ABSTRACT
The Buddha prophesied that after his death human history would be divided into three periods, usually referred to as the Former, Middle and Latter Days of the Law, the Law being the Buddhist dharma or Truth. In the shobo, or Former period, the True Law would be dominant; in the Middle, zoho (or zobo) period, a simulated Law would be propagated, whilst the Latter or mappo period would be an age of degeneracy in which the dharma would be under real threat. Most Japanese of the thirteenth century, including Nichiren, believed that the mappo period had begun around the middle of the eleventh century348CE, and that they were therefore living in an age of confusion and decline. For this belief they found confirmation in a number of natural disasters which afflicted Japan, chiefly between 1256 and 1260: in these few years the country was devastated by a succession of crop failures consequent on dire climatic conditions, epidemics, earthquakes, floods and fires, to be followed by repeated threats of invasion by the Mongols. It was during this period that the young monk Nichiren was forming his outlook. Almost a perfect exemplar of the religious enthusiast, Nichiren believed he knew exactly why Japan should be so afflicted, and further how to rescue his country from its peril. He promulgated his views fearlessly and repeatedly, never repudiating them even in the face of persecution, exile, and the threat of an execution from which he had the narrowest of escapes. Though in his lifetime the sect he founded cannot be said to have prospered, it has endured to this day, and one of its sub-sects, Nichiren Shoshu (‘The Genuine Nichiren Sect’) has in this century considerably advanced its international standing.
