Legitimacy of Nikken’s Succession to High Priest Questioned
Nikken Abe asked Sugano, “What’s happening with the transfer process ?”
Sugano’s response was “Isn’t it you, Mr General Administrator, who will …”
Nikken Abe’s response was “Hmmm.. I see.”
Obviously, General Administrator Abe did not know at that point to whom the former high priest had transferred the sect’s heritage. We can see clearly that if he had received the heritage, he would not made such a reply to Sugano, he would have said on the spot that he had received the heritage.
At 6:30 in the morning, he got up.
He led an oko lecture at 7:00am at the Miedo temple.He was there for about an hour.
At 8:00am, a chief priest of a lodging temple on the head temple’s grounds visited him at the Daibo quarters to celebrate his birthday.
At 9:30am, Taisei Ohishi and others had an audience with high priest.
At 11:00am, after changing his clothes, he departed the head temple for Taiseki-ji’s Tokyo office.
※He did not return to the head temple that day.
How can H P Nikken Abe justify his claim that he received the heritage from Formar H P Nittatsu in his private quarters that day ?
As an example, the transfer ceremony between the 64th high priest, Nissho, and 65th high priest, Nichijun conducted on March 30, 1956 was recorded in detail in the April issue of Nichiren Shoshu’s magazine, Dai-Nichiren.
And also the one between high priest Nichijun and the 66th high priest, Nittatsu on November 16, 1959 was also published on the ‘Intatsu’ on November 17.
Since high priest Nittatsu Shonin are keenly aware of the significance of the transfer ceremony of Nichiren Shoshu, it definitely would not have been conducted in such a hurry on April 15, 1978 and the details are not even published.