The Lotus Sūtra is preceded by an introductory sūtra called the Sūtra of Infinite Meaning. It is like a general who precedes a royal procession when a great king goes out in order to quell the rude people. It is stated in this sūtra that “The truth has never been revealed during the first forty years or so of preaching by Śākyamuni Buddha.” This is like a general with his powerful bow and arrows shooting down enemies of the king or cutting them down with his great sword.

Ueno-dono Haha-ama Gozen Gohenji, A Response to My Lady the Nun, Mother of Lord Ueno, Writings of Nichiren Shōnin, Faith and Practice, Volume 4, Page 178

If there is no mistake about the words of the Buddha, the Buddha of Many Treasures and all the Buddhas throughout the universe, how can the king of Japan, his vassals and all the people feel at peace abusing, speaking ill of, banishing and striking me, Nichiren, and inflicting much suffering on my disciples and followers? After all I, as a messenger of the Buddha, am only trying to spread “Namu Myōhō Renge Kyō” in this period of disputes and quarrels. With my saying this, ignorant people might think that I, Nichiren, am cursing the entire land of Japan. Actually, however, those who spread the Lotus Sūtra in Japan are parents of all the Japanese people. Grand Master Chang-an’s Annotations on the Nirvana Sūtra teaches us that pointing out a man’s mistake to help him get rid of it was doing him a favor. Then, I, Nichiren, am the parent of the reigning emperor of Japan.

Senji-shō, Selecting the Right time: A Tract by Nichiren, the Buddha’s Disciple, Writings of Nichiren Shōnin, Doctrine 1, Page 205

I, Nichiren, am a child of a fisherman at the edge of the sea in the Tōjō District of Nagasa, in Awa Province, which is the 12th of the 15 provinces in the circuit of Tōkaidō. At the age of 12, I went to the Kiyosumidera Temple in the same Tōjō District to study. However, since this was a remote place, even though it was called a temple, there were no scholars there. That’s why I visited other provinces as a part of my training and study. Because I was a nobody and had no one who could teach me, it was difficult to learn about the origin of the ten schools and the comparative superiority among them; so I earnestly prayed, beseeching Buddhas and the bodhisattvas for assistance, and pondered the teachings in all the sutras.

Honzon Mondō Shō, Questions and Answers on the Honzon, Writings of Nichiren Shōnin, Doctrine 2, Page 267

The Lotus Sūtra also states that Śākyamuni Buddha enters the spirit of people who support a practicer of the sūtra in the Latter Age of the Decadent Dharma. When a stingy person drinks alcohol, for instance, he feels like giving something to others. It is that a bodhisattva has entered the drunken person in the Realm of Hungry Spirits through the bond of alcohol. When we put a jewel in dirty water, the water becomes clear; and when we see the moon, we feel romantic. A devil’s picture looks threatening even if it has no mind; while a portrait of beauty looks enticing. Nobody wants to wear brocaded clothes with a picture of snakes. When a body feels hot, it doesn’t want warm air. The human mind works the same; it changes depending on conditions. When you wanted to donate a robe to me, a dragon daughter expounded in the 12th chapter of the Lotus Sūtra entered you.

Myōhō Bikuni Go-henji, A Reply to Nun Myōhō, Nyonin Gosho, Letters Addressed to Female Followers, Page 222

Although the time is ripe for the Lotus Sūtra to convert everyone, teachers who propagate it are ordinary teachers while their disciples are wicked and sickened by the three poisons of greed, anger, and ignorance. They avoid teachers who preach the True Dharma, befriending teachers who preach false dharma. Is it not natural then that he who practices the Lotus Sūtra, the true teaching of the Buddha, and his disciples and lay followers are persecuted more severely by the three kinds of enemies?

