[1] The schools were installed during the reign of Prince Shōtoku, most likely to increase the power of the expanding government through Buddhist and Confucian doctrine.
Many of the themes of these schools delved on advanced level, complicated, almost cryptic, Indian philosophies on the mind and existence.
[1] Eventually the increasing power of these schools of Buddhism and their influence in politics started to overwhelm the city of Nara.
[2] All six schools shared Gautama Buddha's original teaching of the Four Noble Truths, but differed in their interpretations of ideas such as the interdependency of phenomena, ultimate enlightenment (nirvana), non-self (anātman), and the Middle Way.
[2] These schools laid the groundwork for the development of Pure Land Buddhism and the emergence of the worship of a distinctly Japanese form of Amitābha, Amida.