It became the fashion in Japan to talk of the twelve sects, but the names given are not always the same.

One of the commonest lists is as follows:[1070]

1.  Kusha. 5.  Hosso. 9.  Jodo. 2.  Jo-jitsu. 6.  Kegon. 10.  Zen. 3.  Ritsu-shu or Risshu 7.  Tendai. 11.  Shin. 4.  Sanron. 8.  Shingon. 12.  Nichiren.

This list is historically correct, but Nos. 1-4 are almost or quite extinct, and the number twelve is therefore sometimes made up as follows: 

1.  Hosso. 5.  Yuzu Nembutsu. 9.  Obaku. 2.  Kegon. 6.  Jodo. 10.  Shin. 3.  Tendai. 7.  Rinzai. 11.  Nichiren. 4.  Shingon. 8.  Sodo. 12.  Ji.

Here Nos. 7, 8, 9 are subdivisions of the Zen and 5 and 12 are two small sects.

Taking the first list, we may easily distinguish two classes.  The first eight, called by the Japanese Hasshu, are all old and all imported from China.  They represent the Buddhism of the Nara and Hei-an periods.  The other four all arose after 1170 and were all remodelled, if not created, in Japan.  Chronologically the sects may be arranged as follows, the dates marking the foundation or introduction of each: 

(i) Seventh century:  Sanron, 625; Jo-jitsu, 625; Hosso, 657;
Kusha, 660.
(ii) Eighth century:  Kegon, 735; Ritsu, 745.
(iii) Ninth century:  Tendai, 805; Shingon, 806.
(iv) Twelfth and thirteenth centuries:  Yuzu Nembutsu,
1123; Jodo, 1174; Zen, 1202; Shin, 1224; Nichiren,
1253; Ji, 1275.

All Japanese sects of importance are Mahayanist.  The Hinayana is represented only by the Kusha, Jo-jitsu and Risshu.  The two former are both extinct:  the third still numbers a few adherents, but is not anti-Mahayanist.  It merely insists on the importance of discipline.

Though the Hosso and Kegon sects are not extinct, their survival is due to their monastic possessions rather than to the vitality of their doctrines, but the great sects of the ninth century, the Tendai and Shingon, are still flourishing.  For some seven hundred years, especially in the Fujiwara period, they had great influence not only in art and literature, but in political and even in military matters, for they maintained large bodies of troops consisting of soldier monks or mercenaries and were a considerable menace to the secular authority.  So serious was the danger felt to be that in the sixteenth century Nobunaga and Hideyoshi destroyed the great monasteries of Hieizan and Negoro and the pretensions of the Buddhist Church to temporal power were brought to an end.