"Now, in the beginning of the Latter Day of the Law..."

Now, in the beginning of the Latter Day of the Law, Hinayana adherents attack the doctrines of Mahayana, and provisional Mahayana believers denounce the true Mahayana teaching. East is mistaken for west, and heaven and earth are turned upside down. The four ranks of bodhisattvas of the theoretical teaching are gone, and all the heavenly gods have deserted the country and no longer lend it protection. At this time the Bodhisattvas of the Earth appear in the world for the first time solely to bring the medicine of the five characters of Myoho-renge-kyo to the ignorant people of the Latter Day. This is what is meant by the words, “Even if one reviles the correct teaching and falls into the evil paths, one can create causes for the eventual attainment of benefit.”

You who are my disciples, take this to heart! The countless Bodhisattvas of the Earth were the disciples of Shakyamuni Buddha, the lord of teachings, from the time he first set his mind on and attained enlightenment in the remote past. But they did not come to his place of enlightenment in India, nor did they come to the grove of sal trees when he entered nirvana. They were unfaithful to him. They also failed to appear when the Buddha preached the first fourteen chapters, or the theoretical teaching, of the Lotus Sutra, and they left the assembly when he preached the last six chapters of the essential teaching. They only attended the Buddha during the first eight chapters of the essential teaching. Since these noble bodhisattvas received [the five characters of Myoho-renge-kyo] and made a solemn oath to Shakyamuni Buddha, Many Treasures Buddha, and the Buddhas of the ten directions, is it possible that they will not appear now at the beginning of the Latter Day of the Law? Know this: in the time for the practice of shakubuku the four bodhisattvas appear as worthy rulers who rebuke and convert ignorant rulers, and in the time for the practice of shoju they appear as priests to embrace and spread the correct teaching." -- The True Object of Worship