Original Enlightenment and the Transformation of Medieval Japanese Buddhism

Jacqueline I. Stone is a scholar of Japanese Buddhism, and this University of Hawaii Press book is her scholarly study of hongaku, original enlightenment thought, and its transformation of medieval Japanese Tendai Buddhism. Its strength is that Stone traces how this doctrine, that enlightenment is already inherently present rather than something to be attained, reshaped Tendai thought and practice across the medieval period, drawing on close reading of the relevant Japanese textual sources. Its limit is that it centers on the Tendai school's development of hongaku thought specifically, so a claim about how a related but distinct school, such as Nichiren Buddhism, drew on or diverged from this doctrine needs a source addressing that separate tradition.