On Repaying Debts of Gratitude

Nichiren

Chapter19(Clarifying That Only Slanderers Exist in Japan)

Main Text

In Japan, as we have seen, only on Mount Hiei in the time of the Great Teacher Dengyō was there a votary of the Lotus Sutra. Dengyō was succeeded by Gishin and Enchō, the first and second chief priests of the school, respectively. But only the first chief priest, Gishin, followed the ways of the Great Teacher Dengyō. The second chief priest, Enchō, was half a disciple of Dengyō and half a disciple of Kōbō.

The third chief priest, the Great Teacher Jikaku, at first acted like a disciple of the Great Teacher Dengyō. But after he went to China at the age of forty, though he continued to call himself a disciple of Dengyō and went through the motions of carrying on Dengyō’s line, he taught a kind of Buddhism that was wholly unworthy of a true disciple of Dengyō. Only in the matter of the precepts of perfect and immediate enlightenment established by Dengyō did he conduct himself like a true disciple.

He was like a bat, for a bat resembles a bird yet is not a bird, and resembles a mouse yet is not a mouse. Or he was like an owl or a hakei beast.⁶¹ He ate his father, the Lotus Sutra, and devoured his mother, those who embrace the Lotus Sutra. When he dreamed that he shot down the sun, it must have been a portent of these crimes. And it must have been because of these acts that, after his death, no grave was set aside for him.

The temple Onjō-ji, representing Chishō’s branch of the Tendai school, fought incessantly with the temple Enryaku-ji on Mount Hiei, which represented Jikaku’s branch of the school,⁶² the two going at each other like so many asuras and evil dragons. First Onjō-ji was burned down, then the buildings on Mount Hiei. As a result, the image of Bodhisattva Maitreya that had been the special object of devotion of the Great Teacher Chishō was burned, and the special object of devotion of the Great Teacher Jikaku, as well as the great lecture hall on Mount Hiei, was likewise burned. The priests of the two temples must have felt as though they had fallen into the hell of incessant suffering while they were still in this world. Only the main hall on Mount Hiei remained standing.

The lineage of the Great Teacher Kōbō has likewise ceased to be what it should have been. Kōbō left written instructions that no one who had not received the precepts at the ordination platform [established by Ganjin] at Tōdai-ji should be allowed to become head of Tō-ji temple. The Retired Emperor Kampyō,⁶³ however, founded a temple [in Kyoto] called Ninna-ji and moved a number of priests from Tō-ji to staff it, and he also issued a decree clearly stating that no one should be allowed to reside in Ninna-ji unless he had received the precepts of perfect and immediate enlightenment at the ordination platform on Mount Hiei. As a result, the priests of Tō-ji are neither disciples of Ganjin nor those of Kōbō. In terms of the precepts, they are Dengyō’s disciples. However, they do not behave like true disciples of Dengyō. They turn their backs on the Lotus Sutra, which Dengyō considered to be supreme.

Kōbō died on the twenty-first day of the third month in the second year of the Jōwa era (835), and the imperial court sent a representative to offer prayers at his funeral. Later, however, his disciples gathered together and, bent on deception, announced that he [had not died at all but] had entered a state of deep meditation, and some of them even claimed that they had had to shave his head because his hair had grown long. Others asserted that while he was in China he had hurled a three-pronged diamond-pounder all the way across the ocean to Japan;⁶⁴ that in answer to his prayers the sun had come out in the middle of the night; that he had transformed himself into the Thus Come One Mahāvairochana; or that he had instructed the Great Teacher Dengyō in the eighteen paths⁶⁵ of esoteric Buddhism. Thus by enumerating their teacher’s supposed virtues and powers, they hoped to make him appear wise, in this way lending support to his false doctrines and deluding the ruler and his ministers.

In addition, on Mount Kōya there are two main temples, the original temple⁶⁶ and Dembō-in. The original temple, which includes the great pagoda, was founded by Kōbō and is dedicated to the Thus Come One Mahāvairochana [of the Womb Realm]. The temple called Dembō-in was founded by Shōgaku-bō and is dedicated to the Mahāvairochana of the Diamond Realm. These two temples fight with each other day and night, in the same way as Onjō-ji at the foot of Mount Hiei and Enryaku-ji on top of Mount Hiei. Was it the accumulation of deceit that brought about the appearance in Japan of these calamities?

