The Evangelical Dictionary of World Religions

NABUWWAT. Nabuwwat is the word for the office of prophethood in Islam. Nabuwwat carry the authoritative revelation from Allah, so their words are binding for Muslims. Islamic teaching maintains that Allah desires for all people to be informed of his divine intentions and hence that throughout history he has sent holy prophets (nabis) to every human society. Beginning with the first created man, Hazrat Adam, and continuing until the time of Muhammad, Allah has sent prophets (124,000 in all) to proclaim the true religion of Islamic monotheism and guide humanity in its religious development. According to Islam, Allah has authorized and enabled every one of these prophets to relay his will in such a fashion that it is communicated with perfect accuracy. The core of this urgent message is the divine imperative of submission to the will of Allah. Of the twenty-five prophets specifically mentioned in the Qur’an, Islamic tradition regards five in particular as the most significant: Nuh (Noah), Ibrahim (Abraham), Musa (Moses), Issa (Jesus), and Muhammad, who is the final and most definitive of the prophets. A small number of prophets who were entrusted with the task of writing the sacred scriptures as Islam are called rasul (messengers).

See also ISLAM, BASIC BELIEFS OF

Bibliography. J. L. Esposito, Islam: The Straight Path, 3rd ed.; S. B. Noegel, Historical Dictionary of Prophets in Islam and Judaism.

R. L. Drouhard

NAMASTE. In traditional Indian culture, namaste (pronounced “na-ma-stay”) is a Sanskrit word spoken in conjunction with a specific gesture of salutation and obeisance; typically it is uttered as a way of conveying the humble submission of one person to another, and when addressing another person it is accompanied by a bow. The term more literally is translated “I bow to you,” but more loosely it can mean “The divine in me honors and blesses the divine in you.” Namaste, then, reminds one of the ontological equality and sacredness of all persons (though social, political, and economic inequalities remain in much of India due to the lingering effects of caste-based culture). To perform namaste, a person places his hands together near his heart, closes his eyes, and bows his head. A way of demonstrating even greater homage is placing the hands together in front of the forehead, bowing the head, and then bringing the hands down to the heart. The reverence and deference expressed in namaste is essentially the same as the devotion (bhakti) many Hindus show to their chosen deities. The performance of namaste also draws attention to the penultimate dualities of this world while pointing to a higher metaphysical unity. Popular Hinduism views the spoken word namaste as a sacred sound with magical power that can be uttered as a way to put oneself in harmonious alignment with cosmic vibrations. The gesture is seen as a mudra, a well-recognized symbolic hand position. A number of Hindu sects and groups in the US endorse the practice of namaste—the concept being central to yoga and New Age in America—including Self-Realization Fellowship, the Ananda Marga Yoga Society, Siddha Meditation, and Shambhala International. It is also performed in East Asian Buddhism with the same gesture but with the Chinese or Japanese pronunciation as “namo/namu.”

Bibliography. A. K. K. Nambiar, Namaste: Its Philosophy and Significance in Indian Culture; R. S. K. Rao, Bharatiya Pranama Paddhati: Respectful Salutations in India; P. Sudhi, Symbols of Art, Religion and Philosophy.

J. Bjornstad

NANAK. See GURU NANAK DEV

NATION OF ISLAM. Also known as “Black Muslims,” this group, founded by the mysterious Wallace D. Fard and his disciple Elijah Muhammad, blended Christian principles, Islamic theology, and black nationalism that resonated throughout the oppressed communities of the US. Fard, influenced by the message of Noble Drew Ali (1886–1929) that Caucasians were the embodiment of evil, asserted that Christianity was the white man’s religion, not the religion of the black man. Ali—like W. D. Fard, who came after him—taught that blacks were Asiatic, not African, and their religion was Islam. After Fard’s disappearance in 1934, Muhammad took control of the movement and preached that the black man would one day rule the world after the battle of Armageddon.

Elijah Muhammad systematized the theology of the Nation of Islam. Nation members were required to believe in the traditional Islamic doctrines of one God (Allah) and reverence to the Qur’an and the hadith. He modified the doctrines of the resurrection (exclusively mental) and judgment (occurring first in America). Politically, Muhammad argued for the immediate separation of blacks and whites, while opposing fighting in the US Armed Forces. Yet what set Muhammad’s theology apart was his acknowledgment of Fard as Allah in the flesh and the Muslim mahdi (“guided one”; an eschatological leader in Muslim tradition).

