Hidden behind the trees, the cottage of the fallen persimmons (Rakushisha) is easy to miss even if it borders the main tourist road that runs along the western hills in Arashiyama. The small cottage is of historical significance for fans of Japanese poetry and haiku, for here lived poet Mukai Kyorai (向井去来), one of the ten disciples of Matsuo Basho and the most important poet to continue the tradition of Basho after his death. Basho visited the cottage four times at the end of the 17th century, the last time only four months before his death.
The cottage has only a few rooms and a small (but photogenic) kitchen. It is one of the few places where one can see the roof structure of this kind of thatched-roof cottages which were assembled without nails. The grounds around the cottage are equally small. They contain a few stones on which poems have been written. The tomb of Kyorai himself is no in this garden but a few hundred meters south, in the Kogen-ji (弘源寺) subtemple of Tenryu-ji (天龍寺).
The name of the cottage comes from the numerous persimmons of its garden. One autumn, the tree's branches were laden with fruits and Kyorai decided to gather and sell them. A storm started the day before the persimmons were to be picked, and the next day all the fruits were on the ground, wasted. From that day Kyorai decided to call the place "the cottage of the fallen persimmons". Recommended for: Access: 250 円 Nearby: Furoan フロアン (150m), Jōjakkō-ji 常寂光寺 (190m), Nison-in 二尊院 (250m), Enri-an 厭離庵 (280m), Shōkaku-ji 正覚寺 (280m), Hōkyō-in 宝筺院 (320m), the Bamboo alley 嵯峨竹林 (400m), the Okochi Sansō villa 大河内山荘 (420m), Nonomiya-jinja 野宮神社 (420m), Takiguchi-dera 滝口寺 (470m),... External links: Website, ウィキペディア, Kyoto Navi, Trip Advisor, Kyoto Design, 京都風光, Inside Kyoto, Marutake, そうだ京都, Satellite view, Map Keywords: Japan, 日本, Japon, Kyoto, 京都, arashiyama, 嵐山, Rakushisha, 落柿舎, cottage of the fallen persimmons Statistics: visited on 6 occasions, id 428, 12 photos (17 extra photos can be found in the archive). |
