In the past there was a king called Golden King in India. His kingdom was plagued by a 12-year spell of drought and countless people perished as a result. The rivers were filled with corpses while on land skeletons were piled up like earth mounds.

With an aspiration for Enlightenment, the king performed an expansive almsgiving campaign until his possessions were nearly exhausted except for five shō (about nine liters) of rice in the warehouse. One of the servants said to the king, “This is a single day’s food for your honor.” The king then had all the rice taken out of the warehouse to be distributed among the hungry, one or two grains or three or four grains each. After this the king declared to the heavens, “I am willing to die of hunger in place of all the people suffering from the famine.” Having heard this, the heavens immediately opened and showered down rains of “nectar.” Those who received this rain in their palms as well as those whose faces were wet with it were filled with food, and all the people in the kingdom were revived in an instant.

Ueno-dono Gohenji, Reply to Lord Ueno, Writings of Nichiren Shōnin, Followers II, Volume 7, Page 43-44