Since the black community had long been oppressed by Caucasians, the Nation campaigned for the release of all Muslims from prison, while promoting equal employment opportunities, tax exemption for blacks, and an end to the mixing of the races. In the end, Black Muslims believe that Allah will judge the inferior white race and reinstate the original black race to its rightful place. In order for this to come about, social reforms must take place in the black community. Nation leaders, therefore, advocate the abolition of alcohol, gambling, dancing, fornication, lying, and the eating of pork. In the 1950s and 1960s, Elijah Muhammad was typically represented before the media by Malcolm X, his personal spokesman. In 1964 both Malcolm X and Wallace Muhammad (one of Elijah Muhammad’s sons) became convinced that the Nation of Islam was an aberrational form of traditional Islam.

After Muhammad’s death in 1975, an internal struggle ensued between Muhammad’s son Wallace and Louis Farrakhan. Wallace quickly rejected the theological tenets of God being black and Fard being God. He rejected the vilification of the white man, instead blaming the church as the agent of evil throughout the world.

By 1985 the Nation (now called the American Muslim Mission) was integrated into traditional Islam. In 1992 Wallace Muhammad (then known as Warith Muhammad) gave the invocation for the US Senate, praying to Allah, “the Most Merciful Benefactor, the Merciful Redeemer.”

Farrakhan, desiring to reestablish the old Nation and salvage the reputation and vision of Elijah Muhammad, restored the Nation of Islam, with many disgruntled members joining his fold. Emphasizing the social aspects of his message, he cleaned up black neighborhoods while removing many drug lords through his Fruit of Islam security force. In 1995 the Nation once again came into national prominence through the Million Man March, a platform for black self-reliance and respect.

Today, through the leadership of Louis Farrakhan, the Nation of Islam is known as a black separatist group that assists in raising the morality of its own race while teaching anti-Semitism and hatred of others. It is still considered unorthodox and unacceptable by many traditional Muslims due to its theological heterodoxy and political militancy.

Bibliography. G. Braswell, Islam: Its Prophet, Peoples, Politics, and Power; S. Tsoukalas, The Nation of Islam: Understanding the “Black Muslims.”

Emir Caner and E. Pement

NATIVE AMERICANS, MORMON VIEW OF. The LDS Church has traditionally taught that Native Americans are predominantly descendants of Israelite emigrants who traveled to the Americas in two migrations around 600 BC (Lehi’s family) and 588 BC (the Mulekites). Their history is detailed in the Book of Mormon, which, according to Mormonism’s founder, Joseph Smith Jr., was translated by him into English from gold plates engraved with “Reformed Egyptian” characters.

According to the Book of Mormon, a sharp division among the Israelite colonists descending from Lehi’s sons created two opposing factions: the “Nephites” (God’s followers) and the “Lamanites” (wicked apostates). God responded by prohibiting intermarriage of the groups and cursing the Lamanites by giving them a “skin of blackness” instead of the white and delightful skin they had had (2 Nephi 5:21), so they would appear repulsive to the white Nephites (3 Nephi 2:15). God, however, mercifully added that repentant Lamanites would have their curse removed and become “white” again (3 Nephi 2:14–16).

In the Book of Mormon account, in the fifth century AD war ultimately destroyed every Nephite, but the Lamanites became the ancestors of Native Americans. The scattered remnants, whom Columbus would eventually refer to as Indians, forgot about God and lost all memory of their Israelite identity. They also forgot that their dark skin was a curse. According to classic Mormon doctrine of earlier generations, as Native Americans convert to Mormonism, they will gradually regain their white skin per Book of Mormon promises (2 Nephi 30:6, pre-1981 edition). Since the 1978 declaration opening the LDS priesthood to males of all colors, the LDS Church has backed away from its historic position on this subject.

