Letters Written by Saint Nichiren

Letters in the Hand of Nichiren Shōnin

In the sixth month of 1275, from a wooden hermitage in the mountains of Minobu, the monk Nichiren wrote to a woman he had come to know during his years of exile on Sado Island. He had been pardoned the year before and had left the island for good. The letter he sent back across the sea is one of three that survive together at Myōsenji, a temple on Sado, mounted as handscrolls and designated an Important Cultural Property under the name Nichiren Shōnin hitsu shojō, "letters in the hand of Nichiren Shōnin."

Nichiren (1222–1282) founded the school of Japanese Buddhism that carries his name, built on devotion to the Lotus Sutra. His sharp criticism of rival schools and of the Kamakura authorities led to his banishment to Sado in 1271, a remote and punishing place for a condemned man. He remained until his pardon in 1274, then settled at Minobu in present-day Yamanashi. All three letters at Myōsenji were written after that, addressed to the followers he had left behind on the island.

The scrolls carry their dates plainly. The earliest, addressed to the lay nun known as Kō-no-ama, is dated the sixteenth day of the sixth month of Kenji 1 (1275). The second, a reply, belongs to the seventh month of Kōan 1 (1278). The third, from the seventh month of Kōan 3 (1280), concerns a follower who had by then died. Read in sequence, they trace five years of correspondence between a teacher in the mountains and the household on Sado that had kept him alive.

Why the Letters Matter

Documents in Nichiren's own brush are the closest thing we have to hearing him speak. The Lotus Sutra sat at the center of his teaching, and across these letters he returns to it, pressing his correspondents to hold firm in their faith. He also thanks them, plainly and warmly, for the food and shelter and small kindnesses that carried him through the Sado winters.

That gratitude points to the people the letters name. By tradition the central figures were Abutsubō, a Sado man who became one of Nichiren's most devoted lay followers, and his wife, remembered as Sennichi-ama. After Nichiren left the island, the couple kept the bond alive, sending offerings to Minobu and receiving his replies. The 1280 letter, written following a death in that circle, shows the relationship holding even past the grave.

The Agency for Cultural Affairs designated the three scrolls an Important Cultural Property on 27 June 1959, classing them among ancient documents. Their worth is partly calligraphic and partly evidential: firsthand records, dated and signed in his own hand, of how a major religious figure of the Kamakura period addressed ordinary believers.

Seeing Them at Myōsenji

A practical word for visitors. The letters are fragile thirteenth-century papers and are not kept on regular display. What you can see is the temple that has guarded them for centuries. Myōsenji sits on a low hill in the Mano district of central Sado, on ground that once held a fortified residence of the Honma clan. The approach through tall cedars still has the bearing of a castle precinct.

The temple traces its beginning to Abutsubō's own home, which the family is said to have turned into a place of worship in the late thirteenth century. It grew into one of the three principal Nichiren temples on Sado. The grounds reward a slow walk. A five-story pagoda, the only one in Niigata Prefecture and itself an Important Cultural Property, rises above the trees; it was raised by an Aikawa master carpenter and his son across two generations in the Edo period. Within the precinct lies the grave of Hino Suketomo, a court noble exiled to Sado after a failed plot against the shogunate.

A visit on 3 July coincides with a Noh performance staged in Suketomo's memory, part of the open-air Noh tradition for which Sado is well known.

Around Myōsenji

Sado is reached by ferry from Niigata to Ryōtsu Port. Myōsenji lies about thirty minutes by car from Ryōtsu. The Mano area around it was the administrative heart of old Sado, home in earlier centuries to the provincial capital and the provincial temple, so the district is dense with historical sites.

Close by are the Sado Rekishi Densetsukan history museum and Mano-gū, the shrine connected with Emperor Juntoku, who died in exile on the island. Many visitors pair a temple circuit with the coastline, the gold and silver mining heritage at Aikawa, or a ride in one of the tub boats at Ogi.