Hōnenin Temple
Moss-covered thatched gate leading to raked white sand mounds at a hillside temple born of scandal.
Location
About this audio guide
This guide to Hōnenin Temple in Kyoto opens on an all-night chanting service in 1207, when two of the retired emperor's court ladies were so moved they shaved their heads and renounced the court on the spot. It follows the fate of the monks who led that service, disciples of the preacher Honen, and Honen's own exile at seventy-four. Pause at the thatched, moss-covered gate everyone stops to photograph before you step through.
This audio guide was created using AI.
Similar places
Chionin Temple
Pure Land Buddhist head temple with Japan's largest wooden gate and a seventy-ton bronze bell.
Giōji Temple
Thatched hermitage with a legendary jilted dancer's story, its grounds carpeted in over a hundred moss varieties.
Kōmyō-ji Temple
Pure Land temple founded by a repentant samurai, its maple-lined corridor blazing red each autumn.
Shōrenin Temple
Imperial monzeki temple with ancient camphors, where a boy monk's ordination poem became legend.
Jōjakkōji Temple
Nichiren temple on a wooded hillside, founded by a defiant monk, famed for blazing autumn maples.
Jakkō-in Temple
Mountain nunnery with a rebuilt hall and the scorched trunk of a thousand-year pine, once witness to an exiled empress.