In Risshō Ankoku-ron, the traveler in the dialogue states, “As a result, sages and protective gods have abandoned our country, causing famine and epidemics to spread all over it.” (Hori 2003, p. 137) This statement became a source of great controversy within Nichiren Buddhism after Nichiren’s passing. According to this statement (as well as Nichiren’s later statements such as in the passages of Kaimoku-shō cited above), one can no longer appeal to the heavenly gods and benevolent deities because they have abandoned the country that slanders the Dharma. In other writings, however, Nichiren continues to appeal to the kami and other deities in his prayers. In the Kangyō Hachiman-shō, Nichiren identifies Hachiman as a manifestation in Japan of Śākyamuni Buddha and explicitly states that the kami are still available to those who uphold the Lotus Sūtra.

Now, the Great Bodhisattva Hachiman’s original substance, Śākyamuni Buddha, expounded the sole, true, Lotus Sūtra in India. As he manifested himself in Japan, he summarized the sūtra in two Chinese characters for honesty and vowed to live in the head of a wise man. If so, even if Hachiman burned his palace and ascended to heaven, whenever he finds a practitioner of the Lotus Sūtra in Japan, he will not fail to come down to reside where this practitioner is and protect him.

Later generations of Nichiren Buddhists would be divided by the question of whether Nichiren intended them to cease to venerate the kami because they were no longer available in a country that neglected and slandered the Lotus
Sūtra, or whether they could continue to have confidence in and pay respects to the kami at their shrines because they were still protectors of the Lotus Sūtra and those who uphold and practice it. Considering that Nichiren included Amaterasu, Hachiman, and other gods and supernatural beings on his calligraphic mandala, perhaps it can be said that Nichiren believed that practitioners of the Lotus Sūtra could still venerate and appeal to the kami and other guardian deities and spirits. If the guardian deities are not entirely absent but still watching out for the welfare of the practitioners of the Lotus Sūtra, the question remains for Nichiren: why have they not spared Nichiren from his many persecutions?