Great Construction

The Great One Thousand World and
The Triple-Thousand World

     The Japanese phrase daisen-sanzen sekai (“great thousand triple-thousand world”) appears in the prayer of World Messianity, and I have had a few people who ask me why is it the opposite from the Buddhist phrase sanzen daisen sekai* (“triple thousand great one thousand world”), so I will explain here.
     I begin by explaining both these expressions by their ideograms, the ideograms for “great” represents the form of the entire universe. “Great” has the meaning as in “limitlessly great,” or, in other words, “the whole greatness of the universe.” As the ideogram for “great” itself is composed of five lines (大), five is fire; five is spirit. Spirit represents “heaven,” so “heaven” should come first. Because sanzen sekai (“three thousand worlds”), on the other hand, indicates the three worlds of the divine, the living spirit, and the physical, daisen sekai (“great thousand world”) is divided into a thousand to which “great” has been added. The number three is water, and water represents the physical. Another aspect is that when writing the shape of the ideogram, the “great” ideogram starts to be written by writing the ideogram for “one,” and because “three” is the next in order after “two,” putting “three” after “great” is really the way it should written. According to the law of the spiritual preceding the physical as well, spirit should be above and physical, below. Another interpretation is that as “great” is fire and “three,” the physical, “great” is the daylight age and “three” is the age of night. Since Buddhism is night, that is, the teaching of the moon, it was all right during the age of night until now for three to be on top. World Messianity is a religion of the daylight age, so “great thousand three thousand worlds” (daisen-sanzen sekai) is the correct expression.

Eikô, Issue 85, January 1, 1951
translated by cynndd

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* Sanzen daisen sekai is the Japanese pronunciation of the Chinese translation of the Sanskrit phrase trisāhasra-mahāsāhasrah lokadhātavaḥ.