Tanaka Chigaku

Tanaka Chigaku (田中智學, 1861–1939) was a Japanese Buddhist scholar and preacher of Nichiren Buddhism, orator, writer and ultranationalist propagandist in the Meiji, Taishō and early Shōwa periods. He is considered to be the father of Nichirenism, the fiercely ultranationalistic blend of Nichiren Buddhism and State Shinto espoused by such figures as Nissho Inoue, Kanji Ishiwara and Ikki Kita. Notably, however, the children's writer, poet, and rural activist Kenji Miyazawa also idolized Tanaka, and both Miyazawa and Ishiwara joined his flagship organization, the Kokuchūkai, in 1920.

Born Tada Tomonosuke in Tokyo (then called Edo), the third son of a noted physician and former devotee of Pure Land Buddhism who had converted to Nichiren Buddhism, Tanaka was placed under the care of the Rev. Kawase Nichiren following the death of his parents in 1870. Enrolled as a novice at Kawase's temple, he later entered the Nichiren Buddhist academy of Daikyo-in (the predecessor to Rissho University), during which time he adopted the sobriquet "Chigaku" "Wisdom and Learning".

However, during this time, Tanaka came to be disillusioned with the sect's leadership, who he considered too passive in their teachings, and in 1879 he abandoned the priesthood and set out to establish himself as a lay preacher of the "true" Nichiren Buddhism. Briefly employed at a German engineering company in Yokohama, he was quickly drawn to religious proselytizing, joining the lay organization Nichirenkai (日蓮会) as a preacher, in which capacity he honed his public speaking skills and developed his own distinct uncompromising Nichiren doctrine, which he came to refer to as "Nichirenism" (日蓮主義, Nichirenshugi).

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