Accordingly, and in addition to the necessity of drafting the shogunate's diplomatic documents, it was considered important to compose hogo (Zen instructional literature) and Chinese poems written in shirokubun (a style of alternating four- and six-character lines), whereby the Literature of the Five Mountains flourished in Kamakura Gozan and Kyoto Gozan (the five great Zen temples of Kamakura and Kyoto).
鎌倉五山や京都五山（京五山）では、幕府の外交文書を起草するという必要性も伴い、四六文を用いた法語や漢詩を作る才が重視されたことも関係して、五山文学が栄えることとなった。