page_title: Soka Gakkai
section_title: Foundation
hierarchical_section_title: Soka Gakkai / History / Makiguchi years: 1930–44 / Foundation
caption_attribution_description: Tsunesaburo Makiguchi,First Soka Gakkai president .
context_page_description: Soka Gakkai is a Japanese Buddhist religious movement based on the teachings of the 13th-century Japanese priest Nichiren as taught by its first three presidents Tsunesaburō Makiguchi, Jōsei Toda and Daisaku Ikeda. It is the largest of the Japanese new religions and 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".
  The movement 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, it expanded to a claimed total of 750,000 households in 1958 through explosive recruitment, held to be unprecedented in Japanese media. Further expansion was led by its former third president Daisaku Ikeda. According to its own account, has 12 million members in 192 countries and territories around the world.
context_section_description: In 1928, educators Tsunesaburō Makiguchi and Jōsei Toda both converted to Nichiren Buddhism. The Soka Gakkai officially traces its foundation to November 1930, when Makiguchi and Toda published the first volume of Makiguchi's magnum opus on educational reform, Sōka Kyōikugaku Taikei (創価教育学体系, The System of Value-Creating Pedagogy).  The first general meeting of the organization, then under the name Sōka Kyōiku Gakkai (創価教育学会, "Value Creating Educational Society"), took place in 1937.
  The membership eventually came to change from teachers interested in educational reform to people from all walks of life, drawn by the religious elements of Makiguchi's beliefs in Nichiren Buddhism.  The group had a focus on proselytization growing from an attendance of 60 people at its first meeting to about 300 at its next meeting in 1940.
caption: Tsunesaburō Makiguchi, first President of the Sōka Gakkai
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