The photographs on pp. 45, 71, 74 were taken by Donald Richie.
Published by the
Charles E. Tuttle Company Inc. of
Rutland, Vermont & Tokyo, Japan
with editorial offices at
Osaki Shinagawa-ku,
Tokyo 141-0032
© 1995 by
Charles E. Tulttle Publishing Co., Inc.
All rights reserved
LCC Card No. 94-62021
ISBN: 978-1-4629-0857-8 (ebook)
First edition, 1995
Printed in Singapore
for Katherine Wells
Contents
| Preface | 9 |
| Introduction | 11 |
| The Temples: | |
| Enryaku-ji | 28 |
| Ishiyama-dera | 36 |
| Kiyomizu-dera | 44 |
| Mii-dera | 50 |
| Ninna-ji | 54 |
| Daikaku-ji | 60 |
| Byodo-in | 64 |
| Komyo-ji | 70 |
| Kennin-ji | 76 |
| Sennyu-ji | 81 |
| Chion-in | 86 |
| Tofuku-ji | 93 |
| Nanzen-ji | 99 |
| Tenryu-ji | 105 |
| Myoshin-ji | 110 |
| Kinkaku-ji | 115 |
| Ginkaku-ji | 121 |
| Higashi Hongan-ji | 128 |
| Shisen-do | 136 |
| Manshu-in | 142 |
| Enko-ji | 146 |
| Acknowledgments | 150 |
| Bibliography | 151 |
Commit neither the error of the naive reader, who is depressed by massacres and legal tortures and who congratulates himself upon living in the twentieth century, nor that of the reader of historical novels, who safely delight in the splendid crimes and scandals of the past—above all, let us note envy the past its stability...
"Ah, Mon Beau Chateau... "
-MARGUERITE YOURCENAR
| Preface |
|
There are nearly two thousand places of worship in Kyoto and the great majority of them are Buddhist temples. Any book can thus hold only a certain number. This one includes twenty-one, yet in a sense it also contains them all. Neither a history nor a guide, it is an illustrated essay on the nature and the history of the Buddhist temple. It could thus have included less, or more, or those different from the ones chosen.
That choice was determined years before the text was written when the photographer, in the city for the first time, turned his trained architectural eye only upon what interested him. Consequently, many a famous