Nyosetsu Shugyō-shō, True Way of Practicing the Teaching of the Buddha, Writings of Nichiren Shōnin, Faith and Practice, Volume 4, Page 82

It is stated in the Sūtra of the Golden Splendor that the Four Heavenly Kings (four guardian kings of Buddhism) declared to the Buddha:

Suppose there is a king in a country where this sūtra has been transmitted but has never been spread at all because the king would not recognize the sutra, listen to it, make offerings to it, revere it, or praise it. Even if he meets the four kinds of Buddhists (monks, nuns, male followers and female followers) who uphold the sutra, he would not revere or make offerings to them. As a result, we, the Four Heavenly Kings, our disciples and numerous gods would be unable to hear the teachings of this Wonderful Dharma, taste the nectar of the True Dharma, and bathe in the stream of the True Dharma. In the end we all would lose our authority and power, allowing only the spirits of the four evil realms (hell, realms of hungry spirits, beasts and birds and fighting spirits) to grow rampant in the land at the cost of heavenly and human spirits. People would all fall into the river of life and death, the realm of spiritual darkness and evil passion, losing the way to Nirvana.

World Honored One! Seeing this, we the Four Heavenly Kings, our retainers and others like the yaksa demons would all abandon this land, not wishing to defend it. It is not we alone who would abandon this king. Even if numerous protective gods exist to guard his country, we are sure that they all would abandon it. If we, the guardian deities and protective gods, all abandon this kingdom, various disasters would befall, and the king would be dethroned. All the people in the kingdom would lose compassion: arresting, killing, fighting, accusing, and flattering one another, causing even innocent people to suffer. Epidemics would spread widely; comets would appear often; two suns would appear simultaneously; the sun and moon would eclipse at random; two rainbows, a black one and white one, would appear foretelling misfortune; meteors would be seen; the earth would quake; voices would be heard in wells; unseasonable storms would occur; famine would not end; trees and plants would bear no fruit; and many foreign bandits would invade the land. Thus, the people would suffer in every way, finding no place to live in peace in this kingdom.

We read in the Sūtra of the Great Assembly, “Suppose there is a king who, upon seeing My dharma disappearing, gives up defending it. Even if he practiced charity, observed the precepts and cultivated wisdom in his numerous lives in the past, the amount of merit he accumulated would all disappear, and the three misfortunes would befall his country. … Upon death he would be reborn in the worst hell.”

Sainan Taiji-shō, Treatise on the Elimination of Calamities, Writings of Nichiren Shōnin, Doctrine 1, Pages 90-91

Even though people of Japan all pay lip service to the sūtra saying that, “The Lotus Sūtra is supreme,” in their minds they hold that “The Lotus Sūtra is second” or even “The Lotus Sūtra is in third place.” They do so not only in their minds but also in their words and deeds. After Grand Master Dengyō, there has been no practicer of the Lotus Sūtra in more than four hundred years who reads, “The Lotus Sūtra is supreme” in body, mouth and mind. Furthermore, I doubt that the practicer who “properly keeps the Lotus Sūtra” will ever appear. As Śākyamuni Buddha predicts in the “Teacher of the Dharma” chapter of the Lotus Sūtra, “Many people hate it with jealousy even in My lifetime. Needless to say, more people will do so after My extinction.” All the people in the Latter Age of Degeneration, from the Emperor down to the common people, are all archenemies of the Lotus Sūtra.

Honzon Mondō Shō, Questions and Answers on the Honzon, Writings of Nichiren Shōnin, Doctrine 2, Page 267

Grand Master T’ien-t’ai states in his Words and Phrases of the Lotus Sūtra, “Buddhist sūtras other than the Lotus Sūtra recognize the attainment of Buddhahood only by men but not by women.” This means that women can attain Buddhahood only through the Lotus Sūtra, doesn’t it? The Emitting Ten-million Rays of Light Buddha appearing in the Lotus Sūtra (chapter 13) is Mahā-Prajāpatī, foster mother of Śākyamuni Buddha. Reasoning from these accounts, isn’t it so that the attainment of Buddhahood by women is possible only through the Lotus Sūtra?

