[T]he daimoku of the Lotus Sūtra is the source of all buddhas. One who chants it directly receives its transmission from the primordial buddha on Vulture Peak, and the place where one chants it is that buddha’s pure land. This claim is in keeping with the logic that “the assembly on Vulture Peak is awesomely present and has not yet dispersed” or of the primordial buddha’s realm of “original time” depicted on Nichiren’s mandala that can be entered through faith. Another of Nichiren’s personal letters explains the inner transmission in this way: “To chant Myōhō-renge-kyō with the understanding that these three — Śākyamuni Buddha who realized enlightenment in the remotest past, the Lotus Sūtra that enables all to attain the buddha way, and we ourselves, living beings — are altogether inseparable and without distinction is to receive the transmission of the one great purpose of birth and death.” “Transmission” in this sense does not pass through a single historical lineage of teachers but is immediately accessible to any practitioner who chants the daimoku.

Nichiren alludes to [the] direct transmission [of the Lotus Sūtra] in a personal letter connecting his retreat in the depths of Mount Minobu in Kai province, where he spent the last years of his life, to the “Transcendent Powers” chapter, where it says that wherever the Lotus Sūtra is practiced — “in a garden, a forest, under a tree, in a monk’s chamber, in a layman’s house, in a palace, on a mountain, in a valley, or in the wilderness” — is a sacred place of the Buddha’s activity. Nichiren elaborates: “This place is deep in the mountains, far from human habitation. East, west, north, or south, not a single village is to be found. Although I dwell in this forlorn retreat, hidden in the fleshly heart within my breast I hold the secret dharma of the ‘one great purpose’ transmitted from Śākyamuni Buddha, the lord of teachings, at Vulture Peak. Within my breast the buddhas enter nirvāṇa; on my tongue, they turn the wheel of the dharma; from my throat, they are born; and in my mouth, they attain supreme awakening. Because this the wondrous votary of the Lotus Sūtra dwells in this mountain, how could it be inferior to the pure land of Vulture Peak?”

Nichiren’s idea of the transmission of the Lotus Sūtra is also twofold in another sense. On the one hand, the transmission unfolds through a line of teachers in historical time. Nichiren saw himself as heir to a lineage that passed from Śākyamuni Buddha, to Zhiyi, to Saichō, and then to himself — the “four teachers in three countries,” as he put it. The Nichiren tradition terms this the “outer transmission,” passing over the centuries from Śākyamuni Buddha down to Nichiren and his followers. At the same time, however, it speaks of an “inner transmission” received directly from the primordial buddha, namely, the daimoku itself. Nichiren said that teachers such as Zhiyi and Saichō had known inwardly of Namu Myōhō-renge-kyō but had not spoken of it openly because the time for its dissemination had not yet come.

[I]n Nichiren’s reading, in the “Transcendent Powers” chapter, the Buddha first transmitted the daimoku, Namu Myōhō-renge-kyō, to the bodhisattvas who had emerged from the earth, for them to propagate in the Final Dharma age. To presage this momentous event, the Buddha displayed his ten transcendent powers and, extracting the essence of the Lotus Sūtra, entrusted it to the four bodhisattvas. Then, in the “Entrustment” chapter, he made a more general transmission of the Lotus and all his other teachings to the bodhisattvas from other worlds, the bodhisattvas of the trace teaching who had been his followers in his provisional guise as the buddha who first attained awakening in this lifetime, and persons of the two vehicles. This general transmission was intended for the more limited period of the True Dharma and Semblance Dharma ages.

Let us review the process of the Buddha’s entrustment of the Lotus Sūtra from this twofold perspective. In the “Jeweled Stūpa” chapter, Śākyamuni Buddha calls for persons willing to spread the sūtra in an evil age after his nirvāṇa. Right before the concluding verse section, Śākyamuni announces: “The Tathāgata will enter parinirvāṇa before long and the Buddha wants to transmit this Lotus Sūtra to you.” Zhiyi says that this implies both a “near” transmission, to those bodhisattvas who have already assembled, and a “distant” transmission, to the bodhisattvas who will emerge from the earth several chapters later and to whom the Buddha will transfer the essence of the sūtra. In the “Perseverance” chapter, a great throng of bodhisattvas from other worlds vow to spread the Lotus Sūtra throughout the ten directions. But in the “Bodhisattvas Emerging from the Earth” chapter, Śākyamuni rejects their offer and instead summons his original disciples, the bodhisattvas from beneath the earth led by Viśiṣṭacaritra. Their appearance at the assembly in open space provides the occasion for Śākyamuni, in the “Lifespan” chapter, to cast off his provisional guise as someone who first realized enlightenment in the present lifetime and reveal his true identity as the primordially awakened buddha who “constantly resides” here in this world. Now in the “Transcendent Powers” chapter, he formally transfers the Lotus Sūtra to the bodhisattvas of the earth, who in the next chapter solemnly vow to uphold and disseminate it as the Buddha directs.

But what was transferred to the bodhisattvas of the earth? Śākyamuni declares that in the Lotus Sūtra he has “clearly revealed and taught all the teachings of the Tathāgata, all the transcendent powers of the Tathāgata, all the treasure houses of the hidden essence of the Tathāgata, and all the profound aspects of the Tathāgata.” Based on this passage, Zhiyi formulated five major principles of the Lotus Sūtra — its name, essence, purport, function, and position among all teachings — principles that he also understood as inherent in the five characters that comprise the sūtra’s title. Nichiren too spoke of “Namu Myōhō-renge-kyō endowed with the five profound principles,” drawing on the Tiantai commentarial tradition to assert that what Śākyamuni Buddha transferred to the bodhisattvas of the earth was none other than the daimoku, the heart or intent, of the Lotus Sūtra:

As for the five characters Myōhō-renge-kyō: Śākyamuni Buddha not only kept them secret during his first forty-some years of teaching, but also refrained from speaking of them even in the trace teaching, the first fourteen chapters of the Lotus Sūtra. Not until the “Lifespan” chapter did he reveal the two characters renge, which [represent the five characters and] indicate the original effect and original cause [of the Buddha’s enlightenment]. The Buddha did not entrust these five characters to Mañjuśrī, Samantabhadra, Maitreya, Bhaiṣajyarāja, or any other such bodhisattvas. Instead he summoned forth from the great earth of Tranquil Light the bodhisattvas Viśiṣṭacāritra, Anantacāritra, Vlśuddhacāritra, and Supratiṣṭhitacāritra along with their followers and transmitted the five characters to them.