EN NO GYŌJA (634?–701), literally, "En the ascetic (ācārya)"; famous Japanese mountain ascetic and hijiri. Details of his life have been recorded, inter alia, in the Nihon ryōiki (820) and in his biography, En no Gyōja hongi (724). He is also known as En no Ozunu, En no Shōzunu, Shōkaku, or simply as the Master En.

En no Gyōja was born to a family of Shintō priests in the village of Kuwahara in Yamato province (Nara prefecture). Although he converted to Buddhism as a youth, he decided to forgo ordination as a monk and to remain a layman. As a result, he is often referred to as En no Ubasoku, "the layman En," after the Japanese transcription of the Sanskrit upāsaka ("layman"). At the age of thirty-two he retreated to Mount Katsuragi (Nara...