three calamities and seven disasters ［三災七難］ ( sansai-shichinan): Catastrophes described in various sutras. The three calamities occur at the end of a kalpa. There are two types: the three greater calamities of fire, water, and wind, which destroy the world, and the three lesser calamities of high grain prices or inflation (especially that caused by famine), warfare, and pestilence, from which human society perishes. The seven disasters include war and natural disasters and are generally held to result from slander of the correct teaching. They are mentioned in the Medicine Master, Benevolent Kings, and other sutras. They differ slightly according to the source. Nichiren combined these two different types of calamities in a single phrase to explain the disasters besetting Japan in his time. In his 1260 treatise On Establishing the Correct Teaching for the Peace of the Land, he states, based on the sutras, that they occur because both the rulers and the populace turn against the correct teaching. See also seven disasters; three calamities.