practices made New Buddhism more exclusivistic, dis-
tilling religion to the bare essentials, in contrast to Old
Buddhism, which was more inclusivitic, integrating a
vast array of practices, beliefs, texts, deities, rituals, and
ecclesiastical ranks into a multifaceted religious cul-
ture. In the process, New Buddhism set aside many of
the magical and apotropaic concerns of Old Buddhism
in order to concentrate on personal salvation. Overall,
the new Kamakura movements are portrayed as the
democratization of Japanese Buddhism—that is, the
extension of Buddhism beyond a predominantly
upper-class, male, clerical elite to include lowly, fe-
male, and lay adherents. This view of Japan’s religious
development has dominated scholarship for the last
century, though it has been subject to a variety of re-
finements and critiques.
A by-product of this characterization of Kamakura
Buddhism has been the tendency to compare it to the
Protestant Reformation in Europe. In fact, the exam-
ple of the Reformation may have influenced the way
scholars conceived of Kamakura Buddhism and the
features they highlighted. The parallels most often
cited between the two are an emphasis on faith, the
emergence of a married clergy, the decentralization of
religious authority, and the diminished role of clerical
intercessors. Among the various forms of Kamakura
Buddhism, Shinran’s school, the Jodo Shinshu, has at-
tracted the greatest attention. Shinran himself is fre-
quently compared to Martin Luther. Were it not for
Shinran and his school, however, it is questionable how
germane the Reformation model would be for analyz-
ing Japanese Buddhism. The tendency to equate Ka-
makura Buddhism to the Protestant Reformation has
declined in recent decades, especially as scholars ex-
amine Japanese Buddhism in greater depth and iden-
tify dissimilarities. Nonetheless, the terminology of
reform has persisted, even though Kamakura is now
treated as its own distinct example of reform.
One difficulty in attributing special characteristics
to this New Buddhism is that many of the reforms
identified in it also occurred in Old Buddhism. Hence,
one of the refinements to the category of Kamakura
Buddhism has been to extend its boundaries to include
various movements and new developments in the
Heian and Nara schools too. It is well known, for in-
stance, that various eminent priests of Tendai, Shin-
gon, and the Nara temples were drawn to the nenbutsu
as a religious practice, and some to Zen meditation
also. In addition, various clerics from Nara, such as
Jokei (1155–1213) and Myoe KOBEN (1173–1232),
promoted popular and easily practiced devotions to
Buddhist deities, including S ́akyamuni Buddha, the fu-
ture Buddha MAITREYA, and the Bodhisattva Mañjus ́r.
Though not as widespread as Pure Land devotions to
Amitabha, these practices were often conducted in a
similar manner—for instance, chanting the name of
the buddha or bodhisattva before an enshrined image
or sacred object. Another initiative in Old Buddhism
was to revive the Buddhist PRECEPTS, just as Eisai
sought to do alongside Zen meditation in his mon-
astery. Ostensibly, this was done to revitalize the Bud-
dhist order, which was considered lax and in decline.
But administering the Buddhist precepts was not lim-
ited to clerics. Nara proponents such as Eison (1209–
1290) developed mass ceremonies for administering
lay precepts to ordinary people as well. Thus, Old Bud-
dhism responded to their needs and religious procliv-
ities as much as New Buddhism did. This wave of
popular practice, however, did not displace traditional
rituals and doctrine in the established temples, but
emerged alongside them. In fact, some learned priests
such as GYONEN(1240–1321) and Kakuzen (b. 1143)
compiled systematic accounts of doctrine, compendi-
ums of beliefs and practices, and historiographies of
Buddhism as another way of revitalizing their schools.
Hence, Old Buddhism was equally caught up in the re-
ligious ferment of the Kamakura period, even while
maintaining its traditions of the past.The most important critique of Kamakura Bud-
dhism as a scholarly concept is found in the alterna-
tive theory of medieval Japanese religion proposed by
the historian Kuroda Toshio (1926–1993). This theory
centers on the idea that the dominant form of religion
in medieval times was Kenmitsu, or exoteric-esoteric,
Buddhism. Specifically, this refers to an array of prac-
tices and assumptions found widely in the temples,
monasteries, and organizations of Tendai, Shingon,
and Nara Buddhism, rather than in the new Pure Land,
Zen, and Nichiren movements. Kenmitsu Buddhism
was, in short, Japan’s medieval orthodoxy, binding to-
gether the mainstream institutions through commonly
recognized esoteric rituals, even while they diverged on
exoteric doctrine. Esoteric ritual was considered effi-
cacious in achieving both spiritual and worldly goals,
so the ruling powers of Japan looked to Kenmitsu Bud-
dhism for support and, in turn, patronized and pro-
moted it. Inherent in this depiction of religion is the
supposition that the new Kamakura movements were,
at best, minor participants in medieval culture and, at
worst, heretical fringe groups. The upshot of this view
is that Nara and Heian Buddhism are recognized as
greater and longer influences on Japan’s history thanKAMAKURABUDDHISM, JAPAN