Ages
Zoho (The Age of the Semblance Dharma)
Also Known As Xiangfa
Position 2 in Its Cycle
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The Age of the Semblance Dharma, called Zoho in Japanese and Xiangfa in Chinese, is the second of the three ages into which East Asian Buddhist writers divided the time following the historical Buddha. In this age the teaching and the outward practice continue, but the attainment that practice is meant to produce is held to have failed, so what remains resembles the true Dharma of the first age without fully being it. This entry names the age's position in the wider three age scheme this atlas already tracks under its own doctrine entry, Mappo (The Latter Age of the Dharma), which carries the fuller treatment of the scheme and the debate over what it means.
Facts
Disputed
Proposed DatingThe Japanese Tendai reckoning that dates the Buddha's death to 949 BCE opens this second age 1,000 years later, at the point the Age of the True Dharma closes. Chinese calculations worked out from the sixth century onward placed the same transition variously, so this is a real, named calculation rather than a single undisputed date. Proposed DatingThe same Japanese reckoning closes this second age 1,000 years after it opens, at 1052 CE, the year this atlas already records as the opening of the final age. Chinese calculations worked out from the sixth century onward placed the same transition variously, so this is a real, named calculation rather than a single undisputed date. Dating
Proposed DatingThe Japanese reckoning most widely adopted, the same one this atlas records for the opening of the final age below, dates this second age from 52 CE to 1052 CE, the thousand years between the close of the first age and the opening of the third. Chinese calculations worked out from the sixth century onward placed the same transitions variously, so this is a real, named calculation rather than the single undisputed answer. 1 Attributions
TraditionEast Asian Buddhism, and above all the Japanese Pure Land and Nichiren schools, for whom the three age scheme changed what practice was reasonable to attempt. 1 Cross-Tradition Connections
Belongs to Tradition
The second of the three East Asian Buddhist Dharma ages, in which practice continues but attainment is held to have failed.
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