Buddhism in Japan movement to eradicate Buddhism and bring Shinto to ascendancy arose throughout the country due to the strong connections of Buddhism to the Shōguns. During the Meiji period (1868–1912), after a coup in 1868, Japan abandoned its feudal system and opened up to Western modernism. Shinto became the state religion. Within the Buddhist establishment the Western world was seen as a threat as well as a challenge to stand up to. Buddhist institutions had a simple choice: adapt or perish. Rinzai and Soto Zen chose to adapt, trying to modernize Zen in accord with Western insights, while simultaneously maintaining a Japanese
Faith in Buddhism affecting "dalits" led to a revival of mass conversions in Gujarat and other states. Some converts admit that the conversion is a political choice to reorganize themselves, as conversion could help them to no longer be classified by the Hindu caste system. Scholars have described Ambedkar's perspective on Buddhism as secular and modernist rather than religious, as he emphasized the atheist aspects of Buddhism and rationality, and rejected Hindu soteriology and hierarchy. Other scholars have interpreted Ambedkarism as a form of critical traditionalism, in which Ambedkar reinterprets traditional Hindu concepts rather than rejecting them altogether. Specifically, scholar states that Ambedkar's