peace proposal to the UN in which he reviews the state of the world and suggests practical initiatives based on Nichiren Daishonin’s philosophy.

His full curriculum vitae can be viewed in the Appendix