Legend in Japanese art : a description of historical episodes, legendary characters, folk-lore myths, religious symbolism illustrated in the arts of old Japan, 1908.

Internet Archive: https://archive.org/details/legendinjapanese00joly_1/page/n25/mode/2up

Henri Joly [1839-1925]

Text p.248/ 647. NICHIREN Celebrated founder of the Buddhist sect which bears his name. Born in 1222, in Kominata, in Awa, near Tokyo, his name means Sun lotus, because his mother dreamt that the sun entered her body when she conceived him. He received by revelation a complete knowledge of the Buddhistic mysteries — modern historians say that he followed the Shingon sect and studied the Jodo doctrines — and sought to replace the ordinary mantra Namu Amida Butsu by Namu mio ko ren ge kio (Sanskrit: Mamah Saddharma pundharika Sutra) “Glory to the salvation-giving book of the law,” which is the initial sentence of the principal book of his sect, the Hokke-shu, founded under the reign of Gofukakusa Tenno. He also wrote a book Ankoku Ron (book to tranquilise the country), which contained the prediction of a Mongol invasion and was so full of attacks against the other sects that Hojo Tokiyori was obliged, at the prayers of the others, to exile him to Ito, in Idzu, for thirty years, in 1261. He escaped in 1264, only to renew his attacks with increased virulence. The help of the Kamakura Shogun was then again sought by Nichiren's enemies, and he decided to have the monk beheaded. He sent him to the beach of Koshigoye to be executed. Whilst awaiting the fatal stroke, the legend tells us that Nichiren composedly recited his beads and his invocation to Buddha, the sword broke in twain as it touched his neck, and at the same instant a flash of lightning struck Hojo’s place at Kamakura. A beam of heavenly light illuminated the place of execution, and the officer entrusted with the deed sent to Hojo a messenger to beg for reprieve. Hojo, on his side, had sent a horseman with a pardon, and the two met at a small river, since then called Yukiai (place of meeting). Nichiren was again exiled, but this time to Sado. In 1273 he came back to Kamakura, then to Mount Minobu in Kai, where after his death in Ikegami, part of his ashes was returned.

According to legend, a beautiful women once came to Mount Minobu whilst Nichiren was praying. The saint ordered her to resume her natural state, and after explaining that she ruled eight points of the compass whilst seated on the eighth one in the mountains of the west, she drank some water and took the appearance of a huge snake, some twenty feet long, with iron teeth and golden scales. The name of Shichi men Daimyojin has been given to that snake through a confusion in the meaning of Shichi men, and it is identified with Siva (Srimahadeva). See the Nichiren Shonin Ichidai dzue.