During the Sado exile, together with his reinterpretation of the five characters myōhō renge kyō as the teaching conferred by the original Buddha, a shift becomes evident in Nichiren’s understanding of the daimoku. No longer would he speak of it as a practice accommodated to ignorant persons. Rather, in his writings of this period, it becomes the vehicle of direct access to the Buddha’s enlightenment. It was also on Sado that Nichiren inscribed for the first time the calligraphic mandala or daimandara he devised, depicting the assembly of Eagle Peak, which served as an object of worship.