Reply to the Honorable Kōnichi Chapter2

Every one of the 4,589,658 people in Japan today will surely fall into this hell of incessant suffering. Not a single one of them, however, thinks that he or she will do so. Similarly, before the fifth month of this fourth year of Kōan [1281], not a single one of all the people in Japan, either high or low, thought that we would experience an attack by the Mongols. In all of Japan, only Nichiren knew beforehand that such a thing would without fail occur in this land. I warned that at that time all 4,589,658 people in Japan, without exception, would be subjected to attack from another country.

That great suffering, I said, will be comparable to what happens when one puts water in a cooking pan, adds plenty of tiny fish, and cooks them over a fire of withered brushwood.

Because I said this, people cried out, “He’s dangerous, he’s cursed! Beat him, force him out of his dwelling, exile him, kill him, take away the farmlands of his believers, strip them of their wealth, and confiscate their estates!”

But because in the fifth month of this year they were subjected to an attack by the great Mongol kingdom, they were amazed and confounded. As a result, it is likely that there are now those who think, “Perhaps it is just as he said.”

It is unpleasant to people, and so they wish to avoid mentioning it. But because it is a fact they cannot help acknowledging, “What Nichiren said was right! It was right!” Some may feel, however, that my words are no more than those of the transformed body of an evil spirit.