For 2,200 years or so after the passing of the Buddha, no one had exhaustively expounded the Lotus Sūtra and spread its teaching far and wide as it is preached in it. It was not that T’ien-t’ai and Dengyō did not understand the supremacy of the sūtra. They knew it, but as the time was not right and the capacity of the people was not ripe, they did not fully explain it.

Those who become the disciples of Nichiren can understand it easily. The image of Śākyamuni Buddha revealed in the “Life Span of the Buddha” chapter of the Lotus Sūtra has never been made and enshrined as the Most Venerable One in any temples throughout the world. Why should it not appear now? A discussion of this would take too long, so allow me to omit it.

Hōkyō Hōjū Ji, The Dharma Is More Precious Than Treasures, Wooden Statues or Portraits, Writings of Nichiren Shōnin, Faith and Practice, Volume 4, Page 96