神国王御書 その三 Rulers of the Land of the Gods. Part 3.

Original text

The Immeasurable Meanings Sutra, referring to sutras by name and by the period in which they were preached, makes clear that all the sutras expounded from the time of the Buddha’s first preaching at the place of enlightenment up to the time of the Wisdom sutras are works in which the Buddha had “not yet revealed the truth.”

The Nirvana Sutra was the last work expounded by the Buddha. It, like the Immeasurable Meanings Sutra, makes clear that, of the various teachings set forth by the Buddha during the fifty years following his attainment of enlightenment, those preached in the first forty and more years are sutras embodying erroneous views, while it refers to the Lotus Sutra as its lord and sovereign.

In the Lotus Sutra itself, Shakyamuni Buddha makes a definitive pronouncement to the effect that the Lotus Sutra is supreme among the sutras he has preached, now preaches, and will preach. And Many Treasures and the Buddhas of the ten directions added the weight of their testimony to this pronouncement before returning to their original lands.

In India the twenty-four successors to Shakyamuni’s teachings merely propagated the Hinayana or provisional Mahayana doctrines and did not expound the true principles of the Lotus Sutra. And in Japan, though there were persons such as Bodhisattva Gyōki or the Reverend Ganjin who were familiar with the principles of the Lotus Sutra, they did not work to propagate them.

In China the teachers who led the ten schools of Buddhism of northern and southern China did not in their minds truly understand the relative superiority and inferiority of the various Buddhist teachings, and in preaching them, they were confused as to which were of true profundity. Similarly, Chi-tsang of the Three Treatises school, Ch’eng-kuan of the Kegon school, and Tz’u-en of the Dharma Characteristics school were confused in their minds and misled in their preaching. Because they were men who were firm in their aspiration for the way, in the end they set aside their own fame and reputation and gave allegiance to the principles expounded by Tendai. But whether the power of their repentance was sufficient to free them from the sufferings of birth and death, or whether, their sin of slandering the Law being weighty and their power of repentance slight, they in the end fell into hell or not, like King Ajātashatru or the Scholar Vimalamitra, it is impossible to say.

All the Shingon teachers agree in claiming that the three Tripitaka Masters Zenmui, Chin-kang-chih, and Pu-k’ung were fifth or sixth in the line of succession from the Tathagata Dainichi, and the fundamental teachers of the principle of the attainment of Buddhahood in one’s present form. But I, Nichiren, make it so bold as to declare that they are the founders of the line of those who steal the Law, the fundamental teachers of thieving persons.

When these men came from India to China, they brought with them the Dainichi, Diamond Crown, and Susiddhikara sutras. These sutras are not only inferior to the Kegon, Wisdom, and Nirvana sutras, but in comparison to the Lotus Sutra they are seven times inferior! One has only to look at the sutra texts themselves to see that this is clearly and patently so.

But when these men arrived in China and looked at the thirty volumes of writings by the Great Teacher Tendai, his Great Concentration and Insight and other works, they were shocked and racked their brains, for they realized that unless they could match such excellence, they could hardly hope to propagate the sutras they had brought with them, and if they claimed that these sutras were superior in nature, this would be an obvious lie.

Pondering what to do, they decided to perpetrate a great deception. They took the thirty-one chapters of the Dainichi Sutra and placed these side by side with a combination of the twenty-eight chapters of the Lotus Sutra and the three chapters of the Immeasurable Meanings Sutra. They claimed that both the Dainichi Sutra and the Lotus Sutra are alike in embodying one of the three mysteries of body, mouth, and mind, namely, the mystery of mind. But they pointed out that the Dainichi Sutra also includes mudras, which express the mystery of the body, and mantras, which express the mystery of the mouth. They therefore referred to the Lotus Sutra as an abbreviated expression of the truth and the Dainichi Sutra as a broadened or expanded expression of it.

And in reference to the Buddha’s declaration that, “Among the sutras I have preached, now preach, and will preach, this Lotus Sutra is the most difficult to believe and the most difficult to understand”, they declared that the Dainichi Sutra does not fall into the category of sutras “I have already preached” of those “I now preach,” or of those “I will preach,” thus making it an equal of the Lotus Sutra and surmounting the difficulties posed by the Buddha’s pronouncement on the three categories of sutras. They then pointed to the fact that the Dainichi, unlike the Lotus Sutra, includes mudras and mantras and used this as a reason for deprecating the Lotus Sutra, and on the basis of these assertions they established the Shingon school.

They are the same as the three women of antiquity who became royal consorts and thus brought about the downfall of the three rulers. This is what the ninth volume of the Nirvana Sutra, a work that is concerned with the propagation of the Lotus Sutra, means when it predicts that after the Buddha has passed away, evil monks will work to destroy the correct Law, and that they will be comparable to women.

For this reason, the Master Zenmui was at one point bound with seven cords of iron and hauled before Yama, the lord of hell. On that occasion, he was barely able to return to the land of the living. When he died a second time, however, it is recorded that the skin on his body turned black and the bones all became exposed, which was an indication that he would fall into the hell of incessant suffering. For it is clearly indicated in the sacred teachings of the Buddha’s lifetime that if, after a person dies, his skin turns black, this means that he will fall into hell.

From this we may also be certain that Chin-kang-chih and Pu-k’ung met with a similar fate. Though these men appeared to renounce their earlier teachings and admit their error, it would seem that their repentance was not truly deep or sincere. But the Shingon teachers of the present time know nothing of these matters. What has been said here also serves to explain why the reign of Emperor Hsüan-tsung of the T’ang dynasty came to such an unfortunate end.

