Part 3: Kosen-rufu and World Peace
Chapter 28: The Three Founding Presidents and the Path of Mentor and Disciple [28.23]

President Ikeda describes his decision to follow up his novel The Human Revolution with the sequel, The New Human Revolution.

The first installment of my serialized novel The Human Revolution was published in the January 1, 1965, issue of the Seikyo Shimbun.

My original plan was to compose a biographical novel describing Mr. Toda’s life from his release from prison on July 3, 1945, until his death.

Over time, however, I came to realize that I could not convey the true greatness of his accomplishments as long as I restricted myself to the events of his lifetime. It is a constant of history that an individual’s true greatness, or the real worth of a philosophy or system of thought, is often not recognized at the time, but only later becomes correctly understood and fully appreciated.

And kosen-rufu, the grand undertaking to which Mr. Toda had dedicated his life, was not something that could be achieved in a single lifetime. It was a struggle that had to be passed down from mentor to disciple. In other words, its success or failure could be judged only by the efforts and achievements of the disciples who carried on his work after he was no longer there.

Disciples inherit the mentor’s vow and strive to realize the mentor’s vision. This struggle of genuine disciples and successors to advance kosen-rufu in reality is the very essence of the oneness of mentor and disciple. Without chronicling that struggle, it would be impossible to communicate the true greatness of Presidents Toda and Makiguchi.

Having arrived at this conclusion, after completing volume 12 of The Human Revolution, which ends with Mr. Toda’s death and the events that follow, I began to write The New Human Revolution.

In this new novel, I wished to outline the true path of mentor and disciple and secure the everlasting flow of kosen-rufu for the happiness and peace of all humanity. And I continue to write The New Human Revolution to clearly record the formula for the eternal development of the Soka Gakkai, the driving force for kosen-rufu.

From an essay series “Our Brilliant Path to Victory,” published in Japanese in the Seikyo Shimbun, September 21, 2010.