Buddhism is also Mahayana in origin, but is discussed below under the heading of Vajrayana (also commonly referred to as "Northern Buddhism"). There are a variety of strands in Eastern Buddhism, of which "the Pure Land school of Mahayana is the most widely practised today.". In most of this area however, they are fused into a single unified form of Buddhism. In Japan in particular, they form separate denominations with the five major ones being: Nichiren, peculiar to Japan; Pure Land; Shingon, a form of Vajrayana; Tendai, and Zen. In Korea, nearly all Buddhists belong to the Chogye school, which is
Faith in Buddhism bird-like deities and violent spirits which previously were the focus of pre-Buddhist cults became guardians of the Buddhist teaching. This process of adopting deities as part of Buddhism often occurred when Buddhist devotees or monks did not fully renounce their former devotions when embracing Buddhism. In the early Pāli scriptures, as well as in some customs in traditional Buddhist societies, traces can still be found of the period that Buddhism competed with "nāga" worship and assimilated some of its features. In some Buddhist countries like Japan, a perspective arose of the human world as a microcosm of the macrocosmic realms