Since the nineteenth century, critics of the Book of Mormon pointed out the incongruity of ascribing a Semitic ancestry to virtually all Native Americans. Ignoring the issue of skin color, there is no real comparison between these two cultures in terms of language, writing, military implements, animal husbandry, building construction, coinage, and known religion and mythology (e.g., see Lamb, The Golden Bible, published in 1887). One LDS response was to shift the arena of the Book of Mormon from the North Atlantic region to Central and South America, focusing on the more developed Incan and Mayan cultures. This was contradicted by Joseph Smith’s own assertion of a midwestern and northern locale for events narrated in the Book of Mormon. More recently, DNA studies have confirmed that Native Americans in North, Central, and South America are descended from Asian ancestors, with no DNA markers of Israelites or ancient Hebrews. The evidence has been sufficiently compelling that the LDS Church’s official website has issued a statement on DNA studies, denying its relevance to the historicity of the Book of Mormon.

Bibliography. R. Abanes, One Nation under Gods: A History of the Mormon Church; M. Lamb, The Golden Bible; Living Hope Ministries, DNA vs. the Book of Mormon; T. Murphy, “Lamanite Genesis, Genealogy, and Genetics,” in American Apocrypha, edited by D. Vogel and B. Metcalfe; D. Persuitte, Joseph Smith and the Origins of the Book of Mormon; D. Vogel, Indian Origins and the Book of Mormon.

R. Abanes

NEO-ORTHODOX CHRISTIANITY. Neo-orthodox Christianity, or neo-orthodoxy, constitutes a current of thought that dominated European and American theology from approximately 1930 until 1960. Over against the theological liberalism that dominated Protestant thought in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, neo-orthodox theologians sought to combine acceptance of the results of post-Enlightenment biblical criticism with a renewed appreciation for the theology of the Reformation. Central themes of neo-orthodox theology include divine transcendence, human sinfulness, and the centrality of Scripture to a correct understanding of the Christian faith. Its leading thinkers are Karl Barth (1886–1968), Emil Brunner (1889–1966), and Reinhold Niebuhr (1892–1971).

Karl Barth. The brightest star in the firmament of neo-orthodox theologians is unquestionably Karl Barth. The child of a conservative evangelical theologian, Barth embraced liberalism during his theological studies. In his first pastorate, however, Barth found the liberal theology he had imbibed from his teachers unhelpful in preaching and turned for assistance in this area to the study of Scripture. Shocked by the brutality of World War I, moreover, Barth repudiated liberalism’s optimistic view of human moral capacities.

Barth gave some voice to his disillusionment with liberalism in a commentary on Romans published in 1919. In the book’s thoroughly revised edition of 1922, however, Barth condemned liberalism so harshly that he ignited a firestorm of controversy. Here he also sketched a third way of sorts between conservative evangelicalism and liberalism. Barth elaborated his third way in his Church Dogmatics (fourteen volumes), which he never completed. He also authored most of the Barmen Declaration, a manifesto of Germany’s Confessing Churches, which opposed Adolph Hitler’s ecclesiastical policies.

Among the most significant elements of Barth’s theology are his opposition to natural theology, his concept of revelation, his doctrine of the Trinity, and his doctrine of election. As to the first, Barth denies that natural revelation exists. He maintains that all human knowledge of God must come through God’s Word and that it is positively harmful to attempt to justify this Word on the basis of anything other than itself.

As to revelation, Barth maintains that God reveals himself, not doctrines about himself, and that, strictly speaking, only Christ Incarnate is the Word of God. Scripture and Christian proclamation constitute human witnesses to the Word of God, which can become the Word of God only when the Holy Spirit employs them as vehicles of God’s self-communication.

As to the Trinity, Barth holds that God reveals himself in his self-communication as trinitarian: the Father, who reveals; the Son, who is the revelation; and the Spirit, who is the revealedness of, or the condition of human receptivity for, God’s Word. Because God reveals himself as he is, Barth asserts, the trinitarian form in which God manifests himself to the world must correspond to the reality of his inner being. Hence, Barth concludes, God does not merely represent himself as trinitarian; he is trinitarian in his innermost, eternal being.

As to election, Barth contends that God predestines no human being to either salvation or damnation; the only object of election, God’s choice of persons to be saved, and reprobation, God’s choice of persons to be damned, is Christ. Christ is reprobate, according to Barth, inasmuch as he bears the judgment that all human beings deserve in their place. He is elect, however, inasmuch as God bestows his favor on him and, through him, the entire human race whom he represents.

