Mount Hiei lies to the north east of Kyoto, on the border between Kyoto and Shiga 滋賀 prefectures. It is one of the holiest sites in Japan as the location of the central temple of Tendai Buddhism. Although the entire temple complex of over three thousand buildings was razed to the ground by the warlord Oda Nobunaga 織田信長 in 1571, as part of his campaign to unify Japan, when Bashô visited, just over a hundred years later, many buildings had been rebuilt and it was once again a place of pilgrimage.