The Atsuhara persecution is an important event in the history of Nichirenism and is expecially important in Fuji School stories and legends. For example I first read about the story as told in the following article2:
- The story as told by Nichiren Shoshu:
- A series of threats and acts of violence directed against followers of Nichiren Daishonin in Atsuhara Village in Fuji District of Suruga Province over a period of three years, beginning in 1278.
- Around 1275, after the Daishonin had retired to Mt. Minobu, propagation efforts in Fuji District began to advance rapidly under the leadership of Nikko Shonin. At Ryusen-ji, a Tendai temple in Atsuhara, Nikko Shonin converted several young priests, who in turn converted a number of laymen. Alarmed at the rapid defection of his parishioners, Gyochi, the deputy chief priest of the temple, demanded that the priests Nisshu, Nichiben and Nichizen, who had converted and been renamed, as well as the priest Mikawa-bo Raien, who had also taken faith, write an oath to discard their faith in the Lotus Sutra and begin reciting the Amida Sutra again. Only Mikawa-bo agreed.
- Gyochi then ordered the other three to leave the temple. Nichizen returned to his home, but the other two remained and redoubled their propagation efforts. Having failed to shake the conviction of of these priests, Gyochi turned his attention to the lay believers. He encouraged the samurai Ota Chikamasa, Nagasaki Tokisuna and others who had been the Daishonin's followers to renounce their faith and persuaded them to join forces with him in intimidating believers among the peasantry. In April of 1279, Shiro, a follower of the Daishonin, was attacked and injured during an archery contest at a local shrine, and in August another believer named Yashiro was beheaded for unknown reasons.
- On September 21, twenty farmers, all believers, were helping to harvest the rice crop from Nisshu's and Nichiben's private fields. They were arrested while working there on false charges of stealing rice from fields belonging to Ryusen-ji. Gyochi had sent them sent from Kamakura for trial, where their case was presided over by the deputy chief of the Office of Military and Police Affairs, Hei no Saemon. Ignoring an urgent appeal on their behalf by Nichiren Daishonin and Nikko Shonin, he had them incarcerated at his private residence, where he tried to torture them into recanting. However, not one of them yielded. Eventually, he beheaded three of them--the brothers Jinshiro, Yagoro and Yarokuro. The date of their execution is thought to have been October 15. The other seventeen were sentenced to be banished from Atsuhara.
- This incident marked the first time that offical persecution of this magnitude had been directly leveled at the Daishonin's followers, rather than the Daishonin Himself. The Daishonin, seeing that a number of believers were now willing to give their lives to protect the Law, decided that the time had come to inscribe the Dai-Gohonzon, which He did on October 12, 1279, fulfilling the purpose of His advent.
Of course the story is much more detailed and fascinating than the "Dictionary of Japanese Terms" puts it, and the full story illustrates the extent to which the various versions are legendary or even mythic even with a written record to supplement them. Nikko was indeed at the center of the Atsuhara persecution, and it did indeed establish him as a claimant to "heir apparant" of Nichiren, but not as explicitly as presented. Indeed, for Nikko the Atsuhara battle represented a defeat, not a victory. Before the Atsuhara Persecution Nikko had been a legally registered Tendai Monk who could base his propagation activities at the same temple he'd studied at as an acolyte. After the Atsuhara persecution Nikko was barred from two Tendai Temples and basically forced to move to Minobu and live with his master Nichiren. This proved pivotal, as after Nichiren's death he could legitimately claim to have been privy to his final teachings, and his leadership in the Atsuhara persecution and subsequent role as a teacher at Minobu would enable him to stake a claim to being Nichiren's direct disciple that the other five priests could not claim since their roles were more regional.
The story really begins at Jisso-ji Temple. But what we do know is that in 1278 he was having problems in the temple he had registered at. He had converted several of his fellow resident priests, including his younger colleague Nichiji, who later became one of the six seniors (and seems to have died in China). In doing so, however, he drew the suspicious eye of the temple's administrator Gon'yo, who petitioned the government in 1278 to have Nikko Shonin and the others expelled on the grounds that they were spreading heresy. Reverend Kawabe says that Nichiren Daishonin wrote an appeal calling for a debate to settle the issue, but it was ignored. 3 The temple authorities were already shaken by several debates which had resulted in temple transfers to Nichiren disciples, they weren't going to debate Nichiren or his disciples unless they had to.
After in Meanwhile after Nikko was expelled from Jisso-ji Temple in Shijuku-in, he moved to nearby Atsuhara village and the temple Ryuzen-ji. At Ryusen-ji in Atsuhara Village in the Fuji area of Suruga. His efforts again won him converts among the priests, and, what was more significant, among the local farmer population as well. There were already converts in the area. Nichiren had frequently sent Sanmibo Nichijo to Atsuhara, and he is recorded as having visited Lord Matsuno in the area. Later a legend would be told that Sanmibo had met his death from falling from a horse at Atsuhara. But this would be geographically impossible. Sanmibo died after a protracted ilness on the other side of the Kanto region. But the story would be useful in arguments, first against the heirs of Lord Toki in Shimosa, and later against intellectuals and thoughtful people in general.
The stories agree that Nikko converted:
"They were Shimotsuke-bo Nisshu, Echigo-bo Nichiben, Shou-bo Nichizen and Mikawa-bo Raien."4Nearby were Ueno Village where Nanjo Tokimitsu, "Lord Ueno" was active, and the before mentioned Matsuno's. These new converts had lots of company. They also had a problem with the local "Lord" who also was a "lay-monk" and who had designs on running Ryuzen-ji.
The typical method for Nichiren monks was to "push" their local temples to engage in debate. At Ryuzenji Temple and other temples where the priests were not Tendai Priests, or were not sure that they'd win a debate, this method had little chance of success. The chief priest of Ryusenji Temple was absent, and the man running the temple was a "Nyudo" (lay priest), and Nembutsu believer, named Gyochi. This "priest" seems to have been for all intents and purposes someone with the mindset of a layman and probably little learning at all. Nyudo Gyochi�s behavior is mentioned in the �Ryusenji Temple Petition� (a letter of complaint to the government)5 in the words of Nikko Shonin:
He called farmers on the temple property to hunt with him. He hunted quails and raccoon dogs, killed deer that had been chased by wolves, and ate them in the residence of the Chief Priest. Also, he put poison in the pond in front of the Sanctuary to kill many fish, and then sold them in a remote village. Everyone who heard and saw was astonished. It is the root of the destruction of Buddhism. It surpasses any sadness! (�Ryusenji Moshijo� Gosho p.1404)This petition was not only no more effective than the previous one, it also offended the secular authorities who were Gyochi's real allies. On the other hand Gyochi's behavior was beyond the pale for a Buddhist. Nikko was technically right to complain.
Gyochi retaliated by trumping up charges against both the lay disciples and the ordained ones, and then appealing to Kamakura. Hei no Saemon rounded up the local "renegade priests" (priests who were basically declared enemies of Nichiren often while continuing to claim to be "disciples" on some doctrinal matters) and travelled to Atsuhara. Nichiren sent his disciples to help Nikko, including Sadobo and according to the legends Sanmibo who also according to the legends "got an evil thought (black belly) and met a bad end". Eventually Gyochi had twenty farmers who were believers arrested on September 21, 1279, and the three of them were beheaded on October 15. Sadobo Niko helped Nikko deal with the situation as did other visitors and a local Jito named Nanjo Tokimitsu and another who was his relative.
This page is in the process of revision.
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