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very few people have come to visit
| six thousand came to pay back what they owed |
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| what great goodness he performed in past existences |
Reply to Tokimitsu
I have received
the horseload of polished rice and ginger that you sent me.
While he was
still living a secular life, Aniruddha, the son of King Dronodana, was a descendant of the wheel-turning king who was the
true ruler of India, a grandson of King Simhahanu, a nephew of King Shuddhodana, and a son to King Dronodana. He was a person
of noble descent known throughout the whole land. Moreover, his house was visited by twelve thousand people each day: six
thousand came to borrow from the wealth of his family, and the other six thousand came to pay back what they owed. Not only
was he this wealthy, but he later became foremost in divine insight, and the Buddha prophesied in the Lotus Sutra that he
would become the Buddha Universal Brightness.
If we examine
what great goodness he performed in past existences, we find that a long time ago there was a hunter who supported himself
by capturing beasts in the mountains. He also raised millet for food, but, since he lived in a time of famine, there was almost
nothing to eat. As he was eating the single bowl of millet that was his only food, a sage, a pratyekabuddha named Rida, appeared
and begged him for it, saying, "I have not eaten for seven days. Let me have your food." The hunter replied, "I have put it
in a vessel defiled by a common person of the secular world, and moreover have tainted the food by starting to eat it"; but
the sage said, "Just let me have it. If I do not eat now, I shall die." Though ashamed of its unworthiness, the hunter offered
him the food. After eating the millet, the sage returned the bowl to the hunter, having left just one grain of millet remaining.
This millet turned into a wild boar. The wild boar changed into gold and the gold was transformed into a corpse. The corpse
then changed into a man made of gold. Whenever the hunter pulled off one of the golden man’s fingers and sold it, a
new finger would appear in its place. Thus, for ninety-one kalpas the hunter was reborn as a wealthy man, and in his present
existence he was called Aniruddha and became a disciple of the Buddha. Although it was a paltry amount of millet, because
it sustained the life of a sage in a famished country, he received a wonderful reward.
The Venerable
Mahakashyapa was the worthiest of all the Buddha’s disciples. In terms of lineage, he was the son of the wealthy Nyagrodha
of the kingdom of Magadha. The floor of his house was covered with one thousand straw mats, each seven feet thick. Even those
mats of lesser quality were each worth a thousand ryo of gold. The household assets included 999 plows, each worth a thousand
ryo of gold, and sixty storehouses, each with 340 koku of gold inside. Such was the immensity of his wealth. His wife had
a gold-colored body, which shed light to a distance of sixteen ri. Her beauty exceeded even that of Lady Soto’ori Hime
of Japan and surpassed even that of Lady Li of China. This husband and wife conceived a desire to seek the way, and became
disciples of the Buddha. In the Lotus Sutra, it was predicted that the husband would become the Buddha Light Bright. If we
were to inquire into the past existences of these two people, we would find that because one had offered a bowl of wheat to
a pratyekabuddha, he was later born as the Venerable Mahakashyapa. The other was a poor woman who had a sculptor of Buddhist
images [a previous incarnation of Mahakashyapa] beat a gold coin of hers into gilding for a statue of the Buddha Vipashyin,
and who later became this person’s wife.
Although I,
Nichiren, am not a sage, I have become known as the defender of the Lotus Sutra. For this, not only have I been hated and
assailed by the ruler of the country, but my disciples and even those who visit me have been reviled or struck, or have had
their fiefs confiscated, or have been driven from their dwellings. Because they live under such a ruler, even people with
seeking minds do not visit me. This has been the case for some time, but this year, in particular, because of epidemics and
famine, very few people have come to visit.
Just as I was
thinking that, even if I remained free from illness, I would surely die of starvation, the wheat that you sent arrived. It
is more wonderful than gold and more precious than jewels. Rida’s millet changed into a golden man. How, then, could
Tokimitsu’s wheat fail to turn into the characters of the Lotus Sutra? These characters of the Lotus Sutra will become
Shakyamuni Buddha and then a pair of wings for your deceased father, flying and soaring to the pure land of Eagle Peak. On
returning, they will cover your body and guide you.
With my deep
respect,
Nichiren
The eighth day
of the seventh month in the first year of Koan (1278)
Reply to Lord Ueno
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