Ryoan-ji Temple

A temple belonging to the Myoshin-ji School of Rinzai Zen, it was registered as a World Cultural Heritage site in 1994.
Originally built as a villa for Lord Tokudaiji, it was passed on to Hosokawa Katsumoto in 1450, who invited the priest Giten Gensho to transform it into a Zen temple. While Gensho actually founded the temple himself, he made his own master, Nippo Soshun, the official founder. The buildings burned down in the Onin War, but were reconstructed by Hosokawa Masamoto in 1499. The temple flourished after that, with a succession of famous priests residing there, and donations of land from important figures such as Toyotomi Hideyoshi and the Tokugawa shoguns. At its peak, there were 23 subsidiary temples in the grounds. A fire caused much damage in 1797, and while the temple was gradually rebuilt, it never returned to its peak glory.
The Hojo Garden (National Historic Site/Special Place of Scenic Beauty) is believed to have been laid out at the end of the Muromachi period, and is a famous example of a dry stone garden. White gravel is laid within a rectangular site, over which fifteen stones are arranged, creating an abstraction of nature without a single tree or blade of grass: the ultimate expression of the dry landscape garden. As the garden appears to some to depict a tiger and cubs crossing a torrent, it is also called the “Tiger Cubs Crossing Garden.”
To the north of the Hojo (abbot’s residence) is a stone water basin with the phrase “I only know I have enough” carved on it, believed to have been donated by Mito Mitsukuni. The temple also holds a twelve-volume copy of the Taiheiki (Chronicle of the Great Peace, an Important Cultural Property) among its treasures.
Kyoto City