Emil Brunner. Emil Brunner, the second most influential of the neo-orthodox theologians, authored numerous works, which tend to be more accessible to students and lay readers than the tomes of Barth. Among the most celebrated of Brunner’s works are Mysticism and the Word, a critique of the theology of Friedrich Schleiermacher; Man in Revolt, an overview of theological anthropology; and Truth as Encounter, an introduction to Brunner’s concept of revelation. Also significant is Brunner’s three-volume dogmatics: The Christian Doctrine of God, The Christian Doctrine of Creation and Redemption, and The Christian Doctrine of the Church, Faith, and Consummation. Central themes of Brunner’s theology include his understanding of revelation as personal encounter and his belief in the existence of a natural human awareness of God.

Brunner conceives of divine revelation as a personal encounter in which God communicates himself to the individual. Over against liberalism, Brunner maintains that this personal encounter constitutes a free and unpredictable gift of God; it is not merely the unfolding of human beings’ religious consciousness. Over against more conservative theologians, however, Brunner insists that this revelation does not consist in or even contain propositions or information of any sort.

As to natural revelation, although Brunner shares Barth’s aversion to natural theology, he asserts that all human beings possess a natural awareness of God, which renders it possible for them to understand the gospel, even if they reject it. Barth famously denounced Brunner’s stance on this issue in a booklet titled Nein! In Barth’s view, Brunner’s position amounted to a concession to the German Christians, who attempted to integrate elements of Nazi ideology with the Christian faith.

Reinhold Niebuhr. Reinhold Niebuhr, neo-orthodoxy’s foremost American theologian, abandoned liberalism and adopted a pessimistic view of humanity while serving as a pastor to factory workers in Detroit. His theology’s most remarkable feature is his endorsement of violations of the law of love. Violence as such, in Niebuhr’s view, contravenes the law of love set forth in the Sermon on the Mount, which he considers the ultimate, albeit unattainable, moral standard. Nevertheless, Niebuhr maintains, in practical affairs one ought to seek “proximate justice”: a realizable ideal whose attainment frequently requires the commission of intrinsically evil acts.

Conclusion. Neo-orthodoxy’s popularity waned in the 1960s. It supplied scant assistance to those who wished to defend Christianity against secular trends of thought, and the old-fashioned liberalism it opposed was almost entirely dead. The theology of Karl Barth, nevertheless, remains a significant source of inspiration for postliberal theologians such as Hans Frei (1922–88), Stanley Hauerwas (1940–), Thomas F. Torrance (1913–2007), and Eberhard Jüngel (1934–).

Bibliography. K. Barth, Evangelical Theology: An Introduction, trans. G. Foley; E. Brunner, Our Faith, trans. J. W. Rilling; G. Dorrien, The Barthian Revolt in Modern Theology: Theology without Weapons; D. J. Hall, Remembered Voices: Reclaiming the Legacy of “Neo-Orthodoxy”; C. F. H. Henry, ed., Christian Faith and Modern Theology; R. Niebuhr, The Nature and Destiny of Man: A Christian Interpretation.

D. W. Jowers

NEPHITES. In the Book of Mormon, the Nephites are the descendants of the Jewish prophet Nephi, who took his family to the Western Hemisphere from Jerusalem shortly before the Babylonian invasion of 589 BC (1 Nephi 1). Nephi was one of the sons of Lehi and a younger brother of Laman. When Laman and other brothers plotted to kill Nephi, Nephi took his family and followers into the wilderness, where they supposedly established their own civilization.

The Nephites are portrayed in the Book of Mormon as obedient to God and are said to have been “white and delightsome” (2 Nephi 12:12, pre-1981 ed.). They were opposed by the Lamanites, who are described as “idle” and “full of mischief” and cursed with a “skin of blackness” (2 Nephi 5:24; 4:4).

