Buddhist philosophy refers to the philosophical investigations and systems of inquiry that developed among various Buddhist schools in India following the parinirvana of the Buddha and later spread throughout Asia. The Buddhist path combines both philosophical reasoning and meditation. The Buddhist traditions present a multitude of Buddhist paths to liberation, and Buddhist thinkers in India and subsequently in East Asia have covered topics as varied as phenomenology, ethics, ontology, epistemology, logic and philosophy of time in their analysis of these paths.
Nichiren was a Japanese Buddhist priest and philosopher of the Kamakura period.
Kūkai, also known posthumously as Kōbō Daishi, was a Japanese Buddhist monk, calligrapher, and poet who founded the esoteric Shingon school of Buddhism. He travelled to China, where he studied Tangmi under the monk Huiguo. Upon returning to Japan, he founded Shingon—the Japanese branch of Vajrayana Buddhism. With the blessing of several Emperors, Kūkai was able to preach Shingon teachings and found Shingon temples. Like other influential monks, Kūkai oversaw public works and constructions. Mount Kōya was chosen by him as a holy site, and he spent his later years there until his death in 835 AD.
Shingon Buddhism is one of the major schools of Buddhism in Japan and one of the few surviving Vajrayana lineages in East Asia, originally spread from India to China through traveling monks such as Vajrabodhi and Amoghavajra.
Tiantai or T'ien-t'ai is an East Asian Buddhist school of Mahayana that developed in sixth century China. The school emphasizes the Lotus Sutra's doctrine of the "one vehicle" (ekayana) as well as Madhyamaka philosophy, particularly as articulated in the works of the fourth patriarch Zhiyi.
Tendai is a Mahayana Buddhist school established in Japan in the year 806 by the monk named Saichō, posthumously known as Dengyō Daishi. The Tendai school rose to prominence during the Heian period (794-1185), gradually eclipsing the powerful Yogācāra school (Hossō-shū) and competing with the upcoming Shingon Buddhism to become the most influential at the Imperial court.
East Asian Yogācāra refers to the traditions in East Asia which represent the Yogachara system of thought. The 4th-century Gandharan brothers, Asaṅga and Vasubandhu, are considered the classic philosophers and systematizers of this school, along with its other founder, Maitreya.
Buddhism has been practiced in Japan since about the sixth century CE. Japanese Buddhism(Nihon Bukkyō) has given birth to numerous new Buddhist schools, many of which trace themselves to Chinese Buddhist traditions. Japanese Buddhism has had a major influence on Japanese society and culture and remains an influential aspect to this day.
Ryūichi Abe is the Reischauer Institute Professor of Japanese Religions at Harvard University. Until May 2004, he was professor of Japanese religions in the departments of religion and East Asian languages and culture at Columbia University.
Saichō was a Japanese Buddhist monk credited with founding the Tendai school of Buddhism based on the Chinese Tiantai school he was exposed to during his trip to Tang China beginning in 804. He founded the temple and headquarters of Tendai at Enryaku-ji on Mount Hiei near Kyoto. He is also said to have been the first to bring tea to Japan. After his death, he was awarded the posthumous title of Dengyō Daishi (伝教大師).
Mikkyō is a Japanese term for the Vajrayana practices of Shingon Buddhism and the related practices that make up part of the Tendai and Kegon schools. There are also Shingon and Tendai influenced practices of Shugendō.
The schools of Buddhism are the various institutional and doctrinal divisions of Buddhism that have existed from ancient times up to the present. The classification and nature of various doctrinal, philosophical or cultural facets of the schools of Buddhism is vague and has been interpreted in many different ways, often due to the sheer number of different sects, subsects, movements, etc. that have made up or currently make up the whole of Buddhist traditions. The sectarian and conceptual divisions of Buddhist thought are part of the modern framework of Buddhist studies, as well as comparative religion in Asia.
Genshin, also known as Eshin Sōzu (恵心僧都), was the most influential of a number of scholar-monks of the Buddhist Tendai sect active during the tenth and eleventh centuries in Japan. Genshin, who was trained in both esoteric and exoteric teachings, wrote a number of treatises pertaining to the increasingly popular Pure Land Buddhism from a Tendai viewpoint, but his magnum opus, the Ōjōyōshū had considerable influence on later Pure Land teachers such as Honen and Shinran. In spite of growing political tensions within the Tendai religious hierarchy, and despite being one of the two leading disciples of the controversial Ryogen, 18th head of the Enryakuji Temple, Genshin and a small group of fellow monks maintained a secluded community at Yokawa on Mount Hiei solely devoted toward rebirth in the Pure Land, while staying largely neutral in the conflict. He was one of the thinkers who maintained that the nembutsu ritual, which was said to induce a vision of Amida, was an important hermeneutic principle in the Buddhist doctrinal system.
The Trikāya doctrine is a Mahayana Buddhist teaching on both the nature of reality and the nature of Buddhahood. The doctrine says that Buddha has three kāyas or bodies, the Dharmakāya, the Saṃbhogakāya, and the Nirmāṇakāya.
Gyōki was a Japanese Buddhist priest of the Nara period, born in Ōtori county, Kawachi Province, the son of Koshi no Saichi. According to one theory, he was of Korean descent.
The samaya, is a set of vows or precepts given to initiates of an esoteric Vajrayana Buddhist order as part of the abhiṣeka ceremony that creates a bond between the guru and disciple.
Kakuban, known posthumously as Kōgyō-Daishi (興教大師) was a priest of the Shingon sect of Buddhism in Japan and credited as a reformer, though his efforts also led to a schism between Kogi Shingon-shū and Shingi Shingon-shū. Kakuban is also famous for his introduction of the "esoteric nembutsu".
Jōkei (貞慶) (1155–1213) was an influential Buddhist scholar-monk and reformer of the East Asian Yogācāra sect in Japan, posthumously known as Gedatsu shōnin.
Yoshida Shintō (吉田神道) also frequently referred to as Yuiitsu Shintō was a prominent sect of Shintō that arose during the Sengoku period through the teachings and work of Yoshida Kanetomo. The sect was originally an effort to organize Shintō teachings into a coherent structure in order to assert its authority vis-a-vis Buddhism. However, by the Edo period, Yoshida Shintō continued to dominate the Shintō discourse, and influenced Neo-Confucian thinkers such as Hayashi Razan and Yamazaki Ansai in formulating a Neo-Confucian Shinto doctrine. Yoshida Shinto's dominance rivaled that of Ise Shintō.
The Six Schools of Nara Buddhism, also known as the Rokushū 六宗, were academic Buddhist sects. These schools came to Japan from Korea and China during the late 6th and early 7th centuries. All of these schools were controlled by the newly formed Japanese government of Nara. These schools were installed to mimic and expand upon already existing mainland Asian Buddhist thought.
