Philosophy of Peace
Who is Daisaku Ikeda? At one level, he is the leader of a religious movement – Soka Gakkai – which began in Japan, where it still has its headquarters, but which now claims 12 million adherents around the world. At another level, he is a globetrotting figure whose formal conversations with diverse writers, thinkers and diplomats – including Arnold Toynbee, Joseph Rotblat and Mikhail Gorbachev – have garnered him an international profile, as well as academic recognition. Perhaps above all else, Daisaku Ikeda is viewed as a campaigner for peace. And it is Ikeda’s specific contribution to peace building, notably through the central emphasis he has placed on the significance of dialogue, that this book explores: the first to do so in a concerted way. Olivier Urbain shows that while Soka Gakkai (the ‘value society’) may stem from the medieval principles of Nichiren Buddhism, under Ikeda’s leadership it has taken these classic wisdoms and transformed them.
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