This week’s footnote is a continuation of last week’s discussion of the gozan, or five mountain system for the ranking of…
This week on the Footnotes to the Revised Introduction to Japanese History: many describe Zen as the religion of the…
This week: the advent of the medieval era brings with it new strands of Buddhism that will radically remake the…
This week, we take a step away from politics to talk about two crucial subjects. First, we have the evolution…
This week: political infighting about purple robes and what it can tell us about Buddhism, political power, and the relationship…
This week: where does our stock image of the sohei come from, and why does it tell us more about…
This week: what does the historical record have to say about the veracity of the image of the warrior-monk, or…
This week, we have a biography of one of the rare women of medieval Japan who was prominent not just…
This week, we’re taking a deep dive into a distinctly Japanese literary genre (zuihitsu, or ‘wandering brush’) by looking at…
This week, we wrap up our look at Soka Gakkai with the history of its split from Nichiren Shoshu. Plus,…