Myōe

(February 21, 1173 – February 11, 1232) was a Japanese Buddhist monk active during the Kamakura period who also went by the name Kōben (, Chinese: 高辨, Gāo Biàn). He was a contemporary of Jōkei and Hōnen.

== Biography == Myōe was born in what is now the town of Aridagawa, Wakayama. His mother was the fourth daughter of Yuasa Muneshige, a local strongman who claimed descent from Taira no Shigekuni, and from thence Emperor Takakura. His childhood name was Yakushi-maru. Orphaned at the age of nine, he was educated at Jingo-ji north of Kyoto by a disciple of Mongaku and was ordained as a priest in 1188 at Tōdai-ji. He was trained in both the Kegon and Kusha schools and trained in Shingon at Ninna-ji. He later also studied Zen Buddhism under Eisai, all by the age of 20. In medieval Japan, it was not uncommon for monks to be ordained in multiple sectarian lineages, and Myōe alternately signed his treatises and correspondence as a monk of various schools through much of his career.