JAPANESE BUDDHISM: A HISTORICAL OVERVIEW

Mountain Buddhism

Another alternative to orthodox Nara Buddhism was MOUNTAIN BUDDHISM, which emphasized kinship with nature and the kami over the study of Buddhist scriptures, and ascetic practice to obtain Buddhahood--and adeptness at magic--over rites to benefit the court. During the Nara period the mountains lured both ordained monks on retreat and unlicensed religious practitioners trying to escape the state's prohibition against unauthorized Buddhist activity. In the early Heian age, in fact, Buddhism's center of gravity shifted from the city to the mountains. The Tendai and Shingon schools, two new versions of Buddhism introduced from China, both established their most important monasteries in the mountains, and mountain temples soon became quite common. Ideally, if rarely in reality, mountain Buddhism was free of the worldly attachments that hampered its urban counterpart.

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Mt. Fuji.

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