Table of Contents

List of Illustrations vii

Acknowledgments ix

Introduction 1

1 Early Historical Contexts (Protohistory to 645) 13

2 Ancient Buddhism (645–950) 45

3 Early Medieval Buddhism (950–1300): The Dawn of Medieval Society and Related Changes in Japanese Buddhist Culture 87

4 Late Medieval Buddhism (1300–1467): New Buddhisms, Buddhist Learning, Dissemination and the Fall into Chaos 135

5 Buddhism and the Transition to the Modern Era (1467–1800) 171

6 Modern Buddhism (1800–1945) 209

7 Buddhism Since 1945 231

Character Glossary 255

Index 000

About the Author

William E. Deal is Severance Professor of theHistory of Religion in the Department of Religious Studies andProfessor of Cognitive Science in the Department of CognitiveScience at Case Western Reserve University, and Associate Directorfor Digital Humanities at the Baker-Nord Center for the Humanities.He is the author of Theory for ReligiousStudies (with Timothy K. Beal, 2005) and Handbookto Life in Medieval and Early Modern Japan (2006). Brian Ruppert is Associate Professor of JapaneseReligions at the University of Illinois, where he is a facultymember in the Department of East Asian Languages and Culturesand the Department of Religion. His publicationsinclude Jewel in the Ashes: Buddha Relics and Power inEarly Medieval Japan (2000), "Buddhism in Japan"( Encyclopedia of Religion, 2nd ed., 2005), and "Buddhism andLaw in Japan" ( Buddhism and Law: An Introduction, 2014).

Reviews

“In short, this study is a welcome contribution to the field and will make an excellent textbook for the classroom.”  (Japanese Journal of Religious Studies, 1 October 2015)

"The great value of the book is to direct readers to approaches and theories perhaps overlooked by more general histories of Buddhism. Each chapter includes its own bibliography and notes, making the book useful for study of narrow sections of Japan’s history." (Buddhist Art News 2016)