| abstract | - Saicho traveled to China along with a number of other young monks, one of whom was named Kukai. Saichō befriended him during his trip to China who traveled with him going and coming. This turned out to be pivotal to the future development of Buddhism. "During the last month of his stay on Chinese soil, while awaiting the arrival of his ship at the port city of Ming-chou, Saichō traveled to Yüeh-chou to collect additional Buddhist texts. At Lung-hsing ssu Pö± Saichō chanced to meet the priest Shun-hsiao", and likewise returned with esoteric (tantric) Buddhist texts. Saicho was entranced with the new material and wanted to learn more. On the trip back he found that Kukai had studied these teachings in depth and had an entire library of tantric materials. This friendship would influence the future of Japanese Tendai. "SAICHō AND KUKAI} are renowned as the founders, respectively, of the Japanese Tendai and Shingon schools, both of which grew into influential institutions of continuing importance even today. The two figures cooperated, moreover, in an effort to transplant the seed of esoteric Buddhism (mikkyō) to the cultural soil of Japan. Saichō, for example, prepared the way for Kukai—still largely unrecognized after his return from T’ang China—to perform the Mikkyō initiation ritual of abhiseka (kanjō) for the high priests of the Nara Buddhist establishment and the dignitaries of the imperial" Heian court." It was Saicho performed the abhisheka, or initiatory ritual, for the court. "Saichō also endorsed the court’s bequest to Kðkai of the mountain temple of Takaosan-ji northwest of Kyoto as the first center for Kukai’s Shingon school. Kðkai, in turn, responded to Saichō’s wish to incorporate Mikkyō into the eclectic system of Tendai by training Saichō and his disciples in the esoteric Buddhist rituals and by lending Saichō various Mikkyō texts that he had brought with him from China."
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