The Selection of the Time

Nichiren, disciple of Shakyamuni Buddha

Chapter18(The propagation of the Great Teacher Dengyō)

Question: The Great Teacher Dengyō was born in Japan in the time of Emperor Kammu. He refuted the mistaken beliefs that had held sway in Japan for the more than two hundred years since the time of Emperor Kimmei and declared his support for the perfect wisdom and perfect meditation taught by the Great Teacher T’ien-t’ai. In addition, he repudiated as invalid the ordination platforms that had been established at three places in Japan⁹⁰ to confer the Hinayana precepts brought over by the Reverend Ganjin, and instead set up a Mahayana specific ordination platform of the perfect and immediate enlightenment on Mount Hiei. This was the most momentous event that had ever taken place in India, China, Japan, or anywhere else in Jambudvīpa during the eighteen hundred years following the Buddha’s passing.

I do not know whether the Great Teacher Dengyō’s inner enlightenment was inferior or equal to that of Nāgārjuna and T’ien-t’ai, but I am convinced that, in calling upon all Buddhist believers to adhere to a single doctrine, he showed himself to be superior to Nāgārjuna and Vasubandhu and to surpass even Nan-yüeh and T’ien-t’ai.

In general, we may say that during the eighteen hundred years following the passing of the Buddha these two men, T’ien-t’ai and Dengyō, were the true votaries of the Lotus Sutra. Thus Dengyō writes in his work The Outstanding Principles of the Lotus Sutra: “The sutra says, ‘If you were to seize Mount Sumeru and fling it far off to the measureless Buddha lands, that too would not be difficult. . . . But if after the Buddha has entered extinction, in the time of evil, you can preach this sutra, that will be difficult indeed!’⁹¹ In commenting on this passage, I have this to say: Shakyamuni taught that the shallow is easy to embrace, but the profound is difficult. To discard the shallow and seek the profound is the way of a person of courage. The Great Teacher T’ien-t’ai trusted and obeyed Shakyamuni and worked to uphold the Lotus school, spreading its teachings throughout China. We of Mount Hiei inherited the doctrine from T’ien-t’ai and work to uphold the Lotus school and to disseminate its teachings throughout Japan.”

The meaning of this passage is as follows: From the time of the Buddha’s advent in the Wise Kalpa in the ninth period of decrease, when the human life span measured a hundred years, through the fifty years of his preaching life as well as during the eighteen hundred or more years after his passing, there might actually have been a small person only five feet in height who could nevertheless lift a gold mountain 168,000 yojanas or 6,620,000 ri in height and hurl it over the Iron Encircling Mountains faster than a sparrow flies, just as he might take a one- or two-inch stone and toss it a distance of one or two chō. But even if there should have been such a person, it would be rarer still for someone to appear in the Latter Day of the Law who could expound the Lotus Sutra as the Buddha did. Yet the Great Teacher T’ien-t’ai and the Great Teacher Dengyō were just such persons, able to teach it in a manner similar to the Buddha.

In India the scholars never went as far as to propagate the Lotus Sutra. In China the teachers before T’ien-t’ai either passed over it or fell short of it. As for later men such as Tz’u-en, Fa-tsang, or Shan-wu-wei, they were the kind who say that east is west or declare that heaven is earth. And these are not opinions that the Great Teacher Dengyō put forward merely to enhance his own worth.

On the nineteenth day of the first month in the twenty-first year of the Enryaku era (802), Emperor Kammu paid a visit to the temple at Mount Takao. He summoned more than ten eminent priests from the six schools and seven major temples of Nara, including Zengi, Shōyū, Hōki, Chōnin, Kengyoku, Ampuku, Gonzō, Shuen, Jikō, Gen’yō, Saikō, Dōshō, Kōshō, and Kambin, to come to the temple to debate with the Dharma Teacher Saichō. But they became tongue-tied after their first words and could not speak a second or third time. Instead, all bowed their heads as one and pressed their palms together in a gesture of awe. The Three Treatises teachings concerning the two storehouses of teachings, the teachings of the three periods and the thrice turned wheel of the Law; the Dharma Characteristics doctrines concerning the teachings of the three periods and the five natures; and the Flower Garland doctrines of the four teachings, the five teachings,⁹² the root teaching and the branch teachings, the six forms, and the ten mysteries—all their frameworks were utterly refuted. It was as though the beams and rafters of a great edifice had broken and collapsed. The proud banners of the ten and more eminent priests had also been toppled.

