Daitoku-ji Audio Guide

Daitoku-ji: what does the audio guide cover?

1. 01

   Welcome to Daitoku-ji

   Welcome to Daitoku-ji, written 大徳寺 in Japanese and often translated as the temple of Great Virtue. You are in the Murasakino neighborhood of Kita-ku, in northern Kyoto, at one of the largest Zen temple complexes in the city. It is a Rinzai school Zen Buddhist temple, and its mountain name is Ryūhōzan, which means Dragon Treasure Mountain. Think of Daitoku-ji less as a single building and more as a walled temple town. The grounds cover more than 23 hectares, which is about 57 acres, and they hold nearly two dozen subtemples. That is why it is considered one of the best places in Japan to see a wide variety of Zen gardens and to take in Zen architecture and culture. Over the next few stops we will follow three threads: how a small hermitage grew into a great temple, how it became so closely tied to the Japanese tea ceremony, and which buildings and subtemples are worth your attention. If you are heading here by public transport, a city bus from Kyoto Station takes about 40 minutes to the Daitokuji-mae stop, and the temple is a five-minute walk from there, along Kitaoji Street.

2. 02

   From Hermitage to Great Temple at Daitoku-ji

   Daitoku-ji began small. Its founder was the Zen master Shūhō Myōchō, later honored as Daitō Kokushi. A small temple called Daitoku-an was built in Murasakino, north of Kyoto, in 1315 or 1319 according to different tellings, with the support of a patron named Akamatsu Norimura. Tradition says that Shūhō, who came from Harima and trained under the master Nanpo Jōmyō, spent years living among beggars beneath a bridge in Kyoto, even after receiving formal recognition as Nanpo's heir. That is a story told by tradition rather than documented fact, but it fits the austere character this temple came to stand for. Then came disaster. In 1474 Kyoto lay devastated by the Ōnin War, and Emperor Go-Tsuchimikado named the Zen monk Ikkyū Sōjun as head priest. With help from merchants of the city of Sakai, Ikkyū played a major part in bringing the temple back to life. Notice who stepped in to help: not the court, but a rising merchant class with money and taste. That independence shaped the temple. Daitoku-ji became a cultural center in part because it was no longer a political one. Later, the shogunate wanted the power to appoint abbots, a right that had belonged to the emperor, and this temple refused to give it up quietly. The monk Takuan was exiled in that clash.

3. 03

   Tea and Zen at Daitoku-ji

   If you love tea, you are standing in one of its spiritual homes. When Ikkyū was head priest, he was visited by leading figures of Higashiyama culture, including Murata Jukō, the founder of the wabi-cha style of the Japanese tea ceremony. Wabi-cha is the tea of quiet simplicity, and its meeting with Zen at Daitoku-ji set up a relationship that lasted for centuries. The list of tea masters connected with the temple reads like a who's who of the tea world: Takeno Jōō, Sen no Rikyū, and Kobori Enshū. Rikyū in particular is one of the most famous names in the history of tea, and visitors still come to Kyoto in search of the places where he lived and worked. So as you walk the lanes between the subtemples, remember that this was never just a place of prayer and meditation. It was a meeting ground where monks, merchants and tea masters shaped ideas about beauty, restraint and hospitality that still influence Japanese culture today.

4. 04

   Buildings and Gardens of Daitoku-ji

   The architecture at Daitoku-ji rewards a slow look. The abbot's quarters, called the Hōjō, is a National Treasure, rebuilt in 1635. It is in a Japanese style, quite different from the Zen architecture of the lecture hall and the Buddha hall. The main hall was rebuilt in 1665 with a donation from Nawa Jōyū, a wealthy Kyoto merchant. It enshrines Shaka Nyorai, the historical Buddha, which is said to be a one-tenth-size prototype of the great Buddha of Hōkō-ji, known as the Kyoto Daibutsu. Its wall paintings are by Kaihō Yūshō. Among the subtemples, the most celebrated is Daisen-in, head of the North School of Daitoku-ji and open to the public around the year. It was founded in 1509 and holds the oldest surviving example of a tokonoma, the alcove that you can still find in tatami rooms today. It also has highly valued sliding doors, called fusuma. So here is something to try: when you step into any Japanese-style room, look for that quiet alcove. Its ancestor may be right here.

5. 05

   Before You Head Off

   Daitoku-ji is a place that keeps unfolding. It has more than seven centuries of history, with monks who rebuilt it after war, merchants who paid for its halls, and tea masters who found a home within its walls. Yet much of its story happens in the spaces between the buildings, along the walled lanes of the subtemples. As you wander, look at how each subtemple shows its own face through gardens, doorways and alcoves. See if you can sense the difference between a hall built for formal Zen ritual and a room built for living and receiving guests. And ask yourself what a bowl of tea would taste like in the same place where the ideas of wabi-cha were once discussed. There is much more to find here, and every lane you turn down may open onto a different corner of Zen Kyoto.