B. Ruppert
the land over the course of this period. Kenchi, for example, performed the death rites for
Shinran, received his relics, and would be entrusted by the shogunate with permission to recon-
struct the main mausoleum at Ōtani in the early fourteenth century.^54 Such veneration, which
was focused initially on multiple masters in many lineages, helped give birth to what might be
called cultures of learning that while sometimes sectarian often continued to promote the study
of multiple Buddhist lineages.^55 Within the major monasteries of the Kyoto and Nara, cultures of
learning (shūgaku) and their expression in the production of scripture and the arts were most act-
ively undertaken in the residential halls or cloisters (inge, monzeki). Recently, Ōhashi Naoyoshi
and others have proposed that scholars use a concept like “temple- shrine sphere” (jisha- ken) to
analyze these cultural formations insofar as the areas of temple- shrines featured a combination of
space, mobility, and discursive activity intimately related to the development of urban society.^56
Meanwhile, figures like the prolific literatus- monk Mujū (Zen- Esoteric, Precepts, Tendai;
1226–1312), the Shinpukuji (Shingon) founder Nōshin (1291–1353), Chikotsu Dai’e (Rinzai
Zen- Esoteric; 1229–1312), Kokan Shiren (Rinzai Zen, Esoteric; 1278–1347), and Shōgei (Pure
Land, Shingon, [Buddhist-] Shintō; 1341–1420) were physically mobile figures who typically
studied multiple traditions and gained access, whether through copying or other means, to large
scriptural treasuries across the areas between Kansai and Kantō. It is notable that a number of
these figures were originally from rural or semi- rural areas—Nōshin and Dai’e were from the Ise
region, while Mujū and Shōgei were from rural Kantō, for example—and that they were of
varied class background. Dai’e, however, went on to become abbot of Tōfukuji, and Nōshin
founded his own temple, Shinpukuji, in a rural area near present- day Nagoya, as did Mujū. Mujū
and Dai’e studied under the prominent Rinzai Zen- Esoteric (zenmitsu) master, Enni, an influen-
tial figure noted above who had studied in China, was patronized by leading nobles and retired
sovereigns, and retained relationships with the Kenmitsu lineages—symbolizing, in this fashion,
the evolving and fluid character of Zen.^57
Such interaction served in part not just to fortify learning within the monastic walls but also
to spread religious belief and practice both into the complexes and out into society. This was
probably related to the development of religious and other learning within the developing Zen
monasteries, which had great influence on the development of a series of arts.^58 It was also
presumably related to the rise of lineages of Buddhist scriptural recitation called the “Sutra- recital
way” (Dokyōdō), which Shiba Kayono has established was a path of study based on Lotus sutra
recitation competition among monks. Influenced especially by Mount Hiei, this religio- aesthetic
“way” was consolidated as a distinct school of recitation in the thirteenth century as a reflection
of the interaction between lay supporters and the monastic reciters, and was passed on, like other
developing arts, by means of oral transmission and related texts (kudensho).^59 Susan Blakeley Klein
has drawn attention to the development of esoteric waka commentaries, which developed among
court literati in the thirteenth century and which employed sexual interpretations, informed by
notions of original enlightenment, to explore the ritual and religious implications of Japanese
poetry practice.^60
Scholars have recently offered varying insights into Dharma assemblies (hō’e) as sites where
monks and lay people together engaged in ritual performance and giving while disseminating
stories and other knowledge about Buddhism. From the perspective of social history, Nagamura
Makoto has drawn attention to the development of Dharma assemblies in the form of annual rites
(nenjū gyōji) at major complexes such as Nara’s Tōdaiji, which by the early medieval period
included a series of rites of multiple lineages (e.g., Sanron, Abhidharma [Kusha], in addition to
the main Kegon school) performed in varied cloisters (inge) therein as well as an increase in
lecture- liturgies (kō) and clear differentiation of the classes of monks permitted to appear; more-
over, he emphasizes that there were several different sponsors of such rites, including not just the