History of Japan men instead joined forces with Emperor Go-Daigo and overthrew the Kamakura shogunate. Japan nevertheless entered a period of prosperity and population growth starting around 1250. In rural areas, the greater use of iron tools and fertilizer, improved irrigation techniques, and double-cropping increased productivity and rural villages grew. Fewer famines and epidemics allowed cities to grow and commerce to boom. Buddhism, which had been largely a religion of the elites, was brought to the masses by prominent monks, such as Hōnen (1133–1212), who established Pure Land Buddhism in Japan, and Nichiren (1222–82), who founded Nichiren Buddhism. Zen Buddhism spread widely among
Reality in Buddhism of interdependent origination. One of the most discussed themes in Buddhism is that of the emptiness ("sunyata") of form (Pali: "rūpa"), an important corollary of the transient and conditioned nature of phenomena. Reality is seen, ultimately, in Buddhism as a form of 'projection', resulting from the fruition ("vipaka") of karmic seeds ("sankharas"). The precise nature of this 'illusion' that is the phenomenal universe is debated among different schools. For example; Buddhist sutras devote considerable space to the concept of reality, with each of two major doctrines—the Doctrine of Dependent Origination ("pratitya-samutpada") and the Doctrine of Cause and Effect ("karma" and