It is not difficult for a modern critic to pick holes in Nichiren's argument. We know, thanks to modern research, that S'akyamuni's birth must be put no earlier than the fifth century B.C., and that therefore what Nichiren calls the first period cannot have ended earlier than the first century A.D. We feel sure that if Manjus'ri, Yaku-o, and the other Bodhisattvas are meant to be true historical personages, the prophecies announcing their future destinies must be put on a par with, e.g., the prophecy in the Lankavatara Sutra, which mentions the coming of Nagarjuna, or that which announced the coming of King Kanishka, prophecies made up after the event. What is really of interest is the connection traceable between the millennarian teachings of the Hokekyo and the similar teachings which were so rife among some of the Gnostics and some of the early Fathers. Still more curious is the similarity of thought between Nichiren and

[paragraph continues] Abbot Joachim of the Franciscan Order, who was almost his contemporary. The Christian Friar, who had travelled in the East, and was the protege of three successive Popes, also postulated three millenniums or periods of 1000 years, connected respectively with the names of the Three Persons of the Trinity. His calculations did not quite coincide with those which Nichiren based on the Hokekyo, but he significantly gave the year 1260 as the date for the inauguration of the third millennium, that of the Holy Ghost. And 1260 brings him very close to Nichiren. Possibly our next chapters may throw some light on the subject.

Footnotes

^288:1 I take my materials for Nichiren's life from the following sources: (1) Principally from the "Seigoroku," a collection of extracts from his writings, which is a veritable mine of information; (2) from two Japanese lives of the Saint, which appeared, one in 1893 and one in 1909; (3) from a play entitled Nichirengi, which was brought out in 1894; and (4) from the chapters on Nichiren in vol. v. of "Bukkyo-Kakushu Koyo" (1885).

^289:1 I have already, in my book "The Wheat among the Tares," written at some length on the "Saddharmapundarika." I wish here to add that the book falls into two portions, viz. (1) Shakumon, as it is called in Japanese, which comprises chaps. i.-xiv., and consists of a connected series of what may be termed "Visions;" and (2) Hommon, which consists of a series of miscellaneous chapters, on Spells, on Avalokites'vara, Samantabhadra, and other Bodhisattvas, etc., which are but loosely connected with the main action of the main part of the book.