By Shin Yatomi SGI-USA Vice Study Department Leader
The
following essay was presented at the SGI-USA Study
Department conference held at the Florida Nature and Culture
Center on April 21-23, 2000.
One of the most debated issues regarding any
religious object is whether it is sacred or
represents the sacred. Put another way, is it
an actual embodiment or symbol of what is to be
revered in worship? Those questions about the
nature of religious objects have played no small part
in the history of religion.
The Iconoclastic Controversy in which Christians
debated the merits of religious icons is
considered the last step toward the great
schism between the Roman Catholic Church and
the Greek Orthodox Church in 1054.1 The interpretation
of the Eucharist—the consecrated bread and wine
used in Holy Communion—has been another source of
doctrinal disputes in the Christian Church since the earlier
Middle Ages, especially during the Reformation
period. At the thirteenth session of the
Council of Trent held in 1551, the Roman
Catholic Church reaffirmed its doctrine of
transubstantiation, asserting the conversion of the
whole substance of the bread and wine into the whole substance
of the Body and Blood of Christ, only the
appearances of the bread and wine remaining
after the consecration.2
The Protestants opposed this view. For example, Martin
Luther claimed that after the consecration, the
substances both of the Body and Blood of Christ
and of the bread and wine coexist in union
with each other.3 Ulrich Zwingli, on the other
hand, affirmed that the Lord's Supper was
primarily a memorial rite, and that there was no change
in the elements whatever.4
As evident in the history of Christianity,
religious objects often trigger tension and
anxiety for those who think that the divine is
beyond material expression. At the same time,
people tend to seek something tangible as an
object or expression of their devotion. Some people regard
a sign of the divine as the divine itself while others
reduce the significance of a sacred object to a
ritual symbol devoid of its own spirituality.
The nature of a religious object, in this way,
is often at the center of theological debate
and confusion in many religions.
Is the Gohonzon a Symbol or the Embodiment?
In the case of Nichiren Daishonin's Buddhism,
its object of devotion works as both symbol and
embodiment. When people look at the Gohonzon5
for the first time, what do they see? What do
they make of it' It is a scroll with unfamiliar
inscriptions, but is it a religious icon or
sacred formula? Whatever their reaction, it is difficult
not to notice oriental calligraphic characters arranged
in a specific pattern— though most have no idea
what those characters mean or why they are arranged
that way. As our first impressions of things
often reveal some important insights into their
nature, what most of us first notice about the
appearance of the Gohonzon, that is, its
written characters and their graphic arrangement,
provides us with some clues to Nichiren Daishonin's intent
in creating this object of devotion.
In one sense, the Gohonzon represents the
Daishonin's enlightenment and, thereby, our
innate Buddha nature. The Gohonzon is a symbol
of all people's potential Buddhahood; it
signifies something other than itself. This is why
the Daishonin explains to his elderly disciple Abutsu-bo
the meaning of his offerings to the Gohonzon—which
is referred to as “the treasure tower”—as
follows: “You may think you offered gifts to the
treasure tower of the Thus Come One Many Treasures,6 but
that is not so. You offered them to yourself.
You, yourself, are a Thus Come One who is
originally enlightened and endowed with the
three bodies.7 You should chant Nam-myoho-renge-kyo
with this conviction” (The Writings of Nichiren
Daishonin, pp. 299-300). Here the Daishonin explains that
when we pray to the Gohonzon, the Gohonzon is pointing
our attention to our own innate Buddha nature.
The Gohonzon reflects our reverence back to our
supreme inner potential. In this sense, the
Gohonzon functions as a pointer to our
Buddhahood; it is a symbolic representation. In the
above passage, therefore, the Daishonin cautions us not
to mistake the sign for the signified, which would
externalize and objectify the Buddhahood that
actually resides within us.
From another perspective, however, the Gohonzon
functions as an embodiment of the Daishonin's
enlightenment. The Gohonzon is not
intrinsically a self-conscious, living entity
embodying the Daishonin's enlightenment, but it
functions in our practice as if it were. The Daishonin
explains: “I, Nichiren, have inscribed my life in
sumi ink, so believe in the Gohonzon with your whole heart.
