Religion in Japan capital at Heian (now Kyoto). The six Buddhist sects initially established in Nara are today together known as "Nara Buddhism" and are relatively small. When the capital moved to Heian, more forms of Buddhism arrived from China, including the still-popular Shingon Buddhism, an esoteric form of Buddhism similar to Tibet's Vajrayana Buddhism, and Tendai, a monastic conservative form known better by its Chinese name, Tiantai. When the shogunate took power in the 12th century and the administrative capital moved to Kamakura, more forms of Buddhism arrived. The most popular was Zen, which became the most popular type of Buddhism of
Buddhism in the West Rush. By 1875 there were 8 temples in San Francisco and many more smaller ones along the West Coast. They practiced a mixture of "Confucian ancestor veneration, popular Taoism, and Pure Land Buddhism." At about the same time, immigrants from Japan began to arrive as laborers on Hawaiian plantations and central-California farms. In 1893 the first Jōdo Shinshū priests arrived in San Francisco, and they formally established the Buddhist Missions of North America, later renamed the Buddhist Churches of America in 1899. The BCA is the oldest major institutional form of Buddhism in the United States. This organization acted as