saicho

As early as the year 729 we read of the Emperor Shomu giving tea to one hundred monks at his palace in Nara. The leaves were probably imported by our ambassadors to the Tang Court and prepared in the way then in fashion. In 801 the monk Saicho brought back some seeds and planted them in Yeisan.

Kakuzo Okakura - The Book of Tea

The most celebrated of these religionists were Saicho and Kukai immortalized under their posthumous names of Dengyo Daishi and Kobo Daishi, respectively. The former went to Changan in the train of the ambassador, Sugawara Kiyokimi, in 802, and the latter accompanied Fujiwara Kuzunomaro, two years later.

F. (Frank) Brinkley - A History of the Japanese People : From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era

Saicho was specially sent to China by his sovereign to study Buddhism, in order that, on his return, he might become lord-abbot of a monastery which his Majesty had caused to be built on Hie-no-yama subsequently known as Hiei-zan a hill on the northeast of the new palace in Kyoto.

F. (Frank) Brinkley - A History of the Japanese People : From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era

A Japanese superstition regarded the northeast as the "Demon's Gate," where a barrier must be erected against the ingress of evil influences. Saicho also brought from China many religious books. Down to that time the Buddhist doctrine preached in Japan had been of a very dispiriting nature.

F. (Frank) Brinkley - A History of the Japanese People : From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era

It taught that salvation could not be reached except by efforts continued through three immeasurable periods of time. But Saicho acquired a new doctrine in China. That was the basic conception, but it underwent some modification at Japanese hands.

F. (Frank) Brinkley - A History of the Japanese People : From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era