Tendai

Created in 805 by the monk Saichô, the school Tendai is the form which took in Japan the Chinese school Tiantai of the Bouddhisme mahayanic, rested by the monk Zhiyi (538-597) of the Dynastie Sui. It constitutes since its appearance an important and influential component of the Japanese Buddhism.

History

With the Japan, the school had as a founder the monk Saichô (767-822), who had gone in China into 804 during one year and brought back the doctrines and the practices of them. Tendai acquired a full independence with regard to old the schools of Nara with its official recognition like centers ordination of the Grand Vehicle seven days after the death of Saichô, into 822. The center of the school, the Enryaku-ji, was located on the mount Hiei at the North-East of Kyôto.

Saicho had received initiations of Kukai, another large monk of the esoteric time Heian founder of the current Shingon, and wished to integrate in Tendaï the Mikkyo (密教). Vis-a-vis the refusal of this last to forward certain texts to him, the relations between the two men stopped. Thereafter, Ennin (794-864), disciple of Saichô, and Enchin (814-891), disciple of its successor Gishin (781-833), went to China in their turn and developed a current esoteric suitable for Tendai, Taîmitsu, distinct from the esotericism of Shingon, Tomitsu. Nevertheless, their two lines ended up entering in conflict, which leads to a scission into 993:

Sanmon or School of the Mountain, running preserving, connects Ennin which remained with the mount Hiei.
Jimon or School of the Temple, more influenced by the Tantrisme, connects Enchin based with the Onjô-ji with the foot of the mount.

The two lines accentuated their esoteric features , devoting to the tantric liturgies and ritual while remaining in close relation with the aristocracy and the court. As of the end of the period of Heian, the monks resulting from this school, dissatisfied with this bringing together between the aristocracy and the religion, launched out in new religious movements which will develop fully in the Bouddhisme reformed time of Kamakura: Genshin, Shinran, Eisai, Dôgen and Nichiren passed all by the mount Hiei, the Tendai school can thus be regarded as the cradle of the Japanese Buddhism.

Anxious of the political power and soldier of the warlike monks, the general Oda Nobunaga shaves, in 1571, the complex of temple of the mount Hiei, the Enryakuji. However, at the time of Edo, the bonds of Tendai-shû and the capacity still increased with the personalities like Tenkaï (1536-1643), sponsored by Tokugawa Ieyasu, while the family members imperial became higher generals of the school. Tendai exists still nowadays and remains one of the more university of the Japanese Buddhism.

Specificities

The Tendai school observes the rules of the " Large Vehicle " (disciplinary rules that Saichô qualifies " perfect and soudaines") incompatible with those of the schools of Nara which adopt that of the " Small vehicle ". Vision of the " Large Vehicle " (single vehicle contents in the Sûtra of the Lotus) implies that Bouddha - and, therefore, boddhéïté - is in any human spirit and that to reach the revelation is with range of all without exemptions on the condition of sublimating passions and sufferings which bind the men to the ground - and not to remove them as the rules Hinayana indicate it. This " Large vehicle " was also preached by the Shingon, but Tendai is different by the observance of the " Sûtra of the net of Brahma" and a more rigorous ascetic discipline (sublimation of passions). Moreover, Tendai imposes twelve more years of particular meditation " Shikan" , of studies and ascetic on the mount Hiei.

The " Large Vehicle " , for contents, contained the ten serious errors and the 48 light ones in the " Sûtra of the net of Brahma" - or Sûtra Bommo.

Saichô interprets these ten serious errors as being consisted of the " three rules pures" who are negative defenses, the positive rules of the Good for oneself and the positive rules of the Good for others. Moreover, according to the school of Chigi (its Chinese Master) the gasoline of these rules is the Nature of Bouddha which resides perpetually at the man. Pure gasoline by nature and source first of all the beings. These rules being worth as well for the priests as for laic the . It is the one of the great differences which exists between Tendai and the traditional schools of Nara relegating them by altruism benefactor to the row of the " Small Véhicule".

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