[Two Buddhas Seated Side by Side] takes the form of a chapter-by-chapter discussion of the twenty-eight chapters of the Lotus Sūtra. We consider the significance of each chapter from the perspective of two historical moments: what it may have meant in the first centuries of the Common Era in the Indian cultural sphere as the Lotus Sūtra came to take its present form, and how it was read by Nichiren in Japan roughly a thousand years later. Rather than divide the volume into two sections, the first commenting on the Lotus Sūtra itself and the second introducing Nichiren’s reading, we have intentionally alternated our discussion of the Lotus text with Nichiren’s comments in each chapter, to avoid as much as possible a somewhat artificial division between the original text and Nichiren’s later interpretations. For devotees of the Lotus Sūtra, text and interpretation have been inseparable – in effect, parts of the same scripture – as has been the case with many great religious texts over the course of history.