[In Chapter 26, Dhārānis,] Nichiren was struck by the words in the vow made by the ten rāksasis that if anyone troubles those who expound the Lotus Sūtra, “his head will be split into seven pieces just like a branch of the arjaka tree.” Zhanran, in summarizing the powers of the Lotus referred to in the sūtra text, had written, “Those who trouble [Lotus devotees] will have their heads split into seven pieces; those who make offerings to them will enjoy good fortune surpassing [that represented by the Buddha’s] ten titles.” The two parts of this sentence are inscribed as “passages of praise” on either side of a number of Nichiren’s mandalas. We can think of them as illustrating the principle of karmic causality as applied to the Lotus Sūtra.