Tenryu-ji is distinguished by a fourteenth-century garden that survived fires and wars largely intact. Muso Soseki designed these grounds to incorporate the distant ridges of Arashiyama into the landscape, framing the mountains as if they were part of the temple itself. Ashikaga Takauji founded the site to appease the spirit of Emperor Go-Daigo, his former rival. The temple remains a quiet landscape of stone, pine, and pond, built on the site of a retired emperor’s villa, ignoring the turmoil of Kyoto.
Tenryu-ji
religious
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