In cleaning up my desk, I found a photocopy of a translation of an article in the Nichiren Shu Shinbun No. 2373 published on Sept. 1, 2019. The article was written by Rev. Shincho Mochizuki, Ph.D., Professor, Minobusan University, and translated into English by Rev. Keiji Oshima.

Here’s the text of the article without the Japanese and Chinese characters:

The Number of the Characters of the Lotus Sutra Translated in Chinese and the Merit of Odaimoku

The Lotus Sutra we recite is one of three versions translated in Chinese, which are Shō Hokekyō translated by Dharmarakṣa (Jiku Hōgo), Tempon Hokekyō by Jñānagupta (Janakutta), and Myōhō Renge Kyō by Kumārajīva (Kumarajū).

Nichiren Shū uses Myōhō Renge Kyō and there are various opinions about the number of the characters this sutra contains. Nichiren Shōnin refers to its number in his writing Thank-you Note for a Clerical Robe and an Unlined Kimono (On-Koromo Narabini Hitoe Gosho), which was written in 1275 as an appreciation letter for the offering of the kimono and cloth for the robe from the wife of Toki Jōnin: “The Lotus Sutra has 69,384 characters and each of them is a Buddha.”

Chōkyō-ge, which is considered composed by Grand Master T’ian Tai Zhi Yi ( Tendai Daishi Chigi) who propagated the Lotus Sutra in China, also says that each character written in the Lotus Sutra should be the Buddha itself as following: “I deeply bow to the Sutra of the Lotus Flower of the Wonderful Dharma, Saddharma Pundarika, of a unit of the 8 volumes containing 28 chapters composed of 69,384 characters. Each character of this sutra is the True Buddha. The True Buddha’s preaching benefits the living beings. All the living beings will have attained the Way of the Buddha. Thus, I bow to the Lotus Sutra.”

The numbers of the 7 characters of Odaimoku divided by Myōhō Renge Kyō of 69,384 characters is 9,912. Hence, approximately 10,000 times of chanting the Odaimoku is equivalent to reciting the whole 8 volumes of Lotus Sutra, in terms of the numbers of characters. You may see some temples have the monument with Odaimoku carved “Humbly fulfilled to chant 10,000 Odaimoku,” which tells that they accumulated the same merit as chanting the whole Lotus Sutra by chanting 10,000 Odaimoku. In order to contribute in accumulating this merit for their temple, the followers participate in the activities and chant Odaimoku.

Here’s the photocopy of the article.

Trivia point: If you do the recommended 300 Daimoku in the morning and again in the evening evening, which for me takes about 20 minutes at a time, then you recite the entire Lotus Sutra – 9,912 Daimoku – every 16 and a half days. In my practice, that means I accomplish this twice each cycle through my 32 Days of the Lotus Sutra (which takes 34 days when you add the Sutra of Innumerable Meanings and the Sutra of the Contemplation of Universal Sage). I like the idea of circumnavigating the Lotus Sutra three times each month.