BEN AJARI NISSHŌ (1221-1323), the eldest of the six, was sixty-two at the time of Nichiren’s death. He was based at the Hokkeji, a temple he had established at Hamado in Kamakura, and, together with Daikoku Ajari Nichiro, headed the community of Nichiren’s followers in Kamakura. His lineage became known as the Nisshō or Hama monryū.

DAIKOKU AJARI NICHIRŌ (1245-1320) was based at the Myōhonji, which he had founded, in Hikigayatsu in Kamakura, and also headed the Honmonji in Ikegami. He is additionally regarded as the founder of the Hondoji at Hiraga in Shimösa. His followers were known as the Hikigayatsu or Nichirō monryū. Among his many talented disciples, Higo Ajari Nichizō (1269-1342) was the first monk of the Hokkeshū to preach Nichiren’s doctrine in Kyoto.

MINBU AJARI NIKŌ (1253-1314) was based in Mobara in Kazusa and later became the second chief abbot of Minobu (Nichiren is regarded as the first).

BYAKUREN AJARI NIKKO (1246-1333) was active in Suruga, Kai, and Izu. A disagreement between him and the aforementioned Nikō led in 1289 to the first schism among Nichiren’s followers. Nikkō established himself at Omosu near Fuji, and his line is called the Fuji monryū or Nikko monryū.

IYO AJARI NITCHŌ (1252-1317) was based at Mama and Wakamiya in Shimōsa, where he assisted the efforts of Nichijō (Toki Jōnin), originally a prominent lay supporter of Nichiren who had taken clerical vows after his death. Nitchō was Toki Jōnin’s adopted son. However, for reasons that are not clear, there was a break between the two, and Nitchō left the area around 1292, retiring to Omosu, where he joined Nikko. Nichijō’s line came to be known as the Nakayama lineage, after Nakayama in Shimōsa, where its main temple was located.

RENGE AJARI NICHIJI (1250-?) was based at Matsuno in Suruga. However, in 1295, he embarked on a journey, determined to spread Nichiren’s teaching beyond the confines of Japan, and is said to have traveled north to Hokkaido, crossing over into northern China and Manchuria. It has been argued that he did in fact reach Mongolia, but the evidence is inconclusive. (Page 302)

In Nichiren’s case, the single-practice orientation was connected at least in part with the social composition of his following. He himself was a person of common origins, from a remote part of eastern Japan, without powerful backers, and whose followers were chiefly middle- and lower-ranking samurai – persons on the periphery, if not altogether outside, the “influential parties system” or kenmon taisei. At the same time, Nichiren’s criticisms of leading religious figures and institutions, and of the rulers and officials who were their patrons, resulted in sanctions and suppressions that further marginalized him and his followers and prompted increasing self-definition in opposition to existing religious and political authority. In this process, Nichiren’s assimilation of the new paradigm of enlightenment to an exclusive practice became, in effect, a challenge to the establishment. In his reading of the paradigm, direct access to enlightenment was possible only by the teaching of which he and his disciples were the bearers – a Dharma received directly from Śākyamuni Buddha for the Final Dharma age and alone capable of saving the country from disaster. Thus, in his reading, the locus of authority and legitimacy was made to shift, and it was not the court, nor the bakufu, nor the clerics of the leading shrines and temples, but Nichiren and his disciples who held the center stage of their historical moment. (Page 298-299)