Nichiren
The Buddhist Prophet (Classic Reprint)

Excerpt from Nichiren: The Buddhist Prophet<br><br>Since the appearance of Professor James' "Varieties of Religious Experience," the attention of scholars has been strongly drawn toward men of original religious experience, with emphasis on the psychological point of view, disregarding doctrinal considerations. A conspicuous result of the change brought about by this book is that religious psychology has been extended from a study of material taken from the average masses, to the study of strong personalities and their characteristic faith. The primary motive of the present work is to contribute to this newer branch of religious psychology a study of a man who has been comparatively unknown to Western scholars. Another impetus to the publication of this study was derived from the encouragement given by Professor Royce. After reading his book, "The Problem of Christianity," I presented to him an essay on the Buddhist conception of life, as a counterpart of his chapter on the Christian doctrine of life. A reference to Nichiren made in that paper led me to tell the senior philosopher of Harvard more about the Buddhist prophet. The present volume is a result of his advice and encouragement to write something on Nichiren.<br><br>Nichiren's personality has various peculiar interests of its own. Besides the points which I have tried to bring out in this book, it is deserving of special mention that a great amount of material for the study of his life is available in his numerous writings, amounting to more than four hundred essays and epistles.<br><br>About the Publisher<br><br>Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com<br><br>This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.