The Sesshu Garden in Autumn

 

Tuesday 25th November 2014 and I begin day 22 of my walk along the Chugoku Kannon Pilgrimage with a visit to Jyoeiji Temple in Yamaguchi City.

Jyoeiji is home to what is considered the greatest garden by Sesshu, so much so that it is simply called The Sesshu Garden.

Sesshu (1420-1506) was a famous Zen monk known mostly as a painter although he was also a garden designer.

Known for creating a distinctly Japanese style of ink-wash painting, his garden are less well known, primarily I think because the majority of the ones that survive are off the beaten tourist track in Yanaguchi, Shimane, and Oita.

I mentioned in an earlier post on the gardens at Komyozenji Temple in Dazaifu that the modern garden designer Mirei Shigemori was one of the initial inspirations for my interest in Japanese gardens, and the second major inspiration was the gardens of Sesshu.

Sesshu was born in what is now Soja in Okayama Prefecture, and the most famous legend about him concerns him as an acolyte.

As a young monk he did study in Kyoto for a while, and a very small garden attributed to him still survives there, but he spent most of his life outside of Kyoto.

The garden at Jyoeiji was designed and built for Ouchi Masanori. The Ouchi were a powerful family who ruled over Suo Province and were involved in the Onin War.

The Onin War, 1467 to 1477, laid waste to Kyoto and  is considered the beginning of the long Warring States Period.

Ouchi Masanori established Yamaguchi as haven of art and culture during this time, including inviting Sesshu.

The garden was built at Masahiro's villa, some ways from his main palace.

Later he established a temple on the site, and centuries later when the Mori Clan ruled the area they transferred Jyoeiji Temple here.

The front part of the garden is grassy with many stone arrangements.

Behind it is a large pond with numerous features.

It is a stroll-type garden with a path going around. At a high point is a gazebo overlooking the pond.

The west side of the garden is planted with bamboo and maple.

One of the main features is a large "dry waterfall" stone arrangement.

The pond features a Turtle Island, a Crane island, a boat stone, and a carp stone in front of the dry waterfall.

As well as the Sesshu Garden, the temple also has two karesansui gardens including one designed by Mirei Shigemori.

In this post I have concentrated on the autumn colours, but in later posts I will cover the karesansui gardens, the Sesshu garden in more detail, and some of the artwork and statuary at the temple.

Previously I posted on the autumn colours at Kyorinbo Temple in Shiga.

There is a lot to see in Yamaguchi City, including one of the Three Great Pagodas of Japan.

Kumano Shrine Yokohama Fukuoka

 

This Kumano Shrine is located on an 80 meter high hill on the south side of the river mouth that was home to Imazu Port, a port linked with trade with Asia in ancient times.

The area is named after the long beach nearby, Yokohama, not the now famous Yokohama up near Tokyo.

Beside the steps leading up to the shrine is a small Inari shrine, and then near the top a Yakushi-do.

Other than this being a branch of the famous Kumano Sanzan in Wakayama, I can find on information about its history.

The site of tye shrine used to be a manufacturing site of stone axes in te early Yayoi Period, and axes from this site have been found around northern Kyushu, indicating early trade.

The previous post was on the Shisho Shrine across on the other side of the river mouth.

Hiroshima Castle

 

Hiroshima is one of the better-known Japanese cities to people outside Japan because of its unfortunate history, but the city did not begin to be formed until after the construction of Hiroshima Castle.

Situated on a sandbar island in the middle of the wide-open delta of the Ota River, the area was renamed Hiroshima by the great warlord Mori Terumoto after he chose the site for his new castle.

From his base in Koriyama Castle about 45 kilometers north of Hiroshima in the Chugoku Mountains, Mori Motonari oversaw the rise of his clan to dominance of almost all of the Chugoku region and even part of Kyushu.

His grandson, Terumoto, took over the clan following Motonari's death, and after initially opposing Hideyoshi eventually became his vassal and one of Hideyoshi's Council of Five Elders.

Realizing that his old base, Koriyama Castle, was no longer suitable as a modern headquarters he chose the site for his new castle in 1588 and construction began the next year. He moved into the castle in 1591 but it would not be completed until 1599.

Hiroshima Castle is a Flatland-style castle with a moat system that included the river as a major outer defense, and a wide inner moat. The inner moat remains, but the other moats were filled in during the early 20th century.

Following the Battle of Sekigahara in 1600 Tokugawa Ieyasu stripped the Mori Clan of most of their lands except for their most westerly holdings in what is now Yamaguchi.

Control of the castle was given to Fukushima Masanori, but he was removed 19 years later and then the Asano Clan controlled the domain for more than two centuries until the Meiji Period.

Most castles were dismantled following the Meiji Restoration,  but Hiroshima Castle wasn't, and like many of the castles that were kept by the new government it became a military base. In fact it was the General Headquarters for the Sino-Japanese War of 1894-5.

It continued to be a military base all during WWII, but being less than a kilometer from the epicenter of the atomic blast, all the wooden structures were destroyed.

In 1958 the tenshu was reconstructed in concrete, though it may possibly be replaced with a wooden one in the future.

In 1993 the main gate and several yagura of the Ninomaru section of the castle were rebuilt using traditional materials and methods.

The Ninomaru structure and the tenshu both contain exhibits relating to the castle's history.

The rest of the grounds are now a park that contains three trees that survived the atomic blast. Also, the Gokoku Shrine was moved to within the castle.

The previous castle I posted on was Fukuoka Castle.

Along the Gonokawa from Shikaga to Imbara

 

Saturday October 2nd, 2021, and day 2 of my walk along the Gonokawa River to its source winds down.

After my detour to visit the Kannon Waterfall, I backtrack to the river and pass by Shikaga, once a stop on the defunct Sanko Line railway.

Much of the village is on the slopes, and the main road skirts it along the river.

The traditional riverboats, flat-bottomed like punts, were made of cedar, but now aluminum, plywood, and sometimes fiberglass are used.

The next couple of kilometers up to Imbara where the Nigori river joins the Gonokawa and Route 261, the main road along the river across on the other bank, veers away from the river and heads up the Nigori River towards Hiroshima.

In the photo below, the patch of new concrete on the opposite bank marks where the railway bridge crossed over the Nigori. While almost all the track, and the vast majority of the bridges of the rail line are still there, this bridge has been removed. I suspect because it offered a walking shortcut to Imbara.

Nearby is an abandoned hilltop park that had a small Inari Shrine. It was not well maintained twenty years ago when I first visited and now seems completely overgrown.