Several structural similarities can be identified between the “radical break” arguments of both Nichiren Shū and Sōtō Shū scholars. In both cases, the founder—whether Nichiren or Dōgen—is seen as a critic of medieval Tendai hongaku thought. Specifically, he is seen as restoring a normative emphasis on practice that medieval Tendai is said to have lost sight of in a one-sided emphasis on original enlightenment. This move is then more broadly ascribed to all the founders of the new Kamakura Buddhist movements. The sources of the founder’s inspiration are located not in the “corrupt” religious milieu of his own time and place, which he is said to have rejected, but in an “orthodox” tradition rooted in China, which he reformulates in a distinctive way. Lastly, his later medieval successors who bring hongaku discourse to bear on their interpretation of his work—and whose readings become normative for the premodern period and beyond—are seen not as developing possibilities latent in his thought, but as betraying his original critical stance. These parallels suggest that similar concerns have informed the scholarship on both sides. (Page 77)