Five Mountain System

The Five Mountains and Ten Monasteries System (五山十刹制度, Chinese: Wushan Shicha, Japanese: Gozan Jissetsu Seido) system, more commonly called simply Five Mountain System, was a network of state-sponsored Chan Buddhist temples created in China during the Southern Song dynasty (1127–1279), and was also later adopted for temples which specialized in scriptural Buddhist traditions, such as Tiantai Buddhism and Huayan Buddhism. This system was also later implemented primarily for Rinzai Zen temples in Japan during the late Kamakura period (1185–1333). The system originated in India before being adopted by China and Japan. The term "mountain" in this context means "temple" or "monastery", and was adopted because the traditional name for monastics was mountain monks as many monasteries were built on isolated mountains.

In China, records by the Ming dynasty (1368-1644) historian Song Lian state that the Five Mountains system was first established during the Jiading period (1208-1224) of the Southern Song by Emperor Ningzong at the request of the official Shi Miyuan (who was a follower of the eminent Chan master Dahui Zonggao), although alternative accounts of the creation of the system exists in other records. The main Five Temples, known as Wushan (五山), were selected around the then temporary Southern Song capital of Lin'an (located around modern-day Hangzhou in Zhejiang), and high-ranking monks were appointed as abbots by imperial order on a rotating basis. Immediately below the five Wushan temples are another ten called the Shicha (十刹). This list of categorizations was continued in succeeding dynasties, and separate rankings exist for both the Chan Buddhist tradition and the scriptural Buddhist tradition (which broadly includes traditions like Tiantai and Huayan).

In Japan, the ten existing "Five Mountain" temples (five in Kyoto and five in Kamakura, Kanagawa) were both protected and controlled by the shogunate. In time, they became a sort of governmental bureaucracy that helped the Ashikaga shogunate stabilize the country during the turbulent Nanboku-chō period. Below the ten Gozan temples there were ten so-called Jissetsu (十刹) temples, followed by another network called Shozan (諸山, lit. many temples). 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 Amagozan (尼五山), of which the famous Tōkei-ji is the only survivor.