The Buddha's will is the Lotus Sutra, but the
soul of Nichiren is nothing other than
Nam-myoho-renge-kyo” (WND, 412). When we put
our faith in the Gohonzon and pray to it in the
spirit of this passage, the Gohonzon
transforms itself from mere paper and ink into a concrete
manifestation of the Daishonin's enlightenment in the
reality of our consciousness. The Gohonzon thus works
as an external stimulus that calls forth our
inner potential of Buddhahood. On one hand, we
know that the Gohonzon is a symbolic
representation of our Buddha nature. In our
practice, on the other hand, we pray to it as if it
were the actual embodiment of the Daishonin's enlightened
life so that we may gain confidence that the selfsame
nature exists within our lives as well. Viewing
the Gohonzon as the embodiment of the
Daishonin's enlightenment is not simplistic
make-believe, although the Gohonzon physically
remains as paper and ink; it is the affirmation of our
faith in the Daishonin's enlightenment and in our own
enlightened potential. The Gohonzon, in a sense, serves
on behalf of the absent Daishonin as a concrete
example of attaining enlightenment.
The Gohonzon, in this way, helps our practice
as both symbol and embodiment of Buddhahood. It
must be noted, however, that the Gohonzon as
an embodiment of enlightenment should not be
taken to mean the mysterious presence of the
divine in the inanimate object. The Gohonzon becomes
an embodiment of Buddhahood through our faith and practice.
In other words, the importance of the Gohonzon as the
embodiment of the Daishonin's enlightenment is
meaningful and real only to the extent that
practitioners pray to it with faith and view it
as an example to follow, not as an external
saving force. The meaning of the Gohonzon as
intended by the Daishonin, in this sense, is created
through a dynamic interaction between the object of devotion
and its devotee. The significance of the Gohonzon,
therefore, would be incomplete without the
practitioner's faith and practice.
The Treasure Tower: the Imagery of the Gohonzon
The design of the Gohonzon dates back to the
origin of Mahayana Buddhism, which took shape
around the turn of the first century in India.
In reaction to monastic Buddhism, which
emphasized personal salvation through austerities,
Mahayana Buddhists stressed the importance of altruism
and the role of lay practitioners (i.e., bodhisattvas)
to spread the teachings. The Mahayanists called
their doctrine “Mahayana” or “the greater
vehicle” to carry the masses to the shore of
enlightenment while referring to monastic
Buddhism as “Hinayana” or “the lesser vehicle.”
The popular Mahayana movement developed around
the worship of stupas—mounds or towers
originally built to enshrine Shakyamuni's relics.
After Shakyamuni's death, which is dated by many scholars
around the fourth or fifth century before the Common Era,
his lay followers started to build these
stupas, especially during the reign of King
Ashoka (268-232 BCE), who was the third ruler
of the Maurya dynasty and the first king to
unify India. Many lay followers gathered around the
stupas and paid homage to the Buddha, who was now absent.
The popularity of stupa worship is evident in
the central role of the jeweled tower in the
Lotus Sutra, one of the early Mahayana sutras,
which is thought to have been compiled around
the first century.8 The Daishonin used the stupa
or “treasure tower” from the Lotus Sutra as a
chief graphic motif for inscribing the Gohonzon. Down
the center of the Gohonzon is written “Nam-myoho-renge-kyo
Nichiren,” which signifies his awakening to the
universal law of Nam-myoho-renge-kyo or Buddhahood.
As he explains, “The treasure tower is
Nam-myoho-renge-kyo” (WND, 299), the Daishonin
views the treasure tower depicted in the Lotus
Sutra as symbolic of the Buddha nature inherent
within the lives of all people. Thus he addresses one
of his disciples as follows: “Abutsu-bo is therefore
the treasure tower itself, and the treasure tower is
Abutsu-bo himself” (WND, 299).
The inscriptions on both sides of
“Nam-myoho-renge-kyo Nichiren” on the Gohonzon
depict the assembly of various living beings
who gather around the treasure tower to listen
to Shakyamuni's preaching as described in the
Lotus Sutra. Some of them are not even humans, such as
the dragon king's daughter who demonstrates her enlightenment.
The diversity of this so-called Assembly in the
Air in the Lotus Sutra reflects the nature of
the early stupa worship, which was not limited
to the elite priestly class but was open to
people from all walks of life. These inscriptions
on the Gohonzon represent the ten states of existence
(i.e., the Ten Worlds): intense suffering and despair
(Hell); insatiable desires (Hunger); selfish
foolishness (Animality); arrogance and
belligerence (Anger); transient calmness
(Humanity); intense yet temporary rapture (Heaven);
self-improvement (Learning); self-awakening to the partial
truths of nature and humanity (Realization); altruism
(Bodhisattva); and the indestructible state of
happiness rooted in compassion and wisdom
(Buddhahood). The Gohonzon graphically shows
that each of these ten states of existence—when
firmly grounded in the law of Nam-myoho-renge-kyo—exhibits
its most positive functions to nurture one's life and
happiness. For example, although we may find
ourselves in the state of Hell, through our
prayer to the Gohonzon, we can transform our
intense suffering and despair into a source of
strength and hope to overcome our difficulties.
