Buddhism in Japan began teaching devotion to the "Lotus Sutra". Eventually, his disciples formed their own school of Nichiren Buddhism, which includes various sects that have their own interpretations of Nichiren's teachings. Nichiren Buddhism established the foundation of Japanese Buddhism in the thirteenth century. The school is known for its sociopolitical activism and looks to reform society through faith. In the Muromachi period, Zen, particularly the Rinzai school, obtained the help of the Ashikaga shogunate and the Emperor of Japan, and accomplished considerable development. After the Sengoku period of war, Japan was re-united in the Azuchi–Momoyama period. This decreased the power of Buddhism,
Critical Buddhism epistemology." Critical Buddhism targeted specifically certain concepts prevalent in Japanese Mahayana Buddhism and rejected them as being non-buddhist. For example, Matsumoto Shirō and Hakamaya Noriaki reject the doctrine of Tathagatagarbha, which according to their view is at odds with the fundamental Buddhist doctrine of dependent origination. Critical Buddhism became known to Western scholarship due to a panel discussion held at the American Academy of Religion's 1993 meeting in Washington, DC with the title "Critical Buddhism: Issues and Responses to a New Methodological Movement", which led to an English collection of essays. Critical Buddhism Critical Buddhism (Japanese: 批判仏教, hihan bukkyō) is