n.
orig. Zennichi
born March 30, 1222, Kominato, Japan
died Nov. 14, 1282, Ikegami
Japanese Buddhist prophet, founder of Nichiren Buddhism .
The son of a fisherman, he entered a Buddhist monastery at age 11. After an exhaustive study of all the major Buddhist schools in Japan, he concluded in 1253 that the Lotus Sutra was the only doctrine suitable for his age and predicted calamity for Japan if all other sects were not abandoned. This pronouncement caused him to be banished from his monastery. He also claimed that Japan was the chosen country of Buddhism, from which Buddhist salvation would spread to other lands. He was later exiled to an island in the Sea of Japan, where in 1272 he wrote his major work, Liberation from Blindness .