Faith in Buddhism Amitābha Buddha. He believed that morality should go hand-in-hand with faith, and was a way to express gratitude to Amitābha. Jōdo Shinshu is still the most popular and largest Buddhist sect in Japan today, surviving as the Nishi Hongwanji and the Higashi Hongwanji traditions. Just like in Jōdo Shinshu, some forms of Zen Buddhism arose as a reaction to Tendai Buddhism. Just like Pure Land Buddhism, faith also played a role here, that is, in Sōtō Zen. This form of Zen, also known as "farmer's Zen" because of its popularity in agrarian society, was developed by Dōgen (1200–53). Apart from
Buddhism in Japan 67 CE. Historians generally agree that by the middle of the 1st century, the religion had penetrated to areas north of the Huai River in China. According to the "Book of Liang", which was written in 635, five Buddhist monks from Gandhara traveled to Japan in 467. At the time, they referred to Japan as Fusang (), the name of a mythological country to the extreme east beyond the sea: Although there are records of Buddhist monks from China coming to Japan before the Asuka Period, the "official" introduction of Buddhism to Japan is dated to 552 in "Nihon Shoki"