This is a brief(ish) chronology of the major events in the life of Nichiren Daishonin (1222 to 1282). This has been created as much as my own study aid as anything else. I hope you find it useful.
1222 (Sixteenth day of the second month)
Nichiren Daishonin was, born in the village of Kominato, Awa province (present day Chiba Prefecture), on the sixteenth day of the second month, 1222. The Daishonin (meaning Great Sage), was born, as he said in Letter from Sado, into a poor family of the chandala class – his father, Mikuni no Taifu and his mother Umegiku made their living by fishing. The chandala are the lowest class in the Indian caste system, and included jailers, butchers, and fishermen, and the Daishonin mentions this to acknowledge his humble origins.
The Daishonin was given the childhood name Zennichi-maro. He lived in the fishing village until the age of twelve
1230
The Diashonin left Kominato to study at a nearby Tendai temple called Seicho-ji. At the time, temples commonly doubled as schools where people learned literacy.
Zennichi-maro studied Buddhism at Seicho-ji under Dozen-bo, a senior priest of Seicho-ji, and received instruction in Tendai, True Word and Pure Land doctrines. Concerned by the myriad Buddhist schools and contradictions within the Buddhist canon, he became convinced that one sutra existed that must represent the ultimate truth.
He had also been concerned from an early age with the fundamental problem of escaping the sufferings of birth and death, and had come to realise that the answer lay in the Buddha’s enlightenment.
In the temple, Zennichi-maro prayed before a statue of Bodhisattva Space Treasury to become the wisest man in Japan, and his prayer was answered when, as he wrote later, the “living” Bodhisattva Space Treasury bestowed on him “a great jewel” of wisdom. At that moment he awakened to the ultimate reality of life and the universe.
However, to reveal this enlightenment to the people of the Latter Day of the Law, he had to systematise his ideas in relation to the whole of the Buddha’s teachings.
1238
At the age of sixteen, Zennichi-maro resolved to be ordained and took the religious name Zesho-bo Rencho. Some time later he left his teacher Dozen-bo and went to Kamakura to further his studies. There he read the teachings of the Pure Land and Zen schools. Kamakura was a new city with only a limited Buddhist tradition.
1242
After three years of study in Kamakura, Rencho returned to Seicho-ji briefly, and left again the same year for western Japan. This time he went to Mount Hiei, the center of the Tendai school and of Buddhism in general, and later to Mount Koya, the headquarters of the True Word school, and to other important temples in the Kyoto and Nara areas. After some ten years of study at Mount Hiei and elsewhere, he concluded that the true teachings of Buddhism are to be found in the Lotus Sutra. The Lotus represents the heart of Shakyamuni Buddha’s enlightenment; all other sutras are mere expedients leading up to the Lotus.
1253
Rencho returned to Seicho-ji in 1253, with a firm conviction that the true teachings of Buddhism are to be found in the Lotus Sutra.
Then, early on the morning of the 28th April, he climbed to the top of Mt. Kiyosumi and facing the rising sun chanted Namu Myoho Renge Kyo for the first time. This marked the beginning of his lifelong mission to spread the Wonderful Mystic Law. He gave himself the same Nichiren, meaning “Sun Lotus”.
At noon that day, he propounded his doctrine at the temple in the presence of his teacher, Dozen-bo, and other priests and the public. Rubbing his prayer beads, he chanted Nam-myoho-renge-kyo three times. He declared that none of the pre-Lotus Sutra teachings reveals the Buddha’s enlightenment, and could not save the people from the sufferings of birth, old age, sickness and death. Further, he stated that all other teachings were incomplete and inferior and that only Nam-myoho-renge-kyo, the essence of the Lotus Sutra, could lead people of the Latter Day of the Law to enlightenment.
Everyone was outraged, and they responded angrily. All the audience could understand at the time was the Daishonin’s insistence that all other schools of Buddhism were misguided, including the popular Pure Land school, to which the steward of the region, Tojo Kagenobu, was a devout adherent. The steward demanded the arrest of the Daishonin, but the Daishonin escaped. He briefly visited his parents, converting them to the the new faith before going to Kamakura to spread the Lotus Sutra.
In the eight month of 1253 the Daishonin settled in a small dwelling in Matsubagayatsu, in the southeast of Kamakura. In this dwelling and those of his supporters, The Daishonin began propagating the teachings of the Lotus Sutra. He would also visit temples in the city and debate with chief priests, denouncing Pure Land and Zen schools for their erroneous foundations.
Alleged Location of Nichiren's Hut in Matsubagayatsu
The Daishonin’s actions angered religious leaders, and government officials alike (not least because many were also Pure Land and Zen followers). Opposition became fierce, but the Daishonin continued to win converts.
In was in these early years that the Daishonin gained such major disciples as Shijo Kingo, Toki Jonin, Kudo Yoshitaka and Ikegami Munenaka.
1256
Japan began to suffer a series of calamities, including storms, floods, droughts, earthquakes and epidemics.
1257
A particularly severe earthquake destroyed many temples, government buildings and homes in Kamakura.
1258
The Daishonin travelled to Jisso-ji temple, Iwamoto (present day Shizuoka Prefecture), to consult its copies of the Buddhist canon, and to start assembling incontrovertible proof of the cause of the disasters. During his stay there, he met a thirteen year old acolyte, who became the Daishonin’s disciple. The Daishonin gave the young man the name Hoki-bo (later to become Nikko, the Daishonin’s designated legal successor).
