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In 788, Saicho built Ichijo Shikanin on Mt. Hiei, timing it with Emperor Kanmu's relocation of the capital to Heian-kyo. Emperor Kanmu became a devoted patron and granted Saicho permission to study in Tang China. Upon returning, Saicho founded the Tendai school, making Mt. Hiei the mother mountain of Japanese Buddhism. All the great founders of later Buddhist schools — Honen, Shinran, Eisai, Dogen, and Nichiren — emerged from this mountain.

Tradition relates that in 792, the year before establishing Enryaku-ji on Mt. Hiei, Dengyo Daishi Saicho entered the mountains of Koka for training, carved an Eleven-Headed Kannon from a sacred yew tree with his own hand, and enshrined it — the founding of Ichino-dera. As a temple linked to Saicho immediately before he founded the Tendai school, Ichino-dera became an important sacred site in the Tendai tradition.

The Jizo Bodhisattva enshrined at Zensoji is traditionally said to have been carved by Dengyo Daishi Saicho himself as his personal devotional image kept throughout his lifetime. After Saicho's death it was preserved in Sakamoto in Omi Province until 1587, when the founding abbot had it installed here. Known as Mud-Foot Jizo, Sweating Jizo, and Stand-in Jizo, it is the subject of legends including helping a farmer with rice planting and saving a mother and child from a difficult birth. That the lifelong talisman of the founder of Tendai Buddhism came to reside in a Jodo-shu temple is a striking example of the unexpected crossings that mark Kyoto's religious history.

Enryakuji on Mt. Hiei, founded by Saicho, is the head temple of Tendai Buddhism and the spiritual mother of Japanese Buddhism, with three distinct temple complexes: Todo, Saito, and Yokawa.