Nikko, Taisekiji, and the Claim of Sole Transmission

Nichiren named six senior disciples before his death in 1282 and arranged for them to take turns tending his grave at Mount Minobu. Within a few years Nikko had left, and the accounts of why differ: the Nikko lineage holds that the lay steward of the area and the other disciples had begun to accommodate practices Nichiren rejected, while other Nichiren schools read the departure differently. Nikko founded Taisekiji at the foot of Mount Fuji in 1290, and that temple is the head temple of Nichiren Shoshu today.

The school holds that Nichiren transferred the entirety of his teaching to Nikko alone, and it points to two documents of transfer as evidence. Other Nichiren schools dispute the authenticity of those documents, and the question is therefore both a historical one about thirteenth century manuscripts and a live institutional one about who stands in the line.

Two doctrinal positions follow from the claim. The first is that Nichiren is the true Buddha of this age, the original Buddha whom Shakyamuni was preparing the world for, rather than a teacher who pointed towards Shakyamuni. The second is the unique standing of the Dai-Gohonzon, an object of devotion kept at Taisekiji and held to have been inscribed by Nichiren for all humanity. Together these make the school a priestly institution with something at its centre that exists nowhere else.