Incidentally, some ritual aspects involving our practice
to the Gohonzon may be reminiscent of the stupa worship
of the early Mahayana Buddhists. For example, the
sounding of the bell may derive from the
offerings of music often performed in front of a
stupa. Other offerings to the Gohonzon may
also be traced backed to early stupa worship,
such as the offerings of flowers and incense as depicted
in the Lotus Sutra.
Words and Imagery: Subjective Universality
The mode of expression that the Daishonin chose
for the imagery of the treasure tower is
unique. He depicted the treasure tower and the
surrounding assembly of various beings in
written characters. While there are examples of
pictorial depictions of the treasure tower or calligraphic
religious objects that predate the Gohonzon,9 the
Daishonin's imagery of the treasure tower
depicted solely in written characters was rare
if not unprecedented. His use of graphic
characters follows the emphasis placed on scriptures in
the Buddhist tradition .After Shakyamuni's death, stupas
containing Shakyamuni's relics became objects of
veneration among lay practitioners. Soon the
pictorial and sculptural images of Shakyamuni
and other imagined Buddhas, as well as
bodhisattvas and Buddhist deities, were produced as
religious icons. Furthermore, especially within the Mahayana
tradition, greater emphasis was placed on scriptures,
even to the point where people literally
worshiped the scrolls of Buddhist texts. For
example, in medieval India, the Wisdom (Skt
Prajnaparamita) sutras became the objects of
devotion among many Mahayana Buddhists.10 Regarding
the religious importance of scriptures within the Mahayana
tradition, Jacob N. Kinnard comments: “Relics and
stupas are certainly worthy of veneration…but the
book is more valuable and more valued, because
the book is the source of the Tathagata's
wisdom, and consequently the source of his
attainment of enlightenment, and thus the
source of the value of the relics.”11
The Daishonin also often stresses the important
role of written materials, particularly the
Lotus Sutra. For example, he states: “The Lotus
Sutra is both the teaching of the Buddha and
the embodiment of the Buddha wisdom. If one
puts sincere faith in each character and brushstroke
in it, then one will become a Buddha in one's present
form” (WND, 969). In refuting medieval Zen Buddhism,
which rejected the role of Buddhist scriptures, the
Daishonin states: “If one disregards written
characters, what else could one regard as the
Buddha's work?” (Gosho Zenshu, p. 153). He also
writes: “Characters are the forms that
manifest the minds of all living beings” (GZ,
380).
The
Daishonin's use of written characters as a medium
for the Gohonzon reflects his strong belief in the role
of written materials in communicating not only the material
reality of things, but also the spiritual
reality of humanity. The Daishonin's use of the
treasure tower's imagery as a graphic motif
for the Gohonzon and his use of written
characters as a medium of expression show his profound
insight into the nature of religious worship. He seems
to have understood how an image and a written text speak
differently to our minds. In inscribing the
Gohonzon as an image expressed in characters,
the Daishonin unifies the specificity of a
graphic image with the universality of written
characters to convey the reality of the Buddha
nature that is unique to each person and simultaneously
universal to all people. The subjective yet universal
aspect of the Buddha nature is at the core of the
Daishonin's teaching, which promotes our
awareness of the supreme potential not only in
our lives but in the lives of others as well.
The Gohonzon is concrete in the sense that it
depicts a specific image. But it is not a
pictorial image of the treasure tower,
Shakyamuni or Nichiren Daishonin himself. If
the Gohonzon took such a form, it would be easy to
view the Gohonzon as a depiction of someone else's life
or an event far removed from our lives. If the Gohonzon
were rendered as the Daishonin's image, for
example, we might respect it, but we would not
identify with it. For we simply don't look like
a thirteenth-century Japanese monk! The
Daishonin instead created the Gohonzon in characters
to depict the specific imagery of the treasure tower from
the Lotus Sutra, which symbolizes our innate
Buddhahood. Written characters are suited to
express universal concepts. But they are often
abstract and lack a sense of immediacy. Images,
on the other hand, are better suited to elicit
personal responses from their viewers because they are
more immediate to our senses. The Gohonzon, in terms of
its graphic motif and calligraphic medium, is a hybrid
of written and visual communication. Judging
from the way the Daishonin chose to inscribe
the Gohonzon, he probably intended it to
communicate both conceptually and sensuously to
our minds the universality of the Buddha nature and
its immediacy to our lives.
