passed before his faults were brought to light.35
People are able to be born in human form because they have observed the five precepts in a previous existence. And if they continue to observe the five precepts in this life, then the twentyfive benevolent deities will protect them, and Same Birth and Same Name, the two heavenly messengers who have been with each of them since birth on their shoulders, will guard them. So long as they commit no fault, the demons will have no chance to do them harm. And yet in this country of Japan, there are countless people who cry out in misery. We know, too, that the people on the islands of Iki and Tsushima had to suffer at the hands of the Mongols, and what befell the defenders of the Dazaifu in Kyushu. What fault were the people of this country guilty of that they should meet with such a fate? One would surely like to know the answer. One or two of the persons there may have been guilty of evil, but is it possible that all of them could have been?
The blame lies entirely in the fact that this country is filled with the disciples of those who despised the Lotus Sutra— True Word priests who follow the doctrines handed down from Kobo, Jikaku, and Chisho; Nembutsu priests who are latter-day disciples of Shan-tao and Honen; and the followers of Bodhidharma and the other patriarchs of the Zen school. That is why Brahma, Shakra, the four heavenly kings, and the other deities, true to the vows they took when the Lotus Sutra was expounded to split into seven pieces the head [of anyone who troubles a preacher of the sutra],36 have sent down this punishment.
Some people may be perplexed at this point and object that, although those who do harm to the votary of the Lotus Sutra are supposed to have their heads split into seven pieces, there
are people who slander the priest Nichiren and yet do not have broken heads. Are we to conclude, they may ask, that the priest Nichiren is not a true votary of the Lotus Sutra?
I would reply by saying that, if Nichiren is not a votary of the Lotus Sutra, then who is? Is Honen a votary, who in his writings ordered people to throw the Lotus Sutra away? Is the Great Teacher Kobo a votary, who said that Shakyamuni Buddha was still in the region of darkness? Or are Shan- wu-wei and Jikaku votaries, who taught that, although the Lotus Sutra and the Mahavairochana Sutra are equal in terms of principle, the latter is superior in practice?
Again, this matter of the head being split into seven pieces— one need not imagine the kind of split made by a sharp sword. On the contrary, the Lotus Sutra says that the split is like that of the “branches of the arjaka tree.”37 In a person’s head there are seven drops of liquid, and outside there are seven demons. If the demons drink one drop, the person’s head begins to ache. If they drink three drops, his life will be endangered, and if they drink all seven drops, he will die. People in the world today all have heads that have split apart like the branches of the arjaka tree, but they are so steeped in evil karma that they are not even aware of the fact. They are like persons who have been injured while they were asleep or in a state of drunkenness, and have not yet become conscious of their injury.
Rather than saying that the head is split into seven pieces, we sometimes say that the mind is split into seven pieces. The skull bone under the scalp cracks or even breaks apart at the time of death. Many people of our own period had their heads split open in the great earthquake of the Shoka era (1257) or at the time of the appearance of the great comet in the Bun’ei era (1264). At the time their heads split
