What it was
Enryaku-ji is the great monastery on Mount Hiei, northeast of Kyoto, founded in 788 by Saicho, founder of the Japanese Tendai school. It became UNESCO World Heritage in 1994.
Role
For centuries it was the “mother mountain” of Japanese Buddhism: the founders of the Kamakura schools — Honen, Shinran, Eisai, Dogen, Nichiren — all trained there. Its warrior monks (sohei) repeatedly pressured the capital with armed demonstrations; tradition has it that a retired emperor listed the things beyond his control as the river, the dice, and the mountain’s monks.
Fate
In 1571 Oda Nobunaga burned the mountain and killed its inhabitants in great numbers. The monastery was rebuilt under Toyotomi and Tokugawa patronage. The kaihogyo — the “marathon monks’” thousand-day mountain circuit — continues as its austerity tradition, and Enryaku-ji remains the head temple of Tendai and a pilgrimage destination above Kyoto.