ientai (Japanese, Tendai), and
acquired there a perception of the true road to Saving Knowledge, a
middle route "which includes all and rejects none, and in which alone
the soul can be satisfied." Meditation and wisdom were declared to be
the stepping-stones to this route, and to reach them various rules
had to be followed, namely, "the accomplishment of external
means"--such as observing the precepts, regulating raiment and food,
freedom from all worldly concerns and influences, promotion of all
virtuous desires, and so forth; "chiding of evil desires"--such as
the lust after beauty, the lust of sound, of perfumes, of taste, and
of touch; "casting away hindrances;" "harmonizing the faculties," and
"meditating upon absolute truth."

Now first we meet with the Buddhas of Contemplation, and with a creed
which seems to embody a Father, a Son, and a Holy Spirit. Such, in
briefest outline, was the doctrine taught at the close of the sixth
century by a Chinese bonze at the monastery of Tientai, and carried
thence to Japan two hundred years later by Dengyo, who established
the Tendai sect on Mount Hiei near Kyoto. Dengyo did not borrow
blindly; he adapted, and thus the Tendai creed, as taught at
Hiei-zan, became in reality "a system of Japanese education, fitting
the disciplinary and meditative methods of the Chinese propagandist
on the pre-existing foundations of earlier sects."

"The comprehensiveness of the Tendai system caused it to be the
parent of many schisms. Out of it came all the large sects, with the
exception of the Shingon," to be presently spoken of. "On the other
hand, this comprehensiveness ensured the success of the Tendai sect.
With the conception of the Buddhas of Contemplation came the idea
that these personages had frequently been incarnated for the welfare
of mankind; that the ancient gods whom the Japanese worshipped were
but manifestations of these same mystical beings, and that the
Buddhist faith had come, not to destroy the native Shinto, but to
embody it into a higher and more universal system."*

*"The Buddhists recognized that the Shinto gods were incarnations of
some of the many Buddhas and Bodhisattvas brought from India and
China, and then the two faiths amalgamated and for centuries
comfortably shared the same places of worship."--Every-Day Japan, by
Lloyd.

THE SHINGON SECT

It was not to Dengyo, however, that Japan owed her most mysterious
form of Buddhism, but to his contemporary, Kuk