B. Ruppert
the “founder” of the Jishū, Ippen (1239–1289), whose views were clearly influenced by esoteric
discourse.^23
Thus while some scholars have noted that the tendency of the leaders of the major “new” line-
ages to emphasize single- practice methods led them to deviate from the traditional unity of the
“three learnings” (precepts, meditation, wisdom), it is clear that most of these figures retained, in
varied ways, aspects of the catholic approach fostered by the established monasteries, especially
Hiei’s Enryakuji. As studies by Jacqueline Stone and Sueki Fumihiko have suggested, the writ-
ings of figures like Nichiren (1222–1282) and Dōgen (1200–1253), influenced by Tendai writ-
ings of the late Heian era onward, reveal a debt to discourses on the “original enlightenment”
(hongaku) of beings, a world of discourse which had an intimate connection not just to a broad
range of soteriological questions but which also was clearly related to the eventual development
of late medieval “Shintō” theories that deities (shin, kami) found in the Japanese isles were actually
the original ground (honji) of Buddhist divinities, now conceived of as their traces (suijaku).^24
Figures such as these clearly shared many interests in common with a number of prominent
scholar- monks of the established monasteries, such as: Myō’e (1173–1232), who was of Kegon
and Shingon lineages and studied Zen under Yōsai; Sōshō (1202–1278) and Gyōnen (1240–1321),
who were Kegon (Tōdaiji) monks but also active in buddhological inquiry, the Precepts, and
modes of Pure Land belief and practice; Jōkei (1155–1213), the Hossō monk at Kōfukuji known
for his denunciation of Hōnen’s emphasis on single- practice nenbutsu but who was also devoted
to the Precepts and interested in Zen; Shunjō (1166–1227), who studied the Precepts, Tendai,
Shingon, and Zen; and Eison (1201–1290), both a Shingon and precepts master.^25
Taira and others have recently called attention to the centrality of figures like Shunjō, Jōkei,
Myō’e, and Eison as representative of “meditation- precepts monks” (zenritsu sō) who they suggest
led the “reformation in Buddhism” (bukkyō kaikaku) during the Kamakura period rather than the
so- called founders of the “new schools.”^26 Ōtsuka, however, has emphasized those figures who
traveled to the continent (e.g., Shunjō) and the larger influence of Song Buddhism and the dis-
course of the Latter Age of the Dharma (J. mappō) and proposed “meditation- precepts Buddhism”
(zenritsu bukkyō), based on analysis of temple organization in Japan and the Song, as a counter-
point to the established Kenmitsu Buddhism historically.^27
Such figures of the “new” lineages as well as those of established Buddhist institutions also
took varying views of gender, and the views of scholar have undergone changes over the past
decades. Until the late twentieth century, scholars such as Kasahara Kazuo maintained the view
that the “new” Kamakura schools held a more positive view of women and of their potential for
salvation, especially Hōnen, Shinran, Dōgen, and Nichiren. Scholars both within and without
Japan have, however, since come to take a different view of the situation. Although women had
indeed been prohibited from the area of sacred mountains such as Mount Kōya, Hiei, and Yoshino
for centuries, many monks in the established lineages were concerned with the salvation of
women, especially of members of their families such as mothers, similar to the case on the conti-
nent.^28 A series of studies by Japanese and Western scholars were published in Engendering Faith:
Women and Buddhism in Premodern Japan, which ushered in the new century with multiple essays
that further clarified the situation of gender relations in the traditional institutions, the sacred
texts, and the newer lineages.^29
Recently, Lori Meeks has demonstrated that women were extremely active in the reestablish-
ment of nunneries and female ordination in the early medieval period, especially in the example
of Hokkeji in Nara. A group of women worked together with the Precepts Lineage master Eison
to revive the nunnery there. Nuns and patrons together promoted the reestablishment of the
nunnery through combining the production and dissemination of legendary narratives about
Hokkeji (which was first established in the Nara period), the promotion of pilgrimage to Hokkeji,