to Kamakura for trial. When they arrived, a local police officer named Hei no Saemon Yoritsuna attempted to intimidate the peasants into renouncing their faith — on pain of death if they did not, but in exchange for their freedom if they did. Despite repeated threats and even torture, they remained steadfast. Hei no Saemon had three beheaded, but the other 17 refused to back down and he eventually freed them. The Fuji Branch believes that these events took place on 15 October 1279. The Nichiren Shoshu sect claims the following regarding the Dai Gohonzon's nature and purpose: That Nichiren Daishonin decided to inscribe the Dai Gohonzon as a result of these persecuting events. Furthermore, it taught as a doctrine that this served his purpose in entering the sahā world, (出世の本懐, Shusse—no—Honkai). On 12 October 1279, he inscribed the Gohonzon known as the "Dai Gohonzon," which – in contrast to other Gohonzon inscribed in this period – is intended for worship by all his disciples and believers, contemporary and future, rather than just the specific individual named on it. Furthermore, only the Sovereign of Japan can enshrine the image in its permanent Temple when widespread propagation of the religion is accomplished. The sect teaches that due to the Kamakura Shogunate refusing to heed Nichiren's prophecies on natural disasters and incoming foreign invasion, the Buddhist deities have began to abandon Japan in its natural environment, claiming the result of arson at the Tsurugaoka Hachimangū Shrine in 14 November 1280, approximately one year after the inscription of the Dai Gohonzon image. The sect further teaches that the returning Karma punishment from the Dai Gohonzon was imposed on the police officer " Hei no Saemon-no-jō Yoritsuna" on 29 May 1293, fourteen years after murdering three of the first Hokkeko believers during the "Atsuhara Persecutions" in Suruga province. These mystical punishments included their political defeat and joint—suicide of his younger son Tametsuna Iinuma (Sukemune) and eldest son Munetsuna Nagasaki who was expelled and died in Sado island (via suicide into the sea according to pious legends). Claims of origin The Nichiren Shōshū sect claims that Nichiren inscribed the Dai Gohonzon on 12 October 1279 (Japanese: Ko-an). Nichiren Shōshū adherents cite the following passage in Nichiren's "On Persecutions Befalling the Sage" addressed to the Buddhist Samurai warrior Shijo Nakatsukasa Saburō Saemon—no—jō Yorimoto (四条中務三郎左衛門尉頼基, 1230–1296), which they assert supports the origin story of the image: "...Shakyamuni