Known as Tendai Shū or Hokkeshū, meaning “Lotus School” (see Lotus of the Good Law), the Tendai sect is an esoteric sect of Buddhism (see Japanese Buddhism, Mahāyāna Buddhism) brought to Japan in the ninth century CE by the monk Saicho from China, where it had been founded in the sixth century by Zhiyi. Zhiyi had interpreted the Indian Buddhist sūtras and arranged them according to the stages of the Buddha's career and the development of his thought. When Saicho founded his temple on Mount Hei near Kyōto, he integrated elements of the esoteric form of the Shingon school (see Shingon sect) into his form of Tendai, and later, elements of Shinto were assimilated. It was Tendai's all-inclusive synthesis of various forms of Buddhism that led to the founding in the twelfth century of various new sects by monks who had been trained at the Tendai Temple. The monk Honen founded the Jōdo or Pure Land school (see Pure Land Buddhism); Shinran founded Jōdo Shinshū or True Pure Land sect; Eisai and Dogen founded Zen (see Zen Buddhism) sects; and Nicheren founded the school named after himself (see Seven Gods of Good Fortune, Amida Buddha, Japanese Buddhas).
