Kyoto

Today I want to tackle one of my ‘temple knots’ – when I visit several temples in a day, it can take me a lot of effort to sort them, research the history and edit the photos in order to blog about them. I think I have finally completed my research on Ohara: the sequel – I have already visited Ohara (see here), but I returned with my parents to see the other temples and walk over the mountains to Kurama. As we did a lot I’ll split the day into a few posts. Today I want to talk about the two temples that I enjoyed the most.

The first temple I want to talk about is the most popular temple in Ohara. It is famous in Autumn for its beautiful leaves, and many people say that going in season is not great as it is so packed that you can’t really enjoy the maples. We went in off-season, just after the cherry blossoms had peaked, so we had the temple mostly to ourselves.

This star-temple is Sanzen-in 三千院, founded in the 8th century by the founder of Tendai Buddhism, Saicho. This temple has a large complex sprawling up the mountain, and you can get stamps from each building. I settled with two so as not to be too greedy and because I was rapidly filling up my stamp book at this point. I have since bought a new one.

We started by exploring the halls of the first building before emerging into a beautiful moss garden with paths winding up the mountain to the other halls. The oldest hall sits in the centre of the complex. Founded in 985 this structure, Ojo Gokuraku-in, was rebuilt in 1143 and remains standing to this day (a near-miracle for Kyoto standards).

Ohara is known as somewhere noblemen would go in order to peacefully study Buddhism out of the political intrigue and bustle of the city. It was to Sanzen-in that the second son of the Emperor Montoku (826 – 858) travelled in order to practice Buddhism. This became a tradition and Sanzen-in has had several members of the imperial family as head priests, giving it the special title of Monzeki 門跡.

Half way up the hill was a small tea-house run by a couple of nice ladies, that was giving out tea for free. I had a rather interesting salty tea and a very nice sweet tea, both of which containing gold leaf. I bought a packet of the sweet green tea.

At the top of the temple there were racks of small figurines of Kannon, goddess of mercy, that had been donated by worshippers. I think that this is in order to gain good Karma or attain steps towards enlightenment. Some people had added extra charms to their statues, I assume in order to improve their luck.

Sanzen-in is a great place to visit all year round, especially with the leaves falling in the Autumn. I would also recommend going in the off-season for a nice tranquil adventure around a large temple garden with several beautiful buildings. Entrance costs 700円 (£3.70).

The second temple I want to talk about is the third that we visited. Hosen’in 宝泉院, was founded in 1012 and is home to a number of interesting features. Entering the temple you notice the large pine opposite the gate which is shaped a bit like Mt Fuji. This tree is over 600 years old. In addition there is another 300 year old tree in the temple gardens.

The gardens are famous for their ‘picture’ style – you can sit inside the temple looking out at the gardens and the surrounding wooden temple structure makes you feel like you are looking at a painting. There were many people sitting in the temple enjoying the grounds, as well as a nice monk who was explaining the features of the temple to visitors.

This temple is known for its feature of chi-tenjo 血天井, literally ‘bloody ceiling’. Above the area where people sit to look at the tranquil gardens is a ceiling with a much less peaceful history. The boards of the ceiling originally belonged to the floor of Fushimi castle. This castle was built in 1592 as a retirement palace for Toyotomi Hideyoshi, however, when his regime fell it was commandeered by Torii Mototada, a vassal of the rapidly rising Tokugawa clan. In order to secure the shogunate, it was vital that the Tokugawa clan defeat its rivals, and it was rumoured that a force of 40,000 would be descending on their castles near Kyoto, with Fushimi castle first in line for attack. Mototada promised to sacrifice himself for the good of the Tokugawa clan.

It is said that they held out the castle for ten days against the besieging forces, with a garrison of 2,000. During the siege an arrow with a message tied to it was fired into the castle. The message addressed one of the defenders, informing them that the attackers held his wife and child and that they would be crucified unless he betrayed his people. Soon after a fire was set within the castle, but the defenders fought on until there were only ten of them remaining. Seeing that they could not hold the castle much longer, Mototada and his men committed seppuku, ritual slitting of the belly, so as to die honourable deaths. In holding the castle for so long they had given the Tokugawa time to gather their troops, securing victories that led to the Tokugawa shogunate, which lasted over 150 years.

The ceilings of several temples in Kyoto used the bloodied planks from the castle in order to commemorate these men and their embodiment of samurai spirit. A grim story, but still very interesting. The blood was not very visible on this particular ceiling but I think I could see some.

I would recommend visiting Hosen’in if you find yourself in Ohara – it has several really interesting features and is a tranquil, relaxing temple. The zen-style gardens around the side of the temple were also beautiful. Next time I will talk about the other three temples I visited in Ohara.

