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Daisaku Ikeda (池田大作, Ikeda Daisaku, born 2 January 1928) is a Japanese Buddhist philosopher, educator, author, and nuclear disarmament advocate. He served as the third president and then honorary president of the Soka Gakkai, the largest of Japan's new religious movements.: 5 Ikeda is the founding president of the Soka Gakkai International (SGI), the world's largest Buddhist lay organization, which claims to have approximately 12 million practitioners in 192 countries and territories,[6] more than 1.5 million of whom reside outside of Japan as of 2012.[7]: 269

Ikeda was born in Tokyo, Japan, in 1928, to a family of seaweed farmers. He survived the devastation of World War II as a teenager, which he said left an indelible mark on his life and fueled his quest to solve the fundamental causes of human conflict. At age 19, Ikeda began practicing Nichiren Buddhism and joined a youth group of the Soka Gakkai, which led to his lifelong work developing the global peace movement of SGI and founding dozens of institutions dedicated to fostering peace, culture and education.[8]: 12 [9] His accomplishments are honored internationally; in Japan he has been described as a "controversial figure" over several decades through the 1990s in relation to the political party Kōmeitō, which he founded, and has been the subject of libelous accusations in Japanese media.[10]: 3 [11]: 43 [12]: 147 [13]: 149

In the 1960s, Ikeda worked to reopen Japan's national relations with China and also to establish the Soka education network of schools from kindergartens through university levels, while beginning to write what would become his multi-volume historical novel, The Human Revolution, about the Soka Gakkai's development during his mentor Josei Toda's tenure. In 1975, he established the Soka Gakkai International, and throughout the 1970s initiated a series of citizen diplomacy efforts through international educational and cultural exchanges for peace. Since the 1980s, in his annual peace proposals marking the anniversary of the SGI's founding, he has increasingly called for nuclear disarmament.[8]: 12–13, 26, 167 Ikeda's vision for the SGI was described in 2010 by Olivier Urbain, then director of the Toda Peace Institute founded by Ikeda, as a "borderless Buddhist humanism that emphasizes free thinking and personal development based on respect for all life."[8]: 26

By 2015, Ikeda had published more than 50 dialogues with scholars, peace activists and leading world figures. In his role as SGI president, Ikeda has visited 55 nations and spoken on subjects including peace, environmentalism, economics, women's rights, interfaith dialogue and Buddhism and science.

eda was born in Ōta, Tokyo, Japan, on 2 January 1928. Ikeda had four older brothers, two younger brothers, and a younger sister. His parents later adopted two more children, for a total of 10 children. Since the mid-nineteenth century, the Ikeda family had successfully farmed nori, edible seaweed, in Tokyo Bay. By the turn of the twentieth century, the Ikeda family business was the largest producer of nori in Tokyo. The devastation of the 1923 Great Kantō earthquake left the family's enterprise in ruins; by the time Ikeda was born, his family was financially struggling.[8]: 13

In 1937, the Second Sino-Japanese War erupted, and Ikeda's eldest brother, Kiichi, was drafted into military service. Within a few years, Ikeda's three other elder brothers were drafted as well.[14] In 1942, while all of his older brothers were overseas in the South-East Asian theatre of World War II, Ikeda's father, Nenokichi, fell ill and was bedridden for two years. To help to support his family, at the age of 14, Ikeda began working in the Niigata Steelworks munitions factory as part of Japan's wartime youth labor corps.[15]: 71

In May 1945, Ikeda's home was destroyed by fire during an Allied air raid, and his family was forced to move to the Ōmori area of Tokyo. In May 1947, after having received no word from his eldest brother, Kiichi, for several years, the Ikeda family, particularly his mother, was informed by the Japanese government that he had been killed in action in Burma (now Myanmar).

In August 1947, at the age of 19, Ikeda was invited by an old friend to attend a Buddhist discussion meeting. It was there that he met Josei Toda, the second president of Japan's Soka Gakkai Buddhist organization. As a result of this encounter, Ikeda began practicing Nichiren Buddhism and joined the Soka Gakkai. He regarded Toda as his spiritual mentor and became a charter member of the group's youth division, later recounting that Toda influenced him through "the profound compassion that characterized each of his interactions."

Ikeda lives in Tokyo with his wife, Kaneko Ikeda (née Kaneko Shiraki), whom he married on 3 May 1952. The couple had three sons, Hiromasa (vice president of Soka Gakkai),[310] Shirohisa (died 1984), and Takahiro.

Courtesy – Wikipedia

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