Zen Gardens and Temples of Kyoto by John Dougill
Author:John Dougill
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-4-8053-1401-2
Publisher: Tuttle Publishing
NANZEN-JI 南禅寺
Kyoto’s Most Prestigious Zen Monastery
FOUNDED 1291
Nanzen-ji has been called ‘the world’s most important Zen temple’ because in the past it stood alone at the top of the Gozan system of patronage (a signboard at the entrance proudly proclaims the status). The temple has a long list of notable abbots, and with its close connections to the ruling class it was able to acquire priceless assets. The prestige it enjoyed was echoed in its size, for at one time there were sixty-two subtemples and over a thousand monks. Now, following the cuts of Meiji times there are thirteen subtemples and, at the time of writing, just six monks in training. Although it may be only a fraction of what it once was, there remains much to see in terms of art and architecture.
The temple owes its foundation to an exorcism. Emperor Kameyama, who abdicated at twenty-six to escape the shackles of the shogunate, built a retirement villa in the eastern hills, which turned out to be haunted. He called in leading monks to exorcise the ghost and after several failures turned to the abbot of Tofuku-ji, Mukan Fumon, who was able to settle the problem by a lengthy period of zazen sitting meditation with his followers. Impressed, Kameyama determined to turn part of his palace into a Zen temple, with Fumon as the founding abbot. He also took orders as a priest; thus the religion of the samurai had taken root within the imperial family.
The temple was destroyed on three different occasions during Muromachi times, but it was rebuilt in even grander style during the late sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Unusually, it is aligned towards the west so as to back onto the Higashiyama hills. The openness of the precincts, together with an aqueduct added in Meiji times, gives the temple a different feel from the walled communities elsewhere.
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