Jisso-in was founded in 1229, but the current buildings have been received around 1730 from the Kyoto imperial palace. Note that this indeed means that the buildings have been moved from one site to another, something common in Japan but not practical with the western style stone structures. Jisso-in has many beautifully sliding door partitions painted in the "kano" style.
The temple has two gardens, a "green" one and a stone garden. The green garden has a small pond with a lot of trees, bushes and stones. The polished floorboards of the hall make magnificent colour reflectors, but unfortunately it's not allowed to photograph from the inside of the temple (given the angle necessary to get a good shot, it's not a big miss for many people anyway).
The second garden is much larger and is basically a large raked gravel grounds with some stones placed mostly in one corner. One side of the garden is completely bordered by maple trees which turn bright red in autumn.
The state of the buildings of Jisso-in can be described as poor, and you will see many support structures, both wooden and concrete/metallic. The main gate has been recently renovated (read: entirely taken apart and rebuilt) so this one is standing without crutches. The main hall, however, is not that lucky. But it probably would cost a not so small fortune and several years of work to fix it. Recommended for: Access: 500 円 Nearby: Iwakura-jinja 石座神社 (110m), the Iwakura Hermitage 岩倉具視幽棲旧宅 (150m) External links: Website, ウィキペディア, Kyoto Navi, Trip Advisor, Kyoto Design, 京都風光, Marutake, そうだ京都, Satellite view, Map Keywords: Japan, 日本, Japon, Kyoto, 京都, 南左京, Sakyo-ku, 実相院, Jisso-in, temple, 寺院, 仏閣 Statistics: visited on 4 occasions, id 328, 10 photos (16 extra photos can be found in the archive). |
