Located in Sakyo-ku, Kyoto, a 15-minute walk from Ichijyoji Station on the Eizan Electric Railway.
Enko-ji Temple is a school built by Tokugawa Ieyasu just one year after the Battle of Sekigahara.
It is surprising that a school was already built only one year after the Battle of Sekigahara.
He also created publications to spread the teachings of Confucius (you can see the letterpress printing tools of the time),
Later, Maruyama Okyo and Tomioka Tessai also frequented the temple, making it quite a highly cultural temple.
It may have been a salon for cultural figures of the Edo and Meiji periods.
The most famous thing about Enko-ji Temple is its autumn foliage.
But…. The temple is famous for its autumn leaves, but it is also famous for its green leaves. The temple is also wonderful outside of the fall foliage season.
Therefore, I ventured to visit the temple without seeing the autumn leaves.
Getting off at Ichijyoji Station on the Eizan Electric Railway, we headed for Enko-ji Temple.
Now, speaking of Ichijyoji Temple, we cannot miss “Ichijyo-kudarimatsu,” the site of the duel between Miyamoto Musashi and Yoshioka Ichimon.
It is located on the way to Enko-ji Temple.
Today, though, it seems to be located in an ordinary residential area.
As seen in “Vagabond” by Takehiko Inoue, this area was a field with no houses at all.
A duel, huh? That’s amazing.
I headed for Enko-ji Temple, feeling a bit emotional.
It took about 7 minutes to climb up the slope, and there are many things to see in this area, including the Shisen-do temple.
I arrived at Enko-ji Temple, thinking that I would come back here and there again.
Well, there were no people. I guess it’s good to miss the season of autumn leaves.
The first highlight is the “Honryutei.
The white sand is made to look like a sea of clouds, and a dragon’s face and back are seen peeking out from the sea of clouds.
In fact, it is quite interesting to see the dragon’s face and back peeking out from the sea of clouds.
The one on the left is the head, the one on the right, and the body in the foreground. It looks like it is going around in a circle.
If you try to stand on the white sand, you might get buried in the sand.
It is a little fantastic.
The view of the city from here is also spectacular. The sunset must be beautiful.
The white sand garden is not surrounded by an enclosure, but rather, the white sand is suddenly spread out and there is a stone pathway in between.
This is a new kind of garden.
Next to the garden is a museum where letterpress printing and Okyo’s works are on display.
The objet d’art casually placed on top of the shoe box is very cute. I want this one!
Bamboo grove by Maruyama Okyo. I did not expect to see it suddenly!
The realism of the painting is amazing despite the fact that it is painted with only one ink brush and one color.
The smoothness of the bamboo grass is well expressed. The bamboo’s sleek appearance is also good.
Moving toward the main hall, we now come to Tomioka Tessai. This time, Tomioka Tessai painted “Rice-Dot Landscape.
Rice-Dot is a style of painting from the Southern Song dynasty, in which brush strokes are dotted one on top of the other.
The painting was done hundreds of years before “Sunday Afternoon on Grand Jat Island” by Sula, the master of dot paintings.
Tomioka Tessai was a literati painter from the end of the Edo period to the Meiji era.
He studied under Rengetsu Otagaki and traveled all over Japan as “a man who reads ten thousand books and goes ten thousand miles,” an eccentric laugh.
The blurred ink is soft and gentle.
Boat. So simple!
On the other hand, there is “Jugyu no Niwa. This is a famous place, and many people have probably seen it on posters.
When the leaves change color, the place is packed with more people than ten.
Even without autumn leaves, it is beautiful enough.
When you go out into the garden, it is a world of greenery. There was no one around, so I felt like I had the place to myself.
Will you be inspired to create as much as Maruyama Okyo and Tomioka Tessai?
The garden is large, and there is a tea house built by Tomomi Iwakura and a tomb dedicated to the teeth of Ieyasu Tokugawa.
There is also the grave of Taka Murayama, the heroine of the NHK historical drama “Hana no Seikatsu”.
The mossy garden is beautiful.
The sound of the zakzak and white sand is childish.
A bamboo grove that Okyo often visited. I wonder if this is where he practiced how to draw bamboos.
A quiet pond without a single wave.
Newts in the pond? Gecko? were floating in the pond.
It was a place that made me feel as if I might be enlightened.
Enko-ji Temple
13 Kotani-cho, Ichijoji, Sakyo-ku, Kyoto
075-781-8025 fax 075-781-8035
(open 9:00 am to 5:00 pm)
10 min. walk from Ichijyoji Shimerimatsu bus stop on City Bus No. 5
15 min. walk from Ichijyoji bus stop on Eizan Electric Railway/Eizan Line
Parking lot (30 cars) available
Zazen meditation, use of zazendo, use of tea ceremony room, location photography,
For inquiries about photo use, viewing hours, etc., please contact
keikan-enkouji@nifty.com
