Preface
The Kingdom of Nepal, the birthplace of Shakyamuni Buddha, is one of the spiritual
homes of humanity. In November 1995, I visited the country for the first time and had
the honor of meeting His Majesty King Birendra Bir Bikram Shah Dev. I was awarded
an honorary doctorate in literature at Tribhuvan University in Kathmandu, and delivered
a commemorative lecture entitled “The Living Lessons of Gautama Buddha.” I still
have vivid memories of the beautiful smiles of the people who extended a heartfelt
welcome to me. The Suttanipāta (422-423) gives an account of the Shakyas, a bravetribe who had lived in the southern foothills of the Himalayas since antiquity. They
called themselves “Scions of the Sun.” I cannot but sense a wonderful relationshipbetween Nepal, the “Land of the Sun,” and the Buddhist teachings of the great sage
Nichiren (Sun Lotus) which the Soka Gakkai upholds.
In November 1992 I had a chance to talk with Prof. Soorya B. Shakya, former
vice-chancellor of Tribhuvan University, in Tokyo. Our dialogue focused on“Shakyamuni, the teacher of humanity,” and the Lotus Sutra. Professor Shakya made an
insightful observation on the “Ceremony in the Air” described in the sutra, saying thatthe ceremony symbolizes the Buddha’s vast state of life, which in its present state
contains the lands of the ten directions (i.e., entire dimensions of space) of both the pastand future. In other words, Buddhahood transcends time and space. The great sage
Nichiren described the “Ceremony in the Air” as one that spans the three existences ofpast, present and future. With regard to the innumerable bodhisattvas who emerged
from within the earth during the ceremony, he declared, “Nichiren alone took the lead incarrying out the task of the Bodhisattvas of the Earth.... If you are of the same mind as
Nichiren, you must be a Bodhisattva of the Earth.” He meant that both he and his
disciples were Bodhisattvas of the Earth appearing in the latter day.
In this evil age of the five impurities, as the sutra puts it, people can hope tomanifest their innate Buddha nature only when they courageously fight a spiritualstruggle against injustice. That is exactly what Josei Toda, my mentor and the second
president of the Soka Gakkai, did. Mr. Toda was made a prisoner of conscience by themilitarist regime during the Second World War. While in prison, he read the Lotus
Sutra with his entire being until he finally realized the truth: “The Buddha is life itself;
it is the reality of the cosmic life.”
He then envisioned himself participating in the Ceremony in the Air as one of theBodhisattvas of the Earth. It was his intuitive grasp of that eternal ceremony in all its
solemnity and glory that led Mr. Toda, after being released from prison, to uphold andspread the essence of the Lotus Sutra as the key to the inner revolution for all people. I
remember my mentor admonishing us to “strive as hard as possible to help elevate themoral character of all human beings to the highest level.”
During our November 1992 meeting in Tokyo, Professor Shakya presented mewith a precious reproduction of a Lotus Sutra manuscript (no.3-678) from the collectionof the National Archives of Nepal. The country is a veritable treasure-house of sutra
manuscripts from the medieval era. I was told that, in addition to the vast collection of
the national archives, manuscripts preserved from two or three centuries ago are often
found even in private homes. These are indeed indispensable resources for research on
Buddhist literature, especially sutra texts. I would like to express my deepest respect forthe people of Nepal who have treasured their priceless cultural heritage in this way.
The publication of this Nepalese palm-leaf version of the Sanskrit Lotus Sutra text
(no. 4-21) represents a noble undertaking to revive Shakyamuni’s spirit in our own time.
I hope that it will contribute to the preservation of a spiritual legacy of humankind andprovide material for research in the study of Sanskrit sutra texts. I believe that it will bea source of light in the twenty-first century. In closing, I would like to express mysincerest gratitude to the officials and the staff specialists of the National Archives ofNepal as well as of the Ministry of Youth, Sports and Culture of the Kingdom of Nepal
for their invaluable assistance and cooperation in making this publication possible.
Daisaku Ikeda
President
Soka Gakkai International
August 24, 1998