is commonly acknowledged. The Kamakura Buddhism
model thus reflects a projection back onto medieval
times of the early modern and modern religious order,
since most of its institutions gained prominence only
around the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, toward
the end of the medieval period.
The Kenmitsu theory offers a critique of the pre-
sumption that Kamakura Buddhism was the focal
point and the most representative expression of me-
dieval Japanese religion. This critique is built on an as-
tute analysis of medieval religious institutional culture,
and it provides an important correction to the ten-
dency to inflate the significance of the new Pure Land,
Zen, and Nichiren movements in medieval Japan. But
whether the Kenmitsu theory can actually lay to rest
the Kamakura Buddhism model is another question.
For all its shortcomings, the model underscores the
point that over time Japan underwent notable changes
in its religious outlook and practice, which are em-
bedded in the dominant forms of Japanese Buddhism
today, and that those changes had their inception, if
not their heyday, in the Kamakura period. This as-
sumption is so pervasive in the study of Japanese Bud-
dhism that the Kamakura model is likely to continue
as an important category in explaining the develop-
ment of Buddhism in Japan.
See also:Chan School; Exoteric-Esoteric (Kenmitsu)
Buddhism in Japan; Japan; Nenbutsu (Chinese, Ni-
anfo; Korean, Yo ̆mbul); Nichiren School; Shingon
Buddhism, Japan; Tiantai School
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Ota. Tokyo: Japan Pen Club, 1973.JAMESC. DOBBINSKARMA (ACTION)The term karma,which literally means “action,” is fre-
quently used in the context of what can be called the
doctrine of karma: the belief that acts bring about their
retribution, usually in a subsequent existence. This be-
lief is nowadays shared by many Hindus, Buddhists,
Jainas, and others, but the details can vary consider-
ably between different believers. In order to under-
stand the doctrine of karma in Indian Buddhism it will
be necessary briefly to explore its historical back-
ground.Buddhism was originally one of the religious cur-
rents that made up the so-called S ́ramana (mendicant)
movement. Other religious currents belonging to the
same movement were Jainism and Ajvikism; there
were no doubt more such currents, but no details
about them have survived. All these currents shared
the conviction that acts will bring about their retribu-
tion. Moreover, they all seem to have shared the aspi-
ration to end the endless cycle of rebirths that results
from acts and their consequences. Buddhism, too, was
based on these convictions, and it, too, was driven by
the aspiration to free its practitioners from the results
of their acts, that is, from REBIRTH.KARMA(ACTION)