上行菩薩

Viśiṣṭa-cāritra Bodhisattva, who suddenly rose out of the earth as Buddha was concluding one of his Lotus sermons; v. Lotus sūtra 15 and 21. He is supposed to have been a convert of the Buddha in long past ages and to come to the world in its days of evil. Nichiren in Japan believed himself to be this Bodhisattva's reincarnation, and the Nichiren trinity is the Buddha, i.e. the eternal Śākyamuni Buddha; the Law, i.e. the Lotus Truth; and the Saṅgha, i.e. this Bodhisattva, in other words Nichiren himself as the head of all living beings, or eldest son of the Buddha.