The two groups warred for several hundred years, until Jesus Christ visited both after his resurrection and preached the gospel to them. The Book of Mormon says that after this event, “there were no robbers, nor murderers, neither were there Lamanites, nor any manner of -ites; but they were in one, the children of Christ, and heirs to the kingdom of God” (4 Nephi 1:17). This peace lasted for approximately two hundred years, until a few people revolted from “the church” and began to call themselves Lamanites again (4 Nephi 1:20). Eventually the Lamanites far outnumbered the Nephites, and the Nephites themselves became “exceedingly wicked” (4 Nephi 1:45). A series of wars decimated the Nephites, until they were completely destroyed around AD 400. Before their annihilation, the prophet Mormon finished the gold plates containing the entire record of the Book of Mormon and buried them in the “hill of Cumorah” (Mormon 8:2), where Joseph Smith would allegedly find them approximately fourteen hundred years later.

Bibliography. T. L. Givens, By the Hand of Mormon: The American Scripture That Launched a New World Religion; D. Persuitte, Joseph Smith and the Origins of the Book of Mormon.

R. L. Drouhard and J. P. Holding

NEW WORLD TRANSLATION. The version of the Bible produced by the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society is called the New World Translation (NWT). The New Testament portion, which Jehovah’s Witnesses (JWs) call the Christian Greek Scriptures, was originally published in 1950 (NWTCGS). The Old Testament (JW: “Hebrew Scriptures”) was published in installments throughout the 1950s, and a revised one-volume Bible was published in 1961. In 1969 the New Testament portion was published with an interlinear Greek text (produced by the society) based on the 1881 Westcott-Hort Greek text; the work (revised in 1985) was called the Kingdom Interlinear Translation of the Christian Scriptures (KIT). Revised editions of the NWT appeared in 1970, 1971, 1984, and 2013. In August 2013, the society claimed that over 201 million copies of the New World Translation had been published “in whole or in part” in over 110 languages.

The New World Translation Committee, which was and remains officially anonymous, was headed by Frederick W. Franz, who went on to become the society’s fourth president (1977–92). Neither Franz nor any of the other committee members held any academic qualifications relevant to Bible translation. Reviewers have noted its wooden, awkward style, the result of a tendency to overtranslate words (especially verbs) and to follow the original-language word order too closely. For example, the NWT renders Luke 19:7, “But when they saw [it], they all fell to muttering, saying: ‘With a man that is a sinner he went in to lodge.’”

The NWT purports to be what is called a concordant translation, that is, one that renders each major original-language word as uniformly as possible by one English word and avoids rendering two different original-language words with the same English word (NWTCGS). In an independent work of some sophistication, Rolf Furuli, a Norwegian JW, argues that a concordant translation allows the reader to take a more active role in the interpretation of the text. With certain key words, the NWT does indeed follow this policy, even where it results in awkward wording. For example, it renders the Hebrew nephesh and the Greek psychē uniformly by the word “soul,” which in some places required some creativity (e.g., Acts 14:2; Eph. 6:6).

On the other hand, where following a concordant policy would conflict with JW doctrine, a single Greek word may be rendered with a variety of English words or phrases. For example, the word pneuma, a noun normally translated “spirit” or “Spirit,” is rendered as the adjective “spiritual,” and “spiritual life” is changed to mean “[gift of the] spirit,” and even “force” in passages where “spirit” might be taken to imply that humans have an immaterial spirit as an intrinsic aspect of their being (e.g., 1 Cor. 14:12–15, 32; Eph. 4:23; Heb. 12:9, 23). The same word is frequently rendered “inspired expression” or “inspired utterance” when the translation is contrasting the true, divine Spirit with the lying, demonic spirits (e.g., 1 Tim. 4:1; 1 John 4:1–6), evidently because such a contrast implies that the Spirit is a divine person. Similarly, the word proskyneō is routinely translated “worship” when the object of the action is God, but when the object is clearly Christ, it is consistently rendered “do obeisance,” even in contexts implying his deity (e.g., Matt. 28:17; Heb. 1:6).

The most obvious difference between the NWT and other versions of the Bible is its use of the name Jehovah 237 times in the New Testament where Greek manuscripts read “Lord” (kyrios) or, occasionally, “God” (theos). The translators’ justification for such usage is flawed. Moreover, it is evident in many passages that the NWT inconsistently renders kyrios as something besides “Jehovah” or “Lord” where a uniform rendering throughout the passage would all too clearly show the NT writings equating Jesus with the Lord God of the Old Testament. In Colossians 3:12–4:1, for example, a single passage focusing on relations among believers, kyrios is rendered “Jehovah” (3:13, 16, 22b, 23, 24a), “the Lord” or “[the] Lord” (3:17, 18, 20), and “master(s)” (3:22a, 24b; 4:1ab). There is no textual evidence to support such variations; they are based solely on the theological assumptions of the translators.

