To the specialist in East Asian Buddhism, one of the most striking features of the texts reviewed in the previous chapter is that not a single one of them contains any reference to the concept of mo-fa (Jpn. mappō), lit. “end-dharma” or “final Dharma.” For it was not any of the timetables discussed above, but rather a three-part system culminating in a prolonged period of mo-fa, that was to become the most influential historical frame of reference in the Buddhist schools of China, Korea, and Japan.

Building on the concepts of saddharma (“True Dharma”) and saddharma-pratirūpaka (“semblance of the True Dharma”) that we have already met in the Indian sources, East Asian Buddhists formulated a system of three periods in the history of the Buddhist religion, which were expected to occur in the following sequence:

• a period of the “True Dharma” (Ch. cheng-fa /Jpn. shōbō, corresponding to Skt. saddharma) immediately following the death of the Buddha, during which it is possible to attain enlightenment by practicing the Buddha’s teachings;
• a period of the “Semblance Dharma” (Ch. hsiang-fa / Jpn. zōbō, a term patterned on but not identical to Skt. saddharma-pratirūpaka), during which a few may still be able to reach the goal of enlightenment, but most Buddhists simply carry out the external forms of the religion; and
• a period of the “Final Dharma” (Ch. mo-fa / Jpn. mappō, a term for which no proper Sanskrit equivalent exists), during which traditional religious practice loses its effectiveness and the spiritual capacity of human beings reaches an all-time low.

While this system is known only in East Asian Buddhist sources, it is clearly constructed with reference to elements that were already known in India.