Soka Gakkai

Soka Gakkai (Japanese: 創価学会, Hepburn: Sōka Gakkai; "creating value study group") is a Japanese new religion founded in 1930 based on the teachings of the 13th-century Japanese Buddhist priest Nichiren. Sōka Gakkai has been led by Minoru Harada since December 2023. It claims the largest membership among Nichiren Buddhist groups. The organization bases its teachings on Nichiren's interpretation of the Lotus Sutra and places chanting Nam Myōhō Renge Kyō at the center of devotional practice. The organization promotes its goals as supporting "peace, culture, and education".

Soka Gakkai was founded by educators Makiguchi and Toda on 18 November 1930, and held its inaugural meeting in 1937. It was disbanded during the Second World War when much of the leadership was imprisoned for violations of the 1925 Peace Preservation Law and charges of lèse-majesté. After the war, its expansion was led by its former third president Daisaku Ikeda. In Japan, Soka Gakkai is the head of Komeito, a conservative party allied with the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, and founded by Daisaku Ikeda in 1964. It heads a financial, educational and media empire, including newspapers, publishing houses, financial holdings and a network of schools.

Soka Gakkai says it has 11 million members in 192 countries and territories around the world. However, this figure is not supported by any independent count. According to the American academic Levi McLaughlin, membership in Japan is closer to 2–3% of the country's population, or between 2.4 and 4 million people.

Soka Gakkai is still viewed with suspicion in Japan and has been embroiled in public controversies. Komeito, a political party closely aligned with Soka Gakkai and founded by elements of its lay membership, entered a coalition agreement with the Liberal Democratic Party in 1999 and was formerly a junior partner in government until the coalition's dissolution in 2025. Soka Gakkai has been described as a cult.

The beliefs of Soka Gakkai center on recognizing that all life has dignity with infinite inherent potential; this immanent Buddhahood exists in every person and can be awakened through the Buddhist practice prescribed by Nichiren. Further, a person's social actions at every moment can lead to soka, or the creation of value (the theory of the interdependence of life). Societal change is facilitated through "human revolution", a way of living in the world that creates value.

The doctrine of Soka Gakkai derives from Nichiren, who promulgated the Lotus Sutra as he perceived its application to the epoch in which he and people today live. Soka Gakkai gives significance to Nichiren's writings, referred to as gosho, and refers especially to the collection of Nichiren's writings that Nichiko Hori compiled and Jōsei Toda, published as Nichiren Daishonin Gosho Zenshu in 1952.

T'ien-t'ai (538–597), a Chinese Buddhist scholar who upheld the Lotus Sutra, developed a theoretical system to describe the infinite interconnectedness of life translated as "the principle of the mutually inclusive relationship of a single moment of life and all phenomena" or "three thousand realms in a single moment of life" (Japanese: ichinen sanzen). This theory demonstrates that the phenomenal world exists in a single moment. Soka Gakkai members believe that because Nichiren made actualizing this possible by inscribing Gohonzon and teaching the invocation, their prayers and actions can, in a single moment, pierce through limitations.

Soka Gakkai teaches that this "self-induced change in each individual" – which Josei Toda began referring to as "human revolution" – is what leads to happiness and peace.