Shō-bō ［少輔房］: The name of individuals mentioned in the writings of Nichiren. The Japanese component shō is a title indicating the deputy or vice chief of a government ministry, and there were likely many persons called Shō-bō. Bō means a priest, lay priest, or a samurai who became a lay priest.
  (1) Though originally Nichiren’s disciple, he abandoned his belief in Nichiren’s teachings around the time of the Izu Exile in 1261 and eventually turned against Nichiren. According to one account, he died around 1269.
  (2) On the twelfth day of the ninth month, 1271, when Hei no Saemon, the deputy chief of the Office of Military and Police Affairs of the shogunate, went to arrest Nichiren at Matsubagayatsu in Kamakura, a person named Shō-bō accompanied him with other retainers and struck Nichiren in the face with a scroll, wrapped around a heavy wooden roller, of the fifth volume of the Lotus Sutra. Nichiren saw special significance in this act of violence against him, because the fifth volume of the Lotus Sutra includes the “Encouraging Devotion” (thirteenth) chapter, which predicts that the votaries of the Lotus Sutra will be attacked with swords and staves.
  (3) Shō-bō Nichizen, one of the six elder disciples of Nikkō. A priest of Ryūsen-ji, a temple of the Tendai school in Atsuhara, who was converted by Nikkō in 1275. See Nichizen.