Besides its use of the name Jehovah in the New Testament, the NWT is best known for its controversial renderings of various texts that appear to call Jesus “God” (theos). Several of these are translated so that Jesus is not called God at all (Rom. 9:5; Titus 2:13; Heb. 1:8; 2 Pet. 1:1). In the NWT version of John’s prologue, the Word (Jesus) is called “a god” and “the only begotten god” (John 1:18). (The textual and syntactical issues in John 1:18 are sufficiently vexed that dogmatic conclusions based on one interpretation are hazardous; see Harris.) The only New Testament text in the NWT where Jesus appears to be called God is John 20:28 (“My Lord and my God!”); here the JWs argue either that Thomas was calling Jesus his God in a secondary sense or that Thomas was addressing the Father as God.

Perhaps the most notorious rendering in the NWT, though, is its translation of Colossians 1:16–20. Four times in this passage the NWT inserts “other” to represent Paul as speaking of Christ as the one in whom “all [other] things” are created and reconciled. (The 1950 and 1951 editions generally did not use brackets to show that words had been inserted. Later editions of the NWT did so, evidently in response to criticism of its rendering of texts such as this one. However, the 2013 edition reverts to the unbracketed form.) A 1950 Watchtower article on the NWTCGS explained that the rendering “all other things” was used to “harmonize these verses” with other biblical texts thought to teach that Jesus was a creature made by Jehovah. The NWT thus makes Paul say that Jesus was “the firstborn of all creation, because by means of him all [other] things were created” (Col. 1:15–16a NWT); that is, that Jesus was the “firstborn” in relation to all creation because he was the creature through which all other creatures were created. What Paul actually says, though, is that Jesus was the “firstborn” in relation to all creation because he was the One in, through, and for whom all things were created.

For reasons such as those discussed here, most biblical scholars do not regard the NWT as a particularly respectable or credible version of the Bible. Old Testament scholar H. H. Rowley (whose review is titled “How Not to Translate the Bible”) and New Testament scholar Bruce Metzger were among the reviewers to pan the NWT. Religion scholar Jason BeDuhn in his 2003 book, Truth in Translation, compared the way that nine English versions handled such controversial texts as John 1:1 and Philippians 2:6–7, concluding that the NWT was the least biased version. BeDuhn’s method, however, seems designed more to repudiate the orthodox view of Christ than to vindicate the scholarship of the NWT (see Howe for a thorough critique of BeDuhn).

Bibliography. J. D. BeDuhn, Truth in Translation; R. M. Bowman Jr., Understanding Jehovah’s Witnesses; R. H. Countess, The Jehovah’s Witnesses’ New Testament: A Critical Analysis of the New World Translation of the Christian Greek Scriptures; R. Furuli, The Role of Theology and Bias in Bible Translation: With a Special Look at the New World Translation of Jehovah’s Witnesses; M. J. Harris, Jesus as God: The New Testament Use of Theos in Reference to Jesus; T. Howe, The Truth about Truth in Translation.

R. M. Bowman Jr.

NIBLEY, HUGH WINDER. Hugh Winder Nibley (1910–2005) was the most prolific and influential Mormon apologist of the last generation. Extensively educated and extremely gifted in languages, Nibley inspired generations of LDS students with his teaching at Brigham Young University and aroused interest among LDS scholars and apologists in the importance of studying ancient texts and languages. Negatively, Nibley had the reputation of burying the problems of Mormonism in erudition rather than answering them, an approach widely imitated among more recent Mormon apologists. In 2005 his daughter Martha shocked the LDS Church when she accused her father of fraud and ritualized sexual abuse, a charge her siblings and mother vehemently deny. Nibley died shortly after the publication of his daughter’s book, Leaving the Saints: How I Lost the Mormons and Found My Faith.

