His last moments and his legacy

On the eighth of the ninth month, he left his beloved retreat at Minobu, where he had lived for more than eight years. His intention had been to go to a hot spring, but, probably because he was unable to proceed farther, he stopped at Ikegami, near the modern Tokyo, where he was welcomed by Lord Ikegami. The letter he wrote on his arrival at Ikegami, to Lord Hakiri in Minobu, was his last. This letter, dated the nineteenth, is full of delicate sentiment, and in it he again expresses his thanks for the protection extended to him by Lord Hakiri during more than eight years. He even gives thought to such details as the care of the horse that, with its harness, Lord Hakiri had presented him. Thenceforward, he lay on a sickbed. During nearly a month he lectured again on his old Risshō Ankoku Ron, with which he had launched upon his career of conflict and danger. The lectures were unfortunately not recorded, but we can imagine how the prophet reviewed and reinterpreted the most significant document of his whole life in the light thrown on it by his experiences through more than twenty years.

His disciples and followers flocked to his bedside, and the master charged them with the work to be done after his death. Six elders were appointed to be the leaders, and they took a vow to perpetuate the legacy of the master. Besides them, an important appointment was made, of a boy of fourteen [named Nichizō] to whom was committed the task of converting the Imperial family in Miyako. The motive of the selection is not clear, but whatever it may have been, the boy subsequently proved himself deserving of the Master’s confidence and became the pioneer of the propaganda in the Imperial capital.

When all had been finished, Nichiren’s last hour approached. Early in the morning of the thirteenth day of the tenth month, 1282, surrounded by his devout followers, and reciting with them the Stanzas of Eternity, the prophet passed away. The stanzas are:

Since I attained Buddhahood,
Aeons have passed, the number of which
Is beyond all measure, hundreds and thousands
Of millions of billions, and immeasurable.

During this time I have constantly been preaching truths,
And leading innumerable beings to maturity,
Taking them on the Way of the Buddhas;
Thus, innumerable aeons have passed, ever in the same way.

For the sake of awakening all beings,
I manifest the Great Decease, by the method of tactfulness;
And yet in reality I never vanish,
But reveal truths by being eternally present. …

I am the Father of the world,
The One who cures all ills and averts disasters.
Since I see the mass of men infatuated,
I appear to die, although I am really living.
For, if they saw me perpetually abiding among them,
They might grow slack,
Become careless, and being attached to the five passions,
Finally fall into the woeful resorts.

I am ever watching to see whether all beings
Are faithful to the Way or not;
And I preach to them various aspects of truth,
According to their capacities, and for the sake of their salvation.

Thus, my constant solicitude is,
How can all beings
Be led to the incomparable Way,
And ere long attain Buddhahood?

NICHIREN: THE BUDDHIST PROPHET

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His ideas about illness and death

The prophet had nearly reached the sixty-first year of his age, and for some time his health had been impaired. “Since I retired to this place, I have never been out of these mountains. During these eight years, illness and age have brought me severe suffering, and both body and mind seem to be crumbling into ruin. Especially since last spring, my illness has progressed, and from autumn to winter my weakness has increased day by day. During these ten days, I have taken no food, and my suffering is aggravated by the severe cold in the midst of a huge snowfall. My body is like a piece of stone, and my chest is as cold as ice.” The words are from a letter to a lady who had sent him rice and rice-beer, thanking her for the comfort her drink had brought him. Even a strong man of almost superhuman will, like Nichiren, was unable to resist the disease, which was doubtless the result of constant strife and suffering through thirty years of his life. His mind was perhaps preoccupied by his illness, and we have only eleven letters from the ten months preceding his death; yet some of these letters are still in a vigorous strain, and he dwells much on the ideals of his mission, in contrast to the actual condition of the country. He was a prophet to the last moment.

