The successors of Nikkyo

"It is assertive propagation while undergoing persecution and beating for the Dharma by the Nichiju lineage since the founder, the Orthodox Teacher Nichiju, such as in the Onin Persecution when the Third Abbot of the Head Temple Myomanji, Nichinin, Nichijitsu and others spread the teaching unfazed by the torture of boiling water, the assertive transmission of the way by the Tenth Abbot Nichijun and the Sixteenth Abbot Nittai, and especially the heroic deed of Nittai in establishing the "Seven Village Hokke", the Persecution at Azuchi Castle of the Twenty sixth Abbot Nichigen, the Persecution of the Keicho Era of the Twenty-seventh Abbot Nikkyo and so on, that is the peculiarity of our Nichiju lineage, the Kempon Hokke Sect.

In particular, the successors of Nikkyo, who was persecuted for the Dharma by amputation of his ears and nose, incurred the animosity of the Tokugawa Shogunate and day and night suffered persecution after persecution, oppression after oppression for the Dharma. In these they were beheaded, imprisoned, burned, sent into distant exiled, exiled on islands for twenty or thirty years and their martyrs' blood flowed, their noble "life" was extinguished. Those of Nikkyo's lineage were contemptuously named the "New Disciples" (Shin monto) by the general public but they themselves named themselves "the Congregation of the Orthodoxy of the Original Doctrine" (Hommon shogi shu) and "the Right Old Doctrine (the Old Orthodoxy) of Nichiju" (Nichiju Koshogi) and with the boast that they were in the direct lineage of Nichiren Shonin, they went "underground" and continued to keep the fire of the faith burning.

The people of the Right Old Doctrine in order to continue the Right Faith (sho shin) secretly founded the Daimoku Confraternity (called the Confraternity of the Daimoku of Inner Realization: Naisho Daimoku ko) and expounded the doctrine centered on the biographical traditions of the Three Teachers (Lord Shakya, Nichiren Daishonin, and our founder Nichiju).

It is this very fact that through the storms of religious persecution and suppression lasting three hundred tempestuous years they endured without falling into local folk religion but kept the doctrine that is a living example of the Succession Through the Scrolls of Sutra. It is something we boast of to other lineages and religions." -- Tetsujo Kubota