The Mandala-cult was by no means an innovation brought about by Nichiren and his sect. The Japanese Tendai and Shingon Schools knew and worshipped two fundamental Mandalas, four different styles of Mandalas, and an almost limitless number of special Mandalas. What was new was the special kind of Mandala composed by Nichiren, and the interpretation of the Ultimate Reality connected with it. The Nichiren-Mandala is far from being a work of art. Of the utmost simplicity, it shows no figures or symbolized instruments or flowers; but instead mere names in black ink which are, as a rule, all written in Chinese characters. (Sanskrit letters are used only exceptionally and very sparingly; for example, in indicating the names of Fudō and Aizen, the guardian spirits of Buddhism.) The whole is made very roughly, without linear arrangement or color. The charm it exercises is purely spiritual. There is nothing in this abstract representation that could divert the mind of the devotee from concentrating on the Supreme Being. We cannot therefore be greatly surprised over the statement made by fervent Nichiren-believers, that the perfectly graphical method of symbolizing the Supreme Being or the Holy Universe as used by Nichiren in his Mandala is much more effective than the original Buddha’s image or Buddha’s picture or an abstract heaven. The act of religious worship of this Mandala, as Anesaki puts it, unites on the one hand the adoration of the universal Truth embodied in the person of Buddha, and on the other hand the realization, in thought and life, of the Buddha-nature in ourselves.