Questions and Answers on the Object of Devotion Chapter12-2
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One becomes the ruler of a nation, whether a large or a small one, due to the design of Brahmā, Shakra, the gods of the sun and moon, and the four heavenly kings. If the ruler should act as archenemy of the Lotus Sutra, these deities have vowed to mete out immediate punishment.
For example, when the grand minister of state and lay priest [Taira no Kiyomori] and his clan undertook to support the eighty-first sovereign, Emperor Antoku, and to overthrow Minamoto no Yoritomo, they chose Mount Hiei as their clan temple and the Mountain King as their clan god, relying on their assistance. The result was that Emperor Antoku was drowned in the sea of western Japan,28 Myōun [the chief priest of Mount Hiei] was killed by Minamoto no Yoshinaka, and the entire Taira clan was wiped out in one stroke.
Later there was a second occurrence of this type,29 and now there is about to be a third.
If my warnings are ignored and the evil ceremonies of the True Word school are employed in an attempt to overcome the forces of the great Mongol Empire, it will on the contrary be the country of Japan that is overcome; as the Lotus Sutra says, “the injury will rebound upon the originator.”30
If we stop to consider the benefits of the Lotus Sutra in the light of the punishments [suffered by those who turned against it], then we will realize that there is no path to the attainment of Buddhahood that surpasses the Lotus Sutra. And if we wish to see how prayers based upon it are answered in this present world, the proof lies in the fact that Minamoto no Yoritomo read and recited the Lotus Sutra.
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Notes
28. Antoku, still a child at the time, drowned in 1185 during a sea battle at Dannoura, where the Taira clan met their final defeat at the hands of the Minamoto.
29. A reference to the Jōkyū Disturbance of 1221. The Retired Emperor Gotoba played a leading role in a struggle for power between the imperial court in Kyoto and the Hōjō clan in Kamakura. The imperial forces were defeated, and he and two other retired emperors, his sons, were sent into exile.