In Zhiyi’s parsing of the Lotus Sūtra, Chapter Fifteen begins the “origin teaching” (J. honmon) or second fourteen chapters of the sūtra, so called because in this latter section of the Lotus the Buddha casts off his transient guise as someone who first gained enlightenment in the present lifetime, and he reveals his true identity as the primordial buddha awakened immeasurable eons ago. As he had with the preceding “trace teaching” (shakumon), or first fourteen chapters, Zhiyi divided this section of the sūtra into three parts. The “introduction” corresponds to the first part of Chapter Fifteen, up to the Buddha’s response to Maitreya’s question about the identity of the bodhisattvas who have emerged from the earth (223). The “main exposition” consists of the remainder of Chapter Fifteen, the whole of Chapter Sixteen, and the first part of Chapter Seventeen (up to the end of Maitreya’s verses on 245). The remaining chapters then correspond to the “dissemination” portion. Though quite short – “one chapter and two halves,” as Nichiren termed it – the main exposition section of the origin teaching was revered by many Japanese Tendai teachers as the very heart of the sūtra and inspired great doctrinal innovation, especially in Nichiren’s own teaching.