The weather while my parents were visiting me was rather miserable; there was a lot of rain and it was pretty cold. While I would expect this of a British April, this is completely unusual for Kyoto and I have heard countless complaints from locals that this is the coldest and wettest April they’ve ever seen. As such going out and enjoying the cherry blossom in the sunshine was not possible on some days. We tried to find alternative activities even though Kyoto sightseeing is quite an outdoor affair.

We decided to go to Nijo-jo, or Nijo Castle, Kyoto’s local castle and World Heritage Site. As it has inside portions we thought it would be better than temples. The weather that day was horrendous with torrential hard rain that soaked through my coat. I was not allowed to take photos inside the castle so most of these photos will be of the very wet gardens.

Nijo castle was founded by Tokugawa Ieyasu, the founder of the Tokugawa shogunate that lasted 250 years. I was going to explain to you how he came to power, but it is rather complicated and involves many battles, tactical retreats and alliances. I will therefore point you towards his Wikipedia page for a summary of his battles and instead sum up his victory with the Japanese saying about the 3 ‘great unifiers of Japan’. They are known as the ‘great unifiers’ as Japan had previously been in a state of ‘sengoku jidai‘ or warring states for over a hundred years, these three men, Oda Nobunaga, Toytomi Hideoyosi, and Tokugawa Ieyasu, were the men that enabled Japan to unify as one country.

We have encountered this saying before when I was talking about Hideyoshi here, however I will reiterate. The saying goes thus: The three unifiers are sitting around a bird in a cage, trying to persuade it to sing. Nobunaga says “if you do not sing I’ll kill you”, it does not sing. Hideyoshi says “if you do not sing, I will make you sing”, it does not sing. Ieyasu says “If you do not sing, I will wait” and eventually the bird sang. This saying sums up the various approaches to unifying Japan; as you can see Ieyasu is credited for his patience – he was careful and strategic, ensuring that his shogunate had a strong foundation once he gained power. He was also good at making allies and ensured that those that had supported his campaigns in the war were rewarded, creating a loyal base to his regime. He ordered the construction of Nijo-jo and ordered the Daimyo (lords) of West Japan to finance it, establishing a seat of power for the shogun in the imperial capital of Kyoto.

Nijo castle consists of two palaces and two sets of fortifications. The Ninomaru palace sits on the outside of the second moat and wall but within the first and the Honmaru palace, which is actually the relocated Katsura palace, built 1847, is within both walls. The decoration of the palace was intended to impress; the samurai, not well versed in subtle Buddhist or Chinese art, favoured the more lavish and impressive styles, opting for a lot of gold leaf and bold designs. There are many screens made by the Kano school, the dominant art school of Japan at the time, which focussed on Chinese-inspired bold, brightly coloured designs. These lavish designs were intended to impress upon the lords the wealth and importance of the shogunate.

These impressive designs worked with the system of dignitaries from Daimyo visiting the Shogun while he was staying in Nijo-jo (the shogunate was actually based in Edo, modern day Tokyo). The castle has many different audience chambers, meant for different levels of importance; lowly visitors only got to see outer rooms, whereas important officials and old supporters were welcomed into the inner rooms. The audience rooms were set up so that one third of the room was raised a step above the rest, this was where the shogun would sit, while the lords would sit beneath him in the lowered portion. There were highly visible cupboards with tassles on the handles to one side, which weren’t actually cupboards at all, but where the Shogun’s bodyguards would sit; whereas in most castles these would be hidden, the Tokugawa decided to make them more visible as an intimidation tactic.

In case all this intimidation and ceremony went awry and someone decided to sneak in to kill the Shogun, Nijo-jo is equipped with Nightingale Floors, 鴬張り uguisubari. These are special floors that make a squeaking noise when stepped on, like an old trampoline. They are made by having the nails supporting the floor rub against each other or some other metal, giving the squeaking noise. These were named after the Japanese bush warbler, a noisy bird you can hear during springtime in Japan. These floors were intended to prevent anyone sneaking around the palace and assassinating the occupants.

The palace is surrounded by several beautiful gardens of various styles; the Honmaru has traditional ‘circuit’ gardens of the Tokugawa period while the Ninomaru has a half-western-half-Japanese style garden that was built in the 1960s to receive official guests to Kyoto from overseas. It has traditional Japanese rock gardens but also lawns, a concept not native to Japanese gardening. Sadly the gardens were rather wet when we visited and I was distracted from enjoying them by the rain soaking through my clothes.

Nijo castle is definitely worth visiting on your trip to Kyoto. The main gate is under construction and not due to be finished until 2018, so bear that in mind. It is a good rainy day activity but if you want to enjoy the gardens I’d say it’s best to go when it’s sunny.

japangie

ジャパンジー

大原 Blood on the Ceilings, Princes in the Halls

二条城 Singing Floors and Deadly Doors