ABSTRACT
The periodization of "medieval" religion is also the subject of ongoing debate in academic circles. In the postwar period, scholars often identified medieval religion directly with the historical development of the Kamakura shogunate and the presumed "advent" of "Kamakura new Buddhism" that changed the religious landscape. Learning in the medieval era was intimately related to continental notions of education, and like earlier eras owed a great debt to Chinese notions of pedagogy and practical learning. Over the past two decades, scholars have increasingly noted that by the early medieval era concern over Buddhist "merit" was directly related to aristocrats' preoccupation with ritual and related writing practices, as well as the advent of varying degrees of rule by retired sovereigns. Historians and scholars of religion maintain a series of viewpoints regarding the contexts for the appearance of the figures like Hōnen who would come to be seen as the "founders" of the lineages of "Kamakura New Buddhism".
