is one of the major schools of
Buddhism in Japan and one of the few surviving
Vajrayana lineages in East Asia, originally spread from
India to
China through traveling monks such as
Vajrabodhi and
Amoghavajra. Known in Chinese as the
Tangmi, these esoteric teachings would later flourish in
Japan under the auspices of a Buddhist monk named
Kūkai (空海), who traveled to
Tang China to acquire and request transmission of the esoteric teachings. For that reason, it is often called Japanese Esoteric Buddhism, or Orthodox Esoteric Buddhism.