The Japanese Buddhist teacher Nichiren (1222-1282), arguably the Lotus Sūtra’s most famous interpreter, lived and taught in a historical and cultural milieu quite different from that of the sūtra’s original compilers. As Buddhism spread through the Sinitic world, the Lotus had come to be widely revered as Śākyamuni Buddha’s highest and final teaching, and Nichiren asserted that only this sūtra represented his complete message. Like his contemporaries, Nichiren believed he was living in the age of the Final Dharma (J. mappō), a degenerate era when people are burdened by heavy karmic hindrances and liberation is difficult to achieve. Now in this evil era, he claimed, only the Lotus Sūtra leads to buddhahood; other teachings had lost their efficacy and must be set aside. Nichiren taught a form of Lotus practice accessible to all, regardless of social class or education: chanting the sūtra’s daimoku, or title, in the formula Namu Myōhō-renge-kyō. By chanting the daimoku with faith in the Lotus Sūtra, he said, one could realize buddhahood in this very lifetime. And, as faith in the Lotus Sūtra spread, the ideal buddha land would be realized in the present world.