The establishment of Tendai Buddhism in Japan would prove to be one of the most significant events in Japanese Buddhist history, but it didn’t look that promising at first.

Tendai is the Japanese form of Tiantai, a Chinese school of Mahayana Buddhism founded by Zhiyi (538-597). Tiantai was the first school of Buddhism to consider the Lotus Sutra to be the highest expression of the Buddha’s teaching.  It is also known for classifying teachings of all schools in a way that explained discrepancies and synthesized the many teachings into a coherent whole.

Saicho Brings Tendai to Japan

The Japanese monk Saicho (767-822) had a brilliant early career, if monks can be said to have careers. In 788 he built a temple on Mount Hiei, which is a few miles northeast of Kyoto. In 797 he was appointed to the imperial court, and in 802 he gave a lecture on the Lotus Sutra that earned him the attention of the Emperor Kammu. In 804, through the Emperor’s influence, he was able to travel to Mount Tiantai in China to receive Tiantai teaching.

While in China he also was initiated into Chinese esoteric Buddhism, which was not part of Tiantai.

Unfortunately for Saicho, when he returned to Japan the Emperor Kammu, his patron, was dying. Before he died, the Emperor granted Saicho permission to establish his Tendai school. But after the Emperor’s death, success eluded him. The monk Kukai returned from China with greater mastery of esoteric Buddhism, and students flocked to Kukai, ignoring Saicho.

Saicho also became embroiled in a controversy over ordinations. At that time all monks in Japan were ordained according to the Vinaya-pitaka of the Theravada school. Saicho wanted his monks of Mount Hiei to be entirely Mahayana and take the bodhisattva vows recorded in the Mahayana Brahma Net Sutra. The imperial court granted this request in 822, shortly after Saicho’s death.

Tendai Rises to Prominence

Part of Tendai’s original difficulty was that it was trying to combine esoteric practices into Tiantai that traditional Tiantai did not support. The monk Annen (d. ca. 895) solved this problem by changing the old Tiantai doctrinal classification system (see Tiantai Buddhism in China, subhead Five Periods and Eight Teachings). Annen added esoteric Buddhism as a separate category that transcended the others.

After this, Tendai became popular and powerful, patronized by the Court and the Japanese aristocracy. The temple complex on Mount Hiei became the dominant learning center for Buddhism in Japan. In time, many founders of other Japanese schools — such as Dogen, Nichiren and Shinran — would begin their spiritual paths at Mount Hiei.

This power and patronage also brought about corruption. Mount Hiei’s warrior monks attacked rival temples to drive out competition, for example.

Tendai’s dominance ended abruptly in 1571, when Mount Hiei was attacked and destroyed by the warlord Oda Nobunaga. One small out-of-the-way building survived, but most of the structures in the temple complex today date to the late 16th to early 17th century. In spite of the rebuilding, Tendai never regained its prominence and is one of the smaller schools in Japan today.

The Marathon Monks

One practice unique to Japanese Tendai is the Kaihogyo (“circulating the mountain”). This is a grueling program of aestheticism that requires running a circular course around Mount Hiei while wearing straw sandals, and sometimes while fasting..

The pinnacle of practice is the 1,000-day Kaihogyo, which is spread out over seven years. It begins by running 30 kilometers (about 18 miles) every day for 100 days straight. And then it gets harder, as the distances get longer. In the final year, the monk runs 84 kilometers (about 52 miles) every day for 100 consecutive days. And then he finishes by dropping back to 30 kilometers a day for 100 days.

Few monks have ever finished the 1,000-day Kaihogyo. More common are the 100- and 200-day Kaihogyo. A monk must complete a 100-day Kaihogyo to ever become an abbot.

In the old days, monks who were unable to finish the Kaihogyo were required to commit ritual suicide and be buried on the spot where they gave up, To this day it is traditional for monks to carry a dagger and a rope — implements of ritual suicide — on Kaihogyo. However, these days monks who can’t finish may try again next year.