zōbō

…“copied law” (Sanskrit pratirupadharma, Japanese zōbō); and the age of the “latter law,” or the “degeneration of the law” (Sanskrit pashchimadharma, Japanese mappō). A new period, in which the true faith will again flower, will be ushered in some time in the future by the bodhisattva (“buddha-to-be”) Maitreya (Japanese Miroku).

…time of “imitative law” (zōbō), and the third period was that of mappō, which was actually calculated to begin in the year 1052. Mappō, it was believed, was a time marked by social chaos and natural disaster, in which proper living under the law of the Buddha no longer…