Koun Ejō was born into the powerful Fujiwara clan in 1198 to an aristocratic family. His early education took place in Kyoto, after which he went to Mount Hiei to study Buddhism in the Tendai school while still young. In 1215, he was ordained as a monk and in 1218, he took the Bodhisattva vows at Enryaku-ji under his teacher Ennō. He would have studied Tendai and Shingon extensively, but dissatisfaction with these led him to examine Pure Land Buddhism. In 1219 he left Mount Hiei to study in the Jōdo school under Zennebō Shōku, a disciple of Hōnen,: at Ōjō-in (now called Giō-ji). Apparently dissatisfied with the school, he left in 1222 or 1223 to study in the Daruma school, which had been founded by Dainichibō Nōnin about a decade before Koun Ejō's birth. His teacher, Kakuan, a disciple of Nōnin,: had his community of monks in Tōnomine, outside Nara, apparently after having fled from Mount Hiei, where they had been persecuted by members of the Tendai school. Ejō is reported to have been a prominent student under Kakuan, but his time there was cut short in 1228 when representatives of the Tendai temple Kōfuku-ji in Nara burned down the buildings in the Daruma school temple complex, seemingly in response the perceived threat posed by its new teachings; the students were thus forced to disperse.