Background
was born on 23 July 1871 in a fishing village in Niigata Prefecture.
was born on 23 July 1871 in a fishing village in Niigata Prefecture.
He moved to Hokkaido and, after graduating from Sapporo Normal School, devoted himself to the study of geography.
He served as principal of an elementary school in Tokyo and at the same time devoted himself to the movement for utilitarian methods of education.
In 1930, after retiring from teaching, he began publication of a four- volume work entitled Soka kybikugaku taikei, in which he criticized the values of “truth,” "goodness,” and “beauty” postulated by the Neo-Kantian philosophers and set forth his own theory based on the values “profit,” “goodness,” and “beauty.” He combined this utilitarian theory of value with the religious teachings of Nichiren Shoshu, setting up an organization called the Soka Kyoiku Gakkai, or Value-Creative Education Society.
In 1941 he began publication of a magazine entitled Kachi Sozo to give voice to the opinions of the organization. He gained a large number of members among primary school teachers and small businessmen. As the Pacific War grew more intense, the government took steps to bring all religious organizations under its control. Makiguchi resisted such attempts at government control, and as a result he and twenty other leaders of his group were arrested in 1945, and the Soka Kyoiku Gakkai was destroyed. Makiguchi died the following year in prison. After the war, Makiguchi’s close associate Toda Josei (1900-1958), who had been imprisoned with him, revived the organization under the name Soka Gakkai. It has grown with astonishing speed and now constitutes one of the largest religious groups in Japan.
In 1928, under the guidance of Mitani Sokei, he became a follower of Nichiren Shoshu, a branch of the Nichiren sect of Buddhism founded by Nikko, a disciple of Nichiren.
