Tōfuku-ji, Buddhist temple in Higashiyama-ku, Kyoto, Japan.
Tōfuku-ji is a Zen Buddhist temple in Higashiyama-ku in Kyoto, Japan, with several buildings spread across a large compound. The grounds feature a two-story gate, meditation halls, landscaped gardens, and many smaller temples scattered throughout the area.
The temple was founded in 1236 by Kujo Michiie, an imperial chancellor, and the monk Enni, with its name combining elements from two major temples in Nara. Over the centuries, the grounds expanded and were enriched with additional buildings and gardens.
The gardens around the main hall show a different design on each side, with gravel patterns, moss, and rock formations representing distant landscapes. Visitors can walk quietly through the grounds and see how the design changes between the four sides.
Visitors can explore several areas of the temple grounds freely, while some sections such as the bridge and certain halls require an admission fee. Autumn months bring many people who come to see the colored leaves, so visiting early in the morning or late afternoon is advisable.
The temple houses one of the largest depictions of the dying Buddha in Japan, a large-scale painting shown to the public only on certain occasions. Archaeologists discovered wooden tags in a shipwreck off the Korean coast that point to a delivery to this temple in 1323.
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