Namu Myōhō Renge Kyō
Japanese Buddhist mantra
Namu Myōhō Renge Kyō (Kanji: 南無妙法蓮華経) is a Japanese sacred phrase chanted within all forms of Nichiren Buddhism. In English, it means "Devotion to the Mystic Dharma of the Lotus Flower Sutra" or "Homage to the Sublime Dharma of the Lotus Sutra".
The words Myōhō Renge Kyō refer to the Japanese title of the Lotus Sūtra (Sanskrit: Saddharmapuṇḍarīkasūtra). The phrase is referred to as the Daimoku (題目) , meaning title, and was publicly taught by the Japanese Buddhist priest Nichiren on 28 April 1253 atop Mount Kiyosumi, now memorialized by Seichō-ji temple in Kamogawa, Chiba prefecture, Japan.
In Nichiren Buddhism, the practice of prolonged Daimoku chanting is referred to as Shōdai (唱題). Nichiren Buddhist believers claim that the purpose of chanting is to reduce suffering by eradicating negative karma and all karmic retribution, while also advancing the practitioner on the path to perfect and complete awakening.
History
Lotus Sutra devotion had a long history in China and Japan (especially in the Tiantai school), but it was generally associated with chanting whole chapters of the sutra, or the whole sutra itself, not simply the title. A homage similar to the daimoku is found in Chinese ritual texts belonging to the Tiantai school, such as in the Lotus Repentance of Zhiyi, the founder of the tradition. However, these homage phrases are only recited once as part of the entire ritual, not as a repetitive chant.
The Fahua ch'uan-chi, a Tang dynasty Chinese Lotus Sutra devotional text, contains at least two stories of individuals being saved from hell by reciting "Námó miàofǎ liánhuá jīng", but this is just a single recitation, and the text does not discuss its use as a chant used in continuous religious practice.
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This entry incorporates text from “Namu Myōhō Renge Kyō” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.