Gosho 秋元殿御返事 Reply to Akimoto

秋元殿御返事

On the Five Seasonal Festivals

Reply to Akimoto

文永二年一月十一日　四十四歳御作

　　　　　　January 11,1265 （Age: 44)

御文(おんふみ)委(くわし)く承(うけたまわ)り候い畢(おわ)んぬ、

I have carefully looked over your letter.

I have read your letter in detail.

御文に云く、末法(まっぽう)の始(はじめ)、五百年にはいかなる法を弘(ひろ)むべしと思ひまいらせ候しに、聖人の仰(おおせ)を承り候に、法華経の題目に限つて弘むべき由、聴聞(ちょうもん)申して御弟子の一分に定まり候。

In It you say that you were concerned about what teaching was best to propagate in the first five hundred years of the Latter Day of the Law. And that when you encountered the instruction of the Sage Nichiren, and heard that one should propagate only the daimoku of the Lotus Sutra, you resolved to become one of my disciples.

You wrote. 'I thought what kind of Law I must spread for 500 years of the beginning at the latter days of the Law, but I accepted the telling of the saint, and had heard that only the title of the Lotus Sutra must spread and was decided to become the one person of the disciples.

殊(こと)に五(ご)節供(せっく)はいかなる由来、何(いか)なる所表、何を以て正意としてまつり候べく候や。

In particular you ask what the origins of the five seasonal festivals are, what they signify, and how one can correctly observe them.

Particularly, about the Five Festivals what do these express, what should we worship, and what kind of origin are these?”.

つづく Continued

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