Back to the Index

Back to the Gosho

Rationale for Submitting the Rissho Ankoku Ron
- Ankoku Ron Gokan Yurai -

BACKGROUND:

In the first month of 1268, envoys from Kublai Khan arrived at the Dazaifu government offices in Kyushu. Proceeding to Kamakura, they presented the shogunate with a message from the Khan demanding, in veiled terms, that Japan acknowledge fealty to the Mongol Empire. The envoys were sent back without an answer, and the government began taking steps to defend the country against foreign attack.

At this time, Nichiren wrote the short work known as "The  Rationale for Writing the Rissho Ankoku Ron" ("Ankoku Ron Gokan Yurai") and sent it to a man named Hokan-bo. Little is known about this man; his name indicates that he was a Buddhist priest, but he would appear to have been active in government circles.

Nichiren explains the circumstances that led to his writing of the "Rissho Ankoku Ron" eight years earlier and points out that the arrival of the Mongol emissaries with their threatening message substantiates the prophecy of foreign invasion that he had made in that treatise.

In the tenth month of the same year, Nichiren sent letters to eleven high-ranking political and religious leaders, including the regent Hojo Tokimune (1251-1284), the Chinese Zen priest Lanch'i Tao-lung (Rankei Doryu, 1213-1278) of Kencho-ji, and the Ritsu priest Ryokan Ninsho (1217-1303) of Gokuraku-ji, pointing out that the predictions in his "Rissho Ankoku Ron" were now being fulfilled and demanding the opportunity to demonstrate the validity of his teachings in public religious debate. He failed to receive any response to his letters.

Designed by Will Kallander