“The Three Great Mysteries”

The treatise on the Three Mysteries begins with the question, What is meant by the following passage in the chapter (21) on the Mysterious Power? “In fine, all the truths possessed by the Tathāgata, all the mysterious powers under the control of the Tathāgata, all the stocks of mysteries cherished by the Tathāgata, all the profound things in the hands of the Tathāgata – all and every one of these have been revealed and proclaimed in this Scripture.” This is the famous legacy entrusted to the keeping of Viśiṣṭacāritra and other Saints-out-of-Earth. It had been explained in various ways by Nichiren’s predecessors, but he interpreted it to mean nothing but the Three Mysteries entrusted to himself, and destined to be fulfilled in the Latter Days, after his time. His interpretation was this: All truths, mysteries, etc., are actuated by the personality of the Tathāgata, while the Tathāgata is a perfect being because he is furnished with the three aspects of personality. The three aspects are: the metaphysical entity (Dharmakāya), which is represented in Nichiren’s religion in the Supreme Being, or Maṇḍala; the blissful manifestation (Sambhogakāya), chiefly consisting in intellectual enlightenment, which is represented by the Sacred Title; and the actual manifestation (Nirmāṇakāya), the realization of Buddha’s mercy, which is to be established and organized in the Holy See, the Sacred Place of Initiation [Kaidan].

Of these three, the first two had already been revealed by Nichiren, and now the foundation of the third was to be laid. He writes about this as follows:

“When, at a certain future time, the union of the state law and the Buddhist Truth shall be established, and the harmony between the two completed, both sovereign and subjects will faithfully adhere to the Great Mysteries. Then the golden age, such as were the ages under the reign of the sage kings of old, will be realized in these days of degeneration and corruption, in the time of the Latter Law. Then the establishment of the Holy See [Kaidan] will be completed, by imperial grant and the edict of the Dictator, at a spot comparable in its excellence with the Paradise of Vulture Peak. We have only to wait for the coming of the time. Then the moral law (kaihō) will be achieved in the actual life of mankind. The Holy See will then be the seat where all men of the three countries (India, China, and Japan) and the whole Jambudvipa (world) will be initiated into the mysteries of confession and expiation; and even the great deities, Brahmā and Indra, will come down into the sanctuary and participate in the initiation.”

Although Nichiren expressed his idea about the time and place of the establishment of the Holy See [Kaidan] thus vaguely, he was sure that it would come to pass, and it is related that he dispatched the ablest of his disciples to the foot of Fuji to select the spot for it. Whatever truth there may be in this legend, his conception of the Church and its Holy See was at the same time ideal and concrete. In the ideal, he esteemed every place where his religion should be practised as a paradise; the church embraces all beings, and its stage is the whole cosmos. But, on the other hand, the center was to be definitely established in a place considered to be peculiarly the source of light and life, in Nichiren’s own country. Thus, he combined his ideal paradise with the universal church, and spent his days of retirement in silent prayer for the fulfilment of his project. It is no wonder, then, that he pronounced Minobu to be an earthly paradise, and yet planned for the propagation of his religion throughout the world.

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NICHIREN: THE BUDDHIST PROPHET

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