Five Mountains

Martin Collcutt is Professor of East Asian Studies and History at Princeton University.

Five Mountains is a fine piece of historical writing and one of the richest sources now available in English for information on Japan’s medieval age… Martin Collcutt deserves much praise for this book. It is an outstanding contribution to the literature in English on medieval Japan.

• Part 1 The development of the institution: Japanese Zen pioneers and their patrons - stages of acculturation, motives of Japanese Zen pioneers, Eisai and the Kamakura Shogunate, Enni and Kujo Michiie, Shinchi and the ideal of the recluse, Dogen and his patrons; Chinese emigre monks and Japanese warrior-rulers - Hojo patronage, Hojo Tokiyori and Lan-ch'i Tao-lung, Hojo Tokiyori and Wu-an P'u-ning, Hojo Tokimune's patronage of Zen, Hojo Tokimune and Wu-hsuch Tsu-yuan, Hojo Sadatoki and I-shan I-ning, Hojo Takatoki's patronage of Zen, the Zen contribution to warrior culture, provincial diffusion of Zen, imperial patronage of Zen; the articulation of the Gozan system - Go-Daigo and Muso, reorganization of the Gozan, Go-Daigo's motives, Ashikaga patronage of Zen, Takauji and Tadayoshi, the building of Tenryuji and Ashikaga power, Ankokuji and Rishoto, Gozan, Jissatsu, and Shozan, regional distribution, centralization and control of the Gozan by the Ashikaga, the Tenka Soroku and the Inryoshoku, Zenith and the decline, the emergence of Daitokuji and Myoshinji. Part 2 The structure of the institution: The Zen monastic life and rule - the development of the rule, the problem of the Pai-chang code, the Ch'an-men regulations and the Ch'an-yuan code, introduction of the Ch'an monastic rule to Japan, the Rinsenji code, Bakufu regulation of the Gozan; the monasteries and its sub-temples - transmission of the ground plan, the setting, the layout, gates, the Buddha hall, the Dharma hall, the Abbot's building, the bathhouse, latrines, and washstands, the monk's hall, the reading room, the kitchen-office; the community - population, the abbot, the officers, acolytes, postulants and novices; the Zen monastic economy - Ch'an communities in China, Japan: Zen monastic domains, the Engakuji economy, the Nanzenji economy, the Daitokuji economy, management of the Zen monastic domain.