A Glimpse at Cosmic Concepts and Hellish Visions
From the Heian period, charismatic traveling monks such as Ippen and Genshin laid the foundations for the popularization of Buddhism in medieval Japan. With the systematic promotion of Pure Land Buddhism by Hônen and True Pure Land Buddhism by Shinran, devotion to Amida Buddha became widespread among the masses looking for otherworldy salvation in times of worldy conflict.
Although the devotional practice of nembutsu was intellectually simple, psychologically it could prove very difficult to rely utterly and sincerely on the power of Amida. Also rather difficult for common comprehension was the complex cosmological and philosophical edifice behind Buddhism in general. Abstract but basic concepts such as mappô, rokudô, karma, and nirvana were things that popularizers of Buddhism attempted to make more concrete and comprehensible through fables, catchy sermons, and pictures. The fate of those who did not piously follow Buddhist precepts were commonly depicted, most graphically in Genshin's Ojô Yôshû (Essentials of Salvation) and in paintings of hell and hungry ghosts.
This popularization of Buddhism, especially Amida Buddhism in the medieval period, produced a kind of common mentality toward the natural and supernatural world whereby the workings of life, death, and daily happenings were often seen through the conceptual lens that Buddhism provided.
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