You may pile up dung and call it sandalwood, but when you burn it, it will give off only the odor of dung. You may pile up a lot of great lies and call them the teachings of the Buddha, but they will never be anything but a gateway to the great citadel of the hell of incessant suffering.

The stupa built by Nirgrantha Jnātaputra over a period of several years conferred great benefit upon living beings, but when Bodhisattva Ashvaghosha bowed to it, it suddenly collapsed.⁶⁷ The Brahman Demon Eloquence taught from behind a curtain and for a number of years succeeded in fooling others, but Bodhisattva Ashvaghosha berated him and exposed his falsehoods.⁶⁸ The non-Buddhist teacher Ulūka turned himself into a stone and remained in that form for eight hundred years, but when Bodhisattva Dignāga berated him, he turned into water. The Taoist priests for several hundred years deceived the people of China, but when they were rebuked by the Buddhist monks Kāshyapa Mātanga and Chu Fa-lan, they burned their own scriptures that purported to teach the way of the immortals.

Just as Chao Kao seized control of the country and Wang Mang⁶⁹ usurped the position of emperor, so the leaders of the True Word school deprived the Lotus Sutra of the rank it deserves and declared that its domain belongs instead to the Mahāvairochana Sutra. If the monarch of the Law has been deprived of his kingdom in this manner, can the monarch of people hope to remain peaceful and unharmed?

Notes

61. The owl was said to eat its mother, and the legendary hakei, a beast like a tiger, to eat its father.

62. Some time after Chishō’s death, friction over doctrinal differences arose between his followers and those in the line of Jikaku. It culminated in a violent dispute over succession to the chief priesthood after the death of Ryōgen, the eighteenth chief priest of Enryaku-ji. In 993, the followers of Chishō left Enryaku-ji and established themselves at Onjō-ji. The priests of the two temples attacked one another repeatedly.

63. Kampyō refers to the fifty-ninth emperor Uda (867–931) of Japan. After his abdication in 897, he took Buddhist vows and was known as the Retired Emperor Kampyō.

64. A ritual implement used for prayers in esoteric True Word Buddhism. This story appears in The Biography of the Great Teacher Kōbō by the True Word priest Ken’i (1072–1145). According to this work, before Kōbō left China, he hurled a three-pronged diamond-pounder into the air. Returning to Japan, he went to Mount Kōya to carry out the practice of the esoteric teachings. There he found the same diamond-pounder resting in a tree’s branches.

65. Esoteric practices employing eighteen different mudras, nine for the Diamond Realm and nine for the Womb Realm.

66. The original temple refers to Kongōbu-ji, the head temple of the True Word school, located on Mount Kōya.

67. This story appears in A History of the Buddha’s Successors. King Kanishka happened to pass by the stupa adorned with seven kinds of treasures that Nirgrantha Jnātaputra, one of the six non-Buddhist teachers and the founder of Jainism, had built. He mistook it for a Buddhist stupa and worshiped it, whereupon it collapsed. The Daishonin says that Ashvaghosha was the one who caused the stupa to collapse, probably because King Kanishka was converted to Buddhism by Ashvaghosha.

68. This story appears in Record of the Western Regions. In India there was a conceited Brahman named Demon Eloquence who amused himself with paradoxical theories and worshiped demons. He lived in a forest secluded from people. Because he conducted debates from behind a curtain, nobody had seen his true form. One day Ashvaghosha, together with the ruler, went to confront him in debate and argued him into silence. Then Ashvaghosha lifted the curtain, exposing his demonic appearance.

69. Wang Mang (45 b.c.e.–c.e. 23) was a high official who lived toward the end of the Former Han dynasty and controlled the throne by appointing nine-year-old Emperor P’ing to succeed. Eventually he poisoned P’ing, usurped the throne, and established a new dynasty called the Hsin.

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