Noting that the all buddhas throughout time preach the Lotus Sūtra as the culmination of their teaching, Nichiren observed that the hostility encountered by Sadāparibhūta [Never-Despising Bodhisattva] in the age of a past buddha corresponded to the predictions of persecution made in Chapter Thirteen of the Lotus Sūtra as preached by the present buddha (Śākyamuni). One chapter tells of the past, the other foretells the future, but their content accords perfectly. When the Lotus Sūtra will be preached by buddhas in ages to come, he asserted, the present, “Perseverance,” chapter would become the “Sadāparibhūta” chapter of the future,” suggesting that its predictions would come true through his own actions, “and at that time I, Nichiren, will be its bodhisattva Sadāparibhūta.”

Based on his reading of these two chapters, Nichiren saw himself and his opponents as linked via the Lotus Sūtra in a vast soteriological drama of error, expiation, and the realization of buddhahood. Those who malign a practitioner of the Lotus Sūtra must undergo repeated rebirth in the Avici hell for countless eons. But because they have formed a “reverse connection” to the Lotus by slandering its votary, after expiating this error, they will eventually encounter the sūtra again and be able to become buddhas. By a similar logic, practitioners who suffer harassment must encounter this ordeal precisely because they maligned the Lotus Sūtra in the past, just as their tormenters do in the present. But because of those practitioners’ efforts to protect the Lotus by opposing slander of the dharma in the present, their own past offenses will be eradicated, and they will not only attain buddhahood themselves in the future, but also enable their persecutors to do the same. The Lotus practitioners and those who oppose them are thus inseparably connected through the sūtra in the same web of karmic causes that will ultimately lead both to buddhahood.

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In seeing himself as charged by the Buddha with the mission of disseminating the Lotus Sūtra in the evil, Final Dharma age, Nichiren identified with the noble and heroic figure of the bodhisattva Viśiṣṭacaritra, leader of the bodhisattvas of the earth. But at the same time, in seeing his trials as opportunities to rid himself of the consequences of past errors, he identified with the humbler figure of the bodhisattva Sadāparibhūta [Never-Despising Bodhisattva]. In so doing, Nichiren placed himself on the same level as the people he was attempting to save and identified a karmic bond between them.

During the hardships of his exile to Sado Island, Nichiren became convinced that his own trials were not retributions for ordinary misdeeds. Rather, in previous lives, he himself must have slandered the dharma, the offense that he now so implacably opposed. He reflected: “From time without beginning I must have been born countless times as an evil ruler who robbed practitioners of the Lotus Sūtra of their clothing and food, paddies and fields … countless times I must have beheaded Lotus Sūtra practitioners.” Ordinarily, he explained, the karmic retribution for such horrific offenses would torment a person over the course of innumerable lifetimes. But by asserting the unique truth of the Lotus Sūtra and meeting persecution as a result, he had in effect summoned the consequences of those misdeeds into the present lifetime to be eradicated once and for all. “By being pounded in the fire, iron is forged into swords,” he said. “Worthies and sages are tested by abuse. My present sentence of exile is not because of even the slightest worldly wrongdoing. It has come about solely that I may expiate my past grave offenses in this lifetime and escape [rebirth in] the three evils paths in the next.”

Nichiren … read the story of Sadāparibhūta [Never-Despising Bodhisattva] in a way that reflected — and perhaps inspired — his understanding of his own ordeals as a form of redemptive suffering. The prose portion of the “Sadāparibhūta” chapter says that those who mocked the bodhisattva suffered for a thousand eons in the Avici hell, but after expiating this offense, they were again able to meet him and were led by him to attain “the highest, complete enlightenment.” The verse section, however, suggests that the bodhisattva himself had “expiated his past errors” by patiently bearing the insults and mistreatment he received in the course of his practice. Nichiren focused on this second reading, encouraging his followers, and himself as well, by explaining that hardship encountered for the Lotus Sūtra’s sake would eradicate one’s past slanders against the dharma. “The bodhisattva Sadāparibhūta was not reviled and disparaged, and assailed with sticks and stones, for no reason,” Nichiren suggested. “It would appear that he had probably slandered the true dharma in the past. The phrase ‘having expiated his past errors’ seems to mean that because he met persecution, he was able to eradicate his sins from prior lifetimes.”

Nichiren took Sadāparibhūta [Never-Despising Bodhisattva] as a personal model and strongly identified with him. First, there were obvious parallels in their practice. “Sadāparibhūta was a practitioner at the initial stage of rejoicing,” Nichiren wrote, “while I am an ordinary person at the level of verbal identity. He sowed the seeds of buddhahood with twenty-four characters, while I do so with just five characters [Myō-hō-ren-ge-kyō]. The age differs, but the buddhahood realized is exactly the same.” This passage suggests that Nichiren saw Sadāparibhūta, like himself, as someone at the initial stages of practice who was carrying out shakubuku, planting the seeds of buddhahood in the minds of people who had never before received them. He saw other similarities as well. Both Nichiren and Sadāparibhūta lived long after the passing of the respective buddhas of their age, in an era of decline when there was much hostility. And both persevered in the face of emnity, enabling their persecutors to form a “reverse connection” (J. gyakuen) with the Lotus Sūtra. In short, Sadāparibhūta was for Nichiren an exemplar of practice for the latter age, and in this sense, he wrote, “The heart of the practice of the Lotus Sūtra is found in the ‘Sadāparibhūta’ chapter.”