Bibliography. M. Beck, Leaving the Saints: How I Lost the Mormons and Found My Faith; R. V. Huggins, “Hugh Nibley’s Footnotes,” Salt Lake City Messenger; L. Midgley, “A Mighty Kauri Has Fallen: Hugh Winder Nibley (1910–2005),” FARMS Review; Midgley, “H. W. Nibley: Bibliography and Register,” in By Study and Also by Faith: Essays in Honor of Hugh W. Nibley, edited by John M. Lundquist and Stephen D. Ricks; H. Nibley, The Collected Works of Hugh Nibley; B. J. Peterson, Hugh Nibley: A Consecrated Life.

R. V. Huggins

NICHIREN DAISHONIN. The Japanese Buddhist Nichiren Daishonin (1222–82) was a highly educated monk of the Tendai School who originally tried Zen and Pure Land approaches to Buddhism. However, he lost faith in these approaches and after much study determined that the Lotus Sutra was the highest teaching (much in line with Tendai thought). After this insight, he chanted the Japanese title of the Lotus Sutra (nam-myoho-renge-kyo) as his practice. He was a prolific writer, and more than seven hundred of his compositions exist.

Nichiren’s work gave birth to what became Nichiren Buddhism. His disciple Nikko (1246–1333) founded Nichiren Shoshu, which is one of the major subschools of Nichiren Buddhism in Japan, with a worldwide following. Nichiren Buddhism is the only major tradition that is Japanese in origin, as the others were imported from China and then made Japanese.

A. W. Barber

NICHIREN SHOSHU. Nichiren Shoshu is a Mahayana Buddhist school headquartered at Mt. Fuji. Basing itself on the teachings in the Lotus Sutra, it fully accepts the theory that the current age is one of degeneration, when people’s capacity to achieve enlightenment is limited, and therefore, specific practices must be relied on. With this school, the chief practice is chanting the Dai-muko, or title of the sutra (along with other traditional practices). This is accompanied by the Dai-Gohonzon, or object of worship, and the Dai Sekiji no Honmon Daidan, or the “Essential Teachings High Sanctuary.” The main object used to represent the essence of the teachings is not a statue or painting, as with other schools, but the inscribed title of the sutra on a scroll. Nichiren Shoshu maintains that through its teachings one can gain enlightenment in this degenerate age regardless of gender, class, ethnicity, and so on. This subschool has birthed a number of important groups, including Soka Gakkai.

Bibliography. R. Tsunoda, W. T. De Bary, and D. Keene, Sources of Japanese Tradition.

A. W. Barber

NIRVANA. Literally, nirvana means “extinction” or “blowing out” or “state beyond sorrow” in Sanskrit. Nirvana is the ultimate goal of meditation schools born out of Hindu, Jain, and Buddhist roots.

Nirvana is transcendent in that one becomes free of samsara but is also, in some formulations, imminent, as it can be identified with the nondual ultimate reality. In Buddhism delusions of the existence of self bind a person to samsara, the cycle of rebirths of suffering (dukkha). Release from samsara is the state of nirvana. Hence nirvana is the ultimate goal of religious practitioners, as it promises the end of both the causes of suffering and the results of karma. The concept is variably nuanced: for Theravadans, nirvana is an ultimate peace; in Mahayana schools, nirvana is synonymous with emptiness (sunyata), ultimate reality (darma dhatu), and hence the unchanging nature of the Buddha (dharma kaya). In some Asian cultures, “becoming a Buddha” is a euphemism for physical death, implying entrance into the nature of Buddha—that is, nirvana. Nirvana is sometimes metaphorically expressed as a drop of water merging back into the ocean.

However, achievement of nirvana does not necessarily equate with physical death. A person who has achieved nirvana (usually a lama, an arhat, or other perfected being) experiences parinirvana on death, that is, the final physical departure of the body. In Mahayana Buddhism, a bodhisattva delays his parinirvana so as to aid other sentient beings into enlightenment and nirvana. Lay practitioners of Hinduism and Buddhism are often resolved that achievement of nirvana in this lifetime is unlikely.

The word nirvana has also found its way into popular language; capitalizing on the nuance of “ultimate bliss,” it has been used to name anything from chocolate to clothing shops or (using the word in relation to a physical location rather than a state of being) drug outlets and beachfront hotels. The music band Nirvana (1987–94) was largely responsible for popularizing “grunge” in Western music culture.

