It was this regeneration of Japan, which kept up and nourished what was initiated in the Taira period. But for the Kamakura Shogunate, however, those germs of the new era might have been blasted forever. One thread of the continuous development from the Taira to the Minamoto period may be clearly discerned in the sphere of religion. In 1212 died Honen, the reformer of Buddhism, of whom I have already spoken in the preceding chapter, but before his death his teachings had gathered a great many adherents around him, and the sect of the Jodo became independent of that of the Tendai. It was from this Jodo sect that the Shinshu or the "orthodox" Jodo, now one of the most influential Buddhist sects in Japan, sprang up, and became independent also. Shinran, the founder of the latter sect, is said to have been one of the disciples of Honen, and the tenets of his sect, initiated by Shinran himself and supplemented by his successors, bear striking resemblance to the reform tenets of Luther in laying stress on faith and in denouncing reliance on the merit of good works in order to arrive at salvation. That the priests belonging to this sect have avowedly led a matrimonial life, a custom which was unique to this sect among Japanese Buddhists, is another point of resemblance to Lutheranism. In other respects, for example, in preaching the doctrine of predestination, it can be considered as analogous to Calvinism also. Another important sect, which branched off from the Tendai, is that of the followers of Nichiren. His sect is called the Hokke, or Nichiren, after the name of the founder himself, and the sect still contains a vast number of devotees. It is the most militant sect of Buddhism in Japan, and that militancy might be traced to the personality of Nichiren, the founder, who was the most energetic and aggressive priest Japanese Buddhism has ever produced. He, too, never claimed to have founded a new sect, and insisted that his doctrine was simply a resuscitated Tendai tenet. We can easily see, however, that in its pervading tendency it approached other reformed sects of the same age rather than the old or orthodox Tendai. Nichiren died in the year 1282, so that his most flourishing period falls in the middle of the thirteenth century.