The system, more commonly called simply ''Five Mountain System'', was a network of state-sponsored
Chan (Zen) Buddhist temples created in China during the
Southern Song
The Song dynasty (; ; 960–1279) was an imperial dynasty of China that began in 960 and lasted until 1279. The dynasty was founded by Emperor Taizu of Song following his usurpation of the throne of the Later Zhou. The Song conquered the rest ...
(1127–1279). The term "mountain" in this context means "temple" or "monastery", and was adopted because many monasteries were built on isolated mountains. The system originated in India and was later adopted also in
Japan
Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...
during the late
Kamakura period
The is a period of Japanese history that marks the governance by the Kamakura shogunate, officially established in 1192 in Kamakura by the first ''shōgun'' Minamoto no Yoritomo after the conclusion of the Genpei War, which saw the struggle bet ...
(1185–1333).
In Japan, the ten existing "Five Mountain" temples (five in
Kyoto
Kyoto (; Japanese: , ''Kyōto'' ), officially , is the capital city of Kyoto Prefecture in Japan. Located in the Kansai region on the island of Honshu, Kyoto forms a part of the Keihanshin metropolitan area along with Osaka and Kobe. , the ci ...
and five in
Kamakura, Kanagawa) were both protected and controlled by the shogunate.
[Iwanami Nihonshi Jiten, ''Gozan''.] In time, they became a sort of governmental bureaucracy that helped the
Ashikaga shogunate
The , also known as the , was the feudal military government of Japan during the Muromachi period from 1336 to 1573.Nussbaum, Louis-Frédéric. (2005)"''Muromachi-jidai''"in ''Japan Encyclopedia'', p. 669.
The Ashikaga shogunate was establ ...
stabilize the country during the turbulent
Nanboku-chō period
The Nanboku-chō period (南北朝時代, ''Nanboku-chō jidai'', "North and South court period", also known as the Northern and Southern Courts period), spanning from 1336 to 1392, was a period that occurred during the formative years of the Mur ...
. Below the ten ''Gozan'' temples there were ten so-called temples, followed by another network called .
The terms ''Gozan'' and Five Mountain System are used both for the ten temples at the top and for the Five Mountain System network in general, including the ''Jissetsu'' and the ''Shozan''.
There used to be in Kamakura a parallel "Five Mountain System" of nunneries called , of which the famous