On 9/12/1271, Nichiren was arrested by Hei (Taira) no Yoritsuna (Hei no Saemon-no-jō, d. 1294), deputy chief of the samurai-dokoro, the board of retainers for the Hōjō, and sentenced to exile on the remote island of Sado in the Japan Sea. He was remanded to the custody of Honma Shigetsura, deputy governor of the island. His arrest was probably part of a larger bakufu move to subdue unruly elements in mobilizing their defenses against the Mongols. Nichiren himself wrote that, while he was formally sentenced to exile, Yoritsuna’s real intent was to have him beheaded that night, and he was taken to the execution grounds at Tatsunokuchi, but for some reason his life was spared. Later hagiographies, which elaborate on the drama of Nichiren’s arrest and near-beheading, say he was saved when a dazzling object streaked across the night sky, terrifying his executioners. Nichiren himself clearly felt that in some sense he had undergone a death and transformation: “On the twelfth night of the ninth month of last year, between the hours of the Rat and the Ox [11:00 pm to 3 am] the man called Nichiren was beheaded. This is his spirit (konpaku) that has come to the province of Sado and, in the second month of the following year, is writing this amid the snow.” (Page 257-258)