“Without fail I will expound the truth.” These are the golden words of Lord Śākyamuni Buddha (chapter 2). The truth of his words was attested to by the Buddha of Many Treasures (chapter 11) by saying, “This is entirely true.” Furthermore, it was upheld by various Buddhas by “Stretching their wide long tongues touching the Brahma Heaven” (chapter 21). Will the sun and moon ever fall on the ground? Will Mt. Sumeru ever collapse? Will the ebb and flow of the ocean stop? Will the earth ever be overturned? As long as these events do not occur, the attainment of Buddhahood by women through the Lotus Sūtra is certain.

Hōe Sho, Writing on Vestments, Writings of Nichiren Shōnin, Followers II, Volume 7, Page 186

There are two meanings of honesty: first, honesty in the worldly sense and in the second place, honesty in Buddhism. Speaking of honesty in the worldly sense, the Chinese character for king means running through the heaven, human world and earth. The three horizontal lines stand for heaven, human world and earth, which are run through by a vertical line. That is to say, the king is a person who treads the way of honesty throughout the heaven, human world and earth. The character king also stands for the color yellow. In ancient China, five colors stood for five directions, with the yellow color in the center. As the ruler in the center, the king is also called “yellow emperor.” The lord of the heaven, lord of the human world as well as that of the earth are all called the king. Ex-Emperor Gotoba, however, was the ruler in name only; he was a liar, wicked and dishonest. On the contrary, Shogunal Regent Hōjō Yoshitoki was a subject in name, but he was worthy of a great ruler without double-talk, in whom the Great Bodhisattva Hachiman vowed to reside.

Next, speaking of honesty in Buddhism, pre-Lotus sūtras and commentaries and interpretations of the seven schools of Buddhism in Japan based on those pre-Lotus sūtras are all dishonest, while the Lotus Sūtra and the teaching of the Tendai (T’ien-t’ai) School based on it are honest. The original substance of the Great Bodhisattva Hachiman is Śākyamuni Buddha, who preached the honest sūtras and manifested Himself in Japan as the honest Great Bodhisattva Hachiman. The eight petals of the lotus flower surrounding the central dais for Lord Preacher Śākyamuni Buddha are the Great Bodhisattva Hachiman. Śākyamuni Buddha, who was born on the eighth day of the fourth month, passed away on the fifteenth of the second month 80 years later. How can it not be that Lord Śākyamuni Buddha was reborn in Japan as the Great Bodhisattva Hachiman! To prove this, it is stated on the stone monument at the Shō Hachiman Shrine of Ōsumi Province, “Expounding the Lotus Sūtra on Mt. Sacred Eagle in the past, He now manifests Himself as a bodhisattva in the palace of the Shō Hachiman Shrine.” The Lotus Sūtra, chapter on “Expedients” states, “Now this triple world all belongs to Me, and all the people therein are all My children;” and chapter 16 on “The Life Span of the Buddha” declares, “I always preach and enlighten the people on Mt. Sacred Eagle in the Sahā World. ” Therefore, all sentient beings faraway in the entire universe are children of Śākyamuni Buddha, and the 4,900,094,828 people nearby in Japan are all children of the Great Bodhisattva Hachiman. All living beings in Japan today, nevertheless, worship the Great Bodhisattva Hachiman, who is a manifested trace of Śākyamuni, and ignore Śākyamuni Buddha, the original substance of Hachiman. This is like worshipping a shadow and slighting the substance or speaking ill of somebody to his children. The original substance of the Great Bodhisattva Hachiman is Śākyamuni Buddha, who was born in India, justly discarded the provisional sūtras and expounded the lone true teaching of the Lotus Sūtra. His manifested trace was born in Japan and resides in the head of an honest person.

Kangyō Hachiman-shō, Remonstration with Bodhisattva Hachiman, Writings of Nichiren Shōnin, Doctrine 1, Page 277-278