fifth scroll of the Lotus Sutra ［法華経第五の巻］ ( Hokekyō-daigo-no-maki): Also, scroll of the fifth volume of the Lotus Sutra. The fifth of the eight scrolls, or volumes, of the Lotus Sutra. The fifth scroll contains four chapters—the “Devadatta” (twelfth) chapter through the “Emerging from the Earth” (fifteenth) chapter. Among them, the “Encouraging Devotion” (thirteenth) chapter predicts that those who propagate the sutra after Shakyamuni Buddha’s death will be persecuted by the three powerful enemies and attacked with swords and staves. Nichiren mentions in his writings that he was beaten with the fifth scroll of the Lotus Sutra. That incident occurred just before the attempt to execute Nichiren known as the Tatsunokuchi Persecution. When Hei no Saemon, a leading official of the shogunate, came with a group of soldiers to arrest Nichiren at Matsubagayatsu in Kamakura on the twelfth day of the ninth month in 1271, one of his men, Shō-bō, snatched a scroll of the fifth volume of the Lotus Sutra from Nichiren and struck him in the face with it. That scroll was wound around a wooden roller, and Nichiren accordingly interpreted this assault as his being “attacked with staves,” one of the hardships predicted in the “Encouraging Devotion” chapter to befall the sutra’s votary. Nichiren saw special significance in the fact that the “Encouraging Devotion” chapter is contained in the fifth scroll of the Lotus Sutra.