Garden at Taimasan Shrine

 

This is the second post on the garden at Taimasan Shrine. In the previous post, I showed how the garden looked in 2010, but this post is photos from a visit at the end of 2021.

In the second and third photos, a new garden has been built between the entrance to the shrine and the old temple garden. This new garden was built by the current head priest and is composed of two parts, Iwakura, and Iwasaka.

An Iwakura is a rock into which a kami descends, and an Iwasaka is a rock that mark the boundary of sacred space.

This makes this new garden very much a shinto garden.

The major difference in the main garden from when I visited 11 years earlier, is the white gravel area.

Also, this was the end of May, so some of the small trees are now full of leaves, and there are still a few flowers left on the azalea bushes.

For information on the history of the garden, please refer to the previous post.

The previous post in this series on  MountTaima, literally Hemp Mountain, was on the garden 11 years earlier....

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Reviving a Lost Garden Part One

 

At almost 600 meters elevation, high on Mount Taima near Hamada is a wonderful garden, truly off the beaten track.

A shrine was established here in 889 after a monk received an oracle. In 947, a temple, Sonshoji, was established just below the shrine. It had an Eleven-faced Kannon as its honzon.

In 969, further shrines were built and over the centuries the shrine^temple complex grew.

In the early 16th century the shrine^temple complex was burned down during the war between the Ouchi Clan and Amago Clan.

It is believed that in the mid to late 17th century the garden was created.

In 1836 a huge landslide destroyed the compkex.

In 1844 the shrine was rebuilt but at the temple, only the priests' quarters were rebuilt.

In 1868, with the Shinbutsu Bunri edict, the temple was moved to Koyasan.

In 1872 the shrine was destroyed by the Hamada Earthquake and then rebuilt soon after.

In 1942 the great garden scholar and designer Mirei Shigemori "discovered" the garden.

In 1979, Shigemori's son and collaborator, Kando Shigemori visited.

Obviously, by now, all the overgrown vegetation has been removed and the bushes pruned back to reveal the stonework.

The current head priest of the shrine used to be a gardener in Kyoto, and I believe it has been he who has been personally responsible for the revival.....

All the stone used is native to the mountain.

From one edge of the garden are views down onto the coast....

Apparently, some of what appear to be smaller stones are in fact huge boulders buried deeply, inplying that the stone work of the garden must have been built around some fixed features.... There are no Crane or Turtle arrangements, although the uppermost grouping of stones is considered a Horai arrangement.

These photos were taken during a visit to the shrine in the winter of 2009. Next up I will show how the garden now looks.

Some other gardens I've covered recently include the Ryushintei Garden at Sorinji Temple, and the Chofuteien garden, both of which I highly recommend.

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Kominka Cafe Hanpei

 

Just around the corner from Iwamotoji Temple, one of the Shikoku Pilgrimage temples, in Shimanto Town, Kochi, is this delightful old house.

It seemed open to the public and there was no etry charge so I went in to have a look.

At that time one of the rooms was being used as a cafe but the rest of the house was open and explorable...

As I understand it, the cafe has expanded a little but the situation is still that visitors can explore the rest of the hose...

It was built as a second home / villa in 1901 for a local businessman Hanpei Tsuzuki.

As far as I can tell, the second building seen in some of the photos with a tarp-covered roof no longer exists.

There are some nice features on the interior including  the ranma, the carved panels above te room dividers that allow light and air to curculate...

When I visited there were several ikebana displays....

The gardens, while not stpendous, were nice enough...

The previous post was 25 photos of Iwamotoji Temple.

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