"This book examines the historical problem of allegory and why certain texts lent themselves to allegorical interpretation; the political, economic, and religious developments of the Kamakura period that encouraged the development of this method of interpretation; and the possible motives of the participants in this school of interpretation. Through analyses of the contents of six commentaries affiliated with or influenced by Tameaki, Susan Blakeley Klein presents examples of this interpretive method and discusses its influence on subsequent texts, both elite and popular."--BOOK JACKET.