Daisaku Ikeda

Daisaku Ikeda (池田 大作, Ikeda Daisaku, 2 January 1928 – 15 November 2023) was a Japanese Buddhist leader, author, educator and nuclear disarmament advocate. He served as the third president and then honorary president of the Soka Gakkai, which is considered among the largest of Japan's new religious movements^: 5 but has also been described as a cult by some media and politicians (e.g., the French parliamentary commission in 1995).

Ikeda was the founding president of the Soka Gakkai International. Soka Gakkai claims Japanese membership of 8.27 million households. Recent research and surveys suggest that between 2.5 million and 4 million people - approximately two to three percent of the Japanese population - are active members of Soka Gakkai, and the organization claims to have approximately 11 million practitioners in 192 countries and territories, more than 1.5 million of whom reside outside of Japan as of 2012.

Ikeda was the founder of a variety of educational and cultural institutions including Soka University, Soka University of America, Min-On Concert Association and Tokyo Fuji Art Museum. In Japan, he was also known for his international outreach to China.

Ikeda has been described as controversial over the decades due to the ambivalent reputation of the Soka Gakkai and his relation to the political party Kōmeitō, which he founded. He has been the subject of numerous articles, questions and accusations in Japanese and international media.^: 147At his death, scholars and journalists described Ikeda as among the most polarizing and important figures in modern Japanese religion and politics.