Daitoku-ji Temple
Sprawling Zen temple complex of twenty-plus walled sub-temples, famed for the tea master's gate that cost him his life.
Location
About this audio guide
This guide to Daitoku-ji in Kyoto centers on Sen no Rikyu, the tea master who shaped the Japanese tea ceremony and served as closest advisor to the warlord Toyotomi Hideyoshi. It traces how, in the 1580s, Rikyu paid to add a second story to the temple's grand gate, and how grateful monks placed a wooden statue of him up there, sandals and all. Everyone who passed beneath the gate afterward, monks, nobles, and Hideyoshi himself, had to walk directly under Rikyu's carved feet.
This audio guide was created using AI.
Similar places
Nanzen-ji
Zen temple complex with a towering wooden gate and a brick Meiji-era aqueduct through its grounds.
Kenninji Temple
Zen temple founded by a monk who brought tea seeds from China, beneath a vast dragon-ceiling mural.
Kōdaiji Temple
Hillside Zen temple built by a widow, with gold lacquerwork mausoleum and Momoyama-era gardens.
Nishi Hongan-ji Temple
Sprawling Jodo Shinshu head temple with Momoyama-era gates and a legendary water-spraying ginkgo tree.
Ginkaku-ji
Unfinished retirement villa turned Zen temple, its bare wood pavilion and moon-viewing sand garden left just as its shogun founder saw them.
Daigo-ji
Sprawling Shingon Buddhist temple complex with a Heian-era pagoda and gardens once landscaped for a warlord's final party.