 |
| Daitoku-ji, Kyoto |
Needless to say, any city in Japan has a lot of temples, but a city as important and historic as Kyoto is positively overflowing with them. So there will be a few temples in our posts here. The good news, is some of these temples are really beautiful, so it's worth looking at the photos at least. Here are two of them.
 |
| Butsuden Hall, Daitoku-ji, Kyoto |
Daitoku-ji is actually a big walled area with about 25 temples and many Zen gardens. It is the head temple of the Rinzai sect Daitokuji school of Zen Buddhism, founded in 1319. In the late 1400s, it became a centre of the tea ceremony.
 |
| Butsuden Hall, Daitoku-ji, Kyoto |
One of the main buildings is the Butsuden Hall which, like most of the temples here, is usually closed to visitors, but you can at least see the outside, and get a glimpse in through the open doorway.
 |
| Daitoku-ji, Kyoto |
Daisen-in, founded in 1509, has the oldest surviving example of a tokonoma, which is an alcove, with its surface raised slightly off the floor, for displaying flowers or ornaments.
It has some of the best regarded rock gardens, which are designed to depict a Chinese landscape, with rocks as mountains and islands, sand as the streams and waterfalls, and the white gravel as the ocean.
 |
| Totekiko, Ryogen-in, Kyoto |
Ryogen-in is believed to be the oldest of the temples here, constructed by Tokei in 1502. It has some beautifully painted sliding doors, one with a very impressive but, I thought, quite old looking, dragon.
There are five landscaped gardens that are considered important Zen gardens, including:Totekiko, the smallest stone garden in Japan, which represents the ripples of a stone thrown into water
 |
| Ryogen-in Temple, Kyoto |
 |
| Isshidan, Ryogen-in, Kyoto |
Another is Isshidan, which is named after Ryozen-isshi-no-ken, which was a Zen master name given to Tokei after he correctly guessed a riddle set by his teacher, and there is Ryogintei, where the moss is water and the stone sticking up in the middle represents Shumisen, thought to be the core of the universe.
 |
| Ryugintei, Ryogen-in, Kyoto |
 |
| Daitoku-ji, Kyoto |
 |
| Daitoku-ji, Kyoto |
 |
| Daitoku-ji, Kyoto |
 |
| Kinkaku-ji, Kyoto |
Our next stop is the rather beautiful Kinkaku-Ji, or the Golden Pavilion. The pavilion is a shariden, which is a Buddhist hall containing Buddha relics,and is said to represent the Pure Land of Buddha in this world.
 |
| Kinkaku-ji, Kyoto |
It was built in the 1400s as a villa, by Ashikaga Yoshimitsu, the third Shogun of the Murumachi period. The top two levels are covered in gold foil over lacquer, and there is a rather majestic phoenix on top.
 |
| Sekkatei tea room, Kinkaku-ji, Kyoto |
The separate teahouse is from the Edo period and is called Sekkatei, which means place of evening beauty.
 |
| Kinkaku-ji, Kyoto |
When Yoshimitsu died, he stipulated that it should be turned into a temple. The conversion was done by Muso Kokushi, who also became the first abbot. The official name of the temple is Rokuon-ji, which comes from Rukuon-in-den, the name that Yoshimitsu was given for the next world.
 |
| Kinkaku-ji, Kyoto |
Of course, as this temple is stunning to look at, it is very busy. Once again, it was hard to get to take photos without someone constantly posing in front of you. Thankfully, the lake meant that if you could manoeuvre into a position by the fence, you could get a great unobstructed view, but it made getting one of our occasional photos with both of us in, quite difficult.
 |
| Kinkaku-ji, Kyoto |
Oh, and if you go, it is a one way system around it, so don't think you can come back for photos later.
 |
| Kinkaku-ji, Kyoto |
No comments:
Post a Comment
We like to hear from you too, so please leave us a message here. We are also happy to answer any questions if we can help. Comments are moderated so will not appear straight away and there could be some delay in replying if we are travelling.