Visiting Kenninji Temple

I wrote about visiting a couple major Zen temples in Kyoto last summer: Tenryuji and Kenninji, but I realized that I totally forgot to post photos from Kenninji Temple. Of the two, we liked Kenninji more, and I am excited to share some of the history and art of this temple.

Both temples belonged to the Five Mountains temple network of the Muromachi Period of Japanese history, so they were very elite temples of the Rinzai Zen sect. However, Kenninji, like many famous Buddhist temples, has burned down a number of time over the centuries, including the disastrous Onin War, and reconstructed again. Many of the structures today are relatively new, or were granted from nearby temples to help consolidate.

While Tenryuji is on the western outskirts of Kyoto, near the iconic Arashiyama district, Kenninji is in eastern Higashiyama district of Kyoto. The official website of Kenninji is here, but I don’t think there is an English version. There is a nice overhead visual tour of the temple from the official tourism channel here (close captioning does work):

Another aerial tour here:

In terms of size, Kennin-ji feels smaller than Tenryuji which had a large park around it. Kennin-ji is firmly inside a busy neighborhood in Kyoto, and thus tends to feel a bit more cramped at first. There is a soba shop next to Kenninji I highly recommend by the way, to the right of the abbot’s quarters near the back exit.

If you go through the main entrance, you’ll see this gate, which is normally closed, so you are supposed to walk around it toward the main building.

The pathway takes you to a scenic building called the Hojo Teien (方丈庭園, “10-foot garden”?) which is apparently the former Abbot’s quarters,¹ but now includes many scenic sites. The website includes a nice gallery of the different rooms, including some I forgot to photograph here.

Within the abbot’s quarters are a series of rooms where you can find galleries of famous works stored at Kennin-ji. One of the most famous of all are the Raijin and Fujin screens shown below (gold screens on the left) painted by the famous Tawaraya Sōtatsu (c. 1570 – c. 1640):

As well as various ink paintings called shōheki-ga (障壁画):

I know I’ve seen these paintings before in college, when I was taking a course on Japanese art, but unfortunately, I don’t have any information about them now. From what I can figure out, this painting was called the Chikurin-shichiken-zu (竹林七賢図), or the “Seven Sages of the Bamboo Forest“. It was painted by Kaiho Yusho (海北友松, 1533–1615) in his 60’s. The painting depicts seven sages famous of the Western Jin Dynasty of China, who retreated to a bamboo forest and engaged in a mixture of refined conversation, heavy drinking, and lively music. These bohemian Seven Sages are apparently subjects of other works of art at the time.

Also, as I was writing this, I also realized that the calligraphy in the back (second image) is a another work of art: it’s a highly stylized calligraphy of the words 風神 (fūjin, the wind god), and 雷神 (raijin, the thunder god) by Kanazawa Shoko (金澤翔子, 1985 – present) an artist with Down’s Syndrome. Pretty amazing.

Facing out from the abbot’s quarters, you can see a nice sand garden called the Dai-on-en (大雄苑):

The abbot’s quarters also surrounds another sculpted garden called the Cho-on-tei (潮音庭):

We also saw lotus paintings like these:

Finally, the quarters connects to an altar room which contains a gorgeous ceiling mural of two dragons overlooking an altar:

The mural was painted in 2002 to commemorate the 800th anniversary of the temple, by one Koizumi Junsaku (1924–2012), and the altar itself (shown at the bottom) depicts Shakyamuni Buddha, the historical founder of Buddhism, flanked by his disciples.

We picked up a lot of goods at Kenninji: my son liked the twin dragons, and got a pilgrimage book with that image on the cover, and my wife got an incense holder with the image of Raijin and Fujin (based on the gold screen above). I picked up a miniature copy of the Kannon Sutra which I think was meant as an omamori charm.²

As temples go, Kenninji was something we knew nothing about, but it was quite a treat to visit. Foreigners who visit famous temples in Japan often remark that Buddhism feels like a museum piece, and while it is true that the Five Mountains temple system in Japan (including Kenninji and Tenryuji) is somewhat defunct now, it was clear that people really still cared about these temples, but it’s not always in ways obvious to Westerners.² That said, Kenninji looks like a well-loved temple, and a credit to the Rinzai Zen tradition and it’s flowering culture of the era.

¹ Apparently, 方丈庭園 was a common, poetic term used for major temples that had a scenic abbot’s quarters like the one showed above. Chion-in was another such example.

² Language barrier is a big part of this, plus various unrealistic expectations that Western Buddhists have of what they expect temples to be like in Asia, compared to how people who grew up Buddhist practice. But that’s a story for another rant…