Kenjuin Nichikan 堅樹院日寛 (1665–1726) was the 26th chief priest of the Taisekiji 大石寺, the head temple of Nichiren Shōshū. He is famous in the history of Nichiren doctrine as the scholar who systematized the philosophy of the Taisekiji.
One assertion of Nichikan’s religious thought is that one should not create statues of the Buddha in the age of the degeneration of the law (mappō 末法). However, Kōzōin Nisshin 広蔵院日辰, who was active about 160 years before Nichikan, had insisted that statues of the Buddha should indeed be erected. In this way, although the two monks belonged to the same “Nikkōmon school (日興門流)”, their ideas differed.
Since the religious thought of Nisshin was the mainstream at the Taisekiji at that time, Nichikan severely criticized Nisshin’s claim in his work called the Zōbutsu rongi 造仏論義 in order to change the mainstream religious thought of the Taisekiji to follow his own views.
