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Kegon is the name of the Japanese transmission of the Huayan school of
Chinese Buddhism.
Huayan studies were founded in Japan when, in 736, the scholar-priest
Roben 良辯 (originally a Hosso 法相 specialist) invited the Korean Simsang 審祥 to
give lectures on the Huayan jing at Konshu-ji 金鐘寺. When the construction of
Todaiji 東大寺 was completed, Roben entered that temple to formally initiate
Kegon as a field of study in Japanese Buddhism, and the Kegon shū would
become known as one of the "six Nara 奈良 schools." Kegon thought was later be
popularized in Japan by Myoe 明惠, who combined its doctrines with those of
the esoteric school 密教, and Gyonen 凝然, who is most responsible for the
establishment of the Todaiji lineage of Kegon. The most important
philosophical contributions of the Huayan school were in the area of its
metaphysics, as it taught the doctrine of the mutual containment and
interpenetration of all phenomena shishiwuai 事事無礙: that one thing contains
all things in existence, and that all things contain one.
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