Senshukaku Karesansui Garden

 

Senshukaku is one of the names of the former Omote Goten of Tokushima Castle.

It's not a particularly big garden, but it splits nicely into two halves: a karesansui garden and a pond garden.

This first post is just on the karesansui part. I will cover the pond garden next.

Stones and rocks are the neart of a Japanese garden. This is my opinion after viewing hindreds of gardens. The rocks are chosen and set first and the rest of the garden grows from that.

This is certainly obvious here in the gardens at the former Tokushima Castle.

One particular type of stone predominates, known as Awa Bluestone. Not a geologist but I believe it is a type of rock called greenschist in English.

Awa bluestone was used a lot by the greatest 20th-century Japanese gardener, Mirei Shigemori.

The garden was designed by Ueda Soko ( 1563-1650) a warlord as well as a garden designer, and was built around 1600.

He was also a tea master and founded his own school of tea ceremony.

Some of his other gardens include the Nishinomaru garden at Wakayama Castle, and one I posted about quite recently, the Shukkeien Garden in Hiroshima.

Perhaps the most famous site in the garden is the stone bridge made of a single ten meter long piece of bluestone.

Seen in photos 2, 4, 5, 6, 7, 9, 10, 15, and 20.

The long piece of rock is actually split, according to legend, by Hachisuka Yoshishige, the first lord of the castle, and the person for whom the garden was built.

It is said he stamped upon it and it cracked.

The gardens are a designated National Scenic Spot.

The previous garden I posted on was the garden at Matsue History Museum.

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Suga Shrine & Tsukari Shrine in Autumn Splendour

 

The next shrine I visited on my walk along Route 63 on day 20 of my pilgrimage along the Chugoku Kannon Pilgrimage.

The shrine was established in the early 11th century as a branch of the head Suga Shrine in Izumo.

As such it enshrines Susano and also one of his sons, Othoshi.

It was known as Ekisha, which ties in with what I learned earlier on the pilgrimage in Okayama where there were several Eki shrines to Susano.

Now the full name of the shrine is Ishiki Shrine, Tabi no miya, Suga Shrine, and it seems that in 1913 Ishiki Shrine was ranked as a Prefectural Shrine and this shrine became a branch of it. Not sure I understand.

What was clear was that there was plenty of Autumn colour at the shrine....

Omakuji left tied to a tree...

After leaving the shrine I passed was seemed to be some sort of small park, although there was no signboard and nothing marked on googlemaps...

The planting of trees and bushes was not by chance....

Then on to the next shrine, Tsukari Shrine.

This is a group of four different shrines which were grouped together.

In 1159, Oyamatsumi was enshrined in Awaya Shrine and moved to this location in 1620.

In 1181 Yamasue Shrine was founded with Sanno Gongen enshrined. Oyamatsumi, Oyamakui, and Wakamusubi. Sanno was the shrine that was based on Mount Hie.

In 1225 a branch of Kitano Tenmangu was established enshrining Sugawara Michizane.

Finally, in 1919 Ito Hirobume, the first Prime Minister of Japan was enshrined in Ito Shrine.

He was born in a village nearby.

As I headed off across country I spied an abandoned house with overgrown grounds.

It was a substantial house, not a farmhouse, but not nearly big enough to be a mansion

Lots of Autumn colour

And a substantial gate...

The garden must have quite delightful in its day...

The previous post was on some shrines and views from earlier in the day...

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Fukusenji Temple 13 Iwami Kannon Pilgrimage

 

Fukusenji is a small, rural temple in Arifuku, a mountain village in Shimane.

It is a Rinzai sect temple, and the honzon is a Kannon. Otheer than that I can find no information.

There is documentation on the temple dating to 1580, but it is not clear to me if that is when it was established.

This was the end of the 7th day of my walk along the pilgrimage, and from here I took a bus home and restarted from here at a later date as the next section heads down the mountains to the southwest.

The previous post in this series on my walk along the Iwami Kannon Pilgrimage was on the walk to here from down near my home.

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