Recent scholars of the Tendai Sect and many other schools hold that the Lotus Sūtra preaches only attaining enlightenment by persons of the Two Vehicles of śrāvaka and pratyekabuddha and the doctrine of the Eternal Buddha. I ask them in return:

If you concede that only the Lotus Sūtra expounds the dharma of attaining enlightenment by persons of the Two Vehicles and the concept of the Eternal Buddha, is not it the most wonderful of the Lotus Sūtra? If the dharma of attaining enlightenment by the Two Vehicles was not revealed in any sūtras, then how could the Buddha’s disciples attain Buddhahood, like the ten great disciples of the Buddha including Kāśyapa, who excelled in the dhuta (frugal living); Śāripūtra, who was the wisest of all the Buddha’s disciples; and Maudgalyāyana, who possessed supernatural powers; the other disciples, the twelve hundred arhats (saints who have freed themselves from all craving and the cycle of rebirth); the twelve thousand śrāvaka or hearers of the Buddha’s teachings and the countless people in the realms of the Two Vehicles (of śrāvaka and pratyekabuddha)? All these people, without encountering the Lotus Sūtra, would not have been able to attain Buddhahood from the eternal past, nor would they ever be able to. For a practicer of Buddhism, wouldn’t this be an enormous defect? What would happen to those who supported such disciples of Buddha as Kāśyapa—the King of the Brahma Heaven, Indra, the four kinds of devotees, the eight kinds of beings who protect Buddhism besides monks and nuns—if the people of the Two Vehicles could not attain enlightenment?

Shōjō Daijō Fumbetsu-shō, The Differences between Hinayāna and Mahāyāna Teachings, Writings of Nichiren Shōnin, Doctrine 2, Page 193-194