Mount Hiei (比叡山, Hiei-zan?) is a mountain to the northeast of Kyoto, lying on the border between the Kyoto and Shiga prefectures, Japan.
The temple of Enryaku-ji, the first outpost of the Japanese Tendai (Chin. Tientai) sect of Buddhism, was founded atop Mount Hiei by Saichō in 788. Both Nichiren and Hōnen studied at the temple before leaving to start their own practices. The temple complex was razed by Oda Nobunaga in 1571 to quell the rising power of the Tendai's warrior monks (sōhei), but it was rebuilt and remains the Tendai headquarters to this day.
The Imperial Japanese Navy battleship Hiei was named after this mountain, having initially being built as a battlecruiser.
Read more about Mount Hiei: Mount Hiei in Folklore, Marathon Monks, Attractions, Access
Famous quotes containing the word mount:
“For me chemistry represented an indefinite cloud of future potentialities which enveloped my life to come in black volutes torn by fiery flashes, like those which had hidden Mount Sinai. Like Moses, from that cloud I expected my law, the principle of order in me, around me, and in the world.... I would watch the buds swell in spring, the mica glint in the granite, my own hands, and I would say to myself: “I will understand this, too, I will understand everything.””
—Primo Levi (1919–1987)