In Japan Kōbō, Jikaku, and Chishō studied and transmitted this slander without either themselves realizing it or others suspecting it. For a time the members of the Tendai Lotus school debated and argued with them over the matter. But the Tendai school gradually declined, and in the period of Myōun, the fifty-fifth chief monk of Mount Hiei, who was active during the reign of the eighty-first sovereign, Emperor Antoku, and on, Mount Hiei became wholly dedicated to the teachings of the Shingon school.

The sixty-first chief monk, the Acting Administrator of monks Kenshin, while having secured the name of chief monk of the Tendai school, not only shifted his allegiance to the Shingon school, but later abandoned both the Lotus Sutra and Shingon doctrines and became a disciple of Hōnen, whose teachings are utterly slanderous of the Law.

The eminent Administrator of monks Jien, who led the prayers for the defeat of the Hōjō forces at the time of the Jōkyū Disturbance, held the post of chief monk of Mount Hiei four times, as the sixty-second, sixty-fifth, sixty-ninth, and seventy-first chief monk, and was the religious teacher of the Retired Emperor of Oki.

All these men one after another acted as vessels to receive the wisdom water of the Shingon teachings set forth by the Tripitaka Masters Zenmui, Chin-kang-chih, and Pu-k’ung and by Jikaku, Chishō, and the others. Moreover, stealing the title of chief monk of the Tendai school, they took control of all the domains dedicated to the Lotus Sutra, became head of the three thousand monks of Mount Hiei, and acted as religious teacher to the nation. Following the Shingon teachings, which are founded on the Dainichi Sutra and are seven times inferior to the Lotus Sutra, they believed them to be eight times superior. Men such as these mistake heaven for earth, the common people for the sovereign. They not only mistake mere stones for jewels, but, faced with jewels, call them stones.

Persons such as these are not only the deadly enemies of Shakyamuni Buddha, the lord of teachings, and of Many Treasures Buddha and the Buddhas of the ten directions, but they snatch out the eyes of all living beings, close the gates leading to the three good paths of existence, and open the way to the three evil ones. Why should Brahmā, Teishaku, the gods of the sun and moon, the four heavenly kings, and the other heavenly gods and benevolent deities not send down punishment on them? Why should they guard and protect the lay believers who honor such persons? Why should the Sun Goddess, who dwells within the chamberlain's office of the imperial palace, or Great Bodhisattva Hachiman, who has vowed to guard and protect a hundred emperors, remain faithful to their vows to protect the nation?

Ever since I became aware of the reason for this situation, moved by feelings of pity and compassion, I have explained the matter in no uncertain terms to all my followers who are qualified to receive such information, so that knowledge of it has gradually spread until it has even reached the ears of the ruler of the nation. The ruler should be a companion to reason and an enemy of what is wrong. But somehow he gave ear to the slanderous reports of others and casted aside the advice that I alone gave him.

In China the Great Teacher Tendai was hated by the monks of the northern and southern schools of Buddhism. But because he enjoyed the favor of two rulers of the Ch’en and Sui dynasties respectively, he did not have to face widespread animosity from others.

Here in Japan, the Great Teacher Dengyō was slandered by the leaders of the seven major temples of Nara. But because his advice was heeded by three sovereigns, Emperors Kammu, Heizei, and Saga, the people who hated him were unable to do him harm.

Now not only am I, Nichiren, faced by the enmity of the monks of the 171,037 temples of Japan, but the ruler of the nation likewise refuses to heed my advice, so that the common people hate me more intensely than they would an enemy of their own parents, more fiercely than they would a sworn foe. As a result, I have twice been sent into distant exile, and once came near to having my head cut off. I face greater animosity than that directed at the monk Fuji in the Latter Day of the Law of the Buddha Great Adornment, when he alone was opposed by four other monks and an assembly of innumerable sixty-eight hundred thousand billions of people; the situation is dire than that in the Latter Day of the Law of the Buddha Lion Sound King, when the monk Shoui and his countless disciples attacked the monk Kikon. The monk Kakutoku was a target of attack, and the bodhisattva Fukyo had to endure sticks and staves. But there were limits to what they were called upon to bear, and I do not believe that their trials could have been any greater than mine.

If by some remote chance it should be true that I, Nichiren, am the practitioner of the Lotus Sutra, then in their next existence the people of this country of Japan are destined to the hell of incessant suffering. And during their present existence they will see their nation overthrown and seized by invaders from another country, as happened to Emperors Hui-tsung and Ch’in-tsung in China and was said to have been the fate of King Udayana and King Krita of India. And the other people of the nation will without doubt be stricken with white leprosy or black leprosy or various other grave maladies.

If, however, that does not happen, I, Nichiren, am not in fact the practitioner of the Lotus Sutra. Then in my present existence I will suffer from white leprosy or black leprosy or other grave maladies, and in my next existence will, like Devadatta and Kokālika, fall into the great citadel of the hell of incessant suffering.

When an asura demon shot arrows at the sun and moon, they turned around in midair and pierced him in the eye. When dogs bark at the lion, king of beasts, their own bellies burst open. King Virūdhaka, who killed members of the Buddha’s Shākya tribe, was swallowed up in a great fire in the midst of the river. Devadatta, who wounded the Buddha and caused him to bleed, was burned by the flames of the Avīchi hell while still alive. Moriya, who burned the gilt-bronze statue of Shakyamuni Buddha, was felled by the arrows of the four heavenly kings. The lay monk Taira no Kiyomori, who burned down Tōdai-ji and Kōfuku-ji temples, while still in his present existence was stricken with a disease that burned up his body.

All these people committed serious offenses, but these are small in comparison to what has been done to Nichiren. If they suffered such a fate because of their small offenses, what immediate punishment must await those who have committed the great offense of persecuting Nichiren?

Continued

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