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A petition was made on his behalf, and he was appointed a chamberlain; at fifteen he was made governor of Owari. He went down to Owari to administer the province. In those days the deity of Atsuta was fearsomely stern: anyone who showed disrespect, even by carelessly failing to remove his hat or turning his horse’s head toward the shrine, would be punished on the spot. Thus the high priest’s power exceeded even the governor’s, and the people of the province held him in awe. When this governor arrived and began attending to provincial affairs, however, the high priest remained aloof, thinking himself above it all. The governor took him to task. “High priest though you may be, how is it that, born in this province, you do not come to pay your respects?” The priest merely replied that no such thing had been required before, and stayed where he was. Angered, the governor said, “There are governors and governors. With me, you will find things different.” Resenting the priest’s conduct, he gave orders to confiscate his estates. Someone then went to the high priest and said, “The governor is indeed a man to be reckoned with. You had best go and pay your respects.” “Very well, then,” said the priest. He put on his formal court robes and cap and went to the governor’s residence with some thirty attendants. The governor came out to receive him, but once they had met, he called his men. “Take that fellow into close custody and punish him. Does being a priest entitle a man born in this province to behave so outrageously?” The priest was seized, confined, and subjected to punishment. In his distress he lamented, “What misery is this! Is our deity not here? You punish even the lowliest fellow on the spot for an act of disrespect, yet you look on while your high priest is treated this way!” Weeping and pleading, he at last dozed off. In a dream, the deity of Atsuta spoke to him: “In this matter I am powerless. Here is the reason. There was once a monk who vowed to read the Lotus Sutra a thousand times as an offering for my delight, and he had completed more than a hundred readings. The people of the province revered him and became his devotees, but you resented this and drove him away. The monk then conceived a bitter hatred and vowed, ‘I shall be born as governor of this province and repay this wrong.’ He has now been reborn and become governor, and so I can do nothing. In his former life the monk was called Toshitsuna, and this governor too is called Toshitsuna.” Such was the message delivered in the dream. Truly, nothing good comes of malice.