Buddhism in Japan four Pure Land schools, three Zen schools (Rinzai, Sōtō and Ōbaku), and Nichiren. During the war, this was halved to 28 branches, but the law enforcing this was repealed following the end of the war, allowing former branches to return. Further, since then, many groups have split off from existing branches. 625: Introduced into Japan. The (formerly known as the *"Sātyasiddhi") is considered to be an offshoot of the Bahuśrutīya, an Indian Sautrāntika school of Nikaya Buddhism; however, the "Tattvasiddhi"s position was also close to that of the Sthavira nikāya. They were distinguished by a rejection of abhidharma as not
Buddhism in Japan of the sixth century. 816: Kūkai founds . One of the major schools of Buddhism in Japan today and one of the few surviving Vajrayana lineages in East Asia, it originally spread from India to China through traveling monks such as Vajrabodhi and Amoghavajra. Known in Chinese as the Tangmi, these esoteric teachings would flourish in Japan under the auspices of a Buddhist monk named , who traveled to Tang China in 804 as part of the same expedition as Saichō. In the capital he studied Tangmi and Sanskrit and received initiation from Huiguo. On returning to Japan, Kūkai eventually