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Biography of Daisaku IkedaName: Daisaku IkedaBirth Date: January 2, 1928 Death Date: N/A Place of Birth: Tokyo, Japan Nationality: Japanese Gender: Male Occupations: religious leader, writer Daisaku Ikeda Daisaku Ikeda (born 1928), a Japanese Buddhist writer and religious leader, was the third president of the rapidly growing Soka Gakkai, a lay Buddhist organization whose goal was to promote Nichiren Sho-shu, "True" Nichiren Buddhism, worldwide. He founded the Komeito or "Clean Government Party," a successful minority political party in Japan whose goal was to establish a "Buddhist democracy."Daisaku Ikeda was born in Tokyo, Japan, on January 2, 1928, the son of a seaweed vendor. His formal education ended with graduation from Fuji Junior College. At the age of 19 he became an employee and disciple of Toda Josei. The Japanese government had imprisoned Toda and his mentor, Tsunesaburo Makiguchi, for refusal to participate in the state rites of Shinto and to conform to government restrictions on religion. Upon release a year before Ikeda joined him, Toda began to reconstruct the lay Buddhist religious movement of which Makiguchi was the founder under the …showed first 150 words…
…showed last 150 words…Japan's New Buddhism: An Objective Account of Soka Gakkai (1969), based primarily on the movement's own publications. One of the polemical works which the movement is alleged to have attempted to suppress is available, Hirotatsu Fujiwara, I Denounce Soka Gakki (1970), and one scholarly observer of contemporary religion, Shigeyoshi Murakami, includes the movement in his Japanese Religion in the Modern Century (1980). Terasa Watanabe's "Japan's Crusader or Corruptor?" in the Los Angeles Times (March 15, 1996) looks at some of the controversies that have surrounded Ikeda's remarkable career.The U.S. branch of the movement, known as Nichiren Shoshu of America, publishes articles and pamphlets by Ikeda in English. A number of Ikeda's works have been translated into English. See particularly Lectures on Buddhism (1962), The Living Buddha: An Interpretive Biography (1976), and Buddhism, the First Millennium (1977). Readily available is the Oxford University Press publication of a dialogue between Ikeda and Arnold Toynbee, Choose Life: A Dialogue (1976). |