Kyoto Temples and Gardens

Kyoto abounds in both Buddhist temples and Shinto shrines.   In the context of Western religions, one of the striking things about Buddhist temples is that they almost always include a garden component. In fact, in some cases, it is the garden which is the focal point of the temple.  How different from our Christian churches!   I won't try to understand why this difference exists, but, needless to say, for me it makes the whole experience of visiting a religious site very different.   So in Florence we spent our time visiting churches; in Kyoto we spent our time visiting temples with gardens.   One can specifically seek out the most famous and spectacular of the the temples, and one can also just wander the neighborhoods, checking out many of the unrenowned yet often intriguing local temples.  And there are a lot of them!

But we did visit some of the most famous ones.   For example, there is the famous "Golden Pavilion" (Kinkakuji), which is an impossibly picturesque building, covered in gold and set next to a small lake and beautiful gardens.   It should be noted that my pictures carefully disguise the fact that the site is extremely crowded with tourists, which certainly interferes with but does not destroy one's appreciation of the beauty of the landscape.

This path is closed to the public, which is why it is empty.  Standing behind me are selfie-snapping hordes.

One of the things we learned about Buddhism during our trip was the fact that there are many, many different sects of Buddhism.   Thus Zen Buddhism was founded, and then gradually many different variants of Zen Buddhism emerged, each, of course, with its own temple.

We visited one of the oldest Zen temples, Kenninji Temple, founded in 1202.   This was much less crowded that the more famous ones, and you could wander at will in most of the rooms and garden.  The garden featured the famous Zen style of raked gravel and rocks for contemplation.

An interior room with a screen painting:

View of an interior courtyard with a rock garden; the three stones in the middle represent Buddha and two Zen monks.

 This part of the temple had a recently painted extravagant ceiling.

We also went to a suburb of Kyoto called Arashiyama, famous for its bamboo groves and temple gardens.   The bamboo groves are visually striking;  

We also visited a temple in the area, Tenryuji.  It is famous for its gardens, which were laid out in the 14th century, and have stayed more or less as they were conceived.  (The buildings are not the originals, and date to the 19th century.)   The gardens are famous for the rocks and the concept of "borrowed" scenery, as the view of distant mountains are part of the whole plan of the garden.

More leaning and propped up trees:

In scroll paintings one often sees what I think are very stylized and exaggerated depictions of trees.   When you see trees like this in person, you realize the the images are more realistic than stylized.

 Another impossibly twisted tree:

The trunk of the same tree:

Leaving the town of Arishiyama, we took a wonderful old two car urban train through suburban Kyoto neighborhoods.  It was like riding an old trolley.

We saw a special exhibit at the Kyoto National Museum entitled  "The Art of Zen".   It was displayed in a beautiful new building that houses special exhibits for the museums.  The older part of the museum, a building built in the 1890's, was close for renovation, so we didn't see the permanent collection.   The exhibit had some wonderful landscape paintings which allowed your imagination to fill in the details.  But there were also too many portraits of important people in the history of Zen Buddhism.  They weren't very interesting for me.

We also visited Sanjusangen-do Temple.  It is famous for its 1,001 statues of the Thousand Armed Kannon, dating from the 13th century.   It is a remarkable sight, housed in a temple built at the same time, a building reputed to be the longest wooden building in the world.  They are very strict about not allowing picture taking, as it is a religious site.   But it is a very special and obsessive vision; each of the statues are slightly different.  

Here is a picture from the internet.   The statues in front are Hindu deities; I'm not quite sure what they are doing there.

Kyoto Castles and Shrines

We visited the Nijo Castle, a fortress built by the Shoguns in 1603.   Because it is a castle and not a temple, the architecture tends to be more flamboyant, as it was designed to impress any visitors.   There were numerous rooms where supplicants at different levels were required to congregate, and many colorful screen paintings on the walls.  (Although the originals are now removed for preservation's sake.)   The castle also features the famous "nightingale floors", floors designed to emit high pitched sounds whenever anyone walks on them, and thus alert the guards to the presence of intruders.   Though when there are hundreds of slipper clad tourists trudging through, the effect is quite different, though still quite striking.   The castle also features some very beautiful rock gardens; we stopped at a tea room overlooking one of them.  

The entrance gate:

Exterior of the castle:

The rock gardens:

One of the highlights of our stay in Kyoto was a visit to the Fushimi Inari Shrine.    This is a Shinto shrine, located on a small mountain in the southern part of Kyoto.   It is a shrine to Inari, the Shinto goddess of rice.   There are various shrines at the base of the mountain, but the truly spectacular part is the thousands of orange gates (torii) that lead up to the top of the mountain.   There really are thousands of them.   It is an indescribable sensation to be walking through a sea of orange gates, while around you there is a beautiful green forest.  Needless to say, the beginning part is extremely crowded with tourists, but the further up you climb, the fewer people there are.   Along the way, there are many small mini shrines, with mini gates.   And foxes are the messenger of Inari, so there are many states of foxes of all shapes and sizes.    We hiked all the way to the top of the mountain.


A large fox statue at the base of the mountain:

A stage for musical performances?

Vera had the foresight to wear orange pants:

Mini gates:

The gates as seen from outside the path;

Foxes and mini shrines:

We keep climbing, and there are more and more gates!

Bamboo forest outside the gates:

Orange and green, everywhere!

A basin for ritual washing:

Still climbing!

One of the smaller shrines at the top.

All of the gates have inscriptions on them, apparently naming the donors. etc.   (The gates are gifts by people or businesses as offerings to the goddess, in hopes of good luck and prosperity.)  But you only see the inscriptions when you are heading downwards.

I saw this guarding a ritual washing station at a temple near our hotel: