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The Imagery of nichiren's Lotus Sutra: Other Chinese Characters of Interest to Buddhists
Rissho Ankoku Ron in Chinese
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The "Ri" of Rissho is a person standing firmly on the ground — established. |
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"Sho" is the image of a path that goes directly to the top of a hill (and then the person at the top can see in all directions). Its meanings are to arrive, to reach a goal without going astray, and — by extension — to be correct. |
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"An" is peace, good order. |
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The symbol for "koku" at left is the treasure of identity and responsibility enclosed with boundaries — in other words, the country. |
Koku2 |
Another common character
for country (koku) is the image at left of boundaries that are protected
by horsemen with lances.
Neither of these characters is the character that Nichiren used. He used a character that meant "the people of the country." |
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"Ron" is a discussion or a discourse. It is composed of three smaller characters: On the left is a mouth with the voice extending from it. On the right are two other characters — on top is the bringing together of diverse elements, and under it are the multitudes. When combined, the smaller characters on the right mean to gather documents to compare, to meditate, and develop them. |