Temples & Shrines

Enryaku-ji Temple: The Mountain Where Japanese Buddhism Was Born on Mount Hiei, Shiga

Construction

Founded in 788 by the monk Saichō; burned to the ground by Oda Nobunaga in 1571; present Konpon Chūdō rebuilt in 1640–1642 under Tokugawa Iemitsu; National Treasure, UNESCO World Heritage since 1994

Divinity

Yakushi Nyorai, the Medicine Buddha — a statue reputedly carved by Saichō himself — enshrined in the Konpon Chūdō, beside the Eternal Flame of the Dharma

Religion

Tendai Buddhism — head temple of the Tendai school; the mother mountain of Japanese Buddhism, where the founders of Zen, Pure Land and Nichiren trained

Location

4220 Sakamoto Honchō, Ōtsu, Shiga Prefecture, Japan — on Mount Hiei (848 m), overlooking Kyoto and Lake Biwa

A Living Monastery Above the Clouds — and the Mother Mountain of Japanese Buddhism

High above Kyoto, where the cedar forests of Mount Hiei meet the sky, stands a temple that is not one building but a whole mountain. Enryaku-ji is the head temple of Tendai Buddhism, founded in 788 by the monk Saichō, and it is known across Japan as the mother mountain of Japanese Buddhism — the place where the founders of Zen, Pure Land and Nichiren all trained before they went out to change the country. Burned to the ground by a warlord, rebuilt by shoguns, and still home to monks who walk a thousand days around its peaks, Enryaku-ji has been alive for more than twelve centuries, and its eternal flame has never gone out.

The Monk Who Climbed the Mountain

In 788, a young monk named Saichō climbed Mount Hiei, the sacred peak that guards Kyoto from the north-east, and built a small hermitage there. He called it Ichijō Shikan-in, the Hall of One Vehicle and Calm Contemplation, and carved a statue of Yakushi Nyorai, the Medicine Buddha, as its main image. Saichō had studied in Tang China, and on his return he brought back the teachings of the Tiantai school — Tendai in Japanese — centred on the Lotus Sutra. In 806 the imperial court recognised Tendai as an independent school, and after Saichō’s death in 822 the emperor gave his mountain monastery a new name, Enryaku-ji, after the era in which it was founded. It was the first temple in Japan named after an imperial era. From this mountain, Japanese Buddhism grew. Over the centuries, the young monks who trained on Mount Hiei went on to found nearly every school that followed: Hōnen founded Pure Land Buddhism, Shinran founded True Pure Land, Eisai brought Rinzai Zen, Dōgen founded Sōtō Zen, and Nichiren founded his own school. That is why Enryaku-ji is called the mother mountain of Japanese Buddhism — almost everything that came after was born here.

Fire, Rebirth and the Eternal Flame

At its height, Enryaku-ji counted some 3,000 buildings and tens of thousands of residents — a city of monks that had grown into a military power of its own. In September 1571, the warlord Oda Nobunaga decided that power had to end. His army of 30,000 men stormed the mountain and set it ablaze, burning hundreds of halls to the ground. The temple was left in ruins, but it was never abandoned. Rebuilt with the support of Toyotomi Hideyoshi, Tokugawa Ieyasu and Tokugawa Iemitsu, the Enryaku-ji you see today is largely a seventeenth-century creation. Its heart is the Konpon Chūdō, the main hall, rebuilt in 1640–1642 under Iemitsu and designated a National Treasure. Inside, beside the Medicine Buddha, burn three brass lanterns holding the Fumetsu no Hōtō — the Eternal Flame of the Dharma, lit by Saichō himself in 788 and kept burning, through fire and war, for over 1,200 years. The hall is currently undergoing a major restoration that began in 2016 and is expected to run until 2030, so visitors today can watch craftsmen restore a National Treasure to its Edo-period colours. Three Precincts and the Marathon Monks Enryaku-ji covers some 1,700 hectares of mountain, divided into three precincts: Tōdō, the eastern area around the Konpon Chūdō; Saitō, the western area centred on the Shaka-dō, hall of the historical Buddha; and Yokawa, a quieter valley an hour’s walk to the north, centred on the Yokawa Chūdō. The mountain is still a place of training, and its most famous practice is the kaihōgyō — the thousand-day circuit. Over seven years, a monk walks a prescribed route of about 30 kilometres around the mountain, praying at its halls and shrines, for 100 or 200 days a year, the distance rising to 84 kilometres a day in the final year. After the 700th day comes nine days without food, water or sleep. Fewer than fifty monks have completed it in recorded history, and those who do are honoured as living Buddhas. Come in autumn, when the maples turn the mountain red, or in winter, when snow silences the cedars — and before you leave, take an omamori from the temple: a small piece of the mountain where Japanese Buddhism was born, carrying a little of the Medicine Buddha’s healing and the eternal flame’s light with you.