A letter that he wrote to Lord Toki is interesting as embodying Nichiren’s thoughts on disease. Toki had written to the Master about a plague that was raging in the country, and, it seems, had asked his opinion. In reply, Nichiren explained that there were two causes of the plague, one bodily and the other mental, which were reciprocally related, and produced by the malicious devils, who seize every opportunity of attack. The devils are, however, Nichiren says, nothing but the radical vices existing in each one of us from eternity; because both goods and ills are, according to T’ien T’ai’s conception of existence, inherent in our own nature. Not only diseases, but all evils are only manifestations of the radical and innate vices, and there will be no cure until these vices have been extirpated. Then the question is, Why are the faithful believers of the Lotus of Truth attacked by ills or devils? For the solution of this problem Nichiren has recourse to the doctrine of “mutual participation” [Ichinen Sanzen]. Just as the bliss of enlightenment in a particular individual is imperfect unless this bliss is shared by all fellow beings, so ills may attack even the holders of the Truth, even the messenger of the Tathāgata, so long as there exists any vice in the world in any of his fellow beings. And the believers of the Lotus are perhaps more frequently attacked by ills because the devils, regarding the true Buddhists as their most formidable adversaries, aim particularly at their lives.

Such was Nichiren’s thought on illness in general. Applied to his own person, it was associated with his mission to establish the Holy See [Kaidan]. So long as the true Buddhism was taught only in theory, as was done by T’ien T’ai and Dengyō, the onset of the devils was not so violent as when the theory was translated into practice, as it was by Nichiren. This was the reason why he encountered so many perils as a result of his aggressive propaganda; they were to be explained in the same way as the illnesses which attacked him and his followers. In other words, the radical vices, and consequent ills, were aroused to rage by Nichiren’s propaganda, especially by his preparations for the establishment of the Holy See [Kaidan]. When this latter end should be completely achieved, there would be no more room for the vices to have their evil way. Seeing this, the devils run riot, for the purpose of staying the progress of the cause. Thus, Nichiren saw in the raging plague, and also in his own illness, a sign of the approaching fulfilment of his aim. “Does not the growing stubbornness of the resistance show the strength of the subjugating power? Why, then, should not the true Buddhist suffer, not only from illness but from perils of all sorts? Is not Nichiren’s life itself a living testimony to this truth?” Thus, he wrote in a letter dated the twenty-sixth day of the sixth month, 1282, which he meant to be his own sermon on illness and death, corresponding to Buddha’s sermon in the Book of the Great Decease [Nirvāṇa Sutra], “Our Lord Buddha revealed the Lotus of Truth on Vulture Peak, during eight years, in the last phase of his earthly life; then he left the Peak, and went northeastward to Kuśināgara, where he delivered the last sermon on the Great Decease, and manifested death.” This tradition occupied the mind of Nichiren, who had lived a life of sixty years in thorough-going conformity to, or emulation of, Buddha’s deeds and work.

NICHIREN: THE BUDDHIST PROPHET

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The holy person and the holy place

Whatever might have been the effect of the victory on Nichiren’s mind, it is interesting to notice that one of his letters written not long after the event (dated the eleventh day of the ninth month), takes a high flight, and may be regarded as the crowning expression of his ideas about himself and the transfiguration of this world.

“This spot among the mountains is secluded from the worldly life, and there is no human habitation in the neighborhood – east, west, north, or south. I am now living in such a lonely hermitage; but in my bosom, in Nichiren’s fleshly body, is secretly deposited the great mystery which the Lord Śākyamuni revealed on Vulture Peak and has entrusted to me. Therefore, I know that my breast is the place where all Buddhas are immersed in contemplation; that they turn the Wheel of Truth upon my tongue; that my throat is giving birth to them; and that they are attaining the Supreme Enlightenment in my mouth. This place is the abode of such a man, who is mysteriously realizing the Lotus of Truth in his life; surely such a place is no less dignified than the Paradise of Vulture Peak. As the Truth is noble, so is the man who embodies it; as the man is noble, so is the place where he resides. We read in the chapter on the ‘Mysterious Power of the Tathāgata’ as follows:

” ‘Be it in a forest, or at the foot of a tree, or in a monastery, … on that spot erect a stupa dedicated to the Tathāgata. For such a spot is to be regarded as the place where all Tathāgatas have arrived at the Supreme Perfect Enlightenment; on that spot all Tathāgatas have turned the Wheel of Truth; on that spot all Tathāgatas have entered the Great Decease.’ Lo, whoever comes to this place will be purged of all sins and depravities which he has accumulated from eternity, and all his evil deeds will at once be transformed into merits and virtues.”

