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種種御振舞御書

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Text ID
KR6t0409
Date
1276–1276
Dynasty
日本

Zhǒngzhǒng yùzhènwǔ yùshū 種種御振舞御書

Letter Concerning Various Conduct by 日蓮 Nichiren (撰)

About the work

A single-fascicle Nichiren autobiographical letter by Nichiren 日蓮 日蓮 (1222–1282), composed at Minobu in Kenji 2 / 1276, when Nichiren was 54, and addressed to his Kazusa-province lay disciple Komatsubara Yorimoto 小松原賴基. The letter is one of the principal autobiographical sources for the reconstruction of Nichiren’s life and is conventionally counted as the principal source for the Tatsunokuchi incident of 1271.

Abstract

The letter narrates, in vivid first-person, the principal episodes of Nichiren’s life from the Risshō ankoku-ron submission of 1260 through the Minobu retirement of 1274:

  1. The Risshō ankoku-ron submission (1260) and the Matsuba-ga-yatsu attempted assassination shortly thereafter.
  2. The Izu exile (1261–1263) and the doctrinal letters of that period.
  3. The Komatsubara incident of Bun’ei 1 / 1264 / 11th month / 11th day, when Nichiren was attacked by the Tōjō Kagenobu retinue at Komatsubara in Awa, suffered sword-wounds and head injury, and his disciple Kyōninbō was killed.
  4. The Tatsunokuchi attempted execution of Bun’ei 8 / 1271 / 9th month / 12th day, the most famous episode in Nichiren’s life: he describes the journey to the execution-ground, the appearance of the luminous orb in the sky that frightened the executioners, and his subsequent commutation to Sado exile.
  5. The Sado exile (1271–1274) and the major doctrinal works composed there.
  6. The release from Sado in Bun’ei 11 / 1274 / 3rd month and the journey to Kamakura, where Nichiren had a hearing with Hōjō Tokimune 北條時宗 in the 4th month of 1274 and predicted the Mongol invasion of the same year (which began in the 10th month).
  7. The Minobu retreat from the 5th month of 1274 onwards.

The letter is first-person autobiographical in a way that few Japanese Buddhist texts of the period are; Nichiren’s prose is direct, vivid, and frequently emotional. It is the principal source for the Nichiren legendary cycle that crystallized in his lifetime and was elaborated by his disciples in subsequent generations.

Date. Internally Kenji 2 / 1276, at Minobu.

Structural Division

The CANWWW entry (div29.xml, T84N2698) records the work as a single-fascicle text by Nichiren with no internal toc sub-list and no related-text cross-references tabulated.

Translations and research

English translations:

  • SGI (eds.), The Writings of Nichiren Daishonin (1999), vol. 1, pp. 762–782.
  • Burton Watson (trans.), in Selected Writings of Nichiren (Columbia UP, 1990).

Major studies: Anesaki Masaharu, Nichiren the Buddhist Prophet (Harvard UP, 1916), ch. on the Tatsunokuchi incident; Tamura Yoshirō, Nichiren Shōnin (Kōdansha, 1973); Jacqueline I. Stone, Original Enlightenment (Hawai’i, 1999).

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