The Lotus Sutra has teachings that prophesy the future after the Buddha’s extinction. These teachings are unique to this Sutra, and are not found in other sutras to such an extent. The prophecy [in Chapter 13, Encouragement for Keeping this Sutra,] tells us that the world after the extinction of the Buddha will be an evil place–an Age of Degeneration–in which expounders of the Lotus Sutra can expect to suffer troubles and even persecution. That they must overcome these troubles and expound the Lotus Sutra to make this Saha-world into the Pure Land of the Buddha, is not just a prophecy. It is a major teaching. The … verses recited by the never-faltering bodhisattvas represent this teaching. It is called the “Twenty Verses of Chapter Thirteen.”

These twenty verses had much influence on Nichiren. He mentions them in his treatise, Kaimokusho (“Opening the Eyes”). “If I had not been born in this country,” he says, “the twenty verses in Chapter Thirteen would not have been proven, the World-Honored One would have seemed to be a great liar, and the eighty billion nayuta of bodhisattvas would have fallen into the sin of lying, too. Just as the Lotus Sutra foretold, I was often driven out (into exile). The word ‘often’ in the Sutra came true. This word was not experienced by either Tendai (Great Master Chih-i of China) or Dengyo (Great Master Saicho of Japan), not to speak of lesser people. I, Nichiren, alone read them from experience. For I perfectly fit the Buddha’s description of the person spreading the Lotus Sutra ‘in the dreadful and evil world’ at the beginning of the Latter Age.”

That is to say, Nichiren was the only person who read, experienced, and dedicated his life to the real meanings of the verses of Chapter Thirteen.