The Lotus Sūtra says in effect that when the sūtra is propagated in the fifth 500-year period after the death of Śākyamuni Buddha, evil spirits will dwell in the people and try to stop it. If one believes the sutra, he is spoken ill of, beaten, chased away, and even killed. Under the circumstances, the first person to propagate the sūtra receives the same merit of serving all Buddhas in the universe throughout the lives in the past, present, and future. He also inherits the merit of Śākyamuni Buddha which He had accumulated as a bodhisattva in the past. Therefore, when Bodhisattva Fukyō was propagating the sūtra in the past, scholarly priests, nuns, and great priests who kept 250 precepts seduced men and women to speak ill of him and beat him, but he never gave up until he attained Buddhahood. Śākyamuni Buddha is the former Bodhisattva Fukyō.

Myōhō Bikuni Go-henji, A Reply to Nun Myōhō, Nyonin Gosho, Letters Addressed to Female Followers, Page 214