Mountain name - Sango

A title given to the name of a temple. In India and China, there was a tradition of establishing temples and monasteries in the mountains, such as Mount Vulture during the Buddha's lifetime. In China, temples built in the mountains were given the name of the mountain indicating their location, and they came to be called by the combined name of the mountain and temple, such as Mount Tiantai Guoqing Temple and Mount Lu Donglin Temple, and later the mountain name also became an alternative name for the temple located there. In Japan, temples were built on flat land such as capitals in ancient times, so there were no mountain names. Enryaku-ji Temple and Kongobu-ji Temple in the early Heian period were called Mount Hiei and Mount Koya-san, depending on their location, but these were not formal titles like the mountain names of later times. At the end of the Heian period, Saga Seiryoji Temple was named Mount Godai, and in the Kamakura period, Zen Buddhism followed the Chinese Five Mountains system and began to give mountain names to temples on flat land as well, and it became common to call temples by formal mountain names, such as Tozan Kenninji Temple and Kinryuzan Sensoji Temple.

[Rikiyama Ishikawa]

Source: Shogakukan Encyclopedia Nipponica About Encyclopedia Nipponica Information | Legend

寺院名に冠する称号。仏陀(ぶっだ)在世中の霊鷲山(りょうじゅせん)のように、インドや中国では山中に精舎(しょうじゃ)や寺院を設ける伝統があった。中国では山中に建てられた寺院に、その所在を示す山名を付して天台山国清(こくせい)寺、廬山東林(ろざんとうりん)寺のように山名と寺名を連称してよぶようになり、のちに山名がそこに所在する寺院の別称にもなった。日本では、古代には都などの平地に寺院が建てられたので山号はない。平安初期の延暦寺(えんりゃくじ)や金剛峯寺(こんごうぶじ)はその所在地によって比叡山(ひえいざん)、高野山(こうやさん)とよばれたが、後世の山号のように形式的な称号ではなかった。平安末に嵯峨清凉寺(さがせいりょうじ)が五台山と名づけられ、鎌倉時代になって禅宗が中国の五山制度に倣い平地の寺院にも山号を冠するようになり、東山(とうざん)建仁寺、金龍山(きんりゅうざん)浅草寺のように形式的な山号をつけてよぶのが一般的になった。

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