Ongi kuden


Ongi kuden or "The Record of the Orally Transmitted Teachings" is a text in Nichiren Buddhism. Ongi Kuden is Nichiren's oral teachings on the Lotus Sutra, which his disciple Nikko Shonin recorded and compiled.
Some practitioners of Nichiren's teachings regard Ongi kuden as one of the most important treatises in Nichiren's writings, because it reveals the essential principles of Nichiren's teachings.

Structure

Ongi kuden is a series of lectures on important sentences and phrases of the Lotus Sutra, and includes the following lectures:
Ongi kuden elucidates the following theories and concepts, with the ways of practices:
Nam-myoho-renge-kyo is explained in Ongi kuden as follows:
PhraseChineseSanskritLiteral meaningInterpretation in Ongi kuden
Nam南無NamasDevotionDedication of one’s life to the truth of Myoho-renge-kyo and the Buddha who embodies the truth, in terms of both theory and practice
Myoho妙法Sad-dharmaThe mystic lawIgnorance and enlightenment are a single entity
Renge蓮華PuṇḍarīkaThe lotus flowerOneness of cause and effect
Kyo経SūtraSutra or teachingsAll phenomena through :ja:三世|three existences of past, present, and future

Nam-myoho-renge-kyo, as the core practice of Nichiren's teachings, is weighted on heavily with great significance on Ongi-Kuden.
In addition, this is explained with the Q&A that Nam-myoho-renge-kyo is placed at the beginning of the Ongi kuden because it is the core of all teachings, and is the essence of the Lotus Sutra. According to Nichiren,

Debate on authenticity

A large number of Nichiren's writings, in particular those collected and published by Soka Gakkai, have been questioned about whether the texts were truly written by Nichiren or not and Ongi kuden, which has been said to be compiled by Nikko, not Nichiren himself, is in the debate. According to the Heibonsha World Encyclopedia article on the Ongi Kuden, a growing number of religious and textual scholars consider the work to be a forgery.

Cited works