Hiei, Mount
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Hiei, Mount
比叡山 ( Jpn Hiei-zan)
A mountain located to the northeast of Kyoto, Japan, on which Enryaku-ji, the head temple of the Tendai school, is situated. Dengyo, the founder of the Tendai school, went to live on Mount Hiei in 785, and in 788 he built a small temple there called Hieisan-ji. Hieisan-ji was renamed Enryaku-ji by Emperor Saga in 823, the year after Dengyo's death. Its first chief priest was Gishin, Dengyo's successor. A number of important figures in Japanese Buddhism, including Honen, Eisai, Dogen, and Nichiren, the founders of newer Japanese Buddhist schools, studied at this temple.