Jean Paul Friedrich Richter, a German literary
critic, explains the subjective yet universal
nature of poetry as follows: “Poetry should
become like the moon, which by night follows
one wanderer in the woods from peak to peak and
at the same time another from wave to wave and
thus attends each, while it simply describes
its great arc across heaven and yet ultimately draws it
around the earth and around the wanderers also.”12
Richter's analogy of the moon is fit to
describe the functions of the Gohonzon. The
Gohonzon illuminates the existence of
Buddhahood for each practitioner. At the same time,
the Gohonzon traces the orbit of enlightenment for all
people to see. The Gohonzon—like the moon individually
following all travelers on earth—sheds light on
the innate Buddhahood in each of us.
The Daishonin's intent to make the Gohonzon's
meaning universal to all people is also evident
in the linguistic and cultural aspects of the
Gohonzon. He used the words and personages of
India, China and Japan to depict the
Gohonzon.13
Two
Buddhist deities are inscribed in a medieval Sanskrit
orthography; Great Bodhisattva Hachiman comes from Japanese
mythology, and there is the Great Teacher
T'ien-t'ai, who established the Lotus Sutra's
supremacy in medieval China. In medieval Japan,
those three countries were viewed as the
entirety of the civilized world. In other words,
the Daishonin probably wished to make the Gohonzon universal
in its language and content as well.
Some of the physical features of the Gohonzon
suggest the Daishonin's minute considerations
to make the object of devotion suited to the
message that it carries to each and all
practitioners: the personal yet universal reality
of the Buddha nature. Of course, what is most important
in our practice is the act of chanting Nam-myoho-renge-kyo
to the Gohonzon. The seemingly minor details of
the Gohonzon, however, sometimes reveal much
about the Daishonin's wisdom and compassion.
The goal of this article is that knowing those
details may help us become more aware of the Daishonin's
intent behind his inscription of the Gohonzon and thereby
pray more strongly and confidently.
1. The
Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church. 3rd
edition. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997.
“Iconoclastic Controversy,” pp. 815-16.
2. Ibid. “Eucharist,” p. 567; “Transubstantiation,” p. 1637.
3. Ibid. “Consubstantiation,” p. 408.
4. Ibid. “Eucharist,” p. 567.
5. The object of devotion in Nichiren
Daishonin's Buddhism is called the Gohonzon.
“Go” is an honorific prefix, and “honzon” means
an object of fundamental respect.
6. Many Treasures is a Buddha who appeared, seated
within the treasure tower at the Ceremony in
the Air, in order to lend credence to
Shakyamuni's teachings in the Lotus Sutra.
7. Three kinds of body that a Buddha possesses,
namely: (1) the Dharma body, which indicates
the fundamental truth or Law to which a Buddha
is enlightened; (2) the reward body, which
indicates the wisdom; and (3) the manifested
body, or the merciful actions of a Buddha to save people
and the physical form that he assumes for that purpose.
The three bodies are generally considered to be three
different types of Buddhas, but in the Lotus
Sutra they are shown to be the three aspects of
a single Buddha (“Glossary, ”WND, 1275).
8.Nakamura, Hajime. Indian Buddhism: A Survey
with Bibliographical Notes. Delhi: Motilal
Banarsidass Publishers, 1989. p. 186.
9. Stone, Jacqueline I. Original Enlightenment and
the Transformation of Medieval Japanese
Buddhism. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press,
1999. pp. 272-88.
10. Kinnard, Jacob N.
Imaging Wisdom: Seeing and Knowing in the Art
of Indian Buddhism. Surrey: Curzon Press, 1999.
pp. 114-47.
11. Ibid. p. 119.
12. Richter, Jean Paul Friedrich. “School for
Aesthetics.” German Romantic Criticism. The
German Library: Vol. 21. Ed. A. Leslie Willson.
New York: Continuum, 1982. p. 45.
13. For
the meaning of each inscription on the Gohonzon,
see the “Diagram of the Gohonzon Transcribed by
High Priest Nichikan” and “Further Explanation”
in Living Buddhism, November 1997, pp. 16-17, pp. 19-24.
