The Transmission of Chan Buddhism from China to Japan

Buddhism's official introduction to Japan is recorded in the Nihon Shoki (720 CE) under the year 552 CE, when an envoy of King Seong of Baekje presented Emperor Kinmei with an image of Shakyamuni and a set of sutras. The Soga clan, led by Soga no Iname, favored adopting the new religion, while Mononobe no Okoshi and Nakatomi no Kamako opposed it as an offense to the native kami; the resulting factional struggle was only resolved in the Soga clan's favor after the Battle of Shigisan in 587. Prince Shotoku (574–622), regent under Empress Suiko, actively promoted Buddhism thereafter, referencing Buddhist values in his Seventeen-Article Constitution (604) and sponsoring temples such as Horyu-ji, founded in 607 and still home to some of the oldest surviving wooden buildings in the world. During the subsequent Nara period (710–794), six major scholastic schools imported from China and Korea — Sanron, Jojitsu, Hosso, Kusha, Kegon, and Ritsu — were codified under state patronage at official temples such as Todai-ji, whose Great Buddha was completed in 752, and organized nationally through the kokubunji provincial temple network established by Emperor Shomu in 741. These Nara schools were doctrinal and scholastic in character rather than independent meditation lineages.