A Mandala Inscribed on Sado Island

Nichiren inscribed the first Gohonzon while in exile on Sado Island in 1271, following his conviction for treason for his public criticism of the Kamakura shogunate's tolerance of what he held to be false teachings. The object he produced is not a painted image but a mandala rendered entirely in written characters, with the daimoku, Nam Myoho Renge Kyo, running down its center and the names of buddhas, bodhisattvas and protective deities arranged around it in a specific configuration. Nichiren drew the design from a scene in the Lotus Sutra's Treasure Tower chapter, sometimes called the Ceremony in the Air, in which the historical Buddha and an ancient buddha named Many Treasures sit together inside a floating jeweled tower while the sutra's assembly gathers around them; the Gohonzon renders that scene in text rather than in figures, with the practitioner understood to be entering the same assembly by chanting before it. Nichiren went on to inscribe well over a hundred Gohonzon during his lifetime for different followers and temples, a number scholarship has been able to establish because a substantial share of his own hand written originals survive and remain held across various Nichiren temples today.