Saichō believed that many of the descriptions of the decline of the Buddha’s teaching accurately depicted the corruption among Buddhist monks in Nara. The monks of Nara vied for fame and profit, rather than exerting themselves to attain enlightenment. They jealously criticized and persecuted any monk who seriously practiced Buddhist austerities. Saichō saw himself as the persecuted monk and the Nara monks as the corrupt Buddhists described in the sütras.

Although Saichō referred to the theories describing the decline of Buddhism in three periods, he did not attempt to reconcile the discrepancies between the various accounts of the decline. Nor did he discuss the chronology of the decline of Buddhism in his writings. Saichō’s disciple Kōjō, however, included a passage in the Denjutsu isshinkaimon that did give a chronology for the decline. The Period of the True Dharma (shōbō) lasted one-thousand years, and the Period of the Imitated Dharma (zōhō) would also last one-thousand years. Thus Kōjō noted that 806, the year Emperor Kanmu granted yearly ordinands to the Tendai School, was 1747 years after the Buddha’s death. Only two-hundred years remained before the final period of decline, that of mappō. Kōjō’s mention of a significant event in Saichō’s life, the bestowal of yearly ordinands, in his chronology suggests that Saichō also accepted this time table.