At that time the emperor was greatly amazed at the proceedings, and on the twenty-ninth day of the same month he dispatched [Wake no] Hiroyo and [Ōtomo no] Kunimichi as imperial envoys to question the men of the seven temples and six schools at greater length. All of them in turn submitted a memorial acknowledging that they had been defeated in the debate and won over by Dengyō’s arguments. “When we privately examine Profound Meaning and other commentaries by T’ien-t’ai, we find that they sum up all the teachings expounded by Shakyamuni Buddha in his lifetime. The full purport of the Buddha’s doctrines is made clear, without a single point being left unexplained. The Tendai school surpasses all other schools, and is unique in pointing out the single way for all to follow. The doctrines that it expounds represent the most profound mystic truth and are something that we, students of the seven major temples and six schools, have never before heard of, and never before seen. Now at last the dispute that has continued so long between the Three Treatises and Dharma Characteristics schools has been resolved as dramatically as though ice had melted. The truth has been made abundantly clear, as though clouds and mist had parted to reveal the light of the sun, moon, and stars. In the two hundred or more years since Prince Shōtoku spread the Buddhist teachings in this country, a great many sutras and treatises have been lectured upon, and their principles have been widely argued, but until now, many doubts still remained to be settled. Moreover, the lofty and perfect doctrine of the Lotus Sutra had not yet been properly explained and made known. Was it that the people who lived during this period were not yet qualified to taste its perfect flavor?

“In our humble view, the ruler⁹³ of our sacred dynasty has received the charge given long ago by the Thus Come One Shakyamuni and has undergone profound instruction in the pure and perfect teaching of the Lotus Sutra, so that the doctrines of the unique and wonderful truth that it expounds have for the first time been explained and made clear. Thus we, the scholars of the six schools, have for the first time understood the ultimate truth. From now on, all the beings in this world who are endowed with life will be able to embark on the ship of the wonderful and perfect truth and quickly reach the opposite shore. Zengi and the others of our group have met with great good fortune because of karmic bonds and have been privileged to hear these extraordinary words. Were it not for some profound karmic tie, how could we have been born in this sacred age?”

In China in past times, Chia-hsiang assembled some hundred other priests and, together with them, acknowledged the Great Teacher T’ien-t’ai to be a true sage. And later in Japan, the more than two hundred priests of the seven temples of Nara proclaimed the Great Teacher Dengyō to be worthy of the title of sage. Thus, during the two thousand and more years after the passing of the Buddha, these two sages appeared in the two countries of China and Japan respectively. In addition, the Great Teacher Dengyō established on Mount Hiei an ordination platform for conferring the great precepts of perfect and immediate enlightenment, precepts that even the Great Teacher T’ien-t’ai had never propagated. How then can you deny that in the latter part of the Middle Day of the Law the wide proclamation and propagation of the Lotus Sutra was achieved?

Answer: As I have explained in my earlier discussion, a great truth that was not spread widely by Mahākāshyapa or Ānanda was in time propagated by Ashvaghosha, Nāgārjuna, Āryadeva, and Vasubandhu. As I have also explained in my discussion, there was a great truth that was not fully made known by Nāgārjuna, Vasubandhu, and the others, but was propagated by the Great Teacher T’ien-t’ai. And, as I have further explained, it remained for the Great Teacher Dengyō to establish an ordination platform of the great precepts of perfect and immediate enlightenment that were not spread widely by the Great Teacher T’ien-t’ai Chih-che.

And, unbelievable as it may seem, there clearly appears in the text of the Lotus Sutra a correct Law that is supremely profound and secret,⁹⁴ one that, though expounded in full by the Buddha, in the time since his passing has never yet been propagated by Mahākāshyapa, Ānanda, Ashvaghosha, Nāgārjuna, Asanga, or Vasubandhu, nor even by T’ien-t’ai or Dengyō. The most difficult and perplexing question is whether or not this profound Law can be broadly proclaimed and propagated throughout the entire land of Jambudvīpa now at the beginning of the Latter Day of the Law, the fifth of the five five-hundred-year periods following the Buddha’s passing.

Notes

90. The ordination platforms at Tōdai-ji temple in Nara, Yakushi-ji in Shimotsuke Province, and Kanzeon-ji in Kyushu.

91. Lotus Sutra, chap. 11.

92. Four teachings and the five teachings: Classifications of the Buddha’s teachings. Both of these doctrines rank the Flower Garland Sutra and the Lotus Sutra first.

93. The ruler refers here to Emperor Kammu. This sentence indirectly praises Dengyō, who revealed and upheld the truth of the Lotus Sutra during Emperor Kammu’s time.

94. This means that the Three Great Secret Laws are apparent in the passages of the Lotus Sutra when the sutra is read in light of its essential truth.