1259 – 1260
Severe famine and plague ravaged the inhabitants of the city.
The most powerful man in the country was Hojo Tokiyori, a former regent of the Kamakura shogunate who had retired to Saimyo-ji, a Zen temple.
16th July – Nichiren Daishonin presented to Tokiyori a treatise entitled On Establishing the Correct Teaching for the Peace of the Land (Jap. Rissho Ankoku Ron). In it, he blames recent upheavals squarely on the people’s slander of the correct teaching, and their reliance on false doctrines.
Sample from the Risho Ankoku Ron
In particular, the worship of Amida Buddha is cited as a source of slander, and the people are warned that there will be no respite from suffering unless these beliefs are renounced, and the people accept the teachings of the Lotus Sutra.
Excerpts from the Golden Light, Medicine Master, Benevolent Kings and Great Collection sutras describing the various calamities that will befall any nation hostile to the correct teaching are included to support these assertions.
Of the seven calamities mentioned in the Medicine Master Sutra, five had already struck Japan.
Rissho Ankoku Ron goes on to predict that if the authorities persist in turning their backs on the correct teaching, the two remaining calamities, foreign invasion and internal strife, will strike the nation.
The Daishonin was insisting that one should have faith in the ability to attain buddhahood in this lifetime, and transform this world into a pure land as taught by the Lotus Sutra, rather than to resign to suffering and wait for a happy life after death as taught by the Pure Land movement.
It is important to remember that Nichiren Daishonin was not advocating the persecution of the other Buddhist schools or the establishment of a new state religion. The Rissho Ankoku-Ron was a critique of the shogunate’s religious affairs, and was seen by those in power as blasphemous and almost anti-patriotic.
27th August – an angry mob of Pure Land believers burned down Nichiren Shonin’s hut. Fortunately, he had been alerted by his supporters to the threat and escaped. This occasion is known as the Matsubagayatsu Persecution, the first of the four great persecutions which would befall the Daishonin.
1261
The fact that Nichiren Daishonin had escaped the attack at Matsubagayatsu, must have really irritated the authorities, who had probably hoped that the pesky priest would have died in the arson.
In fact, the Daishonin had been invited by a loyal follower, Toki Jonin, to stay in his home outside the city, and continued to teach the Lotus Sutra for several months. Toki Jonin also built a shrine for the Daishonin, and during his stay many people in Shimosa province converted to the Daishonin’s teaching including many Samurai.
During his stay, he debated with a Nembutsu priest, Do Amida Bustu, and thoroughly defeated him before his followers. Angry, and upset, the Nembutsu priest’s followers began persecuting the Daishonin and his followers. When the local Hojo clan rulers (who were adherents of Do Amida Butsu) heard of what had happened, they made plans to deal with Nichiren.
12th May – Bending the historical equivalent of our modern day anti-terrorism laws, Hojo Nagatoki engineered the Daishonin’s arrest on 12th May, and his subsequently being sentenced to exile to the fishing village of Ito, on the Izu peninsula. This event is known as the Izu Exile.
Ito is a rocky area where it was expected that he would starve to death in the wilderness. People were forbidden to provide food or shelter to exiles. It was also no coincidence that the Izu peninsula was a stronghold of the Nembutsu sect.
Nichiren abandoned at Ito
Nichiren was transported by boat and abandoned on the Mana-ita (or “Butcher’s Block”) Reef, off the beach of Kawana, to drown as the tide rose. Sick, and abandoned, he was spotted by an elderly Funamori (fisherman) named Yasaburo. Yasaburo took Nichiren back with him where he and his wife offered to let the Daishonin stay with them.
Afraid for their safety, Nichiren stayed in a nearby cave where Yasaburo and his wife provided him with food for months until Nichiren was sought out by retainers of the Steward of Ito who believed Nichiren could heal his sickness. Nichiren prayed for Ito Sukemitsu, and he recovered. The steward was grateful, and gave Nichiren the statue of Shakyamuni Buddha that the Daishonin later treasured. The Daishonin’s writings during this exile include The Four Debts of Gratitude; The Teaching, Capacity, Time, and Country; and What It Means to Slander the Law.
12th June – The Daishonin went to live on the estate of the steward. Around two weeks later, the Daishonin wrote The Izu Exile.
1263
22nd February – During the Izu Exile, Hojo Nagatoki, who originally exiled the Daishonin, was stricken with an illness and became bedridden, and his father, Hojo Shigetoki died in a state of insanity. Perhaps these events had caused the Kamakura Shogunate to doubt whether they were right to disagree with Nichiren. The Daishonin was pardoned from exile after a year and nine months.
Upon returning to the mainland, Nichiren returned home to Awa province to visit his sick mother, Myoren. He cared for and prayed for his mother, and her life extended by four years.
11th November – The Daishonin’s propagation of True Buddhism continued in Awa Province. The steward of the region, Tojo Kagenobu, a Nembutsu believer waited for a chance to eliminate him. Nichiren Daishonin, accompanied by ten attendants, was on his way to visit one of his believers, Kudo Yoshitaka. Tojo Kagenobu along with a hundred or so soldiers ambushed the Daishonin and his followers in Komatsubara. This event is known as the Komatsubara Persecution.
During the attack, the disciple Kyonin-bo and several others perished. The Daishonin himself suffered a serious head injury. Another devotee, Kudo Yoshitaka, heard of the attack and rushed to Nichiren’s aid with his own warriors, and a bloody skirmish ensured, resulting in Yoshitaka being mortally wounded.
