Saichō

Saichō was born in 767 near Lake Biwa in Japan and ordained at the great temple of Tōdai-ji in Nara. Dissatisfied with the worldliness of the Nara establishment, he withdrew in 785 to Mount Hiei, north-east of the site where Kyoto was soon to be founded, and built a small hermitage there, which grew into the temple of Enryaku-ji.

Studying the works of Zhiyi, he became convinced that the Tiantai teaching of the Lotus Sūtra was the highest form of Buddhism. In 804 he travelled to China with an official embassy, studied Tiantai on Mount Tiantai and received initiations in esoteric Buddhism and Chan, and returned in 805 to found the Tendai school.

He spent his last years seeking permission from the court for Mount Hiei to ordain its monks under Mahāyāna precepts alone, independently of the Nara temples, and wrote a set of regulations requiring them to train on the mountain for twelve years. Permission was granted shortly after his death in 822. Mount Hiei became the great training ground of Japanese Buddhism, where Hōnen, Shinran and Dōgen began their careers.