[I]n Nichiren’s reading, in the “Transcendent Powers” chapter, the Buddha first transmitted the daimoku, Namu Myōhō-renge-kyō, to the bodhisattvas who had emerged from the earth, for them to propagate in the Final Dharma age. To presage this momentous event, the Buddha displayed his ten transcendent powers and, extracting the essence of the Lotus Sūtra, entrusted it to the four bodhisattvas. Then, in the “Entrustment” chapter, he made a more general transmission of the Lotus and all his other teachings to the bodhisattvas from other worlds, the bodhisattvas of the trace teaching who had been his followers in his provisional guise as the buddha who first attained awakening in this lifetime, and persons of the two vehicles. This general transmission was intended for the more limited period of the True Dharma and Semblance Dharma ages.