The medieval period of Japanese religious history is commonly known as one in which there was a radical transformation of the religious culture. This book suggests an alternate approach to understanding the dynamics of that transformation. One main topic of analysis focuses on what Buddhism - its practices and doctrines, its traditions and institutions - meant for medieval Japanese peoples themselves. This is achieved by using the notions of discourse and ideology and juxtaposing various topics on shared linguistic practices and discursive worlds of medieval Japanese Buddhism.

1. Introduction Richard K. Payne with Taigen Dan Leighton 2. Metaphor and Theory of Cultural Change: In Search of Skillful Means for Understanding Kamakura Buddhism Dale S. Wright 3. The Sangoku-Mappo Construct: Buddhism, Nationalism, and History in Medieval Japan Mark L. Blum 4. Texts, Talismans, and Jewels: The Reikiki and the Performativity of Sacred Texts in Medieval Japan Fabio Rambelli 5. Awakening and Language: Indic Theories of Language in the Background of Japanese Esoteric Buddhism Richard K. Payne 6. Buddhist Ceremonials (Koshiki) and the Ideological Discourse of Established Buddhism in Early Medieval Japan James L. Ford 7. The Body of Time and the Discourse of Precepts Mark T. Unno 8. Swords, Words, and Deformity: On Myoe's Eccentricity Ryuichi Abé 9. "Not Mere Written Words": Perspectives on the Language of the Lotus Sutra in Medieval Japan Jacqueline I. Stone 10. The Lotus Sutra as a Source of Dogen's Discourse Style Taigen Dan Leighton 11. Empty-Handed, but not Empty-Headed: Dogen's Koan Strategies Steven Heine 12. "Rely on the Meaning, not on the Words": Shinran's Methodology and Strategy for Reading Scriptures and Writing the Kyogyoshinsho Eisho Nasu