While chronologies differed, in Japan, widespread opinion held that the Final Dharma had begun in 1052. Thus, the bodhisattvas who emerged from underground could be expected to appear at any time. Indeed, were they not overdue? “Should they fail to appear in the Final Dharma age, they would be great liars, and the prophecies made by Śākyamuni, Prabhūtaratna, and the buddhas of the ten directions would prove as empty as foam on the waters,” Nichiren wrote. In observing that no one other than himself was enduring the great trials predicted in the Lotus Sūtra, Nichiren concluded that he himself must be the representative of the bodhisattvas of the earth, or might even be one of them, a conviction that sustained him through years of danger and privation. Usually he referred to himself only in modest terms as a forerunner or emissary of their leader, the bodhisattva Viśiṣṭacaritra [J. Jōgyō, Superior Conduct], but there is little doubt that he identified his efforts with the work of this bodhisattva. Much of the later Nichiren tradition identifies him as a manifestation of Viśiṣṭacaritra in this world.