Bibliography. D. S. Lopez Jr., Buddhism: An Introduction and Guide; J. Snelling, The Buddhist Handbook: A Complete Guide to Buddhist Teaching and Practice.

H. P. Kemp

NYINGMA. Recognized by their red hats, Nyingma (Tibetan, “ancient”) is the oldest Tibetan Buddhist tradition (Gelug, Sakya, and Kagyu are the other three). Nyingma is the “old” tradition inasmuch as it achieved the first wave of major translation of Buddhist texts from Sanskrit into Tibetan in the eighth century AD. The Tibetan king Trisong Detsen (r. 742–97) had invited Santarakshita, the abbot of Nalanda Monastery in India, to build Tibet’s first monastery, Samye. Tradition describes the difficulty of founding the monastery due to meddling malevolent spirits of the indigenous Bon religion. The greater tantric-occult powers of Padmasambhava subdued these Bon spirits. The combination of the political patronage of King Trisong Detsen, the monastic rigor of Abbot Santarakshita, and the tantric teachings of Padmasambhava combined to establish Buddhism in Tibet. Thus Nyingma played a significant role in the formation of a Tibetan identity and civilization in that it facilitated the establishment of a large and sophisticated literary and ritual tradition. Nyingma’s supreme doctrine is dzogchen, or “great perfection,” which holds that “original mind” is the foundation of all consciousness. Dzogchen teachings are perhaps the most accessible aspect of Nyingma in the West.

There are three streams of transmissions in Nyingma Buddhism. The first is the “distant canonical”: Buddhist texts brought from India to Tibet. The second is the “close lineage,” or terma: texts and religious objects concealed by Padmasambhava, who claimed they were the quintessence of the canonical Buddhist teachings. He concealed them in temples, images, the sky, rocks, and lakes. The idea was that his disciples would reincarnate and discover them (and become tertons, or “treasure masters”) and then continue to propagate the dharma (teaching). The teachings can also be discovered as “mind treasures,” rather than being physically discovered. The third transmission is the “profoundly pure visions” in which Padmasambhava appears to the terton and speaks to him in person.

Nyingma has nine teachings, six in common with other Buddhist schools, with an additional three unique tantric teachings. Those initiated into upayoga can attain enlightenment in five lifetimes and can attain mahayoga in the next lifetime and atiyoga in this present existence. Essential Nyingma doctrine stresses that the phenomena of the world are unsubstantial and that those who know the secret wisdom may be able to obtain sudden enlightenment and buddhahood in this lifetime. In tantric Buddhism, both ritual sexual intercourse and visualization of the wrathful aspect of Buddhas and bodhisattvas are means to this end. In Nyingma art, Padmasambhava and his consort Yeshe Tsogyal are often depicted in sitting copulation.

Shambhala International, Odiyan Retreat Center, Padmasambhava Centers, and Aroter Community are all informed by Nyingma. Siddhartha’s Intent, an organization also informed by Nyingma, is in the process of placing terma (or “peace vases”) throughout the world, promoting them as a contribution to global environmentalism. Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche (1939–87), who was trained in both Kagyu and Nyingma traditions, established both Shambhala International and the Buddhist Naropa University in Boulder, Colorado. Both of these institutions have been influential in establishing Buddhism in America. Today the principal Nyingma monasteries are in India (Dehra Dun, Uttaranchal). The traditional head monastery of Nyingma Buddhism is Ngedon Gatsal Ling, known in English as Mindrolling Monastery, located about forty-three kilometers from Lhasa. Since the absorption of Tibet into China in 1950, a major branch of this sect led by Tibetan refugees has been located in India. This is the branch of the sect best known in the Western world. The monastery is led by the tulku. A tulku, in this and other Tibetan Buddhist sects, is chosen as a young child after a long search by the leaders of the sect. The chosen child is believed to be the reincarnation of the last tulku, who in turn was part of a long line of reincarnated tulkus going back to the sect’s founder. After extensive training, the child eventually grows up to assume full authority and become the sect’s sacred leader. The most recent head of the tradition, Mindrolling Trichong Rinpoche, died in February 2008, and a reincarnation has yet to be named.