Figure Buddhist traditions
En no Gyōja
役小角 zh 엔노 오즈누 ko
Legendary founder of Shugendō
- Traditionally 634 CE – 700 CE
- Also called En no Gyoja, En no Gyouja
A life on the record,
dated by its sources.
Roles, not beliefs
Overview
From Wikipedia, quoted unmodified under CC BY-SA 4.0; the article’s history is its list of authors.
Life
Affiliation
As a third party recorded it, often for one period of a life.
What this means
As the records give them: every row is a third party’s statement, not a self-description, and a role or an affiliation is often held for one period of a life only. An affiliation is not a belief, and this site does not ask anyone about theirs. For an office: which one, for how long, and where the records give an ordinal or the holders either side. Recognition of a tenure is never universal: contested lines appear as overlapping tenures rather than as one corrected sequence.
Transmission
Teachers and students
Teaching passed from one person to another, in the direction of the arrows — not ancestry, and not succession.
What this means
In the direction the records give it. This is not biological ancestry and it is not institutional succession: a student who inherited no office still received the teaching, and an heir who received the office may have been taught by someone else entirely. It does not imply that teacher and student agreed.
En no Gyōja legendary founder of Shugendō Taught 2
Religious context
What the records tie them to
Founded, supported, associated with — as third parties recorded it.
What this means
A founding is an attribution, usually contested, and not a claim that the tradition began fully formed. Patronage is an act, not a belief: it says nothing about the religion of a population, and nothing about the patron’s own practice in every period of a life. Domains are as sources record them — for a saint, usually a patronage — rarely exclusive, and not the same in every account.
-
Named as founderShugendō
Japanese religious tradition blending elements of Shinto and Buddhism (Shingon, Tendai) originating in the 7th century, said to be founded by En no Gyōja -
Named as founderKimpusen-ji Temple
Buddhist temple in Nara Prefecture, Japan -
Named as founderAtago Shrine
Shinto shrine in Kyoto Prefecture, Japan -
Named as founderKanshin-ji Temple
Shingon temple in Kawachinagano, Osaka Prefecture, Japan -
Named as founderŌminesan-ji Temple
Buddhist temple in Nara Prefecture, Japan -
Named as founderSanbutsu-ji Temple
Buddhist temple in Tottori Prefecture, Japan
Texts
In the texts
Works this figure appears in. A work’s date is the source’s, not this figure’s.
Sources
Sources and evidence
Where every statement on this page comes from, and how each one stands.
5 statements on this record
- 5 Imported Taken from Wikidata as it stands. Nobody here has read it. 2 of them cite only Wikipedia: one source, counted once.
Only this record’s own statements. What other records say about it is counted on theirs.
Three layers, three licences
- Text
- Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0, quoted, not merged
- Pictures
- Wikimedia Commons · each file’s own terms
Review
Not yet read by an editor here. Every relationship on this page is an import.
Disagreements are kept, not resolved, and a count of sources is not a confidence score.
Keep exploring
More from Buddhist traditions
Theravāda, Mahāyāna and Vajrayāna, their figures, sutras, lineages and monasteries.