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
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