[Nichiren’s] study of ten years (1243-1253) on [Mount Hiei] convinced him that a revival of Tendai philosophy alone was the nearest approach to the Truth.

By Tendai philosophy Nichiren meant not what he found there at hand but what was taught by Dengyō Daishi himself. The original T’ien-T’ai of Chih-i was chiefly theoretical, whereas the Japanese Tendai of Dengyō Daishi was practical as well as theoretical. But after the two great masters, Jikaku and Chishō, the practical sides of Tendai were either mystic rituals or Amita faith; that seemed to them most important. The fundamental truth of the Lotus doctrine seemed to be laid aside as if it were a philosophical amusement. Nichiren could not accept this attitude and so returned in 1253 to his old monastery at Kiyozumi where he proclaimed his new doctrine that the Lotus alone could save the people of the depraved age, the essential formula being “Homage to the Text of the Lotus of the True Ideal.” It is Dharma-smriti (thought on Dharma) and not Buddha-smriti as was the Amita formula. Dharma is the ideal realized by the original Buddha. All beings are saved through homage to the Lotus of Truth, and this alone, he declared, is the true final message of the Buddha.