[B]odhisattvas refer to such practicers of Buddhism as Mañjuśrī and Maitreya. These great bodhisattvas are incomparably superior to such Buddhist sages called Pratyekabuddha. A Buddha is a wonderfully enlightened one who completely eliminated all the 42 stages of spiritual darkness, and he is like the harvest moon on the night of the 15th day of the eighth month. Compared to a Buddha, a bodhisattva is the one who eliminated the 41 stages of spiritual darkness reaching a rank nearly equal to the Buddha. One might say a bodhisattva is the moon on the 14th night of the eighth month.

Hōren-shō, Letter to Hōren, Writings of Nichiren Shōnin, Volume 6, Followers I, Page 47