Wednesday, June 26, 2019
We took Hankyu-Kyoto line to Katsura station and then Hankyu-Arashiyama line to Arashiyama. It was the same day after the morning visits to Fushima Inari. Next 2 days forecast wasn’t that promising, so had to get as much as possible out of this day.
This is where things started to get bit cooler. The crowd starts to reduce, the green starts to stay in eyes. The gentle giant Katsura river is extremely soothing for the eyes from the bridge. Togetsu-kyo bridge has a venerable history of 1000 years. It is believed to have been first built in 836, when the priest Dosho (a disciple of Kobo Daishi, founder of the Shingon sect of Buddhism) was conducting construction repair work along the Oi river. The name Togetsu means “Crossing Moon”, and is said to have been given by the Retired Emperor Kameyama, as he observed the moon crossing the sky from east to west. In 2005, the Arashiyama Preservation Society Hydro-Power station was built along the river. Water from the Katsura river is used to generate electricity for the foot lights illuminating the bridge as the sun sets.
We walked past the Togetsu-kyo bridge and continued straight. In no time, we reached the entrace of Tenryu-ji temple.
Tenryu-ji temple (天龍寺)
Unlike other temples, this one has huge lawns all the way to road. Tickets for Sogen Garden or to the temple sold separately or together. Garden view from the temple is mesmerizing, really. Its one of the places one has to remove the shoes again. This serene, peaceful view from inside is captivating. The pond with dry-garden boundaries, a cool walk into the garden all the way to Bamboo forest is cool. Our exit from Sogen garden to bamboo forest continued. I wanted to take this route to hit the road back via an eerie, isolated Kameyema park. It brought us to the banks of Katsura. Plan was to continue to Arashimaya station. But somewhere at the first sight of road, I called an uber as our next destination was Kinakuji temple (金閣寺) and we were already tired. We skipped monkey park, as we had some bitter experience with the monkeys and Akshinn.
Bit about Tenryu-ji temple – It means Temple of the Heavenly Dragon, located in the Sagano district of Kyoto, is the head temple of the Tenryu-ji branch of Rinzai Zen Buddhism. It was established in 1939 by the shogun Ashikaga Takauji (1305-58) in memory of Emperor Go-Daigo (1288-1339), who died in Yoshino following the civil war that brought the Ashikaga family to power. The eminent Zen master Muso Sosei (1275-1351) was appointed the temple’s founding abbot.
The site of Tenryu-ji had earlier been occupied by the temple Danrin-ji, established in the ninth century and historically significant as the first Zen temple in Japan. In the thirteenth centure Emperor Kameyama (1249-1305) built a villa on the property and it was there that Go-Daigo passing Ashikaga Takauji ordered the villa’s conversion to a Zen temple.
In order to finance the temple’s construction, Muso Soseki commissioned a vessel, known as the Tenryu-ji ship, on a trade mission to Yuan-dynasty China. By 1343 most of the major buildings of the temple were complete. Soseki’s lineage prospered, playing a leading role in the flourishing Zen literary culture known as gozan bungaku. Tenryu-ji itself was ranked first of the Five Zen Mountains of Kyoto (Kyoto Gozan).
In the centuries since its founding Tenryu-ji has been ravaged by firest a total of 8 times, most recently in 1864. Most of the present building thus date only to the Meiji period (1868-1912). However, the landscape garden behind the Hojo (Main hall) is one of the oldest in Japan, retaining the same form as when it was designed by Muso Soseki in the 14th century. Known as the Sogenchi Garden, it was the first Special Historical Scenic area named by the Japanese government, and in 1994 was designated as a World cultural Heritage site.
The famous Bamboo Forest
It was the most hyped but after the visit to Tenryu-ji temple, kind of get nullified. It was a quick few mins walk from the Garden at the north exit and we reached the Bamboo forest. We just walked through the forest (fenced, so we cant just wander), and that’s it.
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