[D]uring the reign of Emperor Kammu, the fiftieth emperor, 800 years after the beginning of the Age of the Semblance Dharma, a monk called Saichō appeared, who was later known as Grand Master Dengyo. At first, he studied the six schools of Buddhism (Sanron, Hossō, Kegon, Kusha, Jōjitsu, and Ritsu) as well as Zen Buddhism from such masters as Bishop Gyōhyō. Meanwhile, he himself established the Kokushōji Temple (later renamed the Enryakuji Temple) on Mt. Hiei, where he checked basic sūtras and commentaries of the six schools against the interpretations by scholars of those schools. He found many discrepancies between interpretations of scholars and their basic sūtras and commentaries. Moreover, they produced so many false opinions that he felt that all those who believed in them would fall into the three evil realms (hell, realm of hungry souls, and that of beasts).

Besides, Saichō found that those scholars of the six schools each boastfully claimed mastery of the true teaching of the Lotus Sūtra without actually mastering it. He tormented himself thinking: “If I point this out, there will be disputes; if I keep silent, I will be going against the Buddha’s warning.” Fearful of the Buddha’s warning, he finally appealed to Emperor Kammu, who was astonished and ordered the scholars of the six schools to meet Saichō in debate. At the beginning their banner of self-pride waved as high as a mountain and their evil thoughts were more vicious than poisonous snakes. However, they finally had to surrender to Saichō in front of the Emperor, and the six schools and seven temples all became his disciples. It was just like the time those scholars from Northern and Southern China became the disciples of Grand Master T’ien-t’ai after being defeated in debate by him in front of the Emperor of Ch’ên.

While Grand Master T’ien-t’ai’s comparison of the Lotus to other sūtras was limited to the areas of meditation (jō) and wisdom (e), without covering the area of observing precepts (kai), Grand Master Dengyō refuted the specific granting of Hinayāna precepts and performed the ceremony for the specific granting of Mahāyāna precepts according to the Brahma-net Sūtra for eight monks of the six schools in Nara. In addition, Grand Master Dengyō established the “perfect and sudden” Lotus precept dais on Mt. Hiei for granting-the-precepts ceremony. Therefore, the “perfect and sudden” specific granting-the-precepts ceremony on Mt. Hiei was not only the first of its kind in Japan, but also the first ever held in India, China, and the world for over 1,800 years since Śākyamuni performed it on Mt. Sacred Eagle.

In this sense, Grand Master Dengyō’s accomplishments were greater than those of Nāgārjuna, Vasubandhu, T’ien-t’ai, and Miao-lê. Not a single monk of Japanese Buddhism today—including those of the Tōji Temple, the Onjōji Temple, the seven great temples at Nara, the eight schools of Buddhism, and those of the Pure Land, Zen, and Ritsu Schools—was opposed to this “perfect and sudden” precepts of Grand Master Dengyō. Though Buddhist monks in the entire land of China seemed to be disciples of T’ien-t’ai as far as perfect meditation and wisdom are concerned, since there was no platform for the “perfect and sudden” precept established in China, some Chinese monks may not have been disciples of T’ien-t’ai in this regard. In Japan, on the other hand, Buddhists monks who were not disciples of Grand Master Dengyō were either non-Buddhists or villains.

Senji-shō, Selecting the Right time: A Tract by Nichiren, the Buddha’s Disciple, Writings of Nichiren Shōnin, Doctrine 1, Page 202-203