His missionary journeys and converts

Another interval, lasting nearly four years, followed the peril at the Pine Forest, and it was a fruitful period in Nichiren’s harvest of converts! During these years Nichiren went on missionary journeys in the eastern provinces and succeeded in converting many local lords. The first thing which strikes us in the results of his propaganda is that there were only a few among his disciples who had been Buddhist monks, and that most of his followers were recruited from among the warriors and feudal lords. Most of the warriors converted by him remained laymen and became the “outside” supporters of Nichiren; but they dedicated to the religion their brothers or sons who, after the years of their novitiate, were ordained, and worked under the master in disseminating his doctrine. The first converts made by Nichiren, as we mentioned, were his parents, who were given the Buddhist names Myōnichi and Myōren respectively, meaning “Perfection-Sun” and “Perfection-Lotus.” The first monk disciple was Nisshō, who had been the master’s fellow student on Hiei, and had followed him to Kamakura. After this comes a list of converts from the warrior class, or their sons and brothers. During the four years of which we are now speaking, there was a notable increase in numbers, and it was in the years before and after Nichiren’s exile to Izu that his religion was planted in the provinces of Awa and Kazusa, which have been its stronghold down to the present time.

This chapter may properly conclude with quotations from poems ascribed to the prophet on these missionary journeys.

Outside pours the rain, and its drops strike the windows.
Surely, it is not thy own nature,
O rain, that makes thee fall aslant,
But the wind that causes thee to beat so noisily on the sliding screens.

My body is all wet with the rain drops –
Nay, by my own tears, shed over calamities and perils;
And yet, under the “Umbrella-Forest ” I am sheltered,
Now, even on this dreary evening.

The word rendered “nature” also means “conscience,” and “aslant, oblique,” means “crooked, vicious.” Thus the didactic purpose of the verse is clear.

These poems reflect the hardships he encountered everywhere, and make us vividly imagine a poor monk, clad in simple gray robes, with a little bag in his hands and a straw umbrella-hat on his head, passing stormy nights in cottages or deserted shrines. The latter of the poems cited is said to have been written in a shrine dedicated to Kwannon, at Kasa-mori, or “Umbrella-Forest,” which stands today marking the site.

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NICHIREN: THE BUDDHIST PROPHET

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