Senshukaku Pond Garden

 

Senshukaku is a name given to the Daimyo gardens of the former palace in the ruins of Tokushima Castle.

While not a particularly large garden, it does consist of two quite distinct parts, a karesansui section and a pond section.

I covered the karesansui section in the previous post in this series.

Both gardens featured a lot of stone, specifically a type of stone called Awa Bluestone.

The castle was built in 1586, and the garden design is attributed to Ueda Soko, a famed warrior and tea master.

The pond is fed by the tidal river.

The name Senshukaku is a modern one, and it was the name of the lodgings built on the site for the Taishō Emperor when he visited as crown prince.

The named features within the pond garden are fairly typical..... a dry waterfall, a boat stone, etc

Some sections of the garden are reminiscent of the stone garden at Kokawadera Temple in Wakayama, also designed by Ueda Soko.

It is believed that Ueda Soko was a big influence on Mirei Shigemori

With several more good gardens in the vicinity, Tokushima is worth a visit for garden enthusiasts...

The previous post in this series was on the karesansui half of the garden.

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The Nine Mountains & Eight Seas Garden and the Mount Horai Pond Garden

 

This is the second post on the gardens at Kanyoji Temple in Yamaguchi.

The previous post looked at the temple and mostly the main garden and purely sand and rock courtyard garden.

This time we are looking at two gardens behind the temple, both quite narrow and they run into each other.

I was fortunate to be here during the peak of the autumn colours.

Kanyoji is a 14th century Rinzai Zen temple that is temple 15 on the Chugoku Kannon Pilgrimage, the reason I was visiting this time.

The running water in all the gardens at Kanyoji comes from Choondo Cave behind the temple. It is actually a man-made tunnel, 89 meters long, which brings water from the river. It was constructed in the 17th century.

The Mount Horai Pond Garden represents Mount Horai, which is the Japanese name for Mount Penglai, a  mountain and home of immortals in Chinese mythology.

The roots would seem to be in Daoism, a major influence on Japanese garden design which would include Crane and Turrtle islands.

Both this and the Nine Mountains garden are said to represent Kamakura Period styles, though the bold spirals on the sand are definitely Mirei Shigemori...

The Nine Mountain and Eight Seas Garden depict the landscape surounding Mount Sumeru, the central stone.

This is very much grounded in Buddhist cosmology, though it does have some Hindu origins.

Mount Sumeru is the centre of the world in Buddhist cosmology, and like Mount Horai, is a common motif in many gardens.

The gardens here at Kanyoji, and the gardens at Matsuo Shrine near Kyoto, are both considered masterworks of Mirei Shigemori.

Both were designed towards the end of his career, and both feature garden designs depicting various historical periods.

Matsu Shrine is obviously more accessible, but Kanyoji would be my favorite in the Autumn colors season.

The previous post in this series on the Chugoku Kannon Pilgrimage was on the other gardens here at Kanyoji.

if you would like to subscribe by email, just leave your email address in the comments below. It will not be published or made public. I post new content almost every day, and send out an email about twice a month with short descriptions and links to the most recent posts.