B. Ruppert
(ie) of their day began to split into multiple lineages over the course of the twelfth and thirteenth
centuries. Moreover, with the Kamakura period, yin- yang masters of the Abe family, known
especially for their astronomical path (Tenmondō), took up residence in Kamakura to undertake
divination and other rites on behalf of the shogunate and the shogun’s family. The early Ashikaga
shoguns would go on to be great patrons of the yin- yang masters, who came to be given high
aristocratic rank for the first time, a situation which would change dramatically for the worse in
the late Muromachi with the gradual downfall of the shogunate itself.^66
A related set of practices was the array of celestial rites introduced from the continent that
flourished at the court and, to some extent, among the populace in the medieval era, sometimes
in novel form. Such worship of celestial bodies existed in multiple institutions and classes and
clearly constituted a prominent mode of what might be called vernacular religion. Although such
practices seem to have originally been confined to the yin- yang practitioners, the medieval era
featured their incorporation into a broad set of esoteric Buddhist and other autochthonous prac-
tices. Lucia Dolce has outlined the development and character of these rites over the course of the
medieval and early modern eras. Astronomical divination—uranomancy—took directly yin-
yang form (Tenmondō) but also a Buddhist form (Sukuyōdō). Veneration of the Pole Star was
undertaken in both Onmyōdō (Chintaku reifujin) and esoteric Buddhist (Sonshōō, Myōken)
guise. Big Dipper rites for increase of lifespan were particularly prominent in esoteric Buddhist
circles.^67
In the meantime, scholars have increasingly recognized that continental influences, from
south Asia as well as from China, had added impact on Japanese religious institutions and on the
development of vernacular religion. Kamikawa Michio and Yokouchi Hiroto have demonstrated
that Buddhist monasteries were significantly influenced by the continent over the course of the
late Heian period, and both Fabio Rambelli and Iyanaga Nobumi have called attention to the
influence of Indian divinities on medieval Japanese Buddhism and the development of “Shintō.”^68
Martin Collcutt has previously focused on the arrival of multiple Chan (J. Zen) masters to Japan,
including their interaction with the government and other Buddhists between the mid- thirteenth
and mid- fourteenth centuries, and Harada Masatoshi, among others, has stressed their role.^69
Ōtsuka Norihiro has called attention to those figures who traveled to the continent and the larger
influence of Song Buddhism and the discourse of the Latter Age of the Dharma.^70
Buddhist “schools,” Shinto ̄, and the rise of early modern Japanese religion
Scholarship on the later medieval period was hampered historically by scholars’ lack of interest,
since it was implicitly assumed that the major players in the development of Japanese religion
were the founders of major institutions and that their thought—e.g., Saichō, Kūkai, and then the
founders of the Kamakura “New” schools—had the greatest influence on the meaning and devel-
opment of Japanese religion. As I noted above, most postwar historians associated the new
schools’ founders as pivotal figures who liberated the masses in the Kamakura period. Yoshida
Kazuhiko has, however, argued that it was, in fact, only in the late medieval era that most of the
“new schools” became prominent institutions. Although we have seen that the Rinzai lineages
acquired institutional prominence much earlier, Yoshida focuses particularly on the Sōtō line-
ages, with their practice of funerals for the populace, and the True Pure Land lineages, which
placed emphasis on sectarian (kyōdan) identity. With regard to the latter, Mark L. Blum has sug-
gested that Rennyo (1415–1499) established in his organization the beginnings of sectarian self-
sufficiency similar to what would develop in the “modern” period. In any event, scholars are in
general agreement that Rennyo’s True Pure Land lineages, the Hokke lineages, and the Sōtō
lineages, developed regimes of study that were self- sufficient and hence not looking for Tendai