Engakuji’s Foundation under Hōjō Tokimune

Hōjō Tokimune sponsored Engakuji’s foundation in 1282, soon after the second Mongol invasion. Its founding abbot was the Chinese monk Wuxue Zuyuan, called Mugaku Sogen in Japan. Patron and abbot had distinct roles: Tokimune supplied political and material support, while the monk established the religious community.

Temple tradition explains the foundation as an act of mourning for the dead on both sides of the invasions. Donated holdings provided an economic base for teaching, worship and the resident community. The institution thus connected remembrance of the war to a continuing place of religious practice.

Its buildings and community developed over time. Fires destroyed parts of the complex, followed by repeated restoration, including renewed teaching in the Edo period. A seated image of the founding abbot survives from the thirteenth century; a fourteenth-century site plan records a later stage of the precinct. The image and plan preserve different stages of the temple’s development, rather than a complete surviving precinct from its foundation in 1282.