Hōnen’s views on the subject apparently derived in part from a peculiar work called the Mappō tōmyō ki (A Lamp for the Age of the Final Dharma), generally attributed—in error, it is now thought—to Saichō (Dengyō Daishi, 766-822), founder of the Japanese Tendai sect. The treatise suggests that as the world moves farther and farther away from the time of the historical Buddha, human capacity to observe the monastic precepts inevitably declines, until, by the time of mappō, no one will be capable of keeping the precepts at all. In that age, it says, the “monk without precepts” or the “monk in name only” who merely shaves his head and dons a robe, presenting the appearance of a monk, is the treasure of the world and a true merit-field for the people; he is a lamp for the age of the Final Dharma. By the end of the Heian period, the monastic precepts were often honored more in the breach than the observance, and the Mappō tōmyō ki was widely interpreted to justify the laxity of the Buddhist clergy as no fault of its own, but an unavoidable consequence of the degenerate age.