The Three Presidents

History of the Three Presidents of Soka Gakkai International

From its inception as an educators' group under Tsunesaburō Makiguchi's leadership, the Sōka Gakkai transformed by the 1930s into a lay religious organization affiliated with the Nichiren Shōshū priesthood. Suppressed during World War II, the organization experienced rapid growth under Jōsei Toda's leadership in the aftermath of the war. Daisaku Ikeda's leadership marked a period of overseas expansion that led to the founding of Sōka Gakkai International (SGI) in 1975.

Inception 

Sōka Gakkai was founded as the Sōka Kyōiku Gakkai (創価教育学会, lit. "Value Creating Educational Society") on November 18, 1930, by Japanese educator Tsunesaburō Makiguchi and his colleague Jōsei Toda to promote reform in Japan's "highly regimented" education system that was "designed to train loyal citizens." His ideas on education, and his theory of value-creation (創価, sōka), are explored in his 1930 work Sōka Kyōikugaku Taikei (創価教育学体系, The Theory of Value-Creating Pedagogy). In 1928 Makiguchi converted to Nichiren Shōshū Buddhism. In the 1930s Makiguchi and Toda broadened the organization's focus to social reform based on Makiguchi's theory of sōka and the tenets of Nichiren Buddhism^.

Makiguchi and Toda challenged the militarist government and its war mobilization efforts, refusing to accede to State Shintō and emperor worship. The two, along with other top leaders, were imprisoned in 1943, as "thought criminals". During interrogation, Makiguchi declared: "the Emperor is a common mortal... The Emperor himself should not be telling people to be loyal to him. This should be struck from the Imperial Rescript on Education". Of the top leaders arrested, only Makiguchi and Toda did not renounce their faith and beliefs. Makiguchi died in prison of malnutrition at age 73, and Toda was released July 3, 1945.

Post-World War II growth

Jōsei Toda, Second President of the Sōka Gakkai

Toda was released from prison in 1945 and, after World War II, rebuilt the organization as a religious movement of social reform, renaming it the Sōka Gakkai. Under Toda's leadership from 1951, when he became the second president, until his death in 1958, Sōka Gakkai membership grew from 3,000 to 750,000 households. Political historian Hiroshi Aruga points out that: "The Sōka Gakkai membership rapidly increased, mainly among those who were of the downtrodden classes in large urban areas and who were excluded from the benefits of upward swing during the reconstruction period of postwar Japan."

In a bid to promote democratic representation of the disenfranchised in society, the Sōka Gakkai fielded local assembly candidates in 1955, and, by 1964, the political party Kōmeitō ("Clean Government Party") was founded. In 1970, the Sōka Gakkai clarified its stance on religion and state relations, reaffirming that Kōmeitō "has no part in Sōka Gakkai's religious activities or efforts to win people to the faith.1. Sōka Gakkai aims at kosen-rufu. It is a Buddhist cultural movement; political advance in and of itself is not its purpose. 2. Sōka Gakkai has long opposed the Nichiren Shōshū demand that Nichiren Buddhism become the state religion and will continue to oppose it. 3. The Kōmeitō exists for the welfare of the public. It has no part in Sōka Gakkai's religious activities or efforts to win people to the faith. Sōka Gakkai is, however, one of Kōmeitō's supporting organizations and will uphold it in elections. 4. In order to make clear the difference between the two organizations, Kōmeitō members of national and local assemblies will be removed from Sōka Gakkai administrative posts.

From Japan's post-war years the Sōka Gakkai emerged as the largest lay organization of Nichiren Buddhist practitioners, claiming membership of 8.27 million households in Japan. It is one of the most successful of new religious movements in Japan's post-war period.

International expansion

Josei Toda was succeeded as president in 1960 by the 32-year-old Daisaku Ikeda, who had also experienced the horrors of war in Japan as a youth. Ikeda immediately set about building the foundations of an international movement, traveling overseas to meet and encourage the first pioneer Soka Gakkai members outside of Japan. He also founded a series of institutions to help build solidarity for peace, in the fields of culture and the arts, peace research and education. The SGI under his leadership has emerged as one of the largest and most dynamic Buddhist movements in the world, including the countries in North America, South America, Australia and parts of Asia, Africa and Europe, fostering and promoting grassroots activities in areas such as nuclear weapons abolition, sustainability and human rights education and cultural exchange.


*History and the pictures of Tsunesaburo Makiguchi and Josei Toda was taken from Wikipedia and Daisaku Ikeda's picture from google images.