Who are these bodhisattvas who emerge from beneath the earth? One interpretative move, current in medieval Japanese Tendai circles in Nichiren’s day, was to associate their four leaders — Viśiṣṭacaritra (J. Jōgyō, “Superior Conduct”), Anantacāritra (Muhengyō, “Boundless Conduct”), Viéuddhacāritra (Jyōgyō, “Pure Conduct”), and Supratisthitacāritra (Anryūgyo, “Firm Conduct”) — with the four universal elements of fire, wind, water, and earth, which were believed to constitute and benefit all beings. In a sense, Nichiren also understood these bodhisattvas as innate, for example, when he writes that they represent the bodhisattva realm within us; they are “the followers of the Śākyamuni Buddha who dwells within ourselves.” However, he also took them to be historical agents, entrusted by the Buddha with the mission of propagating the Lotus Sūtra specifically in the Final Dharma age, that is, his own time. “And what is this dharma that was entrusted to them?” he asked. “From within the Lotus Sūtra, it discards the broad to take up the condensed and discards the condensed to take up the essence, that is, the five characters Myōhō-renge-kyō.”