
Zuishin-in Temple
Heian-era Shingon temple linked to a legendary poet, ringed by plum groves and a fabled letter mound.
Location
About this audio guide
This guide to Zuishin-in Temple in Kyoto tells of the poet Ono no Komachi, said to be the most beautiful woman in the city, who set a suitor named Fukakusa no Shosho a hundred-night test of devotion, with one seed left behind for every visit he made. It follows the temple's ties to her legend, from a hidden letter mound said to hold a thousand love letters to a well where she supposedly prepared her face each morning. Listen for how the story still gets marked every spring, when girls in pink robes dance among the plum trees.
This audio guide was created using AI.
Similar places
Giōji Temple
Thatched hermitage with a legendary jilted dancer's story, its grounds carpeted in over a hundred moss varieties.
Jakkō-in Temple
Mountain nunnery with a rebuilt hall and the scorched trunk of a thousand-year pine, once witness to an exiled empress.
Sennyū-ji Temple
Imperial Buddhist temple guarding the tombs of generations of emperors, with a rarely shown statue honoring a legendary Chinese beauty.
Daigo-ji
Sprawling Shingon Buddhist temple complex with a Heian-era pagoda and gardens once landscaped for a warlord's final party.
Kitano Tenmangu Shrine
Shinto shrine of plum groves and stone oxen, built to appease a poet-scholar's vengeful ghost.
Kuramadera Temple
Mountain temple where a boy exiled from a defeated clan was said to train secretly with forest spirits.