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Gosho Background Information

The Third Day of the New Year

I received the sixty steamed rice cakes, one container of refined sake, fifty yams, twenty koji oranges¹ and one string of dried persimmons that you so kindly sent. I placed these various articles before the Lotus Sutra and presented them as offerings to the sutra on the third day of spring!²

Just as flowers open up and bear fruit, just as the moon appears and invariably grows full, just as a lamp becomes brighter when oil is added, and just as plants and trees flourish with rain, so will human beings never fail to prosper when they make good causes.

Moreover, the sincerity you showed in celebrating the third day of the new year exceeds even the sincerity you showed in commemorating the first day. The steamed rice cakes are like the full moon. I will write of other matters later.

Nichiren

The eleventh day of the first month in the third year of Koan (1280), Cyclical sign kanoe-tatsu

To Lord Ueno

Footnotes:

1. Kjji orange: A kind of mandarin orange that is resistant to cold and that has a smooth, thin, easy-to-remove peel.
2. According to the old Japanese calendar, spring begins with the first lunar month; that is, on New Year's Day, which fell somewhere between January 21 and February 19 by the Western calendar.

Major Writings of Nichiren Daishonin, Vol. 7.

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