Chapter 10 Kyoto

The name Kyoto means ‘capital city’. And for more than a thousand years, from 794 until 1868, Kyoto was the capital city of Japan. For many people, it is still the most important city in the country.

But Kyoto is two cities – a new one and an old one – in one place. The new Kyoto is a busy, noisy, modern city, just like so many cities around the world. The old Kyoto is a quiet place with its gardens and its temples made of wood. And the old city is still alive. In Kyoto, the old and the new live together, hand in hand.

If you want to visit Saiho-ji, one of the old Buddhist temples, you must do more than just pay money. You must sit quietly for some time, then

say or write Buddhist prayers, before you can go in. This temple has a moss garden, which was made by the famous Japanese gardener Muso Soseki in 1339. The garden is cool, green, and beautiful.

In old Kyoto, natural things are as important as things made by people, so the gardens are as important as the temples. If you want to see the temples at their best, then you have to see the gardens at their best. And the two best times to see the gardens are in the spring and in the autumn.

In the spring, during April, the cherry trees come into flower. This is the best time to visit Kiyomizu-dera. This wooden temple was built on the side of a hill – and it was made without any nails! The front of the temple has tall, wooden columns. You can stand here and look at the pink and white flowers of the hundreds of cherry trees. From here you can see a lot of the city of Kyoto

too.

Kinkaku-ji, a beautiful gold temple, looks good at any time of year. In the spring, the cherry trees are in flower. In the autumn, the leaves on the trees change colour – they are now red, yellow, and green. And in the winter, everything is white when the snow falls.

This temple was built by Shogun Yoshimitsu to be his home in 1397, but his son changed it into a temple. Fire has destroyed the temple three times, the last time in 1950. But each time, the temple is built again – and the place is as beautiful as ever.

The most famous garden in old Kyoto has got no flowers or trees at all. This ‘dry’ garden, in the temple of Ryoan-ji, is made only of stones – but it

is a very important place to Buddhists. The garden is 30 metres long and 10 metres across, and it has a little wall around it. In the garden, there are fifteen large stones, with moss around them, in a bed of small white stones. Every day, the gardener of the temple makes lines in the small white stones – circles around the large stones, and lines between them. The large stones are in five groups – and it is only possible to see fourteen stones at the same time. One stone is always hiding behind the others. It is possible to see the last stone, say the Buddhists, but only after you have sat still for a very long time.