Nichiren 1222 – 1282

Nichiren was a Japanese Buddhist priest of the Kamakura period and the founder of the school of Buddhism that bears his name. After decades of study across the major schools of Japanese Buddhism, he came to the conviction that the Lotus Sutra alone contains the complete teaching of the Buddha and that, in the degenerate age of the Latter Day of the Law, salvation is to be sought through devotion to it expressed in the chant Namu Myoho Renge Kyo. His public denunciations of rival schools and of the political authorities led to exile and an attempted execution. His teaching has shaped one of the largest movements of modern Japanese Buddhism.