Nichiren Shonin's Propagation of the Lotus Sutra through his Writings

Abstract

Nichiren's attitude was to vigorously promote his ideas. Focusing on engagingin as much communication as he could with his followers, he was a prolific letter writer, thus producing a great volume of writings. A collection of about 280 of his authenticated works are contained in the volume The Complete Works of Nichiren Shonin, co-authored by Dr. Hoyo Watanabe and Dr. Hosho Komatsu. This volume is upheld as the standard for present-day research on Nichiren Shonin. There are about 260 works in the collection that are classified as letters, although some of these are quite lengthy and could be considrered as treatises or theses. My purpose for this presentation is to try to classify these letters by purpose and subject.