Nichiren

Nichiren was born in a fishing village on the Pacific coast of Awa province (modern Chiba prefecture), by his own account to a family of humble station.

As a boy Nichiren entered the nearby temple Seicho-ji, where he was ordained and began the wide-ranging studies that later took him to Kamakura and the great monasteries around Kyoto and Nara.

At Seicho-ji, Nichiren publicly declared the chanting of the Lotus Sutra's title (daimoku) to be the sole valid practice for the age, an event his tradition regards as the founding of his school.

Nichiren presented his treatise 'On Establishing the Correct Teaching for the Peace of the Land' to the shogunate, blaming Japan's calamities on reliance upon what he saw as erroneous teachings and warning of foreign invasion.

Following attacks by opponents and the ire of the authorities, Nichiren was banished to the Izu peninsula, his first official exile.

Arrested in 1271, Nichiren was taken to the execution grounds at Tatsunokuchi and, according to his account, spared at the last moment before being exiled to Sado Island in the Sea of Japan.

During the harsh Sado exile, Nichiren composed key treatises including 'The Opening of the Eyes' and 'The Object of Devotion for Observing the Mind', and began inscribing his calligraphic mandala, the Gohonzon.

After being pardoned and having his final remonstration to the government rejected, Nichiren withdrew to Mount Minobu in Kai province, where he trained disciples and wrote prolifically.

Traveling from Minobu for medicinal hot springs, Nichiren died at the residence of a follower at Ikegami (in modern Tokyo), having designated six senior disciples to continue his teaching.