Kamakura's Special Feature No. 200: The Five Nun Temples of Kamakura (Part 1)

In medieval times Kamakura and Kyoto each had an official set of five nun temples known as the ‘尼五山’ (Five Nun Mountains), organized by the Muromachi shogunate following the Rinzai Zen five-temple system. The piece describes how the shogunate formalized temple rank for five Rinzai nunneries, but notes that many of these temples later fell into ruin or disappeared due to warfare and other calamities. This is the first part of a series recounting the origins, institutional framework, and subsequent decline of those nunneries in both Kamakura and Kyoto.