Heian period
Historical periods平安時代 ・ Reading: Heian jidai
Definition
Two mountains, two schools
In 794 the court moved to Heian-kyō, the city that would remain the capital for over a thousand years as Kyoto. Early in the era two monks returned from study in China and transformed Japanese Buddhism: Saichō founded the Tendai school on Mount Hiei at Enryaku-ji, and Kūkai founded the esoteric Shingon school, establishing the mountain monastery of Kōyasan in 816. Their mountain headquarters trained centuries of monks, and nearly every later school of Japanese Buddhism traces back to Mount Hiei.
The turn to the Pure Land
As the aristocratic age matured, belief spread that the world had entered mappō, the degenerate final age of the Buddhist law, calculated to begin in 1052. Devotion turned to Amida Buddha and rebirth in his Western Pure Land, chanted in the nenbutsu prayer. The Byōdō-in Phoenix Hall at Uji, built in 1053 as an image of that paradise, still floats over its pond today. Kami and buddhas were increasingly worshipped together, a fusion called shinbutsu shūgō that lasted until 1868.
Common questions
- What did Saichō and Kūkai do?
Both studied in China and returned in the early ninth century. Saichō founded the Tendai school at Enryaku-ji on Mount Hiei; Kūkai founded the esoteric Shingon school and its mountain monastery Kōyasan. Both sites are UNESCO World Heritage today.
- What is mappō?
The belief that the Buddhist teaching would decay in a final degenerate age, calculated in Japan to begin in 1052. It drove the huge popularity of Pure Land devotion to Amida Buddha in the late Heian period.
- Which Heian buildings can I still visit?
The Byōdō-in Phoenix Hall at Uji (1053) is the most famous survivor and appears on the ten yen coin. Enryaku-ji and Kōyasan continue as living monasteries, though most of their present buildings are later rebuilds.