During the Heian period, the grounds of Ryoan-ji (Dragon Peace Temple) belonged to the powerful Fujiwara family, though only Kyoyochi pond survives from that time. Katsumoto Hosokawa founded the temple in 1450 but it had to be rebuilt in 1488 after being destroyed in the Onin War (1467–77). Yet another fire ravaged the temple in 1790 but the garden, dating from around 1499, remained undamaged. The designer of the garden remains a mystery though Soami (1472–1523) has been credited. Some scholars believe the more likely creators of the garden were kawaramono, outcast riverbank dwellers who became Japan’s first full-time gardeners. Outside of serious garden circles, Ryoan-ji, located on the northwestern edges of Kyoto, was virtually unknown until the 1930s. A superb example of the dry landscape garden in which raked gravel, sand and stone are substitutes for water and landscape features, the garden’s mastery of space and form relies on the artful placement of fifteen rocks in groupings of 5-2, 3-2 and 3. These are arranged into 7-5-3 sets. Viewed from the verandah, one rock always remains hidden from sight. In keeping with the abstract nature of the garden, designed as a tool for meditation, the viewer is left to complete the landscape and discover its meaning. There is little plant life in the garden, save some patches of moss at the base of the rocks. Clean, mathematical lines are softened by the rusticity of the mottled, clay-colored wall enclosing the garden. Many Zen priests have asserted that, through intense meditation, it is possible to be transported into the garden itself and catch a glimpse of infinity in its landscapes, a claim that has only added to its profound mystery.
Ryoan-ji’s unsurpassed mastery of form and space have made it one of the best-known gardens in the world.
PAGES 86–7 View from the tea house at the Funda-in Temple garden in Kyoto.
Austere and unembellished, with no visible plantings except moss, the garden is attached to a Rinzai Zen Buddhist temple.
Built on a level plane without any artificial hills or mounds, Ryoan-ji is characterized as a hira-niwa or “flat garden.”
Surrounding the kyoyochi (mirror pond), built within the grounds of Ryoan-ji in the late twelfth century, are cherry, pine, iris and camellias brought from Korea.