NICHIREN: THE BUDDHIST PROPHET

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The Mongol invaders and their final defeat

While Nichiren’s thought was soaring on in such visions of the coming Church, the Mongol menace also engaged his mind. The “Warning to the God Hachiman,” above cited, was indeed meant to be an emphatic monition – now, not to the prejudiced people, but to the god who was believed to be the guardian of the country, and an embodiment of the nation’s militant virtues. Indeed, while the “Warning” was in hand, the Mongols were busily engaged in preparations for sending their “Invincible Armada,” as the last attempt upon the island nation. When, in the year following (1281), the prophet committed to writing the “Three Great Mysteries,” as his spiritual legacy, the armada had already left the shores of China and were swarming along the Korean coasts. One month later (in the fifth month), four thousand warships appeared on Japanese waters, and came to anchor in the bay of Hakata, in western Japan. The excitement was great, and undoubtedly the news reached the prophet’s hermitage. The circular sent by him to his followers is very characteristic.

The circular is dated the sixteenth of the sixth month, 1281, when the defenders on the western coasts were struggling against the arrows and bombs of the Mongols. The expression is so terse that it can be taken in more than one way, especially when we remember that Nichiren had always seemed to hail the Mongols as an instrument to awaken the nation. But one thing is clear; in this letter he used for the first time the phrase, “the Little Mongols,” the opposite of the usual designation, the “Great Mongols.” The Mongols, physically great and formidable, were little from the prophet’s point of view; while, as is evident from his previous writings, the actual Japan was for him a degenerate nation, doomed to ruin, but the ideal Japan was great and impregnable.

It was on the first of the intercalary seventh month of 1281 that a storm destroyed the Mongol armada, which had not effected a landing, and thus the invasion proved a total failure. On the very day when the Mongol warships were being shattered by the typhoon, Nichiren wrote to a warrior disciple, who was probably setting out to join the defenders, saying:

“When the Mongols sent their ultimatum, coming on top of the previous calamities of earthquakes, etc., I gave warning to the authorities, but they did not give heed. Now, Nichiren’s predictions are being fulfilled, and the battle is raging. All the people of the country will certainly become in this present life Asuras (furious spirits), and fall hereafter to the nethermost hells. You may die in the battle. … Yet be sure that we shall meet in the Paradise of Vulture Peak! Even if you should share in the calamity, your soul is in communion with Buddha’s soul. In this life you are participating in the life of the ‘furious spirits,’ and yet you will surely be born in Buddha’s land after death.”

All other letters written during a few months after the great event are full of this sentiment. The prophet seems not to attach much importance to the “great victory” won by the help of a storm, which was believed by the people to have been sent by divine intervention. In one of these letters he says:

“An autumn gale destroyed the enemy’s ships, and now the people boast of a great success, as if the commander of the enemy had been captured; while the priests pretend that it was due to the efficacy of their mysteries. Ask them whether they took the head of the Mongol king? Whatever they may say, make no other reply than this!”

In reality, the defeat of the invaders was of momentous consequence; most of the soldiers were drowned, though the story that only three men escaped must be an exaggeration. The people rejoiced, and the priests gloried in their achievements in prayer; but Nichiren looked at the event with a cool aloofness, probably thinking how remote the fulfilment of his ideal was. He still insisted that the nation could not really be saved, except by complete conversion.

Nichiren may have been mistaken, if he thought that the success of an invasion by the Mongols would prove the truth of his predictions; but he was certainly right in not being elated by the victory. He was farsighted enough to recognize that the curse that rested on the nation was a long way from being removed by the defeat of the Mongols. Historians know today that the evils of the superstitious mysteries against which Nichiren fulminated increased in consequence of the unexpected end of the Mongol armada, because the authorities were themselves too superstitious to resist the exorbitant demands made by the Shinto and Buddhist priests and sorcerers for further contributions toward the support of mysteries and supplications, on which much wealth was lavished. Priests were prized more highly for their prayers than the fighters who had prevented the Mongols from landing and kept them for three months on the sea, until the storm came. Measures for defense against future attacks, were concerted; but unwisely, from the strategic point of view, these measures were confined to the land, little attention being paid to the navy. Yet a worse thing was the extravagant outlay in building and decorating the temples and shrines of those deities who were believed to have rescued the country; the expenditure on them being estimated to have been much more than for any other purpose. Discontent was growing among the warriors, financial difficulties became more and more serious, and the final result was the collapse of the Hōjō government in 1333, which was followed by social disintegration. The defense was successful only by chance. Subsequent events proved that that “miraculous” relief was largely responsible for the age of war which lasted three hundred years after the fall of the Hōjōs.

NICHIREN: THE BUDDHIST PROPHET

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